The Skeptical Science Forum and its spawn have been the gift that keeps on giving. As many know, it is the habit of those in the SKS forum and its spawn to post material on the web, and create links pointing to that material publicly. By publicly, I mean in locations where the material accessible to anyone with an internet connection including the promiscuous googlebot which visits almost anything it can find as well as curious people who might have an interest the material. Visits are accomplished by entering a link unprotected by access restriction- that is no password of any sort.
After doing this, the SKS as an entity ‘hopes’ some unspecified subset of these materials won’t be found by those who are interested, but who SKS prefers not see it. Needless to say, these material tend to be visited by the googlebot.
And others. Including Brandon Shollenberger.
This week Brandon reports he found more material SkS, read the new SkS and he reports a bit on what it contains. What’s the main topic: The 97% consensus paper! 🙂
I haven’t had access to this new material and can’t absolutely verify it exists. But Brandon has found material in the past and his reports that he found new material is credible.
According to Brandon, information that makes the new finding “hot news”:
- A number of SkS affiliated authors appear to have submitted a manuscript to a scientific journal with the title “Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming”. He provided a link to the web archive of this paper https://web.archive.org/web/20160301170721/http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Cook_2015_consensus_synthesis.pdf; the authors on the archived manuscript John Cook, Naomi Oreskes, Peter T. Doran, William R. L. Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed W. Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, Stephan Lewandowsky, Andrew G.
Skuce, Sarah A. Green, Dana Nuccitelli, Peter Jacobs, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Ken Rice. - The manuscript admits those who rated abstracts in the 97% paper did cheat and look up the full papers on at least a few occasions. The paper also claims they only did this a few times. This is “hot news” because the previous papers insisted the authors did not cheat and look up the papers– this is a matter of some controversy in the literature because Tol (2015) queries about the steps taken to ensure this could not happen.
- The new manuscript admits the raters discussed rating procedure with each other during the rating process. Of course the general public knew this because the old SkS forum had been hacked and the discussions made pubic.
Brandon has written a book discussing the history of the hack, along with a section discussing his reaction to the content of the new manuscript. It is available for $0.99 here. I read the free pdf version he sent me before breakfast and wrote this based on that version. I plan to buy the new version so I can post a review as a “verified buyer”. I’ll be doing that in a moment. In the meantime, I think many people will be interested in Brandon’s book. The book is a good companion to the archived manuscript– well worth reading the quotes of authors themselves wrote in the SkS forum while reading the claims in the submitted manuscript.
Just a quick note. Links to the paper (and a PhD thesis document by John Cook) are included in my post announcing the eBook and the eBook itself. Here’s a link to the paper (archived here) so people can read it for themselves.
(Also, there’s a link to the free PDF copy in my post, for anyone who doesn’t want to spend that whopping $0.99)
Maybe JC should spend more time on website security research than psychology of climate change denial 😉
Though the sks’ites discussed their rating scale and their findings on the forum, the final ‘result’ is not significantly affected by it. It goes without saying the discussions bring their methodology into question but the results are somewhat insensitive to discussion and bias.
Shub,
That there is a consensus among scientists is true. Whether it is 97%, 80% or some other number and in which categories of people is unknown. In that sense: their paper showed nothing.
That they would go to the effort to collude while creating their results, mis-report their methodology and so on is an important issue that stands apart from the numerical value of their results.
When high school students dry lab results based on ‘known’ equations, the result remains “dry labbed”. The fact of dry labbing is considered important even if the report they wrote correctly described phenomenology that might have been observed had they actually done the experiments.
Some might think pointing out that the results are “dry labbed” is unimportant. But others don’t.
I get why “some” want to distract from the subject of whether SKS’s papers honestly report their procedures. But that doesn’t mean the discussion is unimportant. My view is those who don’t want to discuss whether SkS honestly reported their procedure should avoid conversations on that topic. 🙂
Sue,
He does seem to have taken down the pdf of the manuscript (http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Cook_2015_consensus_synthesis.pdf) If he wished to be “confidential” he should never have posted it or at least placed it behind a password protected screen.
Google crawls “http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/” pretty generally– and caches what is there. Googlebot cached that page. For now you can see it here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QMtokIN4wPkJ:www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Cook_2013_consensus.pdf+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Anyone who saw one sks file in the /docs/ library could find all others that had been crawled by google. These were all public.
Yup. It looks like John Cook heard about this and took down both his new paper and PhD thesis. The documents are still available via the archived links though, so they’re still available for anyone to see.
I wonder what he’s telling the Skeptical Science group. I’d like to think he wouldn’t be silly enough to tell them I hacked into their server, but…
lucia:
There’s also the issue of the “consensus” not actually being a singular thing. There can be many different consensus values for many different consensus positions. It may be 99+% of people agree the greenhouse effect is real while only 80% say humans are the main cause.
In that regard, this paper tells us nothing as it is written. However, as I try to stress in my new eBook, the Skeptical Science group actually thought to look at both of those consensus positions separately. If you do, their results (which are probably meaningless) say there is only a 1.6% consensus humans are the primary cause of global warming.
I think it’s particularly important because these issues weren’t difficult to figure out, yet this paper still became hugely important. Knowing the standards of global warming activism are so low, even among scientists and scientific journals, is quite informative.
Brandon,
In the use Ph.D. theses are usually public. University of Michigan archives tons of them.
The wayback archive was March 1, you blogged March 1– including link to wayback. The link to the file is now gone.
I suspect he yanked the file off his public server as soon after you posted last night. Someone follows your blog. 🙂
Their overall message is un-spectacular, yes. Lots of scientists agree with each other (with abstracts as proxies for scientists) yes. Who would dispute that?
The specific result their own analysis produced relies on testing a large corpus of undifferentiated text derived from climate impacts and mitigation literature.
1) The result is circular. What else would climate impacts and mitigation literature do? Disagree with the IPCC? But this is what their chosen literature search methodology fetches for them. There may be significant papers out there that disagree with the IPCC consensus formulation but you wouldn’t capture them by using the search phrase “global warming”.
2) The result is insensitive to methodology. Undifferentiated text that is supposed to be classified into ‘implicit support’ – a wooly, subjective call, and ‘no-position’ – which is what the abstracts are, strictly speaking, is an impossible mission. Look at their first round and second round of classification. There is close to 40% disagreement on a per-abstract basis but both produce the same 97% result!
3) The result is insensitive to analysis (!). The type of creative subsampling will and can allow anyone to pull out a 97% from a llama’s ass, every time.
lucia:
I don’t think John Cook has actually gotten his PhD yet though. I think this thesis is just a draft. I don’t think those are normally published. I can’t imagine people want the public looking at their thesis drafts months or more before they actually get their PhD.
Sadly, I just found out I accidentally used the regular link, not the archived link, in the eBook for the thesis document when I said I was linking to the archive. It’s not so bad since the paper is the more important thing to link to, and I got that archived link right, but… yeah, I’ll have to make sure I get that fixed.
I’m going to wait a little while though in case any other errors are spotted soon. I can only upload a new version every so often.
Shub,
Let’s assume “X” is true, and find out what happens to “Y”.
The existence of the “if” statement was taken to be at least implicit support. This is not correct as a matter of logic. People can study hypotheticals all the time. (As in: If this car crash sustains a head on collision of 300 mph, will the seat belts and other safety mechanism provide sufficient protection to keep a 4’10” passenger from trauma causing death?)
That doesn’t mean they think cars will or is even likely to experience a 300 mph head on collision while a 4’10” passenger is seated inside.
Mind you: I do suspect that most people doing climate impact and mitigation studies do believe AGW is occurring. But some would do the studies even if they did not. A person wanting to develop alternative sources of drinking water in regions that lack drinking water will be happy to accept funding — if it comes from a climate project that’s fine. It still results in better alternative drinking water in areas with shortages.
Irrespective of the authors notions about the strength of evidence for AGW abstracts of papers funded by the climate project would read exactly the same because (a) the possible impacts of AGW are the motivation for the funding agency and so for the study and (b) the author knows that is the funding agencies motivation and so states it in the abstract where people expect a motivation to be given. WRT (b) the author will do this even if the author wanted desperately to study or work on this issue regardless of who paid for it.
It might be different if all studies were funded out of the pockets of the researchers themselves– in that case, they might then just think it’s obvious that the reasons why one might want to develop methods to supply clean drinking water to people living marginal existences in remote areas were self evident and not even mention them. But these studies are rarely self funded.
Brandon
I’m glad you published quickly. But I think the experience may cause you to be a bit more indulgent of typos in other peoples books. 🙂
I suspect p 13 of my pdf has a typo. You have a
“:” after the final line. A “.” seems a more likely choice. (I’m not a good copy-editor. That’s the only one that stuck me while reading on the screen.)
Richard Tol tweeted this about Cook’s thesis being submitted in 2014: http://www.psychology.uwa.edu.au/research/postgrads?john.cook but that there is a 12 month max for major revisions for UWA: http://handbooks.uwa.edu.au/rules?id=56045
lucia:
I’ve always been indulgent of typos in people’s books. There’s a difference between making some typos and writing hundreds of ungrammatical sentences though. Especially when your book had an editor proof it. That’s what I’ve criticized, not just people making some typos.
That’s not a typo, though I am not certain it is strictly correct. Colons are often used to set aside appositives, quotes or lists in much the same form. I haven’t seen any guidance on whether or not images can be set aside in the same way, but stylistically, I find it useful to use a colon to indicate what comes next is what I just referred to.
So while I’m not positive on the rules, I’d much prefer to have, “Here is an image that shows X” be followed by a colon rather than a period. That’s true even if it isn’t strictly correct.
sue, as I’m sure you’re aware, John Cook has consistently flaunted the rules of his university. So far they have tolerated it.
Shub: There are many other substantive methodological errors in Cook’s paper. However, discussing the results between supposedly independent researchers isn’t just a methodological error, it is scientific fraud.
sue, I don’t know what those links are supposed to show. A PhD candidate does only have 12 months to resubmit their thesis if it is marked as needing to be resubmitted, but that would only matter if John Cook had submitted his thesis and had it ruled upon. There’s no real indication that’s the case.
By all indications, Cook is either still working on his PhD thesis or has only just recently submitted it. Either way, there’s no time limit he’s running afoul of. PhD candidates are expected to take years to finish their thesis.
Carrick, especially when one of your advisor’s is Lewandowsky 😉
The blogger Anders has an amusing tweet about this:
I think the answer is, “Clearly, that’s terrible. What was John Cook thinking when he did it?”
Carrick,
And in this case, really it’s not as if the authors didn’t know the ‘raters’ were discussing rating the papers on some forum somewhere.
* There is a strong correspondence between “author” and “rater”. So authors knew what raters were doing
* The forum was created, hosted and controlled by Cook– lead author.
* The forum use and discussion predates even the idea of rating.
* Everyone knew all the raters knew each other and had known each other since long before the project began. That automatically opens the possibility of private email discussions– something that would not be likely if raters didn’t know each other and merely submitted their ratings to an administrator.
* Raters/authors were discussed all sorts of aspect of the paper on the forum. These included how to interpret results and so on.
Theautors want to call this independent and report it as such in the procedure section of a journal article reporting empirical results”.
It’s not “independent”. Reporting it as independent is at best in accurate. And they should know this is not independent– so either they are woefully deluded or they are lying. Those are the two options. The later is fraud.
The former… well.. it may be the case they can find some allies to review the new submission who will allow them to get away with describing some features of the new situation, not bat an eye and let this new paper be published. Those reviewers were still not “independent”. That paper is riddled with issues. The fact it has defenders beyond it’s band of authors is a sad state.
Brandon, thanks. Wasn’t sure about the specifics, but that makes sense. Still think it’s interesting that Lew is his supervisor. It just makes a mockery of academia in my opinion. They wrote a paper together that was retracted for crying out loud.
Lucia:
And since the first option is not really a defensible one, we’re left with scientific fraud.
The best case we’re left with, is because this group was so scientifically incompetent, nobody understood the significance of lying about the supposed independent nature of the review process. But that’s a bit like stealing money from your employer and not reality checking well enough to understand they’d actually care if you took it.
I don’t often accuse people of lying. Bu this is a case where it’s virtually impossible to generate any other reasonable scenario for how the paper came to describe the reviewers as independent.
carrick, Lucia, I do agree the question of fraud arises here. But it is my opinion that what they did is not pre-meditated fraud. It is sheer methodological obliviousness, plus the fact that it’s a bunch of buddies doing stuff so they forgive their own transgressions and lack of rigour.
But the question is: what is the quantitative impact on the poor methodology and porous nature of the rating process? I don’t think it amounts to too much (there are some disturbing exceptions). Tens of thousands of abstracts is just too much work to orchestrate to produce a specific outcome, and there is no evidence to suggest they discussed hundreds upon hundreds of abstracts. In fact the evidence available, ie, the forum discussions, suggests that they did not discuss a majority of abstracts.
Shub:
As I tried to emphasize in my new eBook, simply describing their results the way initially planned gives us this statement:
It’s only because of their dishonesty, which examples like the one you guys are currently referring to demonstrates, that they chose not to provide this meaningful description of their results.
Proving they lied on specific issues isn’t about claiming those issues significantly alter their results. It’s about showing what they say about their work cannot be trusted. If people accept that, they’ll want to know how the work should actually be described. When they do, they’ll find the actual results of this paper tell us basically nothing.
Shub:
The fraud is in the write-up not in the sloppy methodology that they later falsely described in their paper:
This is an outright lie and clearly it was premeditated (the lie didn’t occur after publication for example). There’s no possibility that they could have convinced themselves that the raters were either independent nor anonymized.
This deliberate mischaracterization of the methods meets the standards for scientific fraud.
Carrick, one of the most striking things about that description is one of the authors, Sarah Green, said this in their forum:
For them to turn around and write a paper in which they claimed the raters were independent and anonymized, when an author of the paper said that, is despicable.
Carrick,
Even hypothetically, who were the raters anonymized from?
The raters, authors, data collectors and data analyzers heavily intersecting groups.
If I know I rated an abstract and I’m an author my identity as rater of that paper is not anonymous from the “authors”. If I rate an abstract and I analyze the data, the identity of the rater is not anonymous to the person analyzing the data.
The only sense in which raters might be anonymized is that the identifies of raters of individual abstracts aren’t released to the public. But the general rule was every author know who the raters of many papers were because they knew they had done rated the papers themselves. This is true even without the issue of “the forum”.
lucia, given what the paper says about “collusion,” I can only assume when they say the raters were “anonymized,” they mean the specific rater who went with each specific rating was kept secret. Of course, them talking to one another and describing how they rated things messes with that.
It’s a huge stretch anyway. If I knew person X had performed 2,000 ratings so far, would they really be anonymized simply because I don’t know just which 2,000 ratings those were?
Lucia, Brandon, good to see you both back together, I was worried.
Great pick up Brandon.
Over at ATTP Andrew Dodds commented
†Why is it that a significant proportion of the skeptic faction seem unable to write comments with proper line endings and paragraphs?â€
I paraphrased that as
†Why is it that a significant proportion of the warmist faction seem obsessed with comments with proper line endings and paragraphs?â€
I now realise my error.
†Why is it that a significant proportion of everyone seems obsessed with comments with proper line endings and paragraphs?”
I hope someone at University of Queensland reads this blog.
Anders has a post up including morality as a subset,
My guess is that if Anders had stumbled on this accidentally he would not have been offended by the content, as it describes fraud in a noble cause way that he agrees with.
In other words he would not even have seen it as fraud.
Hence his upset at others disclosing personal information.
A disinterested member of the public would not care either way.
Those with an interest can see the hypocrisy involved.
Something Philosophy majors like John Cook and Psychologists like Lewindowsky should be immediately aware of and acutely sensitive towards and have avoided like the plague.
Brandon,
The blogger ‘Anders’ you speak of is actually one of the authors of the paper you’ve unearthed – he’s called Ken Rice, whose prolific trolling, blogging and tweeting has recently led to speculation at Bishop Hill that his employers might like to review his terms of engagement, given that he doesn’t appear to have much time available outside his unprofessional activities to do the professional they pay him for. Try http://www.roe.ac.uk/~wkmr/ if you feel the need to know more.
angech,
When did Andres write a post about morality? Recently?
Brandon,
” Here’s a link to the paper (archived here)”
Did you ask web.archive.org to make that archived copy?
“John Cook has consistently flaunted the rules” …
Flouted them too, I bet.
It must always be kept in mind how weak the tea of “the consensus” actually is. Like one bag in a lukewarm swimming pool.
That warming can be detected in various records of various time scales, yeah, okay; many agree. That various records agree with one another, and that all researchers interpret the records the same way … not so much.
That the records show the effect of modern civilization, the majority of experts loudly vote “maybe”. That CO2, as opposed to deforestation or other errors of our time, has been and remains the major driver of climate change, is a proposition very much less broadly acclaimed.
That ignoring “air dumping” of industrial by-products into our ecosystem is short-sighted, most reasonable people tend to agree. That “cap and trade” measures to determine the true costs of such waste disposal is a clever and economically efficient solution, well, haven’t you heard that the number of economic opinions always exceeds the number of economists?
Etc.
When did Anders write a post about morality? Recently?
Assuming this is a genuine question.
Yes?
Anders wrote a post
“Multi-millenial climate change
Posted on February 21, 2016” so fairly recent
Science- “A reasonable fraction (20-30%) of what we emit will remain in the atmosphere for millenia.The resulting climate change will also persist for millenia.
A basic consequence is anthropogenically-driven climate change is irreversible on human timescales. you’d like to think that we’d consider – long and hard – the consequences of continuing to do so potentially in severely negative (for us) ways – for thousands of years.”
Then morality,
“On that note, there is also the issue of – as Eli notes – the morality of existence. Ray Pierrehumbert
“”For all we know, we may be the only sentience in the Galaxy, maybe even in the Universe. We may be the only ones able to bear witness to the beauty of our Universe, and it may be our destiny to explore the miracle of sentience down through billions of years of the future,… That the only known life – sentient or otherwise – in the universe, exists in a thin shell, on a small rocky planet, orbiting a pretty standard star, would seem to be something also worth considering.”
maybe this is largely irrelevant, at least in some kind of universal morality sense.
There is no obvious reason why we’re morally obligated to not do something that risks our existence. At the end of the day, doing it would simply be stupid, and I would hate to be part of a generation that contributed to doing so.”
Morality seems to be defined similar to the BS concept, that is morality is in the eye of the moralist.
“Morality has been defined as something that is constructed without concern for the truth (Frankfurt, 2005). By this definition, moral statements can be true, false, or meaningless. The absence or presence of these factors is irrelevant to something being moral. Nonetheless, although moral statements can be incidentally true, morality is generally false and hence, often problematic.””
Nick Stokes:
Sly Nick, sly.
angech, Lucia,
Most everything that Ken Rice writes (and Tamino, and RealClimate, and Eli, and Tobis, and The Rico 20, and James Hansen, and ….. the list is very very long) fairly well drips with self righteous morality. It is what makes the field of climate science so technically weak and so factually dubious. To those on a morally driven crusade to ‘save the Earth’, niceties like honesty (note that Peter Gleick is still a hero for the ’cause’!), acknowledging uncertainty, reasoned engagement with your adversaries, disclosing data, accepting the legitimacy of other views, etc. are of no import. The only thing that matters is advancing what is morally ‘right’.
.
What I find shocking is when a climate scientist does or says something which does not advance the peculiar morality of an extreme ‘green’ POV. When it happens, ranks always close and the offending scientist is pummeled and punished… and usually relents to end the torment. It is a sick and sorry field. Defunding is the only answer.
angech,
It was a genuine question. I rarely read Anders blog. I went over after reading your post and no title jumped out as the one “about” that topic so I asked.
Lucia, now I am ashamed of myself for asking, sorry.
Ken Rice, started off with a worse than Sou fixation on WUWT
Persistence! Posted on March 26, 2015 is a blog attacking Richard Toll in the style that he used to use on Anthony
Well worth a read.
It says a lot about personalities and climate cabal tactics.
He is aware of people criticizing his style, saying
[self deleted]
But he has yet to develop any self awareness.
He is a prolific writer and coverts a lot of sensible topics.
He quite often, with Eli and Stoat, covers moral issues.
Well worth observing from outside the fishbowl.
With quiet chuckles.
Brandon ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature’ b y Richard Toll agrees with your points and is attacked by Anders in
More nonsense – sorry, nonsensus – from Richard Tol
Posted on September 15, 2015.
I know you know this but thought I would link it in for others.
Flaxdoctor:
Please don’t remind me of that stupidity. Anyone reporting Anders to his employers is someone I don’t want to associate with. Unless there is some actual indication his blogging activities interfere with his job, and there isn’t, reporting him like that would be the height of stupidity. Plenty of jobs don’t require a person work only on their job during the 9-5 workday.
I myself have blogged while working with the full knowledge nobody would be bothered by it because I was still meeting all my obligations.
Nick Stokes:
Because it is you asking, I feel obliged to say… no, I did not.
angech:
I should point out one of the reasons Richard Tol’s claims about this paper get attacked is he says a lot of stupid things about this paper. Sadly, “skeptics” haven’t seemed to mind that, even when he wen t so far as to say it’s a problem a sorted data set shows patterns because we wouldn’t expect an unsorted data set to show patterns.
Yes, he actually said that. And then defended it for months and months and months. Eventually he quietly dropped the argument, but he’s never acknowledged it was wrong. I don’t even know if he thinks it was wrong or just decided to stop promoting it for some reason.
Either way, Tol is a terrible source when it comes to this paper.
angech,
No need for shame! People ask things that way to imply “No…. I don’t think so…..”. I just happened to not know. In real life tone would have indicated, but tone is missing in typed comments.
I know Rice/Anders started out with a WUWT fixated blog.
Collusion:
.
Ideally, this type of a classification exercise would be performed where the authors develop a rating scale/methodology, and an independent group of volunteers would apply it to the text to be classified.
.
In the real world however, this can become a luxury. Methods evolve on the fly and people learn things as they do the experiments. Of course it invalidates objectivity to a certain degree but that’s what you have, in the real world.
.
So to answer the question: “If I knew person X had performed 2,000 ratings so far, would they really be anonymized simply because I don’t know just which 2,000 ratings those were?”
.
Yes the authors were themselves the classifiers and they were applying a self-originated classification scheme, and yes they were in touch with each other. But if the people performing the classification were not discussing individual abstracts and consciously or subconsciously modifying their ratings for a substantial number of abstracts, the effect of the collusion would be minimal.
.
There is no evidence the raters colluded on a massive scale.
.
Of course what they did is, not what they *say* they did, but that is a different issue.
.
Moreover, and in any event, what would the objective of collusion be? To increase the match between raters? To reduce the ‘diversity’, or error, in the ratings? For example, if I subconsciously knew what a given abstract was rated as, I might be nudged into giving it the same rating. If this were to happen on a large scale it would show up as a greater degree of synchrony (in other words inter-observer agreement) between raters. But this does not show up in the data.
.
Take a look at this:
.
It is a simple plot of agreement between observers’ first rating (by panel) and second ratings for the same abstracts by others. For eg, if John Cook rated 100 abstracts and 10 of them got a second rating from Nuccitelli what is their agreement on the 10 abstracts?
.
https://nigguraths.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/panels.jpg
.
What is seen? Raters have a rather poor agreement with each other, and, the spread of (dis)agreement is quite large (40% – 100%). To me this says that though raters might have discussed with each other, there were simply thousands upon thousands of abstracts to plough through it didn’t matter. Cheating is just too expensive.
.
At the same time look at the panel 5. This rater had a rather poor agreement with almost all other raters in the first round. Look at the agreement for his ratings for the second round (the dark green circles) – a near 100% agreement with 5 other raters and an ~80% with 1 volunteer!
.
How did a rater read hundreds of abstracts, and manage to give the exact same rating as 5 different people? To me that’s a highly irregular data pattern, and it raises a huge red flag.
.
In conclusion I think though there were discussions between raters, it does not have a substantial impact on the ratings, and likely because the volume of data is large. In fact the findings actively suggest a lack of collusion. However, there are patterns in the data that suggest irregularities far worse though these affect only a portion of the final results. These irregularities are such that they bring into the question the authors’ veracity.
Collusion:
Post facto adjusting of a group of graphs produced by different entities so they agree with each other.
You’ve outdone yourself again, Climate Science.
Andrew
Shub
Nonesense. The detailed discussions of ratings of individual papers on the forum is at least some evidence of collusion.
Not sure what you mean by “massive” but it’s certainly substantial collusion and there is evidence of it.
Beyond that, I don’t know why one would only worry if it was “massive”. The fact that it
(a)existed.
(b) was known to be happening by the authors.
(c) the level was not quantified of even estimated but merely ignored and denied
is sufficient to make the methodology flawed. Perhaps you are trying to clear them of murder when they’ve been accused of assault. But it seems to me that if so, you are making up a strawman. Why you are doing so is a mystery. But it seems to be a habit with you.
Shub
UHmm… were those rhetorical? I think they were (which is a rule violation unless you answer them yourself..)
Now, let me answer.
To try to convince readers and reviewers that consistent ratings of abstracts is possible.
Yes. Because evidence of match between raters is a factor they applaud themselves for achieving claiming it is evidence that the rating method is useful.
Yes. Precisely. Because uncorrelated ratings that look like they were pulled out of a hat would suggest the whole idea of ratings is flawed.
Presumably the point you were trying to make is there was strong motive to collude.
Your claim that large scale collusion was detectable is nonesense.
If only two raters colluded, while others did not, their collusion might pop-out in the data. We’d see their ratings have greater correlation than by others. This would already be collusion, a cause for concern and something authors should admit in their write up. (Not admitting it if they know it happened would be scientific malfeasance at least.)
If a minority of raters colluded, theirs might pop out. But as the number approaches plurality, it would because difficult.
If collusion happened on a very large scale, through a forum with everyone discussing with everyone or with large exchange of email between most raters, it would NOT be detectable in the data. AT. All. It would merely make it look like people tend to give the same ratings to the same things– similar to people’s reading of weight of different objects on a scale being similar.
Uhmmm… so how do you know the 40% disagreement wouldn’t have been 60% disagreement? If one person picks a number from 1-7 out of a hat, the chances the other will pull the same number out afterwards is 1/7. That would be 87% disagreement. In fact: 40% disagreement is quite small. (Whether it’s evidence of collusion or merely consistency because the method is sound is an open question. But number of disagreement by themselves are hardly evidence of lack of collusion as they are entirely consistent with collusion.)
skip….
Uhmmm. The fact they claimed to not discuss yet clearly discussed brings into question the authors veracity rather more than any math you might do.
Beyond that: you seem to simultaneously claim evidence of collusion and deny it.
Shub
BTW: this is consistent with wide spread collusion from the start with one guy not being in on the program early on. Then, later one his being clued in and colluding massively.
How you would suggest it is evidence of non-collusion or evidence of not-massive collusion is a mystery.
Brandon,
“Because it is you asking, I feel obliged to say… no, I did not.”
Does that mean that someone else would get a different answer?
I notice that John Cook’s entire thesis was placed on the archive on 1 March, the day of your post that revealed its location (and archive URL) to the world. Now I guess it might coincidentally have been a bot finding it on that day, but bots can only follow existing links. Or did you ask them to put it there?
People that don’t want their files seen don’t place them on line in publicly assessable links. End of story.
People that lack understanding about climate ( Cook, Oreskes and the like ) are reduced to statistics of papers, not physical properties and processes.
.
But since consensus is irrelevant to truth, the statistics of consensus are similarly irrelevant.
Nick Stokes:
Yes, yes it does. That would be why I said I gave the answer I gave because it was you asking. I most definitely did not mean because it was you asking, I felt obliged to say the same thing I’d say to anyone else.
Did you just ask me the same question a second time, expecting some other answer? Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems like that’s what you did. If so, I should warn you to expect disappointment.
Brandon,
“Did you just ask me the same question a second time, expecting some other answer?”
No, it’s a different document. I just find it a very strange coincidence that on the very day you are revealing the location of Cook’s thesis to the world, somehow it was added to the archive, and you reported its archive URL. How could that have happened?
Nick Stokes:
Um… okay. It’s good to know it was a… different document.
I don’t find it to be a strange coincidence at all.
I’m going to go with fairies. Those things are tricky. They could do anything.
Nick,
This is an interesting line of questioning. I admit I initially thought Brandon did ask the wayback to visit. But I now notice all the sentences are in passive tense. 🙂
Given my assessement of Brandon: I believe the truthful but brief answer to your question is no. However, he might provide a longer more detailed answer to someone else. But you, he won’t.
Whether he would give a longer answer to someone else now I don’t know. But I suspect he would not do so in public and would only explain in private to someone he thought would not tell you.
FWIW: By “asking” the way back to do something, is your question “Did he go to the wayback, enter the url and click ‘save a copy’? I bet he didn’t. (I also did not.)
I have several theories about how it came to be there that do not involve Brandon doing either of the following two things:
1) Entering the URL and clicking ‘save a copy.
2) Asking someone else to ‘save a copy’.
Some of the theories involve bots. Some involve gossiping with people who make their own decisions what they might do.
Nick,
Perhaps you should consider inverting your theory about cause and effect. Brandon may have had a draft post in his pocket and been waiting for an event to give him info that let him finish.
For example: a person who knows the wayback crawls climate sites heavily, could regularly visit the wayback to see if the wayback had crawled the document he hoped it would crawl. After it did, he could grab that url and publish.)
(If you are wondering why I think the wayback crawls climate sites on steroids, it’s because there is a special way-back user agent associated with the library of congress. They have a project to crawl some climate blogs and consequently crawl them frequently. People who read their logs know the wayback will be recrawling certain pages a lot. I’m pretty sure Brandon reads his logs. But even if he never noticed the special url, he might notice the wayback visits a lot.)
Lucia,
“For example: a person who knows the wayback crawls climate sites heavily, could regularly visit the wayback to see if the wayback had crawled the document he hoped it would crawl. After it did, he could grab that url and publish.”
An odd theory. Why would he need to have the doc appear on the archive before he could publish?
But also, the bot may be crawling heavily, but how could it find the thesis if there were no links to follow?
Nick,
No one said he would “need” it. He might merely “want” it. I can think of several reasons why he might want it.
lucia:
Oh, I would totally answer the question fully and directly, even in public. I’m just enjoying dicking Nick Stokes around because I find it amusing how he’ll resort to ridiculous sorts of semantic parsing to argue for a position he likes but then turn around and fail to consider any sort of interpretation other than the most direct when he doesn’t want to.
It actually wouldn’t be that difficult to interpret my answers to figure out what did and did not happen. And if Stokes were remotely consistent with how he looks for ways to interpret things, he’d have already figured it out.
By the way, I probably wouldn’t have resorted to this sort of trollishness except it wasn’t that long ago Nick Stokes said:
Now, I’m not saying I suggested any archive be made. I’m just saying if you think it reasonable to say things like that, you better be willing to have to work a little to interpret the answers you’re given.
Lucia,
“It would only find the thesis if it came across a link.”
Googlebots couldn’t find it. Nor the paper.
Brandon,
“except it wasn’t that long ago”
that you were telling us that asking an archiver to copy pages could be a felony.
Nick:
Of course it couldn’t. Since that URL is for practical purposes unguessable, it would have to have been linked to another file that the crawler encountered.
For a minute there, I thought you were trying to make Cook look a little less stupid and incompetent.
NIck Stokes:
Indeed. It’s amazing how bad you are at this!
You mean it appears googlebot didn’t find it. That doesn’t mean the wayback did not. They aren’t the same bot.
On the copyright issue: Asking an archiver to copy pages can be a copyright violation. Depending on what someone is doing it could be a felony.
But I’m pretty the application of ‘fair use’ in the US was explained to you. Even if you just don’t want to consider what our factors are, they still exist. You need to consider the four factor test. You haven’t seemed to want to do that. Rest assured, the outcome can be different when the motive and outcome are o deprive the copyright owners income from the use of their work vs. when the motive and/or outcome something else. A judge would likely consider whether a claimed motive made any sense too. (For example, creating a copy of something that is not ephemeral and which everyone know is not ephemeral while claiming ones motive is there was a risk it would vanish might be judgled “lying”.)
The existence of the documents Brandon archived could be anticipated to be ephemeral. As they were taken down, they have proven ephemeral. 🙂
Nick
FWIW: Brandon hasn’t said anything inconsistent.
“FWIW: Brandon hasn’t said anything inconsistent.”
He seems to have a lot of trouble saying anything comprehensible at all.
Nick,
I’m not having any trouble understanding what he’s saying. He’s giving you brief answers that answer only what you actually ask. That you might be driving at something you aren’t stating when you ask the questions….. sure. I think you’re doing that.
But Brandon isn’t required to try to read your mind, try to discern whatever argument you have stored in your head and rebut it when you aren’t even willing to state your argument or claim. That he doesn’t try to do that doesn’t make him the one being incomprehensible. As far as I can tell, you are the one trying to be incomprehensible by not spitting out whatever accusation, claim or argument you want to make and then thinking you can get somewhere by asking “leading” questions.
Lucia,
” the application of ‘fair use’”
Sou was requesting copies of a public website that is routinely being archived anyway. The archived materials that Brandon linked were a not yet published copy of a paper, headed Confidential, and a complete copy of a PhD thesis which is currently being examined. I can’t see how Brandon’s excels as “fair use”.
“He’s giving you brief answers that answer only what you actually ask”
Sometimes called being parsimonious with the truth.
Lucia,
“not spitting out whatever accusation, claim or argument you want to make and then thinking you can get somewhere by asking “leading†questions”
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I find that those who resort to using “leading questions” do so because they believe (almost always wrongly) that they are absolutely correct, and can’t be bothered to actually engage in the intellectual give and take that is required to resolve an honest disagreement. Makes perfect sense if you are convinced you can’t possibly be mistaken and your opponent can’t possibly be correct. ‘Course, people will generally find you to be a disrespectful PITA in this case; lots of that going on in the global warming/climate change ‘debate’.
Nick
The fact it is routinely archived is irrelevant. She appears to be creating them for the purpose of linking them and her stated motive is to deprive the copyright owner of visits which are potentially money making.
I hate to break it to you, but the law would see these document placed on a public servers as published from the pov of copyright law. That they say confidential is pretty much meaningless here. I can write “confidential” in every email I send to you. It was still sent. That makes it “published” as a matter of copyright law.
Fair use is a legal term of art. Not a judgement of “what Nick or someone like Nick considers ‘fair’ or ‘just’.” If you refuse to learn what it means of course you aren’t going to be able to tell what is and is not fair use. That would be your own deficiency. There is nothing in copyright law that says, “It’s only fair use if Nick Stoke’s can understand that it ought to be fair use.”
Beyond that: It’s possible the links without Brandon entering anything in the “save” box at the wayback. Someone else could have done it. The wayback could have crawled to a page where the links existed. In such a case, it may be the wayback violated copyright, but Brandon did not. (As you recall, others told you it’s possible for an archiver to violate copyright. You seemed to believe it can’t. But yes, it can.)
Brandon is answering what you actually ask. He’s not omitting any information required to answer what you actually ask. This behavior is not normally dubbed “parsimonious with the truth”. If you want answers to different questions, ask them. If you want to make a claim about something, make it.
Nick Stokes:
Everything I’ve said is perfectly comprehensible. That you’re terrible at actually asking the questions which would produce the answers you want doesn’t make the answers you get incomprehensible.
Which you say likely to imply some sort of dishonesty, but the reality is it is perfectly appropriate not to give out the complete truth in response to questions. If a stranger asked me where I was going to eat dinner this evening, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t give them a full and complete answer. I doubt many people would be surprised by that.
I’ve answered your questions accurately and honestly. That I choose not to give out additional information, while making it clear I’m not giving that information out, is in no way dishonest.
As for the issue of me answering the questions you ask not producing the answers you want, well… I did mention how you suck at this.
Lucia, your first comment:
You state: “The detailed discussions of ratings of individual papers on the forum is at least some evidence of collusion” and by saying this you claim my statement that there is no evidence of massive collusion is “nonsense”.
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The two statements – yours and mine – are perfectly compatible with each other. So the fact that you couple your reaction to a hyperbolic Realclimate-style single-word ‘nonsense’, discredits your response. I don’t think you put in enough care when reading.
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If we look beyond such absurdness, and on to the contents of the forum discussions, what do we have? It has been a while since I looked the discussions of the paper – ‘TCP’ as they called it. But there is no evidence of substantial collusion between raters in the rating process. There are no discussion threads where they plan how to co-operatively rate abstracts. People just took abstracts and rated them. I know Jose Duarte and others were up in arms at how the sanctity of the research methodology was violated and how these biased activists were hacking around but ..meh. These are no criminals or morally bankrupt individuals, these are people just like you and me.
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Read all the forum contents but guess what, these are not people who were out to cheat the world and swindle anyone – at least when they performed the study. These were just a bunch of motivated activists trying to do something.
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Re, your second comment: I am not sure you understand the Cook data. Raters had definitive criteria in front of them to apply to abstracts. It is my conclusion that they did not significantly co-operate with each other when assigning ratings. So how do you explain the >30% discordance rate between their own ratings in two different sittings? Why is it ‘not too small’?!!
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Do you think it is to be expected that you would read the same abstract on two different occasions, with the rules of classification in front of you, and assign two different ratings?
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Moving further on, your claim amounts to saying raters colluded or were aware of the other rating assigned when rating abstracts, and yet they managed to disagree to the substantial level as observed in the data? That simply proves my point – there is no *detectable* collusion.
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If there is no detectable effect of collusion in the ratings, there is no *evidence of collusion in the rating process* in the data. It’s as simple. There may be other evidence, but it’s not in the data
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If you want to make the claim that there was collusion you must specify what you would expect it to show in the data as. If you want to claim collusion would not be detectable in rating data, you have only proven my point.
Definitely looking forward to responses that don’t contain ‘nonsense’, ‘stupid’, ‘loon’, ‘idiot’, ‘fool’, and other names.
Shub,
Wrong. I get you want to tap dance around your strawman of “massive”. But the fact is evidence of collusion is also some evidence for “massive”. So no, our two statements aren’t compatible and yours are wrong.
I’ve got chick on the stove top. I’m not going to waste time with your argument which is mostly trying to rebut a strawman about claims about some undefined “massive” level. Feel free to keep discussing. Those who think it’s worth engaging will. I think my time is better served cooking dinner. If others find some of your thoughts interesting, you are free to continue to discuss.
I’m not going to debate whether the collusion was “massive”. I think the issue is important even if it was not massive. Evidently so does Duarte and so do others. You don’t? Ok then.
You have nothing to discuss because there is nothing to discuss. There is evidence of irregular conduct and methodology but there is no slam dunk in the data. Barring such evidence what is left is for people to wring their hands about how crooked Cook and their gang pointing at some forum comments, and that is exactly what has been done, to date.
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My position is quite clear, and I can quote from upthread to save myself the breath:
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”
What is the quantitative impact on the poor methodology and porous nature of the rating process? I don’t think it amounts to too much (there are some disturbing exceptions). Tens of thousands of abstracts is just too much work to orchestrate to produce a specific outcome, and there is no evidence to suggest they discussed hundreds upon hundreds of abstracts. In fact the evidence available, ie, the forum discussions, suggests that they did not discuss a majority of abstracts.
”
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If I cheat during an exam, and copy 5 answers from my neighbor, out of 100 questions, the fact that I cheated would disqualify me and people would be justified in labeling me. At the same time the 95 questions for which I gave my own answer would still remain and the quantitative impact of my cheating would still affect only 5% of the paper. You could argue the toss about whether 95% of something would deserve the word ‘massive’ but that would be your argument to make, and carry.
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Chicken it is, then.
Shub,
The chicken is finished browing and things are simmering.
I’ll now adress this
Yes. I and jillions of people know this.
I am criticizing your conclusion. Not sure why you thought that suggested I might not understand the rating process.
As it is your conclusion, I leave it to you to provide and argument why you can make the conclusion you do based on this number. And no, asking me a rhetorical question is not an argument. Asking me to rebut a conclusion for which you provide no supporting argument and merely point to a factoid while providing no evidence that factoid supports your conclusion is not an argument.
(a) Please do not violate my rule about rhetorical questions. If you are going to ask on, you must answer it yourself.
(b) If I said yes, what do you think that would mean? If I said no, what do you think that would mean? Real questions because I suspect you think the answer would some how make somesort of point. I have no idea what that point would be.
I see no reason why the correct answer would support your conclusion there was no massive collusion. But if you do, please provide your argument rather than continuuing with this pattern of trying to support whatever it is you claim with a rhetorical question.
Precisely what claim of mine suggests that? If you mean I said raters who discussed rating on the forum with each other knew they were discussing their rating and other reading the forum knew they were discussing their rating: Yes. I claim that. There is abundant evidence of that.
If you mean some other claim, please do not expect me to read your mind. Say which.
I see no reason why people who were colluding might not end up with agreement/disaggreement that has the characteristics of your graph. You have provided support for the claim this graph somehow supports no collusion, and as far as I am aware it is equally consistent with “collusion”:
Instead of merely showing a graph, perhaps you can explain why you think that graph is inconsistent with the existence of collusion (at whatever level you consider “massive”).
After all: we know collusion occurred for other reasons. It is very easy to explain why it would not appear in that graph. I have and you have ignored that and merely ask me a rhetorical question.
If your point that this (which seems to be non-evidence) somehow erases actual evidence which we have– from the forum– is valid do your own work and support your claim. If your point is something else, please state it.
Because as far as I can tell
(a)we have evidence of collusion.
(b) this graph is consistent with collusion.
(c) it is consistent with widescale collusion.
And you have given no reason other than “Look at it!” to explain why you think (b) or (c) are not true.
And there probably is none in the bottom of my box of Cherrios either. But I wouldn’t try to convince anyone that set aside evidence that does exist. Doing so would be stupid, and your argument is too.
All you are doing is doing is:
(a) trying to apply a test that even if done properly would never provide evidence if collusion was massive
(b) doing it badly
(c) and trying to set aside the evidence of collusion in forum threads based on not finding “evidence” in your silly test.
This is stupid. If it convince you of something, fine. But it’s pretty dumb.
If you mean the data about rater agreement you are simply wrong. The data are the forum threads.
If you want to support the claim that looking at the rater agreement tells us anything at all, you would have to do quite a bit of work to show that we would not see that pattern if the raters colluded. In fact: that graph is entirely consistent with massive or wide spread collusion.
Now that global warming is unambiguously real and happening as predicted this blog seems to be reduced to fighting the meta wars.
For what it’s worth, while I happen to think there probably wasn’t that much collusion, I also don’t think that is important. That the raters felt free to cheat, and that the authors felt free to misrepresent their methodology, is what matters to me. Once you know people are willing to cheat and lie, I don’t think arguing over how significant their cheating and lying is will do much. After all, if they’re willing to cheat and lie in one way, they’re likely willing to cheat and lie in other ways.
Plus we already know their actual results are not what they want people to believe. To me, the cheating and lying is mostly just a tool to draw people’s attention to that.
so Bugs did not know the world has been warming for 300 years? where has he been hibernating?
Brandon,
Since you’re entirely aware that ATTP is Ken Rice, why persist in the ‘Anders’ nonsense having listed Rice as an author on the paper you found?
And I question the need the for the sniffy response about whether Prof. Rice does his day job or not – opinions vary about whether it’s OK to do hobbies all day long / take second jobs when you’re paid to the stuff in your job description. Jagadish Shukla springs to mind.
Sorry, Brandon , what I really mean to say is thanks for the great work in exposing these cheats.
Shub,
When the chicken had browned, I changed my mind. We cross posted. Now that I see your quick reply to the first post let me be clear:
Your stuff is utter nonsense. It is ridiculous for you to suggest the someone not engaging your nonsense somehow suggests there is anything remotely positive or meaningful in the nonsense you put forward.
Brandon,
I agree the amount of collusion is not important. As far as I can tell, other than to Shub no one is discussing the amount of collusion.
That Shub wants to argue against a strawman no one suggested is just another element of his nonsense.
Shub
1) Sets up a strawman (i.e. argument no one has made.)
2) Advances a counter argument to that strawman. This is called “pointless”.
3) Even as a counter-argument to a strawman, his counter-argument is poor and unconvincing. That is, he can’t support his own counter-argument to the non-existent strawman argument he wishes to rebut.
4) Then he seems to want to believe that if people don’t engage his really ‘rebuttal’ of an argument no one that somehow he’s shown something meaningful.
He has not.
bugs,
“Now that global warming is unambiguously real and happening as predicted this blog seems to be reduced to fighting the meta wars.”
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Happening as predicted?!? Wow, what planet do you live on? Talk about nonsense!
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What you say is factually incorrect. The trend of warming over the last 15 or so years is in fact far less than was predicted by the GCM ensemble (heck, it is less than more than 95% of all runs of ALL GMS together). Once the current El Nino turns into a La Nina (remember, the current global average temperature is about 0.25C higher than it would be in an ENSO neutral state), the long term trend will likely return to the previous slower-than-models-projected pace. The weight of the evidence says the models are simply too sensitive to GHG forcing.
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Multiple published empirical evaluations of climate sensitivity all lie near the low end of the IPCC plausible sensitivity range of 1.5C to 4.5C per doubling.
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The weird thing, and I honestly do find it weird, is that folks like you continue to completely miss the point: nobody who knows anything much about science believes GHG forcing does not cause warming. The real technical argument is about what the future response to GHG forcing will be, not that there will be a future response.
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The real policy argument is what public policies make sense in light of the best available evidence for sensitivity to GHG forcing. Your tilting-at-straw-man argument (GHG driven warming is real) is so disconnected from the real arguments that is it a joke. Catch up my friend.
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The moral disagreement, which is the fundamental disagreement driving the whole subject, is about the weighing of relative risks, costs, potential benefits and potential harms. There are lots of substantive disagreements you can address, and who knows, maybe you could even make a substantive contribution. Focusing on straw-man arguments is a waste of your time… and everyone else’s.
Brandon Writes
This is the money shot.
And from this result comes the obvious conclusion that the vast majority of scientists don’t explicitly endorse the IPCC’s view of AGW.
Flaxdoctor:
I call people by the names they go by, unless I have some overwhelming reason not to. If people want to go by handles, I’m not going to use their real names just because.
You can question it all you want, but unless one has some reason to believe a person has done wrong, contacting the person’s employer is stupid and pathetic. You bringing up Shukla does nothing to help the case, and it in fact makes you look worse because that case is not comparable at all.
Quite frankly, the only people who would support this sort of behavior are partisan hacks. Everyone else will just look at it and shake their heads.
lucia:
Yup. It’s a common thing with him. I’m just trying to use him as an excuse to emphasize:
Because I don’t think that can be stressed enough. I don’t agree with TimTheToolMan’s follow-up conclusion, because I think this paper was rubbish and doesn’t allow us to conclude much of anything, but I think the more people understand this is how Cook et al should have described their results (given their planned approach), the better.
And if I can use Shub’s nonsense to draw more attention to that, I will. Because really, what else is what he writes good for? (Nothing that I can see.)
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #143493)
“Please don’t remind me of that stupidity. Anyone reporting Anders to his employers is someone I don’t want to associate with.”
Agreed.
Flaxdoctor (Comment #143533) Jagadish Shukla springs to mind.
Again my concerns are for the actions he took, calling for a RICO investigation, not his private financial affairs.
From what I have seen many academics and doctors are underpaid but circumstances exist where they can get a bigger salary. Good luck to him. He had a setup/trust whatever that enabled him to share the income out to his family and reduce taxes. Well everyone in his position in America does it, so why not him?
Nick Stokes (Comment #143509)
” how could it find the thesis if there were no links to follow?”
This is not the first time John Cook has foolishly left links to his site in the open ether.
The machine may be programmed to uplink new links with old archived events in which case John and his sites would be the first to be reviewed /re-monitored.
In any case, as usual, where is your disgust/distaste/ upset with what the manuscript “Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming†shows the Skeptical Science authors admitting.
Unethical
Unprofessional,
Misleading,
Colluding behavior spring to mind.
What is your visceral response?
Where is your scientific professionalism?
Brandon did it?
How about John Cook, Naomi Oreskes, Peter T. Doran, William R. L. Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed W. Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, Stephan Lewandowsky, Andrew G. do it again.
Blacken the name of science with inadequate, amateurish kindergarten pseudoscience and technique.
Well?
SteveF said “The weird thing, and I honestly do find it weird, is that folks like you continue to completely miss the point: nobody who knows anything much about science believes GHG forcing does not cause warming.”
I agree.
I also find it weird that so many are cheering for the record warming.
To me, an el nino spike in global warming, which will probably drop by .25C during the next la nina (as you point out), is not evidence of human caused warming, but of natural warming (of the atmosphere).
It is not new heat, it is just moving existing heat around between two parts of the system. El ninos are natural and not caused by humans.
I wonder if the other side realizes how the more they crow about el nino warming, the greater the increase in natural variability and the less climate sensitivity therefore probably is.
Brandon writes
You do though. In the context of the (dubious) paper, which is how it was meant.
I wrote
Perhaps to further qualify that, every time John Cook says that according to his paper, 97% of scientists agree with the IPCC AGW consensus, then its an outright lie. And he knows it.
the paper is in press? – I’m fairly sure I’ve seen some reference to it previously (can’t reacall where though)
http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/publications/consensus-on-consensus-a-synthesis-of-consensus-estimates-on-humancaused-global-warming(34949783-dac1-4ce7-ad95-5dc0798930a6).html
Brandon, Lucia, I’ve read, again, Brandon’s post at his blog, the post above and a few comments up-thread where the question of cheating/collusion is discussed, and your responses to my comments.
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Firstly, we all agree that there was cheating of some sort. Secondly, both of you agree with me that the quantitative impact of the cheating is likely minimal.
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But you cannot bring yourself to say this. I don’t see any other problem. For some reason you have to be hostile and ungracious. In fact, coming to think of it I have never seen either of you concede points in any argument.
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I quoted Brandon’s question fully, where he wonders what the effect of anonymizing would be on abstract rating. Yet he comes and agrees with you, Lucia, that discussing the quantitative impact of purported ‘cheating’ (i.e, not being anonymized while claiming so) is a ‘strawman’.
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Beyond all this ‘nonsense’, in science, you don’t rebut by
1) Grabbing hold of methodological irregularities and screaming ‘gotcha’
2) Googling the authors’ personal or political stance and crying ‘partisan’, or ‘activist’
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Lucia, you are doing (1). Moral purity is good for politics but its importance in science depends on the violation. If an observer fakes the last two observation in a series of 100, the impact of dishonesty is one thing. If a researcher changes the denominator from say 1 to 2, copies the gel lane in a picture, or flips and rotates cell images, to make an impossible result possible, the nature of the dishonesty involved is a different thing. With the former, you can go to the non-cheated 98% and the thing still stands. With the latter, the whole thing falls apart because the cheating was qualitatively different and it was used to overcome a bottleneck in reality.
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If you have trouble figuring out where you did this, you can look this quote. You wrote it:
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”
It’s not “independentâ€. Reporting it as independent is at best in accurate. And they should know this is not independent– so either they are woefully deluded or they are lying. Those are the two options. The later is fraud.
”
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If you say ‘fraud’ and I say ‘no, not fraud’, there is no ‘strawman’, or ‘nonsense’. There is disagreement.
TimTheToolMan:
Ah, okay. In context of the paper, I definitely agree. I just thought you meant it in general.
I sometimes wonder when a person tells an untruth this obvious so often, are they really lying to other people, or have they lied to themselves so effectively they actually believe what they say? I don’t know that there’s any way to tell.
Barry Woods:
It looks like it has been accepted for publication but hasn’t actually been published yet. That’s good to know. I’m not sure why I didn’t get that link when I searched for the paper’s title though.
Shub,
You insist on changing the issue to whether it was “massive”. That is: the amount. And you even insist on sticking to this issue of whether it was “massive”. The only extent to which it matters to anyone else is whether there was any. There was some. End of story.
That your main issue is whether it’s “massive X” earlier and your defense is your not the only one discussing that that because you see that people are discussing “not-massive X” is pitiful. And doubly so when it’s clear that everyone says there is “some”. It’s hard to know if can’t see the distiction (possibly due to lack of operating brain cells on your part) or if you are intentionally prevaricating. But it seems to be one or the other. Either way, I’m not going to spend time on your “massive” issue. It’s your issue– and a strawman.
But I will elaborate in the hope we can make this clear.
You want to discuss whether it was massive or minimal. Two things (a) we don’t know the amount, (b) the amount is unimportant to my (and everyone here’s) criticism of Cook and (c) nothing you show gives any evidence one way or the other. Those are the points that matter. More importantly, if you are trying to “rebut” anyone here: rebutting those points would be “not a strawman”.
But telling us “we don’t know” is not a “rebuttal”. Everyone agrees we “don’t know”. And emphasizing that you haven’t found evidence it’s “massive”– we’ll no. But everyone says we don’t know. And your “methods” of looking are so pitiful that you might as well have opened the door to my shoe closet, seen the shoes and said, “Look, no evidence of massive collusions by SkS!” Of course not: They could collude massive and you’d find no evidence in my shoe closet. Everything you are writing is a pointless strawman argument.
I’m perfectly willing to say we don’t know– and have. I’m fact I’ve said (b):
Nothing you show is evidence either way.
My point is: Nothing you show us excludes massive collusion. We remain at (a) we don’t know. The collusion might have been massive. It might have been minor. We know it happened for other reasons.
This is because Brandon is correct. It is a strawman. Because the quantification is unimportant and irrelevant to the issue Brandon and I are discussing. The issue matters even if the collusion (which we know exists) was modest.
I realize disproving “massive” collusions must be an important issue to you for some reason. Why it’s important to you, I don’t know. But it’s not to me, Brandon– and evidently based on your complaint Duarte. As far as I can tell, it is unimportant to Tol. The point is irrelevant to most critics of Cook. And has nothing to do with their/our criticism.
In my view: your evidence to ‘disprove’ the possibility of massive collusion is piss-poor. Which I’ve also stated. But the fact that this can be said about your strawman rebuttal doesn’t save it from it’s main flaw: that it is irrelevant to anything anyone else is saying.
If you find someone who actually thinks and says massive amounts of collusion were ‘the’ or even “an” issue in Cook , go show them your non-evidence of massive. In the meantime: We know there was some collusion. Everyone said so from the start. The evidence is at the forum. Don’t expect me or others here to waste our time with your silly red herring=strawman-bug bear.
Otherwise, if you want to engage in a with critics of Cook: stop trying to haul in long “rebuttals” of things no one in the conversation is claiming. It makes you look stupid. Your decreeing victory if people ignore your strawman makes you look stupid, whiny and obnoxious.
Shub
Oh heavens. If I’m reading this Shub thinks it’s ok for an observer to intentionally fact some data and that people aren’t allowed to criticize that!! Wow!! I mean: Wow!!
No Shub: if people uncover incontrovetible evidence that 2% of the data were faked, and the only thing they can say about the rest is “don’t know”, the result cannot be trusted at all. And if even if they can prove the other 98% is ok, they can still criticize the people for cheating on the 2%. And the criticism is totally valid.
Cook lies in the position of “some fake the rest we don’t know”. No one has any idea what the result would be without the collusion. There is no way to correct for it. The value of the paper is: we learned nothing about the consensus from that paper.
Other papers still exist. Other evidence of consensus exists. There is a broad consensus that the earth is warming. Many, many scientists think it is due to humans. But we know that from sources other than Cook.
Thinking of the condition of your brains is inspiring me to have scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“Now that global warming is unambiguously real”
Wait just a moment…
This is the same claim that has been made for the last 20 years or so.
Nothing has changed. There’s no new evidence. There’s nothing.
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
It’s doubly odd for bugs to diagnose anything on the blog based on that claim. After all: I think global warming is real. That’s been my position before I began blogging in 2007, I’ve said it on this blog many times. I still say so. So clearly, it being proven unambiguously real would hardly warrant any change in my position.
I realize you– Andrew_KY — continue to believe it is not real. But that doesn’t affect my blogging much.
“I realize you– Andrew_KY — continue to believe it is not real. But that doesn’t affect my blogging much.”
I’m cool with that. I like The Blackboard. Don’t change a thing. I’m glad that I am able to express my opinion- that highly contrived adjustable squiggly lines do not demonstrate anything unambiguously- here.
Next month “they” can make it squiggle off the page and I’ll be a happy camper.
Andrew
Aw, I was having much more fun listening to the Nick-Brandon colloquy.
“the Nick-Brandon colloquy”
Unambiguously Entertaining.
Graph it, HaroldW. I bet it’ll look like a heart attack on a cardio monitor.
Andrew
HaroldW,
That was more fun. I’m still waiting for Nick to actually spit out whatever claim he wants to make. I suspect we all have a guess what he wanted to accuse Brandon of, or something about the case he wanted to make. But — for some reason– he can’t bring himself to make it. He just seemed to want to ask “leading questions” that– presumably– he thought would lead everyone to whatever conclusion he’s already got lodged in his head.
Not sure the answer to those leading questions would get us to the conclusion Nick thinks they take us to. (Both because I don’t know where the answers take us and Nick has been rather ‘parsimonious’ with revealing his claim.)
It is a shame Nick Stokes gave up. I guess he can’t stand it when people do things like he normally does.
lucia:
That does seem to be his argument. That and it’s okay to be dishonest as long as nobody can prove it changed anything. Because “Corporate American[tm]” or some such argument.
My view is the fact that the rankers interacted means that the methodology was affected by this interaction. Since it’s virtually impossible to look at the experimental outcome and predict or guess what it would have looked like without the interaction, there’s no way to say the influence was small or large.
The only way you could really test the validity of this paper is to perform it correctly. But that involves a huge number of changes, from the ground floor up. A complete new project with new researchers.
Nobody competent’s going to want to do this though, because frankly the only worth of this paper is found in its propaganda value. So it’s unlikely this paper will every be competently replicated so that anybody could see how all of the methodological errors in this paper influenced its outcome.
(Even then, good luck deciding which methodological errors contributed to which amount of disagreement with a competently performed study.)
Shub writes
The only important thing about either of your examples is the observer’s willingness to do whatever it took to come to the conclusion they had in mind.
Its actually irrelevant what impact it had on the result, say mathematically, because the result was always going to be a foregone conclusion.
Brandon,
Any harshness I have ever said to you, I sincerely and abjectly apologize for.
Amazing and meaningful discovery.
Thank you so much.
They really are full of schitt.
You are wondermous.
Further to the above, when John Cook writes in his “new” paper…
That is an outright lie and easily demonstrated by simply reading and understanding Cook et al 2013.
I am simply amazed how he thinks he can get away with that and why nobody on the pro AGW side of the debate doesn’t call him out on it.
Lucia et al: Do you intend to comment on the recent GWPF report on time series analysis of temperature data?
From my limited perspective, temperature is not a function of time, but rather accumulated radiative imbalance – with a lot of unforced variability due to weather in the short term and chaotic fluid flow between the warm ocean surface and the colder deeper ocean in the longer term. Any analysis that isn’t derived from basic physics of radiation isn’t likely to be usefulful. However, perhaps all of the symbols used in time series analysis can have some physical explanation.
As best I can tell, science rarely makes progress analyzing complicated phenomena based on purely statistical or mathematical models. There are too many models or equations with adjustable parameters from which to choose. Consider the equation of motion for a tumbling irregular object falling through the atmosphere. No one is going to discover the correct answer by chance: constant acceleration from gravity opposed (deceleration) proportional to the square of the velocity divided by the mass. This knowledge come from the scientific method – the development and testing of hypothesis under carefully controlled conditions. One can apply our hard-won knowledge from the laboratory to the whole planet, but we aren’t likely to learn any reliable new science from analyzing the complicated behavior of the whole planet.
These statements are meant to provoke some enlightening comments on the utility of time series analysis, rather than on my limited understanding of time series analysis.
Frank,
I think you can learn somethings and do somethings with time series. You can also project into the future to some extent. But it’s difficult and generally, those doing it under estimate their uncertainty. They do the latter by overlooking contributions to the error (like model-misspecification.)
And no, I’m not going to comment on the recent GWPF report.
“The only important thing about either of your examples is the observer’s willingness to do whatever it took to come to the conclusion they had in mind.
Its actually irrelevant what impact it had on the result, say mathematically,…”
.
Oh really, timthetoolman?
.
Is that how it works?
.
Do you have any idea how ‘dirty’ science is? Do you know how every human compiled dataset of observations is?
”
That does seem to be his argument. That and it’s okay to be dishonest as long as nobody can prove it changed anything. Because “Corporate American[tm]†or some such argument.
”
‘Does seem to be’ – what a strong line of reasoning. To be expected from Carrick though in my book.
.
A hypothetical to illustrate a point is literally what I said. How F convenient.
“Do you have any idea how ‘dirty’ science is? Do you know how every human compiled dataset of observations is?”
shub, you’ve gone off your meds. You’ve Mosherized and used the ‘all science is dirty/all measurements are estimates/natural variability is unicorns/’ line of nonsense to win a completely trivial imaginary battle.
Make an appointment to see your doctor.
Andrew
Andrew, tim might have ‘engineer brain’ and think data is collected by robots operated by God-level firmware that researchers wrote.
Frank
When you see someone model temperature as a function of time,
well they are wrong. Plain and simple wrong. yes, temperature is a function of radiative imblance.
However, there are times and places and uses for a simple regression against time. Like comparing two different series,
or the difference of series over time, or segments of the same time series..
I would think that temperature can be modeled as a function of time as long as deteministic trends are considered and properly handled. Time related phenomena like auto correlation are amenable to modeling. I suppose if temperature were considered a random walk it could be considered strictly a function of time – but that would be very obviously wrong.
Shub writes
You’ve got this completely wrong Shub. There is nothing wrong with adjusting data per se. The problem is when it’s “adjusted” with no documented, justifiable reason.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #143557)
It is a shame Nick Stokes gave up.
#143542) This is not the first time John Cook has foolishly left links to his site in the open ether
might have answered his question.
hunter (Comment #143568)
“Brandon, Any harshness I have ever said to you, I sincerely and abjectly apologize for.”
Amazing and meaningful discovery. You are wondermous.
Let’s not get carried away, but it was good.
“Frank et al (Comment #143570) temperature is not a function of time, but rather accumulated radiative imbalance.”
Two points
” the accumulated radiative imbalance” is a misnomer
We have an input heat source [at least 3 actually] which all act in relation to time and could be plotted as functions against time so temperature could be a function of time if these inputs were modeled correctly.[stand to be educated here].
Second
There is no accumulated radiative imbalance or radiative imbalance per se, only the impression of one when discussing various layers of the earth’s surface.
What goes in comes out, second law.
The kerfuffle and fuss about all this is focused on the wrong object, the perception of an ideal surface temperature in arbitrary surface layers of shifting fluids and gases.
Yes we can try to quantify it, but nobody does a good job of defining it.
Lucia, Steve and Angech: Thanks for you replies, none of which attempted to defend the approach taken by the GWPF report. I instinctively felt was this report fell into the “so bad it isn’t even wrong” category. (Not what I expected from the GWPF, so I wanted to hear what others might say.) Radiative forcing from anthropogenic GHGs, aerosols and other factors ARE functions of time, as are solar and volcanic forcing. Ii your approach doesn’t start with that input, you aren’t going to get anywhere. The same is true if you permit the possibility of a random walk (like Keenan), where temperature can wander indefinitely far from pre-industrial equilibrium. (This assumes that a single equilibrium GMST exists and can be used as a reference point for defining radiative forcing.)
If I understand correctly, a time series analysis might be useful in trying to characterize the internal or unforced variability in climate change. Unfortunately, unforced variability can only be abstracted from observed variability using a model for forced variability – perhaps a simple energy balance model with a climate feedback parameter and ocean heat uptake.
Frank,
I can neither defend or criticize it. I haven’t read it. But generally speaking, I think time series is unlikely to give good long or even just longish term predictions. They might be ok for short term– correlation can do wonders over short periods.
Lucia, Steve and Angech: Thanks for you replies, none of which attempted to defend the approach taken by the GWPF report. I instinctively felt was this report fell into the “so bad it isn’t even wrong†category.”
Go to ATTP. they do a pretty good job of explaining the flaws.
Over at ATTP
So much wrong with this
“Our emissions are currently increasing anthropogenic forcings at around 0.3W/m^2/decade. This produces a planetary energy imbalance (more energy in than out) that has to be closed by warming of the surface.”
There is no planetary energy imbalance .
The sun is the only relevant source of energy [all other sources are small].
The amount of heat going into and out of the earth are the same by the second law of thermodynamics.[OK photosynthesis etc smaaallll things, not relevant].
Hence the earth radiates exactly the same amount of hear out that it takes in.
Warming of the surface is a misnomer and misunderstanding.
The radiative surface of the earth is well above the land and sea surfaces at the TOA.
The distance out varies, it is not a sphere and TOA on the night side is quite different to that on the day side.
The height of the TOA also varies with the atmospheric makeup.
More CO2, warmer air blanket higher TOA.
But no difference in the incoming and outgoing radiation.
The earth and sea can never build up a radiative imbalance. It is in balance all the time.
Can the air layer be warmer?
yes
Can the sea be warmer ?
yes but
Can the earth be warmer?
Only if the sun puts more heat into it in the first place
We are describing a phenomenon of a warmer blanket of air with CO2 as if the earth is suddenly producing energy. It cannot and does not.
Any extra heat in the CO2 layer is balanced by heat losses elsewhere, in the oceans, land or higher atmosphere to maintain the balance of heat in v out.
Our surface air layer may heat up but this is not the surface of the earth.
“surface warming is very sensitive to relatively small changes in ocean warming.”
This statement is very, very wrong.
A very wrong interpretation of energy transfers.
Immediately obvious.
The surface air temperature, lets call it the adjacent air surface temp for the first 6 feet [ Anything you like really as long as it is air and in proximity and a reasonable depth].
The SAT can vary between 20 degrees over the course of 24 hours.
The Ocean by only a 6th of that and that only in its very surface layer
It is impossible for something that is changing 6 times more slowly to ever put energy into into the faster changing entity when warming up or to reduce its rate of cooling when both are cooling down.
WTF angech… drunk blogging again?
I’m just wondering why you post this dreck on a blog full of people who actually know physics and thermodynamics.
Pure unadulterated hogwash. If the Earth is warming or cooling, it’s not in thermal energy balance. Period.
That’s definitional.
Once again, thermodynamics is a mathematical science. The underlying equations rule and what they say is, for the Earth to warm, the amount of heat energy absorbed must exceed the amount radiated. Otherwise the temperature is exactly constant.
No amount of verbal argument, interpretive dance, or other creative artistic expression will alter that underlying reality.
Um no. Not correct even marginally correct. Totally wrong pseudoscience crap, and completely unrelated to the 2LOT.
The 2LOT states that the amount of entropy in the a closed system (the Earth is an open system, so it doesn’t even apply) is either constant or increases with time.
There is absolutely nothing in the 2LOT, or corollary of this law, that states “the amount of heat going into and out of the earth are the same”.
No, it’s not. Your understanding of the physics is thoroughly deficient.
Where did you get this crap from? If it’s from a book, use it for kindling.
Thanks Carrick .I need straightening out at times.
That’s true, but there is at least some evidence that the rate of warming is enough to restore balance to the imbalances imposed by greenhouse gasses. There is much uncertainty, but here is the net radiance ( LW & SW ) from the CERES data. There’s not much correlation in months or even years, but the mean net radiance is close to zero ( again, with large uncertainty,maybe more than any signals ), but it’s possible that the warming of the atmosphere is quick enough to restore balance and future declines in the rates of forcing will lead to future declines in the rates of warming, which are already less than the low end IPCC predictions.
“I need straightening out at times.”
angech,
I wouldn’t take any Blackboard commenter’s declarations in any climate related matters as authoritative, no matter what pedestal they imagine they’re on.
None of them have awarded themselves, nor been given Nobel Prizes, so they can’t be that superior.
Andrew
Turbulent Eddy:
Hopefully you at least agree that you need the increase the amount of internal energy in a real system, for that system to warm.
Once you’ve restored radiative balance, and $latex E_{in} = E_{out}$, the system at equilibrium and it’ll no longer warm or cool.
That is true regardless of whether it is a change in solar forcing, or a change in the ability of the atmosphere to trap long-wave radiation.
angech’s physics had the system incapable of ever being out of radiative balance.
For the real Earth climate system, the thermal relaxation constant for the atmosphere by itself is short… probably on the order of months rather than years (this has to do with the mixing rate of atmospheric circulation).
But the climate is a coupled system between atmosphere and ocean. The longest time constant for the ocean is on the order of a few millennia.
Andrew_KY:
We aren’t talking about anything mysterious here. We’re discussing basic thermodynamics, and this is physics. Since Newton’s time, it’s been generally understood that the same physics that applies to an Apple applies to a celestial body, including our Earth.
And regardless of how much butt-hurt it gives troglodytes like Andrew_KY, the truth is that a Ph.D physicist like myself with nearly 30-years of experience that includes the application of the laws of thermodynamics, is going to know vastly more than any self-taught layman.
In particular, a physicist or mechanical engineer with four years of training is going to know what the 2LOT actually states, and he is going to know that a form of the 2LOT is not angech’s completely non-true statement that:
That’s just pseudo-science dreck. Absolutely untrue.
.
Right.
.
Authority is not science.
.
Don’t accept: “Trust me, I’m right on this”
.
Do investigate for yourself: “This is so, here’s why”
.
The here’s why of radiative forcing is:
1. that increased ghgs do increase the absorption/emission – these things are reproduce-able by testing.
.
2.The effect of this in the atmosphere is to reduce the outgoing radiance. This is not strictly reproduce-able but is very calculable if you accept the radiation codes based on 1.
.
Applying a radiative code I was able to retrace the steps of the simplified expression by Myhre. There is uncertainty, natural variability, and some negative feedbacks, but the most likely outcome to balance the imbalance is a warming of the atmosphere.
.
The objections I have to the popular narrative about climate change is not that warming is not likely – warming appears likely. The objections I have are that:
The extent of warming is less than the low end IPCC projections from AR4.
Temperature change is not climate change.
Presumed harms from temperature change are exaggerated.
Potential benefits from temperature change are ignored.
Rates of total RF increase and RF increase from CO2 are already decelerating.
RF is an indirect function of population as are numerous other issues – therefore reducing population ( which is already baked in the cake ) is more logical than changing energy sources.
.
I believe all of these points are valid, but arguing, incorrectly, that CO2 is not radiatively active or the CO2 cant cause warming, is a distraction from these other faults of CO2 activism.
Turbulent Eddie:
Well, yes. One should never accept appeal to authority, regardless of who it is. (Unless, for example, your life depends on accepting there isn’t time for a detailed discussion. ;-)).
However, it’s sensible to listen to people when they tell you things like “what you described isn’t remotely close to the actual second law of thermodynamics”. When they tell you what the actual formulation is, they’ve also provided testable information that you can go back and verify.
“Trust, but verify” is a good operational principle here.
Carrick wrote: “For the real Earth climate system, the thermal relaxation constant for the atmosphere by itself is short… probably on the order of months rather than years (this has to do with the mixing rate of atmospheric circulation).”
Or the thermal relaxation time could be shorter. For example, SOD has plots of CERES outgoing OLR vs surface temperature at various lags here:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2015/06/09/clouds-water-vapor-part-nine-data-i-ts-vs-olr/
The correlation is best for 0-2 weeks, and begins to decrease at four weeks. After evaporating, the average water molecule remains in the atmosphere for 9 days. In the center of continents (where local heat capacity is low), summer temperature peaks about one month after the vernal equinox. At his blog, Roy Spencer says that tropospheric temperature peaks a month or two after SSTs during El Nino.
As best I can tell, lags become important when heating the ocean. A -1 W/m2 imbalance is capable of cooling a 50 m mixed layer at an INITIAL rate of 0.2 K/y (assuming no energy escapes to the deeper ocean). If ECS were 3.7 K/doubling (1 K/(W/m2)), it would take roughly 16 months at that initial rate to reach the new equilibrium temperature (-0.27 K). After 8 months, half the radiative imbalance would have been cancelled by cooling and the decreasing exponential nature of the approach to equilibrium would be apparent. Publications and Paul_K’s analysis on Pinatubo show that heat transfer below the mixed layer is important on this time scale, which will slow down the approach to equilibrium even more. Those who think the best estimate for ECS is about 1/2 (ie me) of 3.7 W/m2/doubling can divide this response times by a factor of about 2.
The ultimate example of lagged response to forcing is the Arctic Ocean, where the minimum and maximum in sea ice is 90 degrees out of phase with solar irradiation. The energy needed to melt/freeze sea ice is 40 times bigger than the energy needed to change sea water by 1 K.
Frank, I was referring to the relaxation constant for the average temperature for the atmosphere. That’s governed by how long it takes heat energy to redistribute throughout the system.
Since we can see lag times as long as 6-months for the ENSO with significant correlation values, that’s why I said months, not weeks (or years).
If you use a two component lump-sum model for the ocean-atmosphere climate—working entirely from memory here— something around two months lag gives the best fit to the short period component. Obviously for a zonally banded model, you’ll need more time constants to describe slower processes responsible for transporting heat-energy about the atmosphere & ocean.
Now maybe if you had an atmospheric model with no coupled ocean (e.g., Mars atmosphere), the time constants would be much shorter. That wouldn’t surprise me, but it’s very hard to discuss what an uncoupled atmosphere is doing in the context of modeling a planet with a tightly coupled atmosphere and ocean.
@ Turbulent Eddie (Comment #143596)
You said:
“The objections I have to the popular narrative about climate change is not that warming is not likely – warming appears likely. The objections I have are that:
The extent of warming is less than the low end IPCC projections from AR4.
Temperature change is not climate change.
Presumed harms from temperature change are exaggerated.
Potential benefits from temperature change are ignored.
Rates of total RF increase and RF increase from CO2 are already decelerating.
RF is an indirect function of population as are numerous other issues – therefore reducing population ( which is already baked in the cake ) is more logical than changing energy sources.
I believe all of these points are valid, but arguing, incorrectly, that CO2 is not radiatively active or the CO2 cant cause warming, is a distraction from these other faults of CO2 activism.”
Excellent and reasonable summary. Thanks.
Brandon
‘How can I get my site included in the Wayback Machine?
Much of our archived web data comes from our own crawls or from Alexa Internet’s crawls. Neither organization has a “crawl my site now!” submission process. Internet Archive’s crawls tend to find sites that are well linked from other sites. The best way to ensure that we find your web site is to make sure it is included in online directories and that similar/related sites link to you.
Alexa Internet uses its own methods to discover sites to crawl. It may be helpful to install the free Alexa toolbar and visit the site you want crawled to make sure they know about it.”
is this a clue Nick should use?
“therefore reducing population ( which is already baked in the cake ) is more logical than changing energy sources.”
Wow, if it is hard to create agreed policy for changing energy sources, good luck on getting agreements on population growth. I would also note that places doing the most emitting of CO2 are also where population growth is relatively slow.
Brandon, I agree with you on use of :
Lucia, careful how you use parentheses around Brandon.
Steve recommend ATTP for comments on the GWPF report on time series analysis of temperature records. I learned a little. Then I noticed that the HadCRU4, CET, and RSS records cover periods when unforced variability dominates forced warming. According to the IPCC, forced warming can’t be detected until the second half of the 20th century. So, if you analyze the full record, 2/3 of HadCRU4 and 6/7 of CET should contain little forced trend. Which leaves the issue of how to break these records up into segments.
Due to lower heat capacity(?), the RSS record contains more unforced variability than surface records, especially a 1 degC spike of unforced variability (the 97-8 El Nino).
I was disgusted to learn that the author Mills had published a time series analysis of both temperature and forcing and obtained a climate sensitivity (presumably a TCR) of 2+/-1 degC.
Carrick: I can see it taking six months or longer for ocean currents to move heat from an El Nino to higher latitudes before it escapes into the atmosphere and then to space. However, once that heat is in the air, the trade winds rapidly move heat towards the ITCZ and then to the upper atmosphere where it can escape to space. I suspect this happens within weeks: 1) The nine day residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere. 2) The speed of trade winds coupled to the Hadley circulation. 3) The plots I mentioned at SOD. On the graph you linked, the lag is a month or less near the equator and longer at 20 degN/S. This is somewhat consist with relaxation by wind/air and by currents/ocean.
This creates a dilemma if one believes that the “mixed layer” and the atmosphere equilibrate within weeks. Is the heat being transported poleward after an El Nino below the mixed layer?
“but arguing, incorrectly, that CO2 is not radiatively active or the CO2 cant cause warming is a distraction”
Sigh. If the squiggly line going “up” is “warming.” Then the squiggly line going “down” is “cooling”. This is in every Climate Sciencey Graph.
We need an explanation of where C02 is hiding when the line goes “down.”
Maybe someone with a fancy degree can explain it.
Andrew
Carrick (Comment #143595)
–
“the truth is that a Ph.D physicist like myself with nearly 30-years of experience that includes the application of the laws of thermodynamics, is going to know vastly more than any self-taught layman.”
Well you would think that, wouldn’t you.
Cannot have all that training going to waste.
-So
“We aren’t talking about anything mysterious here. We’re discussing basic thermodynamics, and this is physics. Since Newton’s time, it’s been generally understood that the same physics that applies to an Apple applies to a celestial body, including our Earth.”
Is this statement really correct, Einstein?
self evidently not.
–
“In particular, a physicist or mechanical engineer with four years of training is going to know what the 2LOT actually states”
–
Can you reconcile your statement with
” There have been nearly as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it.
— Philosopher / Physicist P.W. Bridgman, (1941)”
Thought not.
–
“, thermodynamics is a mathematical science. The underlying equations rule and what they say is, for the Earth to warm, the amount of heat energy absorbed must exceed the amount radiated. Otherwise the temperature is exactly constant.”
–
This from nearly 30 years?
I would, and most scientists and laymen would say that for the earth to warm it needs to have an increase in its heat source.
The energy absorbed would then exceed the energy previously absorbed.
NB. the amount of heat energy being irradiated as well goes up.
In fact it equals what is coming in but the earth itself is hotter.
To be perfectly clear, Your comment violates all 4 rules of Thermodynamics.
If an object can absorb energy and radiate less, by your definition it would eventually become warmer than the object heating it [impossible] and would be made up of some incredible material [CO2 perhaps] that was only hot inside itself.
–
You make some salient points but if you wish to dismiss ideas as dreck by appeal to Authority and you cannot get your authority right you have lost on two fronts.
I would appreciate a recognition on your part of the two scientific errors above.
The first one on the “the same physics that applies to an Apple applies to a celestial body,” is just a quibble” to show you that being snarky about definitions is not playing the game.
how does one use the 2nd law in systems that don’t measure up? There’s really only one answer: you apply the essential spirit of the 2nd law, even in the case of a system that is neither in equilibrium, nor isolated.
OK.
The second is your misrepresentation of how a body heats up and loses heat.
We can go on to discuss why my comments were dreck.
I put in caveats, but obviously not enough for nit picking.
–
I will address some of your other comments, layman style, but with real physics, when I have time.
angech, I wish you would learn to use block quotes. It isn’t that hard, and would make your comments actually readable.
<blockquote> text here </blockquote>
Secondly many of your so-called responses are so short it’s hard to decipher what you measn.
I assume you’re being snarky about my experience level :
Well yes. After one semester of thermodynamics you’d know it too, assuming you can handle the math.
What I said was:
This actually follows from the heat equation for the mean value of the temperature in a body when Q = 0.
Onto your claims. You argued:
is a valid formulation of the 2LOT, I’m going to ask you for a reference.
The most general form is the one I gave. All forms apply to an isolate (“closed”) system, not just one.
The Earth is not a closed system, therefore the 2LOT cannot apply. Regardless of formulation.
Laypeople perhaps, competent scientists, not very much. I understand perfectly well how you can cause a body to warm without requiring an change in amount of heat energy available to the system.
I use this quite frequently on a winter’s day, when I put my coat on to stay warm.
Yes. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes the amount of heat energy that can be stored in the atmosphere to increase.
NB. the amount of heat energy being irradiated as well goes up.
Yes. As the body warms up the amount of heat energy being irradiated increases too.
If you made a step-function increase in CO2, once the system reached its new equilibrium, the amount of heat energy emitted will equal the amount being absorbed.
In the mean time, the body will have heated up in response to the increase in CO2 and the corresponding increase in the capacity of the system to store heat energy.
It absolutely does not.
I absolutely reserve the right to dismiss dreck as dreck. We have to be able to be honest if we are to communicate. This is not one of those places where I am willing to say “Billy that’s a great answer. Does anybody have an even better one?”
Secondly, I in fact gave you an explanation why you were wrong. In deed, I gave it in enough detail that you seem to think you are refuting it.
My comments were not even remotely appeal to authority.
I did point out to Andrew_KY the fact that people with training are going to be more knowledgable than people without. This is why we get training to do science. It’s why the elite are the ones who make actual contributions to science, not guys sitting on their couch watching reruns of The Apprentice or infomercials.
Apparently this causes you butt hurt, but training and practice does make people better at something than people who neither have trained let alone practiced.
“Essential spirt”??? LOL. That’s a new one. Write down the math for that please. 🙄
It’s easy enough starting from actual formulations of thermodynamics rather than your made up ones, to show that what I said is true.
Well, good luck with that.
I don’t think you are reality checking very well if you actually think a guy who knows words but not equations is going to have the same intimate understanding of physics (which is spoken in the language of math) as people who do understand the math.
But that’s just me.
Hi Frank: Regarding your comments, it’s hard to separate the mixed layer of the ocean from a fictitious “atmospheric not-coupled to the ocean”, but I do think there’s a way forward on this without getting bogged down in what is meant in these difficult to disentangle semantics.
Hopefully we both agree that the main mechanism for the horizontal redistribution of heat energy in the atmosphere comes from advection. Just as I would any other problem, what I look at is the rate at which heat energy can get transported by this mechanism.
The way I would argue it is to say the mixing time is a multiple of the time (say 3x) required for one complete cycle of the system. For the Earth’s climate this is the amount of time it takes a parcel of air to travel around the world and come back to the same spot.
The Earth’s radius is about 6.4 Mm so the mean distance around a zone is about 24 Mm ($latex D_{mean} = 4 R$). We also know that the average speed of a weather front is about 11 m/s (25 mph).
So if I say: $latex \Delta T = 4 R/(v_{advect}) \times 3$ and put in the numbers, I get right at 80 days for the mixing time (or a mean of about about 27 days for one cycle).
In order for it to be 14 days, that would require $latex v_{advect} \approx 62$m/s.
Even if we assumed that the atmosphere were fully mixed with a single cycle (improbable), that still requires $latex v_{advect} \approx 20$m/s, which is too fast for the surface of the Earth.
I would speculate that if the Earth’s atmospheric thermal relaxation time for the lower troposphere were on the order of two weeks, we wouldn’t have weather such as we actually experience.
Here’s a classic: Time magazine just released a list of the 100 most read female authors on college classes. 97th on the list was Evelyn Waugh, author of Brideshead Revisited among others. Small problem. The full name of the author is Arthur Evelyn Waugh and he’s a man.
They’ve since corrected it, but it doesn’t say much for Time’s fact checking, which doesn’t surprise me.
http://observer.com/2016/02/time-magazine-put-evelyn-waugh-on-a-list-of-female-authors/
DeWitt –
That is just too funny.
At least George Eliot is on the list. George Sand isn’t, nor is Isak Dinesen. One is left wondering whether the names weren’t identified as female authors, or whether they’re legitimately off the top-100 list according to Time’s metric.
“I use this quite frequently on a winter’s day, when I put my coat on to stay warm.”
Carrick,
So to take your analogy further, adding 0.04% (more or less) of coat in winter absolutely makes you warmer.
I doubt the climate works as simply as that. Winter, in relation to your body heat doesn’t work that simply either. Your coat might keep you warm during the day but if it gets really cold at night…
Just look at the squiggly lines.
Andrew
By that squiggly-line logic, Andrew, tides don’t exist.
“By that logic, Andrew, tides don’t exist.”
I’m not sure what you mean.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
We can compute the Earth’s temperature without the greenhouse effect. That Earth looks pretty similar to the one argued by angech. With no greenhouse gas effect, the Earth has a mean temperature around -14°C. The Earth is about 33°C warmer than that, primarily due to the GHG effect.
Just like with the coat impeding the loss of heat energy from your body, adding CO2 to the atmosphere reduces the rate of heat energy loss from the surface of the Earth.
As long as the surface of the Earth is warmer than deep space (which is about -270°C), there will be a net emission of heat energy due to infrared radiation from the Earth. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere impedes the loss of infrared, even at night, and tends to warm the surface.
Interestingly, one of places where you see a larger effect from CO2 is on clear winter nights. This is part of the land amplification effect. It shows up as a decrease in the range of maximum to minimum temperature.
“Adding CO2 to the atmosphere impedes the loss of infrared, even at night.”
Carrick,
I’ll take your word for it, for arguments sake.
But it still generally gets colder at night. So there’s no warming effect of C02, since there’s no warming at all as the temperature goes down.
Unless your argument is that “cooling” means “not as much warming.”
Even in that case, C02 isn’t being as effective as it was, and the line squiggles down.
Still waiting for an explanation of why that could be if C02 always causes warming.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
The effect of tides on ocean surfaces sits on top of ocean waves and sea surges. It’s a bunch of squiggly line that goes up and down.
Still nobody talks as if the tidal effect in’t real.
Climate is a bit like tides influence on the ocean surface: The Earth’s climate is influenced by a myriad of cycles: Diurnal cycle, annual cycle, ocean-atmospheric oscillations that go out to at least 60-year periods.
It’s not simple to separate out the influence of climate change from the other natural ones, simply because natural variation is so large. But that doesn’t mean the climate isn’t warming.
Andrew_KY:
You’re being too literal. Nobody with any sense says “always warm”.
The point is it is warmer now than it would have been without the increase in CO2.
If we compare an Arctic night in 2015 to an Arctic night in e.g., 1900, the nights are warmer than they were then.
Given the same conditions, it’s warmed on average relative to 115 years before.
“It’s not simple to separate out the influence of climate change from the other natural ones, simply because natural variation is so large”
I’m of similar opinion, after all that.
Andrew
“Nobody with any sense says “always warmâ€.
Lots of people imply that it does, if they don’t explicitly claim it does. In fact, I’m not so sure mainstream climate science isn’t based on deliberately leaving the issue obscure.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
I think you’ll find a lot of people here who agree with that sentiment on various issues.
Carrick,
Your patience is saint-like this morning.
“The point is it is warmer now than it would have been without the increase in CO2.”
And the temperature it would have been is ____.
Andrew
Just a heads up. I’ve been having difficulty accessing this site the last couple days, so if I haven’t responded to a question, it’s not that I’m ignoring you. You can always ask me at my site where I’ll respond quicker.
Re: Carrick (Comment #143617)
The tides are a good analogy in this discussion. The tides are fairly regular and are, to first order, additive with ocean waves and sea surges. However, people like to forget that all these phenomena are, strictly speaking, waves, and hence do actually interact.
Tidal motions also span timescales from minutes to decades (or longer), thus overlapping with phenomena from storm surges all the way to sea level change and beyond. This makes it very interesting and non-trivial to tease apart “cyclical” tidal variations from almost anything else.
I’m still having connection problems so this is from my phone, but I wanted to point out a nit given the strength of Carrick’s language. It is not true, much less definitional, that the radiative heat budget of a system must be positive to cause warming, negative to cause cooling or zero to cause no change in temperature.
The point he was trying to make is valid, but he ignores the conversion of energy types. There are a ton of examples of this happening, and while they are small as far as the Earth goes, they are not irrelevant. For instance, if some internal source of heat converts matter into heat energy, one could theoretically have the radiated/absorbed heat energy be in balance even as the the system warmed.
More dreck pseudo science.
Point out the errors please.
Happy to learn.
“With no greenhouse gas effect, the Earth has a mean temperature around -14°C*.
The Earth is about 33°C warmer than that, primarily due to the GHG effect.”
Confusing the temperature of the earth with the temperature of the atmosphere of the earth at surface level, again.
A claim that the average temperature of the atmosphere at surface level [not the earth’s temperature, is 19 C?
Nobody really knows but some estimates have been made. I always thought it was close to 15 C but am happy to be corrected twice.
–
FWIW
“Black-body temperature” (K) Moon 270.4 K Earth 254.0 K * agrees with Carrick’s figure for the earth’s real temperature.
Taken from Moon fact sheet NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, reliable enough?
So Carrick is quoting the true temperature of the earth as a semi “blackbody” with the albedo effect of the land sea, ice and clouds.
Guess what.
From space that is exactly what the temperature of the earth is and appears to be now, yesterday and tomorrow.
The earth is 254K.
“The Earth is about 33°C warmer than that, primarily due to the GHG effect.”
No, as Einstein would say, think harder. The atmosphere of the earth at surface level is 33 degrees warmer due to GHG , 95% due to water vapor.
The output of energy to space from this blanket of air combined with all the infrared and other radiation going out that is not absorbed still only adds up to 254.0 K outgoing.
The true temperature of the earth.
The moon is slightly hotter on average than the earth, by 16.4 degrees, a fact I was never aware of until now. And that is without an atmosphere [*].
By measurement from space of the outgoing radiation.
If you bothered to check the temperature of the moon atmosphere at surface level [2 meters] I think you would find it to be incredibly cold. But you would not call that the temperature of the moon, would you?
Carrick (Comment #143608)
“I assume you’re being snarky about my experience level ”
No, I believe your experience level.
–
” thermodynamics is a mathematical science. The underlying equations rule and what they say is, for the Earth to warm, the amount of heat energy absorbed must exceed the amount radiated. Otherwise the temperature is exactly constant.
This actually follows from the heat equation for the mean value of the temperature in a body when Q = 0.”
–
Wrong
–
The temperature is not the issue. The amount of heat energy absorbed cannot exceed the amount of heat radiated.
It must equal it.
The only way a non heat producing body can get hotter or colder is for more or less energy to be put into it.
When this happens a body with more energy put into it will put out exactly the amount of energy put into it [and be at a higher temperature] and if less energy is put in it puts out exactly that same energy that is now being put into it [and is at a lower temperature].
In both cases the energy out will always equal the energy in.
Entropy.
If a body could “absorb” more energy than it puts out it would be able to get hotter and hotter till it is much hotter than the source of the energy.
“thermodynamics is a mathematical science”
–
We are not talking about the absorbing man here. We are talking about real science.
Angech,
Wow, you have a lot of misunderstandings. Very sad. But unlike Carrick, I am aware that you have many times made it clear you are immune to learning, so I am no longer inclined to try to help you. Carrick is plenty smart enough to reach the same conclusion and simply ignore your nonsense.
Brandon, I’m sure there are many nits one could pick.
For example, I believe I used closed system (which means no mass is exchanged) in a couple of cases where I meant isolated system (which means no mass, energy is exchanged and work cannot be done on the system by its surroundings). I would also say a “classical system” to avoid discussing quantum mechanical effects.
Since we had been specially discussing the Earth, I wasn’t careful to say that we were talking about a system where no mass was being exchanged and I omitted any discussion about external work being done on the system.
If you allow work to be done on the system, it’s pretty easy to come up with examples:
For example you can increase or decrease the temperature of a parcel of gas without any net heat energy being exchanged by simply changing its volume.
The fundamental governing principle is the first law of thermodynamics, which is basically the conservation of energy written in thermodynamic terms.
The way I like to write it, for a closed system, the first law looks like
$latex {\partial U\over \partial t} = {\partial W\over \partial t} + {\partial Q\over \partial t} $
You have to have net energy being exchanged from the environment into the system for the internal energy of the system to increase.
You have to specify the system, including its equation of state, to go much further, but pretty generally
$latex {\partial U\over \partial t} > 0 \Longrightarrow {\partial T\over \partial t} > 0$
as long as we understand we are describing the total energy and mean temperature of a closed system.
All of that said, can you give an example where the internal energy is increasing but the mean temperature is decreasing, for a closed system?
SteveF, to be honest, the main reason I responded to angech’s nonsense is because of his invocation of the 2LOT to explain of why the net heat energy exchanged is always zero. Later he boisterously claims there are four laws of thermodynamics that would be violated.
I simply didn’t want to allow him to post his nonsense on this blog unchallenged.
Since we seem to be have gotten into D..g C….n territory at this point, I am going to give this a rest.
angech,
Carrick is, you’re not. No law of thermodynamics requires that in an open system that the energy out instantaneously and always equals the energy in. If you can find a reference that says that, I’m sure we’d like to see it.
That could only happen if the heat capacity of the system is zero. That is not the case with any real object.
Carrick,
Thank you. Angech is, indeed, making wildly wrong claims about thermo.
Angech
The different “formulations” are different ways of saying the same thing. The “arguments” (if you can call it that) about the “right way to describe it” are between the “math types” who want to argue about what’s the “axiom” vs. “correlaries”.
I know some of these ‘mathy types’ are physicists. But the arguments (if one can even call them that) really are sort of in the nature of “Is it best to describe it based on what happens to entropy?”, “Is it best to describe it in terms of heat flow?” or even “Do we literally needs to make the statement sound like an axiom in mathematics?”
There is no disagreement on what 2LOT requires. In the end “different formulations” means “different people all of whom agree on what the 2LOT means used different words and situations to describe it.”
angech,
I suggest you wander over to Science of Doom and read some articles on heat transfer there. One place to start is here: http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/09/12/heat-transfer-basics-part-zero/
You’re beginning to remind me of a poster on SoD with the screen name Bryan. He is now banned there because it became apparent he was a troll and not at all interested in actually learning something.
The amount of heat energy absorbed cannot exceed the amount of heat radiated. It must equal it.
.
Do you own a microwave oven?
.
A room temperature item starts out in equilibrium with room temperature surroundings, but when it absorbs microwaves that it wasn’t receiving before you punched the button ( radiative forcing ), it heats up.
.
Now, eventually, as it heats up, it would emit more to balance the additional radiant energy from the microwaves.
.
But your statement above is actually the nub of the increased greenhouse gas theory – incoming and outgoing will balance from an increased temperature.
DeWitt,
“That could only happen if the heat capacity of the system is zero. That is not the case with any real object.”
.
Why do you insist on using these complicated concepts? 😉
Lucia,
“In the end “different formulations†means “different people all of whom agree on what the 2LOT means used different words and situations to describe it.â€
.
For sure. But if you never had a clue what the 2LOT means, then the formulations must all seem mysterious and conceptually different. The fault is in the lack of conceptual understanding. Like the connection between statistical mechanics and thermo… people either understand the basic concept for the connection or they don’t, and there isn’t a lot of middle ground. The endless wasted verbiage on blog threads is because people are too often commenting on things that they just don’t understand, but believe in their heart of hearts they do. I don’t doubt many of these folks, on all sides, are good people and might be fine company to drink a beer with (or glass of red wine), or play a round of golf. They just don’t know much science, and seem disinterested in learning.
.
Like you, my wife sometimes tutors students (high school and college; in her case, chemistry). Most all her students arrive ‘in trouble’ because they don’t understand the required basic concepts, without which no amount of practice or study will help; tests can always be, and often are, set up so that cook-book methods fail. When a student finally ‘gets it’, they smack their forehead and say, “Oh, crap, that’s really pretty simple! I don’t know how I didn’t see that.” The import word here is ‘see’. Those who never ‘get it’ remain lost; they may pass, but they will never do well. And these are kids who WANT to learn.
.
I once thought a good blog comment could help someone understand concepts obviously lost on them. I was wrong; seems to me most participants are either incapable of understanding things they are mistaken about, or completely disinclined to learn. The handful of participants who ARE willing to learn something new usually already know a whole lot of science, engineering, or both. I don’t think that is a coincidence.
TE,
But it doesn’t do it instantly. Even the surface of the moon doesn’t instantly decrease to constant temperature when the sun goes below the horizon. Much less does the Earth with its orders of magnitude higher surface heat capacity.
If the surface of the Earth were in instantaneous equilibrium with solar radiation at all times and in all places, then in clear sky conditions, the point directly under the sun at local noon would have a temperature of greater than 90°C and everywhere else on the planet and at every other local time would be cooler than that. But it doesn’t and there is no requirement of physical law that demands that it does, in spite of angech’s continued assertions with no proof whatsoever.
In fact, there is no requirement of steady state at all. In a system like the Earth, Sun and deep space, true steady state, even averaged over long periods, will probably never happen.
Carrick, I agree, and I wouldn’t have said anything if not for the strength of your language. It’s hard for me to see things described as definitional when they’re not actually true.
As for your question, I can easily come up with theoretical examples. I’m not sure of any actual examples off the top of my head though. One thing I’d look for is something where the pressure of the closed system is decreasing at a rate which causes it to cool more than whatever energy is being put into it would cause it to warm. That’s not the only possible scenario, but it’s the one which seems most obvious.
Also, I’m pretty sure one could find examples of it on a cosmological level. Given the universe is expanding, temperatures will shrink over time (all else remaining constant). Find a closed system somewhere which isn’t receiving much radiative energy, and it may meet your criteria.
Brandon,
Doesn’t meet Carrick’s condition. The internal energy is constant, not increasing, so of course temperature goes down when it expands.
What is with DeWitt Payne constantly responding to comments I write with obviously false claims? It’s kind of disturbing. I’m not sure I could be that consistently wrong if I tried, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do it in public.
What is with Brandon Shollenberger’s apparently total lack of reading comprehension?
Carrick:
Is the internal energy of the Universe increasing? No, it’s not. It doesn’t meet the condition Carrick stated of a closed system with increasing internal energy and falling temperature.
“What is with DeWitt Payne constantly responding to comments I write with obviously false claims?”
He’s part of the Blackboard Warmer Good Ol Boyz Club.
He’ll say anything to retain his membership.
Andrew
Brandon,
To put it another way: Maybe you meant something else by what you wrote. But we can’t read your mind. We can only read the words you post.
Thanks Andrew_KY. That’s high praise coming from you.
Yet more proof that irony always increases.
lucia (Comment #143633)
Angech is, indeed, making wildly wrong claims about thermo.
sorry, accept SteveF’s comments, yours, and most of Carrick’s
But,
“For example you can increase or decrease the temperature of a parcel of gas without any net heat energy being exchanged by simply changing its volume.”
If you change it’s volume you are not describing the same parcel, are you? Like talking about eating a raw egg with a fork compared to a cooked egg.
Also, quibble, the entropy increases [net heat energy loss] because mechanical work has had to be done in the system to change the volume and this involves friction and thus would have had a minute dissipation of heat in the system to which the gas would not be immune, i.e a little nitpick of heat energy has been lost in the gas parcel.
–
Do we have to double the size of the earth or shrink it by a half to discuss the thermodynamics of the earth
Wild imaginings indeed.
We are talking about heat input from the sun.
I get things wrong.
I get blinkers on.
But I am empirically sure that any energy into a a cold object from a constant source involves an equilibrium whereby the colder object puts out the same amount of energy as comes in.
To do this it is in a higher energy state.
It puts out a lot more lower energy particles [Infrared] than the number of higher energy particles coming in because it is at a lower energy level than the source.
We are in equilibrium [*] apart from all the caveats, solar distance, solar output, volcanoes, clouds and quibbles.
Increasing the CO2 in the air makes no difference to the amount of energy coming in or out.
How can it? It does not produce heat through an engine.
It does change the thermal qualities of the atmosphere and the atmosphere is warmer.
This is not the temperature of the earth, just the surface layer.
angech,
The answer is, yes, a parcel of air can change volume and still be the exact same parcel. Think of what happens if you enclose air in a balloon and them move it to a location with different pressure. It’s the same parcel of air (enclosed in a balloon) and it’s change volume.
Not sure how the egg analogy tells us anything.
Not sure what experiments you’ve observed. If one object is “colder” than the other merely “cold”, thermo-equilibrium will not exist over all between them. You must be using “equilibrium” in some other sense.
Perhaps you mean a steady state can exist where a “colder” object happens to be emitting the same amount of energy as it recieves? Sure.
I think you are just writing very confused things at this point.
Re: angech (Comment #143647)
It can, because the amount of energy going out can be temporarily different, relative to the amount coming in, until the system reaches (or approaches, anyway) a new equilibrium.
Also, the total amount coming in could conceivably change if, for example, cloud albedo were to change as a result of increasing CO2.
If the surface layer gets warmer, then so would the oceans, which will absorb more heat to move toward equilibrium with the surface layer. And if any or all of the above get warmer, then presumably even the solid earth will get warmer. So given almost any definition of “the temperature of the earth,” it could very well change.
Lucia, thanks
I was describing how a parcel of air gets hotter or colder in response to radiation assuming we had defined its position, composition, pressure and temperature.
A bit like your car problem,” being very specific makes the [discussion] longer”.
If you change any of these you have a different problem to discuss.
oliver (Comment #143649)
I said ” Increasing the CO2 in the air makes no difference to the amount of energy coming in or out.”
You replied “It can”
I fail to see how CO2 can make the sun produce more or less heat, agreed?
I also fail to see how the CO2 can reduce the amount of energy coming out.
Heat flows from hot to cold.
The CO2 is not producing heat.
It has to lose heat.
The hotter it is the more heat it has to lose.
Obviously it is in a higher energy state to emit the heat.
This does not make it permanently hotter.
The confusion lies in the concept that CO2, oceans and solid earth are batteries that somehow can magically store up heat energy.
They cannot.
There is only so much heat in and one of those benighted laws says it must flow out again in an equivalent amount.
Otherwise given enough time the earth would be able to become as hot as the sun from all that stored heat.
There’s a reason I put little significance in the fact I receive criticisms on a regular basis. Look at the sort of routine ones I get, such as this from DeWitt Payne:
According to Payne, I’m a fool who doesn’t understand the universe as a whole is not a closed system with rising internal energy. Only, what I said was:
I referred to a trait our universe has, then I said to find a closed system somewhere which isn’t receiving much radiative energy. Now obviously, I would tell people to find a closed system m which isn’t receiving much radiative energy if I was referring to the universe as a whole since that would be silly. I wouldn’t say, “The universe is X, now go find some examples of the universe.”
Yes, remember, I specifically referred to finding examples which met Carfick’s criteria. I obviously wasn’t meaning to tell people to search for examples of the universe within the universe. I certainly wouldn’t tell them to look for examples of the universe receiving energy from outside of itself within the universe.
So how did Payne come up with this ridiculous interpretation? He just ignored the part where I referred to examples, plural, choosing not to quote it, and then he intentionally didn’t quote the part where I said to find those examples to see if they might have certain traits.
When you behave like that, it doesn’t matter whether someone is right or wrong. You can always find “errors” if you promote some delusional state where people supposedly said things nothing like what they actually said simply because you can intentionally ignore inconvenient bits.
When enough people do that to criticize you, you realize people’s impression of you often has nothing to do with what you actually say. That makes it a lot less meaningful when people refer to the volime of criticism you receive.
Is the consensus maintained with bad math?
Lucia, would you consider a thread reviewing the current post at Climate, Etc.?
https://judithcurry.com/2016/03/09/on-inappropriate-use-of-least-squares-regression/
Based on the numerous inappropriate, childish comments by the usual suspects, the article has struck a nerve.
“The CO2 is not producing heat.”
But Carrick wears a winter coat, so Global Warming is true!
I’ll bet he still comes inside when he gets cold despite the wondrous properties of his coat.
Andrew
The real problem with the cosmological example is its a case where the First Law of Thermodynamics is inapplicable. The energy of the Universe is not a conserved quantity and the First Law is a statement of energy conservation, so…
So we’er back to this:
Hopefully I didn’t need to add the caveat “to a system for which the laws of thermodynamics actually apply.”
😛
angech, correctly explain to us how a winter coat keeps you warmer than you would have been without the coat, and I’ll show you how to apply that argument mutatis mutandis to CO2 and the atmospheric GHG effect.
“a winter coat keeps you warmer than you would have been without the coat”
Carrick,
The “would have been” is a problem. It doesn’t have a number. “Would have been” is an unknown that will never be known. It’s very difficult to solve equations with “never will be knowns” in them, speaking of math.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
You can compute the skin temperature with and without the winter coat. So of course it does.
“You can compute the skin temperature with and without the winter coat. So of course it does.”
You can’t measure the skin temperature sans coat with the coat always on.
C02 is the ever-present coat.
Andrew
Don B, there’s not much to review as far as I can tell.
We all know that LSF isn’t robust against outliers. Typically, where there’s any question of the appropriateness of LSF, I compare LSF slope against median fit.
See e.g., MATLAB. (I removed the second reference, it was for something different.)
Andrew_KY:
You don’t need the coat off. You just need to switch coats (modulated signals are easier to measure than constant ones).
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is changing over time, so we do have a way to study the problem.
And of course, there are laboratory measurements and two other planets with very different atmospheric composition than the Earth nearby that are appropriate for comparison. Mars is especially interesting because there’s no coupled oceans (yet), and because its atmosphere is almost 100% CO2.
“You don’t need the coat off.”
To measure coatless, yes you do.
“The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is changing over time”
Analogously, this means you are always switching coats, implying that it’s not the coat that is determining how warmer and cooler you become.
“so we do have a way to study the problem.”
Yes, there surely is a problem.
Andrew
“Based on the numerous inappropriate, childish comments by the usual suspects, the article has struck a nerve.”
Warmers are an angry lot. No wonder they think their temperatures are going up. They think the whole world is angry.
Andrew
Andrew_KY, there is indeed a problem. You are so closed minded and willfully self-ignorant that communication with you is for all practical purposes impossible.
Everyone,
Yes, stupid mistake. Stars. Thermonuclear fusion. Mea culpa. Sackcloth, ashes and a few licks from a flail. See how perfect you are when you’re 72. At least I’m capable of admitting my mistakes.
Carrick, there are a lot of people who would take issue with your claim energy isn’t conserved in that case, though I personally think that’s just a semantic issue (there is no single, lrecise definition of “energy”). However you want to describe it though, it holds for general relativity as a whole. That requires a pretty big restriction to cut off. And really, you could create an almost identical situation by using a system whose expansion isn’t caused by the increase in size of the universe so the issue doesn’t change anything other than perhaps how easy it would be to create such a scenario.
Anyway, since you brought it up and I find the subject interesting, I should explain to everybody energy isn’t conserved (in the manner Carrick refers to)… basically ever in general relativity. While the expansion of the universe increases the amount of energy present (assuming you accept dark energy is real), red shifting of protons decreases the amount of energy.
That’s just one way of looking at it, however. Another way would be to include the energy of matter, gravity fields and things like that in your energy budget. If you do that, energy is conserved. The reason is both viewpoints reflect the exact same scientific understanding. The only difference is in how they express that understanding. The result is if you define “energy” one way, you will find “energy” is not conserved. If you define “energy” another way, you will find “energy” isconserved.
But under both viewpoints, you can do the exact same calculations. And both viewpoints agree there is energy-momentum conservation, whose equation is a fundamental (I can’t type it on my phone though).
So… yeah. Blanket statements about what is and is not true tend to be less than completely accurate. That’s why I point out nits when people use such strong language while making them.
Carrick (Comment #143608)
“I understand perfectly well how you can cause a body to warm without requiring any change in amount of heat energy available to the system.I use this quite frequently on a winter’s day, when I put my coat on to stay warm.”
Not a good example, see Andrew_KY;s comments
You, dear Carrick, are a hot object with an internal heat engine.
One that ramps up the colder it gets.
Put your coat on an metal statue [no heat source remember], no change to the amount of heat energy available to the system.
See what happens.
It stays cold.
No warming effect at all is there.
We are talking Thermodynamics about a cool body being affected by energy from a hot body.
At least I was.
Not the hot body.
Hopefully I didn’t need to add the caveat “to a system for which the laws of thermodynamics actually apply.â€
Carrick (Comment #143615)
” We can compute the Earth’s temperature without the greenhouse effect. That Earth looks pretty similar to the one argued by angech. With no greenhouse gas effect, the Earth has a mean temperature around -14°C.”
From space even with GHG effect the earth has a mean temperature around -14°C.
if one believes the Moon fact sheet
Black-body temperature (K) Moon 270.4 Earth 254.0
Dr. David R. Williams, dave.williams@nasa.gov
NSSDCA NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Help me out here Carrick, Steve F, DeWitt, Lucia, anyone.
Have a laugh at me for a change.
I’m dense.
This argument must be wrong.
Tell me where it is wrong.
Please.
My thanks to Carrick and DeWitt Payne for their thoughtful and learned comments in this thread and elsewhere on this blog, a pleasure to read.
Please come visit me when I’m in prison.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10/us-attorney-general-we-may-prosecute-climate-change-deniers/
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
I never knew you were involved with any corporations that could be targeted by a RICO prosecution. I’d visit you, but I’m jealous of the money you must be getting!
Huh. My last comment disappeared into the aether. I assume it tripped moderation (maybe because I forgot to include my normal URL?). Oh well. Hopefully this one goes through.
Now that I’m accessing this site through a genuine computer, not just a cell phone, I’ve been able to catch up on the comments. I’m pretty sure this is the only one I should have responded to earlier, from Steven Mosher:
The answer is… not really. I don’t see anything in there that would help someone figure out what I did and did not do. However, if someone realizes the answer given to that question is a lie, they might get some insight into the matter.
By the way, thanks for pointing this answer out to me. I knew the Wayback Machine people lied about what they do in terms of removing content from their archives, but I hadn’t realized they lie about this too. It’s kind of annoying.
Angech,
It doesn’t seem likely that you have not read this explanation before, so I worry that you are expecting this response and intend to try to rebut it. If this is the case, please disregard my post; this is an explanation which I don’t particularly care to argue. I offer it on the off chance that somehow you have not bumped into it.
To get this, one needs to first understand the concept of absorption spectrums. Different molecules behave differently when exposed to different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. It’s easiest to think of molecules as more or less transparent to frequencies that they don’t absorb.
If you accept that, then realize that the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation the Earth receives from the sun is distributed across a spectrum. Note that much/most of the incoming energy is at a shorter wavelength / higher frequency than CO2 likes to absorb. We can think of the atmosphere as more or less transparent to this incoming solar radiation, to simplify.
Realize further that when things get warmer, the amount of infrared radiation they emit increases. As it happens, some of this thermal radiation is at a frequency that CO2 absorbs.
So, the short of it is this. Solar energy comes in through the atmosphere and warms the surface. The surface emits thermal radiation which is of a longer wavelength than the incoming radiation. CO2 (and water in the atmosphere) absorb this and re-emit some of this energy, some of what they re-emit is downward, which increases the surface temperature.
here.
“some of what they re-emit is downward, which increases the surface temperature”
Mark Bofill,
Thank you for that concise explanation comment reply to angech. Easy to follow and understand.
But the surface temperature doesn’t always increase. So I think the word ‘sometimes’ needs to be added to the end of the above sentence, because the squiggly line goes down a significant part of the time.
Andrew
Brandon:
The issues with General Relativity and conservation of energy are a bit more severe than just being semantics.
The problem is this:
Physical Invariants in GR must remain invariant under conformal transformations. Only tensors can be invariantly transformed. Because energy density is a scalar quantity rather than a tensor, it does not remain invariant under conformal transformations.
Thus total internal energy (which is the integral of the energy density over a volume) is not an invariant in General Relativity.
There have been efforts to come up with a generalization (pseudo-tensors) that does conserve energy, but IMO these have had limited success.
If you can’t apply the classical First Law of Thermodynamics, clearly you aren’t talking about a problem that is amenable to classical thermodynamics.
Andrew,
Thanks for your response.
Absolutely, the surface temperature doesn’t always go up. The Earth is not a simple homogeneous object; different amounts of energy end up in different places. Even if we imagine a simple homogeneous object, say a chunk of pure iron in space, thermal radiation increases as a function of temperature to the fourth power (see also Stefan-Boltzmann Law); this is how objects get back to equilibrium. The warmer they get, the quicker energy pours back out.
So in no event do we expect the temperature to keep going up. Nobody expects it to, I think this includes most warmists. We add a certain amount of CO2 to the atmosphere per unit time. The exact amount of warming we can expect is subject to dispute depending on many factors, some of which I doubt anybody really understands, but all other things being equal adding a certain amount of CO2 to the atmosphere should cause a certain amount of warming and no more.
Mark,
I guess my issue is the verbal (relating to or in the form of words) language of climate science should be representative of the graphs presented.
They don’t go with each other currently. When people express ‘adding a certain amount of CO2 to the atmosphere should cause a certain amount of warming’ and then point to a squiggly line that goes up AND down, clearly the words have not adequately described what’s going on in the visual.
Andrew
Andrew,
I agree with you. Personally I think the concern some have about AGW is misguided and the attention and energy could be much better spent elsewhere.
Strangely enough, it’s the mechanics / details of how and why AGW becomes a social and political concern that interest me most regarding the topic, these days. While I’m not particularly worried about AGW, I am keenly interested in understanding how and why other people are worried, and how this worry plays out.
think about it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/11/friday-unfunny-how-one-obnoxious-fool-caused-dr-roy-spencer-to-throw-in-the-towel-on-his-blog/
Thanks Brandon
Steven,
Yeah I know I shouldn’t. Sometimes enthusiasm overcomes my better judgement when there’s an issue to discuss that’s simple enough to fall into my freshman level competency range. 🙂
Quick note while driving. I was wrong to call that answer a lie. It turns out they’re just distinguishing between web pagrs and web sites. They even talk about the Save Page Now feature in another answer.
I should have been more cautious in making an accusation like that, but I had a visceral reaction because I realized part of their legal defense in a case years back was that their service is fully automated. Combine that with the fact they openly acknowledged their service doesn’t allow people to actually remove content from their archive in the case yet continue to lie on their website and say you can, and… yeah.
They have lied and are continuing to lie, but I should be more careful about determining which things they say say are and are not lies.
Carrick, none of this really matters as, as I pointed out, one can construct the same example given any inflationary system as an increase in size of a closed system will cause it to cool. That cooling can be partially or even fully offset, in not completely overwhelmed, by energy coming in from outside the system, but it is still an entire class which meets your criteria. The cause of the change in size of the system just doesn’t alter the nature of the scenario’s construction.
That said, I don’t know why you feel the work on pseudotensors have had little success, but I suspect people here wouldn’t be interested in us hashing that out. I can’t help but point out one thing though. Your blanket statements are unquestionably false in certain spacetimes. If you have a Killing vector field, then you have continuous symmetry which.. you know what? I’m going to skip to the end. The point is the final step of the examination is to (somewhat indirectly) apply the, get this, Stokes’ theorem. Stokes!
I thought that was funny. It’s not really an important step to the demonstration (it basically takes a lack of divergence in a term and shows that means there is conservation), but that it was actually relevant here, on a thread I screwed with Nick Stokes in, made me laugh.
Joule-Thomson Effect
An isenthalpic expansion causes no temperature change in an ideal gas.
Um… yes. An ideal gas which, by definition has traits no real gas has, would not undergo some of the same processes as real gases go. I’m not sure that tells us anything useful though. I’m struggling to see what the traits of things which literally do not exist add to this discussion.
Though props on finding an article describing an effect which causes exactly what I said would happen.
Brandon:
And that’s actually the underlying problem:
It’s not a feature of GR, it’s a feature of certain solutions of GR (the most obvious being a flat space time) that they conserve energy.
Saying that energy is conserved in GR because a subset of metrics have a conservation of energy property is like arguing that GR solutions are axially symmetric just because there are axially symmetric solutions.
Anyway, I think you’ve got the cart in front of the horse on this one—my understanding of why mathematicians originally were interested in this problem is because they want to understand what the requirements for a solution of GR are for it to have a conservation of energy property.
But this has gotten really far astray from the original question of classical (by which I mean Newtonian) thermodynamics. I’ll point out the original discussion was over the Earth’s atmosphere, not over allowable cosmologies in GR.
DeWitt: It also does no work and the internal energy is constant.
Carrick: Thanks for your reply, which included: “For the Earth’s climate this is the amount of time it takes a parcel of air to travel around the world and come back to the same spot. For the Earth’s climate this is the amount of time it takes a parcel of air to travel around the world and come back to the same spot.”
You are viewing relaxation in the horizontal direction and only near the surface. Also mostly latitudinally, not longitudinally. I am thinking about relaxation in terms of chaotic fluctuations in heat content such as El Nino moving vertically – escaping to space. Thus I considered the lifetime of water in the atmosphere and the amount of time it would take trade winds to reach the ITCZ and transport heat upward. How long does it take for one cycle of the Hadley circulation or the average packet of air to travel from the boundary layer to the upper troposphere? I’m also thinking about the fluxes that reaches CERES. Since the usual CERES signal is global, you are right discussing the horizontal relaxation time. However, once you get near the jet stream, the horizontal relaxation much faster. So I still think signals reach CERES before the 3X horizontal relaxation time you cite.
There used to be an interactive site from UAH that allowed you to visualize seasonal changes in temperature at various altitudes, but I can’t find it anymore. Then let’s add surface and ARGO data. Heat flux is occurring on many different time scales in different places and directions. I see that most clearly in the difference in lag between seasonal changes in radiation and temperature at different locations.
One thing about the 97% consensus that does not get enough attention is that, at least in Cook’s and Oreskes’ case, they are not surveys of scientists. They are surveys of papers. While I’d certainly expect a correlation between scientists and papers, they are still not the same thing. I understand that the Verheggen et al study is a survey of scientists and there seems to be a lot of differences of opinion about the results.
At Climate Etc, commenter Pokerguy often suggests having a major polling firm do a proper survey. Since Jagadish Shukla’s IGES is being disbanded, maybe some funds could be freed up for such a survey.
Frank, yes I was considering ground-to-ground (inside of the atmospheric boundary layer).
It’s very likely that if you look at high altitude layers, you’d get shorter latencies. As you go up in the troposphere, the wind speeds increase, and of course there’s a stratospheric jet at round 45 km with typical speeds around 100 m/s.
UAH isn’t going to be useful for ground-to-ground because it doesn’t measure surface temperature of course.
The ENSO is a bit of a unique forcing signal because it is more or less continuous in nature and has a short enough of a period that you can still accurately measure fairly short lags.
Also, because of the location of the ENSO forcing, the effect of Hadley Cell circulation on surface-to-surface should be automatically incorporated in the correlation plot I showed above.
Mark Bofill (Comment #143673)
Thanks,
I realise that the air I breath is at a nice livable temperature for all of us thanks entirely to the warming effect of water and CO2 on the atmosphere. Carrick is quite right on that.
Your explanation is also perfect.
My problem is that the Outgoing radiation, as detected from space, has two components.
Reflected energy of all wavelengths.
Infrared energy mainly from absorption and re radiation of the absorbed energy.
If the radiation out “blackbody” for the earth is exactly the same with and without GHG then is not the temperature of the earth that of the Blackbody radiation?
Not what we are all calling the temperature of the earth when we are only talking about a small part of all the emissive components, the atmosphere?
Surface and Satellite Discrepancy
Posted on March 8, 2016 a guest post by Steven Mosher
Heads up on a new post by Steven elsewhere.
Thanks for putting the work in.
Angech,
So, there’s a confusion here. Radiation doesn’t have temperature; it’s energy. Temperature is an attribute of matter. You need to have atoms / molecules to talk about temp; temp is a measure of the average motion of molecules.
Are you talking about the temperature of the object emitting the radiation? Radiation and temperature are related in the sense that objects with a higher temperature emit more thermal radiation. But going the other way, radiation being absorbed by something and changing its temperature, the temperature change depends on other factors; it doesn’t really have anything to do with the temperature of the thing that emitted the radiation.
As far as I know anyways.
~shrug~
[edit: we talk about absolute zero in empty space, special case. Zero molecules == zero molecular motion, no heat. Other than that, we need matter to talk about temperature I think]
Angech,
I think I see what you were trying to say now, but my answer is nope.
If we’re talking about the Earth separately from the atmosphere of the Earth; the rock and stone and dirt and water, then it’s not. The earth is warmer because of the GHG’s. It is [edit: both absorbing and] emitting more thermal radiation than it would have without the GHG’s. Don’t worry; energy is still conserved. That’s actually the way to find the solution and figure out temperatures and energy budget solution.
This isn’t something people can just intuit. You actually have to do the math. At least, I do. Do some simple thermodynamics problems and you’ll understand this better; what happens to the temperature of an object when there’s another object absorbing and radiating energy in the vicinity. The objects generally raise each other’s temperatures somewhat and reach a new equilibrium. It’s what happens with the atmosphere and the Earth.
Mark Bofill (Comment #143693)
“So, there’s a confusion here. Radiation doesn’t have temperature; it’s energy”.
Radiation comes from matter, and is indicative of the temperature of the body it came from.
The temperature of the sun is deduced from it’s radiation pattern.
Ditto stars.
The temperature of the moon is deduced from it’s radiation.
So to is the earth.
Ditto all bodies outside the earth.
So why do we just measure the atmospheric temperature?
The sea also radiates, the land also radiates.
Independent of the air.
“It is [edit: both absorbing and] emitting more thermal radiation than it would have without the GHG’s”.
It is not absorbing more thermal radiation accepting a steady sun input.It just takes in what the sun gives it.
It cannot make heat/energy.
Hence it cannot put out more than what is coming in?
“Do some simple thermodynamics problems and you’ll understand this better; what happens to the temperature of an object when there’s another object absorbing and radiating energy in the vicinity. The objects generally raise each other’s temperatures somewhat and reach a new equilibrium.”
Something not right in this comment.
Neither object is producing heat.
It is a third object heating them
In a steady state one might heat up quicker then the other one would gradually catch up.
While heat might flow from the warmer to the cooler object temporarily they would eventually come into equilibrium.
I do not think the colder object could heat the warmer object nor the warmer object get any warmer than the temperature the heat source raised it to.
Those danged laws again.
Angech, this is the root of the problem. We’ve reached it. Objects absolutely do warm each other by re-emitting radiation. It might not seem intuitive, but I assure you that if you do serious investigation of the subject you will find that this is so. Buy a textbook, audit a class.
But I agree with your earlier statement, that’s called temperature color I think.
Edit: sorry, color temperature, had it backwards…
“Buy a textbook, audit a class.”
Mark,
Aint no math in a textbook that caint be done in a comment.
Or perhaps you are appealing to nameless textbooks because you simply can’t support what you’re saying.
Andrew
Andrew,
You are welcome to believe that. The thing is, Steven was right. I’m not going to Dixieland with you and Angech, certainly not here. Nobody wants to read that.
“You are welcome to believe that.”
Mark,
You are certainly making it easy to do so.
Andrew
Lucia,
Too much C0tt0n-like lunacy I think. It was better when andrew_KY was on a short leash. Same short length would be suitable for angech.
Mark Bofill, good job trying to discuss some of the basics with well-known blockheads.
yes, the math drives the answer not rhetoric. But more importantly empiricism drives the math. The math is the experiments distilled into empirical laws.
Here’s an earlier attempt by Roy Spencer to explain how the presence of a colder object can make a warmer object warmer
A winter coat is a good example of that.
SteveF:
Well if he’s unwilling to learn, he needs to take that dreck elsewhere.
I don’t mind people asking questions, in fact I like to see them challenge authority, but angech is clearly entrenched in his views, and no amount of science will change it.
Thanks Carrick.
Carrick, I’m afraid your latest comment seems to suggest you don’t understand what I’ve been saying. You say:
But I never said anything of the sort. What I said is you’re wrong to claim as a blanket statement energy is not conserved in GR given we know in certain spacetimes it would be. That means for all we know, energy would be conserved in GR simply due to symmetries. (Which is not to say there are no other reasons one could raise to argue your statements are wrong).
The point I made is simple. Energy conservation due to symmetries may not be an inherent property of GR, but it may still apply in GR. As such, it is wrong to simply state energy isn’t conserved in GR. It very well could be.
Sure. And that’s why I said one could translate my example into any number of others where GR wouldn’t be an issue and the point would still hold. I’ve constantly been pointing out the issues of GR are irrelevant to the point I was making because I thought probably wouldn’t want to focus on GR.
“I do not think the colder object could heat the warmer object nor the warmer object get any warmer than the temperature the heat source raised it to.”
Angech, I take it then you would never use a blanket?
Brandon I think the discussion of GR is pointless and moving on.
Again we are discussing closed systems where Newtonian physics applies with no work being done on or by the system where there is a net increase in internal energy yet a net decrease in mean temperature.
It needs to be well enough described it can be modeled
Noether’s theorem holds in General Relativity, just that the conserved quantities are different
Hmm, let Eli try again:
Noether’s theorem hold for General Relativity, it’s just that the conserved quantities are different
Carrick:
.
– A quantum example would be a collection of spins in a magnetic field. This has a finite number of states; as a function of energy, the entropy is 0 at the lowest and at the highest energy levels. The temperature is positive at lower energies and negative at higher energies; so the temperature transitions to “lower” temperature as it passes through zero energy (although passing through infinite temperature).
– But a more relevant example is a mass of gas held together by gravitation (gas-giant planet or star): If you give the system more energy, it expands and cools. Its gravitational potential energy increases more than its kinetic energy decreases.
.
– I don’t believe energy density is a scalar in GR. Isn’t it part of the energy-momentum (stress-energy) tensor?
Carrick,
I believe isenthalpic covers that. It’s also irreversible. I’m not going to go back and look, but as I remember, Brandon said any expansion process would result in cooling, which isn’t true.
The temperature of helium undergoing isenthalpic expansion at a starting temperature above 50K increases, which makes liquefying helium somewhat tricky. For hydrogen, it’s about 200K. At sufficiently high temperature, that’s theoretically true for all real gases. I say theoretically because it’s possible that a molecular gas might not be stable at the temperature required and a noble gas might start to ionize significantly. The crossover temperature for argon, for example, is above 700K.
Mark Bofill:
.
– Radiant energy of an arbitrary spectrum does not have a specific temperature; but the radiation of a blackbody does.
angech:
.
– One point of possible confusion: In all of these cases, we are considering situations which are NOT in equilibrium, but are in steady-state. In equilibrium, everything is at the same temperature, and there are no net flows of energy.
SteveF,
Not c00tonny because it’s not their own individual theories. For some reason there are people who cling to ideas about radiative heat transfer that are just wrong. And these people tend to throw out terms like “2nd law of thermo”.
We know the theories these people describe are wrong because if those ideas were correct, a thermos wouldn’t help keep coffee hot. The methods engineers used for predicting temperature in blast furnaces or temperatures of filaments in incandescent lightbulbs and so on wouldn’t work.
Angech (and others) really need to take one or two classes in (a) engineering heat transfer — specifically radiation and (b) thermodynamics to see that what he is claiming is simply wrong. (Or if it’s right then every engineering heat transfer and thermo class in the country is teaching things that are incorrect. But…well… the engineering courses in heat transfer and thermo are quite fine. The problem is Angech doesn’t understand heat transfer or the 2nd law.
I am going to go on record as saying: I know very little about general relativity and I’m staying out of any arguments about what happens in general relativity.
Thanks Neal, I’ll look into that.
(Comment #143712), 6 or 7 above, is from me.
Somehow got delayed and re-named.
Eli:
.
Since all relevant models of the universe are undergoing expansion, Noether’s theorem does not apply to the time dimension. Thus there is no reason to believe that the total energy of the universe is conserved, as a global matter.
I don’t understand GR nearly well enough to see why this doesn’t conflict with the local conservation of energy conditions.
Ne:
A scalar is any quantity with a magnitude but no direction.
So individual components of a tensor are themselves scalars.
DeWitt:
Um no, I don’t believe so:
The enthalpy of a gas is equal to
$latex H = U + p V$
where U is internal energy, p is pressure and V is volume.
If you stated $latex \Delta H = 0$ that implies $latex \Delta U = 0$ only if you also specify $latex \Delta (p V) = 0$.
The later quality is zero only if there is no work done on the environment for the gas to expand.
Assuming the system is closed, this also implies trivially of course that $latex \Delta T = 0$.
Neal J. King,
An arbitrary spectrum can have an effective temperature. That’s the temperature of a black body that produces the same energy integrated over the full spectrum. The ~240W/m² of IR emitted by the Earth doesn’t have a blackbody spectrum, but it does have an effective temperature of 255K.
Spectral radiance, W/(m² sr nm) to pick some arbitrary units, also has an effective brightness temperature that can be calculated by inverting the Planck equation with the appropriate constants for the units chosen. That would be the temperature of a blackbody that produced that spectral radiance. Microwave ovens and lasers have effective brightness temperatures even though they aren’t thermal sources.
Carrick,
You’re wrong about no work being done in a Joule-Thomson expansion. ΔT isn’t zero, except for an ideal gas or a specific temperature for a non-ideal gas. There’s a proof in the Wikipedia article that Joule-Thomson expansion does not change specific enthalpy. P1V1 ≠ P2V2 for a non-ideal gas, but mu1 + mp1v1 = mu2 + mp2v2. There’s potential energy from the van der Waals forces involved.
Carrick:
.
– No, I believe that is incorrect.
– A scalar must be lorentz-invariant, like the rest-mass of a particle or the invariant interval ds = sqrt((c^2)*dt^2 – dx^2 – dy^2 – dz^2).
– The individual components of a tensor are just components, so when a Lorentz transformation is applied, they are mixed among each other.
References:
– Carroll’s “Spacetime and Geometry” states: “A scalar is a quantity without indices, which is unchanged under Lorentz transformations; it is a coordinate-independent map from spacetime to the real numbers… From this point of view, a scalar is a type (0,0) tensor, a vector is a type (1,0) tensor, and a dual vector is a type (0,1) tensor.”
https://www.physics.wisc.edu/grads/courses/726-f07/files/Section_2_Vectors_06.pdf : “A scalar is a quantity that has magnitude…
It seems self-evident that such a quantity is independent of the coordinate system in
which it is measured. However, we will see later in this section that this is somewhat
naïve, and we will have to be more careful with definitions. For now, we say that the
magnitude of a scalar is independent of coordinate transformations that involve
translations or rotations.”
http://homepages.engineering.auckland.ac.nz/~pkel015/SolidMechanicsBooks/Part_III/Chapter_1_Vectors_Tensors/Vectors_Tensors_13_Coordinate_Transformation_Tensors.pdf : “[A]s with vectors, second-order tensors are often defined as mathematical entities whose components transform according to the rule 1.13.5. (q.v.)”
– Individual components of a tensor are most definitely not scalars.
Following on DeWitt’s comment, what I would say is that the radiation carries a thermal signature, assuming it has the shape of a black body with a characteristic temperature.
(Thermodynamic) temperature is a measure of the internal energy of a system. Notice the internal energy has units of energy, e.g., “joules”.
Radiation is measured in units of irradiance. It measures the rate at which radiant energy passes through a unit area normal to the direction of propagation.
Because it is a rate and not a total quantity of energy there is no way to predict the temperature of the object being exposed to the radiation.
Where we talking about a thermal reservoir, we’d be able to predict that after a long enough time the temperature of the object will approach the temperature of the reservoir.
Even though you can talk about an effective temperature associated with particular incoming radiation, that temperature has nothing to do with the thermodynamic temperature of the object being impinged upon. In particular, you can’t directly invoke the laws of thermodynamics to predict what the final temperature of the body will be based on the brightness temperature of the radiation source.
An obvious example of this is
solarstellar energy from a distant star. It might have exactly the same brightness temperature as the Sun, but obviously the amount of radiative power available from the star is much, much less than that available from the Sun.Neal, in my parlance that’s called an invariant scalar. Of course I’m a physicist, and not an applied mathematician, so language differences are certainly present as you switch disciplines.
For example, if a quantity is invariant under a Lorentzian transformation, it’s a Lorentz scalar.
We certainly agree that energy density, being one component of the energy momentum tensor, is most certainly not a (0,0)-tensor.
DeWitt Payne:
.
Yes, there are effective temperatures that are used for some practical purposes: astronomical observations or estimates of total power. But the temperature associated with a blackbody spectrum is precisely the parameter which has thermodynamic implications for efficiency limitations from the 2LoT. A hollow object in thermal equilibrium at temperature T must have an internal radiation spectrum that matches the blackbody formula, in accordance with Kirchhoff’s laws. The practical temperature definitions used for arbitrary spectra do not have this significance.
DeWitt, if there is work done, then one of the conditions that I specified (no work done on _or by_ the system) is violated in any case
Neal J. King:
Not sure I follow. I don’t see how there’s any way you could apply the 2LOT of thermodynamics to any particular pattern of radiation being emitted from a body.
Perhaps try and draw out a physical example (one that can be modeled)?
angech:
.
======================================
“My problem is that the Outgoing radiation, as detected from space, has two components.
Reflected energy of all wavelengths.
Infrared energy mainly from absorption and re radiation of the absorbed energy.
If the radiation out “blackbody†for the earth is exactly the same with and without GHG then is not the temperature of the earth that of the Blackbody radiation?”
.
– The outgoing radiation looks very different with/without the GHGs. In particular, in the frequency bands in which the GHGs are active, the outgoing radiation has lower effective temperatures than in, for example, the visible band. The total shape of the spectrum does not match the blackbody formula for any one choice of temperature T, because: a) the conditions under which the Earth is emitting heat are not conducive to producing a perfect blackbody; and b) even if it were, the GHGs blte chunks out of the spectrum shape, so it would be distorted anyway.
======================================
.
“Not what we are all calling the temperature of the earth when we are only talking about a small part of all the emissive components, the atmosphere?”
.
There isn’t any one number that is “the temperature of the Earth.” When we estimate the efficacy of the greenhouse effect, we do the calculation under the approximation that the spectrum looks something like the Planck spectrum for some temperature T, so you can use the Stefan-Boltzmann law to do arithmetic instead of numerical integrals; and that T is what ends up being called “the temperature of the Earth.” If you want to use all of the measured outgoing intensities, you have to make a different model for what you mean by “the Earth’s temperature.”
======================================
(long, eye-glazingly boring comment you may want to skip.)
Hey, since the topic is still being discussed maybe I can throw this out there and see if I’m thinking about this the wrong way. I said earlier that I have to do the math, but I’ve thought of one intuitive case where the numbers don’t really matter:
Suppose we’ve got an object in space receiving electromagnetic radiation from a star. Assume that this object and star are arbitrarily distant from any other objects and radiation sources. The object is at equilibrium; the thermal energy it is radiating
equals the energy it is absorbing from the star. Let this be a simple spherical perfect blackbody object. It has some temperature T.
The fact that there are no other objects around it provide a worst case scenario for the magnitude of T. The object radiates energy as a function of T^4 out in all directions, and the only flow back in is from the star. Empty space is the worst case because energy goes out and no energy comes back in from empty space; this maximizes the net flow out.
Now let’s consider the same scenario but change only one thing; add an object (b):
If another object (b) is nearby, then in that direction from (a) the loss isn’t complete. The object (b) has the potential to radiate some energy back to the original object (a). If object (b) isn’t at absolute zero it is radiating some thermal radiation. If you like suppose it is an identical object in shape / composition to (a) and at similar distance from the star. Suppose objects are positioned so neither occludes the other’s view factor/presented surface towards the star. It’s reasonable to think object (b) isn’t going to stay at absolute zero in this case, I think; it’s absorbing energy from the star. It’ll warm up and radiate.
Then the new object (b) reduces the net energy loss of object (a), probably by some trifling amount. Object (a) is emitting exactly the same as before, but there is another object emitting back. Yet the energy coming into object (a) from the star remains the same. Therefore object (a) warms until the amount of energy it is emitting compensates for the energy it is receiving from object (b).
Doesn’t matter if (a) is warmer than (b) or cooler. Net energy flow is from the warmer to the cooler in any event because the warmer object is emitting more energy out to the cooler object than the cooler object is emitting back towards the warmer object; if T1 > T2 then (T1^4) > (T2^4) for all T1, T2 >=0.
A cooler object warms a warmer object? Well sure. The cooler object is still warmer than empty space. It radiates some energy back, which reduces the net flow out of the warmer object.
So maybe another way of phrasing it is that the second object impedes the ability of the first object to cool more than empty space would.
(wince) am I smoking crack? Overlooking anything important? Don’t be shy (not that I think anyone would be 🙂 )
It’s fascinating the amount of tortured logic Lucia spills out onto the the page to try and justify stealing data. But hey, if somebody leaves their front door unlocked, it’s not burglary, everyone knows that…
“Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still July 23rd, 2010 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.”
Thanks Carrick.
Full of good stuff. I had read it a couple of years ago, found it complex and agree with it.
Yes CO2 warms the atmosphere.
Yes it does it by back radiation.
Yes your blanket example is there.
None of it is the area of contention.
None of you are listening
–
For instance
DeWitt Payne (Comment #143632)
“angech, We are talking about real science.
Carrick is, you’re not. No law of thermodynamics requires that in an open system that the energy out instantaneously and always equals the energy in. If you can find a reference that says that, I’m sure we’d like to see it.”
Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation
Kirchhoff’s law states:
For an arbitrary body emitting and absorbing thermal radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium, the emissivity is equal to the absorptivity.
Will that do DeWitt or will it be a quibble about words like open system?
angech:
.
======================================
“Radiation comes from matter, and is indicative of the temperature of the body it came from.
The temperature of the sun is deduced from it’s radiation pattern.
Ditto stars.”
For the Sun and the other stars, a blackbody seems to be a reasonable approximate model for how light interacts with the star-stuff.
======================================
“The temperature of the moon is deduced from it’s radiation.
So to is the earth.
Ditto all bodies outside the earth.”
The Moon and the planets are not well approximated by a blackbody model, nor is there really one unique number that is “the right one” for the concept of the temperature. The right method depends on what it is you are trying to find out specifically.
======================================
“So why do we just measure the atmospheric temperature?
The sea also radiates, the land also radiates.
Independent of the air.”
.
Who says they measure just one number? They measure lots of numbers; probably a lot of effective temperatures.
.
======================================
“ ‘It is [edit: both absorbing and] emitting more thermal radiation than it would have without the GHGs’.
.
I doubt the GHGs have much effect on the bulk of the incoming solar radiation, since most of that power is at frequencies higher than the GHGs deal with. What the GHGs do is to slow down the escape of the infrared radiation of frequencies that fall into the GHG range.
======================================
.
“It is not absorbing more thermal radiation accepting a steady sun input.It just takes in what the sun gives it.
It cannot make heat/energy.
Hence it cannot put out more than what is coming in?”
.
– The Earth absorbs the radiation that is not reflected and heats up, giving rise to the emission of thermal radiation in the band corresponding to local temperature.
– What is the radiant power budget? Over time, the radiant power budget matches output to input; but there is always some imbalance, causing the local temperature to change. Over a 24-hour period, at one spot, it about matches; but since the temperature isn’t the same every day, there is likely a daily budget mismatch. Over a weekly period, it should balance better; but you have seasonal temperature change, too. Over a year, the seasonal and daily variation goes away, but there are other oscillations going on. On a multi-decadal basis, you have climate change.
– Also, the game isn’t totally radiant: Heat transport also occurs via convection and conduction.
– Finally, there is a little bit of thermal power from the cooling down of the Earth from its original formation and from the radioactive decay of the internals of the Earth.
– So it all balances in the long run; but that doesn’t mean that everything is static.
Mark Bofill:
.
– That sounds about right.
– Except that I would call it a “steady state” rather than an equilibrium. Over time, the star will run down; then you would expect the temperatures to equalize; and then you have thermal equilibrium.
Thanks Neal.
Neal J. King (Comment #143715)
“angech:– One point of possible confusion: In all of these cases, we are considering situations which are NOT in equilibrium, but are in steady-state [?]. In equilibrium, everything is at the same temperature, and there are no net flows of energy”.
Lucia (Comment #143716)
“Not c00tonny because it’s not their own individual theories. For some reason there are people who cling to ideas about radiative heat transfer that are just wrong. And these people tend to throw out terms like “2nd law of thermoâ€.
We know the theories these people describe are wrong because if those ideas were correct, a thermos wouldn’t help keep coffee hot. But…well… the engineering courses in heat transfer and thermo are quite fine. The problem is Angech doesn’t understand heat transfer or the 2nd law.”
Accept all of above.
The problem in all cases is the hotter body.
Is it a body receiving energy or is it a body producing energy?
The difference is important in thermodynamics.
My statements have always been directed to two or more bodies which are not heat producing bodies.
Always.
Everyone here though assumes and argues an ongoing heat producing source* either as one of the bodies or heating both bodies which is a totally different situation.
Yes the sun* is hotter because of back heat from the earth.
Yes the man* in the coat is “hotter ” than without it
Yes temperatures of filaments in incandescent lightbulbs*
Yes a thermos would help keep coffee hot.
Yes I have my own individual theories.
Yes I am trying to understand the laws of thermodynamics.
Mark Bofill (Comment #143732)
“A cooler object warms a warmer object? Well sure. The cooler object is still warmer than empty space. It radiates some energy back, which reduces the net flow out of the warmer object.
So maybe another way of phrasing it is that the second object impedes the ability of the first object to cool more than empty space would.”
The net heat flow is out of both objects.
The overall heat flow between the two objects is to the colder object.
Both get colder. Both get colder slower due to the back radiation between both objects as Mark said.
In other words energy flow wise the colder object does not heat up the warmer object. Sorry.
The heat flow is from the warmer to the colder object.
The warmer object can never be warmed up above its initial starting temperature by the colder object.
[in this standard scenario].
Roy gives examples like DeWitt but both are arguing a different scenario.
That of a constant heat producing third party, the sun*, on two bodies, Land and air, where back radiation and clouds allow warming of the warmer body by the colder body.
What happens is real.
Why is due to the lessening of the conditions causing the air to cool ie convection stops, GHG up, so the air is now able to heat up to higher temps than when it was being advented away.
So it is no longer a simple case of cold to hot flow as in a vacuum or unchanged circumstances.
His argument is correct, cold objects give heat to hot objects,his example is not correct as explained.
angech:
.
======================================
“ ‘…what happens to the temperature of an object when there’s another object absorbing and radiating energy in the vicinity. The objects generally raise each other’s temperatures somewhat and reach a new equilibrium.’
Something not right in this comment.
Neither object is producing heat.
It is a third object heating them
In a steady state one might heat up quicker then the other one would gradually catch up.
While heat might flow from the warmer to the cooler object temporarily they would eventually come into equilibrium.
I do not think the colder object could heat the warmer object nor the warmer object get any warmer than the temperature the heat source raised it to.
Those danged laws again.”
.
OK, let’s talk about the case Mark just went through: two satellites around a star. Let’s suppose they are the same size, but (a) is closer to the star than (b), so (a) will be receiving radiant power at a greater rate, and will thus be warmer than (b). It will stay this way, until the star has burnt out.
.
At that point, they will all be cooling, although the star will always be the warmest, and the more remote satellite will be coldest. Both satellites will be slightly warmer than if they were just with the star, as Mark discussed.
angech:
.
You said:
“Why is due to the lessening of the conditions causing the air to cool ie convection stops, GHG up, so the air is now able to heat up to higher temps than when it was being advented away.
So it is no longer a simple case of cold to hot flow as in a vacuum or unchanged circumstances.
His argument is correct, cold objects give heat to hot objects,his example is not correct as explained.”
.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
angech:
.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #143632) said:
“No law of thermodynamics requires that in an open system that the energy out instantaneously and always equals the energy in.â€
.
angech said:
“Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation..states:
‘For an arbitrary body emitting and absorbing thermal radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium, the emissivity is equal to the absorptivity.'”
.
angech:
The issue is not “open system” but “thermodynamic equilibrium”. When the light of the Sun is beating down on the Earth, this is not thermodynamic equilibrium. You get Th.Eq. when the temperature of all interacting systems is the same, not before. What we have right now is steady-state (more or less) as I described it earlier, with overruns/underruns/temperature fluctuations. Radiant power is going from hotter to colder.
.
But the proof of the Kirchhoff’s laws relies on the concept that you could consistently violate the 2LoT if the equation didn’t hold during Th.Eq., because you would be able (for example) to turn lower-frequency radiant energy into higher-frequency radiant energy, without producing entropy. That would be a very big deal.
Carrick:
.
“Not sure I follow. I don’t see how there’s any way you could apply the 2LOT of thermodynamics to any particular pattern of radiation being emitted from a body.”
.
I think you must have heard that from angech or someone. What I am saying is that the brightness of blackbody radiation, as a function of frequency, is absolutely characterized by the temperature, not depending on the material the blackbody is made of, etc.
Neal J. King (Comment #143735)
“The Moon and the planets are not well approximated by a blackbody model, nor is there really one unique number that is “the right one†for the concept of the temperature.”
–
Carrick (Comment #143726) might disagree,
” I would say that radiation carries a thermal signature, assuming it has the shape of a black body with a characteristic temperature.(Thermodynamic) temperature is a measure of the internal energy of a system.
You can talk about an effective temperature associated with particular incoming radiation”
Neal J. King (Comment #143735)
“– What is the radiant power budget? Over time, the radiant power budget matches output to input; but there is always some imbalance, causing the local temperature to change.”
Kirchhoff’s law states:
“For an arbitrary body emitting and absorbing thermal radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium, the emissivity is equal to the absorptivity.”
The corollary to Kirchhoff’s law is that all incoming energy must and will be released again immediately as no matter has an energy absorbing effect such that can retain energy it did not earn.
This is obvious from the fact that if any matter could retain energy it did not possess itself that Kirchhoff’s law would be false.
I would hesitate to mention but those other laws would also probably be broke if matter could take onto and hold [absorb] energy that was not it’s in the first place.
This does not mean that the earth is not hotter.
The increase in earth’s temperature is necessary to put the energy back out again.
My argument is that for a non new heat generating body any local fluctuations in energy demand exactly counterbalancing fluctuations elsewhere in the body such that the energy in will always balance the energy out virtually instantly.
There is no overall imbalance possible.
The body will be warmer purely as a consequence of having to be in a higher energy state.
If some parts of the system are more radiative and “hotter” [and they are] eg CO2 air, Other parts of the system must be colder, deep sea, sea, land, stratosphere.
Our intuition begins to fail us when presented with this complexity, if any equality of flow of energy is totally repulsive to you, I apologize.
I will stop blogging on this subject now.
Sorry to take up space Lucia and Brandon.
Brandon’s book and discovery is what I will try to stay on topic on.
Some time ago Carrick wrote
The problem is that CO2 doesn’t act as an insulator so your analogy is emotive rather than factual. Would you still stay warm if your “coat” was a string vest?
Would you be noticeably warmer at all in fact?
I’m not saying CO2 in the atmosphere wont have some warming effect but I am saying that coat and greenhouse analogies aren’t useful for understanding what’s going on.
Neil J King writes
If both objects are cooling then neither will warm up in any way. They will both cool although at a slightly lower rate. There’s a difference and the difference is that if you suddenly introduce say the cooler object, will the warmer object be warmer than it was at the moment you introduced the cooler object? The answer is no.
angech
It both emits and receives energy, just like anything, including a light bulb filament surrounded by a shroud. The net energy recevved by the hotter body is negative, as required by the 2LOT. But some is received..
Thermo says the hot body receives less energy from the cold so the net flow is to the cold body. That’s all the 2LOT says. It doesn’t say the hot body receives no energy from the cold body. If you try to extend the 2LOT to be stricter than it actually is you will violate known physics.
So? Your statements that the hot body can receive no heat from the cold body– and to do otherwise violates 2LOT are nonesense for ‘not heat producing bodies’. They are nonesense for heat producing bodies too.
If you don’t believe any of this take some classes in heat transfer and thermo. There are tons given engineering courses which, presumably, you will not think infested by climatologists.
angech
Thanks. Because you are saying utterly wrong things.
Someone let me know if any of these points in this incomplete list are incorrect:
1. In climate science, visuals freqently do not represent the verbal claims associated with them. This goes for photos and squiggly lines.
2. Coat analogies are too simplistic to apply to climate science.
Andrew
What’s an analogy for? If it’s to help people get the gist of a complicated idea by providing a simpler idea that’s related in a fundamental way, I don’t really agree with #2.
If somebody really cares about understanding what’s going on, then they go beyond the analogy and figure out what’s really going on. But I doubt most people care.
“If somebody really cares about understanding what’s going on, then they go beyond the analogy and figure out what’s really going on. But I doubt most people care.”
Mark,
This I agree with. I think the issue is when the analogy stops people from actually looking scientifically at the relevant issue, because they think when they understand the analogy, they also understand the science. Not necessarily the case.
Andrew
Andrew,
OK. But it sounds like your looking for a fix for the general problem of ‘stupid and lazy’. I’m not sure taking it out on analogies is going to solve that problem.
“But it sounds like your looking for a fix for the general problem of ‘stupid and lazy’. I’m not sure taking it out on analogies is going to solve that problem.”
I am looking for such a fix, but realize one has not been found yet. 😉
Andrew
Carrick:
Irony.
lucia:
I sincerely regret that it even came up. It only came up because when I think of a closed system that is expanding, cosmological examples are the first ones which spring to mind first. I didn’t realize my choice of example would create this huge thing when I could have chosen any of a thousand other examples and avoided all this. I’m genuinely at a loss as to how my choice of example has completely overridden the point of the example.
Just think how difficult it would be to try to explain to him how it is actually possible for a warmer object to receive more energy from a cooler one than it emits!
Andrew_KY:
Coats and blankets aren’t actually bad analogies: You end up with the same mathematical structure (Fourier’s Law of heat conduction) describing those analogies as well as what happens with the GHG effect. The differences how the warming occurs is informative. So not only not bad analogies, useful analogies.
But admit it: The real problem with analogies is it puts people like you and angech personally in a bind. You aren’t going to claim that coats and blankets don’t work, so you’re left with attacking the analogy.
Carrick,
Not in a bind at all. Descibe for me what kind of bind you think I’m in.
Andrew
Andrew_KY, the bind is if you agree that a blanket is not a bad analogy, then you’re left with admitting there’s a real GHG effect.
Please generate a health advisory with plenty of advance before you admit there is something to the GHG effect, so my jaw doesn’t hit the floor.
Comment #143749): Andrew_KY; also Tim
“Someone let me know if any of these points in this incomplete list are incorrect:
1. In climate science, visuals freqently do not represent the verbal claims associated with them. This goes for photos and squiggly lines.”
.
In science generally, one studies and displays data to infer an influence. But complex phenomena have multiple cause & influence relationships going on, so even if one factor is very influential, that doesn’t mean that it is always determinative. If you play with loaded dice, that still doesn’t mean that it will ALWAYS come up double-6: just that the probability is higher than 1/36. The complexity of phenomena involved with the climate is vastly more complicated than with a couple of dice.
==========================================================
“2. Coat analogies are too simplistic to apply to climate science.”
– The common element is that both coats and CO2 cause warming by slowing down the rate at which heat is radiated away, not by adding any additional source of heat. The analogy is accurate: You just have to step back see how the argument works, in both cases.
You just have to be able to abstract from the specifics of the radiative physics involved, to see what role they play.
Comment #143749): Andrew_KY; also TimTheToolMan:
“Someone let me know if any of these points in this incomplete list are incorrect:
1. In climate science, visuals freqently do not represent the verbal claims associated with them. This goes for photos and squiggly lines.”
.
In science generally, one studies and displays data to infer an influence. But complex phenomena have multiple cause & influence relationships going on, so even if one factor is very influential, that doesn’t mean that it is always determinative. If you play with loaded dice, that still doesn’t mean that it will ALWAYS come up double-6: just that the probability is higher than 1/36. The complexity of phenomena involved with the climate is vastly more complicated than with a couple of dice.
==========================================================
“2. Coat analogies are too simplistic to apply to climate science.”
– The common element is that both coats and CO2 cause warming by slowing down the rate at which heat is radiated away, not by adding any additional source of heat. The analogy is accurate: You just have to step back see how the argument works, in both cases.
You just have to be able to abstract away from the specifics of the radiative physics involved, to see what role they play.
– If you have a hard time imagining the CO2 component of the atmosphere as a blanket, think instead of a Mylar thermal blanket. The main difference is that the space blanket is broad-spectrum, whereas CO2 acts only on a more restricted spectrum.
TimTheToolMan:
“If both objects are cooling then neither will warm up in any way. They will both cool although at a slightly lower rate. There’s a difference and the difference is that if you suddenly introduce say the cooler object, will the warmer object be warmer than it was at the moment you introduced the cooler object? The answer is no.”
.
– Incorrect, TTTM: The answer is, Yes.
Because the cooler object is still radiating more power at the warmer object than is the 3-degree cosmic microwave background that was there before.
– Think first of a spherical shell, held at temperature T_low: that still provides a thermal barrier to the 3-degree background, so it will be warmer.
– Then put a tiny hole in that shell. The shielding effect will be reduced but not eliminated.
– Then increase the size of the hole… Step by step, the shielding effect will be weakened, but not eliminated. As long as there are photons coming from the cold object (and there: that’s what the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is about) and landing on the warmer object, the cold object is providing more power than would the nothingness of the 3-degree background.
I’ve never liked the coat analogy myself as coats work by trapping heat inside them, but the greenhouse effect would require energy pass through the coat then get trapped. That’s obviously not how coats work.
angech, Comment #143743:
– No, I don’t think Carrick would disagree: the radiation from the planets is not the same as that of a blackbody, of any temperature. The issue about effective temperature has been discussed wrt DeWitt’s comment, much earlier. Keep up with the reading.
– Consider any planet, for which NASA or someone has said anything about the chemical composition of the atmosphere. How have they been able to determine that? They have been able to see the spectral lines for some of the chemical elements. If the radiation were pure blackbody-type, you wouldn’t be able to detect any lines.
– Of course, by now they’ve landed things on Mars and crashed things into Jupiter. But they were investigating the chemistry of these planets long before by spectral measurements.
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(Comment #143744) :
You keep missing the “in thermal equilibrium” in Kirchhof’s laws. It’s not optional, it’s an essential condition for the applicability of the KL.
And we’re NOT considering the case of Th.Eq.: If we were, the Sun and the Earth would be at the same temperature.
==========================================================
It would really be a good thing if you were to go through some training in the subject of heat. I don’t know if the internet MOOCs will do the job: You have a lot of conceptual misunderstandings that need to be clarified in live discussion.
It’s not bad, by the way, to question how concepts are arrived at. But trying to sort things out on blogs is not always the easiest method. There is something to be said for the lecture/homework set/discussion framework. At least in that case, there is some person in the room who has been hired as a relevant expert for the subject in question; and when/if that individual tells you that you are just wrong, you have to re-organize the way you think about the topic, and not just try to wiggle around it.
Brandon:
What???
No it doesn’t.
[To avoid confusion, maybe you should explain how you think the atmospheric GHG effect actually works.]
Is that a rhetorical question? Tsk, tsk!
But seriously, what do you think is so remarkable about my statement? The sun’s energy passes through the atmosphere in one form then gets converted to another form when it is re-radiated by the Earth. That re-radiated energy is what gets trapped by the “coat.”
When a human wears a coat, they don’t warm because some energy passed through the coat, got converted to a different form then had the energy in its new form get trapped by the coat.
Do I really need to say more? Is anyone here going to dispute the greenhouse effect requires the sun’s energy arrive at Earth before it can be trapped by the Earth’s atmosphere? Those are genuine questions. There are certainly people saying crazy things on this page, so I’m not going to rule out any possibility.
I can’t feature an analogy to a scientific concept not being simplistic. As for an analogy to the GHE, you might try swapping the coat for a space blanket.
A survival blanket is a pretty good analogy for a single layer atmospheric model
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/09/survival-blanket-outbreak-of-the.html
However, the point is not that blankets keep things warmer or colder as such, but that they do so by slowing down the rate of heat flow by convection and radiation into and out of a system. Also aluminum foil ain’t bad
Brandon, yes I get what you’re saying now. I had a feeling I wasn’t interpreting you correctly: You’re merely describing how the downwelling energy from the Sun gets absorbed then re-radiated.
Yes, the source of the heat energy is a part of the picture that the coat analogy does’t cover. Coats trap (dominantly, we must include GR effects of course) heat energy from metabolic processes, the atmosphere traps heat energy from the Sun.
But the coat (or blanket) analogy wasn’t meant to be a model for the entire GHG gas effect though.
The analogy, or really counter example, arose in response to angech’s comment:
angech assures us that he accepts the reality of the GHG effect, so while I don’t see how the statements are compatible, I guess we should move on.
– The purpose of an analogy is to highlight, for consideration, issues that are similar.
– As long as two things are different, there are always issues on which they are different.
Neal, I’ve always wanted to ask something, but I worry about it coming across the wrong way. The question is, what is Skeptical Science to you? I have a difficult time understanding why you and at least two or three other apparently intelligent, reasonable, normal fellows associate with it. The worry is that you’ll interpret this as me looking for an opening to mock you or something similar. It’s not, I’m genuinely curious. I don’t want to discuss it, I just want to know.
You don’t have to answer of course. I probably wouldn’t in your shoes, but then I generally don’t have the … whatever it takes … to go to sites where the other commenters are likely to be hostile either anymore, so maybe it doesn’t say anything useful that I wouldn’t.
FWIW it would not be too hard to make a dielectric coating for a survival blanket that passed the visible and reflected the IR
Carrick/Brandon
This is why people initially liked the term “greenhouse”. The suns energy does get in. Then it is “trapped”. The only difficulty is it is trapped by a different mechanism than CO2. In an actual greenhouse used to grow plants, heat is (mostly) “trapped” by virtue of inhibiting convection and mixing with the near infinite mass of cold air outside the greenhouse.
In the atmosphere, the issue is the difference in opacity to energy in frequency ranges typical of incoming vs. outgoing radiation.
That said: real greenhouses also don’t violate the 2LOT. And if the 2LOT argument against CO2 having a greenhouse effect was correct, then real greenhouses wouldn’t work either. Because real greenhouses do keep the air inside the real greenhouse warmer than otherwise.
Eli-
It could be done. But I strongly suspect mylar is pretty cheaper, light weight, easily foleded and so on. There is no particular market demand for survival blankets to be transparent. So there is no economic incentive to make such blankets.
Alas… Because they would present a very nice example for discussing the effect of CO2.
“real greenhouses do keep the air inside the real greenhouse warmer than otherwise”
They have heaters in them.
Andrew
Andrew,
Some may have heaters in them. Not all do. People get to use their greenhouses the way they see fit, and many don’t use a greenhouse. The same goes for row covers for outdoor crops and a number of other sorts of other things.
While the sun is shining, the interior of real greenhouses remain warmer than outside air even when no heater is present. Even after sunset, they cool less rapidly with the panes closed than open.
And not only that: many greenhouses have their window shaded in summer to reduce the heat gain. That’s because the green house gets warmer than the outdoor air due to the heat trapping ability of the windows. This unwanted rise is heat is not caused by the owners of the greenhouse running heaters. They aren’t that stoooopid.
Lucia,
My point is that the heat trapping abilities of greenhouses, which are subject to other forces, say nothing about how effective C02 is or is not. Its just another flawed analogy.
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
I take it you are admitting greenhouses do trap heat? If you are not, please clarify as your previous comment insinuated they did not when in fact, they do trap heat.
That greenhouse trap heat tells us angech’s interpretation of the 2LOT is incorrect. That’s the point.
No one is claiming the greenhouse works by the same mechanism– as I already said in my comment. So if your comment represents an attempt to “rebut” such claim: Nice try. But it’s just silly to rebut a claim no one made. The attempt either demonstrates (a) you are unable to understand what claims others have made or (b) you are trying to distract from the fact you have nothing useful that is actually in favor of your view.
TimTheToolMan:
.
Just for kicks, I’m going to quantify my claim that the presence of the cooler object has a warming effect on a warmer object.
– Consider that we have a star of effective temperature T1, radius R1; a cold rock of effective temperature T2, radius R2; and a satellite of effective temperature T0, radius R0.
– The star is powered by normal stellar processes; the satellite has no internal source of heat.
– Each of these objects radiates outwards power = (4*pi*R^2) * SB * T^4; where SB = the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. At a distance x from the center of the object, this produces a power flux
= power/(4 * pi * x^2)
= SB * (T^4) * (R/x)^2
.
– Say that the satellite has distance x1 from the star and distance x2 from the rock. The power absorbed by the satellite from the star is:
(1 – A0) * (pi*R0^2) * SB * (T1^4) * (R1/x1)^2
and from the rock is:
(1 – A0) * (pi*R0^2) * SB * (T2^4) * (R2/x2)^2
where A0 is the albedo of the satellite.
– In steady-state, the sum of these two must equal the power radiated by the satellite,
(4*pi*R0^2) * SB * T0^4
.
– Therefore:
T0^4 = ((1 – A0)/4) *
……[(T1^4)*(R1/x1)^2 + (T2^4)*(R2/x2)^2]
.
– So as long as T2 > 0, the presence of the rock is increasing the steady-state effective temperature of the satellite.
– If you remove the rock, that is equivalent to setting T2 = 0; or more accurately, to 3 degrees Kelvin.
– If the rock also derives all its warmth from the star, we have a similar equation:
T2^4 = ((1 – A2)/4) *
……[(T1^4)*(R1/y1)^2 + (T0^4)*(R0/x2)^2]
– There is no problem with both these equations being true at the same time. For example, if for simplicity I arbitrarily choose the case that A2 = A0 and R2 = R0, I can substitute in for T2. Setting a = (1 – A0)/4 :
T0^4 =
a*T1^4 * {(R1/x1)^2 + a*[(R1*R0)/(x1*y1)]^2}
……………./{1 – (a^2)[(R0/x2)]^4}
.
T2^4 =
a*T1^4 * {(R1/y1)^2 + a*[(R1*R0)/(x1*y1)]^2}
……………./{1 – (a^2)[(R0/x2)]^4}
.
So T2 is < T0 as long as x1 is < y1 (the rock is farther from the star than is the satellite).
.
[Due to various circumstances, there could be simple algebra errors in this calculation; I reserve the right to correct them. But they won't affect the main point: The presence of a colder object (the rock) increases the temperature of the satellite, provided it is hotter than 3 degrees K.]
Mark Bofill:
.
To answer your question, I need first to know something about you: Have you ever been to the SkS site? Have you actually exchanged any comments? What was your own personal experience?
I’ve often read articles at SkS, still do from time to time. I’ve spent a good bit of time looking at the rebuttals, although not recently. If I’ve commented there, it certainly hasn’t been recently. My recollection is that I posted a comment or three there several years back. In excess of four or five [edit: years] maybe? It may be that I was warned about my comments, or it may be that I spent time reading others being warned about their comments; I remember my conclusion but not the evidence that lead me to adopt it. The conclusion I reached was that SkS was a place where the content of comments were controlled too rigorously for my tastes, and I haven’t commented there since.
I have a negative impression of SkS, but it’s not my purpose to criticize you, argue the truth or falsehood of my impression, harass you, or anything of the sort. Just trying to learn something about your point of view. I suspect my preconceptions and unidentified background assumptions are such that I can’t realistically anticipate what you’d say in answer / how you view SkS and why you participate there.
Thanks in advance for any words you care to offer on the subject; I don’t intend to engage in a back and forth dialogue about your response.
[edit: however, I will be glad to answer any questions you might have in kind.]
Neal writes
Nope. The special case of the warmer object enclosed by the cooler object may work because all the energy of the warmer object must pass to the surrounding cooler object and then it will depend on the rate of cooling of the cooler object but objects side by side, for example, dont warm each other.
And by warm, I mean start at one temperature and end up at a higher temperature in case you have any misunderstandings about what warming is.
The trick is that both are simultaneously cooling and the warmer object loses more energy (per unit area) than the cooler object and hence the cooler object cant pass enough energy to the warmer object to warm it.
Lucia, it is actually an interesting idea, although as you say impractical, as the amount of energy striking the body from the sun would be a significant source of warmth. Perhaps it would make some sense in very cold environments.
Also, unfortunately I’ve got stuff and junk to finish for tomorrow; probably going to be offline for awhile. At least I’d better be, if I mean to get anything done…
Neal also wrote…
This is a different scenario. In this scenario the star isn’t cooling and so yes both objects will be warmer.
My comment above relates to a burnt out, cooling but still warm star and a satellite.
TTTM:
.
As shown by my calculation just above, if you suddenly add the cold rock near to the satellite, the satellite will change from:
T0_1^4 = a*T1^4 * (R1/x1)^2
to:
T0_2^4 =
T0_1^4 *..
…..{1+a*[(R0/y1)]^2}/{1–(a^2)[(R0/x2)]^4}
T0_2 is always bigger than T0_1, because T0_2 is T0_1 multiplied by a number bigger than 1, and divided by a number less than 1.
.
It doesn’t have to enclose anything.
So you are still incorrect.
Again to remind
In reference to this, neither will be warmer although they will cool slower…so in that sense you could say that after some time has elapsed they will be warmer than they would have been if say the satellite wasn’t present.
Mark Bofill:
– SkS does have a stronger moderation policy than many sites. The goal is to keep the discussion civil and relevant.
– For example, this long discussion on the greenhouse effect would have been short-circuited by a suggestion to take it to the discussion section for one of the write-ups on the greenhouse effect. The idea is not to prevent discussion; but to prevent the same topic being discussed by the same people at all different parts of the site.
– I don’t do much for most of the real work at SkS; I hang out behind the scenes and make occasional suggestions.
– For the most part, they’re very good people. There are one or two that I have a personality conflict with.
Well if the colder satellite you introduce is so cold that it radiates very little energy compared to the energy supplied by the cooling burnt out star then obviously the satellite will warm up to equilibrium and then they’ll both cool together.
I certainly agree with that.
I’m assuming the colder object is in thermal equilibrium with the warmer one.
TTTM:
.
The point remains that the presence of the cold rock makes the satellite warmer than it would have been. This is because the cold rock is still emitting photons at a higher rate than does the cosmic microwave background, and some of them will hit the satellite and impart energy.
.
In the case of a dead star, it still takes a lot longer time for the star’s temperature to change than it will for the satellite, or for the rock. So on a timescale longer than the temperature-changing time for the rock & satellite, but shorter than the cooling time for the star, there will be a steady state with the temperatures I calculated out. It will always be the case that the temperature of the satellite in the presence of the cold rock is greater than in its absence.
.
Everything I’ve said here happens strictly within the constraints of the 2LoT.
TTTM
Avoid confusing “steady state” with “thermal equilibrium”.
Brandon’s book is currently Amazon’s number 1 best seller in Weather!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/14484/ref=sr_bs_1_14484_1
Lucia writes “Avoid confusing “steady state†with “thermal equilibriumâ€.”
I’m not sure “”steady state” is the right term when they are both cooling.
TTTM:
As I said before: “… on a timescale longer than the temperature-changing time for the rock & satellite, but shorter than the cooling time for the star, there will be a steady state.”
TTTM
Yes, but you said they are in equilibrium. Equilibrium certainly isn’t the right term when both are cooling.
One might at best have a “quasi-steady” if cooling is slow enough. But certainly they aren’t “in equilibrium” if they aren’t even at steady state.
I think you could argue they’re at thermal equilibrium with each other better than you could argue they’re in a steady state with anything. I agree its not a perfect term though.
It’s also Amazon’s current number 1 best seller in:
Environmental Science
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/158678011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_1_6_last
Climatology
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16053231/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last
One-Hour Science & Math Short Reads
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/8624196011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_3_4_last
Canman,
Well, good for Brandon!
TTTM:
Nope. To be at thermal equilibrium, they have to be at the same temperature.
Not “close”; but “at”.
Steady-state is much more forgiving.
Neal writes
Thats not correct. Here is the Wiki definition FWIW.
Two physical systems are in thermal equilibrium if no heat flows between them when they are connected by a path permeable to heat.
TTTM,
In fact, what Neal said is exactly equivalent to the Wiki definition. Two objects are defined to be at the same temperature if no heat flows between them when they are connected by a path permeable to heat.
DeWitt writes
I disagree. There is a difference between energy flowing between two objects and heat flowing.
Eli,
I presume you’ve heard of low-E glass. A dielectric coating that reflects IR and is fairly transparent to visible light is exactly how that works. You can also make coatings that have high absorptivity in the visible and near-IR while having low emissivity in the thermal IR. They’re useful for solar water heaters.
TTTM,
A Joule is a Joule is a Joule. Increase the internal energy of an object and its temperature goes up.
To make that clearer, if the satellite is net losing less energy than it is gaining from the burned out start then heat is flowing to the satellite (and it is warming) but if the satellite is net losing more energy than it is gaining then no heat is flowing.
Then chose one that meets Carrick’s conditions instead of just saying that you can.
Neal,
Thanks for your response.
On a different note, I am virtually certain I will never again say ‘equilibrium’ when I mean ‘steady state’. 🙂
Dewitt writes
But if the internal energy goes “up” by one joule at the same time it goes down 2 joules then its heat has decreased. And its temperature has also decreased.
TTTM,
Sure it is. It’s a net flow from the object into space. EM radiation is a pathway for heat flow. It’s just as irreversible as a direct physical connection. But it’s slower. Since no real object has an emissivity identically zero, then there is always a radiation pathway.
Again, there is a difference between energy flow and heat flow. If heat were flowing then the satellite would be warming, no?
Free expansion of any real gas has been ruled out, by the way. Either the temperature doesn’t change if the gas is at the crossover temperature or work is being done to or by the gas.
Adiabatic expansion has the same problem. It does work.
So according to the Wiki reference (again FWIW) there is no difference between energy flow and “heat” flow…so I stand corrected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer
From the same reference
Thermal equilibrium is reached when all involved bodies and the surroundings reach the same temperature.
So I’ll stand corrected on the Steady State thing too.
TTTM:
.
Good move.
Carrick, I’m a little confused by this response:
As while it is true angech said that, long before I made my comment about the analogy, he said things like:
Showing the issue I pointed out with the analogy is directly relevant to things he was saying. That an analogy, at the time it was offered, may have been sufficient doesn’t mean it remains sufficient for the remainder of the discussion. Clearly, there was more to angech’s thought process than you are giving credit to.
Beyond which, I am free to not like an analogy even if that analogy were sufficient for a discussion. Thinking an analogy is bad for leaving out a central issue to the greenhouse effect is reasonable even if it wasn’t necessary to discuss that issue for a particular conversation.
lucia:
Yup. And while the analogy is flawed (aren’t they all?), I’d say it is still far better than the coat analogy. It at least encompasses the ideas of the greenhouse effect.
Yup. Anyone saying the greenhouse effect violates the second law of thermodynamics doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
lucia:
Thanks guys! To be fair though, my book’s ranking will likely drop quite a bit pretty soon because this ranking only happened due to the surge in sales caused by Watts Up With That posting about this. I doubt sales will be sustained as well for my book as for many of the others on these lists.
Mark Bofill:
For what it’s worth, I think you may have commented on my post explaining how I got banned from Skeptical Science. Which was basically nothing more than, I said things they didn’t like so they lied about what their rules stated so they could justify banning me after allowing Skeptical Science members to flagrantly break the site’s (real) rules while arguing against me. So that may well have affected your opinion of the site.
DeWitt, Carrick:
.
What do you count as the internal energy of the system?
Going back to the case I mentioned before: a gravitationally bound mass of ideal gas. If we “turn off” nuclear physics for a moment, and just look at the newtonian physics of it, the virial theorem tells us that the integral of the kinetic energy of the molecules is of the same magnitude as the total (KE + gravitational potential energy), but of opposite sign:
E_i = – (E_i + GPE) = – E_total
So if I can feed some energy into it, without blowing it apart:
– its energy should increase, by becoming less negative;
– it should expand in spatial extent; and
– its total KE should decrease, so the temperature profile should drop.
This can be made plausible by analogy to a particle gravitationally bound to circular orbit around mass M:
m*v^2/r = GMm/r^2
KE = m*v^2/2 = (GMm/r^2)*(r/2)
…… = GMm/(2*r)
U = – GMm/r
E = U + KE = – GMm/(2*r) = – KE
A sketch of the Skeptical Science comments policy:
.
All comments must be on topic.
Make comments in the most appropriate thread.
Comments should avoid excessive repetition.
No sloganeering.
No link or picture only.
No accusations of deception.
No ad hominem attacks.
No politics.
No ALL CAPS.
No profanity or inflammatory tone.
No cyber stalking.
No dogpiling.
No multiple identities.
No copying and pasting earlier comments.
No spamming.
Commenters must register a valid email address.
.
The full policy is spelled out here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/comments_policy.shtml
Mark Bofill, regarding Skeptical Science rebuttals, keep in mind that they usually describe them as refuting skeptic arguments.
Neal J. King:
Now compare that sketch to what actually happens, such as in this case, where i was banned for posting criticisms of the Skeptical Science consensus paper based upon a gross distortion of what the Skeptical Science rules state.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/the-saga-continues/
Brandon:
.
– Different people have slightly different ways of understanding how to do moderation. So there are sometimes inconsistencies.
– Also, when a discussion goes on and on, sometimes there are too many keyboards doing the moderation, so again there can be more opportunities for inconsistency.
– Finally, I have noticed that you sometimes adopt a style of argument that some would describe as excessively legalistic, not to say tedious. There might even be some folks at The Blackboard who feel that way. I have not acted as a moderator; but I can see that someone on whom that particular style of interaction grated particularly might be quicker to drop the hammer than may be strictly mandated by the rules.
Neal J. King:
I’m not certain if you’re trying to suggest either of these remarks were related to the example I gave, but… they weren’t. In the example I gave, the Skeptical Science rules were grossly distorted in an obvious way, and I was banned based upon that. I’ve been banned to this day.
And by “drop the hammer” do you mean “lie about the site’s rules”? Because if not, what you’re saying has pretty much nothing to do with what I referred to.
It would seem strange to write a series of potential excuses to justify what happened when none of those excuses are remotely applicable, but it does appear to be what you’ve just done. I suspect you didn’t even bother to look at what I wrote before writing your comment.
Brandon:
– No, “drop the hammer” means moderating your comment to death.
– I am providing no excuses, just possible explanations.
– Thanks for providing an illustration of the legalistic style I had mentioned.
DeWitt, Carrick: Re: Comment #143815
.
It’s not actually necessary to “turn off nuclear physics” to consider this example. If a proto-star has mass < 0.0125 solar masses, the pressure at its center will never be large enough to ignite nuclear fusion anyway: sub-brown dwarfs.
Neal J. King:
So rather than actually examine the situation being discussed, you’re providing “possible explanations” anyone who bothered to look at the topic being discussed would see aren’t sensible at all. That’s… pretty bad man.
No problem. Be warned though, in the future I might try posting things that don’t address anything being discussed because as long as I ignore what’s being talked about, I can come up with “possible” explanations for what people are talking about that actually don’t contribute anything to anything. I sometimes need a break from being legalistic, after all.
Neal writes
I’ve had comments that have passed every one of those rules “moderated to death” as you put it simply because the moderators didn’t like what I was saying.
On a non-facetious note, isn’t this:
Exactly being legalistic? I mean, I’m not sure what it was about my comment which got it labeled as showing me being legalistic, but… defense attorney much? One of the most well known maneuvers lawyers do is respond to accusations not by directly examining those accusations and trying to figure out what the truth is, but by offering many “possible explanations” that could get their client out of trouble.
A defense attorney doesn’t need to offer an alternative theory of a crime if he can just throw out a bunch of “possible explanations” for the situation. He doesn’t even need to establish any of those explanations are probable, or even just somewhat likely. All he has to do is convince the jury/judge there are “possible explanations” that make the case against his client wrong.
Resorting to that sort of behavior seems way more legalistic than anything I wrote in my responses to Neal J. King.
Brandon,
I was hoping to ‘not to’ get into a thing about Neal’s response, mostly for practical reasons (beating up guests reduces visits) as well as courtesy. Of course I understand others can say what they like.
Be nice, darn it Or I’ll make a mean face at you.
MikeN,
Sure. That’s why I read them. I think it helped me sort out which I thought were legitimate problems with climate science from the rubbish. Of course it’s like an adversarial trial system; I go listen to arguments from the DA at skeptics sites and listen to the defense at places like SkS. Neither side makes the others case for them, even when the other side obviously has a point.
It’s all good.
Guys,
There isn’t much point in debating SkS’s moderation policy here. Neal doesn’t actually moderate there. We can’t affect the moderation decisions at SkS. Lots of people comment at sites whose moderation policy they don’t entirely endorse– if they didn’t no one would comment anywhere. Different people feel more or less annoyed by inconsistent moderation policies (which exist nearly everywhere.)
Heck, I plan on tweeting even though twitter seems to be doing odd things lately. But I’d rather not see a continued debate on SkS moderation merely because it’s pointless.
Er, wait a second.
While this is true, it sort of implies that I set out with this purpose in mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Back in those days, I started from the premise that climate science was complete and utter B.S. The reason I looked into the rebuttals was that I got tired of getting the crap knocked out of me in arguments because I was ignorant of and therefore unprepared to argue against the opposing positions. But it all worked out anyway.
Not that anyone cares, just doing OCD-satisfaction.
Mark:
.
So some of the write-ups at SkS must have been helpful, and others less so. Which ones did you find the weakest? Or, probably a better question, on which topics do you think the climate-science folks have the weaker argument? Apparently, you came to the conclusion that the GHE (actually, the ‘enhanced’ GHE) is real enough.
.
btw: I had to search to find out what “OCD-satisfaction” means. I took some site’s OCD proclivity test, and actually came out with zero. That slightly surprised me.
Neal,
Yep, they were helpful. As I said it’s been awhile so take my recollections with a grain of salt (*1).
To generalize, I thought that the rebuttals sometimes overstated certainty or confidence. There’s always ambiguous evidence going either way in areas we aren’t sure about; probably why we’re not sure. I don’t intend to go looking for it right now to verify my impressions, and my impressions might have been wrong anyway, but:
1. Amount of energy going into ocean. Might be that back then less was known and more speculated about this than we know about it now.
2. Cloud feedbacks.
uhmm… There were others, but the ones I can think of fall more into the category of quibbling about peripherals..
(*1) – As it turns out, I am terrible at recalling past events in my life. I’ve realized (mostly because of OPM and security clearance investigations) that what I do is look at what I know about my past and construct a plausible story about it that sometimes has little to do with what really happened. Don’t mean to, just works out that way. Needless to say, this irritates the security clearance folk to no end. 🙂 I feel OK talking about this because I don’t have clearance right now and probably won’t be seeking it again anytime soon.
“– Finally, I have noticed that you sometimes adopt a style of argument that some would describe as excessively legalistic, not to say tedious. There might even be some folks at The Blackboard who feel that way.”
Ya think? legalistic isnt the exact word… hyperliteralist.. arrg
There actually is a diagnosis that goes along with his kind of style.
Just wishing everyone a safe and happy Pi Day!
Pi is just like global warming discussion because, of course, both are irrational and non-terminating.
Neal,
I think the main problem with SkS “rebuttals” is they often engage strawman or cartoons of skeptic arguments. I’m not going to say that no one puts forward the views SkS “rebutts” (dragon slayers may), but generally few do. And in fact, SkS generally shows no evidence anyone has advanced the argument they “rebutt” because it has been their policy to neither name nor link.
People who follow climate arguments and read a variety of side quickly recognize that the “other” sides argument has not only not been rebutted by SkS but it isn’t even engaged.
Now it’s true that someone at SkS might read their own or their friends “rebuttal” and think it is a masterful take down of claim they put in the mouth of the person they are “rebutting”. But the problem is: this can’t work with real people and real arguments. Because in a real discussion, the “other” person (aka ‘skeptic’) doesn’t advance the argument SkS helped their followers “pre-rebut”. And when read by those who hold entirely different views from the cartoon ones SkS “rebuts” the entire site looks foolish.
That is, in my view, the main problem with “SkS” rebuttals.
Neal:
I think the Wikipedia article gives a pretty good definition:
Planetary motion certainly isn’t an example.
The thing to focus on here is that the First Law of Thermodynamics (1LOT) is a statement of conservation of energy for thermodynamic quantities:
$latex {\partial U\over \partial t} = {\partial Q\over \partial t} + {\partial W\over \partial t}$
with the internal energy U playing the role of kinetic + potential.
The point is the 1LOT says the quantity on the left side can only change if there is energy exchanged with the environment, either through heat energy or with work done on or by the system.
Since we were talking about a gas, as we all know there is a positive relationship between the kinetic temperature of a gas in statistical equilibrium and the internal kinetic energy of the gas. For solids, an example of internal potential energy would be internal stress.
I think it’s mundanely possible to have the internal energy increase without having the kinetic energy increase. A solid at its melting temperature (ignoring statistical mechanical corrections) maintains a constant temperature until it melts.
You could imagine in principle having an decrease between the internal kinetic energy commensurate with an increase in internal potential energy. I’m suspicious that this is disallowed classically and possibly in quantum mechanical systems by the 2LOT but I admit that solid state mechanics isn’t something I’ve done much with, other than suffering through a year of it in grad school.
By the way, Neal, since you brought up planetary motion, I should point out that the moon orbiting around the Earth causes solid-Earth tides (“this is well known”), but these solid Earth tides results in heating of the Earth’s crust.
Same general conservation principle results in the orbital potential energy of the Moon decreasing overtime.
So that’s a case of planetary motion where you have heat energy (irreversible process) involved.
Regarding nuclear energy: I wasn’t worried about that.
I was more concerned about coherent quantum mechanical effects where classical (Newtonian) thermodynamics doesn’t apply.
lucia:
Yes, this is how I would have characterized it too.
There is plenty of really bad stuff out there without having to make up arguments about things that people might have said, but nobody actually has:
Gifts that keep giving include anything Goddard. Nearly anything Monckton.
Since their focus is on “skeptical arguments” they also loose a chance to acquire the “high ground” by refusing to make definitive criticisms about the Sacred Cows of Climate Science. There is on occasion, munchkinisms that get performed by supposed supporters of the main-stream climate science agenda.
I’ve always been a fan of the political science theory of “inoculation”.
If you present a more balanced argument, you not only seem more trustworthy, you also rob your opponents of any usable counter arguments.
And if the oppositionalists do still make counter arguments, usually they are reduced to picking nits or other such mundanity.
That said it’s probably too late for SkS to adopt such a strategy.
Which is why phase changes, like the freezing point of zinc and the triple point of water, are the defining points of the International Temperature Scale. These temperatures are defined by international agreement. Temperature measurement is a lot more empirical than I suspect most people think.
Carrick,
What a charming term! I hadn’t run across it before, at least not used that way.
Thanks. 🙂
Lucia / Carrick,
I don’t disagree with your points about SkS rebuttals. But I blush to admit I started paying attention to the discussion at an even lower level of scientific competence than I enjoy today. Possibly ‘skeptical’ arguments (Goddardisms? I’ve never really read Goddard so I can’t say) that you never seriously entertained because you knew at first glance that they were rubbish have puzzled less knowledgeable others like me.
Or not. It’s an idea anyway.
Always happy to help, Mark!
Say for example CO2 saturation in the atmosphere. I think the argument goes that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is already such that there’s not going to be any further temperature increase due to increases in CO2. Did either of you ever take the argument seriously? I had to investigate.
…Come to think of it, I don’t remember why I’ve concluded that this argument is wrong, so I hope it’s a bogus argument! 🙂
Oh well.
Turbulent Eddie:
I second your thoughts about Pi Day. One of the reasons for my favored ECS value — sqrt(pi) — is that it is irrational and transcendental.
And happy Napping Day to all, as well.
Mark:
As I like to say, “there’s always a point in time before any of us knew better.” Part of the measure of a person is whether they can overcome their natural prickly response to being shown to be wrong, and to learn and grow from the experience.
Carrick,
Moncton has a flair for being slippery. He’s difficult to “rebut” because what he says is often actually ambiguous. It seems to say something very firmly. But… what did he really say?
In my view, he is nearly never right in the sense that he hasn’t said anything that is simultaneously concrete and specific and also actually true. But the lack of specificity makes it difficult to prove what he said is actually false.
Goddard… Well… he doesn’t get invited to “events”. So I don’t even pay attention to him. Didn’t he get himself kicked off of WUWT? Monckton is too clever to lose that platform.
Mark,
It’s wrong, but it seems logical at first glance. You really have to look at atmospheric spectra and know some basic meteorology to understand why it’s wrong. David Archer’s MODTRAN site is very helpful along those lines. I think you can still find Rodrigo Cabellero’s Lecture Notes on Physical Meteorology on line somewhere. For the more technically oriented, $36 will get you a copy of Grant Petty’s A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation from Sundog Publishing.
void fury() {
printf(“That makes me furious!!\n”);
fury();
}
I like reading Lucia and Carrick more than I like commenting, so I’ll shut up after this. Just one more thing. I was only talking about the comment policy and the rebuttals because Neal asked me if I’d been to the site. It’s not really where my problem is with SkS.
It’s the Shenanigans.
I don’t point these out to be offensive yet it’s hard to tiptoe around them. Twitter bots? The association with Lewandowsky ( void main() { fury(); } )? The darn nazi photoshop thing, whatever that was really about? The 97% consensus?
That’s what baffles me. Not the rebuttals, not even the tight comment policy. If it was one or even two things I could shrug it off. It’s like John (bless his heart) Cook is a shenanigans magnet. Why do that to yourself / your organization? Why stick with an organization like that?
It’s sort of what I’d imagine if skeptics invited the baumwolle one to be a mascot.
Sorry if I got carried away…
Thank you DeWitt. 🙂
Mark Bofill:
I have a friend with PhD’s in both physics and chemistry. Last time I talked to him, he still bought into this argument. So you aren’t alone.
It’s bogus.
The short version is, if you increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration, you increase the opacity of the atmosphere slightly at certain infrared wavelengths. That results in an increase in convective forcing, which results in a bit thicker troposphere, with nearly the same vertical temperature lapse rate (rate of temperature change with altitude).
Because the temperature at the top of the atmosphere is about 210K (it’s set by radiation balance), and the temperature increases as you move downwards towards the surface, if you move the profile up vertically while preserving the slope, you’ll end up with a slightly higher surface temperature.
As I said.. that’s the short version. It’s the shortest I know that quasi-gets the all of the relevant physics right.
Comparing and contrasting this with how a blanket works is illustrative.
Thanks Carrick. The short version is what I remember about it now that you mention it.
lucia:
Goddard gets quoted by certain right-wing news organizations, like WND.
So I’d say it’s worth the effort for SkS to refute his dreck. Because his stuff is so bad, he’s easily refutable and in many cases object lessons abound.
For example, the reason why you should do things the way mainstream climate science does them ends up getting illustrated (inadvertently) by Goddard’s flailing about.
Mark Bofill:
Sorry, but I couldn’t help it. The first comment was meant just to give a perspective from the other side, and I’d have been content to leave it at that. But then Neal J. King wrote his comment suggesting the reason I was banned were things not remotely related to anything that had happened, because he apparently refused to even look at what was said.
That sort of behavior is toxic to discussions. So just like with Nick Stokes, I had to tweak him over it.
Carrick, it’s also worth pointing out while Steven Goddard did get himself thrown off Watts Up With That, the site has actually been favorably citing him lately. Anthony Watts has gone out of his way to defend and promote things Goddard says, all while refusing to criticize Goddard for constantly being wrong (and oh, secretly editing his posts to cover up his mistakes).
Pretty much all Watts will criticize Goddard for is his choice of language. And even that is a rarity.
Brandon,
It’s all good I hope. Right now I’m hoping that my mentioning shenanigans hasn’t offended or alienated Neal beyond reason. It’s hard for me to balance honesty and welcome/good manners sometimes. ~shrug~ But if we can’t talk at the end of the day, I guess nothing lost, we can’t talk.
Mark Bofill, a thing that’d turn me off from Skeptical Science is my knowledge they’re intentionally using a fabricated quote, and have been for years…? I’d have to check how long it’s been since it was clear they realized it.
They used a fabricated quote in a timeline. I wrote a post about it. It got copied over at Watts Up With That. They used the fabricated quote again. I wrote another post about it. They discussed that post in their forums. John Cook then wrote a paper in which the fabricated quote was replaced with a real one. And yet, to this day they keep using the fabricated quote on their site!
That’d be my breaking point even if I didn’t know the site had, at one point, dozens of altered quotes, misquotations and even fabricated quotes on their site at one point, a problem which got so bad the Skeptical Science group had to review every “rebuttal” posted on their site to check for fake quotes. Because apparently using fake quotes is such a common thing with John Cook. (There are even more examples than I’m referring to here.)
Side note, while I get why people might not want to discuss Skeptical Science’s moderation and or actions for various reasons, you do kind of have to admit they are topical. I mean, this post is about a book with, “How the Consensus is Enforced” in the title. Skeptical Science banning commenters for pointing out problems with their ‘”consensus” work is certainly relevant to that!
(Which isn’t to say I want to talk about those issues. I just thought it was funny when I realized they are actually rather topical issues.)
I know. Actually I didn’t know about that specific instance, but I’m familiar with the concept. Shenanigans. I do not understand why they do these things.
In my view, this kills trust. I go out to a skeptics site. I read stuff. I check it. It wasn’t the whole truth. WOW! Golden opportunity to win my trust to your cause, if you’ve got the truth the whole truth and nothing but. And then, boom. There had to be a cutesy shenanigan or four to ruin the possibility.
The reason I asked Neal about this is – his knowledge is real and valuable. I don’t understand why he lets SkS damage his credibility in the eyes of skeptics by association. I doubt he views it this way of course, which I why I asked up front what SkS was to him. The genuine article has no need of shenanigans, in my view; quite the opposite.
Anyways.
Brandon,
I agree it’s pretty well on topic! But still….
One of the problems with discussion of moderation in general is it becomes all “he said/she said” sort of things. After all: the moderated comment often doesn’t exist. The notion about whether something is going on and on and on…. is often a value judgement.
It’s true that with additional evidence one can figure out if his or her side of the story is more plausible based on other bits. But in these cases no one really has the time to go check out a thread, read it and try to figure out if, given the gist of the thread, and additional info about what was in those comments that were deleted moderation was fair or not.
So I’d rather not have endless discussions on moderation. That said: moderation is a method used at some blogs to control (or attempt to control) “the message”. No doubt about it.
Since Brandon brought it up:
It does appear to me that Watts has engaged in devious practices in recent years. Goddard is one of the people that seems to bring out the devious behavior.
Perhaps always, but my impression is that it’s gotten worse since Watt’s surface temperature project ran onto the shoals.
By the way, this ends up being topical to the question of how certain consensus beliefs get enforced too. (Like the notion that AGW is a hoax, among certain conservatives and libertarians.)
I haven’t been keeping up with WUWT recently. I popped over when Steven Mosher linked the bit about Dr. Spencer turning off comments. Maybe I should go [edit: read, not re-read] re-read a bit.
Say Carrick, set me up with sauce for the goose. 🙂 I don’t have the evening to devote to searching for WUWT shenanigans. What sort of devious behaviors are you talking about, so I’ll know what you’re talking about when I find it?
Mark, lucia, Carrick:
.
Thanks for your useful remarks concerning weaker aspects of the SkS write-ups. There is an ongoing effort at revising them, but it keeps getting side-lined by other projects; still, a revision does come out every once in a while. But there are a few unsolved problems, like: How do you make sure that the revision is an improvement over the original, if the first writer has moved on to other interests?
The “original sin” that makes writing difficult is that we would like to be reasonably accurate, while maintaining an easy reading level. I have always taken the position that SkS should strive for an 8th-grade reading level, because that is what writers generally assume is reasonable for emergency notifications, etc.: You can be understood quickly by most people. It’s nearly impossible to do this consistently, but if we don’t make the effort, people lapse into using $15 words because it’s easier to write that way. My inspiration in this matter is Richard Feynman, who could explain sophisticated ideas accurately using informal and direct language. Of course, to do this properly, you need to understand the issues really well; but I think that is a feature, not a bug.
“Goddard gets quoted by certain right-wing news organizations, like WND.”
Not just WND, Senator Ted Cruz.
“you should do things the way mainstream climate science does them”
Like post facto data changes. I’m gonna run that one past my boss tomorrow.
Andrew
Mark:
.
You mentioned shenanigans:
– Twitter-bots: I think these were an extension of the SkS concept into compact form. First we had the argument rebuttals; then we had 1-paragraph summaries of those rebuttals; then we had 1-sentence summaries; then someone had the idea that you might need a quick 1-sentence response to someone challenging you with an issue on which you didn’t have proper background. One of the original motivations behind SkS was that it would provide support for someone trying to disentangle the issue of climate change from a net of spurious arguments; this is more difficult than it would be, for example, in physics, because the range of information and disciplines involved (or potentially involved) is much broader. John got the idea when he was dealing with his father (who had been a hard-core disbeliever in global warming) time and again on this issue. Then, one day in preparation for another family holiday, he put together a presentation to walk through some particular global-warming issue, with links to the scientific papers supporting specific points. This was much more satisfactory than previous discussions, because it was not just his opinion vs. his father’s opinion. He then wondered if this capability could be broadened and provided to other people who cared to discuss these topics.
.
I don’t know if the twitterbots are still operating. I didn’t take much interest in them.
.
– Lewandowsky: He is John’s thesis adviser. Other than that, I don’t think he has any special involvement with SkS.
.
– Nazi photoshop: Yeah, some guy at SkS thought it would be funny to make a Nazi photoshop starring John Cook, partly in annoyance at various people calling SkS “climate nazis” or something like that. Everybody else said, “This is stupid,” and he was supposed to get rid of them. He didn’t do it timely (probably a sudden work situation), and this thing made its way into the public eye. John didn’t make the photoshop, and, needless to say, doesn’t dress up as a Nazi on weekends or at any other times. So what exactly is the shenanigan?
.
– The 97% consensus is what it is: 97% of the papers for which it was possible to discern that there was an expressed opinion; and this is stated throughout the paper. It’s funny, with all the critiques made of its “errors”, that essentially all these “errors” were pointed out and addressed in the original paper. That was one reason why Tol had such a hard time getting his critique published (he shopped it to 7 different journals, I believe): Reviewers kept pointing out, “Hey, nearly all the points you’re making have already been addressed in the original paper.” You can check my memory by reviewing Tol’s website: I believe he posted all his versions and the reviewers’ comments.
– So where does the claim come from that the paper claims 97% of the total? It’s based on what other people have said, which turned out to be abbreviation to the point of error. But SkS cannot monitor the media to look for wrong quotations and issue denials of them; it’s not a sensible way to interact with the media. Dealing with the media is a double-edged sword.
Neal,
Immediately I’d like to say thank you for your response. I’ve got an unpleasant chore to go take care of shortly (need to have an old family pet put down; he’s 15 years old and starting to suffer pretty obviously). Time and circumstance permitting, I will respond when I’ve had time to consider your words.
Mark Bofill:
I’d recommend Brandon for that one. He’s caught Anthony in a number of those. Nick probably knows of some too.
Neal:
This isn’t just an issue with monitoring… SkS members shouldn’t be creating or propagating them either.
Carrick, DeWitt:
.
Planetary motion was never the proposed system. The proposed system is a body of gas held together by gravitation; possibly with a hard inner core, but maybe not. We consider the center of mass of the gas as being at rest. According to the viral theorem, for an ideal gas:
– If you choose the zero of potential energy to be at infinity, the gas will have total energy E < 0.
– The total kinetic energy will be: KE = – E.
– The total potential energy will be: U = -2 * KE
– So if you add a little energy to the system, the total energy will increase (become less negative); the kinetic energy will decrease (become less positive).
– For a summary on the viral theorem, you can check: http://www2.astro.psu.edu/users/rbc/a534/lec10.pdf
.
So, does this meet your criteria?
=========================================================
Regarding the Earth-Moon system:
– The Moon is moving farther away, so the potential energy is increasing, not decreasing.
Mark, Carrick:
.
Mark:
Yes, the claim that absorption by CO2 is saturated probably comes from a bad conceptualization about how the enhanced greenhouse effect (EGHE) works. One that I have seen promoted imagines that infrared photons are something like pellets in a shotgun blast fired into the woods. The CO2 is likened to tree limbs that block the pellets, so once you have enough trees, all the pellets have been blocked. In the same way, it is imagined that the IR photons are blocked and stopped, so you run out of them.
.
But this is not the way that IR photons work. They can be scattered or absorbed (leading to a later emission), but they are not generally going to just be “swallowed”, because we are operating at temperatures for which the IR is the medium of exchange of energy. In other words, if you were talking about photons in the X-ray range, that picture would be more appropriate. X-ray photons passing through gas at STP conditions do not “regenerate”.
==========================================================
.
Carrick:
Your statement that adding more CO2 increases convective forcing doesn’t sound quite right to me. What Pierrehumbert says (essentially) is that the additional CO2 reduces the mean free path for IR photons; this means that the point where the optical depth = 1, as measured coming down from space, occurs at a higher altitude: and this (“OD = 1” point) is the effective radiating surface, where the radiative balance is set.
Since that surface has moved up, the ground-level temperature must be higher, as you stated.
But I don’t see how the raising of the effective radiating surface could have anything to do with additional convective forcing. I believe it is a radiative issue.
It may very well be that a modest fraction of SkS’s communication problem is the desire to communicate at a level an 8th grader can understand. But I don’t think that’s the main problem. I think their main problem is that unlike Feynman, there are pieces of information the prefer to withhold from their audience. And they are willing to chose being misleading– sometimes deeply misleading– if that’s necessary to make sure they stay fully on message. And they do so.
Their willingness to mislead is evident in the entire history surrounding the 97% paper, the forum, the promotion and so on. This is not something that springs from merely making it simple so 8th graders can understand. Nor is it justified on the grounds the people who need to evacuate in emergencies (like hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes) need things simplified. This appears to be a desire to omit important information to real people who have a right to make their own decisions and value judgements. And these people certainly have more than minutes or hours to make decisions– so the any ’emergency management’ motivations for ‘simplifying’ come off as rather disingenous.
Neal J. King:
This would make a lot more sense to me if there was only one image like Neal J. King claims. There wasn’t. There were half a dozen, including multiple versions of one image which showed a continued effort to improve the quality of the Photoshop.
But then, he also says the 97% consensus just is what is completely ignoring that it has now been repeatedly pointed out that consensus position was either not defined, or was defined in a way that is intentionally deceptive.
So… yeah. I wouldn’t say King’s descriptions of things should be trusted.
Neal J. King,
For the gravitational potential energy to decrease, work has to be done to raise the average altitude of the gas particles. I don’t see how this is, in principle, different from Joule-Thomson expansion below the crossover temperature. In a J-T expansion at low temperature, kinetic energy goes into reducing the attractive van der Waals potential energy during the expansion and the total kinetic energy decreases while the enthalpy is constant. In a gravitationally bound gas, increasing system energy reduces gravitational potential energy faster than the increase in total energy and kinetic energy decreases.
Neal J. King,
A step change in CO2 reduces the effective temperature of the Earth and creates a radiative imbalance. It’s what happens afterward that involves convection to maintain the lapse rate as the surface warms.
– The 97% is stated in the paper as being 97% of those abstracts for which it was possible to discern an opinion. As far as I know, that is how it is described by SkS authors. Unfortunately, the media has taken the abbreviated version: It’s a little hard to turn back the wind when President Obama has quoted it four or five times in public.
=========================================================
“This would make a lot more sense to me if there was only one image like Neal J. King claims. There wasn’t. There were half a dozen, including multiple versions of one image which showed a continued effort to improve the quality of the Photoshop.”
.
Complete non sequitur. What conceivable difference can the number of versions make? It’s just as easy for one guy to do multiple versions as to do one. What, you think SkS has half a dozen people who own licenses for Photoshop? For what? To paint ourselves up as Nazis? What conceivable point would there be to that?
So… yeah. I wouldn’t say Shollenberger’s analysis of things makes any sense. Maybe he needs to get out more and interact with human beings.
DeWitt:
.
OK, you have the radiative imbalance creating the convection change. This I can agree with.
But Carrick:
“That results in an increase in convective forcing, which results in a bit thicker troposphere…”
OK, he skipped over the mechanism.
=========================================================
“In a gravitationally bound gas, increasing system energy reduces gravitational potential energy faster than the increase in total energy and kinetic energy decreases.”
.
Would you write that as an equation? There are too many sign changes to make sense of what is meant by increase or decrease in this situation.
=========================================================
I guess the difference is that in the J-T case, total energy is constant but KE decreases; in the gas case, total energy is increased but KE decreases. I don’t see that work is involved: How do I extract it or apply it to the gas?
Neal,
The paper itself distorts the full findings by picking and choosing what and how to report from what could be reported. This decision has nothing to do with Obama.
As far as “unfortunately the media”, I would suggest that SkS did their best to make sure the media picked up the distorted findings.
Neal J. King:
Well for one, it means you told people something that wasn’t true. That’s kind of relevant. When judging the credibility of a comment, that the comment includes incorrect statements is certainly something people might care about.
I haven’t said or suggested anything of the sort. I’ve merely pointed out your claim that one image was made and then everybody said it was stupid is difficult to reconcile with the fact there were multiple images made, over a period of time.
That’s not suggesting any possibility. It’s merely pointing out your description doesn’t seem to match what we know. At a bare minimum, we would have to change your description to hold that everybody said the one image was stupid, then the person just kept posting more anyway.
I would suggest in the future you try responding to the things people say rather than avoiding the issues and just insulting them. It tends to be a better method of communication.
Oh, wow. I totally didn’t catch the fact Neal J. King quoted this:
And then posted things I said claiming they were a non-sequitur when that wasn’t what I responded to with them. The quote I responded to actually dealt with the issue I was responding to:
Replacing this quote with an entirely different quote then claiming what I said in response was a non-sequitur is… one way to criticize a person, I suppose. You could criticize anyone that way. Just take their response to one thing, quote it along with something else entirely then claim it’s a non-sequitur!
Neal,
In the normal course of events the way this proceeds is for us to disagree and escalate disagreement; you have offered explanations that dismiss or minimize my objections in your view, presumably the normal pattern is for me to press my interpretation till we misunderstand or offend each other and decide further discussion is pointless. We could certainly do that.
Or we can say we did and skip it. 😉
Mostly I figured you’d have to view these things differently than I do. Now that I’ve read and thought about your response, I’m not surprised to hear it, although I can’t say that I expected it specifically as opposed to something else that minimized / dismissed my concerns.
I don’t objectively know which one of us has got something wrong here, if indeed there is an objective ‘something wrong’. I’m not a … relativist? Is there such a thing? I’m not the sort who believes there’s never a clear cut right or wrong objective anything, but that doesn’t mean I think there’s always a cIear cut right and wrong objective everything. Even if there was, it’s not clear it’s what’s important yet. Im still trying to get a feel for the similarities and differences between us.
At any rate.
It’s fun talking with you. I hope you hang around awhile.
[objections / concerns. These are not quite the correct word. The correct word eludes me at the moment. Close enough for now.]
Neil King,
When in a hole, stop digging. There is just about nobody reading here who is going to believe your argument. Bad social research (97% agree!) is even sillier than bad scientific research, and easier to poke fun at. Like I said, stop digging. It’s politics, and if you would simply step up and state that, you would gain a lot of credibility…. ok, maybe not at SKS.
Neal J. King,
From your link:
I think there’s a mistake here, unless I’m missing something. The decrease in gravitational energy would have to be more than the energy radiated, not less. Otherwise there is no excess remaining energy to heat the star.
Replace star with gas cloud radiates with absorbs, etc.
This means that as a gas cloud absorbs energy, its gravitational energy will become less negative, but this increase will be more than the energy absorbed. The excess energy required will come from Ei, cooling the gas cloud.
Egrav α -M/R For Egrav2 to be less negative than Egrav1, R2 > R1. But increasing R at constant M means that work was done on M. I think. Maybe.
Neal, the SkS 97% consensus paper is quite specific about its aims. This is from the introduction.
That is the IPCC position and is specifically most (ie more than 50%) of the warming.
The problem they have is that only one category explicitly supports this position
And that results in only about 1.5% “consensus” IPCC AGW style. That figure is never reported.
The next category doesn’t include quantification and therefore cannot be counted as supporting the IPCC position that is quantified as being more than 50%.
So you’re right in that “it is what it is”..its just that what it actually is, isn’t what Cook wanted it to be.
And so now he lies about it by openly saying his paper supports 97% consensus on the IPCC position on AGW.
Neal J. King (Comment #143868)
“Carrick, DeWitt:. According to the “viral” theorem, for an ideal gas:
– For a summary on the “viral” theorem”
You did mean to write “virial” theorem, did you not?
“The proposed system is a body of gas held together by gravitation; possibly with a hard inner core”
Not a body of gas then?
4 March 2016
Skeptical Science
“Goldman Sachs analysts predict that by 2025, almost 22% of all cars in use world-wide will be propelled by electricity rather than hydrocarbons.”
Wonderful stuff, electricity. Found in electricity mines , perhaps.
Lucia
you may want to rephrase this.
bugs,
Why would I wish to do so? (Real question.)
Carrick:
I can name many times where WUWT used moderation inappropriately, but those would be relatively minor compared to what Skeptical Science does. Even Anthony Watts used moderation to edit or disappear his comments after he submits them to fix errors (on a site with no Edit or Delete feature) doesn’t compare.
I wouldn’t be surprised if WUWT matches Skeptical Science in terms of shadiness though. I mean, Watts is knowingly promoting a person committing fraud on his site. As in criminal fraud. As in, the illegal type that involves scamming people out of money and can get a person sentenced to jail. I demonstrated the fraud in this post (though you may want to read this post for some background information). I contacted Watts privately about this, and I didn’t talk about our exchange until my recent post condemning his site. In that post, I showed how Watts tried his hardest to pretend nothing shady had happened then after repeated pressured from me, said he’d contact the person who had committed the fraud.
I never heard another word from him, but there can be no doubt what I said was true. Watts just chose to, for whatever reason, ignore it and try to pretend he hadn’t helped promote criminal fraud on his site. I can’t see any way I would put Skeptical Science lower than WUWT after that.
Reactions to the New eBook
On a more topical note, two blog posts have been written criticizing my eBook. I think it’s rather entertaining how bad they are. It’s especially interesting as they seem to be claiming I hacked the Skeptical Science forum and leaked its contents. I of course had nothing to do with that incident. I guess I’m just the boogeyman to these people, to be blamed for everything.
http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2016/03/reactions-to-the-new-ebook/
Lucia said
In the context of this topic and how Carrick obtained his information that statement struck me as being relevant or even ironic.
Bugs,
Why did it strike you so? (Real question. I am unable to begin to guess.)
Thanks Brandon. As you note, perhaps we’ve wandered afield. I’d asked Carrick for dirt on WUWT for a purpose tied to the off topic safari; if we’re returning to topic I’ll refrain from following up other than to say, thank you.
…I guess I could have just said “Thank you.”… maybe I ought to work on economy of expression…
No prob.
By the way, that evil Brandon Schollenberger makes an appearance in one of the two posts criticizing my book. He and I have apparently teamed up to do dastardly things.
Bradon, Brandon, Brandoon, Shollenberger, Schollenberger…
If you could get all five of those guys working on the same team… Just think of what they could accomplish.
Neal, regarding the Moon Earth system, you’re completely correct the potential energy the Moon is increasing (becoming less negative). Brain fart.
The reason it’s getting further away, and it’s energy is increasing, is because the Moon-Earth interaction is transferring rotational energy from the Earth into lunar orbital energy.
Anyway, thanks for catching that.
bugs:
Which information?
Neal:
I did say I was trying to keep it simple. 😉
Regarding your example with gravitational potential energy, the problem is you can’t convert heat energy into mechanical energy in a closed system without doing work on the system. This is a property that is going to be obeyed by any Newtonian system.
Carrick,
bugs seems to have achieved the level of obscurity often called “opacity”.
At first I thought perhaps he didn’t like my using a singular verb in “you or your company wishes”. It’s perfectly fine, but some people mistakenly think you treat ‘a or b’ as plural which is not the case.
I have no idea how anything you did would make two sentences I wrote long ago contain any irony.
Mark:
.
As far as I am concerned, we can continue the discussion.
angech:
.
– Yes, “viral” => “VIRIAL”.
Unfortunately, there seems to be some over-active spell-checker that is “correcting” my spelling. I’m not sure whether it’s a OSX issue or a browser issue.
.
– It could either be just a mass of gas, or it could have a hard rocky core. But if a mass of gas gets big enough, the pressure towards the center gets to be large enough that it forms some form of core anyway. If you compress a gas enough, it undergoes a phase change to liquid or something else. What happens for big collections of gas in real life is that when the pressure gets high enough, nuclear fusion starts to take place: this temporarily sustains the star-stuff from further collapse, until the fuel for that reaction is gone. Then it collapses further, giving rise to a different set of reactions. You can read on the life-cycle of stars for further details and insights.
– Anyway, for this question, I am side-stepping the issue of stellar evolution. Assume a small enough mass that the pressure doesn’t get that high; or assume a hard higher-element core to provide enough gravity to hold the gas together.
Thanks Neal.
Let me confide .. confide is the wrong word, when I’m speaking publicly… let me admit something that may be pertinent. The idea that Anthony Watts has been involved in a shenanigan is disturbing to me. I don’t want to consider it, I’d like to dismiss the very idea. I could pretty easily in any of a variety of ways get around having to consider the possibility. This is a pretty strong urge, and this is so even though I’ve never been officially involved with WUWT in any way. I haven’t even been a regular there for years now. I don’t say you suffer from something similar, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you did. Maybe more to the point, the idea that you’ve got some reluctance to support criticism of people you’ve worked with, liked/admired, possibly feel loyalty to (whatever details beside the point) is a trait I identify with. So we become circumstantial adversaries as a result? I think that’s silly. Not to mention, nobody is going to suddenly disappear. This isn’t warfare, whatever analogies some use to the contrary, and the ‘other side’ isn’t going to be ‘wiped out’. As a result it doesn’t seem sensible to ignore or try to drown out people I disagree with; I’d rather try to understand them as far as I can.
What makes things interesting and difficult though is that I’m not a relativist. Some things are right and others are wrong.
~shrug~
I forgot where I was going with this. Maybe it’ll come to me in time. 🙂
.
lucia, yes opacity is a good word choice here. I’ve absolutely no clue what he’s talking about.
I hate it when I’m involved in a conversation that’s more interesting to me than what I’m working on!
I’ve got to slog through some work Neal; I sort of left the conversation hanging and I sort of regret that, but I’ll get back here eventually later on.
Mark: I get what you’re saying about Watts. We can start a new thread using him as the chew toy if people like. But just a short explanation: I care more about SkS (and Tamino and RC and even the Fluffy Bunny) because they in someways identify themselves as representing the mainstream science, and thru the mainstream me.
Although a lot of what gets published in WUWT is wrongheaded and often needlessly argumentative, and often seeks to paint scientists including myself in a very negative light, nobody is going to see them as representing my viewpoint on things. Plus they already have plenty of critics.
The Cook paper is a big messy hornets nest. Neal, bless him, is conflicted because he shares similar ethical values with people who themselves are, for the most part, not bad people.
I’ve seen (living vicariously) projects that started out well intentioned (which I think this project did), that came completely off the rails later, not just once, but multiple times.
I actually think a more dispassionate examination of the paper and the various things that went wrong would be interesting. I’ll throw out an interesting to me tidbit:
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed this, and there is so much intentional disinformation out there now (including from UQ unfortunately), that it’s easy to get mixed up on the facts. To make things more challenging for me, the rules that apply are Australia law and then UQ bi-laws. I can read the letter of the law, but I can’t easily get good interpretations of how they are generally enforced.
It’s my impression that Cook was initially unaware that he needed ethical approval before he could initiate his study. I’m referring to the rankings by SkS members. I don’t think he was a bad person for not knowing this, mistakes happen.
But it’s interesting to trace how this study came to receive (what is probably an unlawful) post-facto IRB approval. And how it later to practice that UQ after issuing post-facto IRB approval, suddenly sought legal recourse to protect the subject rights of the rankers from Brandon’s disclosures of the prior not-very-confidential-at-all data.
Pretty fascinating or damning stuff, depending on perspective.
Carrick,
Makes sense. 🙂 I don’t forget exactly that you are in fact a scientist. Sometimes I just don’t think through all the implications.
Carrick:
.
“It’s my impression that Cook was initially unaware that he needed ethical approval before he could initiate his study. I’m referring to the rankings by SkS members. I don’t think he was a bad person for not knowing this, mistakes happen.”
.
I’m not following this. Some SkS members volunteered to evaluate the amount of support in the peer-reviewed climate-science literature. They hammered out an approach to doing this, and, among them, evaluated some 12,000 abstracts. Most of them put their names to the paper; some, for personal reasons, did not.
Where does the need for ethics approval come in?
Neal,
The ethics issue was discussed at length here a while back. I could look, but I’m not in the mood right now. As I remember, poorly, it wasn’t the 97% paper that raised the issue.
The Moon Hoax paper is the one that had the most egregious ethical problems, and is the one I thought got a post-hoc approval via Lewandowsky. Or was it Recursive Fury that grossly violated ethical norms? It’s so confusing, all this quality climate science coming out of Oz. I don’t think JoC gets all the blame for those ethical lapses but as a co-author on Fury there is certainly some blame to be shared.
I’ll admit to being unaware of any specific ethical issues with the 97% travesty. I do recall there being some internet noise about the anonymization of the allegedly independent reviewers.
Carrick, DeWitt:
“Regarding your example with gravitational potential energy, the problem is you can’t convert heat energy into mechanical energy in a closed system without doing work on the system.”
.
Let’s take the gaseous mass, held together by self-gravitation, but with a small core. The core contains a heating element powered by a nuclear fission reactor, which I control remotely by laser or gamma rays or whatever. Then:
total E = KE + PE
Since PE = -2 * KE
total E = – KE
.
If I switch on the reactor, it will heat the gas from the center, and the local temperature will increase. After a while, I turn off the reactor, and the energy will equalize in some way through the gas. I believe that we can arrange it so that the equalization time is much shorter than the radiative cooling time for the gas as a whole, so what must happen is that the heat I have added to the gas increases the energy of the gas as a whole. But since the energy is negative, the increase amounts to a reduction of the magnitude of the negative quantity. Under this form of the potential energy (gravitational PE = 0 at infinity), the total KE = – total PE; so the increase in total E corresponds to a decrease in KE (a result that, in the end, will not depend on the selection of the zero-point for PE). What happens is that the gaseous mass will expand in size, and the local temperatures will correspondingly decline. According to your wikipedia definition, I believe that what I am calling total E is the same as their total internal energy; so it has been increased as a result of my heating element.
.
So where is the work that you claim needs to be done? As far as I can see, there is just heating.
Neal J King:
If you participate in ranking papers, that’s still considered human subjects research participation, because that participation contains a subjective component (I do not think that John Cook argues this point, neither, do I believe, does UQ). That would include exploratory studies where you’re trying to determine the best set of ranking criteria.
In the US, I believe this would be exempted research. There are no exemptions in Australia. All human subjects research requires prior approval before the research is initiated.
There is related discussion here:
https://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/my-super-secret-confidential-data/
See my comments in the thread below. I would be willing to summarize them here if (a) you are open minded about the possibility I am correct and (b) you feel it necessary for me to summarize it so you can respond here.
Neal,
Work has to be done to expand the gas cloud. Assume that the pressure at the surface of the core is P. So at time zero, P/2 is at altitude Z1. Now you add energy to the cloud and it expands. P/2 is now at Z2. Z2 > Z1. You have raised half the total mass of the cloud Z2-Z1 meters against the force of gravity. That’s the definition of work, force times distance. Obviously one needs to integrate from z = 0 → ∞ to get the total work done.
To put it another way, you’ve increased the volume and the work will PΔV
Neal:
You did say the gas expands in size, right?
($latex d W = P dV$.)
DeWitt, Earle:
– I’m not going to search through past conversations in which I was not involved. If someone has a specific ethical issue wrt Cook (2013), I’d like to hear it.
– wrt to anonymization & Cook (2013): This concern seems to me to be overblown. The original point was to: make sure each abstract had at least two readers. As I recall it, if the two raters disagreed on a paper, it would get targeted for a third review. The system probably hid names to avoid the development of undue influence; but there was no specific focus on secrecy.
– wrt “Recursive Fury” and “Moon Hoax”: It was my general understanding that this paper relied on quotations from self-identified posters at various open websites. Why exactly is there an ethical issue in quoting self-identified posts on open sites?
Carrick, DeWitt:
.
– Yes, the gas expands in size – but against a vacuum. The pressure at the edge is zero.
– If there’s work, show me where the work is being done.
Carrick:
.
I think it would be most convenient if you were to present your views here.
Ethically there is nothing wrong with the police force setting up an investigation into members of the police force behaving unethically.
Nor is there a problem with anti vaxxers investigating the problems of vaccination.
Or of Skeptical Science members helping investigate a consensus they believe in.
The results of such self funded investigations are usually taken with a grain of salt.
It is only when such activity is denied or covered up that it becomes unethical.
So if it was said that 97% of climate activists reviewing papers concluded that man made warming was evident, we would all be happy, and ethical.
DeWitt
Yeah, they are called hot mirrors and have been around forever.
WRT to the greenhouse mechanism think about what happens if the CO2 concentration gets high enough that the level at which the atmosphere radiates to space is in the stratosphere. . .
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/12/answer-to-puzzler-couple-of-days-ago.html
Neal,
The pressure is only zero at the TOA. Everywhere else, it’s positive. The atmosphere doesn’t expand just at the TOA, it expands everywhere. As I said, P/2, which would be the 500mbar level on Earth, increases in height. Similarly for any other fraction of P.
You can’t decrease the gravitational potential energy at constant mass without doing work. That would violate at least one of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Eli,
You can’t do that calculation with MODTRAN. MODTRAN doesn’t equilibrate the stratosphere. In fact, MODTRAN, in the Archer web site, doesn’t change the temperature profile above about 13km when changing the surface temperature.
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere in the real world cools the stratosphere. In the real world, the stratosphere can’t radiate more than it absorbs, at least not for very long, and CO2 does not increase the absorptivity of the stratosphere in the solar UV much, while it increases the emissivity in the thermal IR a lot.
Besides, the big effect would come from the increase in water vapor with temperature. The tipping point would be closing the atmospheric window between 8 and 12 μm, at least according Ramanathan. As long as the window exists, you can’t have a thermal runaway.
yeah, what DeWitt said:
I’m glad for people here who feel like it to go back through everything methodically, but I’m not feeling strongly motivated to do so right now. Long day.
Besides, I think some of my issues (why I call shenanigans) are different / left field to other peoples concerns.
If it somehow matters to the discussion and there appears there might be some point to it (doubtful), we can stroll around left field when the time comes.
DeWitt:
.
I believe you are incorrect.
Let’s look at the wikipedia definition of work, in the context of thermodynamics: “In thermodynamics, work performed by a system is the energy transferred by the system to its surroundings, that is fully accounted for solely by macroscopic forces exerted on the system by factors external to it, that is to say, factors in its surroundings. Thermodynamic work is a version of the concept of work in physics.”
A key phrase is “transferred by the system to its surroundings“.
Explain to me how energy has been transferred from the gas to its surroundings.
– My procedure: I tap a button, the heating element turns on. I tap it again, the element goes off. In some finite time, the gas has expanded slightly, and the temperature profiles are down.
– If you can find a way to turn that into a violation of the LoT, tell me, and we can get very rich very quickly.
– P.S. and the gravitational PE has been increased, not decreased.
aangech:
The investigation consisted of taking papers from the peer-reviewed literature of climate science, and evaluating the view on AGW from reading the abstracts. Anybody can do it, and there is a website for doubtful parties to do their own evaluations and see what they get. It’s been there from day one.
Also: Cook (2013) is not the first study on this question:
– Orestes did this in 2004: got 100%
– Doran & Zimmerman (2009) polled scientists: got 97%
– Anderegg et al. (2010) studied the work of 1372 active climate scientist, and got 97 – 98%
The difference is that Cook (2013) was the largest study.
But if you want to call bias, why is it that no one has done a similar study but gotten different results? Even Tol states that the consensus has got to be in the mid-90s or so.
Neal, I have to agree with DeWitt.
Your original statement of the problem included adding “a little energy to the system”. How do you do this without exchanging heat energy or doing work?
It doesn’t just expand on its own after all.
PS: I’ll see what I can put together on the human subjects issue. It’ll probably be tomorrow at some point.
Carrick:
Just remember, if you identify yourself as a skeptic (or even lukewarmer), in many ways WUWT will portray itself as representing your views. That’s why I’m surprised more people don’t care about it doing shady things. It’s the same as how almost nobody cares about Mark Steyn repeatedly making things up in his book. Many people are happy to promote and praise his book as representing a rebuttal to Michael Mann, but…
Most people are “not bad people” when you look at things that way. Personally, I can’t do it. Many people may not be evil in the classic sense, but willfully ignoring wrongdoing and actively engaging in it does make you bad to some extent. I get people can find excuses for doing things like intentionally deceiving people over and over, but… it’s bad.
Mark Bofill:
I can’t say I’ve ever understood this sort of thing. Maybe it makes me a freak, but I just don’t get that feeling. I might be more inclined to trust people I like because experience tells me they’re unlikely to have done bad things, but that would just make me more interested in accusations they’ve done wrong. Things that challenge what I believe are the things that are most interesting.
Neal,
Correct. Less negative is increased, my mistake. And you have to do work to increase the gravitational potential energy.
Consider a mass of one kg on the surface of the earth. Its gravitational potential energy is -GMe/Re where the constants have the usual significance. Now lift that mass to 1km above the surface. The gravitational potential energy is now -GMe/(Re+1000). The work done is mgh = 1 * 9.81 * 1000 = 9810 Joules. The internal energy of the 1kg mass hasn’t changed. Lifting gas molecules against a gravitational field to an increased altitude is no different in principle except that the Virial Theorem requires a different distribution of the energy between kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy in the final state. The gravitational potential energy increases more than the input energy. The excess comes from a decrease in kinetic energy.
The system includes your power source. It transfers heat to the gas which then does work on itself.
Neal J. King:
While Carrick answered this question already, what’s more interesting to me is John Cook claimed to have such an ethics approval as part of his argument for not releasing the rater ID component of the data set.
Then when I obtained that data, he used the supposed confidentiality established in that ethics approval as an argument me releasing that data would violate peole’s confidentiality. The University of Queensland even adopted that position in a press release and its communication with me in which is threatened me with legal action.
So the existence of the ethics approval you think wouldn’t have been necessary was key to things Cook and his university said. If it didn’t exist because it wasn’t necessary, then… what they said was misleading (intentionally so on Cook’s part).
By the way, my issues with Cook have never been about the final answer.
After all, there were other previous studies, so you could always “cheat” and get the answer you were expecting. I think there’s even an indication that achieving 97% was a goal.
The issues included methodological flaws, inappropriate conduct of research, making intentionally misleading statements in the paper and about the paper, etc.
I’ve suggested that among climate researchers, the true percent who believe that man made warming is real and a dominant contribution (since 1970ish) is probably actually above 99%.
I would have been happy to see a pristine paper come out with careful controls that actually advanced our understanding of the extent of the consensus, and more importantly, why there is a consensus in belief.
This was unfortunately a bungled opportunity to advance the dialog.
Brandon,
See, that thought might be as foreign to me as the other one I highlighted for Neal is to you. Portray itself as representing my views… that wouldn’t seem to be my problem if it indeed proved to be the case, would it? I’m not sure I’m following you. Or maybe in this case I’m the odd duck as well. If somebody mistakenly thought WUWT represented my views on something it did not… I’d call that somebody else’s problem. Unless they are the secret climate Nuremburg police come to frogmarch me off to my doom I guess.
Wow I didn’t say that out loud did I.. Poor form! Oh. I’m not saying anything out loud, just typing. Must be OK then.
Contrary to my usual ironclad policy of peppering my remarks with rhetorical questions and then coming back and apologizing for them, my question is not intended to be rhetorical.
Brandon:
Do you remember if they’ve released the IRB approval for this, and if so, when it was dated?
Hopefully Neal will conceded that if UQ is talking about the IRB approval from UQ, that UQ accepts the need for IRB approval.
But I will see if I can put something together that is coherent, hopefully in the morning, that explains the IRB process and how it applies to individuals who subjectively rank data. I don’t promise a masterpiece.
Say. There really is a ‘climate Nuremberg’. I ought to clarify that I didn’t realize this while I was making my comment, I thought I was making the term up. For the record I didn’t mean to imply that I think they’ve got secret police or anything like that.
…It’s what I get for screwing around… ~sigh~
DeWitt & Carrick:
.
As I recall, the original goal was find a system that could increase total energy (or keep it constant) while decreasing kinetic energy.
I have found you a system for which you can increase the total energy while decreasing kinetic energy.
No one said to increase the energy while not imparting any energy to the system: that indeed would be a violation of CoE. I haven’t done that. I’ve added heat via the heating element; since the element doesn’t change size, it does no work on the gas.
No one said that adding heat wasn’t allowed: That just came in Carrick’s last related comment.
The only issue was to avoid adding work to the system. DeWitt, in thermodynamics, work is done on or by a system by something outside the system. The molecules of the gas are part of the gas, not part of another system. To quote Fermi’s little book, “During a transformation, a system can perform positive or negative external work; that is, the system can do work on its surroundings or the surroundings can do work on the system.”
I challenge you to find any decent textbook on thermo that talks about a gas doing work on itself. This is not how the term “work” is used.
Come on guys, go back and look at what you were asking for. Don’t move the goal-posts after the fact.
Neal,
I don’t think you’ve thought through your system. The more I think about it, the more complicated it gets. It’s more than I’m interested in dealing with now.
I still don’t think your system meets Carrick’s criteria.
If you have a solid core, then the gas will be at the temperature of the surface of the core at thermal equilibrium.
Mark Bofill:
It’s quite common for WUWT and its commenters to make comments about what skeptics believe, think or do. That means anyone who calls themself a skeptic will have some people assume their views and behavior match what WUWT’s portrayal. If that causes people to think things about you, perhaps negative things, I’d suggest that is in fact your problem. After all, how people perceive you affects how they will treat you.
Carrick:
I’m not sure what you mean by “IRB approval.” Is there supposed to be some form granting the approval? If so, I’ve never seen that. The application for an ethics approval was released via an FOI request, as well as some communication regarding it, but that’s all that I know about.
Here is a press release issued by the University of Queensland. The relevant portion for this issue is:
John Cook had refused to release rater ID information on the grounds doing so would allow people to figure out which raters had done which ratings (possible because he published rater ID information in his forum during the project). The University of Queensland defended this position, saying “the identity of participants should remain confidential” “in accordance with University ethical approval.”
Now, my belief is John Cook intentionally misled his university by conflating the confidentiality of the scientists contacted to perform self-ratings with the ratings performed by the Skeptical Science group. As a result, his university was tricked into making false claims like this.
Whether or not I’m right about that though, it’s clear the university claimed this information was protected by the ethics approval for the paper. Which while completely false, supports the idea that the Skeptical Science group’s ratings should have required an ethics approval.
Brandon,
I understand you now. Within reason I don’t concern myself. People come up with the darndest things sometimes, if I stressed about it where would it end.
Thanks for clarifying though.
Oh, and by the way, while John Cook did publish information about rater IDs in his forum, he actually posted the images showing the information in a publicly accessible location. Even after the Skeptical Science forum was released, he left the images online in the same location allowing anyone who looked at the forums to load those images. It was something like two years he left the data online for anyone to see (here is one archived example).
If we believed this material was confidential, then we’d have to hold that Cook posted confidential information in a publicly accessible location, linked to it in his forum for the study’s participants to examine while performing their study, then left it online in a publicly accessible location even after he knew his forum was leaked so anyone could find the links and see that confidential information.
Claiming data can’t be released because Cook previously released (ostensibly) confidential information seems… a bit strange.
Brandon:
Yes, there’s a IRB application that the researcher submits (in the US this includes description of the experimental protocol and a blank consent form) and there’s a letter of approval that you receive authorizing the research.
Normally, you have to give “informed consent” to the subject, explaining to them the risks associated with participation in the research (and so forth), and they have to sign the IRB approved informed consent form before they can participate.
The normal remedy for failure to comply is you can’t use any of the improperly gathered data in any report.
And yes, this is what I was thinking of:
There’s also a local newspaper article, though I can’t remember if that included any interviews. It seems like it did, but …
Normally, you actually have to go through quite some hoops to get them to approve releasing the names of the participants in the study. The default state is their names are all confidential.
I guess I think of it sort of like this Brandon.
But before I explain it to you I want you to be aware that I speak for all the free peoples of the world. And I’m here to tell you blah blah drek and refuse.
I mean, yes. There are all sorts out there. Somebody might believe that I really do speak for all the free peoples of the world. The more people who read my statement the closer the odds approach certainty that at least one fool will buy it.
So what to do? The world seems full of people peddling hoke. I don’t know how big a job it would be to monitor what everybody is saying everywhere that might be construed as representing me, even if I did, I don’t know what good it’d do.
So within reason. Obviously, taken to an extreme, yeah I care and it’s my problem. So far in my life as a practical matter, not so much that I’m aware of.
Neal,
Can’t resist.
Lets say we have a nitrogen gas cloud with the mass of the Earth’s atmosphere, 5.1E18kg. What would the temperature of the cloud have to be to be stably gravitationally bound? My guess would be well below the liquification temperature. I say this because if we take that gas cloud and give it a radius of 64km, the escape velocity corresponds to a temperature of 20K.
Seriously pay no attention to my drivel. Your conversation with Carrick is become much more interesting; I regret posting my last comment at all.
Carrick:
The ethics approval was released, as was communication regarding it. It was just e-mails though, so I’m not sure if they cover what you’re looking for or not. There may be some additional letter that wasn’t released with the FOI request. I wouldn’t know.
Mark Bofll:
That’s fine. Just remember WUWT is probably the single largest site for global arming “skepticism.” In the same way, when Ted Cruz, a presidential candidate, presents Steven Goddard’s work on the Senate floor, that is what a lot of people will see as representing global warming skepticism. When Mark Steyn writes a well-selling book full of fabrications and gets tons of attention in both the media and the skeptic blogosphere, that is what the public will see as “skepticism.”
Whether or not that affects you is something that depends on the person. Maybe it doesn’t affect you or your life. If not, then not caring makes sense. But there are a lot of people who it definitely does affect who should care.
Re: Neal J. King (Comment #143910)
Neal, the virial theorem (PE = -2 * KE) does not hold when you throw in other (non-gravitational) sources of energy.
Think of when you launch a rocket. You are consuming chemical energy and increasing both kinetic energy *and* gravitational potential energy, simultaneously.
Also, the virial theorem does not hold for unbound orbits. Once you accelerate something above the escape velocity, that’s it; you can give it as much kinetic energy as you want. In fact, that, I think, is what would happen to your gravitationally bound cloud of gas: a lot of atoms would be heated above the escape velocity and not be bound gravitationally to the cloud anymore (basically, they would “evaporate” away, but you still have to include them, and their kinetic energy, in your energy balance).
DeWitt:
.
Please state what you believe to be Carrick’s criteria.
(Be warned: I will go back and check what was said earlier.)
.
Yes, the core surface will be the same as the gas temp at that radius; until I turn on the heater. The heater will impart heat to the gas, but not work. The gas will take up heat until the local gas temp is the same as the core. So what is so complicated about this?
What possible relevance could liquefaction have on a conceptual question?
.
I suggest you take a break. And then go back and read up on what the term “work” means in thermodynamics.
julio:
.
I’m only using the Virial Theorem for the times before and after the heating. During these periods, there is no other source of energy assumed, so the VT applies.
.
If what you’re saying were true, there would be no stars. So you should step outside and ask why the Sun and the other stars are still there. In fact, the Earth is always losing molecules to space. Why do we still have an atmosphere? Because the rate is very small.
.
Also: to prove my point, I don’t have to boil off the gas. If I add 1 Joule to the gas, that is enough to establish the point: E will increase by 1 J, KE will decrease by 1 J, and PE will increase by 2 J.
Carrick:
.
Rather than a jumbled-up collection of complaints, I’d prefer to see a set, even if small, of specific issues and concerns. Not generalities, “this could have happened,” “that could have happened.”
.
If you think there should have been ethics approval, please explain why.
.
If you think there are methodological flaws, etc., please explain why you think so.
.
If you have real concerns, I do have direct contact to real information. But that information is not going to be better-defined than your concerns. So what you get will be limited by what you provide.
.
It goes without saying that there will be things I am not at liberty to tell you. In that case, I will tell you that I won’t answer the question.
Neal:
Okay, so you’re increasing the radiative forcing then?
You need to be specific here how you’re transferring the energy into the system.
Neal:
It wasn’t a actually a jumbled up list of complaints.
It actually qualifies a list of semantic categories of complaints. But I’ll get back to you on that.
Honestly I think the planet atmospheric system is more interesting. If you give enough details that we can do a simple calculation, it’ll be interesting to see how it works out.
By the way, i should mention there are a lot of details I’m not discussing about the whole not releasing data issue. You can read more details here if you want more information.
One of the things I find most interesting is Cook et al filtered out 521 papers from their data set for various reasons, such as not being climate related. It’s weird as many of the papers rated as endorsing the consensus aren’t actually climate related, and there’s never been any explanation of how the papers filtered out were chosen.
But what’s truly fascinating is Cook et al never released any data for the 521 papers they filtered out. Even though the University of Queensland claimed all data of scientific value had been released, a list of papers excluded from their study wasn’t even provided. That means the average person* has no way to know which 521 papers were filtered out or to verify why.
It’s an issue I feel hasn’t received enough attention. 4% of the papers this study examined were simply disappeared, with no trace, data or information for them ever being made available.
*I, on the other hand, do have a copy of the full list of papers. Because I’m awesome.
Carrick:
.
The gas is centered around the core/satellite/rock; but the gas is held together by self-gravitation, not by the gravitational pull of the c/s/r.
I send a signal to the c/s/r.
It turns on a nuclear fission reactor for 5 minutes; then it turns off.
The reactor produces heat, which escapes to the surface of the c/s/r, which is in contact with the gas.
The gas molecules pick up kinetic energy by bouncing off the surface of the c/s/r. They carry this back into the gas.
I suppose there could be thermal radiation as well, why not? From the surface of the c/s/r. If there are no absorption lines in the appropriate thermal range, I guess we lose that radiation out to space, so the heating may not be efficient.
The local gas temperature increases, but this bump is flattened out by convection. By CoE, the total energy of the gas is greater than what it was before. By VT, the total KE is less than it was before, despite starting from a localized increase.
Neal,
Stars are a bad example for your argument, because the gas that they are made out of definitely starts out cold and ends up much, much hotter; therefore, with much greater kinetic energy per molecule. So that right there should tell you something.
If the system you imagine exists, as it might exit somewhere out in space (a cloud of gas bound by gravity alone), then adding heat to the inside of it could only result in a colder system by evaporation, as i said above: you blow away a bunch of fast molecules and are left with (much fewer) colder ones.
Neal
“Toll states” is not a study.
How many other studies are there?
How many studies did you leave out?
How many of those studies had the same criteria?
Bias.
One never sees it when one is using it?
That was rhetorical.
Of course you knew what you were doing when you gave those biased choices.
So.
Any answers to the non rhetorical questions and surmise?
Neal,
One criterion was definite, no mass exchange. As julio points out. Any energy addition will result in loss of mass.
And you’re still wrong about work. The definitions you quote do not involve gravitational fields.
From the HyperPhysics site:
Humpty-Dumpty would be proud of you.
DeWitt:
.
That is a good definition of gravitational potential energy; but this issue turns on what is meant by work.
In the context of thermodynamics, we are talking about the amount of energy transferred between a system and its surroundings, during a process. In particular, thermodynamics talks about work as power that is extracted from the system as a part of this process. In the case under question, how did you plan to define the system and the corresponding surroundings between which this work is exchanged?
.
My challenge remains: Find a decent textbook on thermodynamics that describes any example of a system doing work on itself.
Did you actually ever study thermodynamics? Look at the Carnot cycle: What is the work doing?
Carrick:
.
One way to do this is to make the Lane-Emden assumption that:
Pressure = P = (const) * density^gamma
where gamma is the adiabatic exponent for that gas.
If you plug this into the equation for hydrostatic equilibrium, you find that the temperature, pressure and density all go to zero at finite radius from the center. So the mass has a definite radius even though there is no material wall confining it.
angech:
.
– I quote Tol only because he has been attacking Cook (2013) ever since it came out.
– There has been one other study, based on the same papers, by Powell. His result? 99%. But he was using a different criterion: Qui tacet, consentit: “whoever does not object, consents.” To the best of my knowledge, there have been no other relevant studies peer-reviewed in scientific literature.
– Their criteria differ somewhat. That’s normal in studies that are NOT done on physical science. We’re not measuring heat capacity, we’re measuring opinion. But the numbers keep coming back pretty much the same. You can believe it’s a conspiracy if you like. But then oops! you’d be supporting Lewandowski.
DeWitt:
.
Point I forgot to mention:
– Describe a practical system which matches your condition for a “closed system”. “Practical” means, “something real people apply thermodynamics to.”
– Then let’s estimate how many atoms it’s really exchanging over time.
– I think I can undercut that number with my brown sub-dwarf; just keep it a bit far away from other stars.
julio:
– Stars get hotter because they are collapsing and losing energy; my gas collection (could be a brown sub-dwarf) is getting colder because it is gaining energy. In effect, by adding energy, I am forcing the gas mass to go backwards in its collapsing career.
– So thank you for that point: It helps my case.
– As heated by an inner core, the energy deposited is not going to “blow away” anything. Each molecule will have many mean-free-paths to exchange with other molecules before anything reaches anything approaching an edge. And according to the Lane-Emden models, reaching the edge does not mean escaping the cloud. Much more violent things go on in stars all the time, and they don’t blow themselves out.
DeWitt:
.
Something I missed:
“And you’re still wrong about work. The definitions you quote do not involve gravitational fields.”
.
In thermodynamics I can certainly include gravitational fields. I can define a Carnot cycle which has the work output of lifting weights against a gravitational force. Probably lift during the expansion phase, lower during the contraction phase.
I generally don’t mind a bit of off-topic discussions, but six comments in a row by one person with only one being even remotely related to the topic of the post seems to indicate there may be a problem.
Could we either try to pay a bit more attention to the topic of the post or just quit pretending to discuss it at all? I know Neal J. King is intentionally ignoring me, my book and everything I say at this point, and I guess that’s fine, but it’d be nice to know if it is safe for me to just stop reading the comments at this point.
Carrick writes
Believe? Maybe. But I dont think you give scientists enough credibility in their scepticism. For example if you were to ask scientists the simple question.
Is Anthropogenic CO2 definitely responsible for more than half of the observed warming since 1970?
___Yes
___No
___We dont have sufficient information to be sure
Then I suspect the percentage would be a lot lower and the percentage would be much closer to Cook 2013’s real figures where the third option above is closer to Cook’s second criteria that acknowledges AGW is real but quantitatively its impact is unknown.
Quite without regard to any specific paper, I have never found probabilistic statements about degrees of certainty for unique events to be intuitively meaningful. Unless you are actually running Monte Carlo computations (which relatively few people do), what does it mean to say that “I’m 95% certain that this won’t happen”? It has meaning if someone just earlier said, “I’m 90% certain that this will happen”: It has a comparative meaning, which is basically: “Woof, woof! I believe it won’t happen more than you believe it will happen!” But on it’s own, I don’t see that the 95% statement conveys any information beyond “I really think it’s going to happen.”
Instead of asking people what degree of certainty they would put to the question of global climate change, I think a more useful question would be, “Do you think that the risks of global climate change are serious enough and likely enough that we should think about doing something to avoid it?”
Lucia said
bugs,
Why would I wish to do so? (Real question.)
In the context of this topic and how Brandon obtained his information that statement struck me as being relevant or even ironic.
(Not Carrick)
The quote is from your own website in which you say
“Note: my failure to explicitly forbid copying of any of my contents should never be read as implying copying of that material is permitted. If you or your company wishes to copy material, please contact me.”
In light of the way Brandon obtained his information from SKS it just seems ironic to me.
OTOH, the Meta Wars are ultimately nothing to do with Global Warming. I asked a climate modeler once what he thought of them and he has absolutely no time for them. For him the science is the only thing that matters.
Brandon spot on reminds me of a recent correspondent and has a similar style
Bugs, you are right but in the context of the information delivered Brandon deserves and gets kudos.
I would even buy his book if I can get get past my distrust of the Internet.
Brandon does not change though however much praise he gets.
fWIW I really like the WUWT site except when they promote cold fusion.
And they did give him further air which is fantastic given how he discusses Watts
Carrick , SCottish Sceptic has a quiz on CO2 atmosphere thermodynamics. I only got 30 out of 50+ which put me in sceptic range. I am sure you would blitz it.
Care to give it an honest try?
Now that bugs has clarified he meant me, not Carrick, it is still not clear what he is thinking. Is he suggesting me posting links to an archived page is inherently contradictory to lucia’s message? If so, why? lucia wouldn’t say anyone had done something wrong by simply linking to an archived copy of a page (or two) she had posted on her site, even if she would have rathered nobody see it in the first place.
That copying a person’s site in its entirety is illegal doesn’t mean me linking to an archived copy of a page is inherently wrong. That repeatedly copying web pages to cause harm to their owners is immoral and illegal doesn’t mean there is never any reason to use archived links.
For a shorter version, people like bugs aren’t trying to make coherent arguments. They’re just looking for anything they can portray as hypocrisy so they can try to score some cheap points.
Brandon, I have no idea what bugs finds ironic.
He isn’t making an argument at all. I have no idea what his claim is. He just claims to see some sort of irony.
I could try to guess what his argument is– as you have tried. It might be as you suggest– He thinks there is “irony” in the notion that I don’t grant permission for someone to copy my site but you posted a link to an archive and I think it’s ok for you to post a link to a site. I don’t see any “irony” in that.
But really… dunno. Maybe he means something else. If he wants to make an argument he’ll have to make it. I’m not going to try to read his mind.
A follow up to TTM’s comment…
“Is Anthropogenic CO2 definitely responsible for more than half of the observed warming since 1970?”
It’s one thing to do an opinion poll.
It’s entirely another thing to produce conclusive evidence.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
.
That’s a good point.
Let me follow up with a question: Is there any particular area of study, skill, craft, or expertise that you are particularly strong in?
Neal,
Here’s a drawing of Joule’s apparatus to measure the equivalence of work and heat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Prescott_Joule#/media/File:Joule%27s_Apparatus_%28Harper%27s_Scan%29.png
A weight attached to a rope turns a paddle in a container of water. The weight drops and the water heats. Gravitational potential energy can do work. Work can increase gravitational potential energy. There is no difference in principle between lifting a solid mass against a gravitational field and lifting a gas molecule or atom by increasing its kinetic energy. A cloud of evenly dispersed hydrogen with sufficient mass and density can collapse into a star. Work is done on the gas molecules, which increases their temperature and reduces the gravitational potential energy.
I don’t see why you seem to have a problem with this.
Re: Neal J. King (Comment #143958)
I tried to post this earlier, but it seems to have vanished. Apologies if you end up with a duplicate!
Anyway: Neal does have half a point here, in that he has shown that the *converse* of what he proposes is possible. Indeed, when a self-gravitating cloud of gas collapses to form a star, the atoms need to lose gravitational energy, which they do through inelastic collisions: a collision produces one or two excited atoms, which get rid of the energy by emitting one or two photons. This initially decreases their kinetic energy, so they fall to a lower orbit; in the process they speed up, and so the whole cloud contracts and becomes hotter.
So this is, indeed, a neat example of a system that simultaneously loses heat (the outgoing photons may be regarded as thermal energy) *and* heats up. I think the reason most of us trained in conventional thermodynamics would not immediately think of it is that we are always dealing with ideal or near-ideal gases–systems where the particles do not interact or do so only through short-range, strong-repulsive-core potentials. This is exactly the opposite: the interaction is essential, long-range, and always attractive.
All of the above, however, are reasons to expect that none of this could happen to a volume of gas normally held by the gravity of an *external* body (not its own gravity!), as in a planetary atmosphere. Moreover, it could be argued that the very existence of this process makes the existence of its reverse unlikely: if this can happen spontaneously, it is because it is an entropy-increasing process, so the reverse will be entropy-decreasing.
But it is a neat bit of counterintuitive physics to ponder, so thanks! 🙂
“Let me follow up with a question: Is there any particular area of study, skill, craft, or expertise that you are particularly strong in?”
Thank you for asking, Neal. No one usually asks me about stuff. 🙂
I’m a guitarist:
acrolith.bandcamp.com
and a network admin/programmer. One of my job functions is to evaluate technical information relevant to the business (from various places) and understand it, so I can keep the office informed and running productively, technologically speaking. That includes some programming in a proprietary software language.
How about you? What do you do?
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
.
Very impressive; although my musical taste runs more to the classical end, and I’ve listened to a lot, I don’t play an instrument. Or, as I used to say in answer to the question (and here I date myself), “I play turntable.”
Professionally, I’ve been mostly a representative for companies at telecommunications standards meetings; and also done patent work. In my free time, I still read physics from time to time.
But I actually have an ulterior motive in asking you this question. Focusing on your technical work area: I imagine that there is a lot of IT information you have to deal with, from many different arenas. Some of it I’m sure you know very well; but I would expect that there are also many areas for which you’re only familiar with certain interfaces; and others for which you just have a general idea of what functionalities there are available.
So I would expect that you have developed a set of professional acquaintances and friends who, in addition to their other fine qualities, are generally knowledgable about IT, and are in particular expert in some areas where you might not be. Likewise, you provide a resource of expertise to some who are most experienced in areas other than your’s.
I would also expect that you would not accept just anybody as an expert on any topic without some kind of check, probably informal. In particular, if the two of you share some common area of expertise, you would want to know how he thinks about issues that you know about, to find out if he really knows what he’s talking about in your common area; and to find out if you can communicate, if you can think compatibly. If all this checks out, you might be inclined, at least provisionally, to accept this individual’s claim to expertise in an area where you are not experienced.
This is what I would suppose, anyway. Does this sound about right to you?
Here is a restatement of Neal’s proposed system, adding I think enough detail that it can be physically modeled:
We have a central solid core surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere.
We’ll assume that the gas is viscous enough to suppress atmospheric motion, and the core is not rotating. So we can legitimately assume hydrostatic equilibrium.
We’ll assume the gaseous layer is thick enough that we can’t neglect the variation in gravitational acceleration over its thickness.
We’ll assume the core is massive enough that we can neglect (over the lifetime of the measurements at least) any loss of matter due to ablation, and let’s assume the core is spherical and uniform in density.
For the heat source, let’s assume the planetoid is inside of a large nebula, and that we can assume that radiation impinging on the atmosphere is radially symmetric and is constant in time.
We’ll also assume that the core is radiative and is a non-negligble source of heat energy.
For sake of argument, we’ll assume that the gas is driven to the adiabatic lapse rate limit from the ground to H, the height above the surface at which radiation equilibrium is obtained.
At some point there is a “planetoid quake”, and a resulting stepwise increase in the amount of thermal energy associated with radioactive and the planetary atmosphere increases in thickness in response.
The question is what happens to the mean temperature of the gas.
In doing this problem, we’ll assume that the temperature at radiation equilibrium (“top of atmosphere”) is a constant… that is it is the same value before the planetoid quake as it is after the planetoid quake and the atmosphere has returned to radiative steady state and hydrostatic equilibrium.
I can write out some notes for this scenario, but does anybody want to suggest changes to it, before I do that?
julio:
.
I’m glad you appreciate this concept. Although I just thought of it a couple of days ago, when this question arose, I was informed early this morning that this concept goes back at least as far as Eddington, and was developed further in a paper written 1977 by Donald Lynden-Bell, a pretty famous astrophysicist. It’s called “negative specific heat.”
With regard to your objections:
– I agree that the case to consider is one of a self-gravitating mass of gas: The way to do it is to build the gaseous mass first, and then lower the heating element afterwards. The heating element then plays no important role in holding together the cloud; it just provides heat when signaled. If we choose a mass that is not yet undergoing gravitational collapse, its mass should be less than the Jeans mass, typically in the range of 1e4 solar masses.
.
– It is true that the entropy-increasing direction will be to further collapse, further loss of energy, and higher gas temperatures: this will be the direction of spontaneous change. However, what I am saying is that when I turn on the heating element, through a signal of some type, I am providing heat that must increase the total energy of the gas, deep in its core, and this energy will not escape right away, because it has to be convected outwards. Therefore, if I run the heater for 5 minutes, I probably have days if not years before that energy could get out. During all that time, the mechanisms that enforce the Virial Theorem will be in effect: and so as the extra energy (h) spreads out through the gaseous mass, we get:
E_tot-1 => E_tot-1 + h
KE-1 => – E_tot-1 – h = KE-1 – h
PE_tot-1 => 2*E_tot-1 + 2*h = PE_tot-1 + 2*h
.
So, as advertised, the 5 minutes of heating (h) will work its way to increasing the internal energy E_tot while decreasing the kinetic energy KE. I don’t think we have to worry about 5 minutes of heating destabilizing a cloud with mass 1e4 Suns.
TimTheToolMan, I would expect that more than 99% of climate scientists who work in the physical sciences accept anthropogenic warming accounts for at least 50% of the warming since 1970, as the most likely number.
Probably a more interesting question is what is is their 95% CL lower bound? I’d put it around 30%.
Andrew_KY:
I honestly don’t think there’s any level of proof you’d accept as conclusive.
The AR5 does a generally good job of summarizing the science. I think it is intellectually conservative to start with the AR5, not read it with glassy, fawning eyes, and go from there.
I don’t think it’s intellectually anything to outright reject the work of that many people, most of whom aren’t activists and who are legitimately trying to understand what is likely a real environmental problem that will affect us all.
As I said above, I don’t think opinion polls are nearly as valuable as exploring why people think what they think.
But if you’re going to measure the level of consensus (even if it’s just of historical interest), I think it needs to be measured accurately. Simply saying you managed, with very sloppy methodology, to arrive at a similar number as everybody else is BS. The zeroth order conclusion from that is you learned nothing new.
PS: Interesting taste in music. I tend to gravitate more towards metal sound (closer to epic rock, and yes I like harshing), but I used to own most of ELPs albums, as well as King Crimson and of course Iron Butterfly. These days I don’t own vinyl anything.
Carrick:
.
Two points:
– As discussed in my exchange with julio, it may make most sense if the gas is held together by self-gravitation, rather than by the pull towards the central core. Maybe we should give that some thought. If we do that, the appropriate mass scale is 1e4 solar masses.
.
– What do you mean, in this case, by the TOA? What radiation defines it?
“So I would expect that you have developed a set of professional acquaintances and friends who, in addition to their other fine qualities, are generally knowledgable about IT, and are in particular expert in some areas where you might not be.”
This is quite true. I often turn to people I know to help with something.
“I would also expect that you would not accept just anybody as an expert on any topic without some kind of check, probably informal.”
Also true. And it is true that I rely on professional credentials from people as well as informally.
“If all this checks out, you might be inclined, at least provisionally, to accept this individual’s claim to expertise in an area where you are not experienced.”
It really depends on what the claims are. In IT, most of the claims I see are either by salesmen or support staff for products and services, and if the product doesn’t perform, whomever isn’t going to be around very long.
So, it’s not like you make all your judgments based on who says what. It’s who says what and then has something that works the way they claim it does to back it up.
Andrew
Neal, let me know about that problem statement. I’ll post some notes after you do that.
One thing it appears you’ve neglected is the work done on the atmosphere by the planetoid core’s gravitational field, as the atmosphere expands. We can always write this as $latex dW = P dV$, but that’s just $latex dW = \vec F \cdot d\vec\ell$ for a fluid.
The $latex F$ in this case is from the gravitational attraction of the core to a layer of gas. Moving a layer of gas vertically requires work, just as it would if you lifted e.g. a bowling ball.
Take home here is anytime you have an external force on a thermodynamic system, you do not have an isolated system.
Neal:
It’s easier to conceptualize the source of heat that gives rise to the change in volume if you have a solid core, and it’s a lot more realistic. (A gas cloud is going to collapse over time.) It doesn’t change the calculations appreciably, so if you don’t mind, let’s leave it in.
Anyway you can always set the radius of the solid core to zero at the end if you want to see what happens in the absence of a core.
The irradiance from the surrounding nebula. You’ll end up with a TOA temperature that is set by radiative equilibrium.
In the Earth’s case this is something like 210K.
DeWitt:
.
Joule’s apparatus is a fine demonstration of work. And it falls naturally into two separate parts:
1) The weight and paddle-wheel: This contains the source of the potential energy and the mechanism for transferring that energy to:
.
2) the water in the bucket.
.
So system-1 transforms its PE into mechanical work, and system-2 transforms that work into heat.
.
Now let’s go back to my protostar: Which gas molecules belong to system-1 and which belong to system-2?
Carrick:
.
Certainly we need the heater. The question of self- vs. other-gravitation is really only a question of the size of the cloud; but unless we’re going to do a big numerical simulation, it probably doesn’t matter much anyway; although it might, if we got very picky about the shock wave propagation, etc. But that sort of detail is probably beyond the scope of this exercise.
.
Radiation balance: I guess we need a model for the spectral absorption; we can assume hydrogen, but how detailed a calculation do you want? If memory serves, this is not a good time for a blackbody approximation.
“but I used to own most of ELPs albums”
Carrick,
I did too. When I heard Keith Emerson died the other day, I listened to some of Trilogy and I remembered how into ELP I was back in my musical formative period.
Andrew
Neal,I don’t think we need to be specific about the details of radiation absorption.
You do need some sort of radiation condition, and you need (for a degree of realism) the resulting TOA temperature to be above the condensation temperature of the gas. Other than that, I wouldn’t expect the details to materially affect the results very much.
We could go back and add a specific gas mixture, but obviously that’s considerably more complex (the vertical profile of the absorption spectrum in general will not be constant).
I’ll put together notes later today and post them and we can go from there.
Carrick: But what is dV ? What is dl ?
.
– The heating satellite is solid, and is not going to change size appreciably.
.
– So what can you use for dl ?
I think it has to be zero.
.
We’re not removing gas from the satellite: We’re imparting extra kinetic energy to the molecules. If you turn up the heat in an electric oven (no fan), the air heats up: But what work has been done? There’s pressure, but what has moved?
.
I think this has to be treated just as we would a heating element in the oven.
Andrew_KY:
.
So my next question to you: Suppose some new, very complex issue arises in IT, something involving lots of systems, technologies, implications, user issues, infrastructure issues – you name it. You can see some implications right away, but there are perhaps lots of others where you’re not sure. Interestingly, some things that are obvious to you draw a blank stare from most of your friends; and yet there are other times when some of your friends are getting very excited and you don’t see a problem. You can’t really be sure if they’re seeing ghosts or you’re color-blind, as it were.
.
You can tell this is big: The management is going to be hot on this for some time, at the very least for PR purposes. How would you personally go about approaching this issue? How would you try to get a handle on how it’s going to affect you, your responsibilities and your job?
“How would you try to get a handle on it?”
Neal,
You’ve posed a non-specific problem, so philosophically, I don’t know that there is a right or correct answer.
But having been an IT troubleshooter for many years, I know that the information that people present to you is not always accurate. This is a daily experience.
One of the first steps is determining what the person who contacted you is claiming.
In the case of climate science, after following climate blogs for 10+ years, it’s apparent that this integral first step hasn’t happened yet. There are many claims, from the subtle to the ridiculous. Maybe you can tell me which the accurate claim is.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
.
I’m supposing in this case that there are a lot of people, claiming different things: that it will change the whole business, that it won’t change a thing, that it will make things slightly/greatly more complicated. People are saying different things, even among your informal group.
So, yes, it’s a philosophical question. But philosophy can be very practical. You have all these experts and friends, but they see things different ways. What steps would you take to try to orient yourself?
“What steps would you take to try to orient yourself?”
The one thing that can orient you is evidence. Direct evidence is the most valuable.
For example:
Someone claims man has created a Smartphone. Smartphone itself is produced. You can see it, touch it, hear it ring, play games on it… even smell it and bite it if that’s your taste.
If someone produced a photo or a drawing of a smartphone, you’d say “Yeah great, but please present the real thing.”
You see where I’m going with this.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
– Let’s go back some years in time. Some committee has created the Bluetooth spec, and a bunch of folks are shopping it around. What would your reaction be? What would you think about doing for this?
I have no direct evidence that Andrew_KY was born.
I have no direct evidence that the moon has a far side.
I have no direct evidence that the cell phone in my hand is actually there.
Welcome back to descartes.
“Some committee has created the Bluetooth spec, and a bunch of folks are shopping it around. What would your reaction be?”
“Yeah great, but please present a working device.â€
Think Shark Tank.
Andrew
“I have no direct evidence that Andrew_KY was born.”
But you do if you were serious. You can come see me, talk to me, shake my hand, smell me (from a distance), but no I won’t let you bite me.
Mosher always provides claims prom the subtle to the ridiculous. He never can get specific and accurate as to be helpful in any way.
Andrew
Neal:
dV is the volume of a layer of atmosphere of constant pressure.
dl is the vertical displacement of the center of mass.
When you write p V (assuming static equilibrium), you’re automatically encapsulating the action of whatever long-range fields that are acting on it. That is the “p” (pressure) field will respond to the external force acting on it.
I’m writing up the model now. I’ll get back to you later this afternoon.
Let’s leave further debate until we see what drops out of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism
Andrew_KY:
Same question, but this time it’s WiFi.
Carrick:
We can discuss later, but I don’t see why there should be a vertical displacement when my oven heating element doesn’t seem to produce one.
“Same question, but this time it’s WiFi.”
“Yeah great, but please present a working device.â€
In either case, Neal, it is reasonable to want more than just specs.
Andrew
Out of curiosity, I calculated the radius of a sphere of hydrogen with a mass of 5.1E18kg at 2.725K that would be exactly gravitationally bound. That is, I set the Jeans mass, Mj, at 5.1E18 kg and solved for R using the equation: Mj = 3kTR/2Gm where m is the average mass of a hydrogen molecule. R = 2.02E04m. Assuming that the gas is isothermal, isotropic and ideal, that gives a pressure of 1.66E09Pa. If I get motivated, I might even calculate what fraction of the molecules have a velocity exceeding the escape velocity.
Obviously, with less mass or higher temperature the pressure goes up rapidly. With more mass, things get more complicated, but the initial density becomes more rational.
Can I play too?
I’m not sure I know where you’re going with the analogy, so it’ll be a fun surprise if you end up demonstrating I ought to be a climate activist and just somehow never realized it all these years. :>
Instead of Bluetooth, can we say smart cards? This is actually a legit example in my life. I’ve left Aerospace and Defense software engineering (That’s Huntsville AL for ya, sucking off the government teat for the past 50-60 years) and gone back to private sector embedded development. Payment industry is moving to smart cards, OK. Never paid much attention to them. So I read about them, get some samples, work with some API’s, read about Visa and Mastercards on card app transaction schemes, play with JavaCard, etc. I review related tech. Do some development.
So what?
“Can I play too?”
As long as you like prog rock, you’re in. 😉
Andrew
🙂 The wife’s the big prog fan, but I’ve acquired a taste for it over the years.
I’m with Andrew on the empirical thing. I mean, I get it that we believe in stuff we have no direct experience with. I don’t dispute the existence of Japan yet I really don’t have any direct evidence about it or experience with it that I’m aware of.
But in what I do / software development, it’s all talk and speculation and fluff until I’ve actually got something that does something. I tend to assume that nothing I’ve developed works the way it’s supposed to until I see it work the way it’s supposed to, at least I try to cultivate that attitude. I always assume there are defects in my work, cause in more than 99% of the cases there are. There’s always something, everybody needs testing and QA it’s a given.
I always assumed though that this made what I did a bad analogy for other fields of endeavor. But. Yeah.
[Edit: I don’t know how much is intuitively obvious and how much requires explanation. The reason I’m like that is because people like for their software to work. Making stuff work consistently and reliably is a lot harder than one might think.]
Neal:
Because it’s an unbounded atmosphere and as a gas it can adjust to the change in forcing. If you increasing the amount of thermal forcing near the surface (or center) you’ll end up with a larger layer of convection. The quantity “H” increases when the forcing increases, just as with our GHG effect.
Keep in mind (as I’ll say in my notes) you aren’t free to invent your own temperature profile. There is only one correct answer for a set of well specified conditions, and any solution has to meet radiative equilibrium conditions. Otherwise your so-called static solution is violating conservation of energy.
OK, I’m actually trying to head in a particular direction.
Andrew_KY, when all this stuff is happening, is there any way of leveraging the associations you have for some insight as to how to respond to the new situation?
Mark, you can answer too.
Re: Neal J. King (Comment #143975)
The interesting result that underlies all this is that if you suddenly increase the kinetic energy of a particle in a gravitationally bound orbit (but no so much as to allow it to escape), it ends up in a different orbit where its average kinetic energy is actually lower.
This can be understood from Kepler’s law of periods. v (the average orbital speed) scales like a/T (a=semimajor axis; T=period), but T scales like a^3/2, so v ends up scaling like 1/a^1/2, that is, it decreases as the orbit gets larger. The particle ends up spending, on average, more time far away from the focus, where it moves more slowly.
So now you are saying, imagine I start with a collection of such particles, and suddenly increase all their velocities by a little bit. If nothing else happens (no energy or mass leaves the system), the final result is a larger cloud where all the average speeds are lower.
I cannot disagree with this mathematically, but I still do not see a way to physically pull this off. I think my entropy argument above is strong: you cannot reverse a process that increases entropy and releases heat merely by pumping heat (which automatically increases entropy) into the system. Of course you do not need to reverse it exactly… but my feeling is that any real system that is capable of coming to thermodynamic equilibrium will find some way to thwart you.
But I admit a full proof of this would be difficult. I think we would have to start by researching the concept of thermal equilibrium and temperature for a self-gravitating cloud of gas, and move from there. My first guess is that the state immediately after you dump the energy in is not one of thermal equilibrium; my second guess is that the strongly conservative nature of the gravitational interaction will prevent the disturbed system from reaching thermal equilibrium without a dissipative mechanism such as radiation emitted in collisions. So now heat may also be leaving the cloud before thermal equilibrium is reached. Or you may also have to consider local vs global equilibria… it certainly looks like an interesting problem. I wish I had time to look into it!
Neal,
The associations I have with other people with expertise?
…
Yeesss. I get stuck on something and it’s a case where I can talk to somebody who knows something about it I email him/her. Sometimes I go find them and talk to them when we’re in the same geographic location. Usually I do as much homework as I can before I bug anybody.
[Edit: and check Stack Overflow (that’s a website for developers maybe among other things dunno). The answer is there a surprising amount of the time, or something that can lead to the answer. 🙂 ]
Re: my previous post. Or we can read the Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity#Negative_heat_capacity_.28stars.29
which will lead us to this article,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437198005184
…and so on. Clearly great physicists can argue over this issue, and it does depend, at least somewhat, on how we are willing to define “thermodynamic equilibrium,” as I kind of suspected above….
“Andrew_KY, when all this stuff is happening, is there any way of leveraging the associations you have for some insight as to how to respond to the new situation?”
Yes, depending on what the situation is, I can call people we have support contracts with or informally I can talk to my IT buddies to see if they know anything.
But generalities are not likely to generate any help. Gotta be specific and able to present the problem clearly.
Andrew
Andrew,
Yes. Not to mention wasting the other persons time.
Andrew_KY, Mark Bofill:
One element I was looking for came out:
– “Yes, depending on what the situation is, I can call people we have support contracts with or informally I can talk to my IT buddies to see if they know anything.”
– “Yeesss. I get stuck on something and it’s a case where I can talk to somebody who knows something about it I email him/her. Sometimes I go find them and talk to them when we’re in the same geographic location.”
.
– Knowing people who know things doesn’t do any good unless you contact them, or somehow inspire some focused insight.
“Knowing people who know things doesn’t do any good unless you contact them, or somehow inspire some focused insight.”
But you have to have a reason to contact them, unless you are just chatting.
Like Mark said, I wouldn’t waste someone’s time with a pseudo-problem that can’t be clearly articulated on the basis that something undetermined but bad might happen at an unspecified time.
Andrew
“But you do if you were serious. You can come see me, talk to me, shake my hand, smell me (from a distance), but no I won’t let you bite me.
Mosher always provides claims prom the subtle to the ridiculous. He never can get specific and accurate as to be helpful in any way.
Andrew
#################
No. If I was there when you were born I would have more “direct” evidence. And if I watched you every day. and if I gave absolute priority to the human system of vision and memory..
If I meet you now I just have direct evidence that you are there now. Concluding that you were born requires an inference.
The problem is you cant define “direct’ evidence in any systematic way that it makes it superior or different.
Another way to put this is that all “direct’ evidence is Mediated by a theory. I see you today and then I infer that you were born in the past.
“Concluding that you were born requires an inference.”
OK. But the inference would be fairly acceptable, since that’s the way humans enter the world at large.
Climate science still sucks.
Andrew
“I’m with Andrew on the empirical thing. I mean, I get it that we believe in stuff we have no direct experience with. I don’t dispute the existence of Japan yet I really don’t have any direct evidence about it or experience with it that I’m aware of.”
the problem of “direct” experience has a long history. ha do I have any direct experience of history? I can read history, but in direct terms that is just ink on the page. I can think about my history, but that is just memory. Memory is never wrong.
I should only believe what I can touch and feel or see.
Opps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpaL5XGj9Cg
“I always assumed though that this made what I did a bad analogy for other fields of endeavor. But. Yeah.”
This is a shrewd observation. basically the empiricist in you understands that you can’t generalize from your experience without breaking the rule of ‘only rely on direct evidence”
or.. you learn from your experience that you need direct evidence. That requirement precludes you from applying the rule outside your experience.
One way out is to question the whole notion of ‘direct’ evidence.
All evidence is mediated by some level of abstraction.. or “theory”. There no clean way to separate direct evidence from indirect evidence. Put another way, we have direct evidence of direct evidence being absolutely wrong, especially in areas like optical illusions.
Still you will find people who think they can solve the problem of climate science by “invoking” philosophy-lite. We have no direct evidence that this works. in fact their arguments get continually rejected by philosophy QA
Steven,
Yes. If I were really really really brilliant, I wouldn’t worry about empirical verification. The mental model I’d have of the code and system would be perfect and I wouldn’t need tests or simulations or any of it. I’d just think for awhile and type.
The level of empirical verification we use is arbitrary and is also model / theory based, sure. It’s happened before that (and will doubtless happen again) that the verification method is wrong instead of the code I care about. The debugger lies to me (actually it contains a defect, or isn’t doing what I think it’s doing). Not often, pretty rarely, but it can happen. At which point in time / in which case we go to an even lower level of empirical verification till we figure out what’s up.
Also, we build on stuff we’ve already empirically verified. None of this is a certain road to certain Truth with the capital T. It just seems to increase the chances for getting there.
But yeah. My eyes could be lying to me (insanely unlikely). There could be malware on the computer that’s faking me out (not beyond the realm of conceivable, but usually well past the border of paranoia). The debugging code could be wrong. The compiler could have a defect (I’ve been bitten this way too).
Evidence without the model / without a theory doesn’t go anywhere. A theory without evidence isn’t much use either.
[Edit: I don’t think I’m saying anything you don’t already know.]
Oops cross posted.
Steven, yes. I agree with all of that.
“OK. But the inference would be fairly acceptable, since that’s the way humans enter the world at large.”
in other words there is a 97% consensus on that.
or.. we can think of no other way for you to magically appear
or.. claiming you were born is consistent with all other facts
However, note that I still have to assume that you are human.
of if I do a DNA test of you, that the results have no been faked.
I have to trust the lab.
Unless I do the test myself… but then I have to trust the equipment and all of genetics..
We can explain the warming using c02.. but that doesnt RULE OUT
other explanations.. It could be factor X from the sun.
I could explain your presence by assuming you were human and that all humans were born, but that doesnt rule out
other explanations..
I have no direct evidence that you are not a clone grown in a petri dish.
Bottom line.. direct evidence ends you up in Bishop Berkeley’s world if you are rigorous.. That is, if I met you i would only have direct experience of the light reflecting off you… that is direct experience of the perception of you in my mind.
Going philosophical in climate debates, is at best a “draw”
by repetition
Might be unimportant, but usually what a defect means isn’t that the computer is doing something wrong. Except in the case of hardware failure (only case that comes to mind) the thing is doing precisely what it has been told to do. fixing defects means reconciling the mental model we’ve got of the code we intended to write with the reality of what we actually wrote.
“We can explain the warming using c02.. but that doesnt RULE OUT
other explanations…”
Excellent. In that case I’d rather you more correctly say -based on your philosophy- that you can attempt to explain the alleged warming (misrepresented by the adjustable squiggly line you drew again that goes up and down) using what could be unreliable inferences about C02.
I don’t see any indirect evidence of positive change in my perception of climate science since you attempted to adjust what you claimed to be my illusory thinking.
Andrew
julio:
.
Here is a free copy of the 1977 paper by Lynden-Bell ^2: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234544722_On_the_negative_specific_heat_paradox
When the heating element of an electric stove is turned on, the metal of the oven gets hot, and then the air gets hot. I believe that the gas molecules are impinging on the oven’s molecules and bouncing off with more energy: maybe the oven wall’s molecules are vibrating more. However it does it, it does it: the gas molecules get hotter, move faster. I don’t see any reason why the same thing shouldn’t happen for the heating element of the satellite. The only difference is that the heating element of the oven is inside the oven, and the heating element of the satellite is on the outside of the satellite. I don’t see any fundamental difference.
.
For some reason, Carrick believes that it is necessary to do mechanical work to effect the increased separation of the gas molecules; whereas I see no reason why the known behavior of keplerian orbits shouldn’t take care of it as you’ve described above. He wants to put in a work term, P*dV, to do this. I don’t see at all his justification for any value of dV different from 0. I guess that he feels that the system is somehow being moved to a lesser-entropy state; but I don’t think that is the full story.
.
Indeed, if we’re keeping track of entropy, we need to remember that the powering of the heating element also produces entropy that hasn’t been taken into account. How exactly this plays into the unique qualities of the gravity well is unclear to me; but it is enough that I don’t believe in ad hoc insertions of work which are not required to implement the energy transfer to the gas.
“We can explain the warming using c02.. but that doesnt RULE OUT
other explanations.. It could be factor X from the sun.”
.
True: It could be ‘factor X’ from the Sun.
But then you should explain where the warming expected from CO2 is hiding. When you’ve gone through the radiative physics, it ought to be there. If the physics is wrong, why do the heat-seeking missiles that we use work? They’re designed according to the same physics.
“But then you should explain where the warming expected from CO2 is hiding.”
Neal,
Perhaps a simpler explanation would be that it isn’t hiding and you got your unreliable inferences deployed improperly.
Andrew
Meh. I don’t dispute the heating we expect from CO2 / radiative physics.. I wonder about feedbacks. Also I worry that our model of the rest of this insanely complicated system of systems might be deficient. I mean, it’s hard sometimes to get relatively simple things modeled right. I can put three simple processing threads together, all of which I can predict the behavior of perfectly alone, and be helpless to predict what happens when they interact. Edit: exactly what happens anyway. Race conditions and such.
But did we get to where ever we were going before? I’m lost.
“I don’t dispute the heating we expect from CO2”
Mark,
In the interest of illusory scientific thinking, please provide a numerical value (or range) for what it is that some, including you apparently, expect and how you arrived that that position.
Andrew
Truthfully I accept that on heuristics. I’ve never done the math. If it was wrong, there’d be some more sophisticated dispute than the Sky Dragons, who get other things wrong that invalidate engineering.
everybody might be making some mistake there, but I estimate that if I spent the time to do the exercise I’d either duplicate or screw up the replication; I wouldn’t get anywhere new.
I’m told it’s about 1.1c per doubling
Andrew_KY:
If the physics is so unreliable, why do the heat-seeking missiles work?
Neal:
Goodness, no.
You have to do work to expand a layer of the atmosphere against the gravitational field that is attracting it (relative to that layer).
An oven is precisely an example where the internal energy increases and the temperature increases together. Nobody is debating that point.
I’ve never been to Japan either. But if Japan is some elaborate deception, it’s a good enough one that I doubt buying a plane ticket and visiting would penetrate.
I don’t know from direct observation that code is really executing on my machine. Maybe it’s being relayed somewhere. At some point you draw the line and say nah, I take it on faith.
julio,
I think the problem is that while you might be able to do it for a few particles in the system, you can’t do it for all because the assumption is that the system is stable, not expanding or collapsing. That means the kinetic energy is exactly equal to the gravitational potential energy. But if you add kinetic energy, that’s no longer true and the system is unstable.
You can’t solve that by just allowing expansion and cooling. Or at least it doesn’t work that way on my spreadsheet. Interestingly enough, for an isotropic, isothermal (2.725K) hydrogen cloud at the correct density for equal kinetic and gravitational potential energy, there are always about 22% of the molecules with velocities faster than the escape velocity for the system regardless of the total mass.
DeWitt:
.
Your spreadsheet doesn’t sound like it’s based on the Virial Theorem, according to which:
.
PE = – 2 * KE
E = PE + KE = – KE
Neal,
I think you may be incorrectly inferring that CO2 physics and missle physics are equivalent.
Andrew
Carrick:
Given the many examples of the IPCC reports making completely unjustified, and even completely false, claims… I’d say a person is justified in dismissing the reports. Heck, the IPCC allows its authors to flagrantly violate its own stated principles to make drastic revisions to the report which aren’t subject to review.
Ironically enough, the best example we have of this is with Richard Tol himself, who drastically changed the chapter he helped author to change conclusions and promote his own work and beliefs to the exclusion of all other. Even worse, what he inserted was nonsense as the work he slipped into the report is pure garbage.
That it happened in one chapter obviously doesn’t mean it happens in all chapters. Even so, is is perfectly reasonable for a person to just dismiss the IPCC reports once they become aware of that happening in the latest report and the things which happened in previous reports (the most obvious example being Michael Mann’s hockey stick being made a figurehead for the report, with Mann intentionally deceiving people about his findings when he wrote the text for the report).
When the IPCC reports constantly have examples of resorting to shenanigans to p0romote thing s which are demonstrably false, I don’t think people are obligated to listen to them at all. It might be possible to separate out the good parts from the bad ones, but why would most people even care to try?
Andrew,
Have you verified the speed of light? The speed of sound? Acceleration due to gravity on Earth? Distance from Earth to Sun? Escape velocity? so on. The list is arbitrarily long. Why not?
We aren’t immortal. There isn’t time to verify everything. Heck even if we were, I’m not 100% convinced that we could, I’m not sure the set of things to verify isn’t uncountably infinite.
Carrick:
.
I really don’t see that it’s necessary to expand anything.
To state the obvious, the gas is not attached to anything, we can visualize it as a collection of tiny pingpong balls bouncing around freely. (My version of the ideal gas model.)
In fact, between collisions, each little pingpong ball is following an orbit around the center of the (assumed spherical) gas cloud.
(Yes, if its current orbit has too much radial variation, it won’t be perfectly keplerian, because the effective attracting mass will vary.)
When one of these little pingpong balls hits the spherical heating element, it bounces; or perhaps it sticks and then hops off. If the element is in its heating stage, the pingpong ball will probably leave with more kinetic energy that it arrived with; otherwise not.
.
If it leaves with more energy than it started, it will have an orbit with a longer axis and a longer period. This is exactly what happens when someone wants to move from Sun-Earth orbit to Sun-Mars orbit: just add a little speed in the direction tangential to the orbit, and the rocket will assume a new orbit, the minimum distance of which will be the Sun-Earth radius; and the orbit will be longer, with greater eccentricity and longer period: in short, a narrower and slower orbit.
.
So when every heated pingpong ball gets its little extra kick, each orbit will at least start off with a longer average distance from the center. We have to think later about how collisions affect things; but at least they start off with a bigger orbit based just on the kick.
.
Not only do I see no need for layers, I don’t even know what they would look like.
.
By the way, an oven can be cast into a similar contradiction as concerns the question of work. Consider an “aquarium for gas”: a square-based tank with the vertical sides going up and up and up. If you use the same basic concept of the adiabatic atmosphere:
.
Pressure = constant * density^(gamma)
.
it’s not hard to see that the temperature, pressure and density will all decline together and reach zero at the height:
.
L = kTo/[(gamma-1)(mg)]
.
where k = Boltzmann’s constant
To = temperature at base
m = molecular mass
g = 9.8 m/s^2
gamma = adiabatic exponent
.
So if the tank’s top is higher than L, the pressure up there is zero.
.
So now if you add heat to the bottom of the tank, To will increase, and the scale length L will increase accordingly. So the gas will top off at a greater height; however, even though gas levels will definitely rise, I claim that there will be no work done to lift the gas. It will simply do it by itself; just as in the spherical case. The only difference is that in the square-bottom case, the total KE will increase as well as the total E; whereas in the spherical case, the total KE will decrease.
Andrew_KY:
.
It is my understanding that the guidance system for heat-seeking missiles is indeed based on the same radiative transfer theory and models for absorption by gases as are the studies of the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Mark Bofill:
Yes, no, yes, yes, no. I actually know how to verify the speed of sound, but I can’t say I’ve ever done that particular experiment.
But I’m not sure what your point is. None of the above need to be directly verified as we can verify things which rely upon them. If the distance to the sun were different than I’ve been told, it’d screw up all sorts of astronomy calculations. That I can use those calculations to successfully make predictions shows the distance to the sun is what I’d expect.
Sometimes you do have to go back to first principles. Generally you don’t. Generally, you can assume earlier steps are correct because the later steps, which depend upon those earlier steps working, work.
Brandon, amen brother.
You are correct. We need not verify everything.
Neal,
Yes. The first source for Mj I used was wrong. Mj = 5kTR/Gm, not 3kTR/2Gm. That reduces the fraction of hydrogen atoms with velocities faster than the escape velocity to 0.7% Decreasing temperature does increase, i.e. make less negative, total energy. The question still is, however, can you get there from here? Gravitational collapse looks like an irreversible process to me. Running it backwards may not be as simple as adding kinetic energy to the system.
Neal,
Correct. In fact, the military did the original research that eventually led to the HITRAN database for just that purpose. IIRC, Mosher worked on stuff like that back in the day.
DeWitt:
.
– Mosher: Did you work on the HITRAN database for heat-seeking missiles? That’s something useful for me to keep in mind.
.
– Jeans mass: Well, a problem is that if it’s really in collapse, the only way to be sustained against going down is by going nuclear – nuclear fusion. But worrying about nuclear reactions throws out all the assumptions we’ve been holding on this problem. What I was thinking is that we need to be a bit below the Jeans mass, so that we’re not faced with either nuclear fusion or collapse. As gas temperature drops, the Jeans mass must drop as well; is there a lower bound to the Jeans mass, or will any little sneeze collapse at low enough temperature?
I know this is somewhat off-topic at this point, but one of the critics of my book I mentioned has commented a couple times at my site. I highly recommend reading his comments. It’s interesting how much contortion he’s willing to go through to claim I am wrong, but what truly fascinates me is his reliance on this position:
This was a response to how I’ve characterized the Cook et al results. According to this person, Cook et al haven’t mis-characterized their results because how one defines the “consensus” is completely arbitrary. This might remind people of the whole p0rno bit to the paper, but…
Seriously, he’s claiming it is wrong for me to say the authors were dishonest because how one defines the “consensus” is arbitrary. That is, the authors came up with a specific rating system and explicitly stated what their consensus position is, but…
http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2016/03/reactions-to-the-new-ebook/#comment-9406
Mosher:
.
This is a topic you should know something about. I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth: What is your degree of familiarity concerning the relationship of “greenhouse effect” physics and the technology of heat-seeking missiles? No classified material, please!
.
Andrew_KY said: “I think you may be incorrectly inferring that CO2 physics and missle physics are equivalent.”
.
Neal J. King said: “It is my understanding that the guidance system for heat-seeking missiles is indeed based on the same radiative transfer theory and models for absorption by gases as are the studies of the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
.
DeWitt Payne said: “Correct. In fact, the military did the original research that eventually led to the HITRAN database for just that purpose. IIRC, Mosher worked on stuff like that back in the day.”
.
and Mosher says?
Must ask.
If two bodies are in thermal equilibrium,
Definition no heat flows between them.
Both are at the same temperature x which is greater than 0 Kelvin.
Each is heating the other.
I.e. heat is flowing from each warm object to the other.
Yet heat is not flowing between them.
Wonderful things logic, words and definitions.
Re PE = -2KE
The concept is that to return anything to its original starting place takes twice the energy it took to move it away.
angech:
Heat is actually flowing between them. It’s just that the amount of heat flowing from one into the other equals the amount of heat flowing in the opposite direction. That means there is no net flow of heat between the two, but there is still heat flowing between them.
Thanks Brandon, I’ll use net heat flow in future. Will keep the troops happy.
Is Gates the evil twin?
How can Cook keep being so obliging to us (you).
A supposed computer expert who cannot apply simple security to his site.
This would be the fourth time at least he has left incriminating evidence up at his site.
Perhaps not incriminating, or even evidence of “skulduggery” just old fashioned fitting up of evidence.
The University of Queensland must be basking in the reflected glory of its evidently well working Ethics Department, either that or they are trying to throw some work the way of their legal graduates.
So, I’ve noticed there’s what looks like an inverse relationship between how much my arms wave while I’m making a comment and how well I understand what I’m taking about. I’m not sure how visible the arm waving is, but I think people ought to be able to make it out.
So I’ve thought it through a bit more slowly. Theory vrs observation. Well, it’s not a very useful distinction because almost nothing I do is a direct observation. For obvious starters I don’t directly sense the tiny charges that are 1’s and 0’s being periodically read and rewritten in memory, nor do I directly sense the state of magnetic storage media. So everything I think of as a ‘direct observation’ depends on some abstraction, and or modeling and or logic. I deduce the values of the 1’s and 0’s I’m interested in because of the visual output of programs that physically interact with memory.
Something more interesting to me — the model is everything. I don’t actually need to run Linux on my Windows box. I can run it in a virtual machine, which is basically a program that models running the software. It’s a very accurate, very deterministic (in the algorithmic sense) model in most of the ways we commonly care, completely inaccurate in others that we don’t. QEMU is another example, maybe a better one in that it virtualizes the whole thing; hardware too. QEMU provides great modeling in some senses, but if you want to know the temperature changes on the skin of the real processor during execution, nope, wrong model for that.
So I’m not writing a book here, apologize for the length of the comment already. It takes a bit to get through these details.
Why does this matter?
I don’t know. Somehow I guess I got confused or misspoke. In my line of work it’s important to very thoroughly check stuff. I’m fortunate because it’s possible to very thoroughly check stuff, not only possible but downright easy, relatively speaking. Somehow from there we ended up with this dichotomy between direct evidence and theory. Just wanted to clear it up; I don’t think it’s a useful distinction.
~whew~. My arms stayed pretty still that time.
Brandon,
LOL!
But I read the comments. It’s slow going when the very first point I read seems incorrect:
Really?
It sort of puts me on alert that what I’m reading may be chock full of mistakes. Slow down, turn hazard lights on, proceed with caution!
🙂
I don’t want be beat a dead horse again, but I want to respond to one thing Carrick commented yesterday:
“I honestly don’t think there’s any level of proof you’d accept as conclusive.”
It’s not my issue that the powers that be in Climate Science have chosen the measure of something that happens naturally – temperature changes, namely warming – to claim that it’s humans that make “the globe” warmer.
That’s always going to be a problem. The problem is baked into the information that climate science is currently presenting. Climate science sucks.
Andrew
angech:
.
– When two objects are in thermal contact, they are in thermal equilibrium when no net heat flows between them.
– It follows that they are also at the same temperature.
– Sometimes people say two objects are in TE when they are at the same temperature, even when there is no thermal contact provided, because if there were, there would be no net heat flow. (It’s probably better to avoid this usage.)
.
– In the context of general relativity, this gets screwed up again: equilibrium between two objects implies not that the temperatures are the same, but that the temperatures as multiplied by the gravitational frequency-shift factor is the same. So if one object is above another in a gravitational field, at equilibrium the local temperature of the higher object is slightly lower than the local temperature of the lower object.
.
– The PE = -2 * KE issue is a result of the Virial Theorem and relates to the total energy of a gas (for example). It’s unrelated to the discussion above.
Mark Bofill:
Yeah, I got a chuckle writing that.
Neal,
Thanks! I have been reading Lynden-Bell’s 1999 review paper in Physica A, which I recommend to all the physics-trained people in the audience. For the record, I no longer doubt the possibility of the “direct” process (T going down as heat is added) for some special systems, even if I’m still unclear on some of the details of how that would happen in practice.
I think this whole process has been clarifying, although I also think that somebody should have noticed much earlier that what I wrote above in parenthesis is the very definition of a system with a negative heat capacity, and steered the search accordingly. There are plenty of references out there!
In defense of “our” side–the classical physicists who do not think about astrophysics often–it needs to be said that systems with negative Cv are, from the point of view of both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, very strange beasts indeed. For those who do not want to go read the papers, here is a quick summary:
* There is actually a theorem, based on the canonical ensemble, that Cv > 0.
* So systems with negative Cv cannot be described by the canonical ensemble!
* Lynden-Bell’s take on it is that they are not “extensive”; that is to say, you cannot break them up into parts with equally well-defined thermodynamical properties. In each case, you just have to take the system as a whole. (This is why you speak of their “heat capacity” but not their “specific heat”.)
* Two systems with negative Cv cannot come to thermal equilibrium with each other
* A system with negative Cv cannot achieve thermal equilibrium with a large heat bath
* A system with Cv < 0 can achieve thermal equilibrium with a system with Cv > 0 provided their combined heat capacity is negative (presumably that is how you would take their temperature!)
W. Thirring, a well-known theoretical physicist, has studied these systems in detail. His original 1970 paper is available here, and looks pretty readable (at least the first few pages): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01403177#page-1 He also has a recent review, freely available, here:
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/acta18/acta18-thirring.pdf
(yes, that is the Vatican’s web site!)
The basic condition to have such a system appears to be that the binding energy should increase faster than linearly with the number of particles.
Anyway, I think Neal deserves credit for coming up with this interesting thermodynamic consequence of the virial theorem! At the same time, I would stress that the theorem is totally irrelevant for any ordinary thermodynamical system here on Earth. As I pointed out in my first post, it only applies for particles in bound states of their interacting potential. The repulsive potentials through which gas molecules interact on less than astrophysical scales do not form bound states.
julio:
.
I just found out about the “negative heat capacity” topic a little before writing about it: ATTP recognized the concept when I was discussing the VT example with him.
.
– I think Lynden-Bell 1999 is behind paywall; that’s why I linked the 1977 paper. Do you have a link to a free copy? I will also look at Thirring’s papers in due course.
.
– A PRL from 2001 claims that negative heat capacity has been observed in small systems: “Negative heat capacity for a cluster of 147 sodium atoms.” And there is a more recent paper (2010) that looks not too hard to read: marge.uochb.cas.cz/~gladich/cluster.pdf
As you would have guessed, the mechanism doesn’t depend on the Virial Theorem. But I haven’t read it yet.
Neal,
I think if it isn’t exactly the Jeans mass, the cloud isn’t stable. Too high and it will collapse, too low and it will expand. The problem with low mass is that the density for a bound condition increases rapidly as the mass decreases. A mass of 5.1E18kg of H2 at 20K would need a density of 2.2E09 kg/m³. Even at 2K, the density is 2.2E06 kg/m³.
With hydrogen, you’re going to get leakage too. A small fraction of the molecules will have velocities higher than the escape velocity. Maybe a dust cloud would work better.
Neal,
Mosher’s CV at Berkeley Earth mentions that he worked for Northrop Aircraft in Threat Analysis. I would think that heat seeking missiles would qualify as a threat.
DeWitt:
Very interesting.
It would be nice to have the whole question on heat-seekers & EGHE on the record.
Neal,
I’m pretty sure he talked about that at Climate Audit and maybe even here. I’ve never had much luck with searches for that, or I’d go look. It’s probably easier to wait for him to respond, as he seems to have been following this thread.
P.S. Just to be clear: the Earth’s atmosphere is definitely NOT a Cv < 0 system. We know this empirically, since it behaves like a totally normal thermodynamical system (when you add heat to it, it warms up–greater KE–and even expands a little–greater PE); but we can also understand this theoretically. Even though the air molecules are gravitationally bound to the Earth, they mostly interact with each other, through collisions so frequent that no molecule comes anywhere close to describing a complete orbit around the Earth. However, as we have established above, that is how the virial theorem works its "magic," of converting a small KE increase now into an overall slower motion later: the particle needs to come close to completing at least half an orbit, since it is at the other end of the orbit that the slow velocities happen. Nothing even remotely close to that happens in the atmosphere.
Since short-range collisions also happen to the gas in stars, there must be some crossover point where a gas goes from being essentially short-range collision dominated (normal Cv) to gravity- or, if you will, virial-dominated (negative Cv). This is probably discussed in some of the papers that have already been quoted above, but I haven't made it that far yet.
Neal: thanks for the references, and no, I don't have a free copy of the 1999 paper, sorry… Thirring is looking like the most interesting stuff right now, since he discusses non-astrophysical systems that could possibly be realized in the laboratory, probably like the ones in the papers you mention (the PRL reference, by the way, is Schmidt et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1191)
Btw, the Wikipedia entry for HITRAN says the original version was compiled in the 1960’s by the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories.
julio,
Interesting. That would imply an upper limit on the density so the mean free path is on the order of the cloud radius. I suspect that means a significant fraction of a stellar mass, as the density drops with increasing mass. Maybe I’ll add a mean free path calculation to my spreadsheet.
I scared him away with all that arm waving.
Re: DeWitt Payne (Comment #144061)
Sounds about right!
julio, DeWitt:
.
I think it is not necessary to worry about the mean-free path (mfp) of the gas molecules: A full orbit is helpful in visualizing HOW the added energy gives rise to a longer slower orbit, but is not necessary to explain WHY it does this.
– The WHY is, well, because of the Virial Theorem, the validity of which does not depend on the length of the mfp. Once you have given a molecule its kick, it has the energy it needs to go a little farther. (Indeed, our concern is that it doesn’t get so much energy that it packs its bags and leaves.) If there is an elastic collision between molecules, there is an exchange of KE: no reduction in the average.If one molecule gets aimed downward, either it will miss the satellite and start heading back up; or it will hit the satellite and start over. It’s all good.
.
– So it’s not necessary to worry about the details of the mfp. The VT is immune to those effects.
.
What IS important is to apply the VT properly. In a case with a hard-core satellite, whether the satellite’s mass holds together the gas or the satellite just happens to be at the center, there appears a term in the VT. I believe it goes:
2 (average KE) = (average PE) + 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s
.
where:
R_s = satellite radius
P_s = gas pressure at R_s
.
This is because the satellite forms part of the boundary to the gas.
julio, thanks for the comments and yes Neal deserves credit for finding this. I think it qualifies as a counter example.
I agree it’s an interesting system, but my perception was (without having groked the concept of $latex C_v < 0$) what Neal describes is impossible for a system with an ideal gas law equation of state. Since I am assuming ideal gas law in the description above, I am not describing his system.
At the risk of having my head explode, it would be interesting to revisit this problem in quantum mechanical systems with long-range quantum coherence.
I did notice this paper that appears relevant:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0208455.pdf
And yes it includes a discussion of negative specific heats.
julio, Neal,
I’ll have to look this up when I have time, but I think the Virial Theorem does apply to the Earth’s atmosphere. I think we went through this with Miskolczi some time back. There was a discussion about whether M. applied the Virial Theorem correctly because he restricted it to one dimension.
julio:
That’s what I had guessed.
Is an ensemble of particles with the properties as this (such long mean free paths) even a “gas” in the classical sense? Since there is a degree of freedom where most of the kinetic energy of the molecules resides, it doesn’t seem that such a system would obey the Equipartition Theorem.
Anyway, I’ve a copy of Lynden-Bell now. Anybody that wants a copy… just give me instructions on how to send it to you (or make the request through Lucia).
All,
The virial theorem cannot be applied to a system of interacting molecules unless the interaction potential is included in the calculation of the total potential energy. It is true that the short-range potential that acts during the interparticle collisions may be close to zero (for any individual molecule) most of the time, but you cannot set it strictly equal to zero without eliminating the possibility of collisions altogether. In fact, in a normal-density atmosphere, lots of collisions are happening somewhere all the time, so there has to be a definite contribution.
Neal’s extra term in Comment #144064 goes one step in this direction (by including collisions with the planetary surface). It may be enough by itself to make the atmosphere behave normally, but I haven’t checked that.
In any case, I agree that it is important to use the virial theorem properly, but for that you must not treat it as some magical black box: it definitely helps to understand the mechanism that brings about a counterintuitive effect in the first place. If the mechanism is absent, and the virial theorem seems to be telling you that you still should see a decrease in KE when you add heat, that’s an indication that you are *not* using the theorem correctly!
I stick to my guns: unless the molecule you speeded up gets a chance to move over to the other side of the earth, where the gravitational pull will eventually slow it down, it’s just not going to happen. If the virial theorem keeps telling you that it should happen, you need to keep fixing it until it no longer does so. 🙂
Another (and an even simpler) way to look at this: a molecule needs to have a long enough free path to “learn” that the earth is round. Otherwise the correct gravitational potential energy to use is mgh, which is always positive and starts from zero at the surface. The “correct” virial theorem to use then would have n =1 instead of n = -1 and would be written K = U/2, instead of K = -U/2.
According to this formula, the average K and the average U would both increase simultaneously, as heat is added to the system, which is of course what happens.
Note also that mgh is the gravitational potential energy formula used in, e.g., the classical calculations of the “exponential atmosphere”…
(Incidentally, I see that the U in Neal’s comment #144064 does not have a negative sign in front of it. A typo? Or just the simplest way to “fix” the virial theorem to deal with mean free paths much smaller than the size of the planet?)
Neal, julio and Carrick,
Here’s the link for the Virial Theorem in a planetary atmosphere:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1002.2980.pdf
It has to be modified to only consider vertical velocity. For a monatomic gas the result is:
2/3⟨K⟩ = ⟨U⟩
For a diatomic gas including rotational degrees of freedom only:
2/5⟨K⟩ = ⟨U⟩
And I see I left out rotational degrees of freedom from my spreadsheet.
julio,
mgh is only accurate for a thin gas shell where g can be considered a constant.
Re: Comment #144070
DeWitt,
Thanks! I was off by the “degrees of freedom” factor 3 (or 5, depending). Still, the author uses mgh for the potential energy throughout, and the main result is of the same form I postulated–the critical thing being that U and K have the same sign.
julio:
This is the direction I’m going on this too. But I’ve seen it claimed it’s true for short mean free path too.
That said, there are a number of (semi-lay) articles out there discussing stars and negative heat capacitances.
Stars are obvious examples of very short mean free paths for particles.
As far as I can see, they end up only considering the kinetic energy associated with rotation. DeWitt’s paper that argues it translates on into the vertical velocity component.
Dewitt:
I think Julio was arguing that the mean free path is short enough that the gravitational field looks locally flat…
Incidentally, this is why I like the reality check that comes from solving systems of equations that has all of the physics there. I’ve seen too many arguments come off the rails by misapplying some basic physics result, that happens to not be fully applicable to that case.
Carrick,
A star is hot enough that you can assume molecules don’t exist. In fact, it should be a plasma and you may have to consider all those free electrons too. Obviously that’s not true of a cold gas cloud.
Carrick, DeWitt, julio:
=========================================================
Carrick:
– Why do you believe this system won’t work with a gas obeying the ideal gas law?
.
-You mention the paper by Lynden-Bell. Is that the 1999 paper? If so, that is available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/9812172 . “Negative Specific Heat in Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry”
.
=========================================================
DeWitt:
– Yes, the VT does apply to the Earth’s atmosphere. But you do have to take into account the boundaries of the gas, which means the surface of the planet. This emerges straightforwardly from the integrals defined in the VT. As a test of understanding, you can use the model of an ideal gas contained in a rectangular box to derive the perfect gas law explicitly. The same approach has to be taken to the planetary surface.
– I spent a lot of time going back and forth on the VT with Miskolczi: He seemed to think it was useful to distinguish between ‘vertical’ KE (v_z^2/2) and ‘horizontal’ KE (v_x^2 + v_y^2)/2. Then he kept asking why I was asking about it; to which my answer was that his abstract seemed to make a big deal about it.
.
=========================================================
Carrick:
.
– I do not believe it is necessary be concerned about the length of the mfp: If its KE exceeds -PE/2, it’s on an orbit that is going to get it further away. If it hits another particle and gets robbed of its excess, the robber will have excess, and it will be going further away. It doesn’t need to complete a half orbit to be outward bound.
.
=========================================================
julio:
.
– Collisions can be left out of the VT calculation, not because you ignore the interaction potential, but because of Newton’s 3rd Law: both particles involved in a collision contribute to the V calculation, at the same point in space, but with opposite force. So all intra-system short-range forces between particles of the system cancel out of the V identically.
.
– I think the major difference between the flat Earth case and the spherical Earth case is that the gravitational pull decreases in the spherical case, but not in the flat case.
.
– Comment #144064: There should be minus signs for both terms on the right. I haven’t had a moment yet to think about whether that makes the atmosphere Cv negative or not.
=========================================================
ALL:
.
– I see that DeWitt is referencing Toth’s paper. I remember that paper from my work on Miskolczi. I don’t think it’s a very authoritative paper, and there may be problems with it. I think this one is much better: George W. Collins, II: The Virial Theorem in Stellar Astrophysics Chapter 1, section 2. You only need to read about 3 pages for the derivation, but there’s a lot more background and applications available. It’s at:
http://ads.harvard.edu/books/1978vtsa.book/
Seriously, you guys should be reading the comments by my critic. The latest one is a doozy. I’ll quote just one sample. I asked:
This is how he justifies Cook et al taking their Categories 2 and 3 as endorsing the idea humans are the main cause of global warming. No kidding.
And you should see what he says about the word “fraud.” It’s hilarious.
Brandon, I’ve been following. I honestly don’t know what to make of it, is a part of why I haven’t commented over there. I could come be snarky but where would that get us? Possibly your guest is doing his level best to explain something that just doesn’t seem to be coming out right as far as I can see. Or maybe the guy is so brilliant we can’t follow. Or maybe he’s wasting your time with nonsense deliberately, but I hate to conclude that unless I have to.
~shrug~
It is the darndest thing though, I agree with you.
Mark Bofill, I’m actually kind of glad there aren’t many people responding to him. I find when you get a crowd of people responding to one person (at least when the people are disagreeing) discussions tend not to be fruitful. Once a couple people have made the same point, additional people making the same points doesn’t help. It actually leads to one of the moderation rules at Climate Audit I find most interesting. Steve McIntyre will often delete comments for “piling on” when a bunch of people criticize a person for the same point. It’s also why I have refrained from commenting on a lot of threads at the site. For years I read but didn’t speak because I felt I couldn’t make any point better than the other people making them. I only started commenting when I realized I could make the same points in a more accessible form, which is useful.
But I would like people to read his comments. They’re fascinating. In fact, they’re so fascinating when I got an alert saying he just posted a new one, I choose not to open it to avoid getting too distracted. (I have dart league tonight, and we’re in first. I want to make sure we keep it.)
I would think humans are causing all AGW, not most AGW. Isn’t that what the A stands for? Now how much of GW is actually happening, and how much of GW is AGW?
Earle, I think most people have been talking about the human contribution to GW, not AGW, but there may have been a few slipups. I know my critic tried to make an issue of that exact point, based on me using a quote from Dana Nuccitelli. As in, Nuccitelli had written a comment which wasn’t completely clear, and when I used that quote, my critic suggested I was saying something foolish.
But yeah, the anthropogenic contribution to AGW is 100%. Any comments which might seem to suggest otherwise are probably just not clearly stating the intended meaning.
Brandon —
I agree with you about not wanting to clutter up a thread with responses — it’s much easier to follow a dialogue than a multi-party conversation. But I thought Brandon G’s perspective was so … unusual that I stuck my oar in after checking that you hadn’t responded — as it turns out, just as you were composing your reply. Well, one extra pair of posts won’t impair that comment thread, and Brandon G did well to separate his replies.
HaroldW, I have no problem with people joining in on the discussion. I just don’t want so many to do so it gets too crowded for the discussion to work. It takes quite a few more comments than have been posted there for that to happen.
I just wouldn’t want to create something like Skeptical Science’s proposed Crusher Crew. Having extra comments to contribute to the discussion is good; having extra comments to drown out people is notm
Neal J. King (Comment #144074)
“I do not believe it is necessary be concerned about the length of the mfp: If its KE exceeds -PE/2”
By definition it cannot.
Neal J. King (Comment #144036)
“When one of these little pingpong balls hits the spherical heating element, it bounces”
Yet
“To state the obvious, the gas is not attached to anything)”
There is a degree of blarney going on here mixed in with “sciency statements” which founder on the shores of appropriate physics and appropriate physic statements.
You cannot for instance earlier have a gas cloud model with a solid center.
Putting an imaginary heating element and imaginary heat is one thing, having a molecular real heater for molecules to bounce off sort of makes the discussion surreal.
At least more surreal than just the already imaginary heat source and heat being lost into the 7th dimension of string theory [negative specific heat paradox].
Neal J. King (Comment #143910)
“the heat I have added to the gas increases the energy of the gas as a whole. But since the energy is negative, the increase amounts to a reduction of the magnitude of the negative quantity.”
Mathematical ?
Neal J. King (Comment #143910)
March 15th, 2016 at 1:51 pm
“total E = KE + PE Since PE = -2 * KE total E = – KE .
and
“Under this form of the potential energy (gravitational PE = 0 at infinity), the total KE = – total PE; so the increase in total E corresponds to a decrease in KE (a result that, in the end, will not depend on the selection of the zero-point for PE).”
Why not? the elements we are talking about are in the sphere with some PE, not at infinity. This does not compute.
Mosher:
.
This is a topic you should know something about. I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth: What is your degree of familiarity concerning the relationship of “greenhouse effect†physics and the technology of heat-seeking missiles? No classified material, please!
.
Andrew_KY said: “I think you may be incorrectly inferring that CO2 physics and missle physics are equivalent.â€
.
Neal J. King said: “It is my understanding that the guidance system for heat-seeking missiles is indeed based on the same radiative transfer theory and models for absorption by gases as are the studies of the enhanced greenhouse effect.â€
.
DeWitt Payne said: “Correct. In fact, the military did the original research that eventually led to the HITRAN database for just that purpose. IIRC, Mosher worked on stuff like that back in the day.â€
.
and Mosher says?
##########################
I worked in Threat analysis on the YF-23. Threat analysis encompassed a lot of different topics so let me explain basically what someone like me would do.
A) run a “verified” Air force model and feed the results
into system engineering.
B) Modify an existing verified Air force model to represent
higher fidelity physics.
C) Do the design of experiments
D) Direct the tests.
E) Analyze the data
F) Present reports to the Air Force– basically Brief the general
The YF-23 took an approach to stealth that was defined as
all aspect broad band stealth. All aspect means we wanted to be invisible from any viewing angle. Its long been unclassified so I can just tell you guys to look at a B2. See how all the edges are parallel? We did that for a reason. Simple geometry.. In the radar domain and incoming signal will be deflected and not return to the sender ( There’s more magic but not to go there). So in the radar domain we would use radiative transfer equations. basically you want to know how the EM is attentuated and scattered as it goes through various types of atmosphere. Frequency matters etc. And then you want to know how it “returns” from a complex surface ( see the flat plates of of the F177– haha.. the lockheed model could only do flat plate returns ) So, those of us in threat we would sit through classes where we would go through the math.. all marked S/SAR. the real trick was calculating the returns from complex surfaces.. scatter, reflections, backscater, Dieletric constants. For me it was a crash course. I started college as a math physics major, but strayed away.. any way. There were tons of grey haired guys to sit and tutor my stupid ass and fill in all the gaps. In the end, They would give a guy like me the job of writing a specification for a radar model ( Electrically scanned array ) and then either coding it myself or giving it to a real time simulation engineer to code. We would then do trade studies on different RCS ( radar cross sections) and different radar configurations.
Broadband also meant you had to suppress signatures in the IR domain. Here the sensor is passive. There is a guy with a sensor looking at you. You spew heat. he sees you.
In IR the atmosphere was way more important. Were you flying above the clouds? below the clouds? in the clouds? Was the sensor looking down at you was it looking up at you from the ground? Was there glint from the sun. So again, as a modeler you would sit down with the head science guys and they would explain what mattered and what didnt matter. We used LoTran and an early version of Modtran and the Hitran database. You had to model signatures, sensors and then see how it performed in different atmospheres.
On the aircraft side we had to model the IR signature of the aircraft. As I recall there were two or three components. Hot plume ( burning gas) Hot metal ( from aero heating) would be an example. The signature was 3D so from any angle and at any speed you had this dynamic 3D signature in a 2 or three wavelengths. On the sensor side you had to model an IR sensor for the heat seeking missile that could see this signature. This could be simple ( probability of detection was related to S/N ) or complex. For the aircraft you might also have an Aircraft EO/IR system. We would also play with counter measure (CM) systems. When a heat seeking missile is inbound can I fool it by popping out flares? how many flares? what color? can the missile using IRCCM distinguish the difference between flares and airplanes.
And to do the modelling of course you had to get the physics of IR transmission right.
making a plane invisible in RF is easy. Making it invisible in IR was a lot harder. Look at the YF23. Look at the aft deck. Hot frickin burning jet fuel is pouring out of the back end of the plane.
Can I make that deck disappear when Look at it from above?
How about directly from behind ( the guy behind me fires a missile, yikes ) to attack this problem let’s say that we looked at all the physics including how IR is transmitted, aborbed, reflected by the atmosphere. How safe am I in a cloud? in the rain? in clear air? Is there anything I can deploy into the atmosphere that will trap the heat..hehe. Ya we looked at dumping C02 into our plume. what would such a system weigh? how effective would it be? how many pilot lives would it save etc
Or what benefit is there in cooling the exhaust so that it lands squarely in the C02 and H20 windows
Here is a good example of what we would do in Threat Operations research
http://dayton.tamu.edu/pdf/ijtje08.pdf
http://www.davis-eng.com/docs/papers/irss_paper.pdf
https://www.ida.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Publications/IDA_Documents/SED/ida-document-d-4642.pdf
And if you had any questions a grey beard might give you his copy of this
http://www.amazon.com/Infrared-System-Engineering-Richard-Hudson/dp/0470099356
Let’s see if I can summarize.
radiative transfer is a key bit of science used to engineer weapon systems. In fact some of the key discoveries were driven by weapon systems programs. yup.. the cold war actually resulted in some key discoveries that drove climate science.
radiative transfer is working physics. we use it to build stuff that works. If you want to build stuff that works you cant deny this physics.
The theory gets you a few key insights.
A) the atmosphere passes in SW em, and retards the escape of LWIR. Energy comes in, but the escape back to space is slowed.
b) GHG gases retard the escape of LWIR to space.
C) H20 is important, but in the end C02 is the control knob.
D) when you add c02 back radiation increases.
E) When you add c02 the ERL ( effective radiating level) is raised.
F) When the ERL is raised, the earth system loses heat less rapidly than it would otherwise. This is where the analogy of a thermos
works best. I put hot coffee in my thermos and the silver lining
slows the loss of heat from radiation. The coffee stays warmer than it would be otherwise. You can think of c02 high in the atmosphere as a “silver” lining of sorts. It slows the loss of radiation to space, and the earth is consequently warmer than it would be otherwise. Its that fricking simple.
This is why you wont find any sensor guy ( take jeffid as an example ) who understand the effects of the atmosphere, denying that
A) C02 is a GHG
B) GHGs keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise by
letting in SW and “trapping” LWIR
C) Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET.
And so the debate is really over this.
” How much warming will doubling C02 cause”
A smart skeptic will focus on this point. And a really smart skeptic wont insist that the number is low. They will insist that the answer is uncertain. 1.5C to 4.5C is pretty uncertain. You can be sure that 20 years from now those two bounds will probably still be in place so there is no need to make cocksure statements that it must be high or low.
Andrew_KY, Mosher:
.
Mosher:
I figured you’d drop in eventually. Thanks for your response!
.
Andrew_KY:
Any questions?
So yeah, again, you guys should really check out the comments. A couple highlights. On fraud:
On the Cook et al rating system:
F177 ??? Says the guy who seems to be the brain behind B2…
Wow Mosher. Thanks much for these reflections.
“Andrew_KY:
Any questions?”
Why, as a matter of fact I do, Neil. Thank you.
“A) C02 is a GHG”
And naturally occurring, I understand. Is this your understanding as well?
“B) GHGs keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise”
Why doesn’t climate science produce squiggly lines that represent the “as is” climate and the “otherwise” climate for comparison purposes?
“C) Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET.”
Why does climate science present squiggly line graphs that invariably show warming *and* cooling of the planet if the GHG’s strictly “WARM THE PLANET”. Obviously this claim is too simplistic.
Anyway, Mosher YELLING IN ALL CAPS doesn’t make his claims any more true than if he typed them in very small font .
Andrew
Sorry, Neal. I typoed your name. It was by mistake. Please don’t take it as a slight. If it caused offence, I apologize. I apologize anyway for being sloppy about it.
Andrew
Andrew, I don’t get why this bugs you. Some signals are noisy, why is that a problem?
“Andrew, I don’t get why this bugs you. Some signals are noisy, why is that a problem?”
Mark,
Could you answer my questions before you start asking me yours?
Andrew
I mean I see it like this. Can I say it gets warmer in the summer? It doesn’t always. Sometimes there’s a cold day or cold spell. The thing is more complicated than just the angle of the sun, there’s more to it than that. Sure. But why is it so evil for me to say it gets warmer in the summer, even though that’s not the whole story?
I don’t think climate scientists think CO2 is the whole story. I think activists, politicians, media, etc, make a big deal out of CO2, but.
Sure Andrew,
What does this even mean. I’d answer if I understood it. They graph temperature ‘as is’.
If you’re seriously trying to communicate, maybe we should drop the wierd euphemisms or whatever they are. By produce squiggly lines do you mean produce graphs. If so can we say so. If not can we clarify what we mean.
Andrew,
Look. I reread your comments and I get the sense that you think climate science says that temperature should always be going up due to CO2 increases. Temperature isn’t always going up, as you correctly observe, so apparently you conclude climate science is false.
Maybe I’m wrong. Adding CO2 should cause the energy being trapped to go up, I think a climate scientist would agree with that. So what if the energy goes into the ocean.. Temperatures don’t always go up, at least not where we can measure accurately with good coverage. Couldn’t a climate scientist claim that, you know I’m pretty sure I’ve read about climate scientists who do. So I disagree with this whole premise that climate science says temperatures are always going to go up in a uniform monotonically increasing way, I think you’re making that up.
Andrew_KY:
The new captcha is eating my answers. I just lost 15 minutes of response to you. Let’s see if this one makes it.
a) CO2 occurs naturally, has been increasing over last 150 years at an exceptional rate that is easily linked to human combustion of fossil fuels by isotope studies. See the Keeling curve for illustration since 1960s.
b) & c) Adding CO2 generally allows the planet to hold on to more heat, just like eating allows your body to maintain and add weight. But other things are going on as well. How squiggly is the minute-by-minute graph of your weight, since birth? Does that cause you to doubt the generally accepted relationship between physical growth and eating?
.
[If you’re a Breatharian, I need a follow-up question: “How long have you been strictly practicing?”]
OK, wish me luck!
.
Sorry all, but I always fall for Mosher’s bait:what skeptics should do.
.
The opposite of skeptic is gullible and I was gonna snark about smart gullibles, but of course, that’s a contradiction in terms – there are no smart gullibles.
.
But with respect to sensitivity, it is subject to falsification. Observations indicate a correlation of about 1.7K per doubling of CO2. The El Nino bumped that up from 1.6K last year.
.
To be sure, that’s transient and ocean observations ( complete with ocean observation uncertainty ) indicate some minority portion of the forcing amount is heat going into the oceans. That heat will not be lost forever and will return, but given ocean dynamics and heat capacity, it would seem likely to emerge much more slowly than the putative rate of uptake. ECS is a mythical concept as earth will not stop natural variations long enough to ever be at equilibrium for a significant time. But here, also, is the observed response in the context of the AR5 ECS range.
.
“Well, who are you gonna believe? Me, or your own eyes?”
Turbulent Eddie,
Just run at him flapping your arms and making lots of noise like I do. It’ll scare him off for awhile. 😉
No seriously, I think I assume what Steven is effectively saying is that ‘this is the only skeptical position that makes sense to me’ or something equivalent. Anybody who swallows what Steven offers without due skepticism (and I have, from time to time) is being gullible, you’re right. But that’s not Steven’s fault.
… I guess…
hmm.
TE,
Nevermind, I see your point now.
Re: Comment #144074
Neal,
Yes but no. The particles are not at exactly the same point. You have to evaluate something like F12(r1-r2). If you multiply and divide by dt, the duration of the collision, then F.dt is the impulse (momentum change), and (r1-r2)/dt is the relative velocity. So the whole term is of the order of the particles’ kinetic energy.
.
However (yes but no but yes), I now think it is fair to dismiss this term simply because, in a time average sense, each particle spends most of its time not involved in a collision (the collision time may be 10^-12 s or less, the time in between collisions about 10^-10 s). This is the same argument why the gas may be considered approximately ideal. The main effect of collisions will then be what I said above, limit the mean free path and ensure thermalization (equipartition). These are things that you may need to put in by hand, though, as Toth did in his paper.
.
It is clear from the derivation of the virial theorem that it cannot give you the whole thermodynamic picture, for instance, for diatomic molecules, where the total kinetic energy is 5/3 of the translational kinetic energy. The virial theorem involves only the translational degrees of freedom, so any relationship you derive from it between U and K will be missing the 5/3 factor that accounts for this “internal” kinetic energy.
.
Do you have a reference for the equation 2K = -U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s? I can see where the last term comes from (it is the upwards force exerted on the gas at the planet’s surface, times the planet’s radius), but I’m a bit concerned about the fact that you end up again with an essentially one-dimensional statement that constrains only the vertical (radial) component of the velocity, so in the end you are going to be missing a factor 3 (I don’t know who this Miskolczi guy is, but I can see why he might be worried about that.)
.
In any case, if you evaluate the integral involved in 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s (essentially, the weight of the atmosphere) using a power series expansion of the force of gravity near the surface of the planet it is easy to see that the zero-th order term exactly cancels the -U term (regardless of what you use for the density), and the next-order term is positive, so it does not look like you should get the “negative Cv” paradox. My back-of-the envelope calculation with an exponential atmosphere yields (approximately) -U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s = kT, or K = kT/2, the correct one-dimensional result.
.
If you want my opinion (or even if you do not want it! 🙂 ) people should just stop trying to derive virial-like “theorems” for planetary atmospheres. A tool that only causes confusion is not a good tool at all.
“I mean I see it like this. Can I say it gets warmer in the summer?”
Absolutely. But it’s a generalization. You have to make a judgment on how useful it is to the scientific questions you are looking to have answered.
The global climate is not “summer”. It’s more complicated than that. Because one generalization works in one case for you doesn’t mean it works in all cases.
Andrew
Andrew,
I’ll let you talk with Neal. He seems to get you better than I do, and you started by asking him after all. I’m not seeing this going anywhere productive, and I regret that; I just don’t follow very well I guess.
[Edit: My apologies for butting in in the first place I guess]
“But other things are going on as well.”
Neal,
Absolutely they are.
Does this statement —–> “C) Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET.†suggest that?
Andrew
GHGs do warm the planet. If there weren’t a GHG effect, our planet would be a frozen ball of ice.
Careful Carrick, you’ll upset the Jenga tower. It’s trickier than it looks a a glance…
“GHGs do warm the planet. If there weren’t a GHG effect, our planet would be a frozen ball of ice.”
Carrick,
Can I ask a clarifying question?
Are you saying that if there weren’t a GHG effect, temperatures on the earth would stop going up and down?
Andrew
Holy smokes Andrew, what is the problem here? The temperature of the Earth is going to go up and down, it’s going to go up and down if the Earth’s atmosphere is saturated with greenhouse gasses. It’s going to go up and down if the Earth’s atmosphere is completely ripped away. If the Earth were to be demolished by a huge collision with an asteroid, the temperature of the pieces would continue to go up and down.
It goes up and down in a box,
with a fox,
in a plane,
on a train,
here and there,
everywhere,
Earth’s temperature changes Sam I Am
We don’t have to like it, but That’s the Tham. Thang. Whatever.
I’ve been reading this blog too much. I’m going to go take a walk or something.
“Holy smokes Andrew, what is the problem here?”
I’m just asking a question. Why you had a bad reaction to it is your issue.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
The estimated temperature of planet would be around -18°C and there’d be nobody to care whether there was a GHG effect or whether they were “going up or down”.
“there’d be nobody to care whether there was a GHG effect or whether they were “going up or downâ€
The question was not about who cares what. The question was about the temperature continuing to go up and down.
Andrew
“F177 ??? Says the guy who seems to be the brain behind B2…”
I didnt work on the B2.
The B2 was designed in the Pico Riveria facility. It was a Bomber.
I worked in Hawthorn. We did Fighters, UAV, and other stuff.
There were guys in our group I thought worked on the B2.
Mostly crew system design types. You could never ask them.
on S/SAR programs your badge would have a series of Letters
and Numbers. Like S5, A4, P3. So I might be on the YF23
which was say “B” and my level of access might be 5. So B5
But within that program there was also a comparment.. lets say
for sensor and algorithms that were really really sensitive. So I would also have a N5. if you asked me what n5 was, I would report you to security. If you saw me go into the special room with someone from defense electronics and you said
‘hey mosh are you and bill working on Elint” I would report you to security. So, let’s say there guys in our group who had a special letter combination.. and they would go offsite.They would leave the building and couldnt even tell their boss where they were going. Unless the boss had the same letters on his badge. Black programs have a code name which you cannot say and a letter designation that you cannot reveal. So,They would never say they were going to Pico Riveria, they had special expertise in certain types of displays.. they had flown bombers before..They spent Hours and Hours in simulations where the missions were really long, they would travel to the same strange locations in the desert and you might run into them there. but you never asked or speculated.
but no, I didnt work on the B2 as far as you know.
Re: Comment #144099
More precisely, if rho(r) is the atmosphere’s density, then you can show (exactly)
-U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s = M*G*integral w/r to r of (r-R_s)*rho/(r*R_s)
The quantity on the right-hand side will, to lowest order (that is, neglecting the difference between r and R_s in the denominator), increase if the atmosphere expands, since it is proportional to the average height of a molecule above the surface. So we do have a situation where K increases as you put heat in the system and the atmosphere expands (of course, if the atmosphere expands, U goes up as well).
Andrew,
The reason I’m having such a bad reaction to it is that it’s like we’re stuck in monty python skit or something. Except that it’s just absurd and not funny. The temperature on the Earth is going to go up and down in virtually all cases. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything. I don’t understand why we are talking about it.
‘Wow Mosher. Thanks much for these reflections.”
I doubt if Andrew will Absorb the reflections.There is some kind of bandpass going on.
As for Sven, my typo has scattered his brain.
It really is stunning. For 100 years climate science has said
“We have this problem, this big uncertainty, How much warming?”
for decades that uncertainty remains.
Right? you have decades and decades of climate scientists telling you EXACTLY where the science is weakest..
And some skeptics are so stupid that they attack the WORKING PHYSICS.. they try to argue that GHG will not warm the planet.. or that all the warming is due to adjustments..
Imagine that. Amateur wanna be’s think that they can make a case by pitting their Weakness ( knowledge of the core physics) against climate sciences Strength, the core physics known for over 100 years. Climate science is pretty transparent about it’s soft spots: ECS, Clouds, Aerosols. So do skeptics apply their strength against these weaknesses? In a few cases. Nic Lewis comes to mind. SteveF comes to mind, yes. But in most cases
Skeptics are off in the weeds fighting fights they have zero chance of winning. ZERO chance. Or fighting fights that have No bearing on the core weakness.. tangents.
“I don’t understand why we are talking about it.”
Mark,
We are talking about it because this is a climate related blog.
I took the advice that Mosher’s often gives “Google is your friend” and I have come across a couple of places (yahoo answers for one) that suggest temps would swing extremely between day to night periods.
Someone correct me if this is not the case.
Andrew
“Are you saying that if there weren’t a GHG effect, temperatures on the earth would stop going up and down?
Andrew”
I dont know, ask the man in the moon
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/lunar-surface-temperature1.jpg
Re: julio (Comment #144112)
OK, sorry, messed up… that actually should have been
-U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s = M*G*integral w/r to r of (r-R_s)*rho
*exactly*. I was off with my dimensions earlier, and also wrong about what canceled what, but I’m pretty sure this is correct. The same argument then follows.
Mark Bofill,
You are trying to have a meaningful interaction with someone who is not willing/able to have that interaction. I think you would do well to ignore those who will only waste your time by spouting outrageous nonsense.
.
julio,
Always nice to read a rigorous analysis. But you may risk wasting time on ‘pearls before swine’ explanations. I completely agree there are too many theorms about Earth’s atmosphere.
Carrick: “If there weren’t a GHG effect, our planet would be a frozen ball of ice.”
Actually, I suspect the tropical areas wouldn’t be frozen.
Steve Mosher,
I am flattered to be included with Nic Lewis. I do make the argument you describe, of course, but Nic does so much more effectively than I do. But your point is a good one: climate science has lots of problems, none of which are what most skeptics focus on. The real technical argument is just ignored. It’s more than a little sad, since the economic and social damage wild eyed greens can do armed with weak science is almost unlimited. By the way, I think Judith Curry needs to be on any list of effective ‘skeptics’.
Yes, Andrew temperatures would go up and down.
THAT is not the question.
The question is this.
When you add GHGs what happens to peaks and valleys?
When you double c02 what happens to the peaks and valleys.
Here is what the ENGINEERING of radiative transfer tells you
A) the peaks and valleys will change
B) If you integrate those peaks and valleys without GHG you
will get X. If you add GHGs the value of the integration will
be higher.
So the questions, the open questions, the stuff we dont know,
the stuff that isnt engineering yet is this:
1) How much higher
2) What other factors can mitigate or exacerbate that increase.
You wanna argument that has legs? that will still be here 20 years from now… focus on those two things.
When you do that you will be working within the science ( no colorable charges larged against you about being ‘anti science’ or a denier)
Let me put it in other terms
The core science is this
1. Co2 is a ghg
2. if you add GHG and hold everything else constant,the planet will warm.
3. Humans add GHG to the atmosphere
if you accept that you have accepted core AGW.
And you still have two areas to express science based scepticism
A) what happens when other things are not held constant? what
are those other things?
B) How much warming?
The sooner you move to science based scepticism– attack the known unknowns– the sooner you have a chance of making an impact on the debate.. see Nic Lewis.
SteveF yes. I would add Judy. I remain amazed that more sceptics have not latched onto the aerosol problem. I guess the reason is this.
Any one with math chops can have a go at temperature series.
Any one with math chops can have a go at model/temperature comaprisons.
It takes specialized knowledge to wade into the aresol debate.
shit I cant even spell it
“Carrick: “If there weren’t a GHG effect, our planet would be a frozen ball of ice.â€
Actually, I suspect the tropical areas wouldn’t be frozen.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenian
I’d be suspicious of your suspicions
HaroldW,
The short version is that if the edge of the ice cap gets too close to the equator, you get a feedback loop from the increase in albedo at low latitudes, where most of the solar energy is normally absorbed, that freezes the planet. Whether this has actually happened in the past is controversial. So you’re not alone in your suspicion.
Andrew_KY:
It will go up then it will go down. Rinse, circle. Repeat.
It won’t go up or down by an amount to mimic the loss of the GHG effect.
Steven Mosher: “I’d be suspicious of your suspicions”
Quite possibly. It was based solely on a zero-th order assessment that, if one neglects solar inclination, the average insolation at the equator would be 1/pi*1365 Wm-2. With a low enough albedo, that would be enough to produce a S-B equivalent temperature above 273 K.
I note that the references talk about the possibility of a “Slushball Earth” with open water in the tropics.
Edit: Thanks DeWitt.
DeWitt:
I agree it’s controversial. My suspicion is it’ll end up substantially colder than the standard -18°C number due to the albedo changes.
Personally I’d guess a surface a bit like Enceladus.
Either way definitely not hospitable to life as we know it.
HaroldW:
Do you have an estimate of what albedo would be needed?
(Why yes, I’m being lazy… I have to get crunching numbers for work.)
Andrew_KY:
That’s a much better way to frame the question. I now understand the point of the question, which is helpful for those of us without secret Andrew decoder rings.
Without the GHG effect, I think you’d see a much larger diurnal effect. Think Arctic in the winter on steroids.
I would predict this would get moderated in regions where you are getting solidliquid phase transitions during the daytime.
Carrick: “Do you have an estimate of what albedo would be needed?”
Aw, now you made me put together a spreadsheet instead of just approximating. 🙁
I get an albedo of 0.275. This from equating the average, non-reflected insolation to the S-B emission for T=273 K. That is, (1-alpha)*1365/pi Wm-2 = sigma*T^4, setting T=273 and solving for alpha. [Along with the other simplification of fixing the solar latitude at 0; the actual non-zero inclination will reduce average insolation somewhat, allowing for a lower albedo than that given. Perhaps 0.25?]
.
Yes, from year to year ( and decade to decade, and century to century ) temperatures still go up and down, and that won’t stop.
.
But temperatures are only going up on a decadal or longer basis for the last four decades, and that is consistent with the increased optical depth of the atmosphere imposed by greenhouse gasses.
.
Now, the rate is not extreme, and climate is not defined by global average temperature, and I find claims of harm exaggerated and little mention of the benefits of both rising CO2 and temperature.
.
Never-the-less, temperatures are rising in accordance with radiative forcing.
TE,
While the apocalyptic warmers deride people who don’t accept the basic physics, I think they are living in glass houses. I don’t remember an outcry from them when British Science Minister Sir David King stated in 2004, apparently seriously, that Antarctica would be the only habitable continent by 2100 if we don’t take immediate drastic action.
IMO, that puts him as far beyond the pale as the Sky Dragon Slayers.
Steve Mosher,
.
Aerosols are a messy technical subject, because aerosols scatter light over a wide range of particle sizes, and with a range of optical properties. Knowledge of light scattering in the appropriate size range is almost as scare as hens’ teeth. Throw in secondary effects (cloud albedo and cloud lifetime) and the appropriate knowledge is as scarce as hens’ teeth. Even more important is that ‘assumed’ historical aerosol effects are at best nothing but SWAGs… with a minimum emphasis on the ‘scientific’ part of the SWAG. I remember my shock (and then laughter) when I first saw Jim Hansen’s historical estimate of aerosol off-sets to GHG forcing… an exact duplicate of his estimate of total GHG forcing multiplied by -0.5…. the two variables are exactly co-linear, and nothing in the aerosol data can possibly shed any light on the credibility of the GISS model sensitivity to GHG forcing. But the assumed off-set does automatically ‘verify’ that the model sensitivity to GHG forcing is high. Aerosol off-set estimates are a grotesque kludge, and a very bad joke. You just choose your aerosol offsets to give whatever climate sensitivity you ‘like’.
.
The only good news with aerosols is that the aerosol group in AR5 insisted on more reasonable off-set values as being most probable, which folks like Nic Lewis (and others) have used that to show relatively low climate sensitivity is most consistent with the empirical temperature data. Which of course, has now led to the publication of Marvel et al (another bad joke) to explain why climate sensitivity must be high, in spite of all contrary evidence (err… because that is what the GCMs say?). And so it goes.
SteveF,
You are right in that I have been spending time on this that I literally do not have, but along the way I have learned some interesting physics, so it has not been a waste of time. And the discussion has been at a nice level. I can only wish that some of the–*ahem*–more close-minded regulars had actually paid attention and learned from it something about how scientists actually interact and science actually is done: with people starting from a concept or an intuition (which may be wrong!), bouncing it off of others, actually listening to what they say, being willing to change their minds when relevant evidence is introduced, what’s a healthy degree of reliance on “authority,” and on and on…
“I don’t remember an outcry from them when British Science Minister Sir David King stated in 2004, apparently seriously, that Antarctica would be the only habitable continent by 2100 if we don’t take immediate drastic action.”
The reasons could be
1. He wasn’t the Science Minister
2. He didn’t say it.
julio:
1) Do you have a reference for the equation
2K = – U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s
? I can see where the last term comes from (it is the upwards force exerted on the gas at the planet’s surface, times the planet’s radius), but I’m a bit concerned about the fact that you end up again with an essentially one-dimensional statement that constrains only the vertical (radial) component of the velocity, so in the end you are going to be missing a factor 3.”
.
If you look up the derivation of the VT (see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virial_theorem, section on “time averaging”, 3rd equation), you see the statement that:
2 [KE] = – Sum [F_k . r_k]
.
where the [] designates time average.
r_k is the position of particle k
F_k is the force felt by particle k
and KE is the sum of the translational KEs of the particles.
.
F_k includes both inter-particle forces involved in the collisions and external forces like collisions with the walls and the gravitational pull of the core.
– We’ve already agreed that the collisions don’t really contribute to this equation.
– The gravitational pull on the particle at r_k is
F_grav_k = – GMm/(r_k)^2 (towards core)
r_k.F_grav_k = scalar product of (r_k, -GMm/(r_k)^2
= – GMm/|r_k|
(because r_k and F_grav_k point in opposite directions)
.
and that last bit is also U of particle k, so we get the term:
– Sum [U_k]
.
3) The last term is just the result of the external force of the ground, acting on the gas: It shows up as the sum:
.
Sum [F_ground_k.r_k]
.
The only particles that count are the ones in-contact with the core, so we can do it over the surface of the core as a surface integral of the pressure (because that’s what the pressure is): for a bit of area da,
F_ground = Ps da (radially)
r_k = Rs (radially)
so Sum [Ps da.Rs]
= 4(pi)(Rs)^2 * Ps * Rs
= 4(pi)(Rs)^3 * Ps
.
– There is no missing factor of 3: this is not a 1-dimensional calculation. KE includes however only translational kinetic energy.
. So therefore:
2 [KE] = – [U] – 4(pi)(Rs)^3 * Ps
– to be continued –
Mark writes
They’re two different effects though aren’t they. There is no global summer, only a local one and that’s because you’re experiencing more energy locally. There is no extra energy involved with increased GHGs, only changes to how the energy flows.
AGW’s starting point, the ERL increase is only step one in a myriad step process that is our climate. It will tend towards warming as an immediate effect but that’s all that can be said about it.
People who focus on say increased warming from increased ERL implies more water vapour GHGs and therefore even more warming, dont IMO have a good grasp on what the laws of thermodynamics really mean (wrt entropy).
Andrew
‘Why does climate science present squiggly line graphs that invariably show warming *and* cooling of the planet if the GHG’s strictly “WARM THE PLANETâ€. Obviously this claim is too simplistic.”
Too simplistic?
A claim is either true or false or unknown. Simple has nothing to do with it. Simple is also not objective. You cant measure “simplicity” ( ok Komolgorov might argue)
Here is what Engineering tells you.
If you take a planet with No GHG and add GHG, it will be warmer.
That means if its temperature was wiggling before, it will be wiggling at a higher state.
if you take the earth as it is today and Add More GHG, it will be warmer.
A) How long will that warming take…. TBD
B) how much warmer TBD
C) will that warming happen uniformly? TBD
you see we can know the General answer… it will be warmer
Without knowing the specifics.
You know that a object dropped from a certain height… will because of the law of gravity hit the earth. And you should
be able to calculate the approximate time it takes.
Like when we had to build displays for a CCRP or CCIP weapon delivery. We used the law of gravity.
Nobody denied that law. But, of course there are complications..
like drag. Can I compute the exact trajectory of the ordance every inch of the way? What about changing winds? all sorts of details I dont know.
But still I know.. the weapon will fall to earth. I may only be able to estimate the impact position with gross accuracy.. ( whats called a CEP) but still I dont have to go around claiming that gravity doesnt work simply becuase its hard to know what the drag on the weapon is exactly.. or hard to know how the wind will blow and change.. or countless other little details.
i generally know that if I drop the ordance it will fall to earth in accordance with the law of gravity.. details to follow..
And yes wiley coyote could come along with a trampoline and catch it and all sorts of other wild things.. but in general things fall, gavity sucks, and GHGs will warm the planet not cool it
julio:
.
2) In any case, if you evaluate the integral involved in 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s (essentially, the weight of the atmosphere) using a power series expansion of the force of gravity near the surface of the planet it is easy to see that the zero-th order term exactly cancels the -U term (regardless of what you use for the density), and the next-order term is positive, so it does not look like you should get the “negative Cv†paradox.
.
– I don’t understand why one would use a power-series expansion to evaluate the surface integral, when the entire surface is at the radius r = Rs. Or are you calculating the [U] integral?
.
3) My back-of-the envelope calculation with an exponential atmosphere yields (approximately) -U – 4(pi)(R_s)^3 * P_s = kT, or K = kT/2, the correct one-dimensional result.
.
The adiabatic and the exponential atmospheres are quite different. I doubt that any conclusions would be transferable!
.
4) If you want my opinion (or even if you do not want it! ) people should just stop trying to derive virial-like “theorems†for planetary atmospheres. A tool that only causes confusion is not a good tool at all.
.
Well, a tool can only be useful if you have something to do with it, and know how to use it. In Miskolczi’s paper, this was not clear. But we have a definite question where the VT may provide an answer: If [E] => [E] + e, what happens to [KE] ? We have to be able to calculate [U] and [KE] to do that.
TTTM,
Yes, they are two different effects. I was trying to understand why it’s wrong to say that GHG cause warming when apparently the objection is that they don’t guarantee monotonic warming. I thought that perhaps we could gain insight about this by looking at why it’s not wrong to say that a more direct angle of sunlight causes warming in summer even though it does not guarantee monotonic warming.
I was mistaken. We gained no insights in this manner.
Mark writes
Analogies will only take you so far. Another favourite analogy is that anthropogenic CO2 is like putting on a jacket. In that case the warming is monotonic unless you add some conditions that dont fit the analogy like going outside and then inside. How is that analogous to our climate?
Nick,
What Sir David Smith actually said was just as wrong but not as applicable to a sound bite. 55 Mya, Antarctica was still attached to South America and Australia. And Antarctica was not, in fact, the most habitable continent for mammals. Mammalian life was flourishing everywhere.
Neal,
Your calculation seems correct. Let me take it from here:
-[U] = 4*pi*G*M* integral[(rho(r) /r) r^2 dr]
= 4*pi*G*M* integral[rho(r) r dr]
.
– 4(pi)(Rs)^3 * Ps = – Rs*(total weight of atmosphere)
= -Rs * 4*pi*G*M integral[(rho(r)/r^2) r^2 dr]
= -Rs * 4*pi*G*M integral[rho(r) dr]
.
Adding both terms:
-[U] – 4(pi)(Rs)^3 * Ps = 4*pi*G*M* integral[rho(r) (r-Rs) dr]
which is what I had above, except for a factor of 4*pi. (drat those factors of pi!)
.
Notice that G*M = g*Rs^2, so this is
[K] = g*(4*pi*Rs^2)* integral[rho(r) (r-Rs) dr]
and there is no question that this grows as the atmosphere expands.
.
So far, no approximations. Now let me show how, for a thin atmosphere, this basically reproduces the one-dimensional, flat-earth result.
.
The mass in a spherical shell of thickness dr a distance r from the center of the earth is *approximately* 4*pi*Rs^2*rho(r)*dr (the approximation, of course, is to use Rs here instead of r). So 4*pi*Rs^2*rho(r) is approximately a linear mass density (mass per unit length in the radial direction), and
(4*pi*Rs^2)* integral[rho(r) (r-Rs) dr]
is essentially m times the height of the “center of mass” of the atmosphere.
Therefore the final result is of the form
2 [K] = m*g*[h]
which is the one-dimensional result, for the flat-earth potential energy function U = mgh. As predicted, this is off by a factor of 3 from the result required by the equipartition of energy for a monatomic gas.
SteveF,
Every time the subject of aerosols comes up, I have a paranoid moment. When my tinfoil hat is on, I’m sure the GLORY satellite was sabotaged because the warmers didn’t want to actually have data on aerosols. It’s been over five years now and I haven’t even heard speculation on a new mission.
P.S. You are right about the power series expansion. I apologize for the confusion–I was doing things wrong this morning. The result was actually much simpler than that!
P.P.S. Re: julio (Comment #144143)
[K] = g*(4*pi*Rs^2)* integral[rho(r) (r-Rs) dr]
should be
2[K] = g*(4*pi*Rs^2)* integral[rho(r) (r-Rs) dr]
of course. (Drat those factors of 2!)
TTTM,
I don’t grasp whatever the issue is with noisy signals that apparently caused the consternation. I don’t get why monotonic or noisy matters in a climate analogy. I’m not anxious to discuss it right now, but thanks.
DeWitt,
“What Sir David Smith actually said was just as wrong but not as applicable to a sound bite. “
So a sound bite is created and circulated.
Dewitt writes
You’d think the second time around would be considerably cheaper since they could simply rebuild it from the original design.
Not that I’d want to fan the flames of your paranoia at all 😉
Mark writes
As far as I’m concerned there is no issue. The earth gains and sheds energy all by itself all the time.
DeWitt:
.
That seems far-fetched to me. Maybe budgetary priorities for NASA played a role. In particular, isn’t the head of the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology known to be very doubtful about climate change? That might put a damper on any thoughts for a reprise.
from the Wiki on Lamar Smith:
As of 2015, Smith has received more than $600,000 from the fossil fuel industry during his career in Congress.[45] In 2014, Smith got more money from fossil fuels than he did from any other industry.[46] Smith is publicly skeptic of global warming.[47][48][49] Under his leadership, the House Science committee has held hearings that feature the views of skeptics,[50] subpoenaed the records and communications of scientists who published papers that Smith disapproved of,[47] and attempted to cut NASA’s earth sciences budget.[51] He has been criticized for conducting “witch hunts” against climate scientists.[46] In his capacity as Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Smith issued more subpoenas in his first three years than the committee had for its entire 54-year history.[46]
julio:
.
The VT looks different for the flat-earth case than for the spherical earth case, so you have to think twice before plugging numbers calculated in one case for the other’s VT. I spent a bit of time a few years ago to see how the sign of U differs for the two cases and how this is reflected in the VTs. Obviously if you make the layer of air very thin, the situation flattens out; but getting the VT to transform properly was a bit tricky. It eventually worked out, but I can’t off the top of my head give a succinct explanation.
Here we go.
TTTM. Are you suggesting that if the Earth does not monotonically increase in temperature that it is gaining or shedding energy all by itself?
Please speak plainly so simple folk such as myself can follow.
Yes. Through internal forcings or more simply, “natural variation”
I am not a proponent of “hiding energy” in the deep ocean for example.
“I don’t grasp whatever the issue is with noisy signals that apparently caused the consternation.”
Mark,
Follow closely. Think scientifically with me.
1. The claim is additional C02 causes warming.
2. Graphed period of additional C02 shows warming and cooling.
3. 1 doesn’t adequately describe 2.
Andrew
TTTM,
Do you agree that El Nino’s sometimes cause the atmosphere to warm?
Yes. That appears to be the case.
Andrew,
If that is so I would like for you to explain why the following isn’t similarly wrong:
1. The claim is that having the sun at a more direct angle overhead increases the temperature during the summertime.
2. Graphed period of summertime shows increased and decreased temperatures.
3. 1 doesn’t adequately describe 2.
TTTM,
Okay. When water warms the atmosphere, you realize that the temperature of the atmosphere goes up a heck of alot more than the temperature of the water goes down per unit volume right?
Hang on Tim. I think I finally understand you.
You’re not being sarcastic when you say you think the Earth can gain or shed energy all by itself, are you?
If this is the case, fine. I’m not going to argue with you. I don’t agree with you, but I’m not going to argue.
If this is not the case, and your point is that the Earth should indeed monotonically increase in temperature the way Andrew argues, we can continue.
You’re talking about the energy density of water vs the atmosphere? Of course water has a greater energy density per unit volume… And furthermore, its where the energy starts out on its way back out.
But after that, no you cannot say the water warms the atmosphere with that energy. There are many things going on including related changes in cloud formation and then albedo changes which change the energy uptake in the water.
I dont like to think simplistically in that way because its more complicated than we can understand and we’re only fooling ourselves in thinking we understand whats going on when we simplify a few effects like that.
“If that is so I would like for you to explain why the following isn’t similarly wrong:”
“1. The claim is that having the sun at a more direct angle overhead increases the temperature during the summertime.”
Your 1 is not completely analagous to mine. The sun is well established as a heat source.
C02 is not a heat source.
Andrew
Andrew,
It might be eminently obvious to you why that should matter, but I assure you that I am not trying to be difficult when I say that I have absolutely no clue why you think that should make a difference. I’m being sincere. I have ~no earthly idea~ why that should make the slightest bit of difference.
But I tell you what. If you can give me something plausible, I will accept it at this point just to get out of this insane situation where we go round and round on this point that you seem so convinced of and that makes so little sense to me. Throw me a life preserver, I’ll grab it and float gratefully away at this point without another sound, if I can muster the discipline to keep my mouth shut.
No I’m not being sarcastic. I have long term history on my side with that statement. And unless you’re saying the energy is accumulated monotonically but its effects are seen as a warming and cooling atmosphere then I think you’d agree with me?
A large part of AGW research seems to be to try to establish that the energy accumulation is indeed more or less monotonic.
Alright Tim, I mean you’re right, you’ve said it yourself. The real answer is that the situation isn’t that simple, just as you said. This is absolutely correct. CO2 isn’t the only factor. Albedo, aerosols, cloud cover, so on. The temperature of the Earth need not monotonically increase just because atmospheric CO2 is monotonically increasing.
Tim,
Then I apologize for having misunderstood you sir. We have no quarrel. I don’t know that I agree with you, but I’m quite sure I don’t want to argue about it tonight.
Neal,
When I write ‘paranoid’ and ‘tin-foil hat’ it means I don’t really believe what I’m writing. It’s not reasonable. It’s a paranoid fantasy. Conspiracy theories, however, seem to strike a chord in the human brain. Bad luck and stupidity are much more likely.
We never had a quarrel Mark 🙂 I never consider discussions about climatic processes quarrelsome. Although I can start calling you names if you think it’ll help? 😉
But you would say that wouldn’t you 😉
You do have a justifiable worry, though. Aerosols are a considerable uncertainty in understanding the climate and you’d genuinely think they’d have a solid case for getting something in place to measure them sooner rather than later…
Sorry Tim, normally that’s my view too. I became exasperated earlier today and am not delighted with the way I handled the situation. ~shrug~ Andrew and I are still at it, but hopefully there will be peace soon.
“C02 is not a heat source.
Andrew”
the sliver lining on a thermos is not a heat source.
therefore a thermos does not keep coffee warmer than it would be otherwise
“I have absolutely no clue why you think that should make a difference.”
It’s the heart of the matter.
The sun is the heat source. Go out and stand in the sunlight for verification.
The effect of C02 is imperceptible by you and comes to you only represented in squiggly line drawings that are constantly revised for reasons not always traceable but invariably showing inconsistency in what is claimed about them.
Please tell me you at least get that.
Andrew
OMG. I can’t help myself. Why can’t I let this go?
Look. How does this make sense?
You’ve got the angle of the sun on the one hand, and the sun that you ‘know’ is a heat source. Yet still you know that temperatures don’t always go up in the summertime, even though you’re sure certain that the sun is a heat source and that the angle of the sun is such that it ought to be hotter in the summer.
So somehow it is not good enough that you observe exactly the same experimental behavior for CO2, and that you’ve got a theoretical expectation that’s exactly the same, that it ought to be hotter. How does that make sense?!?
God this is driving me mad.
“the sliver lining on a thermos is not a heat source.
therefore a thermos does not keep coffee warmer than it would be otherwise”
Tell me what happens when you take room temperature coffee for lunch and your silver lined thermos may as well be a shoe.
Andrew
“Follow closely. Think scientifically with me.
1. The claim is additional C02 causes warming.
2. Graphed period of additional C02 shows warming and cooling.
3. 1 doesn’t adequately describe 2.
Andrew”
############
The claim is NOT additional c02 causes warming.
The claim is
1. Adding more GHGs (C02 included) ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.. will cause warming..
A) Over what time period will this warming become clear?
B) What happens when other things are not held equal?
C) How much warming?
A, B and C are the important details.
Adding money to my account will make the balance go up, all other things being equal
BUT, if the bank is slow in giving me credit, and if There are withdrawls from the system.. I might not see my balance ALWAYS go up or always go up immediately..
but over time… if I hold all else equal ( dont increase withdrawls)
adding money will give me a higher balance..
Andrew.
I accept all sorts of science I can’t detect with my naked senses. You’re not fooling me, you know you do too. I know you believe in microbes and viruses you can’t see with the naked eye.
So please don’t. Don’t give me that about not being able to directly sense the heat of CO2. That’s an excuse that I don’t accept that you really believe.
“I accept all sorts of science I can’t detect with my naked senses. You’re not fooling me, you know you do too.”
I do. But only a fool would accept any and all science claims that can’t be verified.
Andrew
“The claim is NOT additional c02 causes warming.”
Steven Mosher
Steven Mosher (Comment #144083)
March 17th, 2016 at 9:34 pm
“C) Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET.”
Andrew
Mosher writes
A,B and C are only important after you’ve resolved the invalid assumption of all things being equal.
For example, your bank example may apply but you forgot about CPI which nullifies that increase you were expecting when you actually went out to buy something.
Carrick, DeWitt, julio:
.
julio:
.
OK, I’m pretty close; but there are some issues:
.
1) Assuming an adiabatic atmosphere:
P(r) = A*n(r)^gamma
P = pressure
n = number density
gamma = adiabatic index = 1 + 2/f ; f = # dynamical degrees of freedom for the molecules
.
2) Assuming hydrostatic equilibrium:
dP/dr = – m*n*GM/r^2
where m = molecular mass, M = core’s mass
.
3) HSE gives us a relation on n(r) that the adiabatic state equation turns into relations on P(r) and temperature T(r):
.
n(r)^(gamma-1) = n(Rs)^(gamma-1)*(Rs/r)
.
n(r) = n(Rs)*(Rs/r)^(f/2)
.
T(r) = T(Rs)*(Rs/r)
.
P(r) = P(Rs)*(R/r)^[(2+f)/2]
.
So the values of these parameters throughout the region are determined by the value at the surface of the core.
.
4) How many molecules are there?
N = 4(pi) INT[r=Rs,infinity] {r^2 * n(r)} dr
= 4(pi) INT[r=Rs,infinity] {r^2 * n(Rs)* r^(-f/2)} dr
= 4(pi)*n(Rs) INT[r=Rs,infinity] { r^(2 – f/2) } dr
= 4(pi)*n(Rs) * INT[r=Rs,infinity] { r^((4-f)/2)} dr
= 4(pi)*n(Rs) * INT[r=Rs,infinity] { r^((4-f)/2)} dr
= 8(pi)*n(Rs)/(6-f) {x^((6-f)/2)} [x=Rs,infinity]
.
Unfortunately, (6-f)/2 is not negative for molecules with 6 dynamical degrees of freedom or fewer. This means an infinite number of molecules, which is unphysical. We will replace ‘infinity’ by C (for cutoff), and re-visit the problem later. Thus:
.
Number = 8(pi)*n(Rs)/(6-f) * Rs^(f/2) * [C^((6-f)/2) – R^((6-f)/2)]
.
We calculate [U] by integrating n(r) * (- GMm/r):
[U] = – 8(pi)*n(Rs)*GMm/(4-f) *
Rs^((2+f)/2) *[C^((4-f)/2) – R^((4-f)/2)]
.
The kinetic energy per molecule is (3/2) * kT = (3/2)*(P/n),
so [KE] = spatial integral of (3/2)P. So:
[KE] = 12(pi)*P(Rs)/(4-f)) * Rs^((2+f)/2) * [C^((4-f)/2) – R^((4-f)/2]
.
So what have we got?
.
[U] = – 8(pi)*n(Rs)*GMm/(4-f) *
Rs^((2+f)/2) *[C^((4-f)/2) – R^((4-f)/2)]
= – 8(pi)*n(Rs)*GMm/(4-f) * BETA
[KE] = 12(pi)*P(Rs)/(4-f)) * Rs^((2+f)/2) * [C^((4-f)/2) – R^((4-f)/2]
= 12(pi)*P(Rs)/(4-f)) * BETA
.
According to the VT,
4(pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3 = -[U] – 2*[KE]
= 8(pi)*n(Rs)*GMm/(4-f) * BETA – 24(pi)*P(Rs)/(4-f)) * BETA
= {8(pi)*n(Rs)*GMm – 24(pi)*P(Rs)} * BETA/(4-f)
PROBLEMS:
– The term BETA contains the infinities I mentioned before. The issue is likely that the atmosphere cannot continue to be adiabatic forever; certainly in the Earth system, such behavior does not go on past the troposphere. Also, we have not even considered radiative issues (like the greenhouse effect!). So it is more than reasonable that the model has to quit at some point. I have labelled that as ‘C’, for “cut-off”.
– If we ignore the difference between BETA and Rs^3, the left-hand side and the 2nd term on the right-hand side are of similar character; if we can find a relationship between GMmn(Rs) and P(Rs)*Rs^3, this equation may be supported by this example. But right now, there seems to be something missing.
Neal,
Doesn’t the surface pressure put a limit on the number of molecules in a column of gas? The math is more than I can handle at this time of night. Another thing to consider is escape velocity. At some distance and temperature, the velocity of the gas molecules will exceed the escape velocity. Also the temperature can’t go below 0K. Somewhere in all that should be a constraint that doesn’t allow an infinite number of molecules even for a monatomic gas with only three degrees of freedom.
julio:
Total weight of atmosphere
In #144143 you used a “weight of the atmosphere” argument to arrive at:
P(Rs) = (GM/Rs^2) * INT[r=Rs, top] {rho(r) } dr
.
I think this is not quite right.
.
The HSE says:
-dP/dr = GM*rho(r)/r^2
so:
P(Rs) – P(top) + GM * INT[r=Rs,top] {rho(r)/r^2} dr
or
P(Rs) = GM * INT[r=Rs,top] {rho(r)/r^2} dr
DeWitt:
.
1) Surface pressure:
Yes, I have been thinking about that. I eventually realized that the HSE links the pressure at the core to the mass in the column: See my note just above!
Since I have an explicit expression for rho(r) = m*n(Rs)*(Rs/r)^(f/2)
(where f = #degrees of dynamical freedom for the molecules), I can apply this additional relationship too. Things aren’t fully worked out yet, however. But I don’t see how this constrains the system by number.
.
2) Temperature:
The temperature goes as 1/r, so it will never hit 0 anyway.
.
3) Escape velocity:
There will always be that bit of the Boltzmann tail to escape. But the problem in the model under consideration is that too much is escaping.
In the Lane-Emden models, the cohering force is self-gravitation, so in that case the gas even forms an edge. Not in this case.
I think that something must go wrong with the adiabatic equation of state. In the real world, the troposphere ends, convection stops: Why? Has the atmosphere become too dilute, or have higher-energy photons started to play some role?
A question.
Given a small enough, say 1 metre diameter sphere at roughly earth’s distance from the sun, in circular orbit and rotating to always keep the same face to the sun what effects the temperature of this sphere and what is the maximum average temperature it can get to?
Reflectance (albedo ) would be the only consideration surely ?
At steady state all energy coming in would go out.
There would be some difference depending on the conductivity so the hottest area would be closest to the sun and the coldest on the opposite side unless perfectly conductive .
If a vacuum centrally with reflective surface would it be hotter than a solid sphere?
Now if you had a glass shell and a CO2 earth atmosphere centre what should the temperature be?
Double the CO2, will the temperature of the sphere change?
No.
The temperature inside the sphere will rise but the temperature of the sphere itself cannot change.
angech:
.
Interesting question.
.
There won’t be a greenhouse effect in this case because there is no mechanism that keeps the outer shell cooler than the inner core. On Earth, convective processes maintain a temperature difference between the top of the troposphere and ground level.
If one had such a mechanism, the result would be that the inner core becomes warmer.
Neal,
OK, this works! Let
P(Rs) = GM * INT[r=Rs,top] {rho(r)/r^2} dr
and put this together with the expression I had yesterday for [U]:
-[U] = 4*pi*G*M* INT[r=Rs,top]{rho(r) r} dr
so the total is
-U-4*pi*Rs^3 P(Rs) = 4*pi*G*M*INT[r=Rs,top] {rho(r)(r-Rs^3/r^2)} dr
Now, do a power series expansion of the quantity (r-Rs^3/r^2) with respect to r around Rs. Note that this is quite justified for the earth. Even if you take the top of the atmosphere to be 100 km, the radius of the earth is 64 times bigger, so the relative error will be about 1% or smaller. The result is:
(r^3 – Rs^3)/r^2 = 3 (r – Rs) + higher order terms
so we end up with the same thing I had yesterday,
2[K] = 3*g*(4*pi*Rs^2)* INT[r=Rs,top] {rho(r) (r-Rs)} dr
except for an extra factor of 3. This is what is going to lead eventually to
2[K] = 3 m g [y]
the correct formula in 3 dimensions!
I think this is pretty cool. Obviously it was I who was using, implicitly, “one-dimensional thinking” yesterday when calculating the pressure. 🙂
Andrew,
But they have been [edit, verified]. You act as if it requires a trip through a black hole or something to verify radiative physics and the properties of CO2. Instead of investigating Steven’s claims about radiative physics and military engineering, you dismiss them out of hand. You’re free to do that of course, you’re free to think whatever you want, stop where-ever you feel like stopping. But don’t expect me to pretend with you that this is a claim that can’t be verifiedwhen this is merely a claim you don’t want to make any effort to investigate.
Mark,
Good morning.
“But they have been [edit, verified].”
“Steven’s claims about radiative physics and military engineering”
There is a significant difference what Mosher claims and verification.
You’re running out of gas.
Anyway, I’ve thought about it and what Warmers actually claim, when pressed to be accurate, is that additional C02 could (all things being equal) cause a relatively warmer change in temperature.
This would be acceptable to me.
But they don’t say that. The accurate statement would be too boring and likely wouldn’t garner many Warmer Groupies to help Mosher and his friends save the world with squiggly lines.
Andrew
Andrew_KY:
.
I think you’re doing a bit too much soft-pedal there.
.
1) Nobody can state EXACTLY what the additional CO2 will actually do, because:
a) there are some definite uncertainties in the aerosol area; and
b) there are some definite uncertainties in what people will do about CO2 production.
.
2) But you can generate a reasonable range of CO2 effectiveness and of CO2 production, and look at the consequences.
.
3) Consequences are generated not only by CO2 concentration but also by changes to temperature averages, temperature ranges, rainfall, etc. Agriculture is also a multifactorial issue.
.
4) Papers that have gone through region by region find some positive effects on agriculture and some negative. The people that study this sort of thing find that regions that are already hot will suffer agriculturally; regions that are cool will do better. As that works out, “the rich get richer and the poor get …”‘
.
5) This is about as far as science alone can take you. Beyond that point, you have to decide which set of consequences you would like and which you wouldn’t. And then you have to decide how bad the chances are for the bad, based on the evidence. (And yes, honest testimony from people with genuine expertise on the topic does constitute evidence.)
Andrew_KY,
Mosher is a lukewarmer. I think he coined the term. Lukewarmers, in general, don’t think immediate drastic action is necessary to save the planet like the apocalyptic warmers. In other words, he’s not Hansen or the members of 350.org.
Thanks for the response, Neal.
“1) Nobody can state EXACTLY what the additional CO2 will actually do”
I appreciate your honesty. This goes back to my point yesterday or the day before about which claim is the claim I’m supposed to be concerned about. We aren’t anywhere near a scientific claim about C02 relative to climate. We’re nowhere.
Andrew
Neal,
You’re neglecting the effect of radiative emission and absorption on the structure of the atmosphere. The troposphere cools with altitude because it’s losing energy to space. It’s losing energy to space faster than it’s absorbing energy from surface radiation. Convection supplies the rest and determines the lapse rate.
In the Earth’s stratosphere you have absorption of solar UV by oxygen, which then produces ozone which absorbs solar UV over a wider spectral range. That leads to an increase in temperature with altitude. That’s called a temperature inversion. There is no driver for vertical convection in a temperature inversion. So the stratosphere is stratified, hence the name.
That doesn’t happen in the Martian atmosphere. But the lapse rate in the Martian atmosphere decreases with altitude at high altitudes, so there may still be an altitude where convection stops and you get stratification.
The structure of the atmosphere and the surface temperature would probably be quite different if the atmosphere were perfectly transparent, i.e. did not absorb or emit radiation. In a one dimensional atmosphere, the lapse rate would be zero, i.e. isothermal.
I don’t think that would be true for the atmosphere around a rotating sphere because there would be surface temperature differences that would drive horizontal convection and for a planetary sized body, there would be turbulence. But that’s idle speculation because there’s no such thing as perfect transparency in the real world.
DeWitt:
.
That darn radiation, always screwing up my models!
“I appreciate your honesty. This goes back to my point yesterday or the day before about which claim is the claim I’m supposed to be concerned about. We aren’t anywhere near a scientific claim about C02 relative to climate. We’re nowhere.
Andrew”
Yes.
if you increase c02 from present levels and hold all else equal, the temperature will increase.
you dont need exact answers to make scientific claims.
long ago it was thought that the speed of light was infinite.
Galileo tried to measure the speed of light. he did a HORRIBLE job. but he made a valid scientific claim: the speed of light was finite, not infinite.
“the sliver lining on a thermos is not a heat source.
therefore a thermos does not keep coffee warmer than it would be otherwiseâ€
Tell me what happens when you take room temperature coffee for lunch and your silver lined thermos may as well be a shoe.
Andrew”
Nobody argues C02 is a heat source andrew.
Nobody argues a winter coat is a heat source.
Room temperature Coffee?
Here is your problem
Our Atmosphere is not at the temperature of space.
you meant to ask, what happens to room temperature coffee in a thermos when it is in space.
it stays warmer than it would otherwise.
C02 is a GHG.
GHGs are a silver lining around our planet
They keep it warmer than it would be otherwise
Go to the moon. ask why it gets so cold.
The moon is so cold when the sun is down that emission from the Earth actually makes the side facing the Earth slightly warmer when the sun is below the horizon than the side facing away from the Earth when it’s dark there.
“I do. But only a fool would accept any and all science claims that can’t be verified.”
1. Scientific claims are not verified.
2. Scientific claims are CONFIRMED or disconfirmed.
Here is how it works.
in 1896 A scientists had a hypothesis.
If we add c02 to the atmopshere the earth will warm, NOT cool.
Now, we look:
His hypothesis has been confirmed.. Not verified. We leave verification for things like logic, math, and geometry.
In science we only have confirmation.. uncertain support for an idea.
When the confirmation build up and people use and rely on the science we sometimes use the word valid.technically we shouldnt.
When science becomes really certain we use it in engineering.
That is why your country and freedom is kept secure by engineers who built weapons using the core truths of climate science.
if you want to build weapons that work, you rely on the physics that tells you GHGs will warm the planet.
heck, Reagan and star wars did great things for climate science.
its a conservative plot.
Mark:
.
I’m still curious about what you think are shenanigans.
Confirmed vrs verified, ok. Thanks Steven.
Shenanigans, oh. I got sidetracked. Lemme finish my chores and I’ll get back to this this evening.
http://modtran5.com/faqs/index.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/6687/2013/
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~drf/misc/mimi/tclough_aer_codes_jqsrt_03_05.pdf
Now to design weapons we used the LOTran and modtran
These models made a bunch of unwarrented and invalid assumptions but the answers were good enough for defense work
There are better models, all validated (confirmed), called LBL models.
These models get used daily. they work. they are engineering.
It’s these physics that tell you GHG will warm the planet.
Of course, they dont tell you HOW that warming will happen ( which parts of the earth ) and they dont tell you how fast ( cause they dont model heat going into the ocean ) and they wont tell you what happens if other things change.. But, the best knowledge we have says GHGs warm the planet. They dont cool it.
How much? that’s uncertain
How long will it take? thats uncertain.
In the begining galileo could only say that the speeed of light was not infinite. Pretty young science, but true. It took centuries to come up with the exact answer. But still we knew what what we knew. The speed wasnt infinite. Thats some pretty pretty hefty uncertainty.
in the same manner we know co2 will warm the planet. The job is
finding out how much? finding out what assumptions matter, and what assumptions dont matter.
There is plenty of room to be uncertain.
Plenty of room to say we dont know exactly
but, no room to reject what engineers use day in and day out
Okay, so I guess I can scrub my toilet and bathtub tomorrow.
So, no, I don’t think I got sidetracked, I thought that we dropped that subject. If you’d really like to talk about it I will Neal, but I’m not anxious to go out of my way to discuss a side topic you might find offensive.
But I am curious about other stuff if you don’t mind terribly. For example, do you consider yourself an activist? How do you feel about activism in general. If you remember (and feel like talking about it) what brought you to the climate debate?
Also, I remember we talked once before and I got the impression that you felt that nuclear power wasn’t really much of an option for a widescale alternative to fossil fuel power. Is this accurate / if so do you still think this or have your views changed.
Thanks for anything you’d care to say on any of these topics or anything these might inspire you to talk about. I’m not after anything in particular again. The question I ask myself in the background is along the lines of ‘why are Neal and I on different sides of this debate, and how are we genuinely different’. So far I’ve gathered that you’re better educated than me, but not a whole lot more than that.
The discussion over at my site has continued, though I think it’s reached the point where maybe it shouldn’t. I just want to draw attention to one thing I said in it just now, because it’s a problem with the Cook et al paper that has been woefully under-discussed:
Mark:
.
I’m not that easily offended. Generally, I let people know if they’re bothering me.
.
Activism: I am too lazy to be an activist.
.
Climate debate: Basically, I was curious about the science. Having hung around physicists for a long time, I pretty quickly developed a sense for what I felt were valid or invalid lines of argument; but sometimes the details are interesting. But I’m more interested in mechanisms and methods than in tons of data: I’m better at analysing a structure than at data reduction; and anyway, I figure that a lot of the data would be rather hard to evaluate if you weren’t personally involved in some way with it. For example, I think Feynman said something about evaluating the numbers measured by different folks in elementary particle physics: Everybody has error bars, but some people are more conservative than others; some people are more confident of their own numbers; and some people are just more careful than others. If you talk to people privately, you can get a feel for that, and that gives you some idea of how you want to weigh different people’s measurements. (This is not a direct quote, and I’m not sure whether I heard it in person or saw a film; and maybe it was said by somebody else entirely. It really doesn’t matter.) If you’re not actively involved with the scientific community of interest, there’s a lot you can miss.
.
The really tough parts of the issue are not scientific, but technological, economic and institutional. It’s much easier to identify what’s causing problems than to come up with viable replacements. On the technological side, I have some doubts about relying on nuclear reactors:
a) I remember hearing, some decades ago, that by the time you’ve added up all the energy you spend in constructing and decommissioning a nuclear power plant, you are net negative in your lifecycle production of electricity. Is this still true? I don’t know.
b) I have concerns about the storage of low-level radioactive wastes. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that some of these need to be kept isolated from people for periods up to 100,000 years. How can we guarantee that? Even if a storage site were geologically stable for over 100,000 years, there’s no guarantee on the civilization. (Just for perspective, the oldest specimen of human writing is only about 5,000 years old.)
c) Maybe there are solutions for these. I’m not in the power-generation business, so it isn’t interesting or fun for me to study it. No one’s told me a clear story that makes me believe the problems have gone away.
d) Nuclear fusion is another story. Are they ever going to get that to where it’s generating enough power to run an industry?
.
I’m also doubtful of the idea of CO2 capture & storage. I wonder if anyone has done a thermodynamic calculation to determine the minimal energy cost to re-package CO2 after combustion of carbon-based fuels, and how this compares to the energy released in the combustion. I don’t know enough chemistry to do the calculation. It would be useful to know whether we are talking about something like 5% or closer to 20%; but some people build it into their future projections as a done deal.
.
With regards to the question of who’s on what side and why, I think the best reference is here: http://toddmcompton.com/lemm.html . (Don’t take this the wrong way: The part that’s relevant is the ending, not the diatribe; diatribes are just part of Thurber’s style.)
Thanks Neal,
.
Regarding activism, yeah me too. 🙂
.
Won’t catch me arguing with that.
.
Yeah I think there are lots of problems with nuclear. I think my attention shifts to it fairly quickly because the set of viable replacements does seem to be pretty thin. But yes, it’s certainly expensive and problematic in various ways.
.
Nuclear fusion. I ought to go catch up where everybody is with that. I remember I got excited when I heard Lockheed Martin thought they could get it working, but I haven’t read any subsequent reports on where they are. I’m not of the opinion that just because we haven’t cracked this over the last 50 years that therefore we never will, but I can’t say I’ve got any clue how long I think it’s going to end up taking to get there.
.
Carbon capture always struck me as likely to be extremely expensive with limited effectiveness, but I am far from knowledgeable about current carbon capture schemes – I literally don’t know what I’m talking about, or rather what other people are seriously talking about there right now. Another subject I ought to go brush up on.
.
Lemming and scientist huh. I’m still thinking about that one. 🙂
.
Kids are hungry, time to go figure out dinner, but I be back later.
.
Thanks again for your responses!
Neal King,
The suggestion that nuclear power plants are energy negative (considering construction and decommissioning) is a green fantasy. You should be a lot more careful with your information sources. Nuclear power does suffer cost problems relative to natural gas, but that is mostly dues to the politics (and green obstructionism) not the technology.
Mark: On nuclear fusion
.
I took a class on plasma physics decades ago; this was kind of the starting point for physics people possibly interested in nuclear fusion. At that time, what the professor said was, “Nuclear fusion will not be for us, or for our children. Maybe for our grandchildren.”
.
When I checked in with someone active in the area many years later, he said,”There’s a development cycle: First you see that you have an instability in the magnetic bottle that allows everything to spill out. After analysis, you find out that there IS a way to suppress that behaviour; but you have to build a bigger machine, typically twice as big. So you get the project going, build the machine, and it works! the instability is gone. But there’s a NEW instability, that allows the magnetic bottle to leak …”
.
That said, I think the fusion people have gotten things working to the point that they can achieve “physics break-even”: that means that you produced as much power in a burst as went into that burst. But to be useable, you have to get to “engineering break-even”, which means you get enough energy back to cover the setup of the whole episode, and ultimately the construction of the reactor. This is probably at least an order of magnitude more.
Neal,
The reason why you need a long time for ‘low’ level waste to decay is because what’s decaying is plutonium, specifically 239Pu with a half life of 24,110 years, and the waste is fuel rods. There is solution to this problem, reprocess the fuel rods and use a fuel cycle that burns plutonium. We need to do this anyway to get rid of the plutonium cores from nuclear weapons.
That gives you a small volume of high level waste. As I remember, the high level waste from the French reprocessing plants has a very low volume and doesn’t take all that many years to decay to safe enough level. Obviously, the short half life fission products have high levels of emission, the rate of emission being the inverse of the half life.
But thanks to Jimmy Carter, reprocessing has been removed from the table because it was supposed to lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons. Look around. Nuclear weapons are proliferating anyway.
The high cost of nuclear power plants is because you have to borrow a lot of money and pay interest on it and it takes a long time to get the plant permitted. Actual construction doesn’t take as long as the permitting process.
Fusion power looks more and more like a boondoggle. It’s always fifty years away. Lots of better fission plant designs than pressurized water have been proposed, including 233Th based reactors. But again, no one is going to spend the money because it will take a long time for approval, assuming it’s approved at all.
Also notice that when people say nuclear is too expensive, the comparison is to a fossil fueled generator, like a combined cycle natural gas fired plant, not to wind or solar. While that will reduce CO2 emissions, it won’t reduce them enough to stop the increase in atmospheric CO2.
People also say that the total energy cost of solar panels exceeds the amount of electricity generated by the panel. They’re wrong too.
I remember some of the discussion about reprocessing:
– On the one hand, it could extend the useful fuel-limit lifetime of fission technology by almost a factor of 10;
– On the other hand, there seems to be no difference between reprocessing technology and nuclear-bomb technology. The difficulty of developing and using this technology seems to be a major issue in the rate of proliferation.
DeWitt,
For sure there is a temptation to reach for the tinfoil hat; after all, the most crucial satellite mission, needed to narrow the plausible range for net GHG forcing, and simultaneously, narrow the plausible range of ECS, has not been replaced, and strangely enough, there are no cries from the ‘climate science’ community for a replacement.
.
No, climate scientists, at least the advocate variety, probably don’t really want the net aerosol forcing identified….. too much risk that climate sensitivity will turn out to be low. My guess is that history will judge this group of ‘scientists’, and I use that description most tentatively, rather harshly.
DeWitt, one paper I looked at from the late 80s said that the permitting costs quadrupled the cost of a nuclear power plant. It was discussed on this site while trying to determine the carbon emissions of nuclear power.
Neal,
Yeah, nobody loves nuclear for various reasons. I’ve read materials that make a case for the idea that regulatory ratcheting was to blame for the extra expense for nuclear. It sounded plausible anyway, I meant to look into this at the time and try to verify or invalidate it but got sidetracked. If it is so, perhaps what the government and the people artificially made expensive the government and the people can remedy. Or not.
Nuclear proliferation, yes, problem. If I was inclined to become an activist, I know what cause I would commit my efforts to: getting humanity established in space by whatever device. We’ve become too darn powerful to be confined to this one place; our arms are too long, our fists are way way too lethal and fast, and our proclivities as a species is no different than it ever was. I don’t really fear for our extinction, but I do think conflict and destruction that will set us back 300-1000 years isn’t out of the question. But of course I’m not an activist. ~shrug~
On a different note, how ’bout that warming I’ve been reading about last month? I’m not yet sure if it’s press fluff or real, but I’ve been running across references that say last month was insane temperature wise.
I hadn’t looked at that regulatory ratcheting material for awhile. I’d forgotten this bit:
That still gives me the shivers, because it certainly sounds legitimate to me. I want ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ etched on my tombstone if I can get it. ‘He Kept It Simple Till He Died.’ Something like that.
Mark:
– I think it’s generally agreed that an unstable regulatory environment is going to cause financial and construction problems. If the regulatory changes are changed retroactively, there’s going to be a lot of retro.
– On the other hand, the nuclear industry got a big hand-out from the US government on the insurance issue. After various disasters convinced the insurance folks that the liability for a nuclear problem could be overwhelming, Congress passed a law that said, in effect, that insurance for nuclear reactors is unnecessary. The implication is that, if there is a disaster, the US government will just take over responsibility; essentially a bail-out at every level. Of course, those bills will be paid by the source of all government expenditure: taxpayers.
– So if there’s another Three-Mile Island, Cheers! It’s on US!
Mark: Weather
.
I hear about all sorts of records being broken. Some friends are exposed to very unusual flooding. Although there are both hot and cold records being broken all the time, it makes a difference whether they’re mostly hot record or mostly cold. They’ve been mostly hot.
DeWitt: CCS & Thermodynamics
.
You should be able to say something about this: What are the thermodynamic limits to CCS?
Okay.
Like I said, nobody loves nuclear. I don’t either, honestly, I wish we could stick with natural gas and coal. But say climate sensitivity turns out to be high? We need power. Nuclear, expensive as it is, dangerous as it may be from a proliferation perspective, unsatisfactory as it may be from other perspectives, it ~is known carbon free tech that can be used for reliable large scale industrialized energy needs~.
No I don’t love it. But I love it a heck of a lot better than I love the idea of being without power.
Being a conservative sort of person, while I get excited about fusion and renewables and stuff like that, I prefer to bank on the tried and true.
Say, I’ve meant to say, maybe it speaks well for your sense of personal responsibility for your actions, that you don’t want to pursue a course of action that might have adverse consequences due to radioactive contamination millennia down the line. I could admire that. What’s less clear to me is if I’d agree that it’s each of our personal responsibility to see to it that nobody else does anything that might have adverse consequences millennia down the line. Of course I don’t know what your position is on that.
Neal,
There’s no thermodynamic limit that I know of. CCS does require a primary energy source. You have to pass a lot of air through your scrubber. Then you have to heat the absorbing fluid, aminoalcohols work well, to drive the CO2 back out. Even if you just pump the CO2 into a salt dome, there’s transportation costs, (salt domes aren’t everywhere) and the energy to compress it. The long term hazard isn’t clear either. If I remember correctly, there have been fatalities when there was a release of CO2 used for increasing yield in oil wells into a low lying area and people drove into it. You pass out very quickly, a matter of seconds, in an inert gas environment.
If you have lots of carbon free energy, you can convert CO2 back to methanol or some other liquid fuel. Solar or wind might actually work for that. But, of course, the cost in capital investment and energy of the product will be much higher than making methanol from natural gas or some other reduced carbon source. It would take a very rich society to be able to afford doing that.
Mark Bofill, so you know, it is not just regulational oversight that causes problems for the nuclear industry. Plenty of projects have been cancelled or rejected simply because the public’s fear of nuclear power made it infeasible.
Also, Neal J King is a terrible source of information on this topic. His claims about the insurance issue for nuclear power are incredibly inaccurate. As in, inaccurate to the poiint nobody with a genuine interest in the subject would ever believe them. Even a quick perusal of Wikipedia would be enough to convince a persom they’re wrong.
(I’d give a link, but on my phone. Look up Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act.)
Thanks Brandon,
It doesn’t get me worked up one way or the other though. Lets say there are suboptimal elements in the way nuclear currently works in the U.S. I’d repeat,
DeWitt:
.
So there’s no concept of converting CO2 to solid Carbon, I take it?
.
Tangent: Since you mentioned CO2 fatalities, it’s always interested me that people haven’t talked about using CO2 to implement the death penalty: What I have heard is how much difficulty excutioners have in obtaining and administering the approved fatal drugs; and how awful it is when they apply them unskillfully. CO2 would seem to be perfect:
– Quick and painless on the one hand;
– Easy to get hold of, and cheap.
It has been used for assisted suicide. But I’ve never heard it discussed for execution.
.
My suspicion is that use of CO2 would create complementary difficulties for both sides of the death-penalty issue:
– Anti-death-penalty side: It would remove the objection that the death penalty is chaotically administered and unnecessarily cruel.
– Pro-death-penalty side: Frankly, it doesn’t hurt enough.
.
#144195)
“Nobody argues C02 is a heat source andrew. C02 is a GHG.
GHGs are a silver lining around our planet
They keep it warmer than it would be otherwise
Go to the moon. ask why it gets so cold.”
Fact.
During the day the temperature on the Moon can reach 253 Fahrenheit (123 Celsius].
Try.
“Go to the moon. ask why it gets so hot.
GHGs are a lining around our planet
They keep it colder than it would be otherwise.”
Logic.
Does not involve making blanket statements.
Or cherry-picking one’s arguments like #144195) and others keep doing.
Darn I have just done it as well.
Oh well.
Facts
The moon and the earth are the same distance from the sun.
The moon receives more energy per kilogram than the earth when surface area of a sphere irradiated to mass of the sphere is taken into account.
Therefore the moon has overall more energy per kilogram than the earth.
Black-body temperature (K) M 270.4 E 254.0 Ratio 1.065
suggests very strongly that the [whole] moon [moon’s temperature] is actually hotter than the [whole] earth [Earth’s temperature].
CO2 is in the atmosphere of the earth. The small band of atmosphere closest to the surface has an average temperature 33 degrees warmer.
The earth as a whole is colder than the moon if you consider the whole heat absorbing surface. This includes all the colder air in the rest of the atmosphere, it includes the land and water components that have received heat.
The problem is that the surface of the moon and its miniscule atmosphere is fairly distinct, most of it is the first 2 mm of rock and dust.
The surface of the earth is 65 Kilometers deep including atmosphere , ice snow water and land [2 mm also].
The heat the planet sends back is from all these layers, not just the CO2 heavy surface layer.
The air has to heat up to produce enough IR out to space. Other areas are therefore colder during the day. No 123 celsius desert sands radiating massive heat output back in an Australian desert compared to a hot daylight moon crater.
Yes Carrick [#144196) and Lucia, “emission from the Earth actually makes the side facing the Earth slightly warmer when the sun is below the horizon”
But “C02 is a GHG.
C02 is not a heat source,”
If a gas has more CO2 in it the CO2 will trap more of the outgoing IR heat that passes through it and be at a higher irradiating temperature.
It is not making new heat.
The planet as a whole is not hotter, just that little parcel of air.
About here is where I lose the plot and make my “little or no understanding of thermodynamic statements”. Help anyone.
I apologize for my fixation.
If anyone wishes to correct the facts I am very interested.
If any one thinks there is any merit in the arguments I will be surprised.
Mark Bofill:
I don’t care much about the subject myself. I wouldn’t have said a word except I despise seeing people post complete and utter dreck and have people not recognize it for the BS it is. Neal J. King posting his absurd comment… well, it was enough I felt I should say something. Sort of like how when he says:
I have to point out he is completely uninformed or completely out of his mind. The idea of using carbon dioxide for a hypoxic execution is insane. Anyone advocating for hypoxic execution would pick ten dozen other inert gases before carbon dioxide.
His claim people have used carbon dioxide for euthanasia is almost certainly BS. I can’t rule out the possibility someone has done it, but anyone who spent even five minutes looking at making a suicide bag would, at a minimum, choose to use carbon monoxide. Using carbon dioxide would cause panic and terror and lead to a horrible death. The entire point of a hypoxic death is to create a peaceful demise by removing both the oxygen and carbon dioxide as a rise in carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream is what causes asphyxiation to be such a horrible experience.
Neal J. King is literally wondering why we don’t torture people to death with a terrifying experience… to cause a peaceful demise! I’m sure he’ll probably ignore this comment of mine like he has most other comments of mine pointing out his glaring errors, but… good God man!
I can’t even be civil, nice or polite at this point. I’ve nearly died of hypercapnia before. I would sooner slit my wrists, jump off a building and try to shoot myself n the head with my dead, numb fingers than let Neal J. King’s sick and twisted idea be implemented on me. The pain and terror I remember from the experience is more frightening than almost anything else in my life.
That’s why there’s a growing body of literature suggesting the use of carbon dioxide for euthanasia of animals is inhumane. It’s also why people who design and use suicide bags will always pick a different gas than CO2. Because when it comes down to it, death by CO2 is a terrible thing nobody should ever have to experience. I’m sitting here remembering the convulsions I went through and I just want to yell at Neal J. King that’s he a psychopath for suggesting someone go through the same.
I need to stop myself from writing anything more now because I seriously feel sick to my stomach from the memories.
angech: Your argument (up until I got lost)
.
1) The first mistake is that you concern yourself with energy/kg of Earth or Moon. The more basic issue is that the radiant solar power falling upon a sphere is the solar flux (SF) multiplied by the cross-sectional area, (pi)R^2. The radiant heat leaving the sphere radiates out from the entire surface, which has area 4(pi)R^2. If the radiant TIME-AVERAGED heat flux is designated RH, then we find that:
.
SF * (pi)R^2 = RH * 4(pi)R^2
.
because at steady-state, the total incoming solar power must equal the total outgoing radiant power. But notice that the factor
(pi)R^2 can be canceled on both sides: the balance is independent of the size of the sphere. Further, we see that:
.
SF = 4 * RH
.
So the radiant heat flux is 1/4-th the intensity of the solar flux, way out at the Earth’s orbit. And this simple analysis holds both for the Earth and the Moon.
.
2) The second (and related) mistake is that you forget that the outgoing radiant heat is emitted from a surface, not from a volume; and a surface has no depth, so it can have no layers. The intensity of heat radiation per unit area depends on the temperature of the surface; so if all oher factors were equal, the temperatures on the surfaces of the Moon and the Earth would be the same.
.
However, different frequencies of radiation can have different depths of effective emission.
Let’s stop here to see if you can or want to incorporate this.
– Isn’t it typical of BS to miss the point (use of an inert gas) by over-focusing on the specifics? Someone actually interested in discussing something would find a point of agreement and try to extend it. Not BS: He even feels it’s necessary to assert his superior experience in suicide.
.
His description of his preferred alternatives is so thrilling that I’m tempted to say — no, never mind, I won’t say that.
.
“I can’t even be civil, nice or polite at this point.” How would one notice? NARQ
Neal J. King, are you that stupid, or are you just being dishonest to try to cover up your mistake? Honest question. I’d love to know how you write:
When this is BS. Complete and utter BS. You specifically said:
People have talked about using inert gases for executions. People have advocated for it. Governments have even considered it. Heck, I can think of at least one legislative body which has approved it for use. The only way it could be true “that people haven’t talked about using CO2 to implement the death penalty” is if you were specifically talking about using carbon dioxide. If you were merely talking about using inert gases, such as carbon monoxide, methane or argon, then even a simple Google search would show it has been discussed quite a few times.
This is about as rude as it gets. I have no experience in suicide. You have no basis for claiming I do.
No please, do say it. You generally refuse to respond to anything I say, so I’m curious what you would say if you ever dared respond to any point I make.
If you want me to stop being civil, I’d be happy to write all about how your behavior on this page has been rude and cowardly. I’d be happy to write a diatribe about how disgusting and dishonest you are as an individual being. I’d enjoy describing just how insulting I find the fact we share a species to be.
Or, and I’m just throwing this out there, we could instead focus on the points of discussion that are actually worth discussing. I get you may find me offensive and whatever else, but I actually try to stay on topic most of the time. I’d be happy to discuss meaningful points with someone who would bother to respond to substantive points with anything other than pathetic complaints about people’s personalities that reveal more about themselves than anything else.
Oh, and I know this isn’t important (believe me, I’m struggling to bite my tongue on a number of other things), but I do want to repeat a request I’ve made many times. People, please do not call me BS. I don’t much care what nicknames or abbreviations people use for me, but I do ask people not use that particular one due to the unfortunate connotations it holds.
I’d rather people make up their own insulting nicknames and use those than call me BS. At least then it’d be clear what they’re trying to do. I don’t like the uncertainty which comes with people labeling me “BS.” If you want to insult me, fine, but please own what you’re doing.
Golly Brandon, don’t beat around the bush, tell us how you really feel.
I’m sorry Neal stepped on that landmine; I might have in his place. I didn’t read him as seriouly advocating for CO2 execution method,. I thought he was just talking. Which was what I asked for, right or wrong.
Say. Does this bother people on the blackboard that I like to talk with people like Neal and say Joshua here? I realize Joshua was a different case, but I don’t see Neal causing disruption. Seems like he’s been good for interesting physics talk that I don’t follow, that doesn’t seem too awful.
mark
It doesn’t bother me that you talk to Neal or Joshua. The only problem with Joshua is he stated that it was his intention to be rude to me specifically. So I thought under that circumstance he should find another place to converse with those who he actually wished to converse with.
I don’t think it’s right for people to be intentionally rude or target anyone individual who is having a conversation. But beyond that, his idea that it’s just fine to visit my blog to have conversations with others, and then be rude to the admin is ridiculous. That he was only here because he’d been banned from other blog where he’d behaved badly was just icing on that cake.
Neal behaves well. He just happens to disagree with many here. But that makes much of his conversation interesting.
Neal,
At risk of beating a dead horse, I’d like to say this to illustrate the way I think of the power options. I’m not saying this is right, just saying this is the way it shakes out in my mind,
I imagine being in a group where we have to get from Miami Florida to Alaska. We are told that our transportation options are:
a. we can try to ride unicycles.
b. we can string ziplines and ride on them.
c. An old, beat up diesel moving truck.
d. roller skates.
The people in my group weigh the pros and cons. I hear stuff like ‘Unicycle? That’s nutty. We’re never going to make it on unicycles.’ And I hear stuff like ‘ziplines are cool and fun, but. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we have to install them as we go’.
And then I hear stuff like, ‘yeah, the truck would be OK but God I hate stickshifts. Also that truck doesn’t have air conditioning.’
And then the discussion seems to settle around roller skating to Alaska, and I can’t help but wonder. Am I insane, or did something go screwy at some point?
I know it’s a strange example, but this is really how the discussion about the options strikes me sometimes.
Thank you for clarifying Lucia, that’s more or less what I thought and hoped.
Carrick, DeWitt, julio:
.
I’ve been working on the adiabatic model, and have some conclusions:
– I’ve verified the VT relation, with no approximations: The model satisfies the VT exactly, with no series expansions needed.
– But the model does not give sensible answers for gamma > 7/5. You need at least 5 degrees of molecular dynamical freedom.
– If F = the degrees of freedom, I get this:
translational KE = T = 3 * [(4pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3/(F-4)]
potential energy = U = – (2+F)*[(4pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3/(F-4)]
Since the number of degrees of freedom is F, the total KE should be F * (T/3) = F * [(4pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3/(F-4)]
Thus, the total internal energy should be:
Ei = [F – (2 + F)]*[(4pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3/(F-4)]
= -2*[(4pi)*P(Rs)*Rs^3/(F-4)]
.
Thus, if we add energy dE to Ei, the term in [] will DECREASE by dE/2 because Ei is negative; and likewise dKE_translational = -(3/2)*dE
.
So this system will display the same negative Cv issue as did the first case.
Mark,
“And then the discussion seems to settle around roller skating to Alaska, and I can’t help but wonder. Am I insane, or did something go screwy at some point?”
.
Something went screwy. The parallel with choosing renewables over far better electric power options is crude but to the point. Take the truck, then wait at the 100 mile point for all the nutty skaters… they’ll be happy for a chance to ride on the truck. Unfortunately, foolish decisions on long term power sources will not be easy or inexpensive to fix later.
Neal King,
Carbon monoxide not carbon dioxide; no smell, pain, or panic; the victim falls asleep and does not wake. Heck, just substitute pure nitrogen for air for 10 minutes and you have the same result. Carbon dioxide is comparable to death by strangulation… you might suggest that to ISIS to eliminate the people they don’t agree with; less messy than cutting off heads, and probably more gruesome for the victim.
Mark:
.
Agreeing on problems is always easier than agreeing on solutions; and you see we haven’t fully agreed on the problems yet, at least among the non-climate scientists.
Mark,
Joshua was in a whole other league. At least Neal knows some science (but not much chemistry it seems!). Joshua had nothing to contribute technically, and went out of his way to question the honesty of anyone who disagreed with his green fantasies. He is just a left wing troll.
“They keep it warmer than it would be otherwise”
is different from
“Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET”
Climate science presents info that shows the squiggly line going down in the presence of increased C02.
Plain as day.
Andrew
Mark Bofill:
Whether or not he was “seriously advocating for CO2 execution,” Neal J. King made a very clear claim – that “people haven’t talked about using CO2 to implement the death penalty.” That claim suggests he might not know anything about the subject, as hypoxic executions have been discussed and even legalized, but using carbon dioxide would lead to a torturous death meaning him saying it would be:
Is complete BS. On top of this, his derisive response he wasn’t really talking about carbon dioxide, but rather inert gases as a whole makes no sense as he was discussing the issue of “CO2 fatalities” and explicitly referred to CO2 and never even hinted at mentioning any other inert gas.
Not particularly. I think it’s a bad thing, on a social level, but I don’t get to dictate who talks about what. All I get to do is point out how people like Neal J. King make (often rude) claims about other people being wrong then intentionally leave the discussion rather than address responses which prove they are actually the ones who are wrong. That’s not a good thing.
Personally, I don’t think that sort of behavior should be encouraged by helping people divert discussions to off-topic issues while refusing to discuss the points they themselves raised. I’m not going to get mad at you for doing it though. The most I’m going to do is shake my head at the pointlessness of discussions where people can say anything they want, no matter how misleading or wrong then just misrepresent what they said or even just ignore that they said it at all.
Well that, and I might chuckle at the knowledge if I behaved in anything resembling a similar manner, the reactions I’d get would be very different.
SteveF:
.
And the interesting point of discussion, which some people labored mightily to miss, is:
– In recent years there have been reports in the media about botched executions and difficulties obtaining executioners’ supplies.
– It seems very plausible that there are several gases that would be much more manageable than the injections which they seem to behaving such troubles with today: Less complex to deal with, less painful, etc.
– So my thought was, Is there some reason that nobody seems to be promoting such an approach? My speculation is that such a gas does not suit the agenda of either pro- or anti-death-penalty folks, because:
– anti-death-penalty folks actually want the execution to be painful, so that it can be denounced as inhuman. From that perspective, a painless death would not be a good thing. And
– death-penalty proponents want it to be painful, because they want the pain to be a deterrant to individuals contemplating a career in crime.
– So CO2 is not a good candidate? So sue me. The way an adult deals with that is by making another suggestion (thank you, SteveF), not by vomiting all over the screen. But to each his own.
.
So, SteveF, have you noticed these reports, and peoples’ reactions to them?
Neal,
I suspect Richard Lindzen would argue there isn’t even complete agreement among climate scientists. The disagreement with many outside of climate science is more political/philosophical, or if you prefer, a disagreement about priorities and values, than it is about science. Those who go into climate science are overwhelmingly ‘green’, and very concerned about human activities impacting the Earth’s environment. I suspect that accounts for most of the agreement among climate scientists about what ‘the problems’ really are. It is unlikely the broader population will ever agree with climate scientists on what the important problems facing humanity are. Someone burning dung to cook dinner in a hut in Africa has other problems to consider ahead of warming in the Arctic.
I am bad about getting off topic. I do apologize for that. I’m sorry. I am willing to try to get back on topic and stay there if you’d like.
Andrew_KY,
Let’s go back to the thermos bottle or dewar. Suppose we put a small resistance heater in the coffee. For a glass dewar with no silvering, adjust the power into the heater to maintain a constant temperature, say 160°F. Now replace the clear glass dewar with a dewar of exactly the same dimensions but that’s coated with silver on the inside. with the same power applied to the heater, what’s the temperature of the coffee going to be, the same, higher or lower?
Mark,
The thread topic was Brandon’s e-book. We left that behind a long time ago. It may not technically be an open thread, but it is in practice.
DeWitt,
Hypotheticals about heaters in thermoses is a little off my main point of contention today which is the language thrown around in climate science frequently doesn’t match the visual information provided. I’d like to stick to reality while I have time this morning.
The GF is coming over and that means no fun Andrew time on The Blackboard. lol
Andrew
SteveF:
.
I know absolutely nothing about chemistry. The last time I was exposed to a freshman chemistry class, I stopped attending lectures because Richard Feynman was lecturing on quantum electrodynamics in the same timeslot.
Andrew_KY:
.
I get the feeling that you are missing the distinction between controlling and influencing. Control may be absolute, but influence is statistical.
Neal King,
I have not seen any clear evidence that people who support the death penalty are looking for a painful way to execute murderers. I suspect most want a painless and quick method. Heck, the restriction on ‘cruel and unusual’ was written in the constitution 200+ years ago. Support for the death penalty is (I suspect) mostly due to a basic sense of justice…. that society will not tolerate murder. Of course the deterrent value declines when the execution is many years (or even decades!) after conviction.
.
Those opposed to the death penalty do seem to focus on botched executions and tales of gruesome suffering to claim the execution is ‘cruel and unusual’. I suspect that you are right: those opposed to capital punishment would probably resist institution of any painless and certain method (eg N2); it is not the suffering they object to, it is the execution.
“I get the feeling that you are missing the distinction between controlling and influencing.”
Neal,
I think this declaration: “Increasing GHGs WILL WARM THE PLANET” when the squiggly line shows cooling.
Is missing the distinction.
Andrew
SteveF:
.
There is a difference between importance and urgency. Certain areas in Africa are likely to suffer more than most to higher temperatures. Arctic melting that affects the Earth’s albedo will make a great deal of difference to the Earth’s rate of warming.
Andrew,
I formally apologize for getting my panties all wadded up in our discussion about squiggles, monotonic changes and otherwise. I’m sorry about it, given it to do over again I’d do it differently. Probably I wouldn’t do it (edit: at all), but.
“I formally apologize for getting my panties all wadded up in our discussion about squiggles”
Mark,
Apology accepted, but it wasn’t necessary. I view it as all part of the give and take of blog discussions. I’ve enjoyed all of it.
Andrew
Mark Bofill:
I think people have made it clear the discussion on this page is going to be off-topic. It’s not my call to say that shouldn’t be the case. And if people want to talk to Neal J. King about things he clearly has no real knowledge of rather than physics where he at least has some knowledge, that’s their choice.
But I am probably going to point out when he says completely ridiculous things. And if he suggests executing people in a horrendous manner I’ve personally experienced (to some extent) and am terrified of will give them a peaceful death, I’ll probably be unkind when I do. Especially if he’s going to do it while claiming nobody talks about a topic which tons of people have discussed.
The simple reality is King consistently says things that are not only wrong, but are so wrong if he had put the slightest amount of effort into investigating them, he’d know they are wrong. I don’t see that he’s any better than Andrew_KY is about the greenhouse effect. He just uses different tactics to avoid his errors.
Andrew_KY,
So you’re not actually interested in physics. You just want to pontificate about stuff you don’t understand and have no apparent interest in understanding. I see no point in further engagement.
Neal King,
One persons ‘urgency’ is another’s ‘importance’. It doesn’t take much effort to see where people place their priorities: China and India (not to mention other developing countries) just don’t share the concerns of climate scientists. You can make all the claims you want about future doom, but they are building coal fired plants about as fast as they can. Maybe they believe the predictions of doom, but their behavior says otherwise. I do believe future temperatures will be higher as a result of rising atmospheric CO2, but I suspect that the rate of warming will be much less than catastrophic, because empirical estimate of sensitivity are consistently low. If climate science wants to have more impact on public energy policy, it needs to do a more credible job of making projections.
.
I will give one simple example: the sea level data since 1992 (satellite altimetry) shows a constant rate of rise of 3 mm per year against a geologically stable shoreline. If you take into account how ENSO influences sea level (via changes in rainfall patterns), the data is ruler straight, with no evidence of acceleration. 23+ years, and not a hint of acceleration. Yet lunatics like Stefan Rahmstorf continue to insist that disruptive rates of increase (1 meter or more by 2100) are a real risk, even though that kind of increase is impossible without a large and continuous acceleration in rate, reaching rates by 2100 greater than the greatest rate of rise between the last ice age maximum and the Holocene. The catastrophic projections of rapid sea level rise are simply not credible. Even the IPCC projection is much lower (but I would argue is still too high to be likely).
.
Yet where are the climate scientists who should be publicly dismissing nutty sea level projections? Instead, there is essentially a wall of silence. If climate science wants more credibility, climate scientists need to act more credibly. Stop all the id!otic exaggerations, and play it straight with the public. Stop acting like the late Stephen Schneider advocated.
Neal,
The way to make solid carbon is to grow fast growing trees, like loblolly/slash pine, or eucalyptus, cut them down after a few years, make charcoal and bury the charcoal. In fact, if you want to sequester carbon, stop recycling paper products and put them into landfills. As long as methane is captured from the landfill, and there won’t be much if you can keep water out, you’ve removed carbon from the atmosphere.
Hot air hand dryers are a bad idea in terms of carbon footprint. You don’t actually want to save trees. Besides, the trees they use to make paper mostly don’t come from old growth forests. Big trees are used for lumber, not pulpwood.
Neal,
Sounds like your model still needs work. Have you tried calculating the Cv as in the Toth note?
DeWitt:
– What does charcoaling do?
.
–
Neal King,
Cellulose and lignin (most of what a tree is made of) are converted to almost pure carbon. This carbon is not biologically accessible, even when buried in the ground. So the carbon is ‘gone’ for many thousands of years; sequestered in much the same way that fossil fuels sequestered carbon in the distant past. Coal is mostly ‘charcoaled’ plant matter, where the process took place at great depth and pressure.
Sorry for another topical comment, but I just wanted to share that 289 copies of this eBook have now been sold. I don’t know how many free copies might have been downloaded (though I could probably find out), but I’d be pleasantly surprised without any. I know 289 copies isn’t a lot from a book sales point of view, but it’s more than I would have anticipated for a book like this.
So thanks for the attention guys!
DeWitt:
– It seems odd that the model cares about the “internal parameters” of the gas.
– But the VT equation comes out essentially perfectly. I am slightly puzzled about one sign: It has to do with whether the walls of a container are enclosing the gas, or excluding it. Also a little odd. But the calculation of the magnitude was somewhat complicated but came out just as needed. Very unlikely to be an “accident”.
Neal,
It turns wood into mostly solid carbon. The cellulose fraction of wood has a chemical structure of (C(H20))n. With sufficient heat and no oxygen, you can drive off the water. The lignin fraction of wood is C30H36O9 and can also be destructively distilled or pyrolized into mostly carbon.
That’s, of course, an oversimplification. In fact you get a lot of carbon containing volatiles, including terpenes, turpentine and methanol. Which is the reason why methanol is also called wood alcohol.
There’s also some thought that if you grind up the charcoal and plow it into the ground, it improves soil quality. And the charcoal in the dirt oxidizes very slowly.
Quick correction, the current count is actually 291 copies sold. I missed two sales on an early day when I did my tally.
Of course, one of those sales was me buying the book for myself so I could see how it looked, so 290 might be a better number to list.
How would you compare the utility of some fast growing trees to CCS?
I recall Freeman Dyson speculating about super-fast growing trees to remove CO2.
DeWitt:
– Toth is looking at the flat-earth case. It’s really a different problem. Total energy has to be < 0 if bound in the spherical case, is always bound in the flat-earth case.
Neal,
I haven’t seen any numbers, but I would think, off the top of my head, that using fast growing trees to capture atmospheric CO2 has to be cheaper than any purely chemical process. It’s all known, mature technology too. I would also bet that most greens would hate it.
Why would they hate it? Would it displace old growth?
Hi Neal,
Regarding your comment here, I’m afraid I’ve lost the plot at this point.
I was wondering if you could quickly outline what assumptions you made about the system.
For example:
a) do you make assumptions about symmetry (spherical, cylindrical)?
b) do you make assumptions about rho? [density]
c) do you make assumptions about g(r)? [gravitational acceleration]
d) do you make assumptions about v(r)? [velocity profile of gas]
e) I assume when you are calculating Cv, conptually you are adding heat energy to the system, without doing work. Correct?
If you could quickly answer the questions I’d appreciate it. You can tell me after the answer that it’s not important (if it’s not important). You can also tell me what a better related question would be [if there is one] and then answer that one.
Hopefully this should only take a few seconds and thanks for your patience.
I’m going to step through what you and julio have discussed at some point soon.
At the moment, I’ve got a few deadlines that I have to meet this week (so working weekends again).
I have notes and code working for radiatively-convectively supported column of gas (non-rotational case). This turns out not be be terribly difficult to do, even for the case of a “gaseous planet” (one where the atmosphere is comparable or larger than the core). It is a nonlinear problem in that case, but quickly solved by the relaxation method (starting from a guesstimated profile for g(r)).
For the non rotational case, the mean temperature of the gas always goes up when you add heat energy to the system.
Thanks,
Carrick
Neal,
I would think that the flat-earth case is not different, but the limit of the spherical case as the radius of the sphere increases with a thin shell of atmosphere. You can control the force of gravity at the surface by using a hollow shell rather than a solid sphere.
Does your model do that?
Carrick:
a) Symmetry: spherical
b) Density: P = constant * rho^gamma
c) Gravity: Central core of rock pulls the gas together; so the field is -GM/r^2
d) Velocity profile: static, hydrostatic equilibrium
e) Heating: No work, just turn on the central core’s internal nulear reactor. The surface of the core heats the gas in the usual ways: conduction, radiation, convection.
1) I haven’t thought at all about radiative issues.
2) Unphysical aspect: for gamma < 4, the number of bound particles diverges.
3) Virial Thm: 2*KE + U = (+/-) (4pi)(P(Rs))(Rs^3)
The sign is a little confusing right now.
DeWitt:
I haven’t played with the flat-earth model recently. In the M. days, I studied the transition from spherical shell to flat earth: how the VT changed form, etc. I still have that written up, but I’d have to stare at it awhile to remember what it was about. But in principle, the two models are compatible, although they have different zero of PE.
Worse, nature appears to have put a carbon capture program in place already without humans having to do anything.
TE:
. I don’t know the currency of that info. For a long time it seemed that about half the CO2 produced was captured in the ocean; in the last few years I recall reading that this absorption process was slowing down.
Plus, it’s not great for the ocean either: reduced alkalinity, etc.
.
Well, that’s through 2014, so it has not slowed down for the last few years. It might ( and appears to have ) slowed down last year, but that’s typical of El Ninos ( see the large drops of net uptake for the 1987 and 1997 El Nino years on the chart ).
.
This stands to reason – the more the CO2 in the atmosphere, the larger the gradient between atmosphere and ocean, consequently the greater the uptake rate. Also, the greater the CO2 content of the air, the greater the rate of photosynthesis.
.
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Given the large increases in phytoplankton, it would appear that life in the oceans benefits from consuming the additional CO2 in much the same way that land based life does.
Thanks Neal.
Sounds like we’re fairly close, except a few points.
• I compute g(r), where r is radius, using the mass interior to r + Gauss’s Theorem. [You may do this too, but, just to make things clear, I don’t neglect the mass of the atmosphere interior to r.]
• I compute the density rho(r) [and pressure p(r)] using the hydrostatic approximation + a prescribed temperature profile + ideal gas law
• For the temperature profile, I use the adiabatic lapse rate to the top of the troposphere.
• Above the troposphere (the “mesosphere”), I use isothermal to the planet-space boundary
• The top of the troposphere is assumed to be the height of radiation equilibrium.
The only immediate comment I have is, you probably should calculate the density rho from your assumed temperature profile:
The density doesn’t obey a power law in general for hydrostatic equilibrium, especially not when you are constraining the lapse rate to adiabatic.
Here are a few of the relevant formula. They are written in terms of $latex z = r – R$:
Gravitational acceleration:
$latex g(z) = { GM(z) \over (z + R)^2}$.
where $latex M(z)$ is the mass interior to a sphere of radius $latex R+z$.
Ideal gas law:
$latex p(z) = \rho(z) R_a T(z)$
[$latex R_a$ is universal gas constant divided by the mean molecular weight of the gas mixture in the atmosphere.]
Euler’s equation (hydrostacy):
$latex p'(z) = -\rho(z) g(z)$.
Note we can combine the idea gas law with Euler’s equation to write:
$latex {p'(z) \over p(z) } = {-g(z)\over R_a T(z)}.$
This can be formally integrated as:
$latex p(z) = p(0) \exp\left[-\int_0^z {g(z’)\over R_a T(z)}dz’ \right].$
Thus the density is given by:
$latex \rho(z) = {p(z)\over R_a T(z)} = \rho(0) {T(0)\over T(z)} \exp\left[{-\int_0^z {g(z’)\over R_a T(z)}dz’} \right].$
If the temperature of the gas $latex T(z)$ is linear or constant, you won’t get power-law behavior for the density $latex \rho(z)$.
Let me know if you see any mistakes.
Brandon,
Congratz! So you’re saying free pizza and beer at your place am I right? 😉
No seriously, pretty cool. Congratulations.
TE,
It’s not expected that CO2 emitted into the atmosphere will all stay there. It will equilibrate with the ocean and biosphere. The equilibration time is quite long. The reason you see about half the emitted CO2 apparently disappearing every year is because the CO2 emitted previously is still being absorbed. We can model this absorption rate fairly well because we did a massive isotope tracer experiment in the 1940’s and 50’s by injecting a lot of 14C into the atmosphere.
We also have data from another massive injection of 13C depleted carbon into the system during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. It took about 120,000 years to get back to the previous baseline. We’re still a long way from the estimated amount of what must have been fossil carbon injected during the PETM, but we may well be doing it a lot faster.
For the apocalyptics, the only mass extinction that occurred during the PETM involved benthic (near the sea bed) foraminifera because of the pH change from the increased CO2 dissolved their carbonate shells. Corals survived just fine. It was also a lot warmer and wetter then, but surface life flourished, and not just in Antarctica. Horses appeared around that time, for example.
The hypothesis that the current rate of increase of CO2 is beyond the capability of the biosphere to adapt is speculation with little evidence in my opinion.
Neal,
In a spherical system with z the vertical axis, movement along the x and y axis tangent to the surface will change gravitational potential energy less and less as the radius increases. I can’t see there being a step change from spherical to flat. It must be a continuum.
Take a 1kg mass 1km above the Earth’s surface. Moving along the z axis will change the potential energy by gΔz. Moving horizontally on the x axis will increase the gravitational potential energy by g * (Δx^2 + (R+1)^2)^0.5. It doesn’t matter where you set the zero for gravitational potential energy. The change must be the same.
Say we do this at the equator of the Earth. R = 6278137m If we move the mass tangent to the surface by 1,000 m, Δz = 0.08m. So the altitude above the Earth’s surface is now 1000.08m. That looks pretty nearly flat to me, unless I’m missing something.
Carrick:
.
You’re going to be terribly disappointed, but I’m not going to be able to be a full partner on this question. When you talk about a “model,” you’re talking about running a code; when I talk about a “model”, I’m talking about a few equations, a pen and lots of paper. That’s the primary reason I’m leaving out of consideration the self-gravitation of the gas: there’s no way I could get through that calculation with pen & ink, especially as my handwriting these days is barely legible. One of the reasons I’m interested in checking on the Virial Theorem is that it’s my impression that the model will be self-consistent enough to fulfil the VT, which is Newton’s laws plus handwaving.
.
I’ll be interested to see what shows up.
Turbulent Eddy, DeWitt:
– The ocean is a lot more than one type of critter, so you can’t judge the health of the oceans by one population level. Also, you can’t judge the state of a subject of study by one paper. I will excerpt just a bit from the Wikipedia article on phytoplankton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton :
“Despite substantial variation in both the magnitude and spatial pattern of change, the majority of published studies predict that phytoplankton biomass and/or primary production will decline over the next century.[5][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]”
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The danger to ecosystems is not just in the change, but in the rate. We’ve only been heavy into fossil fuels in the last 150 years or so. There are reports of birds starting their migrations too soon for the state of their target location to have warmed up enough for them to feed themselves once they get there. Why would you expect ecosystems to adapt on timescales so much faster than those on which they evolved?
DeWitt:
Looking through the flat-earth framework is very different in some ways. For example, the VT coefficient for potential energy has a different sign for these two structures.
For the flat-earth:
KE = (3/2)U
For the spherical earth:
KE = -(1/2)U – (2pi)P(Re)*Re^3
Of course U is calculated for different zeroes and origin. I have some calculations on translating one version into the other, if you want to see them.
Neal,
Evolution depends on the average lifetime of the organisms. But it’s actually adaptation that is important here. There’s normally a lot of diversity in the genome of a given species. You might see a problem for a long-lived species for a few generations, but gene expression can change with the environment. The early migrating birds will die. But not all birds in a species migrate at the same time. So there will be more food for the late migrators and they’ll thrive. Again, though, that’s adaptation, not evolution. It’s still the same species.
There’s also the fact that, absent some totally unexpected technological innovations, atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase. Do you really want to condemn the populations of the un- and less developed world to grinding poverty forever? Fossil fuels are currently their only way out and countries like China, India and Brazil are taking that path.
China alone has already increased its carbon emissions by far more than the developed world has reduced theirs. The USA is now a distant second. Of course, there’s a distinct possibility that the Chinese economy will go into a depression. But that won’t be good for the rest of the world either. And it probably won’t stop them from continuing to build and commission new coal fired power plants for the next couple of decades.
Russia, for example, will benefit from warming. Their arable land area will increase dramatically. Right now, a lot of it is effectively uninhabitable because it’s too cold. And that’s not to mention the effect of the loss of Arctic sea ice will have on their ability to transport stuff.
Climate change is a tautology. There’s never been any such thing as a stable climate.
Mark Bofill:
Well, it takes two months for royalties to be paid, so if you want to wait until May 😛
Thanks! Last I checked, it is up to 299 sales. I wish I could know who gets the 300th copy.
Neal,
Your spherical expression must be wrong. The right hand sides of the two equations must become equal as Re → ∞. Either that or -(2pi)P(Re)*Re^3 → 2U as Re → ∞.
Neal, no worries. When I get the notes and code up, I’d be happy for any feedback you can provide.
Anyway, as I see it, the issue is one’s assumptions must lead to a hydrostatically stable system. Otherwise we end up analyzing an unphysical system.
Put another way, in order to have a hydrostatically stable system, you aren’t at liberty to simultaneously select arbitrary density, temperature and equation of state functions.
(If you select two, the third gets implied by the other two.)
However, there’s a simplification that occurs is you assume a thin, low density atmosphere, ideal gas law, and adiabatic lapse rate.
You use the relationship between pressure and temperature for an adiabatic process,
$latex p(z) = \hbox{constant} \times \left[T(z)\right]^{\gamma/(1-\gamma)}$
and the combined Euler’s equation and the equation of state above:
$latex p'(z) = -{g_0\over R_a T(z)}$.
Anyway, you end up getting a formula for density of the form:
$latex \rho(z) = \rho(0) \left[ 1 – \kappa z \right]^\beta$.
(I need to check my notes to verify the values of $latex \kappa$ and $latex \beta$, but it’s pretty straight forward to do.)
Neal J. King (#144249): “Arctic melting that affects the Earth’s albedo will make a great deal of difference to the Earth’s rate of warming.”
Perhaps you can quantify “a great deal”; the papers I’ve read indicate a non-negligible amount but not what I’d consider a lot.
I found something else that MODTRAN doesn’t change when you change the surface temperature offset, the pressure profile.
Another question: The entire gas cloud or star shrinks when it loses energy and expands when it gains energy. But the radius of the earth is constant with temperature over the range of interest. The atmosphere can’t lose as much gravitational potential energy when it shrinks or gain as much when it expands as a gravitationally bound gas cloud or star. Is that the reason why the atmosphere of a planet doesn’t have a negative heat capacity? In that case, as long as the height of the atmosphere is small compared to the radius of the planet, I don’t think it matters much if it’s spherical or flat.
Because they have to cope with inter-annual variability and hundred year events that are still larger than AGW.
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Certainly there are limits, but most species have a range of extremes they can tolerate, but probably aren’t impacted as much by an overall average of temperature.
If, for example, temperatures are above average, but summer maximums are not, is there an adverse effect? I wouldn’t think so. And such a scenario has some physical basis: water vapor feedback tends to increase heat capacity and increase latent heat of given air, which tends to reduce extremes ( summer temperatures are less variable than winter temperatures, and temperatures in the tropics are less variable than mid-latitude or polar regions ).
DeWitt:
.
No, both the spherical and the flat-earth results are right, in their own context. I spent quite a few hours to understand how that could be. I have a write-up that is should be readable but is still complex. I do not have the time and patience right now to go through it and figure it out; but if you are curious I can send it to you somehow. I guarantee that the results are compatible; I just don’t remember why. But it was not a straightforward result.
Carrick:
.
There is a specific strategy upon which we differ:
– You set the adiabatic lapse rate, but did not impose the adiabatic equation of state.
– I did the opposite.
– My results give a family of solutions with the following behavior:
.
Temperature: T(r) = T(R)*(R/r) ; where R = radius of core
.
Number density: n(r) = n(R)*(R/r)^(F/2) ; where F = 2/(gamma-1)
.
Pressure: P(r) = P(0) * (R/r)^(1 + F/2)
.
The HSE can be used to figure out that:
P(R) = 2GMm * n(R)/(R*(2+F))
HaroldW:
–
The last time I calculated a rate of heating that was about mid-range for the expectations, I made an interpretation: How fast should someone change location, in such a warming world, in order to keep the same average temperature?
.
As I recall, it was on the order of kilometer per decade northwards or 10 meters per decade upwards, to mitigate 0.1 degC/decade. Now that’s very little if you’re a human being, but what if you’re a tree? Or what if your way north is cut off, or if there are no hills in the area?
DeWitt:
.
According to my calculations, in the spherical case it is still true that:
dE_total > 0 implies dKE < 0
for small enough deltas.
Something to notice about the VT in the spherical case:
If you set T = 0, the KE = 0. But the PE term will be balanced by the (4pi)P(R)*R^2 term. The molecules will be resting on the surface.
Turbulent Eddy:
.
I’m more pessimistic about the robustness of species and genera than you. As I understand it, extinctions often occur when systems go out of balance, and there are swings back and forth; then the population can hit zero and it’s over. This behavior has been reproduced in mathematical models.
.
There is a book you might look at, by a range of contributors, edited by Lee Hannah: Saving a Million Species: Extinction Risk from Climate Change.
TE:
Sorry, I don’t have much time today.
Neal,
If you have Dropbox, you can put it in your public folder and put a link up here.
Otherwise, lucia has my email address. If you email her, I give permission for her to send it to you. I’m not overly fond of using dot and at instead of . and @ to keep bots from harvesting an email address.
Neal,
Another thing that might have been neglected is the effect of the rotation rate of the Earth. A spinning protoplanet disk becomes more spherical and spins faster until the forces balance, leaving an equatorial bulge. There’s a bulge in the atmosphere too. As altitude increases, the pressure decreases more slowly near the equator than at high latitudes.
Neal J. King (#144290) –
I understand that there are quite a few posts addressed to you, and I apologize for adding to it, but the response addressed to me doesn’t answer the question: you said that Arctic ice loss will affect the Earth’s energy balance by “a great deal”, and I asked for a quantification.
Your response about changing location was perhaps intended for someone else.
DeWitt:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41061944/Virial_Theorem.pdf
I certainly didn’t try to include rotational effects.
Neal writes
An average increase of 1C (for example) global temperatures isn’t going to kill anything.
The anomaly changes sure can look scary but when you take a step back and look at the actual temperature increases, they’re very minor and over a long period. Multiple generations.
They’re exactly the kinds of changes that drive natural selection.
Surely you can appreciate that?
Its the maximums and minimums that kill. And our minimums are increasing. Cold kills far more effectively than warmth. If warm regions were under excessive pressure then you might expect the tropics to have lower biodiversity…but that’s clearly not the case.
Perhaps your fears about extinctions based on global average temperatures are unfounded.
My much larger concerns include overfishing and habitat destruction in general. I think you’d find the impact of those dwarf any impact of climate although it certainly sounds better when we spread the blame to “global climate change” and ignore company XYZ that fishes the hell out of a region.
Neal J. King (Comment #144224)
“1) The first mistake is that you concern yourself with energy/kg of Earth or Moon.”
How so ?
The heat radiated by a body is dependent on the temperature of the body.
The amount of heat in a body is determined by the mass of the body.
Hence the temperature of any body that absorbs heat is in a direct relationship to the mass of the body.
Conductivity and rotation possibly determines where the heat is layered in that body.
There is no doubt [All else being equal] that a bigger body will be cooler than a smaller body at the same distance from a point heating surface like the sun.
Surely you concede this point?
[All else being equal] a moon sized body must be hotter than an earth sized body at the same distance from the sun.
The earth has 80 times the mass of the moon, 50 times the volume and 4 times the radius so only 4 times the amount of radiation to heat something with so much more heat capacity.].
Surely everyone here [except #144195)
concedes this point?
angech,
I don’t concede any of your points. In fact, for orbiting spheres with same albedo, the surface temperature is independent of the mass. The Moon isn’t hotter than the Earth. The day temperatures get higher, but the night temperature is much, much lower. The mean temperature of the surface of the moon at the equator is 220K or -53°C. That’s colder than the effective radiating temperature of the earth of about 255K even though the Earth has a higher albedo, i.e. reflects a higher percentage on incident sunlight. It’s not the total energy that determines the temperature, it’s the specific energy, the energy per unit volume or mass at the surface.
angech,
Yikes! There is so little you understand that it is almost shocking. The equilibrium temperature of an object has nothing to do with its mass, unless there is an internal source of heat.
angnech:
.
To consider one point that kind of puts a knife through your argument: It is well-known that the intensity of thermal radiation from a blackbody at absolute temperature T is
.
(sigma) * T^4 (Watts per unit area): this is the Stefan-Boltzmann law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law
.
But actually, aside from the reference, I’ve said all this already. Let it suffice to say that I agree with DeWitt’s agreement with my argument.
.
TTTM:
.
I agree that habitat destruction, taken as a whole, is a lot worse of a problem than global warming. If we could trade between the two, I’d take GW any day over habitat destruction. The problem is that there’s nobody to make that deal with. Not thinking about a problem doesn’t make it go away.
.
So we end up doing both.
.
My experience of thinking about environmental problems is that problems not addressed seem to get worse. The over-fishing issue is a case in point: we seem to be eating edible fish into extinction.
.
TE:
.
Even adjustments to a steady-state induce evolutionary changes over time: natural selection is a result of differential reproductive success over time. But we’re not giving much time for our fellow critters on this planet to adjust.
.
DeWitt: #144281
.
There are certainly enormous difficulties associated with effecting a change in the human activities that are changing the climate. But that doesn’t invalidate the problem. Complaining about the docter’s bill doesn’t cure the illness either.
“Andrew_KY,
So you’re not actually interested in physics.”
DeWitt,
I am interested in the physics, but if Climate Science can’t communicate even basic information accurately, I think that’s an issue that needs to be addressed first.
Andrew
Neal J. King says:
Having read that book myself, I can say it definitely has some good information (particularly regarding research on extinctions of the far past), but it is heavily biased regarding potential risks of global warming. I would not recommend anyone those sections unless they’re willing to keep reminding themselves there is a lot of unstated information which contradicts the depiction the book gives.
The strangest part to me about the book to me isn’t it is biased, which I kind of expected given the title, but the nature of one particular bias it has. For some reason it focuses a lot on some older work, done over a decade ago, when it looks at risks from global warming. It manages to overlook quite a bit of more recent work. As in, much of the work it relies on was 10+ years old at the time the book was written while quite a bit of work written more recently just doesn’t get attention. I thought that was a strange sort of bias to show up in the book.
Though when the book isn’t looking at more controversial issues, like what global warming might cause, it really does do a good job.
.
I haven’t read the book but I’ll make a note of it.
.
But here are some reasons why I believe global warming is more or less irrelevant to ecosystems.
.
Global warming is occurring at about 1.7K per Century. Global average temperature variance is about 0.5C so even without global warming. But wait, according to thermometers variance becomes much larger when one considers a single location, perhaps 5 to 10 times as much ( more in the polar regions, much less in the tropics ). Species that don’t migrate experience much more variance from natural variation than they might from AGW.
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So it is already in the various species gene pools to be tolerant of temperature variation – if it weren’t they’d have been strongly selected against long ago.
.
The same pertains to the ice ages. I’m not a biologist and a lot of evolution can take place in 10 million years, but numerous species have been around for 1 million years which means they evolved in both much colder and hotter global average temperatures – it’s in their genes.
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In East Texas, there is a great forest, the Big Thicket, which is a stand of pine trees in a quite sub-tropical climate. During the last ice age, evidently this pine forest population thrived. But when the interglacial came and temperatures increased greater than present day, the forest did not disappear, but continued to thrive.
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Of course, species tolerance would also include that of homo-sapiens who evidently developed mostly in the tropics ( Africa ) but migrated to every climate on earth. If humans are a measure, climate change is irrelevant, because humans purposely changed their own climate to every climate on earth by moving!
.
But what of the tropics? People point to the tropics which don’t change much ( temperature variability is quite low ). That’s true, but what is climate change supposed to do? It is supposed to make the world more tropical which means less variable.
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Most of the major extinctions we know of are not due to climate change but of direct human predation:
Mammoths(& LGM mega-fauna): widespread hunting
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Dodo bird: hunting
.
Passenger Pigeon: hunting ( this was a leading source of protein in the US in the 1800s and when it went extinct, led to raising chickens in the US )
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Numerous Whales ( almost ): hunted for the oil, but the discovery of oil made whale oil obsolete – fossil fuels to the rescue.
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American Bison (almost): hunting
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At least in these regards, I don’t believe climate change is significant.
BTW, with respect to humans, there is some evidence that we’re not suited for the cold climates that we migrated to.
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Significantly more people die during winter and significantly fewer die during summer. That seems to apply to just about every cause of death. I don’t know of studies of other animal species.
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It turns out that we did evolve some to combat the diseases that were selecting some out of the gene pool: namely respiratory viruses and digestive viruses that seem to thrive in winter in the temperate and polar zones.
.
Human genetic expression appears to change significantly during winter to defend against viruses. But the change in genetic expression seems to make us more vulnerable to heart disease, cancer and other causes of death.
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That is just humans, it’s not clear of all the causes of virus response or human response ( temperature versus sunlight ). And of course, evolution isn’t always about longevity but just about some other state in which populations continue ( which can be varied ). But it’s something to consider.
Angech,
So the good news is progress. While there might be terms that are being abused, I think you might be on the right track:
With regards to this.
Here’s a problem, the sort that I was talking about earlier, simple problems to get a feel for the concepts:
See, mass does matter. The temperature of an object is indeed a function of the amount of energy coming in, going out, and how much stuff is there for the energy to act on.
The only trouble is that we get too big for our britches when we think that this explains everything. When we talk about the surface temperature of the moon, it’s a different problem. The average temperature of the whole moon doesn’t have much to do with this, I think.
Also, careful saying what you really mean. For example,
That can’t possibly be what you meant to say. Maybe that the steady state temperature of a small body is influenced by the mass in the body? (See, I’m bad about this too. Me with equilibrium before when I meant steady state. It’s easy to screw up the terms.)
Lastly, careful about generalizing.
It’s got a lot to do with what are called ‘view factors’ in these problems. It’s what makes the math hard for peeps like me in many of these problems. It’s hard to generalize. How much energy is coming in and how much energy is going out controls if something is heating up or cooling down, that’s a safe generalization. Other stuff … depends..
Angech,
Also, about the math relating to view factors. Don’t let it intimidate you, if you care to do the work to practice. My understanding is that it’s mostly trig and geometry and applied calculus; it’s not like you need a grasp of really high higher math to get view factors. I was better at it 20 years ago in college, I more or less never used any of it since and so now I suck at it, but it’s not impossible to do. I’m just lazy and unmotivated. 🙂
[Edit: Did I say 20 years ago? Heh. Don’t I wish. funny how the years have a way of getting away from you…]
Neal,
Thanks for this. I think this might be a difference between us, I find it interesting but am not sure I really understand how you view this.
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Does this mean it’s your opinion that we (species-wise) are at some point simply going to have to do whatever it takes to reign [edit: rein] in AGW?
It’s not clear to me if that’s what you’re saying. If it is what you’re saying, I’m not sure I agree. As usual, I think it sort of depends on how severe AGW turns out to be, which comes back to sensitivity once again.
At any rate, thanks for your perspective! I think it’s interesting to see how your [edit: you] view these things.
Mark:
.
“Does this mean it’s your opinion that we (species-wise) are at some point simply going to have to do whatever it takes to rein in AGW?”
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Not exactly. A better way of putting it: We are going to have to do what it takes to rein in AGW, or suffer the consequences of not doing what it takes. But neither the consequences nor the probability distribution of the consequences should be estimated on the basis of what is politically acceptable; because we can be sure that, whatever effects occur will be ultimately controlled by “Mother Nature’s” laws, not ours.
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Think of an analogy: You have an abdominal pain, and you decide after a session with Google that it might be appendicitis or it might be an ulcer. You consult your insurance policy guidelines, and then you rush to the doctor. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to try to influence the doctor by saying, “Look, Doc, I think it could be appendicitis or an ulcer. My insurance policy won’t cover an ulcer, so I really think it’s appendicitis, OK? How can I get treated for my appendicitis?”
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It would be unseemly, intellectually bankrupt, and dangerous to your health to adopt such an approach. Whatever the implications may be with regard to the diagnosis, the doctor’s job is to give you an accurate diagnosis, not one that is economically feasible.
Neal J. King:
This analogy becomes more interesting, and I think more informative, if we assume the doctor cannot tell with absolute certainty what the problem is. In that case, it might not only be acceptable, but wise, to base your treatment plan on what you can afford.
Or alternatively, if the treatment plan for problem A is, “Make peace with your imminent demise,” it would be safe to assume the actual problem is B because you could do something about that one.
I know things like that don’t show the point he was trying to make, but I think a more fleshed out analogy can do a much better job representing the uncertainties of the debate over what should be done about global warming.
Re: Species Extinction
Science has made the problem of species extinction negligible. All we have to do is save the DNA and we save the species. Apparently, we are close to bringing back the woolly mammoth. I also think I recently saw a story about bringing back a species of Siberian dog.
JD
Neal,
Bad analogy. The choice is between adaptation and mitigation. The costs of mitigation are high and immediate. The possibility of doing more than you need to do is also high. The costs of adaptation may also be high, but they’re in the future. The net present value of future costs depends a lot on the discount rate chosen. And if we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot now, it’s possible that the future population will be wealthier and can afford to spend more on adaptation.
To give an example of a subject that was discussed here: If you think that sea level might rise by 1m by 2100, do you build a 1.7m high sea wall now? Probably not.
As a skeptic/denier/insane science hater, I like when The Doctor Analogy is invoked because there are so many ways that it’s flawed, not least of which is that the expertise of any particular hypothetical doctor might not be as developed as any other hypothetical doctor or any other person you might encounter.
Since we are making non-scientific comparisons, In your hypothetical world the expert doc you choose might be a quack who’s killed some of his patients.
Also, Warmers could appeal to other hypothetical experts whose knowledge of their fields might be relatively better than Doctor X. The expertise of expert lawn mower repairmen, hair stylists, and sandwich artists are similarly useful non-scientific comparisons.
Andrew
Brandon, Neal,
I agree with that. I also agree with Brandon; my doctor had darn well better not tell me I’m having a heart attack with 95% confidence if what he really means is he’s not sure, and I might be having a heart attack or I might be suffering from gas, but for various other reasons the doctor finds it expedient to say he’s sure. Would you really want to be treated by a doctor who’d listened to Steven (rest his soul) Schneider’s advice about being effective?
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Personally I consider being honest about uncertainties part of what it means to be accurate.
Turbulent Eddy:
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A long-term change can effect different sorts of changes than can random variations that don’t go anywhere.
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An example: the Southern Ocean. This seems to have been isolated from species exchange for about 12 million years. An enduring increase in the temperature of the Southern Ocean could allow predatory sharks and crabs to move in, as they do not thrive in the current low temperatures; and these would pose an existential threat to the biodiversity of the Southern Ocean.
Andrew,
Don’t be a hater. :p
What course of treatment you take depends on all sorts of factors, including insurance coverage, pain, inconvenience, etc.
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The point remains that it is silly to make your diagnosis depend on what the treatment is. The diagnosis should be based on the best available analysis of the facts. The questions about treatment come later.
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Trying to handle it in the other order is just fooling yourself.
“Andrew,
Don’t be a hater. :p”
Mark,
It’s fun to be the Virtual Villain. 🙂
Anyway, I could compare IT Guys with doctors too. Just imagine your computer as the patient. We IT Guys similarly diagnose the poor dear and offer treatments for your issues (like plugging the power cord back in that you kicked out, or simply rebooting, or turning monitor brightness back up, or uninstalling the adware you downloaded). We can fix anything. 😉
Andrew
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This sounds hypothetically much larger than any warming we might expect in the Southern Ocean. That’s particularly true when we consider that the Southern Ocean has been cooling, not warming for the last third century.
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Also, prey and predator tend to work toward equilibrium. Predators which eat all prey don’t do well because they don’t have anything left to eat. And of course, the rate of predation declines before that point because of scarcity. There are too many deer in the US since we removed a lot of the wolves/grizlies/pumas which predated on them. But when they were present, the predators didn’t hunt deer to extinction, just to a lower equilibrium.
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I do tend to get argumentative about this, beyond my education, but I find that the details behind many of the assumptions of AGW contradict or fail to support the popular assertions.
TE,
It’s good. If it weren’t you it’d be me. This way I don’t feel like I’m hogging the comments. 🙂
Neal
I will give you unqualified agreement with this point. Whatever the heck we decide to do has no bearing on understanding what the situation actually is. Yes.
Andrew_KY:
.
And do you diagnose the problem (not the solution) as a function of the cost that the client is wiling to pay; or do you insist on examining the system first?
“do you insist on examining the system first?”
Yes.
And what I and other experts like most doctors do is examine the actual system (electronic or biological) ourselves, not rely on manipulated second hand overly-simplified misrepresenations of abstract averages and vague, misleading descriptions that aren’t even consistent with the images that someone has placed between us and the system.
Andrew
DeWitt,
“The net present value of future costs depends a lot on the discount rate chosen. And if we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot now, it’s possible that the future population will be wealthier and can afford to spend more on adaptation.”
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Ya, well. If you choose a discount rate that is justified by substantial uncertainty (eg 10% to 12% per year… like any normal investment), then the net present value of cost in year 2100 is essentially zero… and no investment at all is economically justified today. If you are MUCH more conservative, and assume the future costs are both well very defined and inevitable (that is, not influenced by future technology), then a discount rate of ~4% per year may be suitable, and the net present value of cost in year 2100 is 3.24% of that cost….. $5 trillion in future costs justifies investment of $162 billion today. Note that is the total investment that is rationally justified… the sum of investment over multiple years, not the investment per year.
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Mitigation today is almost certainly an economic looser.
Neal,
You might want to research the subject of Risk Management. Risk management is all about probabilities and probability distribution functions. There are no one size fits all answers. Right now, using your analogy, the strategy would appear to be to treat for both ulcer and appendicitis.
Appendicitis treatment strategy is interesting. I don’t know if this is true any more, but a while back if you didn’t do something like 25-35% unnecessary appendectomies, you were running too high a risk of a burst appendix and peritonitis. There are risks and costs involved in both taking action and taking no action.
When testing a product, there is both a risk of rejecting a product that is actually within spec and failing to reject a product that is out of spec. These are referred to as Type I and Type II errors. Without knowing something about the distribution of the test results and the distribution of the costs associated with each type of error, you’re flying by the seat of your pants.
The IPCC working groups 2 and 3 are supposed to be about that. The working group 3 report is a bad joke, working group 2 is only somewhat better. Yet we are told that not only is the basic physics settled science, which it pretty much is in spite of the large uncertainty in the estimated range of temperature increase from doubling CO2, but also that the costs of mitigation and the costs of increasing temperature are well understood. They’re not.
TE:
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When new species invade, it can easily happen that the only equilibrium is at zero. Examples: The introduction of rats and cats into isolated islands has wiped out native species of birds.
.
I’m not very trusting of the provenance of the graphic you present: ClimateAudit? How about from people who actually work on the ice: Polar Metrology Group: search on Google for
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00733.1
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And some marine biologists at the British Antarctic Survey think there is something to watch out for: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011683
“Climate change is a significant potential threat to the long-term survival of Antarctic marine communities. The vulnerability of Antarctic marine species to the many facets of climate change is hard to gauge and much debated [36], [37]. The seas to the northeast and the west of the Antarctic Peninsula are some of the fastest warming areas on Earth [38], [39]. The marine environment is also changing rapidly. The collapse of several floating ice shelves has dramatically altered coastal and shelf habitat on the Peninsula. Sea ice formation in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas has decreased by 10% per decade and has also shortened in seasonal length [40]. Because the frequency of ice scour on the shelf seabed is closely linked to sea ice duration, the catastrophic disturbance of shallow biodiversity is likely to significantly increase [16]. There has been an overall warming of surface waters (in the Bellingshausen and Scotia seas) by ∼1°C in the last 50 years, but so far there is no evidence of any biologically meaningful temperature change in waters below about 100 m deep.”
DeWitt:
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My strategy would be to let the doctor do the examination and tests, before addressing the question of what the treatment should be.
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If we’re talking about a patient in the Australian outback, and you have to fly the doctor in to do the examination, then it would probably be good to bring preparations to handle both cases.
===========================================================
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SteveF:
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I’m very skeptical of applying discount rates to future problems of this nature. If you save money on your maintenance bills by discounting the cost of big repairs or even replacement, you can take your added wealth and buy a new car if you have to. If you do that for the planet, where do you go to buy a new planet?
Neal,
Oh, puhleeze.
There is no conceivable way the planet would be ruined sufficiently to make it uninhabitable. Besides, if that were indeed the case, it’s already too late to do anything about it.
Neal, thanks for the notes and the comments. I see you do have the correct expressions for pressure and density for an adiabatic atmosphere comprised of an ideal gas.
I believe the so-called adiabatic (or polytropic) equation of state is a “toy model” and not meant to describe real physics. (I found this writeup that people might find helpful.)
I am focusing on the idea gas law as it is an idealization of “real physics”. I don’t know if there are any real-world solutions that are even approximately polytropic (Ken Rice would likely know).
Neal J. King says:
This is one of those funny examples that stuck with me when I reading up on species extinction. You see, there was something of a scare a while back when crabs were found in the Southern Ocean. People cited it as proof global warming could spell doom for the current ecosystem there. It was talked about in this manner for years with all your typical doomsday stories and rhetoric. I think some people still discuss it that way.
What made this funny to me is it turns out these crabs have been there all along. They just hadn’t been noticed before. The the idea the crabs had left Antarctica over ten million years ago was just wrong, and as such, the idea they were now “invading” the area was silly. It could only be supported by… let’s just say not good work.
Naturally, nobody seems to have changed their views on the subject based on that. Crabs which have been in the area for hundreds of years are still going to destroy that ecosystem with their invasion.
Neal King,
“If you do that for the planet, where do you go to buy a new planet?”
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Good grief, this is utter rubbish…. wild eyed fantasies running totally out of control.
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The good news is that your comment draws a clear distinction between reasonable/rational analysis and the ‘green partisan’ POV. If you ever wonder why people resist the green agenda, just re-read your nonsensical comment.
Carrick:
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The essential difference between my toy model and the Lane-Emden model is that they include self-gravitation, whereas I leave that out, because I don’t have a computing platform to do good computational programming. Another good example of why it’s better not to let the limitations of your solution dictate the terms of the question!
– But I wouldn’t call the Lane-Emden model a toy model: I think it’s a self-consistent subset of the real physics. It leaves out all radiative issues, and it cannot handle the question of nuclear fusion.
– It’s interesting to see that these models also have some dependence on the index n (which is = F/2 in my terminology).
Crabs:
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The crabs presently in the Southern Ocean live in a very restricted area: the East Scotia Ridge. Why? Because:
a) The ridge has chimney-like vents of water at 380 Celsius. The crabs live on the vents.
b) Crabs don’t do very well in extremely cold water – like the rest of the Southern Ocean.
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So a warm-up of the S.O. would still open up new territory for crabs. The currently resident crabs have been separated from their cousins for about 12 million years. They may start to get family visitations in the near future.
Neal J. King:
Sure, maybe. But when doomsday type rhetoric is used for years only to have the entire basis for it shown to be false, saying, “Well okay, but there could still be a different, real problem” doesn’t do much to convince people they should be worried.
Which is kind of the biggest problem global warming advocates have. When they constantly promote things that are wrong, even at the highest levels with things that are complete nonsense (e.g. Michael Mann’s hockey stick), they make it so people have no reason to trust what they say. Especially since there is almost never any frank admission when they realize they screwed up.
Antarctic crabs:
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Let’s look into the history of this topic just a little.
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January 2012:
A paper on the topic of potentially invasive king crabs, by Smith et al. The concern is that the rapid increase of Southern Ocean water temperature may allow the king crabs to enter.
A large population of king crabs in Palmer Deep on the west Antarctic Peninsula shelf and potential invasive impacts
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.1496
So they discover these crabs, and they think there could be a problem. Maybe they’re invading.
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In the conclusions, they say:
“In the future, Smith and colleagues hope to conduct population genetic studies of the Palmer Deep king crab to reconstruct it colonization history, and to see whether this population is connected to populations of the same species in deep-water on the other side of Antarctica. These studies could help to predict how king crabs may disperse and colonize new habitats in Antarctic waters in the coming decades.”
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July 2013:
Antarctic Crabs: Invasion or Endurance?
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066981
Griffiths et al. point out that there is no evidence for invasion. They suggest a targeted sampling program to test the invasion theory.
“We conclude there is no evidence for a modern-day ‘crab invasion’. We recommend a repeated targeted lithodid sampling program along the West Antarctic shelf to fully test the validity of the ‘invasion hypothesis’.”
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September 2015:
Aronson et al. publish a paper pointing out the lack of barriers to invasion within a few decades. In an interview with Newsweek, she points out that the Southern Ocean has gained 1.5 deg-C in the last 50 years.
No barrier to emergence of bathyal king crabs on the Antarctic shelf.
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DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1513962112
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They point out that currently there is a cold-water barrier at depth 200 meters that it is not expected that the crabs can cross. But at the measured rate of temperature rise, that could be gone within several decades.
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“Declining temperatures in the Southern Ocean after the Eocene drove benthic communities on the Antarctic shelf from a typically Cenozoic structure and function to the retrograde, quasi-Paleozoic character they exhibit today. Anthropogenic climate change is now rapidly rewarming the Southern Ocean, potentially reversing this trend. At present rates of warming, lithodids should be able to survive in inner-shelf and coastal environments (above 200 m) within several decades. Emergence of predatory lithodids on the continental shelf could be a critical step toward remodernizing benthic communities in Antarctica and functionally homogenizing them with benthic-shelf communities at lower latitudes. Such changes would fundamentally alter the Antarctic benthos and diminish the global diversity of marine ecosystems.”
.
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So, I don’t really get the outrage.
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Some scientists thought there might be an invasion going currently.
Other scientists looked into it, and pointed out the limitations of the material: No evidence.
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But some other scientists point out that there is every possibility for an invasion within several decades: the SO is heating up, and the only observable barrier is the cold water at 200 meters.
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I think it’s a reasonable concern. If I went looking for one problem and didn’t find it, that doesn’t mean that I should ignore problems that I do see. Scientists are supposed to keep their eyes open, not plug up their ears.
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Reality doesn’t quit at 5 o’clock.
OK, so maybe the “new planet shop” was over the top.
.
The point remains that not everything can be compensated by $$. There are a lot of things upon which we place great value that cannot be replaced: national parks, endangered species, coral reefs. If someone destroys my car, I am reasonably satisfied by a cash compensation, if it meets my sense of the car’s value. If Yosemite Park were to be destroyed in some way, how would we seek compensation – and what would constitute compensation?
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It seems to me that the whole concept of using net present value is based on the idea that, instead of spending money preventing a ‘bad’, you save the money, get a rate of return, and use that money to pay-off the ‘bad’. I don’t see how it is supposed to work for the guy who experiences the ‘bad’; unless everything you value can be evaluated monetarily.
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For the saver, it’s giving him “permission to trash”; but for the guy who gets the trash, it really misses the point.
.
Put it this way: Think of something that you want to see but haven’t yet; or have visited and want to return to. It could be Half-Dome in Yosemite; it could be the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat; it could be the Great Barrier Reef. It could even be the aurora borealis.
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If I were to say to you, “Let’s make a deal: For an amount of $X that I will give you, you agree that you will never see that thing again, ever. And for an additional $Y, we’ll make the deal that none of your descendents will ever see it either.”
a) How much would X have to be?
b) How much would Y have to be?
c) How many such deals could you accept before you began to feel that your life was actually being impoverished by these deals?
More alarmism I’m afraid, Neal.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/295/5558/1275
Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer floats recorded temperatures in depths between 700 and 1100 meters in the Southern Ocean throughout the 1990s. These temperature records are systematically warmer than earlier hydrographic temperature measurements from the region, suggesting that mid-depth Southern Ocean temperatures have risen 0.17°C between the 1950s and the 1980s.
So how much warming do you think these crabs need to invade from up North if their polar cousins live near vents warming the water with 380C water? You’d have to think several degrees at least…and so at the current rate of warming “near future” equates to something like 700 years.
TTTM:
King crabs are not the same as the Sauna crabs
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Detail from the 3rd article:
The crabs of concern are quite different: They have not adopted the sauna lifestyle of the Antarctic crabs.
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“The thermal range of P. birsteini, ∼0.4–2.5 °C (24), as well as images collected off Anvers Island, 380 km to the northeast, strongly suggest that adults were actively feeding on the slope at temperatures at least as low as 0.82 °C (49). Water temperatures on the upper slope (550–800 m) and lower (outer) shelf (400–550 m) were, therefore, within the known thermal tolerance of this species at the time of the survey, which was conducted in the austral summer. Temperatures in the austral fall and winter are generally greater than 1.0 °C at shelf depths below 200 m off Marguerite Bay, because of localized intrusions of the Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) and a general, multidecadal trend of shallowing of the CDW in the Bellingshausen Sea (41, 45, 50, 51). A cold-water barrier to lithodids remains at depths above 200 m, where Antarctic surface water and winter water typically keep ambient temperatures below 0 °C year-round (41, 43). In contrast, cold Antarctic surface water can persist as deep as 500 m in parts of the Weddell and Ross Seas, suggesting that king crabs may be physiologically excluded from outer-shelf habitats in those locations (52).”
Background on local temperature trends:
“The bathymetric distribution of lithodids could change in the next few decades, however. Summertime sea-surface temperatures and temperatures of the Antarctic Shelf Bottom Waters off the WAP have risen by nearly 1.5 °C over the past 50 y, approximately double the globally averaged rate (45). Rising temperatures in shallow waters off the WAP will likely remove the thermal barrier to lithodids (and other reptant decapods) within the next several decades, facilitating their expansion into shallow, nearshore habitats (18). Judging from the strong, predatory role of invasive lithodids in Arctic food webs (33, 46), as well as the predatory impacts of the brachyuran snow crab Chionoecetes opilio in the Arctic (47), the effects of predation by lithodids could be severe in shallow-benthic communities in Antarctica (19, 40). “
Well you’re the one who wrote
So make up your mind…
SteveF
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Since you brought in the NPV method, I would be really interested in your response to #144338.
TTTM:
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There are two different groups of crabs. The king (no relation) crabs are at the outside edge, and are known to be quite predatory. The other crabs, that are inside the Antarctic zone, stay in the nice sauna regions, which are quite restricted. I don’t think they even eat normal crab food.
Neal : Ok.
I have to wonder at… “the barriers to biological invasion are primarily physiological rather than geographic.”
That argument seems to be argumentative rather than a solid scientific finding. Did they poll the crabs or something?
TTTM:
–
I assume from the content that your quote is from the 3rd paper; but I can’t find it. I could guess at what they’re saying, in reliance on my reading of the rest of the paper. But it would be less troublesome if you were to indicate where to find this statement: which paper, and do you have the exact quote, or are you quoting from memory?
TTTM: Summary of article by the staff of the journal
.
King crab habitat range
King crabs and other predators that can crush the exoskeletons of their prey have been excluded from the shallow habitats of the Antarctic continental shelf by cold water temperatures. Richard Aronson et al. (pp. 12997–13002) observed king crab specimens on the continental slope of the Antarctic continent at depths between 841 and 2266 m, with evidence of an average reproducing population of 4.5 individuals per 1,000 m2 on the slope. At the time of the 2010–2011 survey, the authors note, water temperatures on the outer continental shelf presented no thermal barrier to migration of king crabs up to the continental shelf, around 400–550 m. Cold surface water presented a barrier to migration to coastal areas, but echinoderms, such as sea urchins, and mollusks were abundant on the outer continental shelf and would serve as prey for king crabs if the crabs were to emerge onto the continental shelf. The results suggest that warming waters may allow king crabs and other shell-crushing predators to expand their habitat range, and that the presence of such predators may reshape food webs in a affected eco-systems, according to the authors. — P.G.
Neal,
Just for the sake of applying our discussion, I suspect you aren’t a Crab Expert and are relying on second-hand information and haven’t studied the system in question yourself.
Tell me if I’m wrong.
Andrew
Neal,
The trouble I’ve got with the topic of extinctions is that regardless of how I personally feel (and I do feel like it’s a bad idea to wipe out other species indiscriminately), the impact I always hear seems to amount to a lot of arm waving.
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I read that we are connected to and deeply dependent on these other species, I read about the web of life and ecosystems, and yet humans have been driving other species into extinction virtually since we came down from the trees and mastered fire. Why are we still here, given our deep dependencies on these species we’ve already wiped out?
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Like everything else, this seems to come back to the question of ‘how severe will AGW be?’ If we lose only few more species a little faster, crappy as this sentiment is, I fail to see why anyone other than a handful of scientists will even notice.
Neal King,
Once you refuse to value a future outcome, then you move away from rational discourse and into the rhelm of religion. Which, BTW is perfectly consistent with the kinds of conflict we see in many places; the Arabs and Jews don’t fight about a little strip of land because it is a particularly nice place to live…. they have strong motives which are quite independent of calculable value. As I have said probably a hundred times before, the fundamental disagreement with global warming is about values, priorities, goals, etc, not science, and so can only be peacefully resolved at the ballot box.
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My personal interest in climate science would be zero, save for that I see ‘science’ being used improperly to advance what is fundamentally a political POV. And a POV which I think will cause real and lasting damage to the poorest people on Earth, a profoundly immoral outcome. I can’t in good conscience stand by while shoddy ‘science’ is used to force immoral policies on humanity. My reading of the product of climate science (papers and publications) is that like you, nearly everyone working in the field is driven by political/moral views that bias just about everything they do…. yes, the claim is almost always ‘it’s worse than we thought’, even when the factual data says otherwise. Every paper which shows less than catastrophic outcomes is nevertheless buffered with solemn observations about the need to drastically reduce fossil fuel use. The bias is strong and nearly uniform… a reasonable guess might be 97%…. which is apropos for what seems to me a field driven by a religious reverence for not allowing any change in ‘nature’.
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If you think the future impacts of economic and human development will be negative, then I would reply that you must therefore think the world was a better place 20,000 years ago before humans hunted large animals to extinction in the Americas, before farming, indeed, before civilization itself. If not, why not?
Rabett
Lucia
Doesn’t Harry Potter have one?
Steve, Neal,
.
This is interesting. I’m driven by political and moral views. Do my views bias what I do? I hope so! I’d hate to think I’m behaving immorally because I worry that I don’t have an absolute objective basis for my judgements between right and wrong!
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I don’t see how to get away from this. One consequence I think is that this underscores why it’s such a bad idea to mix advocacy and science any more than we have to. Like I touched on earlier; shenanigans versus the genuine article, effectiveness versus honesty. P.R. versus science. Was it Pielke Jr. who said everybody’s got a worldview and an agenda and the best you can do is to be an honest broker? (I might have that wrong, been awhile).
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I’ll take the science sandwich, hold the advocacy, activism and the spicey PR sauce please. 🙂
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Andrew_KY:
Am I an expert on crabs?
Absolutely not.
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I suspect if we limited discussion at this blog only to discussion made by experts on their own area of expertise, there would not be a whole lot of discussion.
Mark,
The Honest Broker was the title of a book written by Pielke, Jr. One can be an honest broker, an advocate or a stealth advocate. The stealth advocate pretends to be an honest broker but isn’t. Advocates are up front about their agenda.
It’s been a while since I read it, but your comment seems reasonably accurate.
Thanks DeWitt, that’s right it comes back to me now.
SteveF:
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OK, if a rational person must be able to value any future outcome, and if you regard yourself as a rational person, then in particular you must be able to value any future outcome.
.
Is that true? or not?
And by ANY, I mean ANY: Not just “plausible conquences of global warming.”
Can you take that challenge? For the 1st question, you can pick an event like the ones I mentioned before. (For the next question, it’ll get tougher, maybe very uncomfortable.) What is your value for X, and for Y?
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And yes, I do claim that I asked first, so I want my answers first.
“Andrew_KY:
Am I an expert on crabs?
Absolutely not.”
“I suspect if we limited discussion at this blog only to discussion made by experts on their own area of expertise, there would not be a whole lot of discussion.”
Neal, you are quite correct.
I thank you for your straightforward answer. Discussions of different points of view should always continue.
With that being said, you aren’t The Doctor here. None of us are. So while we have our pet positions on things, and we can regurgitate material we like, let’s face it, none of us have a scientific handle of what’s going on with crabs in the Antarctic. Repeating what others say is the best we can do. And that’s not much, so let’s not try and leave a false impression about what we actually know.
Andrew
Mark:
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As a matter of human fact, people largely ARE bothered by extinctions, maybe to a degree that is surprising and “irrational”. Some people may feel that it is a matter of “taking care of God’s creation.” Others may feel that other animals are co-sharing the planet with us, and shouldn’t be booted off. For whatever the reason or rationale, I think a lot of people feel a twinge of sadness when hearing more bad news about rhinoceroses being wiped out.
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Personally I feel more concern about losing species with unique characteristics. I could argue that valuing unique characteristics leads towards valuing genetic diversity, which is llkely to make an ecosystem more robust against change. But in fact I don’t think anything we say on values can be defended as wholely based on logically unassailable foundations. At some point, we have to accept that we have the values that we have. Then you can still run into trouble if your actions and decisions don’t promote the values you claim. But even at that point, complete consistency in coordinating values and actions is pretty rare, to say the least.
Neal,
+1.
We are rational, but we are animals. At the end of the day our intellect doesn’t change our nature. Why is it ‘irrational’ for me to value puppy dogs? It’s not. I value them; I think they’re cute and they make me happy; it’s not a subject that requires validation against a criteria of ‘rational / irrational’. Why do I value music? Well, who cares? I value it; it’s not subject to dispute.
.
I don’t know where this leads us in the discussion yet, but I don’t have an issue with this.
Andrew_KY:
.
Indeed, that’s why I prefer to quote articles, in areas where I don’t feel confident that I can think on my feet. The people that write these things are supposed to be experts: They spend a heck of a lot more time on their areas than I do. That doesn’t make their opinions into absolute fact; but it does give them a leg up on their topic.
.
In physics and mathematical areas, I don’t bother to quote unless someone really needs an “authoritative statement”. An argument is better won by reasoning than by quotation of authority, even of legitimate authority.
Neal,
It’s all well and good to declare the sky is falling and we have to do something drastic right now. The problem is the something. We’re not going to kill 90+% of the current global population and go back to being hunter-gatherers. A drastic reduction of the standard of living in the developed world is also a non-starter.
We need non-fossil fuel primary energy sources that can supply energy 24/7. Nuclear reactors can do that, but you don’t like them. Wind and solar alone can’t do that without very expensive storage. Wind is death on bats and birds. Solar requires square miles of area. Rooftop panels alone won’t do it. I don’t see the world giving up air travel either. You’ll still need high energy density liquid fuels for airplanes. Electric cars and trucks will need a large expansion in current generating capacity.
What’s your plan? If you don’t have a plan, whinging about species extinction is fairly pointless.
“The people that write these things are supposed to be experts: They spend a heck of a lot more time on their areas than I do”
Neal,
This goes to another failure in the Doctor Analogy. In the case of real doctors, you have the opportunity to examine the system in question for evidence along with your doctor. In some ways you have a more accurate experience of the system than the doctor does. Reality checks can happen.
This doesn’t get to happen with the Antarctic crabs scenario.
Andrew
A pointless side excursion on nuclear – take the Bellefonte nuclear plant. I drive by it anytime I need to go to Chattanooga (which isn’t often, but anyway). So here we’ve got this nuclear plant, already completed, already there. Are we using it? Are we going to use it? Heck no. The TVA plans to sell the site.
.
It boggles the mind. Where is Obama and the EPA? How come there’s nobody there to say, ‘Wait a second! This is an expensive power plant that’s already completed, it’s got no CO2 emissions and we’re literally going to throw the thing away, this makes no sense!’
[Edit: Ok, so it’s not “done”. Still.]
Neal King,
“And by ANY, I mean ANY: Not just “plausible conquences of global warming.â€
.
I won’t play that game. A discussion of plausible outcomes is fine, but not crazy ones.
.
Want to talk about the NPV of future losses in Florida if sea levels rise by 2 meters in 200 years? Fine. Want to talk about the value of the beauty of a certain view in the Dry Tortugas which might be lost in 200 years? Nope, we are not ever likely to agree on that value. Which is why I said the ballot box is where these questions are answered.
.
But you ignore my fundamental point: I see climate science being improperly used to advance a certain set of values/priorities/goals by routine exaggeration of projected negative outcomes, and complete dismissal of positive outcomes. Heck, what got this thread started was Brandon’s ebook about how climate science “enforces” the mainstream (green) views of the field and does not tolerate dissent. Believe it or not, lots of people who work in science and engineering outside of ‘climate science’ find the persecution of ‘climate infidels’ quite appalling. Lots of people who work outside of climate science find it appalling that ‘climate scientists’ think it a good idea to prosecute those who disagree with their policy goals using RICO laws.
.
It is pointless to argue about the NPV of national parks 100 or 200 (or 1,000!) years from now, but quite reasonable to argue about the accuracy of ‘the science’ which makes implausible projections about the future of national parks. Honest, solid science has a role to play in informing the voters about all kinds of plausible outcomes…. but must not be used as a tool for advancing the policy views of those who work in climate science. Roger Pielke Jr. wrote a whole book about it… “Honest Broker”… and activist climate climate scientists loath him. No surprise there.
Mark Bofill,
Low cost natural gas fired plants are a much cheaper alternative than completing those nuclear reactors. If you want to argue that the CO2 added to the atmosphere from the natural gas fired plants makes the nuclear plants a better option, then you have to apply the same logic to all uses of fossil fuels…. cars, airplanes, container ships, everything.
.
And that means rational evaluation of future warming and its consequences. This is the part that is missing from the discussion.
One last aside,
Different things really can have different value to different people, I think this is an important part of why trade works.
I grow wheat. I’ve got flour and bread and such coming out of my eyeballs, past the first few loaves a day and a small part of the first vat of beer and whatever, the stuff has diminishing value to me personally. I’m sick of it, I want something else. To somebody else who raises apples the surplus wheat is a lot more valuable than it is to me, just as their surplus apples are more valuable to me than they are to them.
Surplus is just one example, there are others.
SteveF,
Absolutely.
Yes. Okay.
Yes.
The point I’d like to make is that I’d be more willing to work with people who believe AGW will be a serious threat / CS is high if they were willing to meet me halfway. We could talk about paying more for reliable power, if we could talk about that. Do we really have to get from Miami to Alaska? Fine, lets talk about taking the truck. It’s when they won’t meet me halfway that I give up and decide it’s pointless. Nothing will do except that we reinvent our power infrastructure from the ground up with untried experiments. Nothing will do except that we must roller skate to Alaska. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me, and it makes me believe the people [edit: some] who profess concern about AGW aren’t really serious.
shrug
Mark (quoting SteveF).
Beyond that, if we start valuing “lost views” we would need to compute the value of “gained views”. Some of those gained views we already know or can estimate pretty well, ( lost views when wind farms, solar panels, pig enclosure, suburban develpmentare erected ). Others we don’t know. If a glacier melts, we will lose that view, but it will be replaced by another one. Mountain tops covered with flowers trees and so on are also considered beautiful. Maybe the view will be “nicer” or maybe “less nice”.
Calculation of the net cost associated with “lost views” becomes impossible.
Neal,
I really suspect this is a big part of why the whole tin foil hat controversy comes up, Lewandowsky’s studies notwithstanding. It looks for all the world to me like there is some extra agenda when the reasonable compromises are ignored by the party that wants the change. It’s like some piece of the story is missing.
Lucia,
Great point. To make a possibly crazy switch/ apparent non-sequitur that hopefully isn’t really one, I think this is why capitalism and freedom are preferable to centrally planned controlled societies. Nobody can compute this stuff out in advance, it’s crazy to think so. The very best we can do is adopt conventions that allow us to exploit what comes our way, that lets us choose.
Okay. It was a bit of a non-sequitur. I tried. 🙂
DeWitt:
– I’ve always said that agreeing on solutions is going to be harder than agreeing on the problem.
– I had the opportunity to work on energy production systems long time ago. It was clear then that there were big institutional and social issues that were much harder to address than the purely technical issues. I did’t take it: These sorts of problems are not my forte.
.
SteveF:
– I didn’t ask you broker an agreement on a number, just to state one for yourself. If you cannot do that, then either there are issues for which the NPV approach don’t apply, or you are not rational. Take your pick.
– And many of the climate scientists I’ve chatted with simply don’t find that the articles some people get published, often in journals only remotely related to climate, to be good work.
– Some of us don’t find RPj to be an honest broker.
.
Andrew_KY:
– If you want to become an expert on Antarctic stuff, I’m sure that is (or was) possible. You had other things to do with your life. Part of the price of that was that you’re not expert on Antarctic stuff. Neither am I. C’est la vie.
SteveF,
I didn’t answer you very well, because I had the bit in my teeth w/respect to what I was already thinking about.
You are correct. We need to know what we are talking about. What are the consequences likely to be. I think this goes back to the value of CS though, for which we remain more or less at the same level of ignorance we’ve been since the question was raised in the first place. CS? 1.5 to something high C. So we are uncertain, as we’ve been since day one.
So what to do? Well, … and that’s where my train of thought started.
Lucia,
“Beyond that, if we start valuing “lost views†we would need to compute the value of “gained viewsâ€. ”
.
Get with the program: all consequences, large and small, of human influence on the Earth are inherently evil. Just drive around the UK or Tuscany in late May if you want to see how evil human influence is. Heck, no wolves and no ‘old growth’ native forests… just ugly parks, nu-natural meadows, repulsive towns, and hideous farms. Which is why I am thinking of asking for volunteers to commit suicide to eliminate their personal negative impact on the Earth. For the weak, we could offer assistance.
SteveF,
🙂 Of course you are joking and who the heck am I of all people to throw stones given all of the horse manure I drop around here looking for a chuckle still (AhHEM-overthetop) excuse me allergies been bothering me this week. :p
Neal King,
I guess you missed this: “Arabs and Jews don’t fight about a little strip of land because it is a particularly nice place to live…. they have strong motives which are quite independent of calculable value. As I have said probably a hundred times before, the fundamental disagreement with global warming is about values, priorities, goals, etc, not science, and so can only be peacefully resolved at the ballot box.”
.
Let me be even more clear: some things don’t have assignable financial value (the Temple Mount in Jerusalem comes to mind). Those are things lead to disagreements which are settled by ballot… or bayonet. Of course, you don’t think anyone (like Roger Pielke Jr.) who finds climate science biased by green political views could be right. That’s because you are an advocate for green views.
.
Neal, one thing that makes me question your beliefs is your willingness to accept the plausible memes without testing them with observations for yourself.
.
The claim above, in context, is easy enough to test with GISS data. The plot, of trend from 1967 through 2016 for DecJanFeb ( Antarctic Summer ) looks like this ( use the tool if the graphic times out ).
.
Now, the Argo floats can’t yet operate around Antarctica ( because the models to operate under ice aren’t yet operational ) so we don’t know details of Antarctica at depth.
But we do know that since most of the year, Antarctic air is very much below freezing and since during summer, Antarctic waters are at about freezing, that Antarctic waters at depth won’t ever vary much from freezing for millions of years.
.
Whatever is going on with crabs and sharks, climate doesn’t seem to be an important factor.
“C’est la vie.”
Neal,
Life is what it is, but it’s almost like you are completely oblivious to the rather obvious points I and others are making.
I’m not expecting a response, but if you’d like to address what I’ve just commented, please do so.
Andrew
Neal,
So let me apologize, maybe that’s in order. I keep professing to be interested in understanding your viewpoints, what makes you different from me, so on, and then I get sidetracked into arguing AGW with you. Old habits and all that I guess. Still, I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t lying about my original premise, just that it’s fun to argue and I’m easily sidetracked.
Neal J. King seems to be trying very difficult to not understand what I said. He says:
What he conveniently fails to address at all is how the “outrage” (yeah, because I was screaming mad) was described as being over how:
Whether or not some additional species of crabs may be able to migrate to the Southern Ocean or not in the future has little to do with the fact people cited the existence of crabs found in the Southern Ocean as proof there was an “invasion” already happening, caused by global warming, the issue at hand in the paper which said:
People claimed the “invasion” was already happening due to global warming. That led to all sorts of articles and news stories with doomsday rhetoric. It was false. There was no evidenciary basis for it. That King wants to say there may be an invasion in the future does nothing to address that. Especially not when he says:
Maybe King should take this up with the scientists and science journalists who spent a decade or more talking about how the crabs found in the Southern Ocean were proof there was an “invasion” already underway that could spell doom for the ecosystem there.
So yeah, maybe at some unknown point in the future predatory crabs will “invade” the Southern Ocean and cause significant damage to the ecosystem there. But we’ve been told for over a decade that it is already happening so it’s rather funny to hear that it merely may happen in the future.
Neal,
To both change the subject and get at something else I’m interested in, may I ask why you are here talking with the Blackboard at this time?
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That’s a difference between us. I rather admire people like you who brave the occasional hostility to take the initiative to talk with people who disagree with you. Even though I value other viewpoints, I don’t personally find it worth the abuse and the occasional blood pressure spikes. [Edit, to venture out to comment at pro consensus (or whatever) blogs.] But maybe I’m just too sceerd of new experiences. 🙂 Why do you bother? Not to appear ungrateful, because I am grateful for the chance to talk from the comfort of the BlackBoard, just curious and maybe a little envious.
Turbulent Eddie:
GISS doesn’t use as much data as there is, however, so comparing whatever it might say to what the authors say is tricky. Since the authors used data sets with better coverage for the area, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think their results are more accurate. Especially since they used ocean temperatures, not surface or near-surface temperatures.
That said, it is interesting to look at what data the authors used for their claims. Most interesting to me is while the quote Neal J. King provides refers to warming over the last 50 years, the study in question only used data since 1975 and up to 2012-2013. That’s more like 40 years. And until at least 1990, the data coverage was terrible. The authors even show that for ~20% of the area they looked at, they didn’t even compute trends for more than 20-25 years because of that sparse coverage.
That all said, I can’t figure out the justification for the quote King provides at all. I’m looking at the trend lines by the authors of the paper cited in that quote, and they seem to indicate radically different results. For the Weddell Sea, there isn’t even a trend. For the Bellinghausen Sea, the trend line shows a less than .5C change in temperatures (which itself is heavily influenced by relatively sparse data prior to 1985). The greatest trend is for the Amundsen Sea, which isn’t by the WAP and only shows a change of ~.75 degrees if we extrapolate it back to 1975 even though it has no data prior to ~1984.
I haven’t the slightest idea where the results in that quotation come from, but they seem to fly in the face of the results of the paper they cite. The paper doesn’t have (even spare) data for 50 years, and the results for it I can see are nothing like what the quotation claims.
Mark:
.
I occasionally drop by just to see what’s going on. On this occasion, there was a physics issue that was actually interesting to play with. Everything else that came up was by the way. Sorry.
.
There is something that puzzles me a little bit. People at The Blackboard seem to have a very strong take on what you seem to think people at SkS are thinking about and trying to do. Judging by what I see here, you guys are over-interpreting by a factor of 10. It’s actually amusing.
.
But I didn’t come here to try to talk you guys out of it: It’s probably impossible, and anyway I don’t care. I am just visiting.
Neal,
Are you saying we take SkS more seriously than the Sks’ers do?
🙂 That is pretty entertaining, actually.
Don’t apologize though, speaking for myself anyways I enjoy the conversation.
Mark Bofill:
I wish I could “comment at pro consensus (or whatever) blogs.” I’ve yet to find one that won’t censor/ban me if I try though. Well, there was Arthur Smith’s place where he demanded I provide evidence for claims, and when I provided it said he’d look at the evidence. Then he turned around and went to other sites and told everybody I refused to provide evidence when it was requested, multiple times even after I pointed out I had provided it to him and he claimed he’d look at it.
But hey, he didn’t censor or ban me from his site. I’m pretty sure he’s the only one. I’m also relatively certain if I had kept commenting at his site (which I wouldn’t have, given how inactive it was), he would have probably done it too.
Brandon,
Yeah. In fairness though it’s been along time since I’ve tried. It seems like Ander’s is the place these days, but. Anders would probably only tolerate me if I kept a firm hold on my tongue and temper. Basically I’d have to make a remark or two, let the peanut gallery put me in my place, and shut up about it.
Now I get that, and it’s a free internet, and if that’s the way it is, then more power to him; it’s his blog. I just don’t want to participate that way.
…
but partly it’s also that it takes balls and confidence to go talk with a bunch of people who are predisposed to hostility towards you because they’ve got different viewpoints. I don’t mind giving people who are willing to deal with that credit where it’s due. 🙂
Andrew_KY:
.
I’m responding as best as I can. But you seem to have a real resentment against scientists, and I don’t see any particular way of working around that. The data does come from them, so they always have more control over how it’s going to be presented, and so on. If at a basic level, you really don’t think that they’re trying to find things out, but are just trying to pull a fast one over the taxpayers, then there’s really not much use in discussing anything, because it will always go back to the “I just don’t trust them” attitude. That’s like falling into a black hole: there’s no way out, nor can you clarify anything with anyone from that position.
Turbulent Eddy:
.
I don’t do data crunching. Anything that takes more computation than a spreadsheet is a problem I would rather avoid, because I would have to set myself up with a Python platform or something and get it working.
“But you seem to have a real resentment against scientists”
Sure I do, Neal. You figured me out, just like you solved the riddle of the Antarctic.
You saved the world again. Congrats.
But I’ll be back soon in a different disguise though, with a new scheme to undermine scientists.
Andrew
Python rocks! :>
Mark Bofill:
Or you could just be wrong, a lot. One thing I noted some time back is Anders will let people he disagrees with who do a bad job of making a case comment. I know one user did so for months, with attitude and behavior as bad as or worse than that of people who had been banned there.
Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe I misjudged things. If not though, it means Anders’s willingness to use moderation increases with his inability to find a different answer. I think one could make a strong case that’s true, based on far more than what I’ve referred to.
Strangely, I’ve always preferred to talk to people I disagree with. The hostility part, maybe not so much, but even that doesn’t really bother me. As long as people are actually having a discussion, I don’t care how mean or rude they might be with it. After all, what matters is the points people make, not the manner in which they make them.
Brandon,
Yes. I couldn’t prove it and it doesn’t matter anyway; it’s perfectly fine any way you slice it, but I think the ATTP blog is Ander’s vent. If you clog his vent he will ban you and clear it. That’s fine! It is his vent.
.
I like talking with intelligent people that I disagree with. 🙂 I don’t like hostility though, nope. I don’t have to deal with it much in my happy world, and I sort of like it that way.
Sure the point matters, and in the end the manner in which they make the point doesn’t have any bearing on the issue, but it matters to me. I don’t like being rude. I don’t like having to swallow somebody else’s bad manners. ~shrug~
Anyways.
Sorry for a somewhat topical comment again, but I had recently checked the sales for my book (I have a post about it at my site), and I just looked at it again. It is now at:
As well as third in Weather and fifth in Environmental Science. Leaving aside how good or bad that might be, the last time I checked it was at ~#21,000 in the Kindle Store, fifth in Weather and sixth in Environmental Science.
I don’t know if it’s a fluke or what, but… it’s interesting.
SteveF:
.
On RPj:
Maybe you’re right. All I can say is that reading anything by RPj irritates me. We could look at a piece and see why, but by now it’s automatic.
.
How to get me to stop reading what you’ve written:
When you go on like this: “I see climate science being improperly used to advance a certain set of values/priorities/goals by routine exaggeration of projected negative outcomes, and complete dismissal of positive outcomes…. “enforces†the mainstream (green) views of the field and does not tolerate dissent…. lots of people who work in science and … persecution of ‘climate infidels’… appalling …”, I just can’t read it. My eyes glaze over. Sorry, but nothing further is processed beyond that point.
.
So I probably did miss some of what you wrote.
lucia:
.
The reason I brought up the value of experiences was not because I think anyone will find a way of putting a commercial value on a view, but because I had the impression SteveF was saying that refusing to accept a discount factor for future damages was just irrational, and I wanted to propose a thought experiment to clarify that notion.
.
As it happens, I didn’t have the right interpretation of what he was saying. I guess that’s what conversation’s for.
Neal,
So Robert wasn’t here as your … ‘wingman’?
.
~blush~ I know it’s a silly term, but that’s the one I’ve heard used…
.
I just thought it strange that he popped up from nowhere, made a comment that didn’t really connect to anything at around the same time you commented.
.
Doesn’t really matter, just saying. Just conspiracy theorizing. Just taking my tin foil hat out for a spin! :> I feel the fury recurring! Woohoo!
Okay so maybe I should lay off the drugs.
Mark:
.
No, I don’t know him – at least by that name.
.
I have to agree with his comment, however.
“if somebody leaves their front door unlocked, it’s not burglary, everyone knows that”
Another bad analogy.
Must be a thing.
Andrew
It’s good to know Neal J. King agrees with this statement:
Though perhaps he could explain how anything I did comes remotely close to stealing data. Robert sure hasn’t bothered to.
Really? We’re going to get back on topic after we’ve had such a successful off topic run?
Okay. sigh
Hey, it’s your fault Mark Bofill. You’re the one who brought up Robert’s comment.
We’ve discussed this at length before, but I don’t see that a web site and a house are anything alike, making Robert’s analogy nugatory.
There’s also the part where the material was posted in a publicly accessible location to which John Cook’s server directed me. I don’t think that’s how thieves usually work.
Say, this tinfoil hat is stylish. A little red paint and it’d look like part of the Flash’s costume!
So I’m going to indulge in counterfactual reasoning and speculate that John does this on purpose. What the purpose is I can’t guess. But come on. How many times does somebody get burned this way before they wise up? Google Drive, wouldn’t that take care of it?
It’s almost got to be deliberate. Unless he’s just stubborn lazy? I don’t think I see evidence of that in general.
Basically, if you know you’re not wanted someplace, it’s not polite to go there.
If someone accidentally leaves a window unlocked, that’s not an invitation to go inside looking for things.
And the big difference is that if you’re not a security freak, it’s much harder to tell when you’ve left something open in your system than in your house.
There were slightly different things going on at different times. And some of the things BS claims about the setup are just wrong; basically just lies.
Neal,
I don’t disagree that it was rude of Brandon to go there. But that’s about it I’m afraid. The net is a public place generally speaking; sharing information is the default assumption. And come on. It isn’t hard to secure information. I grant you that Brandon knows he’s not wanted, but how the heck is the rest of the world even supposed to know this is a secret? Lock it up for goodness sakes if it’s private.
Mark Bofill:
Plenty of the links I saw were to things stored in Google Drive. Some were publicly accessible, likely because they were things the owners intended for people to be able to share them. Others weren’t publicly accessible, likely because they were things the owners didn’t intend for people to be able to share.
Pretty simple, right? I don’t see what’s so difficult. John Cook specifically secured specific portions of his servers then put material in other portions of those servers. Time and time again.
Neal J. King:
How in the world would anyone know you’re not supposed to look at a document located in a directory created to store documents to share with people? There were dozens of other files in that same directory which are linked to on the Skeptical Science website. Short of mind-reading, how could I have possibly known I wasn’t “wanted someplace”?
And also: *snorts* I’m pretty sure I’m not wanted anywhere at Skeptical Science. I don’t think that makes it stealing when I visit.
Mark:
.
a) Would you ever make a practice, out of curiosity, of trying the windows in your neighbour’s house on a regular basis to see if any had been left unlocked accidentally?
b) If it were open one day, would it be right for you to go inside and sneak around? Take photos of documents?
c) Should John have been more careful? Sure, but there are a lot of ways that things can go wrong. Let’s look at the actor in the situation: Would you feel proud of yourself for sneaking and stealing in this way? Really?
Wow. I’m usually pretty flippant about the bogus accusations made against me, but… wow. Neal J. King really needs to do something to explain this statement:
Accusing other commenters of having lied is rather serious, especially when it comes to potentially illegal activities. Given this accusation is completely bogus, I’m not sure how to react. Especially not when King has no real basis for his accusation.
I even recall that BS said himself one time that he trespassed through someone’s gate, because it wasn’t perfectly locked, even though he knew she didn’t want him in there? Didn’t you say that, BS?
Neil, SteveF, DeWitt, et al: In the US and many other countries, most investments in reducing CO2 emissions are made by private companies. Those companies – through PUCs, are charging their customers a high rate on invested capital. That discount rate – not the artificially low one used by the EPA – reflects the true cost of avoiding future emissions. The internal rate of return on invested capital and risk are what determines how much capital is invested in reducing emissions.
I can create an immediate paper profit by borrowing money at a low rate of interest, investing it in assets expected to create a cash flow with a high internal rate of return and then “marking my investment to market”. That is what Enron did. That was fraud. IMO, it is equally fraudulent to apply a low discount rate to the cost of future damage from CO2, when a much higher rate is being applied to investments in reducing emissions. (FWIW, this represents my thinking. At the moment, I can’t cite any real economist who believes in this argument.)
When the government is making the bulk of the investment, it is fair to apply a low discount rate that reflect the government’s cost of borrowing. Unfortunately, that process can be highly inefficient, so the cost of emissions reduction will be higher. See Solyndra, subsidies to the rich for roof-top solar (the most expensive renewable energy), etc. In general, most developed societies recognize that the private sector allocates capital better than the government, even though they charge a higher rate.
What, no answer, BS?
.
I think it’s on one of your blog sites. You were elaborating on how according to your legal theory, it wasn’t trespassing if someone didn’t lock the door, even if you knew she didn’t want anyone entering. And then you gave an example. That’s what I recall, anyway. Maybe you should check your blog, see what you wrote. Or are you scrubbing it now?
Cat got your tongue, BS?
It’s been 28 minutes w/o a response. Got to be some kind of record for you, BS.
Neal J. King:
No I didn’t. I’ve never said anything of the sort. I have no idea where you’re getting such a ridiculous idea from, but please don’t paint me in a negative light just because you suffer from delusions. And seriously, please don’t call me BS. I’ve asked people not to many times, including on this very page. I find the connotation unfortunate and would prefer to avoid it.
Neal King,
If you don’t like reading what someone writes so much that you can bear to actually read it, then you ought not reply to what they write. By the way, my experience is that reading what someone you disagree with writes is always a good idea.
.
If you also find what Roger Jr writes irritating, then I think that puts me in good company. In any case, if you can’t bring yourself to read what I reply to you, then I am obviously wasting my time writing replies to you.
BTW, you may find total happiness reading and commenting at Ken Rice’s blog… most everyone there seems to think just like you do.
.
Cio. On my way to Istanbul for a few days.
SteveF:
.
Have fun in Istanbul.
.
Don’t eat at the restaurants on that bridge beginning with the letter ‘G’. The food is bad.
Oh dear god. Look at this. After the comment I just responded to, which shows on my page with the timestamp of March 22nd, 2016 at 4:05 pm, Neal J. King posted another comment at March 22nd, 2016 at 4:23 pm to say:
18 minutes! As it happens, I was eatiner dinner at the time he posted the first comment, but… 18 minutes! Neal J. King repeatedly ignored things I’ve said on this page, despite the fact they were me pointing out he said untrue things, but me not responding for a whole 18 minutes was too much for him. Good lord. And as for what he did say:
What in the world? I should check my site for something he thinks I said? And oh, if I can’t find it, I’m probably just deleting things from it? I don’t have any answer for those rhetorical questions because… this is just bizarre. Oh, and:
It would be a record, except for all those times on this very page I failed to respond for 12+ hours. Because I do do other things, like eat dinner. And sleep. And leave the house to participate in various activities.
Neal,
Two things,
1. Brandon might be out to dinner for all we know. Patience.
2.
Look, I get that you feel it was John’s ‘house’. I don’t agree with that. It’s more like having a meeting out in a public park and leaving stuff lying there.
.
Now. Is it rude to go look through that stuff, knowing the people who left them don’t want you to? Yes, I’ve agreed it’s rude. Is it analogous to breaking into a house though?
.
I don’t see that. What makes anybody expect that files that aren’t secured on the Internet are private? I mean, John is not a babe in the woods, he of all people knows better than that.
.
So I get that you’re pissed off and that you think it was a crappy thing to do. You’ve got a case as far as that goes, but I don’t agree with the idea that it was like breaking into a house.
.
In a way I wish I could agree with you on this one Neal, to demonstrate that I’m not just sticking with tribal associations, but I really don’t think you’ve got this one right. I’m sorry.
BS:
.
You know, I’m trying real real hard to care.
.
I’m not succeeding.
.
And I have such a strong take on that memory. Here you were, laying out this whole legal philosophy of trespassing, and giving examples from your own life. And I remember thinking, “He actually writes all this stuff? Do any of his readers ever worry about what it would be like to have him as a neighbour?” Even being on the same internet with him is creepy: He thinks it’s just fine to rummage around inside your stuff, as long as he can find a way in.
Mark Bofill:
What is even rude about this latest case? John Cook was fully aware his server provides URLs like it does. He knew that for what, a year or more? I don’t see how people using a feature on his server he’s fully aware of is rude. The first time round, maybe you could say it was rude because I should have known he wouldn’t want people to do that, but the fact he chose to keep letting them do that would seem to bely the argument.
And there’s certainly nothing rude about following a link to a document in a directory created for documents which Cook wanted to share.` I guess you could say it was rude of me to share something “confidential” since I should have known it wasn’t meant for public consumption (but only after I downloaded the document since it was only the file’s contents which said it was confidential), but… it was in a directory specifically meant for the sharing of documents. If it were rude of me to share the document, what was it for Cook to post it where anyone could with the intent of sharing the document himself?
I don’t mind it if people want to view my actions as rude. Journalists and investigators are often considered rude for looking into things. My actions haven’t been remotely out of line with standard practices used in all sorts of professions. If that means they were rude, so be it. I’d just like to know what about it means I was rude.
Mark:
.
Let me boil it down real quick.
Do you have children?
So yeah, Neal J. King, you’re intentionally being rude and obnoxious at this point. I know you’re aware of this, but I just want to highlight that as you say:
After twice having been asked not to call me that. I get you may not care about being a jerk, despite trying to, but… you’re being a jerk. For no purpose other than to be a jerk. I think you should stop.
That you have “such a strong take on that memory” which is completely and utterly false doesn’t make it any less completely and utterly false. Nobody will ever find anything I’ve written that is like what you describe because I have never written anything of the sort. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve never done what you say I wrote I’ve done.
You can choose to be a jerk on purpose. You can choose to basically call me a liar without any basis or evidence. You can choose to make up wildly untrue stories about me and suggest the only reason evidence for them doesn’t exist is that I secretly deleted it. I would highly recommend you not make these choices though.
Hang on Brandon, I’ll answer eventually.
Neal, yah got kids.
Mark:
.
If your kids went into a private area of your computer, somehow, and copied files, photos, to show their friends, would you say, “Good job!” or would you try to teach them something about respecting other people’s privacy?
.
If it turned out that they had gotten access to a schoolmate’s files and showed their friends her photos, poems, and other memorabilia that were clearly intended not to be publicized, what would you think? and what would you do?
Mark Bofill:
No rush. I mean, it hasn’t been 28 minutes yet 😛
Neal,
You bet I kick my kids butt over it. So…
What? I know brandoon is a loveable rascal but of course he’s not my kid.
did I miss your point ?
Neal:
Please stop name calling.
Mark:
.
Why do you find behaviour acceptable in a more-or-less grown man that you would find unacceptable in a child?
.
Basically, why hang out with this creep?
BTW I am at dinner. If I go silent it’ll mean my wife said enough. 🙂 in which case I post later.
understood
So, my kids (poor devils) are subject to personal standards that I don’t need to justify to anybody but my wife. my job; my responsibility, what I signed up for.
I’m not here to teach Brandon.
Why hang out with Brandon? I dont. I hang out at the blackboard. Sometimes I agree with brandon, sometimes not.
As they say: You are known by the company you keep.
.
Watch your back.
Dang it neal, I’m pretty sure you just made me ruin my best chance of sponging free pizza and beer off Brandon… :/
Remember I started by asking you a similar question about SkS and John Cook. It’s hard to throw stones at people you interact with all the time. It’s just one of those people things.
Frankly, I wonder if exposure to BS thinking distorts the mind. Tell me, please, what is your understanding of the SkS “Nazi” photoshops? This is actually relevant.
Brandon,
I consider it rude. I don’t actually have a great explanation as to why. It might be that I’ve got ad hoc arbitrary standards about manners. Dunno.
I’m sorry, I don’t really want to interject myself into a discussion clearly between two people, but since Neal J. King has taken more than 28 minutes to respond to me, maybe I can be forgiven. Mark Bofill, you say:
But the analogy Neal J. King isn’t even close to useful as anything other than a lame vessel for smearing me. In his analogy, your children accessed things you told them not to access. I didn’t do that. I accessed things there was nothing saying I should not access. Everything I’ve accessed was in publicly accessible locations with nothing marking them as, “Do not access.”
If you put private material in a file on your desktop, I doubt you’d get upset with your children for looking at the file (unless you happened to have told them not to access any file without permission or something like that). I doubt you’d blame your children for you putting the material somewhere there was nothing to indicate they shouldn’t look.
Incidentally, this is why argument by analogy is such a terrible approach. You can make anything sound horrible by creating an analogy that depicts it as terrible. That doesn’t mean if you actually explained which parts are supposed to be analogous anyone would be convinced it was horrible. You’ll note, as much as King is willing to make vague accusations, he isn’t willing to actually specify anything that can be examined. I suspect that’s, at least in part, because if he had to make a clear and cogent argument, he’d have no case to claim I did anything wrong.
BS loves to mire around in details. Rummaginig around in peoples’ stuff is creepy. Especially when you know they would prefer you not to. Especially when you publicize a work-in-progress.
.
We don’t need signs to say that. This level of training is what we have kindergartens for: the basics of sensible human interaction.
Mark Bofill:
Even without an explanation, can you say which part of it is rude? I don’t know how familiar you are with the details of what I did, and words like “it” are not very descriptive.
By the way, the very first time I did anything like this to John Cook, I didn’t plant to share anything I found. When I first saw the strange Photoshopped images with Nazi imagery, I intended to just e-mail Cook to let him know. I had actually e-mailed him about a problem with one of his servers before. It was only after I saw other Photoshopped images which had been created to insult people like Anthony Watts that I decided to show anyone what I had found.
While most of the attention has been focused on the images for the Skeptical Science group, it was the other ones that made my decision for me. If I find Photoshopped images of people created solely to insult them, I’m inclined to let them know. Some people may find it rude when I do, but…
Mark:
.
You can see BS twisting and convolving to put the weight on the other horse. He just can’t grok that treating other people sensibly means respecting personal boundaries. So if HE trespassed, it’s because YOU didn’t stop him. No concept of responsibility, or putting himself in the other person’s place for a moment.
.
I’m really curious, Mark. What bizarre story does BS have you convinced of about those Photoshops? I know he’s good at making mountains out of molehills, but this one must be really a work of art.
Sure. It’s knowing that the author doesn’t want you to access and accessing anyway. That’s contrary to my arbitrary standard of ‘gentlemanly’ behavior.
Neal I answer the other in a bit not on my phone.
These typos are annoying me because normally I use the Edit feature to fix them, but for some reason I can’t today. Oh well. I hope you guys will forgive me for writing things like “plant” instead of “plan.” In the meantime, Neal J. King shows he has no interest in actually justifying or even explaining any of his accusations:
Oh, sorry. Just had to point out he’s still intentionally being a jerk by using an insulting name he has been asked not to use. Back on track:
I suppose you could say I love “to mire around in details,” in that when I make serious accusations, I try to offer clear explanations and justifications for those accusations. That seems a lot better than making vague, hand-wavey claims like saying I spent time, “Rummaging around in peoples’ stuff.” That’s not normally how one would describe viewing files in a directory posted online where anyone could see.
How could I have possibly known anything I accessed wasn’t meant to be seen by the public before I saw it? King doesn’t say. Most of the files I looked at were in publicly accessible locations I was given links to by a program John Cook specifically wrote to provide them. Nothing about the code he wrote told me I wasn’t supposed to look at anything. When I was directed to files in a documents directory I had accessed other files in before, from links provided by the Skeptical Science website itself, there was nothing telling me I was meant not to look at where I was directed to.
Ask King for anything specific, and odds are he won’t answer. To him this sort of things is just getting mired in the details. To most people, it’s called figuring out what, if anything, I did that was wrong. As it stands, King’s argument seems to be nothing more than, “I don’t like what he did so he’s a creepy criminal who lies a lot.”
But for a bit of humor, remember he says:
King doesn’t have a word of criticism for Cook sharing “a work-in-progress” in a publicly accessible location then giving links out to it via code he knew fully well the exact function of. But me, following a link given to me by the code Cook wrote, is unbearable to him. And then me sharing a link to it is apparently beyond the pale.
That’s not how things normally work. Normally, the person who shares confidential material gets criticized and the people who examine it afterward are considered to be engaging in normal behavior. That’s why Skeptical Science is happy to discuss documents stolen via mail fraud – because they aren’t the ones who violated confidentiality.
Insults:
.
First, the reasoning is ridiculous: If the photoshops are in a file somewhere with no one to publicize them, they’re not hurting anyone. But then you publicize them; and if they lead to ridicule, YOU have set it off. That’s like disarming a nuclear weapon by detonating it. It makes no sense.
.
Second, as I recall the photoshops, they consisted of WUWT’ers faces on the warriors from the movie “The 300” – the story of how 300 Spartan soldiers held off the Persian army of 150,000 in the pass of Thermopylae for two days in 480 BC. As I recall it, they didn’t look ridiculous, they looked pretty damn good.
Neal J. King says:
But this is nothing like anything I’ve ever said. What I’ve said is when you post something online in a publicly accessible location (and then provide links to that location to people), the default assumption is that it is meant to be viewed by the public. It is not trespassing to access locations the public has every reason to assume they’re meant to access.
Mark Bofill:
I’m curious what you think I accessed that I knew I wasn’t intended to access prior to accessing it. I’m not denying that I did. I’m just curious because all the claims here have been vague without any specification as to what actions I took were rude/wrong/whatever.
Which means a lot more to me than usual because Neal J. King basically said I lied about what I did. That accusation makes details rather important.
BS:
.
This style of argumentation went out in 3rd grade.
Have some respect for your readers, and give it a break.
.
“Hyper-literalism”:
Mosher had a point.
Asperger’s?
It’s interesting to see what Neal J. King chooses to respond to and what not to respond to. For instance, when I point out his claim I’ve practically lied about things is false, he ignores that. When I point out he is intentionally insulting me with basically every comemnt, he ignores that. When I point out it is insane to get rude when a person fails to respond for all of 18 minutes, he chooses to ignore that. But he chooses to respond to other things, like when he says:
This logic he says “makes no sense” has nothing to do with anything I said. I didn’t claim any harm caused by the images justified anything. I just found the images rude and offensive, so I decided not to be polite to the person who hosted them.
Even worse, his claim the images are “not hurting anyone” because they were only shared with a group in private is laughable. Insults don’t have to be public to harm a person. I suspect plenty of King’s views about me have been caused or exacerbated by things said in private. Without those private remarks, he might well not hold insane ideas about supposedly horrible things I have said in the past.
Maybe this is just me getting mired in the details again, but just like how I pointed out there wasn’t only one image of a Skeptical Science member Photoshopped into Nazi regalia like King claimed before, there also wasn’t just one Photoshopped image where people were mocked/insulted. And the image he refers to wasn’t from the movie 300, nor was it intended to reflect a flattering scene in any movie.
But, you know, details. I get mired in them.
Neal J. King:
If you think people are going to know what you mean, I suspect you’re wrong. I have no idea what “style of argumentation” you think “went out in 3rd grade.” Is it responding to what people say? Is it not making serious accusations then refusing to do anything to explain or justify them? Is it calling people liars without any basis?
I don’t know, but by third grade, I had learned the best way to resolve a disagreement is to actually talk about what one disagrees about not just insult the other person while refusing to listen or address anything they say. I think I learned that about the same point I learned sticking my fingers in my ears and saying, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t hear you!” wasn’t actually a way to convince anyone I was right.
Do you realize how despicable you are being on this page? That’s not rhetorical. I genuinely want to know if you realize how horribly you are behaving, or if you perhaps think your behavior is normal and okay.
Brandon,
I’d like to remind you, you asked me about my opinion. I might be completely full o’ crap. Still, I didn’t come to you telling you my opinion because I felt that somehow you needed to hear it. You asked, and I answered you. So, there’s a limit to how far I’m interested in wandering around with this.
You’re not a fool Brandon, you’re going to know at this point that Cook would prefer that you not look at any of his stuff I’m sure.
I don’t see what difference my standards of rudeness make to anybody here, I don’t see why this is an interesting topic of conversation to anybody. Of course, I guess it could be that I’m all that and a bag of something special, and nobody is going to get any sleep until they understand what I consider gentlemanly behavior and why. But I sorta doubt it.
Neal,
Sadly I don’t remember very clearly. I remember that nobody was very forthcoming about what the heck was going on. I remember that somebody (I forget who) told Lucia what the deal was, but Lucia felt it unethical to blab about it at that time. I remember I played 20 questions right here on the BlackBoard, but Lucia didn’t give me anything until the other person (I think) who originally told her let the cat out of the bag.
I don’t remember the explanation all that well. I remember not being terribly impressed with it anyway, or being confident it was truthful. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Honestly, the whole thing still makes little sense to me. I assure you, if somebody photoshopped me into anything Nazi on a website I controlled, I wouldn’t have politely waited around for the guy in question to delete it. I’d have deleted it right then and there and banned the guy from associating with me. That type stuff isn’t viewed with much tolerance in our world these days – it’s like joking about being a child molester or something. Not funny. At all.
Don’t know if this helps, don’t know what the point was about the Nazi photoshop thing at the time, don’t know what the point is now.
Mark:
.
No, he’s not a fool; and that is why it is 3rd-grade behaviour to act like one. Deflecting the argument into a million rivulets until they dry out and disappear: pick up one and he’ll start two others. This is why frustrated parents spank their kids: “I don’t want this game to go on, this has to get real.”
Yes Neal. But before you get too pleased with my answer, let me remind you that if there is any one single person out there who deserves rudeness from “skeptics” (yah, that’s skeptics in quotes), it’s probably John Cook. You can thank SkS’s apparently tireless efforts in the past to smear contrarians in various ways if you’re looking for a reason. And that includes me, and no I don’t particularly appreciate it at all, despite my efforts to be reasonable and polite. Just so you are aware.
Be specific if you’re in the mood. It won’t injure me.
(gapes)
Are you joking?
Not at all.
Mark Bofill:
Um… okay. But all I asked was for a bit of extra detail regarding your opinion. I didn’t argue it was wrong. I just wanted to know the specifics of what it was.
Are you saying I shouldn’t access documents when Skeptical Science links to them on the front page of their website? Serious question. I might be able to guess John Cook would like me to never visit his site or interact with him in any way ever again. I personally don’t think that means I should never visit his website or look at the material he posts publicly, but you might feel differently. Or perhaps your view is more nuanced than you’ve expressed. Or perhaps something else.
When someone says they think I’ve been rude, I like to know why they think that so I can consider if perhaps there is something I would like to do differently in the future (or do something to make up for something I’ve done in the past). That’s all. It’s not a big deal, but I do find it interesting why the people I talk to think certain things are rude/bad/whatever.
Brandon,
Fine.
Neal,
You know I don’t dwell on it, so I hope you won’t be too surprised that I don’t have a list sitting here in my pocket ready for you.
Can we start with this.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/5/822058/
Before you protest that SkS isn’t the daily kos, don’t. I lay this one at the door of your buddy Cook and his mentor Lewandowski. I ask you Neal. What do you call this if not a smear.
There’s plenty more, btw. This is just the first thing that came to mind.
[Edit: hmm. I call that a broken link.]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/5/822058/-
Neil,
Your use of BS is 3rd grade behavior. Pathetic
This is far too charitable. It’s more like expecting a pathologist – who has not only never treated a patient, but whose entire experience in the discipline consists of analyzing samples taken from one patient who, as far as anyone knows, has never been sick a day in his life – to not only diagnose but propose a course of treatment.
Mark Bofill:
For what it’s worth, the explanation you refer to doesn’t really explain things. It gives some context, but it leaves a lot of information unstated. You can see what Rob Honeycutt (the one who told lucia) told one person in this comment. lucia followed up by saying:
Which is perfectly in line with everything I have said about those images. As I said at the time:
My reaction hasn’t really changed since then. Which isn’t surprising given I haven’t been given any new information regarding the topic.
And Neil, I think most sites would ban you if refusing to quit this name calling after several times being asked to stop. It’s obvious you do not like Brandon, but what the heck, even Anthony Watts asked people to stop calling Skeptical Science SS. And he started moderating quite heavily to cut the crap. And here you are considering yourself holding the moral high ground. As I said, pathetic
Sven:
Don’t forget:
Suggesting people suffer from developmental disorders because you don’t like them is…
Mark:
I just now saw your response to the Nazi stuff:
– In actuality, it’s not much more than you say. What’s weird is how it showed up.
– One of our folks, who does a lot of the system maintenance, has an oddball sense of humor; and he also has, unfortunately, a copy of Photoshop. At the time, there were a lot of folks talking about SkepticalScience as “the SS”, “the climate Nazi’s”, etc., so this stimulated his sense of rebellion and also his sense of humor, and he developed a few Photoshop images based on some Nazi general and a photo of John. (B. has a bee up his bonnet about whether there was one or a few; totally bizarre.) Then he posted them in the behind-the-scenes site.
– This posting became a thread in the usual way. It got comments which were more or less on the line of “Ha ha. Well, no.” It was very well done – if you fancy a picture of John as a Nazi. There were some nice touches: I think he altered the Nazi-insignia buttons to a symbol on the SkS site. But this was clearly not the kind of image we wanted to be associated with. Somebody (could even have been me) said something to the effect of “This stuff is toxic waste. This needs to be gone from the site!” Everybody agreed, and the posting was deleted. All gone!
– But not quite! The way the image-posting works in that system is that you upload an image separately from the compositiom of the text, and then it gets framed in the posting. But the important point is that the original upload is not with the posting: it is in a particular folder for graphics. So when the posting was deleted, the graphics were still in the folder; but nobody knew about them. Probably John should have known, because he built the system to start with; but it slipped his mind.
– So when someone came sneaking around looking for something, he was able to find something that had been thought to have been deleted long time before.
– The consequences: Some people seem to actually believe that John and the other SkSers dance around in imitation Nazi uniforms on weekends. Somehow, they have not made the connection that if you use Photoshop to put a face on a different body, you don’t actually need the uniform, just a photograph. Or they insist on believing that it’s not a Photoshopped image, but a straightforward camera shot. But since we know where the creator got his original image, it should be obvious to an expert that it is a Photoshop.
– Also, there is no one place on Earth where SkS could regularly meet on a weekend. I think we’ve had a couple of get-togethers during one of the AGU meeting nights in San Francisco.
– Finally, one thought that occurred to me: the buttons. The uniform’s buttons have the appearance of the metal German-uniform style buttons, but with the SkS insignia instead. I wonder what it would take to set up a button-making machine to turn these buttons out from scratch: I would imagine it would cost quite a lot.
You could probably make something that looked like metal buttons in a photograph using widely available polymer clay button making kits and painting with metallic paint.
The polymer clay kits and paint are sold at stores like JoAnns fabrics, Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc. They are quite popular. You sort of mold the clay like playdough, put it in a little mold and let it cure. Something like that anyway. I made a set once. Decided it wasn’t worth it. But I know crafters who love making custom buttons .
For what it’s worth: I always assumed the SkS SS images were photoshop. I never imagined anyone thought otherwise. But the buttons would be pretty easy to make– as long as you didn’t mind their looking fake up close.
Mark:
.
I looked at the link for the hoax stuff. Sorry, but it’s so late, it’s early: I’m not getting much from link 2.
lucia:
.
John tells me that there are at least two guys who insist on believing he has a Nazi uniform somewhere.
.
wrt plastic buttons: If you’re going to go to the trouble of getting a uniform made, it really better look good. Otherwise, wouldn’t it make more sense to just use Photoshop?
Neal,
Yeah, I never thought SkS admired Nazism:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/the-sks-nazi-images-thoughts-on-fair-use/#comment-118644
Basically nobody admires the Nazis.
So it is late, we can talk about it another time if you like. Basically I’m pointing to the Moon Hoax paper, after that we can look at Recursive Fury. Maybe after I sleep I’ll be better able to recall some of what I considered to be smears over the years.
Neal J. King method of framing things is rather telling. Consider:
King said there was one image. I responded to point out there were multiple images, saying that error cast some doubt on the rest of what he said about the topic. That’s a pretty normal interaction. If a person gets basic facts wrong, other people may point that out and find the rest of what was said less convincing because of it. But to King, me doing that means I have “a bee up [my] bonnet.”
Oh well, I guess I should be happy he called me B instead of BS this time, I Guess?
Sorry about the blockquote tag error there. For giggles, I decided to search my WordPress database to see what the closest I could find to Neal J. King’s description. Searching for the word “lock” turns up a quote which said “locker room” (from the thing Mark Steyn is being sued over) and another quote which refers to Caps Lock.
For “neighbor,” I found a quote from Michael Mann, a couple quotes mentioning neighborhoods, about half a dozen posts about BEST referring to “neighboring stations” and the like, a post containing a grammatical discussion and a couple posts referring to “neighbors” in analogies/metaphors.
The word “gate” was interesting since there are so many things like “Climategate,” but if you exclude those, you find a post in which I quote authors claiming the “consensus” is a gateway belief and a post where I refer to the individual, Brandon Gates.
I even repeated the searches for all comments on my site, both by me and other people. I found me referring to a person with the name Lockerby and another user writing “Climate Gate,” but nothing like what Neal J. King describes. I can try other search terms if people can think of any to use, but I don’t know what it’d take to convince people I never said what he claims. I can’t prove a negative after all.
(And I obviously cannot prove I didn’t delete some post somewhere where I said something like he claims. Or that I didn’t edit one to hide such.)
Neal,
You sort of caught me by surprise. I knew we viewed things differently, and I thought I’d prepared myself for what I expected our differences to be. Still, it didn’t occur to me that you would view the moon hoax and recursive fury papers as legitimate works of scholarship.
I don’t think it’d be productive to go through and debate this. I don’t really know what to say about it, honestly. I think you ought to take another look at it with fresh eyes maybe, bringing the same objectivity to bear that you used to gain the level of mastery you demonstrate over physics. ~shrug~
My posting ought to be light for the next day or two, I’ve got work to get through. It has been a pleasure and a treat to be able to talk Neal; I really do appreciate it. As far as I’m concerned don’t be a stranger. If you have any questions for me or anything to wrap up I’ll be around for that.
“This is far too charitable. It’s more like expecting a pathologist – who has not only never treated a patient, but whose entire experience in the discipline consists of analyzing samples taken from one patient who, as far as anyone knows, has never been sick a day in his life – to not only diagnose but propose a course of treatment.”
Touché, yguy.
Andrew
yguy:
This comment is funny given the recent mention of Stephan Lewandowsky’s work, work where he drew conclusions about one group based (almost) entirely upon data from an entirely different group which he just assumed, without any demonstration, basis or proof, would hold the exact opposite views on all issues.
In global warming advocacy, you can literally have no data and manage to conclude the people you dislike are nutjobs based on that lack of data!
I think it’s fitting since this post is about my writing I should be allowed to…
1000th!
Mark:
.
“You sort of caught me by surprise. I knew we viewed things differently, and I thought I’d prepared myself for what I expected our differences to be. Still, it didn’t occur to me that you would view the moon hoax and recursive fury papers as legitimate works of scholarship.”
.
What response of mine are you referring to? The only response I’ve’ made to your link(s) above was that I couldn’t stay awake any longer. That’s not necessarily a judgment on the article.
Mark:
.
I finally got round to looking the Daily Kos link.
The reason I had so much trouble with it last night is that it’s a parody: so it presents everything from 3 sides at the same time.
It’s too much to understand at night, and it’s too much to discuss in a written communication any time.
If you want to discuss those topics, please find something that we can consider in a straight-forward manner. A parody is not a good choice.
Neal,
Let’s sum up, so we’re on the same page. I said:
You responded
So here’s the thing. I interpreted this to mean that you dispute the notion that SkS has smeared contrarians and that you’re asking me to support my claim. Be this the case, I offer for your consideration:
NASA faked the moon landing—therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: an anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.
If you will permit me to offer a friendly suggestion, I recommend that you spend some time investigating the data supporting the remarkable claims of this paper and some of the criticisms that have been directed against the paper before you make any casual decisions on which side of the line this paper belongs. Just a suggestion. ~shrug~
As I said Neal, I don’t envision us getting anything productive accomplished by debating the merits and defects of this paper. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are folk here who would be glad to duke it out with you regarding the paper, but I’m not one of them. Just investigate it and apply what you consider to be a good standard of honesty, rigor, and objectivity to your private investigation; that’s all I’d ask, if you’re curious about it.
I’ll take a look.