Evidence supporting AGW

[IanC]

everyone here is a little bit right and a lot wrong, with a massive amount of uncertainty and lack of data.

here is a paper that explains a lot of the problems/complexities of atmospheric models. it is probably right in some areas and wrong in others like most papers but it does lay down many of the basics, including why the 'missing hotspot' is important.

http://declineeffect.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Pot-Lid-Sep-2011-v2.1.pdf

The virial theorem is a statistical rule about the distribution of different kinds of energy in
random systems with many particles. It specifies that for an atmosphere confined to a fixed
volume by a central attractive force like gravity, the total kinetic energy of the system will be
strictly proportional to the total gravitational potential energy. That is to say, any alteration in
the temperature structure of the air column will be accompanied by a proportional change in
the density structure. The two are inseparable in principle.

​

 

[Crick]

This is a self-published piece. I have no idea what the author's qualifications might be. He mentions that he's doing technical writing for Electronic Arts concerning their games. Here is the first paragraph of his abstract

In response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, general circulation
models (GCM) unanimously forecast a substantial rise in sea level
temperatures, the typical range cited being between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees
C. The largest single component of this forecast is a positive feedback
due to increased water vapor. It is universal practice in GCM’s to treat the atmosphere as hydrostatic [emphasis Crick] (that is, not allowing the air to move directly up or down between
modeled layers, except in non-prognostic parameterizations).

I put the following string into Google: "GCM, hydrostatic, models". The first nine results had the term "non-hydrostatic" in their titles. Try it yourself if you doubt me. What your man is saying here might have been true in the past (else why the emphasis on its absence in the search results) but it does NOT seem to be true today.

I then did a Google search on "GCM, hydrostatic, IPCC". The first result was a discussion of the use of non-hydrostatic GCMs in AR4; to wit

Recently, projections of climate changes for East Asia were completed with a 5-km non-hydrostatic RCM (Kanada et al., 2005; Yoshizaki et al., 2005; Yasunaga et al., 2006), but only for short simulations. Following the trend in global modelling, RCMs are increasingly coupled interactively with other components of the climate system, such as regional ocean and sea ice (e.g., Bailey and Lynch 2000; Döscher et al., 2002; Rinke et al., 2003; Bailey et al., 2004; Meier et al., 2004; Sasaki et al., 2006a), hydrology, and with interactive vegetation (Gao and Yu, 1998; Xue et al., 2000)."

The next return concerned hydrostatic pressure in ice sheets.

The third return was entitled:

"GFDL non-hydrostatic finite-volume dynamical core on the cubed-Sphere and the Global “Cloud-resolving” Model Developments"

It seems obvious to me that the author's contention that the IPCC's 1.5 to 4.5C climate sensitivity figure is based on the output of hydrostatically-constrained GCMs is incorrect.

That makes the rest of his comments irrelevant and moot.

So, I don't know where you were going with this, but it doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere significant. Good try, but I wish you'd stick more with peer-reviewed work from refereed journals.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

This is a self-published piece. I have no idea what the author's qualifications might be. He mentions that he's doing technical writing for Electronic Arts concerning their games. Here is his abstract

In response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, general circulation
models (GCM) unanimously forecast a substantial rise in sea level
temperatures, the typical range cited being between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees
C. The largest single component of this forecast is a positive feedback
due to increased water vapor.
It is universal practice in GCM’s to treat the atmosphere as hydrostatic
(that is, not allowing the air to move directly up or down between
modeled layers, except in non-prognostic parameterizations).

I put the following string into Google: "GCM, hydrostatic, models". The first nine results had the term "non-hydrostatic" in their titles. Try it yourself if you doubt me. What your man is saying here might have been true in the past (else why the emphasis on its absence in the search results) but it does NOT seem to be true today.

Here is the sole appearance of the term "hydrostatic" in Wikipedia's article on GCMs:

As an example, pressure at any height can be diagnosed by applying the hydrostatic equation to the predicted surface pressure and the predicted values of temperature between the surface and the height of interest. The pressure diagnosed in this way then is used to compute the pressure gradient force in the time-dependent equation for the winds.

I then did a Google search on "GCM, hydrostatic, IPCC". The first result was a discussion of the use of non-hydrostatic GCMs in AR4; to wit "Recently, projections of climate changes for East Asia were completed with a 5-km non-hydrostatic RCM (Kanada et al., 2005; Yoshizaki et al., 2005; Yasunaga et al., 2006), but only for short simulations. Following the trend in global modelling, RCMs are increasingly coupled interactively with other components of the climate system, such as regional ocean and sea ice (e.g., Bailey and Lynch 2000; Döscher et al., 2002; Rinke et al., 2003; Bailey et al., 2004; Meier et al., 2004; Sasaki et al., 2006a), hydrology, and with interactive vegetation (Gao and Yu, 1998; Xue et al., 2000)."

The next return concerned hydrostatic pressure in ice sheets. The next was entitled "GFDL non-hydrostatic finite-volume dynamical core on the cubed-Sphere and the Global “Cloud-resolving” Model Developments"

It seems obvious to me that the author's contention that the 1.5 to 4.5 cimate sensitivity figure is NOT based on the output of hydrostatically-constrained GCMs.

That makes the rest of his comments irrelevant and moot. On top of this Ian, the man never mentions the hotspot. The mystery absence of the hotspot is not in modeling runs, but in long term observations.

So, I don't know where you were going with this, but it doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere significant.

How easy is it to test for a doubling of CO2 in a lab experiment.

Is 380 * 2, too big a number?

 

[SSDD]

And if there is no conflict between the ideal gas laws then explain how you can raise T without raising V which will result in a decrease of (n)...

But you can raise V. There's no shell around the earth constraining the atmosphere to a constant V.

And hence your theory falls apart.

And yes, an increase in the height of the tropopause has been observed.

9.4.4.2 Changes in Tropopause Height - AR4 WGI Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change

Of course V changes when you raise T. You clearly aren't understanding. No surprise there. Here...step by step....P and V are inversely proportional...know what that means? Increase P get a decrease in V...increase V get a decrease in P. If you want to increase P or V without reducing the other, you must A) increase (n) B) Increase R, or C) Increase T...the product of rRT will then increase to equal the increased product of PV.....with me so far?

The AGW hypothesis claims increased greenhouse gasses cause T to increase, which results in an increase in V in order to both sides of the equation balanced....As you said, increase T and V increases. That is apparently where you stopped thinking.....the problem begins with that increase in V which causes a reduction in the density of the atmosphere (r) which must reduce the product of nRT. Get that? The two sides of the equation must balance.

In the real world, a reduction in (r) will result in a reduction of P also because less mass in the atmosphere will result in less pressure if gravity remains the same....is gravity changing? We know from direct measurement that P is not, in fact changing at the surface even though the density of the whole atmosphere changes when V changes. Still with me?...because we know that P isn't changing at the surface, we can't balance the equation with a reduction in P that results from the reduction of (n)

If you believe the ideal gas law, it simply is not possible for PV to not equal nRT.....so what happens if you hold P steady...which we know by measurement is happening while at the same time you increase T and V while reducing (n)?

The ideal gas law is only satisfied when PV=nRT....and that can only happen if A) more mass is added to the atmosphere to keep the density from decreasing due to expansion or, B) gravity increases to reduce V and bring the equation back into balance...

Since there is neither additional mass or additional gravity the ideal gas law equation remains out of balance.

If you believe the ideal gas law then increasing T will increase V and the resulting reduction in density (n) will result in a lower V which must be followed by a lower T....which puts the AGW hypothesis at loggerheads with the ideal gas law.

Crick claims that there is no imbalance but can't say why...do you also say that there is no imbalance but can't say why?

 

[SSDD]

Do you actually believe that the greenhouse effect would be as widely accepted (universal except for you) were it in conflict with the ideal gas laws? Do you actually believe the world is that stupid and that you are that smart?

That's stupider than the rest of your physics fantasies.

I believe enough money can make the truth hard to see for some people and the hundreds of billions being spent in climate science is certainly a lot of money for people who traditionally thought they had a top notch gig if they got a spot as a TV weatherman....

 

[SSDD]

The Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism affects all gas/ice giant planets. It's more powerful on bigger bodies, and it decays over time. It's very significant on Jupiter, less significant on Saturn, and has only a small effect on Uranus and Neptune.

Your own source says the effect is happening on Jupiter and Saturn...not on neptune and uranus.

nobody ever claimed there was a greenhouse effect, why do you keep attempting to prove there's no greenhouse effect? Everyone already agrees with that. You keep declaring victory after disproving your own straw man.

Point is that there is no greenhouse effect on neptune or uranus and no Kelvin-Helmholtz effect either and yet, high temperatures are present due to nothing but pressure and if pressure can cause permeant temperature increase on those planets it can cause permanent temperature increase here as well...

 

[Crick]

But the greenhouse effect has been widely accepted for well over a century before penny was spent trying to combat global warming. And you still have the issue that you claim a severe conflict between the greenhouse effect and the idea gas laws and would have been seen by junior high school kids did it actually exist.

 

[IanC]

SSDD- you are making a simple mistake by not realising that potential energy and kinetic energy are easily transferable in any atmosphere. That is what explains the thermal gradients here and on other planets. That does not disprove the small changes at the surface that could be caused in part by the CO2 greenhouse effect.

Energy in matches energy out to a very fine degree but there are many possible values along the pathway. That is why it is nonsense when you claim Venus is radiating 16000w from a 135w input. The heatsinks make the surface hot but the radiation does not escape, except for the 135w.

 

[SSDD]

SSDD- you are making a simple mistake by not realising that potential energy and kinetic energy are easily transferable in any atmosphere. That is what explains the thermal gradients here and on other planets. That does not disprove the small changes at the surface that could be caused in part by the CO2 greenhouse effect.

Energy in matches energy out to a very fine degree but there are many possible values along the pathway. That is why it is nonsense when you claim Venus is radiating 16000w from a 135w input. The heatsinks make the surface hot but the radiation does not escape, except for the 135w.

Ian, for all the hundreds of billions spent on climate change....if there were a greenhouse effect as claimed by climate science....don't you think it would have been at least observed, measured and quantified to some degree based on observations and measurements?

There certainly is a thermal effect in the atmosphere, but it isn't the greenhouse effect as described by climate science...that hypothesis has failed....why not move on to more plausible hypotheses predicted by the laws of physics and that actually match observation...and don't require constant tampering of the temperature record...one day we may really need the real temperature record and at this point, I wonder if it even still exists...warmer wackaloons are crazy enough to actually destroy historical data if they fear it might call their religion into question.

 

[SSDD]

SSDD- you are making a simple mistake by not realising that potential energy and kinetic energy are easily transferable in any atmosphere. That is what explains the thermal gradients here and on other planets. That does not disprove the small changes at the surface that could be caused in part by the CO2 greenhouse effect.

Energy in matches energy out to a very fine degree but there are many possible values along the pathway. That is why it is nonsense when you claim Venus is radiating 16000w from a 135w input. The heatsinks make the surface hot but the radiation does not escape, except for the 135w.

The greenhouse effect, as described by climate science requires that energy be absorbed by the surface and radiated out....approximately 135 watts per square meter reach the surface of venus....the output of venus is in excess of 16,000 watts...135 in, 16,000 out due to the magic of the greenhouse effect.

 

[Crick]

Could you explain how the atmosphere of Venus can radiate 16,000 W/m2 upward but only 135 W/m2 down? It is because the surface is warm and the atmosphere KNOWS it shouldn't go that way? Of course it is. WHAT was I thinking?

 

[SSDD]

Could you explain how the atmosphere of Venus can radiate 16,000 W/m2 upward but only 135 W/m2 down? It is because the surface is warm and the atmosphere KNOWS it shouldn't go that way? Of course it is. WHAT was I thinking?

As ususal, the point goes right over your head...and there wasn't even a graph involved.....According to climate science as stated by the IPCC, the greenhouse effect is as follows...

Much of this thermal radiation emitted by the land and ocean is ab- sorbed by the atmosphere, including clouds, and reradiated back to Earth. This is called the greenhouse effect.

Roughly 135 wm/2 reach the surface of venus and are available to power a greenhouse effect as claimed by climate science.....135 wm/2 is absorbed by the surface and re emitted as IR by that surface...or are you claiming that on venus, incoming short wave radiation from the sun is absorbed and emitted by CO2?

Another inconvenient fact regarding venus is that it isn't warming....according to the greenhouse hypothesis, it should be.

 

[Crick]

You're either missing or ignoring my point. If the atmosphere is hot enough to radiate 16 kW/m2 upward, why isn't it hot enough to radiate 16 kW/m2 downward? There's a lesson at the end of this chain that I doubt you'll accept or retain, but it might be handy for other, more rational readers.

 

[SSDD]

You're either missing or ignoring my point. If the atmosphere is hot enough to radiate 16 kW/m2 upward, why isn't it hot enough to radiate 16 kW/m2 downward? There's a lesson at the end of this chain that I doubt you'll accept or retain, but it might be handy for other, more rational readers.

The heat is not due to a greenhouse effect as described by climate science...that is the point....not enough energy reaches the surface to power a greenhouse effect as claimed by climate science....pressure is the driving force on venus...

 

[IanC]

I wish there was something that could be said that would break posters like SSDD and crick out of their ruts but I fear that is impossible.

Both of them hold onto a small piece of the puzzle and say it is the only piece that is important.

Science is made up of individual principles that are seldom seen in a pure form in reality because many other factors are acting at the same time.

It is like crick saying a person making 10k a year will have 100k in the bank after 10 years. Or SSDD saying a business cannot have a million dollars in expenses and still break even because he refuses to acknowledge receipts.

 

[IanC]

So have you read the Pot Lid Hypotheses yet SSDD? Or is it still inaccessible from your computers?

 

[IanC]

crick- why did you edit out your comment on the missing hotspot? other than the obvious reason that it was spectacularly incorrect. do you disagree with Brook's comments on it? did you actually think about the points made in the paper or did you just skim the material looking for some nitpick to argue about?

you say that the climate models actually model the bolus of moist air rising rather than just the water vapour. are you sure about that? there are a lot of things that you declare to be true that in fact turn out to be misrepresentations. moist air being heavier than dry air, and radiative imbalance at TOA being 'measured' are two examples that spring to mind.

 

[mamooth]

The "missing hotspot" myth has been debunked.

http://www.arl.noaa.gov/documents/JournalPDFs/ThorneEtAl.WIREs2010.pdf

In general, one should be very suspicious of "The whole world has been totally wrong for decades, and only I, a mere layman, have managed to see the problem" claims. Especially from a guy who has no climate science experience, and is an HIV-causes-AIDS denier to boot. In his pot lid paper, he was basically just shooting down his own strawmen, attacking models that never existed.

 

[mamooth]

Of course V changes when you raise T. You clearly aren't understanding. No surprise there. Here...step by step....P and V are inversely proportional...know what that means? Increase P get a decrease in V...increase V get a decrease in P. If you want to increase P or V without reducing the other, you must A) increase (n) B) Increase R, or C) Increase T...the product of rRT will then increase to equal the increased product of PV.....with me so far?

So far, all good.

The AGW hypothesis claims increased greenhouse gasses cause T to increase, which results in an increase in V in order to both sides of the equation balanced....As you said, increase T and V increases. That is apparently where you stopped thinking.....the problem begins with that increase in V which causes a reduction in the density of the atmosphere (r) which must reduce the product of nRT. Get that? The two sides of the equation must balance.

PV = nRT

T went up, so V went up. It balances just fine. Density can change, but there's no density term in the ideal gas law. P doesn't change, as we'll discuss below.

In the real world, a reduction in (r) will result in a reduction of P also because less mass in the atmosphere will result in less pressure if gravity remains the same....is gravity changing?

In the real world, the taller air column balances the lower density, keeping pressure the same.

We know from direct measurement that P is not, in fact changing at the surface even though the density of the whole atmosphere changes when V changes. Still with me?...because we know that P isn't changing at the surface, we can't balance the equation with a reduction in P that results from the reduction of (n).

Again, there's no density term in PV = nRT. V went up, T went up, everything else in the ideal gas law equation stayed the same. It balances just fine.

I'll also note you're torturing the ideal gas law, which is derived by starting with the assumption of a system with the same conditions throughout. It's not correct to try to apply the ideal gas law across systems with gravitational or pressure gradients, so the whole discussion is really moot.

 

[IanC]

Thorne's claim of the uncertainty being to large to decide one way or the other is not exactly settled science, is it? nice hatchet job on Brooks. I wonder if the real story actually confirms what you say? every time I chase down one of your red herrings it usually says the opposite. AIDS denier, EA games consultant, anything else you guys would like to add? I wonder what his CV reads like? hahahahaha