Comments on: Severe Weather and Anthropogenic Global Warming

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:22:06 +0000

PS – You are talking about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and not the third, which is about entropy. From an engineering point of view, can be stated as heat will not flow from a cold body to a hot body, UNLESS you do some “work”. The example you have provided of an air conditioner (or refrigerator which is the reverse), illustrates this. The “work” in this case is provided primarily by the sun.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:36:36 +0000

ron from Texas: I dont know what point you are trying to make. But if you are trying to say either that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas or an effective greenhouse gas, you are wrong.

You say “So, an energized CO2 ..is only going to release to cooler air or material, not warmer air. It’s the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, though we can call it convection and it is why your air conditioner works.
So, if you want to make out that CO2 is warming the planet, first tell me your air conditioner isn’t working and why it isn’t working. Yeah, it really is that simple.”

Its not “that simple”. If it were that simple then the case against AGW would have been wrapped up before it even started. You make two mistakes here.

1. “So, an energized CO2 ..is only going to release to cooler air or material, not warmer air” – Not so. Radiation is released in all directions. The energised CO2, or any other molecule, doesnt check which side is warmer or cooler.

2. We are talking about radiation here not convection and not the NET flow of energy. Radiation striking an object simply adds energy to it, this does not depend on the temperature. Radiation striking the Earth gets absorbed by greenhouses gases, which will radiate some of this energy towards the surface and will continue warming the surface till there is radiative balance. In the Earth’s case they warm it by about 33C

There are many reasons why the AGW hypothesis is not credible, but your “simple” reason is not one of them.

By: ron from Texas

ron from Texas — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:40:27 +0000

CO2 is not a temp driver. It is a result of temp, to some extent, at least coincidentally. Warning: I’m going to use some basic physics here. Sorry, but I must. Heat moves from hot to cold, just as high energy moves from high to low. Always and forever. So, an energized CO2 (which is only happening primarily at 2.5 microns and 15.7 microns) is only going to release to cooler air or material, not warmer air. It’s the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, though we can call it convection and it is why your air conditioner works.

So, if you want to make out that CO2 is warming the planet, first tell me your air conditioner isn’t working and why it isn’t working. Yeah, it really is that simple.

Also, the greatest absorption and re-emission is in the first 20 ppm. And all of Nature without Man is around 280 ppm? Which means that first 20 ppm is totally in Nature’s CO2 load, if Man never existed.

Let’s liken gases unto blankets. Water vapor is like a comforter with 4 layers of batting in it. Heat will eventually dissipate through it, just the same, it’s just slowed down to a rate that is comfortable for your body to lose heat at. All bodies radiate heat. CO2 is like a fishnet. You could put on another layer of fishnet and not alter the heat exchange rate past the first layer, which wasn’t much to begin with.

If you add to that the fact that the “data” was altered to fit a theory and now Jones tells us the “data” is lost, what do you have? A broken theory with nothing to support it and everything about it flying in the face of everyday proven physics. My air conditioner works just fine. So does my heater (works on the same principle.)

By: An Inquirer

An Inquirer — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:11:01 +0000

Drachsi, I am not sure that I adequately understand the proposal on the website you referenced; but at first glance, it essentially would be a way for Western countries to subsidize corrupt governments with very little positive impact on the environment.
Now, there is no hesitation on the part of skeptics to allow individuals and firms to invest in any green technology that they want to. And sometimes that investment requires a loan. If that loan can be paid back, again skeptics would have no problem. However, I do have a problem with government action that increases our dependence on foreign oil (the quickest way to increase such dependence is to limit coal) or destroys the rainforest (through biofuels subsidies) or sets up for another recession through inefficient capital investment or diverts resources and talent away from real environmental problems.

By: Drachsi

Drachsi — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:30:57 +0000

I am not a sceptic or a skeptic, but assuming everything as you say is correct, would it make sense to consider an original soloution that would satisfy everybody? The address for the idea is at http://climate-comments.blogspot.com/

Regards

Drachsi

By: Alan D. McIntire

Alan D. McIntire — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:22:20 +0000

The IPCC, in their fourth assessment report, stated that the increase from 280ppm to 390 ppm increased energy retained by 1.77 watts/m2. Applying the logarithmic relationship;
1.77 = n * log (390/280)
from which it follows that n = 12.3.
The increase from 390 ppm to 560 ppm (2070 projection from IPCC 4th assessment report) would increase retained energy by 12.3 * log (560/390) = 1.93 watts/m2 . Applying Stefan’s law at 288 kelvin (+14C) we find that each degree rise in temperature takes 5.4 watts/m2 . Thus the direct effect of the rise in carbon dioxide is 1.93/5.4 = 0.36C.
IPCC inflates this to about 3C by assuming massive positive feedback from water vapour.

There’s a 342 watt flux from the sun, but about 30% of that is reflected away by clouds, a negatative feedback from water vapor, leaving only 240 watts waming the earth. According to Trenbeth,

http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/EPA_Comments/Trenberth.doc

greenhouse gases and clouds add to the warming, roughly doubling the surface flux to 490 watts. Only 390 watts results in heating the earth’s surface, the rest goes into the latent heat of evaporation, conduction, and convection.

The net result is , global warming increases the ground flux by about
399-342 = just about 50 watts, and about 100 watts goes into latent heat.
It’s implausible to believe that a majority of any additional flux from increased CO2 would go into actual warming rather than into latent heat.

By: DrTorch

DrTorch — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:39:18 +0000

Yup, seen this repeatedly around DC.

Funny thing about the Aussie data that was posted, those droughts are regular enough you could prepare for them. Amazing that is ignored.

By: Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:06:53 +0000

Good post. I’ve noticed this issue with respect to rainfall in our area. Many people I talk to think we are in the midst of an unusual drought and are surprised when I inform them (having done research on the actual data) that the last year was at 95% and 99% of average respectively, for the two primary watersheds in our area.

It is pretty easy to create a scare story out of one or two “bad” years or “bad” events, but every time I look at the actual data, it isn’t particularly scary.

By: sundevil

sundevil — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:48:42 +0000

Environmentalists are arguing more that there is a change in the standard deviation than a change in the mean. I think this is the crux of the re-labeling of Global Warming to Climate Change. What’s great about this is that you can argue that it creates less severe storms too. It’s completely meaningless mumbo jumbo, but so is most of environmentalism. They turn a blind eye to reality when it flies in the face of their dogma.

By: ADiff

ADiff — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:52:45 +0000

Leaving aside for a moment the ’science’ for the realm of Policy, what’s asked by AGW Alarmists is a monumental claim on the material welfare of billions of citizens of this Earth. The extraordinary demands of those arguing for urgent emergency action will impose untold costs on countless individuals in both developed and developing world. Leaving aside the possible social and political cost, the economic impacts of their suggestions would be breathtakingly massive and certainly negatively impact everyone (excepting, perhaps, the super-wealthy) and probably in a most regressive manner, too!

We are told that the “impacts” of the purported phenomenon justify this. And yet none of these impacts appears to be happening, nor does any available evidence suggest they are at all likely to occur. And still we’re told we “must” proceed on that basis. As Carl Sagan said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” These are “extraordinary claims” presented without any real evidence at all, much less “extraordinary evidence”. How can they not be refused as such?