Lord Monckton's latest open letter in our debate about the validity of the greenhouse gas “theory” is peppered with vituperation, untruths, errors and self-contradictions. Monckton's reply follows that of his first open letter. These are in rebuttal against John O'Sullivan's first and second open letter challenges to Monckton about the so-called greenhouse gas 'theory.' Below we show how unreliable his lordship is as a supposed authority. Sorry it's so long but it's not easy to debunk the sophist arguments in a few words.

Let us examine his lordship's latest diatribe where Monckton takes great umbrage to O'Sullivan's assertion that his lordship has cultivated an image of himself as the former “science adviser” to Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. They say a picture speaks a thousand words. In that light, please take a look at this Youtube video where Monckton smiles contentedly as a news interviewer refers to him in those very same terms - no words of correction whatsoever from his lordship.

But while Monckton throws insults at me for daring to describe him that way he seems to have no qualms when such attributions are made by his supporters, including Marc Morano at Climate Depot. Morano explicitly states, “Former Thatcher Science Advisor & UN IPCC Reviewer Lord Christopher Monckton,” and again here, to which Monckton, replied, “The story circulated by the indefatigable Marc Morano is – as one would expect – accurate in every particular.” 

The appellation seemingly thus implicitly approved by Monckton going back at least to 2009 as per UKIP Leader Malcolm Pearson when Pearson announced:

"I am delighted that Lord Monckton has accepted my invitation to join UKIP as our chief spokesman on Climate Change. He was Margaret Thatcher's Special Adviser in Downing Street on a number of areas, including science.”

Thatcher Minister Mocks Monckton's Mendacious Claims

Current UKIP leader, Nigel Farage will see that the self styled “Special Adviser” on science to Margaret Thatcher was nothing more than a glorified press officer and odd job. Yes, he has an arts degree but no science qualifications we can find. By contrast, Margaret Thatcher was an Oxford University Chemistry graduate. "It was I [Monckton] who—on the prime minister's behalf—kept a weather eye on the official science advisers to the government, from the chief scientific adviser downward.” Well, Thatcher's autobiography makes not one mention of Monckton and attributes all such climate science advice to George Guise and Sir Crispin Tickell.

So, your lordship, since you've called me a liar, in my defense I challenge you

If all you claim is true then why do you appear to have done nothing to counter Thatcher's climate alarmism? You claim you had at that time hard evidence to prove such alarmism wrong. But newspaper reports and your own piece in the Daily Telegraph (Nov 6, 2006) stand at odds with quotes attributed to you elsewhere (The Guardian:June 22, 2010) suggesting you disregarded all those “calculations" you say you performed using the “first computer in Downing St;” calculations you say proved that, at most, CO2 could only cause “some warming.” So why, by your omission to speak out, do you appear complicit in Thatcher's original greenhouse gas-based global warming alarmism?

Monckton's other Gaffes and Scientific Self Contradictions

Monckton has contradicted himself in his pronouncements about the science. In his first reply in our exchange he said:

Oh lord, where is your skepticism?

You see, we 200+ scientists and other related experts at PSI (select member list here) rely on robust empirical evidence, either by our own experiments or in the scientific literature. Moreover, what we do find in the literature (e.g. as per the Vostok ice core data) is that CO2 impact on climate is probably negligible in effect or is possibly cooling, based on such empirical proofs. The Vostok data shows that when CO2 is high we get ice-ages. Other factors, like water latent heat etc., the sun itself, are orders of magnitude more significant. If CO2 causes ice-ages that’s something that we could be worried about. Despite a near doubling of CO2 since the 1930′s we see current temperatures are the same and even cooler – so much for Monckton's mantra: “more CO2 causes more warming and the only debate in town is the degree of warming [emphasis added].” [5]

Indeed, eminent solar scientists (including PSI's recent recruit, Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov) say we are now in a cooling period (despite that 40% rise in CO2 in recent decades). Again, this affirms the null hypothesis telling us the greenhouse gas effect (GHE) may be shown to be wrong despite those diehard believers in the "theory" claiming CO2 somehow "traps" heat making our planet "warmer than it would otherwise be."

But Monckton and others don't even appear to know that even the US Department of Energy has the temerity to defeat the whole idea that greenhouse gases recirculate the energy they release by admitting:

“What happens after the GHG molecules absorb infrared radiation? The hot molecules release their energy, usually at lower energy (longer wavelength) radiation than the energy previously absorbed. The molecules cannot absorb energy emitted by other molecules of their own.”

As such, only cooling can be the consequence.

Arrogance, Misunderstandings, Mistakes and Oversights

For over a quarter of a century the GHE has been presented as “settled science” and humans have been blamed for emitting too much CO2 into the atmosphere risking dangerous global warming. But this is political spin and the actual historical record shows that the GHE was not accepted among mainstream scientists before the 1970's. How do we know this? Because the eminent American Meteorological Society (AMS), among others, tells us so.[6] As does PSI today, the learned members of the AMS, as elsewhere, dismissed the idea that carbon dioxide plays any measurable role in climate.

Indeed, not just the AMS but a benchmark CIA report from 1974 about future climate risks makes no attribution to any GHE. Not once in that important government climate science document will you even see the terms “greenhouse gases” or “greenhouse effect” mentioned. [7]

National Report: Water Cycle, Not CO2 the Climate Key

Instead, we see the U.S. Government put great reliance on the “National Climate Plan” which was the outcome of evidence provided at the national climate conference in San Diego of April 1974 where climatologists “argued, discussed and defended their approaches.” [id] Taking notes were representatives from the National Security Council, NOAA, National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.

The outcome was that the official report avoided mention of the greenhouse gas theory. Why? Because it was accepted as refuted decades earlier. Instead it was agreed that the water cycle (not CO2) was our climate's thermostat. The report concluded that the key to climate were clouds and surface albedo causing 25 percent of all solar energy to be reflected directly back into space before it can reach our planet's surface (p.9). And when cloud cover and albedo are altered “Climate change is sharp and dramatic.”(p.16).

Greenhouse Gas 'Science' Founded on Politics not Science

Pointedly, fourteen years later and Thatcher's alarmist speech of 1988 about the “dangers” of CO2 (See: Rupert Darwall: The Age of Global Warming) refers to no great new scientific discovery overturning what the AMS, NOAA, the National Academy of Sciences said in 1974.Why? Because none had been found. With no cited new found scientific breakthrough to justify, why western governments should switch from attributing no climate change to the greenhouse gas effect to making it the cornerstone of all climate science, Thatcher's speech was all hot air.

What PSI has identified to explain this evidence-lacking U-turn is the politicization of science in a steady drip-drip effect of low key climatology papers published increasingly since the 1960's. Such papers distorting inter alia Fourier (1824) and Fourier (1827) which became “The Most Misquoted and Most Misunderstood Science Papers in the Public Domain .“ We see a small cabal of earth scientists, untrained in higher level thermodynamics and off the “hard” science radar, engaging in speculations, compounding errors and forging ever more distortions taking them further down a blind CO2 alley.

But the work of Fourier, Arrhenius, Tyndall, Callender etc. had long been known to all scientists. Based on such knowledge the AMS in 1951 rightly announced that the idea that CO2 could alter the climate “was never widely accepted and was abandoned when it was found that all the long-wave radiation [that would be] absorbed by CO2 is [already] absorbed by water vapor.”[id.]

Lord Monckton is among many who claim to practice skepticism of the claims of those working within the infant science of climatology but he actually does no such thing. Instead, he and other so called “skeptics” gleefully buy into decades of government climate science propaganda that CO2 causes warming. Monckton glosses over the telling AMS statement we presented him above where scientists had known that all the long-wave radiation [that would be] absorbed by CO2 is [already] absorbed by water vapor. Instead, Monckton's letter to O'Sullivan asserts: “It is now known that, though that is largely true for the lower troposphere, it is often false for the upper.“

But how is it known, your lordship? If you and others cannot offer citation of any peer-reviewed paper from the modern era that proves empirically that CO2 significantly traps/delays the escape of heat energy from our atmosphere then you have nothing of scientific substance to show that the AMS, the U.S. National Plan and mainstream science before Thatcher (1988) were proven wrong.

Politics, not Science, Ignores the Null Hypothesis

What amazes PSI members is how so many “skeptics” ignore the full ramifications of what has been known since 2003 from the Vostok ice cores. Those ice cores proved that for the last 400,000 years rises in atmospheric CO2 levels lagged 800 years behind temperature rises.[8]

As such, compelling empirical evidence suggests CO2 was a symptom, not a cause of the warming. Even Lord Monckton admitted (Daily Telegraph, Nov, 05, 2006) that “the changes in temperature preceded the changes in CO2 levels.”

So, if you agree the Vostok data affirms the null hypothesis then as a skeptic we invite you to take a look at PSI's peer reviewed papers (under 'Publications') that show there are many other greenhouse gas errors. For instance, PSI exposes the key equations used in government climate models that wrongly treat our planet as a flat disk bathed in 24 hours of twilight (a simplistic fudge factor averaging technique).

Lady Thatcher was famously “not for turning” yet she did eventually turn against her alarmist position on CO2.

When will you, Lord Monckton, wise up and accept what an increasing number of scientists are seeing? Global temperatures have been flat-lining for the last 16 years despite levels of atmospheric CO2 rising 40 percent in recent decades. Don't you agree it is time for a major rethink? Can you not see that perhaps those (non GHE) scientists in the '70's who were predicting an ice age were right all along? It's time to listen to top solar science experts like Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov; we may already be into a mini ice age that could last 50 years or more and the empirical evidence affirms no greenhouse gas effect. Carbon dioxide is innocent. Embrace the null hypothesis.

*************

[1] Monckton, C.,'On Pulling Planck out of a Hat,' (October 5, 2011), ukipscotland.wordpress.com

[2] NASA, Adiabatic Lapse Rate, Dry, PDS: The Planetary Atmospheres Data Node; (accessed online: May 6, 2013)

 [3] Nahle, Nasif S. 'Repeatability of Professor Robert W. Wood’s 1909 experiment on the Theory of the Greenhouse,' (June 12, 2011). Biology Cabinet Online, Academic Resources. Monterrey, N. L.

[4] Miatello, A., 'The Famous Wood's Experiment Fully Explained,' (June 25, 2012), www.slayingtheskydragon.com

[5] Monckton, C., in private email correspondence to Siddons, A., & Schreuder, H.

[6] Brooks, C.E.P. (1951). “Geological and Historical Aspects of Climatic Change.” In Compendium of Meteorology, edited by Thomas F. Malone, pp. 1004-18 (at 1016). Boston: American Meteorological Association.

[7] Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ‘A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems' (1974)

[8] Barnola, Barkov et al. 'Historical Isotopic Temperature Record from the Vostok Ice Core,'(2003) http://cdiac.ornl.gov; Petit et all 1999 (CO2 lags temps by 1,000's of years; Fischer et al 1999 (CO2 lag of 600± 400 years); Monnin et al 2001 at Dome Concordia, Antarctica (CO2 to temp lag of 800 ± 600 yrs); Mudelsee (2001) CO2 lags temps. by 1,300 years ± 1000;Caillon et al 2003  CO2 lags temps by  800 ± 200 years.

Once again, Laker Erie is on the verge of choking on too much nutrient. In 2011, its western basin had massive blooms of Microcystis and Cladophora sp. algae. It happened before, in the 1960’s, leading to it being declared “dead.” A new paper by AM Michalak and 28 coauthors describes the event in detail; the figure below shows a satellite image of the observed bloom.

Fig. 1. Observed algal blooms, 2011, in western Lake Erie; source: Michalak et al. (2013).

Algal Blooms

Algae begin to thrive when the concentrations of phosphorous- and nitrogen-type nutrients become overabundant. The algae produce fibers which commonly wash up on the shores. There, the rotting mass produces slimy surfaces and pungent smells. What’s worse though, the stuff not washing up on the shores dies in the water column and sinks to the bottom of the lake. There, its decomposition consumes the water’s oxygen to become uninhabitable by bottom-dwelling organisms which require that oxygen. Furthermore, Microcystis-type algae also produce natural toxins that are highly toxic to a variety of species, man included.

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the Laurentian Great Lakes (LGLs) with ~26,000 km^2 (~10,000 square miles) of surface area. Lake most other LGLs, it is shared between Canada and the US.

When Lake Erie experienced severe algal blooms several decades, then predominantly of Cladophora sp. ago (in the western basin of Lake Erie, the toxic Microcystis algae were first observed in the mid 1990s), governments on both sides of the border sprang into action. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQ) of 1972 was based on research findings, much of it undertaken by the then new Canada Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington, Ontario. The GLWQ recognized the need for limitation of excessive nutrient loadings to the lakes in order to prevent such algal blooms. Primarily, the agreement called for the construction of sewage treatment facilities which would remove excessive phosphate loadings from municipal sources.

Lake Erie responded extremely well to the new effluent controls, some people even called it “miraculous.” Within a few years, fishermen’s catches of perch and walleye increased to levels not seen for decades, the shores were no longer covered with smelly decaying algae, and all was fine, again.

Beginning with the early 2000s, blooms of algae, now predominantly of the Microcystis species, started to re-appear in Lake Erie, generally getting more severe over the decade. This trend went into overdrive in 2011.

The Year 2011

The year 2011 saw a severe change in spring time loadings of nutrients to Lake Erie, particularly the western basin. Consequently, the shallow western basin of Lake Erie experienced another dramatic algal bloom of Microcystis. A number of coincidental factors came together, foremost very heavy rainfall in the area in May. Together with winds from the east it promoted algal growth and kept the surface-water-prevalent algae in the western basin.

How that bloomin’ mess looked to a swimmer is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Algae experienced by a swimmer.

Undoubtedly, the most important condition was the large nutrient loading from agricultural field runoff. It all combined to produce an algal bloom scenario not experienced before. Fig. 3 shows the total phosphorous (TP; total phosphate) loadings to Lake Erie between 1975 and 2012 (source: R.P. Richards).

Fig. 3. Total spring total phosphorous (TP) loadings (tons/year) to Lake Erie, 1975-2012, source: R.P. Richards.

Unmistakably, Lake Erie has experienced an unusual inflow of phosphate in 2011; we don’t doubt that at all. But there is the question, why, really, was that so? Here, our view differs somewhat from Michalak and coworkers. To understand that, let’s ask the (rhetorical) question: What has changed? Are agricultural fields suddenly so heavily fertilized that the common spring rains result in large algae blooms in Lake Erie? The (partial) answer is found below, in the Need for Yield.

The Need for Yield

The need for yield is nothing new either. However, without the possibility for a substantial increase of the acreage under cultivation, crop yield has become of paramount importance. The recent government mandates of higher minimum (bio)ethanol contents in gasoline are adding emphasis to that need for yield. That requirement creates the (exaggerated) need to grow corn which, in turn, creates a need for maximum agricultural (corn) yield which, in turn, encourages farmers to use every last piece of land to grow corn and often (over)fertilize it in the process to maximize yields.

The truth is that the Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate to convert 40% of the annual corn production to (bio)fuel (i.e., ethanol), is really driving that “Need for Yield” to new extremes. Of course, this mandate is effectively a massive subsidy to farmers that was sold to the public on the basis of energy independence and in some jurisdictions as a means to “save the planet” from “climate warming.” In practice, the opposite is being achieved.

The whole system of (bio)fuel mandates is creating environmental havoc across much of the globe. From palm oil plantations in Asia to corn-for ethanol growing farms in North America, there are many (often hidden) costs to such schemes. The over-fertilization of Lake Erie is just one of them.

What Really is Needed

Michalak and colleagues are putting much emphasis on “meteorological trends consistent with expected future conditions,” i.e. those expected for the future from current climate and precipitation models for the area.

That is where we think differently than the authors of this scientific paper. For example, if you look at the spring TP loadings (Fig. 3), you will note that in the year 2012, it was miniscule relative to 2011. If you add up the loadings for 2011 and 2012, it will be just about the average loading/year for the last few decades. Blaming “climate change” and similar concepts without looking at the actual developments in the field rarely leads to useful insights. After all, climate is defined as a thirty year average of a meteorological variable so one cannot base a climate change on two successive years. Without at least thirty years of data blaming a plankton bloom on climate change is highly speculative.

The algal bloom as described by Michalak and colleagues cannot be properly assessed without looking at the pressing need for maximum corn production, as required under the ethanol mandate. We surmise that changing agricultural practices to increase area and yield have as much or more to do with algal blooms than the climate. Such changes, for example, include changes in fertilizer application (time of year and application methods), pressing into production marginal and previously unused land, drainage of wet lands via tile beds and related changes.

Governments need to revisit the whole idea of climate-control (“-change”), the corn-for-ethanol and related biofuel mandates and other alternative energy ideas in a rational way, unencumbered by claims from NGOs and political motives. Indeed, as Michalak and colleagues point out a truly scientifically guided management is desirable.

Lake Erie would benefit from that.

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing an interesting case. It’s about your genes or, more accurately, the question as to who owns them.

As Jeffrey Tucker writes in Tomorrow in Review, the U.S. Supreme Court is soon going to decide on one of the most contentious issues in medical science: “Can human genes be patented and to what technologies can those patents be extended to cover?”

Background

A company claims to have unravelled the biochemical codes of certain human genes which are said to be specifically associated with breast and ovarian cancer in women. The mutation of such genes, so it is claimed, is responsible for increased risks to such cancers. The company which has determined the biochemical code wants to protect its turf, i.e. the right to sue any competitor using such information to cure, prevent, or mitigate the diseases. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing.

Lower court rulings have already been decided on both sides of the issue. Now the Supreme Court is deliberating it. Ultimately, the question to be decided is: Who owns your genes? A corollary of that is the question whether human genes or their biochemical codes can be patented at all.

Presents his “time dependent model” as a challenge

Dr. Roy Spencer has challenged the Slayers to either “put up or shut up" (1) and presents what he says is a “time-dependent” Earth model to describe “reasonable surface temperatures”, and asks us to produce the same. Anthony Watts added his reply: “Like me, you’ve reached a GHG [greenhouse gas] tipping point with these folks. Good for you for taking a stand. I await them addressing your model challenge.” Watts has subsequently responded on his own blog: “…if and when they are able to provide a simple working model of the atmospheric energy balance that matches their theory with observations, I’ll be happy to take another look at the idea here”.

Spencer provides an xls spreadsheet showing the “code”, and he references the model as being “time-dependent” several times in his text. He also says that it produces “realistic temperatures”, and this is apparently supposed to be taken as some sort of support for the model.

A few things here. First, “reasonable temperatures” can be created by any arbitrary model at all.  So, that his “time dependent model” produced such temperatures means nothing at all. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system, for example, produced “reasonable planetary positions” for over a thousand years, yet it was so fundamentally flawed that correcting it brought about a scientific revolution. The unquestioning belief in Ptolemy’s model is analogous to a current belief in the “greenhouse gas effect”, as Joe Postma has observed (2).

Second, and this is the really important part, we have to ask if Spencer’s own model is even “time-dependent”, as he claims it is. His model’s solar input is a constant 161 Watts for each square meter of the Earth, which is a value equal to 230 Kelvin (or -42⁰ Celsius). Hence, that model is not a “time-dependent” model.  For him to call what he has there a “time-dependent model” is scientifically and mathematically incorrect.  It is not a time-dependent model because the sun is static at a constant 161 W/m², and this indicates static, flat, non-rotating Earth, with no day and night, and hence no time dependence at all. That the “model” Spencer produced can be run from a starting temperature to a final temperature in time does not mean that the model is “time-dependent”. The real sun rises and sets over a rotating spherical Earth, meaning that Spencer’s model actually abandons any attempt to make surface temperatures “time-dependent”. Such a description can only be called misleading at best, for the term “time dependence” in differential equations and heat flow calculations denotes something else entirely than what Spencer offered. Spencer’s model is static and he seems to not understand this; he challenged us to produce a time-dependent model and presented us with his own, however, his isn’t even what he claims it is.

So then, with sunshine freezing cold and constant, meaning the model is static and not time-dependent, they insert the required greenhouse effect (GHG) pumping up factor wattage from an even colder atmosphere in order to force it to produce a “reasonable temperature”, with values “…based upon the Kiehl-Trenberth diagram” (quoting Spencer) which is designed to do precisely that – to force a flat-Earth model to work when the initial assumption of freezing cold and static sunshine is wrong. Thus, cold has to heat hot and the atmosphere needs to be an additional source of heat, even though it is not even a source of energy, because that’s what they need to make their static model with static freezing cold sunshine “work”. This is pretty much how you define circular and tautologous reasoning. It is just like Ptolemy arbitrarily adding epicycles to make his model work.

What is equally noteworthy at the moment is not just that Spencer’s model is actually static, but that Spencer’s challenge per se could only be predicated upon utter ignorance about PSI’s and the Slayer’s work. Not only has PSI member Postma created an actual real-time model(3) meaning that it genuinely uses a time-dependent Sun, his model also included the effects of the latent heat of liquid H₂O which showed that such heat helps to hold the surface temperature higher than otherwise all by itself. The modeling also used a temperature-dependent function for the thermal capacity of water. Astonishingly, none of this is even mentioned by Spencer or in his model, which means he didn’t even think it relevant to include in the model the vast majority of what the surface of the Earth actually is. PSI and the Slayers do think it important. 

To be sure, Postma’s model uses the exact same heat flow equation as Spencer used in his model, but the difference is that Spencer’s model is actually a static non-time-dependent model that assumes a flat Earth and cold sunshine, while Postma’s model actually rotates the spherical Earth and accounts for real-time solar heating and latent heat as an actual time-dependent differential equation. Spencer’s model requires the GHE to produce a reasonable temperature, while Postma’s does not. The difference arises in using fictional vs. actual boundary conditions and inputs: one model is based on fiction which therefore creates fiction, while the other model is based on reality in real time and therefore reproduces reality. So, PSI has already presented much more than what Spencer challenged us with, and it turns out that Spencer doesn’t even have what he seems to think and claims that he has in the first place.

Postma’s model produces “reasonable temperatures” without including any “greenhouse gas effect” at all.  Indeed, his model was tested against real-time observational temperature data collected by PSI member Carl Brehmer, and Postma’s dynamic model predicted the results with great accuracy, finding no need to introduce a single epicycle of back-radiation warming from “greenhouse gases”.  The results proved that backradiation heating from the atmosphere did not, was not, and does not occur on top of the solar forcing, even though backradiation is maximized during the day time as we see here:

Postma’s model equations also showed that, overnight, the majority of atmospheric cooling occurs directly at the surface and that the amount of cooling overnight was at least ten-times the value expected without a theoretical backradiation delay in cooling. Cooling at the surface is actually enhanced overnight rather than impeded, and there is no sign of delayed overnight cooling occurring at all. This is a matter of observational fact and can be explained by the enhanced cooling caused by convection and conduction at the surface with a cooler atmosphere. The paper proved beyond any doubt that Sunshine is hot and cannot be averaged down to an artificial freezing-cold value as it in the creation of the GHE, as Spencer does in his model.

In that paper Postma also showed precisely how to calculate the wet atmospheric temperature lapse rate from first principles, given by adding water vapour condensation to the dry lapse rate. The real-time model also explains precisely why and how the temperature lag to insolation forcing occurs on both the diurnal and seasonal time-scales, and Postma also explained how to extend the model to be more general and discussed some of the other boundary conditions the more general model would have to satisfy.

Spencer and WUWT have seemed to continually short-change their readers in this debate. Spencer’s challenge itself creates a sham in claiming that we have never presented any alternative model. But we have had it already in Postma’s previous peer-reviewed paper (4) from 2011. Postma’s follow-up paper in 2012 details precisely what has now been demanded of us. It is there, in the links, on our website under ‘Publications’ and has been there now for almost two years.

Postma’s model is not only referenced in many of our articles but also in blog comments elsewhere (including at WUWT and Spencer’s blog). Time and again, we have invited our opponents to familiarize themselves with that model and engage with us in friendly discussion about it, comprehending the implications that the usual static models (like Spencer’s) are wrong. Thus, Spencer’s latest challenge to “put up or shut up” over this issue points to his intellectual laziness or something less forgivable.

Postma says: “Some people wonder if this was some genius conspiracy or plot behind man-made climate alarmism to block people like the Slayers from asking a simple question like ‘Hey, you know, instead of modelling Sunshine as freezing cold and constant, neither of which it is, then, what difference will it make if we acknowledge that Sunshine is actually really hot and that the Earth can’t actually really be modeled as flat and with no day and night?’. It turns out it isn’t a genius conspiracy or plot to gate-keep such simple questions from being asked; the gatekeepers really are just scientifically illiterate. Can you believe that in the climate change orthodoxy, you’re not allowed to talk about how hot sunshine is, and what it can do, because it conflicts with the incorrect tenets of the GHE?”

Postma’s paper has pages and pages of discussing an actual real-time, time & temperature dependent, differential heat flow equation and it included pages of Matlab code and all the required algorithms, showed how to calculate the solar forcing in real-time (actual real-time, not static non-real-time constant cold input with no day and night and a flat Earth), successfully compared the results to actual real-world data, discussed how to improve it, etc. etc.

Spencer accuses the Slayers of “cult science”. That’s a nice accusation, but please point it out. PSI can point out yours: a) you literally think it is reasonable that sunshine is freezing cold, b) you literally think it is reasonable that there is no day and night, c) you literally think it is reasonable that the Earth is flat, d) you literally do not know what “time dependent” means in regards to a differential equation, e) you literally think it is reasonable to say that because “greenhouse gases cool the atmosphere/the atmosphere would have no way to cool without greenhouse gases” (direct quotes from Spencer) that this means that GHG’s heat the atmosphere…because they cool it, f) you literally deny or are at least incapable of acknowledging that the near-zero emissivity of O₂ and N₂ means that 99% of the atmosphere can hold a higher temperature for a given radiative output than it would otherwise, when this is the very basis of radiative thermal physics and doesn’t require a GHE or GHG’s at all.

Need we go on? Those beliefs don’t relate to “cult science”, but a full-blown fanatical and insane religion. We Slayers, in reality-land, have simple questions pointing out basic facts which makes GHE believers go blind with rage. Just look at an example of what GHE orthodoxy wants us to believe:

In the GHE orthodoxy of backradiation heating, when you put two light bulbs near each other then it means that the photons from one “have to be slowing the cooling of the other light source, meaning that it has to heat up the other light source and make it brighter”. Of course, the same thing would happen both ways and so the idea should strike one immediately as being unphysical and unlikely, because it sets up a run-away mutual heating process. Of course, any person who has artificial lighting in this world knows that what is claimed doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen for candles beside each other, light bulbs beside each other, etc.

In fact, the GHE orthodoxy even requires that a heating scheme such as this will occur from a single light bulb’s own light shone back upon itself. This scheme is in fact directly analogous to GHE orthodoxy because that idea is based on backradiation from the atmosphere, the atmosphere which was heated by the earth’s surface in the first place, causing the surface to heat up some more even though the atmosphere is far colder than the surface and cannot rightly be considered a heat source for the surface in the first place, because it is the surface which is the heat source for the atmosphere. Does shining a flashlight at a mirror so that all the radiation comes back to the flashlight make the flashlight shine brighter? We all know it doesn’t.

Let’s also go back to the claim that, because GHG’s cool the atmosphere, this means that they heat the atmosphere. This is literally what Spencer says. Belief in the “greenhouse gas effect” says that without GHG’s, the atmosphere wouldn’t be able to cool, and because of this fact, GHG’s heat the atmosphere. Yes you are correct, that makes no sense at all. In reality, the Stefan-Boltzmann Law shows that the only way for a thermal radiative object to have a higher kinetic temperature than what its radiative output flux is, is if it has an emissivity lower than unity. Well, 99% of our atmosphere, which is oxygen and nitrogen (O₂ and N₂), have emissivities near zero! It is O₂ and N₂ which literally “trap heat”, because they are unable to radiate any heat away at all, and radiative flux energy loss is the only way the planet has to cool down. Alan Siddons discussed this years ago (5) when he pointed out the fundamental flaws of GHE orthodoxy.

There are three things the GHE orthodoxy will not touch with a ten foot pole.  1) that sunshine is hot and has to be treated in real-time, not averaged out to some non-physical and therefore meaningless value, and that it is impossible to meaningfully average solar power input; 2) that O₂ and N₂ have near-zero emissivity and that in the land of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and radiation, the only way to get something to a higher temperature with the same flux output is to reduce its emissivity, 3) that the lapse rates (both dry and wet) can be calculated without reference to any GHG radiation whatsoever and that according to GHE theory, the lapse rate should be steepened by GHG radiation, yet the rate is still exactly as it is calculated without reference to GHG radiation, and when the “GHG” water vapour is present it lessens the slope of the lapse rate and decreases the surface temperature, not increases those as is required by the GHE.

The usual responses are: 1) to accuse us of not knowing what an average is, and insult our intelligence with snide remarks in a few ways, which just begs the question if they have any clue as to what power input means and that more power does more power than less power; real sunshine can drive extremely energetic processes (take the water cycle for instance, etc.) and generate very high real-time temperatures that 240 W/m² (let alone 161 W/m² !!) could never emulate – not without inventing their GHE (hello!!) to make up for the difference; 2) they never address the emissivity question as far as we know because it automatically and immediately renders the GHE superfluous; 3) they’ve backed away from the lapse rate = GHG effect but still use it from time to time, but the point simply needs to made repeatedly as it was above, because the lapse rates, both wet and dry, can be calculated without any reference to GHG’s at all and GHG’s do not have the observed effect which is claimed.

Postma did ‘put up’, last year already, exactly what Spencer requested. And more, Spencer walks into his own trap by presenting his own model which is not even a time-dependent model as he claimed and seems to think it is. All the Slayers have always ‘put up’ the simple questions about the actual nature of reality that has always made GHE believers get very upset. We didn’t actually ever need to have an alternative model anyway, we just needed to point out what was really unscientific and wrong about the GHE one. They never learned from the criticisms, and in general they couldn’t handle them at all. They ignored what we did try to put up and usually won’t even allow it to be discussed on their blogs. Why aren’t people allowed to ask that, if sunshine is actually really hot, then how can treating it as cold correspond to anything in reality? It is such a simple thing: real-time sunshine can drive processes that are much higher temperature and much more energetic that the averaged-out, cold-sunshine, no day & night assumption could never do. In short, clouds exist, and therefore any model that averages out sunshine down to a freezing cold value is wrong, and has to be wrong. Hence, the greenhouse gas effect is wrong. And that is why the greenhouse gas effect is invented with these flat-Earth cold-sunshine models: because they have nothing to do with reality.

(1) http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/time-for-the-slayers-to-put-up-or-shut-up/

NZCLIMATE TRUTH NEWSLETTER NO 310

MAY 10th 2013

For over 30 years the world has been saturated with the environmental fallacy.It has taken over the media; newspapers, radio, TV; the education system;, the schools, the universities. It has led to a retreat from experimental and theoretical science.

My professional career began during the war when science made a substantial contribution to its outcome. We had vigorous scientific discussions both in public and in the media. We published them in the journals. We enjoyed prestige, attractive salaries and public confidence.

It declined immediately the war ended. R V Jones, in his “Most Secret War” recounts that as soon as the war ended the military were no longer interested in measures to improve conditions of survival of pilots.

I endured a steady decline of science. In industrial research the role of the scientist was to justify the decisions of the sales department, and now it is increasingly to justify the policies of the Government even in the universities.

We have benefited from technical progress, based on scientific discoveries of the past. Chemistry, X-Ray diffraction have enabled molecules to be visualized. Combined with the genetic code it has led to modern medicine and our longer lives. Computers and solid state physics have changed our communications completely. The environmentalists accept these grudgingly, but they reject nuclear power, chemical pesticides, genetically engineered crops, and even (current National Geographic article) nitrogen based fertilizers. They have rubbished Darwin’s theories of evolution and replaced them by The Environment and Sustainability

There have not been any revolutionary scientific discoveries for 50 years. Scientists now live on short term contracts, interspersed with press announcements which either scare the public or claims to have made world shattering discoveries, all in the aid of receiving the next grant.

The climate models that have been foisted on the public would have been rejected by all the journals I knew in 1940. They can only gain credance in an atmosphere where science education has been replaced by dogmatic endorsements of the pioneers, and, increasingly, of the charlatans who have taken science over.

I have recently been revising my old NZClimate Truth Newsletters where I said it all years ago. There are no new publications worth answering. The latest IPCC Report. merely repeats previous shibboleths.

They have confessed that they are frauds in the Climategate letters, and even, as I point out, in such items as Jim Hansen’s item on “The Elusive Surface Temperature”

But, who cares? They still routinely promote the views of environmental activists on every excuse, Prince Charles and Al Gore keep up their worrying. So, at last, to get to the point of this Newsletter, are we returning slowly to reality? There are currently a number of indications that the worm is beginning to turn.

Fracking

This is a method developed in 1947 for improving oil production which has been the deliverer of the United States economy where they now export oil, instead of importing. It has had the effect of making coal so cheap that it has boosted cosl-fired powers stations and made up the energy shortfall in Japan that followed their unwise abandonment of nuclear energy. European environmentalists and anti-nuclear Japanese must now face the fact that gas prices in the USA are now $3.32 per million BTU in USA, $11.77 in Europe and $I6.66 in Japan

The New Zealand Government seems at last to be encouraging oil exploration. Discouraging damaging protest and even approving the ming of gold in its traditional region, Waihi.

Temperature

I have spent much effort pointing out that you cannot measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface and that the “Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record” is a very poor substitute. It is not a temperature record at all, but consists of a series of multiple averages each of which is based on a different mixture of measurements from unrepresentative weather stations. It is also, like all of the ”data” favoured by the IPCC, subtly biased to enable it to support the greenhouse theory. What is amazing is that they did not do a better job, and that the world could be made to cringe at the thought of an increased temperature of less than one degree in 100 years.

Yet it has now got stuck. It has stayed much the same for 17 years and Dr Pachauri is so worried that he thinks it might last another 15 years before his desired warming actually happens.

Apart from the infected Met Services, like the UK where they still keep predicting forthcoming warm winters and our own service which failed to predict the drought. Most ordinary meteorologists carry on with genuine science which does not depend on greenhouse gas concentrations

Windmills

The companies are going bust and the US is trying protectionism for its own dying manufacturers. Brian Leyland shows that windmills actually increase emissions of carbon dioxide because they have to be backed up with inefficient powere stations that can be frequently turned on and off.

Emissions

Only 15% of greenhouse gas emissions currently come from countries that signed the Kyoto Treaty. The New Zealand Minister, Tim Groser, recommends it should be ditched (Carbon Price is “Inching close to zero”)

Sir Peter Gluckman

The Government’s Chief scientific advisor has announced new funding for the National Science Challenges.

It is more interesting in what it does not say that in what it says.

• Aging well – harnessing science to sustain health and wellbeing into the later years of life

• A better start – improving the potential of young New Zealanders to have a healthy and successful life

• Healthier lives – research to reduce the burden of major New Zealand health problems

• High value nutrition – developing high value foods with validated health benefits

• New Zealand’s biological heritage – protecting and managing our biodiversity, improving our biosecurity, and enhancing our resilience to harmful organisms .

It is all very laudable, but there is no mention of any new ideas that might push any of these objects further.

For the first time there is no mention of the environment, global warming, climate change endangered species, or sustainability. It is actually getting real, at last

Conclusion

These are, as yet, only straws in the wind. There is still much to do before science and common sense can once again prevail.

In his post entitled “Imaging the Greenhouse Effect with a FLIR i7 Thermal Imager” on www.DrRoySpencer.com Dr Roy Spencer writes:

“Without greenhouse gases, the atmosphere would be unable to cool itself in response to solar heating. But because an IR emitter is also an IR absorber, a greenhouse atmosphere results in warmer lower layers — and cooler upper layers — than if those greenhouse gases were not present.”

But by far the most prolific radiating molecules in Earth’s atmosphere are H2O ones. So Roy is claiming that H2O makes the lapse rate steeper, contrary to well known fact.

Norman Rogers (American Thinker) this week poses the question: 'Is Roy Spencer the world's most important scientist?' Obviously, Norman is no doubt and suitably eulogises his hero.

Rogers tells his readership:

"Roy Spencer is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama Huntsville who may be the world's most important scientist.   He has discovered scientific insights and theories that cast great doubt on global warming doctrine.  That doctrine has always been dubious and is often defended by attacking the integrity of anyone who dares to raise questions.  Spencer is a rare combination of a brilliant scientist and a brave soul willing to risk his livelihood and reputation by speaking plainly.”

Now while we may agree that Dr. Spencer has, for many years, been on the front line of the skeptical cause  fighting the man-made global warming scam he is certainly not serving the advancement of science. Worse, yet, some of us argue Roy is cut from the same junk science consensus-affirming cloth that underpins all man-made global warming alarmism. “How so?” you may ask.

For no other reason than Spencer is an active promoter of the so-called greenhouse gas theory. This “theory” is the essential cornerstone of all alarmist science. It basically asserts that the more carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere the more warming will occur. Roy says "some warming" must happen, while the alarmists assert a more extreme message.

So why are we making such a big deal about it? Well, let's be clear;  there is no standardized definition of this "theory" which may be shown to be false and, because of that, was known to have been widely abandoned before the 1950's. [1]

Without this "theory" there would be no credible scientific basis whatsoever to blame human emissions of CO2 for warming the climate. As such, there would be no multi-billion dollar climate science research industry. Now, perhaps, you may see why even "skeptical" climatologists don't want to question the source of their bread and butter. The GHE began to re-emerge very slowly on the radar from the sixties when the infant science of climatology was a backwater unpoliced by peer-reviewers from the "hard" sciences.

But since then, thanks to the politicization of science, it has grown in acceptance out of all proportion to its scientific validity. In recent years heretics, such as those from Principia Scientific International (PSI), have been waging a battle on behalf of those from the more skeptical "hard" sciences. We show that Spencer's claims (and those of other GHE believers) flout the laws of physics.

Spencer is now even claiming that H2O makes the lapse rate steeper, contrary to well known fact and making spurious claims regarding infrared thermal imaging devices that PSI member, Doug Cotton rebuts here. 

ANOTHER BREACH IN THE CRUMBLING WALL OF CLIMATE CATASTROPHISM?

April 10, 2013 will surely be remembered – at least in Italy - by the critics of the so called “consensus” on climate catastrophism as a memorable day, maybe a sort of “turning point”.

It was the day when Repubblica, Italy's second most popular newspaper (330,000 copies/day) after the “Corriere della Sera," with offices and correspondents in cities throughout Europe, America, etc., published an unusual (for them) article, “The mystery of Earth no more over-heating”  by journalist Elena Dusi.

The “meat” of the article was as follows:

“Between 2000 and 2010, 100 billion tons of CO2 have been released in the atmosphere. However, the “fever” of our planet remains unchanged. Earth is 0.75° C warmer than one century ago, but since 1998 no further increase of temperature was being recorded, in disrespect of all climate models forecasting a continuous heating by the greenhouse effect…”

Before commenting on these telling words, it seems necessary to inform the reader that Repubblica is one of the most “pro-greenie” Italian newspapers. In 2007 Repubblica devoted many articles and pages to the IPCC report (one of the most catastrophic ever!). Let's be clear: usually Repubblica consumes a lot of column inches with interviews, analysis, graphics, comments, etc., regarding the issue of  “global warming”.

And needless to say, 100% of articles have been - till now - supporting the widely held opinions of the green community on melting Arctic ice, interviews with Al Gore, James Hansen, etc.All replete with comments from “experts” from the last conference on climate change; latest news on “eolian and photovoltaic” technologies, etc.,etc.

Some operating systems for personal computers come with spectacular photographs for monitor backgrounds. The Seven Sisters scene in the Canadian Rocky Mountains is one of them (Fig. 1). Alberta’s Moraine Lake is in the foreground and the Seven Sisters mountain range in the background. You can see it all personally in Canada’s Banff National Park but the photograph will be familiar to many readers.

If you look closely at the picture (Fig. 1), you’ll notice distinct layers on the mountain sides, indicating various layers of stone. These layers are deposits of limestone that were once deep in the oceans and were uplifted by the tectonic forces pushing the American continents towards the west.

Fig. 1. Moraine Lake with the Seven Sisters mountain range, Banff National Park, Canada.

Sediment Layers

The sediment layers in this mountain are visible due the limestone deposits with different resistance to erosion. The harder layers erode slower and give rise to ledges upon which the snow accumulates. You may have seen similar mountain ranges elsewhere; for example in the European Alps. What do these mountains have in common?

They are Limestone Deposits

More specifically, they are all deposits of limestone and formed in the oceans many millions of years ago. Limestone and dolomite are carbonate-type rocks, consisting of calcium and magnesium carbonate. The crucial term here is carbonate, meaning a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3). You may wonder where all that carbonic acid for those rocks came from? Well, that’s the real surprise: from the carbon dioxide in the air.

Carbonic Acid

Carbonic acid is nothing but carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in water. Of course, CO2 has been a constituent of the Earth’s atmosphere from the beginning. In fact, early on, it was a major component. However, once photosynthesizing algae came about and the photosynthesis process started doing its thing in earnest, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere began to decline substantially. This process also elevated the pH (a measure of acidity) of the oceans to alkaline (the opposite of acidic) conditions. Under such alkaline conditions, dissolved CO2 and calcium and magnesium ions form insoluble carbonate-type salts which precipitate and slowly sink to the bottom. This process of calcium carbonate precipitation is still continuing to this day, both in oceans and freshwater lakes. It can actually be observed on occasion as a “whiting” event in some lakes. The term describes the visible precipitation of white carbonate minerals in the water column.

The next question you may wonder about then is: how much of the (formerly atmospheric) carbon dioxide is locked-up in those mountain rocks?

CO2 Locked-up in Carbonate Rocks

The amount of carbon dioxide locked up in carbonate rocks around the world is staggering. Together with residues from biological origin, it is in the order of 10^20 tons, more than a thousand times the amount of all carbon in the entire world’s known plants, and all coal, oil and natural gas deposits COMBINED!

But what is really mind-boggling is the fact that all that limestone carbon was once in the atmosphere. All that carbon dioxide precipitated in the oceans and freshwater which is in the mountain rocks was once in the atmosphere before it became locked-up in these rocks. Numerous remnants of aquatic organisms prove that.

So, what then is the take-home lesson here?

Take-Home Lesson

The take-home lesson here is: Carbon dioxide is an important constituent of the Earth’s atmosphere. The world’s ecosystems need it to function. The CO2 levels in the earth’s atmosphere used to be much higher than now and, finally,

CO2 in the atmosphere is vital for survival and growth of nearly every organism on earth.

With very great pleasure did I consume the paper by Faezeh et al. (2013) just printed in

Nature (May 9). After a careful study of four major marine-terminating outlet glaciers,

collectively draining 22% of the Greenland Ice Sheet, they were able to estimate the annual

dynamic losses at volumes corresponding to a mean global sea level rise of 0.01–0.06 mm per

year. In 100 years this would only give a sea level rise on 1-6 mm, which is insignificant. By

applying a hypothetical future warming or 2.8 oC they increase this value to 19–30 mm rise

by year 2200 (or about 9-15 mm by year 2100). Even this value is so low that it poses no

threat what so ever to humanity.