(Why Wood and Nahle were correct and Pratt was in error.)

 

Introduction

The famous experiment by Robert W. Wood, at John Hopkins University, with two carton boxes/greenhouses, in 1909, is being mentioned everywhere, and on many websites,* as simple experimental evidence proving the fallacy of the greenhouse gas effect theory (GHE).

According to the GHE theory, the small greenhouse with a glass cover had to reach a temperature of nearly 15°C higher than the other small greenhouse with a salt rock (halite) ceiling. This is because salt rock is a material which is “neutral” to infra-red, while glass can theoretically “trap” almost 80-85{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of infra-red outgoing from the heated bottom of the greenhouse, and significantly increase the temperature, by “backradiating” the infrared (IR) waves.

Nothing of that took place, and both greenhouses showed almost the same temperatures inside, with a discrepancy of “scarcely one degree”. For years this experiment was sufficient to dispel giving any scientific ground to the greenhouse gas effect theory. But several decades later, many GHE advocates “forgot” this experiment.

After the Skeptical Science blog publishes it’s critique of the recent paper by scientist Joseph E. Postma debunking the so-called greenhouse gas effect Postma posts another telling rebuttal. The full and unexpurgated version is provided below.

By Joseph E. Postma (Astrophysicist)

I have been asked to write a brief overview on the errors and misconceptions as presented on the so-called “Skeptical Science” blog. I’d first like to point out that the term “skeptical science” is an oxymoron and so it immediately calls into question what kind of person might use such a term. 

We immediately find the tag line “Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism”, which therefore identifies the site not as an actual science communication blog, but a political policy blog, and we thus have our answer to the previous question: it is not a site run by scientists (even if they may hold scientific degrees, does not mean they’re practicing or communicating legitimate science…knowledge of science in these typical cases is used to distort science from reality with the hopes that a scientifically illiterate populace will take it seriously, which they generally don’t), rather, it is a site run by agenda-makers. 

Is a nuclear renaissance around the corner?

It may just happen. For example, Japan has just announced its intention to restart some of their nuclear power plants (NPPs). France is planning to increase its electricity production by NPPs from currently 50% to 90% of its national needs. Pakistan, India and China are rapidly expanding their NPP construction programs. Even in the US, new NPPs are on the drawing boards and in the permitting stage.

 

Green Ideology

The green ideology, first conjured by The Green Party in Germany a few decades ago, saw nuclear power as its anathema. With large deposits of coal, and cheap oil from the Mid-East, there was no shortage of electricity to drive the economy. Still, Germany built 17 NPPs which have provided steady power for the past four decades.

Is “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?

Exploiting the medium of Youtube Carl Brehmer is drawing wider attention to a fascinating experiment he performed to test the climatic impacts of water in our atmosphere.

Carl explains, “An essential element of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is the positive “water vapor feedback” hypothesis. That is, if something causes an increase in the temperature this will cause an increase in the evaporation of water into water vapor.”

Principia Scientific International, with kind permission from Carl, reproduces the following:

Climatologist James Hansen is under sustained attack accused of global warming fraud at a time when the powerful science journal, Nature admits “research is riddled with systematic errors.”

The Nature article (May 9) marks a defining critical moment as a slew of top scientists openly attack climate activist, Professor James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS). Since the 1980′s Hansen has been at the forefront of claims that human emissions of carbon dioxide are “catastrophically” warming our planet. For his ceaseless alarmism Hansen has been named and shamed by, among others, the U.S. Government’s premier extreme weather expert, Martin Hoerling (of sister U.S. Government agency, NOAA) who calls Hansen’s science “patently false” and “policy more than it is science.”

 

 

There are presently 7 Billion bipeds walking about on this Earth and they are expected to number 10 Billion by 2050. These 7 Billion machines are you and I. We are factories. We burn Carbon with the help of Oxygen and we produce Carbon Dioxide, night and day.

We bipeds are on the increase. We produce heat. We humans are combustion machines. Without Oxygen we could not burn the Carbon we ingest in the form of food, nor could we produce Carbon Dioxide either.

All heat has to be generated. The Sun generates enormous heat at some 6000K on its surface. A fire generates heat. A central heating system generates heat. Friction – rubbing two sticks together generates heat. An electrical current in contact with a coiled wire resistance produces heat. All animals produce heat, and incidentally produce Carbon Dioxide.

There is no issue more divisive in American politics than the issue of anthropogenic climate change; it seems every person, from the man who delivers your paper to the president of the United States, has an opinion on the issue. Whether informed or not, this opinion shapes public policy: those in control tend to vote as their own personal opinions dictate. This means that, by and large, each American state has a different curriculum, and approaches issues, especially anthropogenic climate change, through different avenues and from different perspectives. It is safe to say that students who are going to college at home, those sitting in classrooms in Seattle and all the college students in California in between are getting different information about climate change.

According to an article published January 16, 2012, states such as Texas and Louisiana have enacted laws into their curriculum that require the teaching against man-made climate change in schools. Other states are sure to follow in the coming months: without a standardized national curriculum, the states are at the will of the people in charge. Those with power, lawmakers and such, tend to vote along the same lines their opinions lie; with or without evidence to the contrary, senators in these states will enact curriculums, many without any teaching experience at all.

Britain’s once illustrious Royal Society is exposed again selling out to an elitist agenda promoting de-population and eco-evangelism.

Latest whistleblower on this disturbing trend is Ben Pile of Climate Resistance. Pile pens a punishing new piece exposing the sinister rise of Malthusianism cloaked in post-normal platitudes. With his article. ‘The Royal Society Takes Another Step Away from Science ‘ Pile hammers the RS hard declaring:

“The scientific academy has sensed that it in today’s world, it wields political power. As the call for evidence suggests, the Royal Society has already decided that population is a problem, and the size of the population ought to be managed by political power, not by the individuals it consists of.”

The Royal Society is shown abandoning its faltering campaign to trumpet man-made global warming alarm to switch to alarm about so-called over population; all in the same anti-science Malthusian vein that humans are inherently “bad.”

Introduction

Some meteorologists have blamed water vapor and carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere for warming the earth. Below is an excerpt from a paper¹ written by meteorologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Climate models used for estimating effects of increases in greenhouse gases show substantial increases in water vapor as the globe warms and this increased moisture would further increase the warming.” The NOAA got it completely backwards about water vapor and CO₂ – they cool the earth! Al Gore did something similar in his bogus “Inconvenient Truth” presentation of the Vostok Ice Core data.

Fledgling international science association adds two more prominent professors to its burgeoning membership. Principia Scientific International attributes its meteoric rise to increased public concern about corruption in government and corporate science.

Professors Paul Reiter and Ian Plimer are the latest recruits standing alongside the two-dozen other freshly installed experts who last month joined the organization styling itself as a force for higher standards in the fractious world of science.

Paul Reiter comes to Principia Scientific International (PSI) as Professor of Medical Entomology at Institut Pasteur, Paris. Professor Reiter grabbed mainstream media attention for his forthright skepticism of the authoritarian and censorious approach by governmental bodies in the hotly-contested man-made global warming debate. He has also provided specialist scientific testimony before the UK Parliament. From Australia to PSI comes Ian Plimer, also famed for his unswerving stand against the politicization of climate science. Professor Plimer is a prominent academic and professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide.

 

How an anti-intellectual misuse of language and logic sought to turn a perfectly natural process into a man-made catastrophe. Scientists claim to have identified three fatal physical paradoxes in man-made global warming theory.

Canadian astrophysicist and climate analyst, Joseph E. Postma precedes the publication of his new peer-reviewed study on “Climatism” (the doomsaying pseudo scientific man-made global warming cult), with an intriguing insight into three interesting paradoxes of the greenhouse gas theory of climate science:

Paradox One: Thousands of years of proxy data proving increases in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are proven to follow, not cause, all prior increases in global temperatures;  

Paradox Two: A colder atmosphere heated by a warmer surface has been turned full circle and modeled by climatologists as the causal agent such that cool air somehow can heat a warmer surface even more;  

Paradox Three: Solar heating that impacts half of the planet at any time is now modelled as an isotropic source with one-quarter of the intensity over the entire planet.

Mathematical Philosopher
Alfred KorzybskiIs there a better place to bloom prosperity in science, commerce, legislation, education, bureaucracy and even religion than in a Constitutional Republic?

We live in such exciting times for the advance of science, technology and education. The Internet has created an environment for us to find each other, communicate ideas and bring new and better technologies to fruition. That being said, John Naisbitt in his prophetic 1980 book “Megatrends” stated; “We keep hoping science and technology will deliver us from moral responsibility. It never has and it never will.” Science and technology by definition is designed to either build on or outmode that which came before. Truth, morality, spirituality, faith and great works of art fall into the category of “No new sins, just new spins!” Truth is what it is. Our job is to seek it, find it, apply it and protect it. Truth never changes, though our perception of it does as we grow and shrink.

Neutral observers have been perplexed at the response of key figures in climate science skepticism since specialists from other scientific disciplines exposed flaws in the greenhouse gas ‘theory’, often referred to as the ‘greenhouse effect’ (GHE). 

A bizarre opprobrium has come from the denizens of anti-orthodox climate alarmism which is much at odds with the usual tenets of dispassionate scientific skepticism.

Once imperious figures such as Fred Singer,Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen (and now WUWT’s Anthony Watts) have been irate and less than dignified in their shaky defense of the greenhouse gas effect, the cornerstone of man-made global warming.

PSI think tank publishes more evidence refuting man-made global warming and announces ambitious expansion plans in war against government-sponsored junk science.

In a press statement John O’Sullivan, spokesman for Principia Scientific International (March 13, 2012) announced, “Today we proudly present both the publication of a new study debunking the unproven claims by discredited government climatologists plus seventeen new recruits to our growing team of qualified experts.”

The PSI frontman added that the new study by Douglas Cotton was completed as part of pioneering  new peer-review system called ‘PROM’ (or ‘Peer Review in Open Media’). Cotton’s paper‘Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics’  defly approaches the concept of the greenhouse gas effect from the point of view of radiative transfer.[ 1]

Following your excellent seminar at the University of Houston on February 6, 2012, I introduced myself, indicated Greenhouse Gas Theory (GHG) is a perpetual motion machine to drive  anthropogenic global warming (AGW) violating First & Second Laws of thermodynamics, and emailed you my proof at ‘No Virginia.’

I noticed your February 29, 2012 post ‘Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name’ included things you did not cover at the University of Houston:

“Now let me turn to the deniers. One of their favorite arguments is that the greenhouse effect does not exist at all because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics—i.e., one cannot transfer energy from a cold atmosphere to a warmer surface. It is surprising that this simplistic argument is used by physicists, and even by professors who teach thermodynamics. One can show them data of down welling infrared radiation from CO2, water vapor, and clouds, which clearly impinge on the surface. But their minds are closed to any such evidence.”

Algae, the green stuff suspended in and floating on the surface of over-fertilized (polluted) water, AKA scum, is supposed to save America’s dependence on foreign crude oil. The President has said so. He stated that “up to 17% of the oil we import for transportation” could be replaced with this fuel [1].

The Chemistry

To begin with, a mass of algae is not the same as a container of crude oil. Algae are small plant-like organisms living in water. Like all plants, they use the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide (CO2, i.e., one carbon and two oxygen atoms per molecule) to plant matter. In chemical terms, crude oil is a pure hydrocarbon of the approximate composition CH2 (i.e., one carbon and two hydrogen atoms per molecule). The composition of algae is more like CH2O, sort of half way in between CO2 and CH2. Because of the remaining oxygen atom in the plant matter (CH2O), its energy content is substantially lower than that of a pure hydrocarbon. You might say that it is already half burnt (the end product of which, of course, is CO2).