Anthony Watts of the science blog Watts Up With That appears to have pulled a bait and switch to dodge Principia Scientific International’s (PSI) direct and forthright answer to his (and Dr. Roy Spencer’s) “put up or shut up” challenge.

On May 10^th of this year, Watts and Spencer challenged PSI’s “Slayers” to provide a realistic model of earth’s energy budget, one that did not incorporate additional heating by “greenhouse gases.” We obliged.

But rather than acknowledge our response and cogently address our thermal model (illustrated above), Watts incongruously posted an “experiment” to attack us once again. An upcoming article will provide details about Watts’ experiment proving the opposite of what he intended. For now, however, the crux of the debate remains: Is radiative forcing – in other words, heating by greenhouse gases – a real phenomenon? Here and here we have clearly indicated no.

To clarify matters for anyone less familiar with the present debate, the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) has for 30 years been the centerpiece of claims about man-made global warming. The basic contention is that sunlight doesn’t provide enough heat to account for the Earth’s temperature, but additional radiation from about 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere’s gases does account for it. These gases respond to the heat radiated by the Earth’s surface and send that energy back, which makes the surface warmer. Thus in effect the Earth is heated by its own radiation, much like a battery charging itself with the electricity it produces.

Spencer’s so-called “time-dependent” Earth model, then, presupposes the existence of such a heating mechanism and from this assumption he derives what he calls “reasonable surface temperatures.” Convinced his model proves that the GHE is real, he dared us to present an alternative. In promptly doing so we also demonstrated that Spencer’s version (below) is not only far from being “time dependent,” it’s not even capable of generating enough heat for clouds to form — let alone enough heat to melt ice. Reasonable surface temperatures indeed.

Yet after calling for an alternative to a heat source that augments the Sun, Watts instantly ignored or perhaps forgot that his call had been answered. He wandered instead into another playground, distracted by a picture which he found amusing. So it’s natural to ask: Is Watts seeking to confuse readers by pretending that what occurred did not occur? Or is the confusion inadvertent?

Anyway, Anthony Watts has now produced a video, New WUWT-TV segment: Slaying the ‘slayers’ with Watts, featuring a homespun experiment with a mirror, an infrared camera and a 65 watt incandescent lamp. Judging by comments to his post, Watts has certainly succeeded in drawing attention away from the original issue. We will address some of Watts’ most recent remarks nevertheless.

“[Slayers] tend to ignore real world measurements”

Astounding. Please open your eyes, Mr. Watts. PSI members have both performed experiments and used respected third party empirical data to validate our views. Look here, here, here and here. For example, in his PSI paper Observations on ‘backradiation’ during Nighttime and Daytime, professor Nasif Nahle carefully compiled a series of real time measurements of thermal radiation from the atmosphere and surface materials both night and day. Nahle demonstrated that radiant heat transfer from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface simply does not occur. A cooler system radiating toward a warmer system is physically untenable as a heating mechanism.

“Most of what that group does is to spin sciencey sounding theories and pal reviewed papers by a mysterious members-only peer review system.”

On the contrary, Mr. Watts, offering pseudo-scientific garbage like Willis Eschenbach’s heat-magnifying shell and Ira Glickstein’s photon-slicer is your specialty. Our group deals with standard scientific principles. And we don’t mince the 2nd Law of thermodynamics into incomprehensible confusion like crafty lawyers would. Actual scientists understand the matter clearly. This is from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, for example:

Heat always moves from a warmer place to a cooler place.

Heat transfers in three ways:

• Conduction
• Convection
• Radiation

It’s as simple as that: heat always moves to a cooler place, which includes heat transfer by radiation. By the same token, this excludes radiant heat transfer to a warmer place, a point that Mr. Watts and his fans emphatically contest. Which places them on the outskirts of standard science, not us.

As for “a mysterious members-only peer review system,” no. In fact, PSI has pioneered a new kind of open peer review system: PROM (peer review in open media) which allows anyone to post feedback on all the papers submitted to us. Every such paper must pass PROM review and remain up for public scrutiny for a period of no less than one month. During that time authors must respond to any criticisms submitted to PSI on their work. PSI weighs the merits of feedback from members and non-members alike and compels authors to modify or withdraw the paper when objections are deemed valid. Thanks to the thoroughness of our open PROM system, every paper eventually published by PSI has been found in need of some amendment beforehand.

Now for some of Watts’ more serious misconceptions, however.

“a greenhouse atmosphere has higher temperatures near the surface, but lower temperatures at high altitudes”

Yet this trait is common to every planet’s atmosphere, irrespective of that atmosphere’s composition. Has Watts ever bothered to look?

As you’ll notice in every case, atmospheric temperature increases with depth and decreases with height. Above 0.1 bar of pressure, all planetary atmospheres do this. The presence of radiating trace gases aren’t responsible for this but the interaction of gravity with a gas’s ability to hold onto heat. Indeed, as this NASA page shows, the rate of atmospheric cooling (or heating) for a given unit of altitude can be predicted by accounting for the planet’s gravitational acceleration (<g>) and its atmosphere’s heat capacity (C_p) alone. For more information about this phenomenon see A Discussion on the Absence of a Measurable Greenhouse Effect, a PSI publication.

Incidentally, it is also the case with every planet’s atmosphere that its lower-altitude temperature exceeds a blackbody-based prediction. In other words, the same method for predicting a minus 18 degree Earth also fails everywhere else. Each planet’s atmosphere is warmer than predicted, even when it is principally composed of hydrogen and helium.

But will this prompt greenhouse theoreticians to reconsider their tenets? Don’t hold your breath.

“To be honest, I laughed when I saw this”

Now we are veering toward the biggest misconception yet. Watts here is referring to a picture that shows a bright light bulb facing a mirror. The caption explains that the mirror’s reflection doesn’t heat the light bulb or make it shine any brighter. This is only common sense, however, because anyone can readily verify such a thing for himself. Even a concave (light-collecting) mirror will demonstrate that an object cannot be brightened by its own radiance. The light it shines can only illuminate something that is shining less.

Believing that an object actually can be brightened by its brightness is rather queer, in fact, like standing inside a bucket and giving an honest effort to lift it off the ground. Yet Watts sincerely believes that by means of its own radiant power an object can increase its radiant power, and he finds it funny that others consider that a joke.

But this ties in to another of his odd beliefs, for Watts also objects to us mentioning that other greenhouse theorists propose that radiant energy is doubled when it is doubled back to the radiator.

“I’ve never made a doubling claim like that, nor am I aware that any of the others named have claimed a doubling”

This is a veritable WHOPPER. Because two of Watts’s greenhouse stars, Eschenbach and Glickstein have clearly explained on Watts’ own pages that radiant energy is doubled if certain conditions prevail.

Willis Eschenbach, for instance, has it that a steel shell suspended around a cold steel sphere will radiate back the sphere’s thermal light and increase its radiance from 235 watts per square meter to 470 watts per square meter. Check our math, but isn’t 470 equal to 235 times 2?

Likewise, Ira Glickstein has it that a greenhouse atmosphere is somehow able to split a single outgoing photon into an incoming photon and an outgoing photon, such that an incoming photon scale that would read “1” in the absence of greenhouse gases will read “2” when they’re around. Pardon us again, but doesn’t 1 + 1 = 2?

Here’s the real question, though: How can Anthony Watts be utterly unaware of what his own greenhouse explainers have been explaining? One might also ask whether Watts is aware that Eschenbach and Glickstein are merely regurgitating the basic concept of greenhouse theory as taught in universities. Outgoing surface heat rays turn into incoming atmospheric heat rays, which double the surface’s heat rays.

Richard Lindzen believes this too. His is one of the names we mentioned.

In Greenhouse Effect, A Scientific Analysis, professor Lindzen explains,

The basic idea of the greenhouse effect is illustrated by Figure 1. Suppose that the atmosphere and clouds can be represented by a single layer of gas and clouds at some temperature T_α , and that this layer of gas and clouds can be treated as a perfect emitter. The layer therefore emits radiant energy both upward and downward at the rate σT_α ⁴ , while the surface emits upward at the rate σT_s⁴ , where T_s is the surface temperature. At the top of the atmosphere, the total outgoing radiative flux, given by σT_a⁴ , must balance the net incoming solar flux of 240 Wm^-2, giving T_a = 255 kelvins. But the surface receives energy from both the sun and the atmosphere, and the thermal equilibrium of the surface requires that

σT_s⁴ = 240 Wm^-2 + σT_a⁴ = 480 Wm^-2.

And there it is again. Eschenbach transforms 235 watts per square meter into 470, Glickstein conjures 2 out of 1, and Lindzen turns 240 W/m² into 480. Since on Watts’ own website Spencer wrote approvingly of yet another paper where Lindzen explains how surface heating by a back-radiating atmosphere works, and since another Watts favorite, Christopher Monckton, endorses both Lindzen and Spencer, we just naturally assumed that Watts himself was in on this doubling business. But no —

“I’ve never made a doubling claim like that, nor am I aware that any of the others named have claimed a doubling”

— it would appear that Watts objects to it. So we await his refutation of Lindzen et al.  

Anyone can do this experiment and prove that carbon dioxide (CO2) increases the pH of natural water systems.

If you read the statements of carbon dioxide “war mongers”, including those from EPA, you are led to believe that CO2 causes acidification of water. That is true under aseptic conditions such as in a laboratory with distilled water, but not in nature. In nature, there are two crucial differences: the presence of nutrients and sun light. Together, they make a big difference as you will see for yourself by undertaking this simple experiment.

The Idea

The idea of this experiment is to prove that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere INCREASES the pH of water.

Supplies & Ingredients

You need:

1. A transparent glass or plastic container (flask, container) with a tight-closing lid. [I am using one of those 1-quart plastic containers used in supermarkets for bulk food items, etc.].

2. A small amount of common plant fertilizer. [I am using a 20-20-20 type all-purpose plant fertilizer].

3. Distilled or de-ionized water, available in any drug store and most supermarkets.

4. A way to measure pH of the water [I am using pH sticks; see also bottom note].

5. A sunny place near your home (inside or outdoors).

6. A few weeks of time.

What to Do

There is very little to do; the sun does most of the work. Also, please note all of the quantities and concentrations mentioned do not need to be exact; they are just general guidelines.

1. Fill your container about two-thirds with the water. Keep the lid off and let it stand a comfortable temperature for a few days.

2. Then measure the pH of the water. It should stabilize near pH 4.5 (weakly acidic).

3. Add fertilizer at the appropriate rate for the amount of water in your container as per instructions by the manufacturer (commonly a teaspoon for 4 liters or a gallon) and stir until it is dissolved.

4. Check the pH again; it should not have changed.

5. Add a smidgen (barely visible amount) of soil, or pond algae as an inoculum.

6. Tightly close the lid and place the container at a sunny spot.

7. Wait a few weeks (say 3 to 6 weeks, depending on area, temperature and sunshine).

8. Once you see obvious signs of algae growing in the container (discoloration of the dye coming with the fertilizer) and turbidity (slime or particles in the system), check the pH again. It will have increased to approximately pH 8.

9. You have finished the experiment.

Observations

You will have demonstrated the conversion of carbon dioxide (from the air) together with the nutrients (the fertilizer you added) and sun light (radiation energy) to plant matter. Of course, nature does this all over without you doing anything at all. Minerals in rocks and soils slowly dissolve and the sun does the rest.

Initially, the distilled water contained no minerals and its pH was determined solely by the dissolution of carbon dioxide from air into the water. The resulting solution of carbonic acid has a pH of approximately 4.5.

Once you added the nutrients (plant fertilizer), added a smidgen of inoculum and waited a few weeks, things had changed dramatically.

Professor Vincent Gray, in his latest New Zealand Climate Truth Newsletter, showcases an important new study by Canadian professor, Ross McKitrick that details why the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be abolished.

Author, Ken Coffman, is generously donating to Principia Scientific International all gross sales of his novel ‘Endangered Species’ for the week ending Friday, May 31^st 2013.

This highly-rated book is a fast-paced literary adventure; a story of how three groups converge in the Pacific Northwest to discover the secret of the Sasquatch. Enjoying an Amazon ‘five star’ review status ‘Endangered Species‘ is described by one satisfied reader:

“There’s hardly a topic that isn’t touched on here: economics, engineering, societal constructions, population control, climate change, eco-terrorism, survival, cannibalism, politics, Earth-worship-cults, and sex. There’s a jaded, lethal rich bastard looking for both a business partner and the ultimate thrill. And a spoiled rich kid who finds the thrill isn’t so thrilling. And an Everyman who’s accidentally on a voyage of self-discovery.And there’s a love story. Several, in fact. Willie and Maria–a mismatched pair (in more ways than one) who work beautifully together–are at the core of this delightful piece of insanity. And Graham, who finds himself and the love of his life. And Robert and Raven. Sex is had. Love is made. Sometimes things don’t end well. “

‘Endangered Species‘ is currently on limited offer for only $11.01 via Amazon and there is FREE shipping on orders over $25. Buy your copy today, have a great read and feel you’ve also helped sponsor the world’s only independent science association dedicated to campaigning against corruption within science.

Authors of a new climate science consensus study trumpeted by mainstream media hacks for “proving” that most scientists blame humans for global warming are today being accused of fakery. Uproar ensued just days after publication of a controversial paper, ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.‘

(John Cook, University of Queensland)

Experts whose work was cited in the paper by lead author, John Cook (pictured) are aghast that their work has been used to justify far-fetched claims that there exists a  “97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} consensus” among scientists regarding human-caused global warming.  Among those upset scientists cited in the new paper is Dr. Craig Idso. Idso reacted: “That is not an accurate representation of my paper.”

Nonetheless,  key authors, John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli, are unashamedly taking the plaudits from pro-green news outlets that are citing their paper as justification for draconian carbon taxation policies. California’s KPBS proclaims the study a “survey of the work of almost 30,000 scientists” which has “found 97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of published papers agree human activity is the cause of climate change. “

Mr. Cook, who owns and runs the controversial and confusingly named alarmist blog, Skeptical Science, is Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia. His paper, appearing in the journal “Environmental Research Letters”  has added real irony for its claim that there really is “a striking discrepancy between public perception and reality.”

But as more independent analysts look into Cook’s claims the less reliable they seem. Another scientist quick to report being misrepresented by the new study is Dr. Nicola Scafetta who spoke of the “ utter dishonesty” at work. While Dr. Nir J. Shaviv of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, when asked whether Cook’s study reliably reported his paper, replied “Nope… it is not an accurate representation.”

Now Cook’s “97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} consensus” study is being met by a backlash from the very heart of European green policy. Once solidly pro-green Germany sees its flagship news magazine, Spiegel Online, quick to throw cold water over Cook’s claims.

Speigel reports:

“There’s an obvious discrepancy between the public perception and reality. The authors speak about ‘consensus on man-made climate change’ – and thus this threatens to further increase confusion within the public. The survey confirms only a banality: Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that man is responsible for at least a part of the climate warming. The important question of how big is man’s part in climate change remains hotly disputed.”

Nonetheless, in the United States it’s climate alarmist business as usual in the Whitehouse. President Barack Obama this week was again turning the heat up. The President’s new “Call Out the Climate Change Deniers” website is hard at work trying to sell the myth that opposition to climate alarmism among scientists is “vanishingly small.”  Such assertions fly in the face of the fact tens of thousands of  American scientists are actively on record as condemnatory of such junk climate. As many correctly point out,  you will see that  by comparison there is only a miniscule number of climate scientists who have actually put names on record to assert humans are dangerously warming the climate.

Indeed, a U.S. Senate minority report demonstrates that if you contrast and compare the actual number of names of alarmist scientists on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) versus those named scientists opposing the scam then the skeptics are “12 times the number of U.N. scientists who authored the official IPCC 2007 report.”

And the skeptic naysayers are scientists of real pedigree. Among them are some of the world’s best. Among them is a past winner of a Nobel Science Prize (unlike that Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore).

Dyes and pigments are everywhere. They make us see things in many colors. The blue of your jeans is just one dye of many.

Some History

In ancient times (say Neanderthals’ time), the available dyes were mostly minerals, such as “ocher,” rust, carbon (black) and similar pigments. Pictographs made with them some tens of thousands of years ago have survived quite well to this date.

Later on, just a few thousand years ago, some organisms-derived organic dyes became widely known. They include Indigo (the blue dye in “blue jeans”) from the plant Indigofera tinctoria, Tyrian Purple (a purple dye, the Roman imperial purple) from the snail Murex sp., Cochineal (a red dye) from the aphid-like insect Sternorrhyncha sp. among many others.

The evolution of chemistry changed it all. Beginning with the elucidation of the chemical structures of some of the natural dyes above, chemists found ways to duplicate those en masse in laboratories and create derivatives and novel dye structures on the basis of then-recognized simple principles. Fig. 1, showing the chemical structure of indigo helps to understand that principle. All the “aromatic bonds” (indicated by a pair of parallel lines spaced by a single line) create a large molecule with a “conjugated-bond” structure. Such conjugated-double bond arrangements have optical absorption bands in the visible spectrum of light and hence are dyes.

Fig. 1. The chemical structure of the indigo (blue) dye from the Indigo plant.

Just a (small) change of the chemical structure causes a shift in the material’s spectrum to make it a purple dye. This compound has two additional bromine atoms, as indicated by “Br” in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. The chemical structure of the Tyrian Purple (purple-red) dye from the Murex snail.

Today, such synthetic dyes number now in many tens of thousands. Your (color) photocopier or printer, your newspaper and every glossy magazine you look at makes liberal use of such inventions. Without the glitzy color, the new car ads just wouldn’t have the same sex appeal!

The World of Color

Just twenty years ago, most newspapers were strictly black and white without any color pictures whatsoever. These days, in the same papers you’ll find full page color-ads and pictures throughout.

While we humans enjoy a world of color, others on Earth are only able to perceive dark and light. For example, deer and moose do not have color vision. Instead, their dark and light perception far exceeds ours. That allows them to move through dense forests in the middle of the night without much difficulty.

Yet other species perceive entirely different “colors,” namely parts of the electromagnetic wave spectrum we cannot see at all; the infrared spectrum belongs to that. Many insects, certain snakes and other critters have organs which can “see” infrared radiation as it is emanating from warm bodies. We only feel that radiation as warmth hitting our skin when sitting near a camp fire or similar heat source, but we cannot see it with our eyes.

Without our ability to perceive color, the world would appear more bleak, just in shades of light and dark.

Aren’t you glad that chemistry invented some fabulous additions to the world of color?

Twenty interesting facts about CO2 that have been kept ‘top secret’ by the man–made global warming community

By Dr Darko Butina

1. We know everything about physico-chemical properties of CO2 there is to know since its discovery 200 years ago, and categorical statement can be made that the physico-chemical properties of CO2 in its pure state, including IR properties, have nothing to do with its properties as part of the mixture called air.

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:

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 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{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} 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{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} 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{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} 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.

Doug Cotton has been banned from PSI – all his posts, comments and contributions are unwelcome here due to his unlawful impersonations of real scientists; harassment, disrespect and general unpleasantness.

As others has noted (and banned him):