Growing Controversy over the Greenhouse Effect Lab Test ‘Proof’

Written by John O'Sullivan on May 17, 2018. Posted in Current News

Climate alarmists are losing the debate about a famous lab experiment ‘proof’ of the so-called greenhouse gas theory. For 30 years government scientists claimed carbon dioxide (CO2) ‘traps heat’ and/or ‘delays cooling’ of the atmosphere. But their experiment is widely being exposed as a fraud.

Believers in the greenhouse gas theory rely heavily on a famous lab test to claim the CO2 effect on climate is ‘settled science.’  No other practical demonstration exists to show carbon dioxide is our climate’s control knob. If this empirical evidence is fakery then the skeptics are right that only discredited computer models stand between them and a massive paradigm shift in science, as was pointed out in, ‘Physics Doesn’t Rely On Analogy, The Greenhouse Gas Theory Does.’

Below, we see how a clever but dishonest ‘experiment’ reinforced group think and why a rapidly growing number of independent scientists now say we have been sold a monumental trillion-dollar lie.

Principia Scientific International (PSI) has gained world-wide fame (or is that notoriety?) as rallying point of dissenting scientists debunking the greenhouse gas effect (GHE) theory; the very cornerstone of man-made global warming science.  The GHE theory sells the concept that a tiny amount of CO2 in the air can be our climate’s control knob; it relies on you believing earth’s atmosphere acts rather like a glass greenhouse (as shown below).

As Tony Heller shows, 1988 was the year the  climate fraud widely caught hold (though 1967 was the year the influential Manabe & Wetherald paper began influencing scientists).* Contrary to media propaganda the term ‘greenhouse gas theory’ hasn’t been settled science for over a century. The very term ‘greenhouse gas theory’ or any of its derivatives doesn’t even appear in the most important and influential of US government climate reports (Charney 1979). We may take that as strong evidence that back then it was not ‘settled science’ at all.

But the climate fraudsters NEED you to believe the issue is long settled – it clearly wasn’t in 1979 and still isn’t today. In the last 10 years the Big Lie has begun unraveling. No fewer than 1,200+ independent scientists and researchers now use Principia Scientific International (PSI) as a hub to share their dissent against misguided (and/or dishonest) government-funded academics. Even widely-respected climate scientist Dr Roy Spencer (lukewarmer) now admits PSI is winning because lukwarmism is “boring.”

But PSI is winning because a growing body of peer-reviewed science proves earth’s climate can be precisely calculated without relying on ANY greenhouse effect.

Since 2011 PSI (also known as the ‘Slayers’) transformed a once two-sided debate about ‘how much’ warming CO2 causes into a three-sided attritional argument. Despite the usual niceties, PSI’s ‘Slayers’ are denounced by the two other rival factions (government academics and less strident skeptics – or ‘lukewarmers’. To the true believers PSI (Slayers) are abominable heretics. (see our ‘user guide’ for more info)

Even the most popular skeptic climate blog, WUWT (see here) accepts that the lab experiment touted widely in consensus science to ‘prove’ the greenhouse gas theory is an utter fraud. But site owner, Anthony Watts remains a diehard greenhouse gas theory defender.  Just check out what Watts has to say on the issue:

“Al Gore’s Climate 101 video experiment (from the 24 hour Gore-a-thon) shows that his “high school physics” could never work as advertised.”

Watts then tells his vast army of readers that he, too, attempted to perform the famous greenhouse gas lab test himself only to find it is an utter sham. (above is a video of the Watts experiment). Watts then deftly (and correctly) shows where, in video recordings of the famous experiment, the charlatans like Bill Nye, Al Gore. etc. ply the deception. Watts explains:

“The most egregious faked presentation in that video was the scene with the split screen thermometers, edited to appear as if the temperature in the jar of elevated CO2 level was rising faster than the jar without elevated CO2 level.”

Watts nonsensically concludes the experiment is a fraud but still insists the theory remains valid concluding:

“I should make it clear that I’m not doubting that CO2 has a positive radiative heating effect in our atmosphere, due to LWIR re-radiation, that is well established by science.”

What ‘science’ is that Mr Watts? “Re-radiation? Please explain, sir!

Indeed, Watts even admits he has never even read ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon’ such is his antipathy towards being skeptical about climate alarmism.  WUWT resorts to shutting down any discussion – it has a strict policy banning ALL comments supporting PSI.

But the PSI crowd are a plucky bunch and won’t accept such halfhearted skepticism. They make repeated challenges to their rival factions for an open and public debate (no takers as yet).  Loathe to go all out in a war with the lukewarmists (who they otherwise respect) the ‘Slayers’ nonetheless revel in pointing out how even well-regarded lukewarm scientists such as Dr Roy Spencer and Dr Richard Lindzen cannot even agree over whereabouts in the atmosphere the ‘extra heat’ from CO2 is supposed to impart a greenhouse effect.

Prod Roy, Richard and other lukewarmers about their own personal pet greenhouse effect theories and you soon realize there are as many contradictory variants of the ‘theory’ as there are so-called ‘experts’ plugging them. We see this all too clearly from the bizarre doublespeak of lukewarmers about the bogus lab experiment referred to in this article’s title.

Why rely on a fake experiment at all if it is “settled science” that CO2 “traps” heat and controls our climate?

It seems Watts and other lukewarmists can’t see the wood for the trees!

Never will you see anyone who relies on this ‘test’ admit that heat transfer is function of ∆T. You won’t be told that Mass and Specific Heat for CO2 = 0.80, while for Argon it = 1.67. This means CO2 heats/cools faster than air, Argon two times slower than CO2.

In short, global warming alarmists (as well as lukewarmers) are equally guilty of doublespeak about CO2. The lukewarmers admit the very iconic experiment relied on to prove the greenhouse theory is a fraud. But still they won’t go the whole way and ask themselves deeper questions. Try to debate any lukewarmer (or alarmist) and they quickly jump from CO2’s heat transfer properties to CO2’s insulative properties!

As Craig Brougher (in Carbon Dioxide Doesn’t Cause Global Warming) expands on the glaring contradictions at play among lukewarmists:

“They still believe in ‘climate forcing’ by CO2 but this trace gas (just 0.04 percent of air) cannot both warm and insulate at the same time. Nor are there any insulative effects anyway, even if the atmosphere were 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} CO2. Remember, “physical laws come first.” But to make it more hilarious yet is the fact that LWR (long wave radiative) heat, or conductive waste heat back from earth to the CO2 does not “resonate” CO2. Only the energy from active radiant sources like the sun’s IR (infrared radiation) can do it (Double Whoops)!  That means CO2 would have zero insulative properties, of and by itself! Sorry, that’s just another inviolable law of nature.  Just check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer_coefficient”

Dismayed veteran PSI researcher and professional engineer, Joseph A Olson laments:

“PSI’s book, ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon’ exposed this chicanery over eight years ago and still the lukewarmers won’t admit CO2 is innocent. They still insist this trace gas “must” cause some warming. What nonsense! The CO2 lab experiment (still taught in our schools) is a pure stunt, the results skewed – but they frequently fool the untrained. The lab test allegedly compares the thermal properties CO2 and Argon (but there is no measurement of amounts of each gas). The gases are kept sealed in flasks (so no measure whatsoever of the atmospheric impact of convection!).”

Applied scientists and engineers have proven most adept at seeing through the 30-year-old greenhouse gas theory sham concocted at NASA by climate warrior Dr James Hansen. Qualified engineer Bob Beatty BE FausIMM(CP) writes:

“Noteworthy is the universal lack of reference to Henry’s Gas Law (HL). Unless we start with a discussion of how the concentration of CO2 is controlled in the atmosphere, we will miss this critical input. The science fact I that the atmospheric level of CO2 is always in balance with the sea temperature as postulated by William Henry two centuries ago.”

In short, it does not matter how much CO2 is pumped into the air, it will always find an equilibrium concentration such as 400ppm, but always dependent on the sea temperature (see: http://bosmin.com/SeaChange.pdf”

It remains of great concern at Principia Scientific International that basic science like Henry’s Law does not get much more (or any) coverage in our tutoring institutions – especially considering that this law of science has such topical application.

Fellow PSI climate researcher, Carl Brehmer adds:

“Just for clarification.  It can be argued that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels seen over the past ~150 years has been caused by the rise in ocean water temperature over that period and not the other way around.  Conversely, we can say that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are not causing the temperature of the oceans to increase.  Stated another way, if the current global political establishment wishes to decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide levels then they would have to devise a way of cooling down the 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers ocean water.”

Dr Darko Butina, another senior PSI expert and renowned in industry for his work on the chemistry of carbon dioxide weighs in adding:

“Let me give you some basic facts about air temperatures, ocean temperatures, CO2 concentration in the air and CO2 concentrations in the oceans to clarify the recent emails comments:

1. We do not know (until very recently) anything about air temperatures at ground level since nobody has published any detailed analysis of daily data, except for my publications in the last 5 years;

2. Any averaging of thermometer-based data gives a meaningless number which has no physical meaning and therefore can’t be called temperature;

3. We don’t know the temperatures of oceans since it is impossible to have fixed-to-the-bottom thermometers recording daily temperatures of the surface;

4. We don’t know anything about CO2 concentration around the globe since the major source of instrument-based measurements of CO2 comes from the Mauna Loa Observatory which is 3400 m above the sea levels next to the still alive volcanic top. Those concentrations have nothing in common with CO2 concentrations in the middle of the fields surrounded by vegetation or above the surface of the oceans;

5. Please note, that every single instrument used in experimental sciences detects ONLY the molecules that are in physical contact with that instrument!!! So, every reading by an instrument tells only the ‘local’ concentration;

6. The issue of determining the exact concentration of CO2 above the oceans is almost impossible to measure since you can’t fix the CO2 meter at the specific coordinates due to the ocean’s currents and depth;

7. The mechanism of solubility of CO2 in the water is also almost impossible to work out exactly due to very complex mechanisms:

   1. When CO2 dissolves in the top, say 2 meters, of water, the solubility will depend on the temperature of that surface layer – different oceans different surface temperatures;

   2. Then you have the temperature gradient which brings the temperature at the bottom close to 0C which hugely increases solubility of CO2;

   3. Then you have the issue of basicity of the sea water which takes CO2 concentration out of equilibrium state due to transforming H2CO3 to its salt, NaHCO3 and Na2CO3.”

Dr Butina sent an enquiry to the UK Met Office and asked why is it that the CO2-meter is not part of every local weather station so any one can simply plot temperature vs CO2 at different locations and confirm what we already know that it is impossible for any gas molecule to control temperature. The reply was that they only monitor concentrations of pollutants, the list of which exclude CO2 since officially it is NOT pollutant! So, the internationally agreed list of pollutants excludes CO2, while the global warming GHE ‘scientists’ put CO2 as number one pollutant and ignores anything else.

Club of Rome Made CO2 the ‘Bad Guy’

Canadian climate researcher, Norm Kalmanovich, points out that what is often missed here is the fact that the whole issue of CO₂ emissions causing warming has been made up in service of the Club of Rome employing the junk science of James Hansen et al. This was subsequently added to the UNEP’s ideological agenda against industrial expansion using perfectly valid General Circulation Models (GCM) which are incapable of attributing any effect from increased CO₂ to global temperature to predict an impossible level of global warming through the use of a fabricated CO₂ forcing parameter RF = 5.35ln(C/C_o).

Kalmanovich explains:

“What is being done here is the use of “prescribed CO₂” which is the forcing produced by this fabricated forcing parameter converted to temperature increase through a “climate sensitivity factor 0.75°C/W/m² input into the model as a temperature increase for the assumed increase in CO₂ concentration for a particular year, with the model using this temperature value as an initial condition which is modified slightly by the GCM and output as a temperature value that is similar to but not exactly the same as the input temperature value.”

The obvious problem with this made up forcing parameter is that it will always produce a temperature increase with increasing CO₂

But the world cooled from 1958 to 1975 as CO₂ increased and more related to current climate the reversal from warming to slight cooling in 2002 took place with CO₂ increasing at the same rate when the Earth warmed as well as when it cooled.

This is why the models show warming after 2002 when the data shows cooling! Kalmanovitch expresses a criticism felt by many:

“I agree for the most part with all the physics, chemistry, and climatology presented by skeptics. I am opposed to the adoption of meaningless terms like ‘greenhouse gases’ and in particular the adoption of the AMS made up definition of the Greenhouse Effect  http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect “This enhanced warming is  termed the greenhouse effect.” When the proper scientific definition does not relate to any effect but is simply the temperature difference between surface temperature T_s and effective radiating temperature T_e (T_s – T_e)”

What Academics call the ‘greenhouse effect’

As used in the field of meteorology, the term “greenhouse effect” refers to the heating exerted by the atmosphere on Earth’s surface because certain atmospheric constituents (clouds, water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc.) absorb and emit infrared radiation.

About half of the sunlight incident on Earth is transmitted through the atmosphere and absorbed at Earth’s surface. The sunlight-warmed surface emits radiation but, because Earth is colder than the sun, this radiation is primarily at infrared wavelengths. Most of this emitted infrared radiation is absorbed by trace gases and clouds in the overlying atmosphere. The atmosphere also emits radiation, primarily at infrared wavelengths, in all directions. Radiation emitted downward from the atmosphere adds to the warming of Earth’s surface by sunlight. This enhanced warming is termed the greenhouse effect.

As a result of the greenhouse effect, Earth’s annual mean surface temperature of 15°C is 33°C higher than an equally reflective planet in Earth’s orbit with no atmosphere.

The term “greenhouse effect“ is something of a misnomer in this context. It is used as an analogy to the trapping of heat by the glass panes of a greenhouse, which let sunlight in. In the atmosphere, however, heat is trapped radiatively, while in an actual greenhouse, heat is mechanically prevented from escaping (via convection) by the glass enclosure. But like sheep, the lukewarmists follow the alarmists in their groupthink error.

For those not familiar with the term effective radiating temperature it is the temperature equivalent for outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) calculated according to the Stefan Boltzmann law:

T =[OLR/σ]^1/4

Based on current surface temperature (T_s) of 14.35°C which is 287.5K, and OLR of 232W/m² which equates to an effective radiating temperature (T_e) of 252.9K we have a current greenhouse effect T_s –T_e  of  287.5K – 252.9K = 34.6°C and the temperature value of 34.6°C cannot cause any warming because it is not actually an effect (even though the word effect is part of its name)!

In 1970 this was the only definition of the greenhouse effect and in 1980 this was still the case, but a year later Hansen published Hansen et al 1981 Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_ha04600x.pdf  in which after actually stating “The excess, T_s – T_e, is the greenhouse effect of gases and clouds, made up a “greenhouse mechanism” for warming from CO₂ which the models portrayed as being “a mean warming of 2° to 3.5°C for doubling of the CO₂ concentration from 300 to 600 ppm”

Another climate researcher at PSI is Nick Schroeder, BSMW, PE who takes issue with the official literature used by academics when explaining the greenhouse gas effect:

“The iconic K-T energy budget (promoted by NASA) and assorted clone diagrams of atmospheric power flux balances include a GHG energy loop of about 330 W/m^2 violates three basic laws of thermodynamics:

1) energy out of thin air,

2) energy moving from cold to hot without added work, and

3) 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} efficiency, zero loss, perpetual looping. “

Schroeder  notes that a frequent defense of this critique is that USCRN and SURFRAD data actually measure and thereby prove the existence of this radiative energy. Although in many instances the net 333 W/m^ of upwelling LWIR exceeds by over twice the downwelling solar radiation, a rather obvious violation of conservation of energy.

“And just why is that?” asks Schroeder.

When serious skeptical scientists look closely at the methodology and claims in the aforementioned lab experiment they are aghast that other so-called skeptics (the lukewarmers) still won’t abandon defending the indefensible.

They see that CO2 has only ever been proven to COOL and there is NOT ANY industry application of this essential trace gas to WARM anything. It simply cannot physically be demonstrated to ‘trap’ heat or warm. In essence, the greenhouse gas effect claimed simply:  Does…Not…Exist.

The list of highly-credentialed independent scientists joining in PSI’s refutation of the greenhouse gas theory includes radiation experts such as Karl L. Erdman Ph.D. Professor Emeritus UBC (see: The Heating And Cooling Of The Atmosphere Of The Earth )

Readers can see for themselves a sample of the many highly-qualified and renowned experts who openly declare their support for the above in PSI’s list of select members. As a team PSI has proven Manabe (1964/67) & Hansen (1981) two of the most influential alarmist papers are junk science.*

This growing but ostracized body has made repeated attempts to engage in discussion with lukewarmists such as WUWT’s Anthony Watts, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen but the groupthinkers refuse to budge. Even non-PSI researchers are appalled at WUWT attacks on anti-greenhouse gas theory scientists. The attacks continue even after the ‘grandfather’ of the skeptics, Dr Fred Singer conceded CO2 DOES COOL our climate! While Lindzen’s own mea culpa admits backtracking. Then to cap it all  only last month the ‘grandfather’ of lukewarmer, Dr Fred Singer, finally conceded CO2 DOES cool in his American Thinker piece, ‘Does the Greenhouse Gas CO2 cool the climate?‘ (on April 2, 2018).

Dr Singer concluded: “While the climate cooling is not obvious, it counters [conventional] GH warming.”

Where will it all end?

Only time will tell. But there are dozens of papers now appearing in peer-reviewed literature confirming ‘Slayer’ science, while even many lukewarmists are slowly walking back their claims about carbon dioxide ‘sensitivity’. Perhaps we need to wait for claimed ‘climate sensitivity’ to be weighted at zero for the farce to finally end.

*Syukuro Manabe (a Japanese meteorologist) in the 1960’s revived interest in global warming being Co2-driven. But Manabe later confessed he did not resolve the problem of the tropospheric lapse rate. Instead he simply introduced an estimate which was falsely entered as “fact.” As such, Manabe and other alarmists turned on its head what was an effect of higher temperatures (higher levels of atmospheric Co2) into a cause. See:

https://principia-scientific.com/nasas-james-hansen-knew-models-are-fudged/

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}281967{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}29024{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}3C0241{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}3ATEOTAW{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}3E2.0.CO{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}3B2

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