Once again it seems secrecy is the modus operandi for so much research in climatology. Dr John Ray has a fascinating story on ‘Greenie Watch’ blog updating us on David Holland’s long running legal battle to expose government agencies playing fast and loose with freedom of information laws. Can anyone still be in any doubt that junk science is the basis for environmental policies?

In ‘Warmist secrecy again‘ (Thursday, May 09, 2013) Dr. Ray’s ‘Greenie Watch blog writes:

With the connivance of the British government

Can the Internet help climate scientists? Not everyone thinks so.“The Internet is a double-edged sword,” Met Office scientist Peter Stott told a London courtroom last week. “There’s a whole cacophony of voices on blogs, people with different opinions and people very motivated to dig around. But not in the ‘big picture’ details, frankly. That is not helpful to getting an overall balanced assessment.”Stott had just been asked whether widespread online participation in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment-of-the-science process might improve it.

The open source software development principle, that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”, came to mind.The occasion was an Information Tribunal appeal brought by one-man information Inquisition David Holland. The retired Mancunian engineer’s previous enquiries were seen by many as the catalyst for the famous “Climategate” email leaks.“My interest in this was never to do with climate. I’m trained as an engineer, and I know the scientific method,” Holland told El Reg in 2011, when he had sought access to large amounts of information from the British climate-science establishment – and was denied.

Holland’s FOI requests set off a catastrophic sequence of prevarication and obstruction by the responding scientists, which ultimately appears to have triggered the Climategate leaks and massive discomfort for all the researchers involved.Now it’s the turn of Peter Stott of the Met Office to come under Holland’s microscope.I actually felt a bit of human sympathy for Stott; you can bet he would have rather been somewhere else, and it transpires that Holland didn’t actually want him there at all. Holland had wanted to cross-examine the head of the UK delegation to the IPCC, a Department of Environment and Climate Change official called David Warrilow, head of climate science and international evidence.The procedural questions under the spotlight are Warrilow’s bailiwick, not Stott’s, but Holland was refused his man. Stott, we learned, had been pressganged into appearing by the Met Office’s lawyers.

Stott also had to defend his and allied organisations’ refusal to disclose material on a basis – as we shall see – that’s highly questionable. No intelligent person should have to waste his own time, or anyone else’s time, defending the indefensible.And the mere presence of a Met scientist is a bit of a red herring, as it’s really the IPCC that is on trial; the case for the defence is being organised by the Treasury solicitor, paid for by you.Judge Anisa Dhanji was not impressed by the defence’s refusal to find someone so very germane to the case to stand up to cross-examination, and demanded that a written statement by Warrilow be included in the record.So. Here we all were. Why was this happening, exactly?

Having spent a few days pondering Lord Monckton’s reply to John O’Sullivan’s open letter the senior scientists of Principia Scientific International concluded that the sum of his argument is nothing other than an appeal to authority – a debating stratagem his lordship denounces when used by our mutual opponents, the climate alarmists. In addition, closer scrutiny of Monckton’s references show them to be decidedly shaky. Indeed, with Monckton doing little more than glibly deferring to Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius and Callender, in lieu of any actual scientific rebuttal, there is very little substance offered up for debate.

Despite his otherwise excellent reputation as a debater, Chris Monckton seems decidedly unaware that the aforementioned archaic figures are readily shown below to have been misrepresented, misunderstood and, in some cases, proven to be plain wrong. For it is axiomatic to any student of history to know that those who control the present also control the past because they can rewrite the past and make it say whatever they want it to say. Indeed, it is no different with those who believe in the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis; they, too, have sought to re-write history so that it supports their beliefs.

Fortunately much of what Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius, Ångström, Wood and Callender wrote is still in print and can be read by anyone who is interested in what they actually said. After several years of diligent research by determined skeptics we can now all see what separates the wheat from the chaff.  

So, let us begin by examining a key passage in Monckton’s reply:

The curious thing about the above statement is that Lord Monckton himself has a talk that he gives which calls on the carpet those who promote the idea of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming because they use an array of logical fallacies in their arguments.Yet when challenged about his own belief in the “greenhouse effect” he falls back on the same logical fallacies of appeal to authority and tradition. He says, in effect, the “greenhouse effect” is a scientific truth because it has been known about for two centuries and some of the world’s most famous scientists have endorsed it.  

What he is counting on, of course, is that you and I have not read what these scientists and their contemporaries actually said. Perhaps he himself is not aware of what these scientists and their contemporaries actually said or he wouldn’t have appealed to their authority. At any rate, let us look at his more modern day reference, Manabe&Wetherald (1976). In fact this paper was published in 1967, not 1976, and the authors conceded:

Therefore, even some of those scientists Lord Monckton relies upon agree with PSI that any increase in CO2 actually cools the atmosphere contrary to the “some warming” assertion his lordship monotonously repeats.

So let’s review what else is said by these scientists and their contemporaries about the ability of carbon dioxide to cause atmospheric warming.

Joseph Fourier

Australian Geologist, Timothy Casey has done a superb job of explaining how Fourier (1824) and Fourier (1827) are The Most Misquoted and Most Misunderstood Science Papers in the Public Domain and it doesn’t need any further elaboration here. It would seem that Lord Monckton is carrying on the long tradition of mischaracterizing what Joseph Fourier actually said, which, if we understand him correctly, is that the “greenhouse effect” could only exist if the air stopped moving.  

This is from Fourier, as quoted on Casey’s web site: “In short, if all the strata of air of which the atmosphere is formed, preserved their density with their transparency, and lost only the mobility which is peculiar to them, this mass of air, thus become solid, on being exposed to the rays of the sun, would produce an effect the same in kind with that we have just described.” Fourier (1824; p.155) Fourier (1827; p.586).

But does the air ever stop moving? Of course not. Thus, Monckton and other greenhouse gas “theory” believers overstate Fourier’s implausible hypothetical because Fourier clearly referred to conditions devoid of any inherent cooling due to convection and conduction.

John Tyndall

This is what John Tyndall said about the ability of carbon dioxide to absorb radiant heat:

 “Through air . . . the waves of ether pass without absorption, and these gases are not sensibly changed in temperature by the most powerful calorific rays.” 

The “air” that he was testing had atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in it and at those levels there was no effect on the temperature even by “the most powerful calorific rays.” [1]

After testing carbon dioxide at a concentration of about 8{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}, i.e. 80,000 ppm Tyndall specifically proclaimed:

“Carbonic acid (loosely hydrated CO2 molecules) gas is one of the feeblest of absorbers of the radiant heat emitted by solid sources. It is, for example, extremely transparent to the rays emitted by the heated copper plate already referred to.”  

Whether people will acknowledge it or not John Tyndall thus falsified in his laboratory the hypothesis that carbon dioxide (especially at atmospheric concentrations) can cause atmospheric warming. Even though he wasn’t actually able to test water vapor in his apparatus – because it kept condensing inside of the tube – he nonetheless speculated that, because of water vapor, the atmosphere acts like a “warm garment.”   

“But the aqueous vapour takes up the motion of the ethereal waves and becomes thereby heated, thus wrapping the earth like a warm garment, and protecting its surface from the deadly chill, which it would otherwise sustain,” asserted Tyndall.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that John Tyndall’s speculations about the atmospheric “hot house” effect were exclusive to water vapor and water vapor alone and they were based solely on his observation that the diurnal temperature swing is much narrower in places where it is more humid. This is clearly shown in this passage of his:

 “Whenever the air is dry we are liable to daily extremes of temperature. By day in such places, the sun’s heat reaches the earth unimpeded and renders the maximum high; by night on the other hand the earth’s heat escapes unhindered into space and renders the minimum low. Hence the difference between the maximum and minimum is greatest where the air is driest. He wrote:

“In the plains of India, on the heights of the Himalaya, in Central Asia, in Australia—wherever drought reigns, we have the heat of day forcibly contrasted with the chill of night.  In the Sahara itself, when the sun’s rays cease to impinge on the burning soil the temperature runs rapidly down to freezing, because there is no vapour overhead to check the calorific drain.” 

What Tyndall didn’t measure was the difference in the mean daily temperatures between arid and humid climates along the same latitude. If he had he would have seen what we see today. The mean daily temperature of the humid climates is less than the mean daily temperature of arid climates along the same latitude, because latent heat transfer “refrigerates” the lower atmosphere, as demonstrated by the studies of standard meteorological data and experiments carried out by Douglas Cotton and Carl Brehmer. [2,3]

Svante August Arrhenius  

Arrhenius did, indeed, predict that a doubling of CO2 would cause an increase in atmospheric temperatures, but it was predicated on the proposition that there were no active feedback mechanisms operating in the atmosphere that would counter this warming. Arrhenius wrote:

 “. . . we will suppose that the heat that is conducted to a given place on the earth’s surface or in the atmosphere in consequence of atmospheric or oceanic currents, horizontal or vertical, remains the same in the course of the time considered, and we will also suppose that the clouded part of the sky remains unchanged. It is only the variation of the temperature with the transparency of the air that we shall examine.”  [4]

A contemporary of Arrhenius, Knut Ångström, tested this hypothesis by filling a tube with the amount of carbon dioxide that would be present in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere and then running infrared radiation through it. Ångström first doubled and then halved that amount and repeated the test, which demonstrated virtually no temperature change between these differing amounts of carbon dioxide.  [5]

Taking Lord Monckton’s appeal to authority as our cue, the above rebuttal shows that his belief in the greenhouse gas “theory” is premised on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and half truths. We learn that contrary to what his lordship asserts Manabe&Wetherald conceded CO2 causes cooling; Fourier admitted a greenhouse effect only exists where there’s no convection (impossible in Earth’s turbulent atmosphere); Tyndall admitted CO2 was the feeblest absorber of radiant heat and that “greenhouse gas” humidity reduces temperature extremes; Arrhenius has been widely misrepresented as well as refuted by the experiments of Knut Ångström, while Callender made the schoolboy error of thinking that correlation proves causation – it doesn’t.

As all true skeptics know full well, it was that “correlations proves causation” fallacy that first triggered the man-global warming alarm when temperatures rose between 1975-1998 in line with a rise in CO2 levels. But as we since learned (and validated by 400,000 years of Vostok ice core data) rises in CO2 levels mostly follow rises in temperature, as now confirmed again by a new paper in  Nature Climate Change. [7]

As such they cannot be inferred as the cause of climate change because they are really an inconsequential symptom. Once his lordship and others understand these facts we will all be closer to wider climate sanity and truer to empirical science.

Finally, a supplemental detailed scientific rebuttal of Lord Monckton’s modern day greenhouse gas authority, Professor Roy Spencer, will be published in due course to accompany this reply. Some of such errors have already been pointed out to Roy.

***********

[1] All of these Tyndall quotes are from: Tyndall, John, On radiation: The “Rede” lecture, delivered in the Senate-house before the University of Cambridge, England, on Tuesday, May 16, 1865

[2] Cotton, Douglas,’Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures,‘ (February, 2013), Principia-scientific.org, (17-Appendix)

[3] Brehmer, Carl, ‘Watt’s Up with the Greenhouse Effect?‘ (April, 2013), Principia-scientific.org.

[4] Arrhenius, Svante, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276

[5] He published his results in:  Ångström, Knut, 1900, “Ueber die Bedeutung des Wasserdampfes und der Kohlensäure bei der Absorption der Erdatmosphäre”, Annalen der Physik, Volume 308 Issue 12, Pages 720 – 732

[6] Wood, R. W. (1909). “Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse”. The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Vol. 17, pp. 319-320.

[7] Francey, Trudinger et al., ‘Atmospheric verification of anthropogenic CO2 emission trends, ‘

Nature Climate Change 3, 520–524 (2013) doi:10.1038/nclimate1817:

‘A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change finds a disconnect between man-made CO2 and atmospheric levels of CO2, demonstrating that despite a sharp 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} increase in man-made CO2 emissions since 2003, the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 has slowed sharply since 2002/2003. The data shows that while man-made emissions were relatively stable from 1990-2003, the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 surged up to the record El Nino of 1997-1998. Conversely, man-made emissions surged ~25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} from 2003-2011, but growth in atmospheric CO2 has flatlined since 1999 along with global temperatures. The data demonstrates temperature drives CO2 levels due to ocean outgassing, man-made CO2 does not drive temperature, and that man is not the primary cause of the rise in CO2 levels’

Consider :

1. Today’s air temperature is 17 degrees C – 290 K. “K” refers to the temperature scale described by Lord Kelvin and used in scientific calculations concerning radiation and temperature – Celsius is not appropriate for such calculations.(The difference between 17 degrees C and 18 degrees C – 1 degree – has the same magnitude as the difference between 290 K and 291 K – the zero point is different.)

2. “Dry air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} nitrogen, 20.95{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} oxygen, 0.93{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} argon, 0.039{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}.” – Wikipedia.

3. According to many sources – “The most abundant gas molecules, nitrogen and oxygen, do not interact much with infrared radiation and are not “greenhouse gases”.”This is usually taken as proof that it is the absorption of the infra-red radiation emitted by the heated surfaces of the Earth by “greenhouse gases” that is responsible for the temperature of the atmosphere.They are often referred to as “heat trapping” gases.

4. Item number 3 has three possible consequences:-

   1. If nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb or emit infra-red radiation they cannot be heated by this mechanism. If radiation is responsible for the majority of the heating of the atmosphere as the IPCC claim all the warmth of the atmosphere is due to the 1 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmospheric gases that are “greenhouse gases”.This is highly improbable – no – let’s be honest it is impossible!

   2. Only “greenhouse gases” are heated by the Earth’s surfaces by radiation and they in turn heat the 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere by some mechanism – remember non “greenhouse gases” cannot absorb infra-red radiation..Again, this is highly improbable – no – let’s be honest it is impossible!Why?

   3. Because b., above, supposes that the 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere that are “greenhouse gases” heat the remaining 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere by some mechanism.This would be an incredibly slow process and as radiation plays no part in this the only mechanism available is conduction/diffusion from the “greenhouse gases” to the rest. But if conduction/diffusion is the only mechanism for heating nitrogen and oxygen why wouldn’t they simply be heated by direct contact with the heated surfaces of the Earth and radiation play almost no role in this at all.In fact we know this is true because you can observe it yourself.Everyone is familiar with the “shimmering” effect that can be seen in the air immediately above hot ground surfaces. This is caused by the diffraction of light as it passes through the rising heated air which is less dense than the cooler air around it.

5. So now we are back to 1.Today’s air temperature is 17 degrees C which is about 290 K. Obviously nitrogen and oxygen are at this temperature as our discussion to this point clearly dismisses any other possibility.

6. Now we need to consider: –How do the atmosphere and the Earth’s surfaces cool?The only mechanism is by emitting infra-red radiation to space.

7. Wien’s displacement law clearly states that an object at 290 K emits radiation at frequencies in the infra-red band with the peak radiation emission wavelength at approximately 10 micrometres.

8. In fact every object at every natural temperature observed on Earth emits radiation that is within the infra-red radiation band.

9. Again, the only means for the Earth to “cool” is to radiate to space. This radiation is infra-red radiation.

10. According to the IPCC – 70 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the radiation the Earth emits to space is emitted by the atmosphere, almost 13 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} by clouds and the remaining 17 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} directly from the Earth’s surfaces.

11. According to the IPCC the components of the atmosphere that emit 70 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the radiation to space are trace gases called “greenhouse gases” and 13{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} by clouds. The principal “greenhouse gases” are water vapour and Carbon dioxide.

12. Remember 3. According to many sources – “The most abundant gas molecules, nitrogen and oxygen, do not interact much with infrared radiation and are not “greenhouse gases”.”This is taken to mean that nitrogen and oxygen do not emit infra-red radiation.

13. This implies that nitrogen and oxygen do not directly contribute to cooling the Earth at all!
    
    The only mechanism available for nitrogen and oxygen to cool at all is by conduction/diffusion of their temperature to the “greenhouse gases” which then radiate the energy to space!

14. We know that nitrogen and oxygen cool because we have maximum and minimum temperatures.

If the above is true, and most of it is quoted from sources that claim to present “peer reviewed” science, then:-

As the only mechanism available for 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere to cool is by “greenhouse gases” radiating to space it is impossible for “greenhouse gases” to contribute to global warming at all.

Nitrogen, oxygen and all “non – greenhouse gases” are the “heat trapping” gases!

The “greenhouse gases” are clearly the cooling gases – the only ones responsible for 83 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the cooling effect according to the IPCC.

Any other explanation is clearly ludicrous and clearly backwards.

Goiters used to be a status symbol and dental cavities were common in children.

Iodide Deficiency

The area I grew up in has very little in iodide-containing minerals. As a result, both water and food from the area had insufficient iodide which caused men and women to get much enlarged thyroid glands (hypothyroidism), visible as goiter. Because this deformity increases with the length of time (of deficiency) it becomes more apparent with age. In fact, in several alpine areas goiters actually became somewhat fashionable and a sort of “status symbol” for having achieved a certain age and seniority. Increasing longevity then also meant an increasing occurrence of goiters in many populations worldwide.

Ever since the cause of goiter formation was recognized, starting in the 1920’s, common table salt has been supplemented with trace amounts of sodium iodide and hypothyroidism has disappeared in those areas where it was prevalent before the iodide supplements. A teaspoon of iodized table salt (1.5 g) now contains 70{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of your daily iodide needs. Still, iodide deficiency appears to be a problem in many countries. For example, Wikipedia states that even now some 2 billion people are affected by iodide deficiency in their food and water.

Fluoride Deficiency

Fluoride deficiency is not much different from iodide deficiency. It just does not have the same effect. Some parts of our bodies, especially teeth are made up of fluoro-apatite (FA), a fluoride and phosphate containing mineral. Chemically, FA is similar to hydroxyl-apatite (HA) which makes up most of our bones.

In childhood, sufficient fluoride intake is vital to the formation of healthy teeth. Without it, FA is being replaced by HA, which is less resistant to the development of cavities. With that recognition, around the mid-1900’s, many societies began adding trace levels of fluoride minerals to potable water. The result was a seismic shift in the prevalence of caries-type cavities in such areas. Dentists observed much fewer cavities than before the introduction of fluoridation of water.

There is a unique rock formation at Norway’s northern coast. Well, the rock itself is not unique at all, but its age is – 1,000 million years old. Actually, that age is not remarkable either as much of the earth’s surface is covered with ancient rocks of that age and older. So, what is so special about that particular rock?

Old Rocks

The earth has lots of old rocks, from the “Granite Shield” covering much of North America’s northeast to Greenland, Scandinavia, large parts of Africa, India, South America, Australia and Antarctica. The formation of most of these granite type rocks dates back well over a billion years.

Those ancient rocks were formed deep in the earth and were pushed up to the surface through the tectonic forces pulling some continents apart and pushing others together. For example, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge the American continents are steadily moving further west, relative to Europe and Africa. The rate of that movement is only 5 cm (a couple of inches) per year but over time it adds up. At that rate it only took 100 million years to widen the distance to its present 5,000 km.

To put the age of 1,000 million years into perspective, some 200 million years ago the dinosaurs began to evolve and lasted until the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event some 66 million years ago. One thousand million years ago, there were only bacteria, fungi and algae on the earth, no higher organisms. So what then is so remarkable about that Norwegian rock? The answer is: It is thought to be a moraine; at least that has been the “consensus” by all scientific experts who have studied it over the seven decades following Reusch’s discovery.

Moraines

By definition, moraines are glacial deposits. Reusch’s Moraine (RM) was named after its discoverer, the Norwegian geologist Hans Henrik Reusch (1852-1922) who found it in 1891 at the edge of the Varangerfjord near the northern tip of Norway. Reusch and dozens of expert geologists over the following 75 years concluded that this rock was an ancient breccia deposit of glacial origin. If there ever was a scientific consensus about anything, it was as hard as the rock of Reusch’s Moraine: The rock was about 1,000 million years old and the result of a glacial deposit. Period, end of discussion. When I visited the site with a friend (then an undergrad geologist) 50 years ago, he explained to me the great geological significance of the find.

Later in the 1960s new studies by Schermerhorn and other scientists indicated that the formation of RM was not necessarily of glacial origin but more likely to be a conglomerate (tillite) resulting from a massive sub-marine debris flow. A brief review describing all the reasons for the new theory was published in 1997 by M. J. Oard; it is available on the web. Quite surprisingly then, yet another, more recent study of the underlying rock has concluded the exact opposite. Once again, the idea of a glacial origin of RM is gaining weight.

The Scottish Science, Climate & Energy Forum, scef.org.uk, showcases a brilliant new study by Emil A.Røyrvik constrasting and comparing the intellectual approach to learning and understanding between academia and the applied sciences in industry. The study focuses on the global warming controversy pinpointing perennial flaws in the reasoning process of academics with little, if any, experience of the real world. 

 Consensus and Controversy

 The Debate on Man-made global warming

 Author Emil A.Røyrvik

What marks this paper out from others** on the debate is that it treats the subject seriously and does not start from the premise that Sceptics or “contrarians” are either wrong, or ill-informed or deluded**. The paper is well worth reading as in online.

One of the significant errors commonly made by the advocates of catastrophic man-made global warming due to CO₂ emissions is the claim by the settled science proclaimers that radiation from a non-vacuum interface is the same as radiation from a surface into a vacuum. This error in the physics of radiation from the Earth’s surface results in an exaggeration of the cooling radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface and contributes to them positing a hugely larger back-radiation from greenhouse gases than can actually occur.

I have previously pointed out that the Stefan-Boltzmann Law actually only tells us the amount of radiation emitted by a surface into a vacuum. A surface in contact with another material will lose energy by other mechanisms, so one must apply the law of Conservation of Energy to determine the actual amount of radiation in many cases of material contact across an interface. In the case of the Earth’s surface, water is evaporated at the surface with a very substantial cooling effect. In addition, air molecules strike the surface and carry away heat gained in collisions with the surface. Despite these obvious problems with an unchanged surface emission of radiant energy into the atmosphere compared to that into a vacuum, the settled science proclaimers have in many cases steadfastly said that I am wrong. OK, so I will try to explain this in greater detail in this post.

Below is the second open letter from Lord Monckton (first is published here) in reply to John O’Sullivan’s first and second open letter challenges to him in dispute of the so-called greenhouse gas ‘theory.’

 

A statement on behalf of Lord Monckton

3 May 2013

 

One John O’Sullivan has spent several weeks attempting to overcome his shock at the number of elementary errors of fact that he had made in replying to Lord Monckton’s response to an open letter from him asserting, with characteristic scientific illiteracy, that there is no greenhouse effect. The reply that O’Sullivan has now cobbled together intellectually dishonest, and characteristically so.

 

O’Sullivan says Lord Monckton had been “appealing to the authority” of various scientists he had listed. On the contrary, His Lordship had done no more than to demonstrate the characteristic factual inaccuracy of the statement in O’Sullivan’s original open letter to His Lordship that “not until 1981, when NASA’s James Hansen angled for the political stage, were scientists seriously considering CO2’s impact on climate.”

 

As O’Sullivan now accepts, that assertion was indeed factually inaccurate. Many scientists before Hansen had seriously considered the impact of CO2, of whom Lord Monckton had simply listed just a few. Here is what His Lordship actually wrote (O’Sullivan’s reply, with characteristic dishonesty, omits the first sentence of what Lord Monckton wrote so as to imply that His Lordship was appealing to the authority of the listed scientists rather than merely correcting O’Sullivan’s factual error):

 

“He [O’Sullivan] says that if I checked my history I should discover that it was not until 1981 that scientists were seriously considering CO2’s impact on climate. However, Joseph Fourier had posited the greenhouse effect some 200 years previously; Tyndale [or, rather, Tyndall] had measured the greenhouse effect of various gases at the Royal Institution in London in 1859; Arrhenius had predicted in 1896 that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 4-8 K warming, and had revised this estimate to 1.6 K in 1906; Callender had sounded a strong note of alarm in 1938; and numerous scientists, including Manabe & Wetherald (1976) [actually 1975] had attempted to determine climate sensitivity before Hansen’s 1981 paper.”

 

In no legitimate sense could His Lordship possibly be described as having perpetrated the fallacy of appeal to authority in that passage. His Lordship was merely correcting a serious factual error remarkable in one who presents himself as some sort of scientific authority and operates a mumbo-jumbo website under the mumbo-jumbo name of “Principia” “Scientifica”.

 

With characteristic loutish ill manners, O’Sullivan writes:

 

“What he [Lord Monckton] is counting on, of course, is that you and I have not read what these scientists and their contemporaries actually said.  Perhaps he himself is not aware of what these scientists and their contemporaries actually said or he wouldn’t have appealed to their authority.”

 

Here, O’Sullivan characteristically but unwisely assumes that, since he is himself bottomlessly ignorant, others are as ignorant as he. As will be seen, that is not so.

 

O’Sullivan goes on to perpetrate a series of elementary errors, which Lord Monckton will now address seriatim.

 

Manabe & Wetherald

 

O’Sullivan writes: “At any rate, let us look at his [Lordship’s] more modern day reference, Manabe & Wetherald (1976). In fact this paper was published in 1967, not 1976, and the authors actually conceded:

Here O’Sullivan, with characteristic mendacity, takes a quotation deliberately out of context. Manabe & Wetherald (1967) had in fact developed their own climate model, based on a previous model by Rodgers & Walshaw (1966). The Rodgers-Walshaw model had found a warming of 1.95 K per CO2 doubling. Manabe & Wetherald (1967) found 2.36 K (of warming, not of cooling) per CO2 doubling.

 

Manabe & Wetherald (1975, not, as His Lordship had erroneously stated, 1976: even Homer nods) wrote:

“It is shown that the CO2 increase raises the temperature of the model troposphere, whereas it lowers that of the model stratosphere. The tropospheric warming is somewhat larger than that expected from a radiative-convective equilibrium model.” They revised their model to take into account changes in snow albedo, and concluded that a CO2 doubling would warm the Earth by 2.93 K.

 

Joseph Fourier

 

Next, O’Sullivan cites a translation by one Casey, a geologist, of a paper by Joseph Fourier in 1827. He says Casey has demonstrated that Fourier’s paper did not refer to what we now call the greenhouse effect. However, using Casey’s own translation, it is evident that Fourier was aware of the distinction – crucial to the determination of climate sensitivity, and yet much undervalued in today’s computer models – between radiative and non-radiative transports.

 

Fourier talks of “the strata of the air” losing only “the mobility peculiar to them”. These are the non-radiative transports, such as convection and evaporation. He says:

 

“This mass of air, [if it were] thus [to] become static [or, as Casey has it, “solid”], on being exposed to the rays of the sun, would produce an effect the same in kind with that [which] we have just described. The heat, coming in the state of light [i.e. visible radiation] to the Earth’s surface [Casey has “the solid Earth”], would lose all at once, and almost entirely, its power of passing through transparent solids: it would accumulate in the lower strata of the atmosphere, which would thus acquire very high temperatures [in other words, the cooling effects of evaporation and convection would be absent].”

 

Here, Fourier is talking of the displacement of incoming radiation to the near-infrared when the radiation strikes an emitting surface such as the Earth, by what eventually became known – and quantified – as Wien’s displacement law. By that law, incoming radiation, whatever its wavelength, is displaced upon encountering an emitting surface, such as that of the Earth, and is emitted at a peak wavelength determined solely by the temperature of the emitting surface.

 

The simplest expression of Wien’s displacement law is that the peak wavelength of the radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface, in microns, is simply 2897 divided by the temperature of the surface in Kelvin (i.e., 288 K). Thus, 2897/288 is a little over 10 microns, sufficiently close to the principal absorption wavelength of CO2 at 14.99 microns to ensure some interaction, and hence quantum resonance in the CO2 molecule, and hence the switching-on of the molecule like a radiator so that it emits heat directly.

 

Fourier continues – and this is the crucial passage in which what we now know as the greenhouse effect is posited:

 

“The mobility of the air, which is rapidly displaced in every direction [upward by evaporation and convection, sideways by advection, downward by precipitation and subsidence] and which rises when heated [convection], and the radiation of non-luminous heat [châleur obscure: i.e. infrared radiation] into the air, diminish the intensity of the [warming] effects which would take place in a transparent and static atmosphere [evaporation and convection cool the surface, for instance], but do not entirely change their character.

 

“The decrease of the heat in the higher regions of the air [the upper atmosphere] does not cease, and the temperature can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light [i.e. visible radiation] finds less resistance in penetrating the air than in repassing into the air when converted [on striking the Earth’s surface, by Wien’s displacement law] into non-luminous heat [châleur obscure: i.e. infrared radiation].”

 

Any honest reader of this passage will recognize that Fourier is indeed here positing the greenhouse effect.

Nor is O’Sullivan correct in attempting to assert that Fourier is saying that “the ‘greenhouse effect’ couldonly exist if the air stopped moving”. For Fourier explicitly states the opposite: that, even in the presence of the non-radiative transports that give the air its “mobility”, the “character” of the warming “effects” that would arise in the absence of those transports would “not entirely change”.

 

John Tyndall

 

O’Sullivan then quotes John Tyndall, and, in doing so, establishes not that Tyndale had not observed that Tyndall had measured the greenhouse effect exerted by CO2, but that he had:

 

 “Carbonic acid gas is one of the feeblest of absorbers of the radiant heat emitted by solid sources.”

O’Sullivan went on to quote Tyndall as saying that carbonic acid gas is “extremely transparent to the rays emitted by the heated copper plate”. However, that does not demonstrate that there is no greenhouse effect. On its face, it demonstrates that there is a greenhouse effect. Tyndall may have found it small because the greenhouse effect is wavelength-dependent, and the particular copper plate may have been emitting little infra-red radiation at wavelengths chiefly in or adjacent to the principal absorption bands of CO2.

 

O’Sullivan on to say that, though Tyndall was not able to test water vapour in his apparatus, he had speculated that water vapour acted like a “warm garment”. In this Tyndall was again supporting the notion – which he had observed with carbonic acid gas but could not observe owing to the propensity of water vapour to condense in his apparatus – that there is a greenhouse effect, this time from water vapour, which, by its sheer quantity, is the most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for between two-thirds and nine-tenths of the greenhouse effect in the lower troposphere, though for considerably less in the upper.

 

O’Sullivan attempts to say that Tyndall’s remarks about the “warm blanket” that we now know of as the greenhouse effect were confined to water vapour alone. Yet the above passages demonstrate that Tyndall had also detected some effect from carbonic acid gas, albeit a weak effect, possibly because his heat sources did not produce enough infra-red radiation in the principal absorption bands of CO2. Amateurs such as O’Sullivan are prone to overlook the wavelength dependence of the interactions between infrared radiation and greenhouse-gas molecules.

 

Svante Arrhenius  

 

Next, O’Sullivan makes a garbled and characteristically intellectually dishonest attempt to suggest that Svante Arrhenius’ finding that a doubling of CO2 concentration would raise atmospheric temperatures was contingent upon “the proposition that there were no active feedback mechanisms operating in the atmosphere that would counter this warming.”

 

In fact, Arrhenius had simply stipulated that he was considering the zero-feedback or instantaneous case. As we should now put it, the forcing from additional CO2 in the atmosphere (3.71 Watts per square meter) is multiplied by the instantaneous or Planck sensitivity parameter (0.31 Kelvin per Watt per square meter), which contains no provision for feedbacks, to obtain the zero-feedback response to a CO2 doubling, which is 1.16 K.

 

The forcing is 5.35 times the natural logarithm of the proportionate change in concentration (in the present instance, 2 for a doubling), though the coefficient, which has already been reduced from 6.4 in earlier papers, may still be on the high side. The Planck parameter may be calculated by taking 30 years’ latitudinal temperature data and repeatedly applying spherical trigonometry and the Stefan-Boltzmann relation latitude by latitude, integrating the results over the whole Earth. If anything, the official value may be on the low side.

 

Here is what Arrhenius actually concluded in his paper of 1906:

 

“In ähnlicher Weise berechne ich, dass eine Verminderung des Kohlensäuregehalts zur Hälfte oder eine Zunahme desselben auf den doppelten Betrag Temperaturänderungen von –1.5 ºC beziehungsweise +1.6 ºC entsprechen würde.”

 

In short, a doubling of CO2 causes warming. Arrhenius went on to discuss the impact of water vapor, which, however, he saw as a positive feedback, amplifying the direct warming from CO2, and not as a negative feedback, attenuating it.

 

O’Sullivan should realize how long is the tradition that stands against him, and how great the labors of those who have attempted to quantify the greenhouse effect. It is the determination of climate sensitivity, not the fact of the greenhouse effect, that is the true subject of the scientific debate.

 

O’Sullivan also mentions in passing a century-old experiment by Wood, which, however, was not conducted under the rigorous conditions of today. In particular, the straightforward containment within the box capped (if Lord Monckton remembers correctly) with sodium chloride glass would cause heat to accumulate at a rate far greater than would arise from near-infrared interactions with very small quantum of CO2 that would be present in so small a space.

 

Callender

 

O’Sullivan merely confirms what Lord Monckton had said in his original letter: Callender had sounded a warning about CO2. Lord Monckton did not assert that Callender had demonstrated its effect.

 

Unanswered points from Lord Monckton’s original letter of reply

 

O’Sullivan is silent upon Lord Monckton’s direct refutation of his inaccurate assertions that His Lordship had “styled” himself “‘science adviser’ to Margaret Thatcher; that Lord Monckton had written a speech for her in 1988 when he had left her service in 1986 and the speech is known to have been written by another; that CO2 does not warm the atmosphere at all; that the ‘hot spot’ in the mid-troposphere is a symptom of greenhouse-gas-driven warming only; that remarks in fact made by Al Gore were made by His Lordship; that blackbodies such as the Earth cannot simultaneously possess albedo; that the effect of CO2 is masked by that of water vapor at all altitudes; etc., etc.

His Lordship is entitled to assume that, on all these points, O’Sullivan is now better informed, if not necessarily wiser.

 

In sum, O’Sullivan’s reply to Lord Monckton was characteristically, belligerently wrong on every material point; he was unable to reply to the great majority of Lord Monckton’s previous points; and his entire letter was predicated on the characteristically intellectually dishonest misstatement of the context in which Lord Monckton had listed some of the scientists who had studied or discussed the impact of CO2 before Hansen (1981), and on the deliberate and dishonest suppression of the vital sentence in Lord Monckton’s reply that established the innocent context of Lord Monckton’s remarks.

 

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

 

 

‘Unanswered Points’ Answered below:

 

By John O’Sullivan

 

(a swift reply to Monckton’s strawman point immediately above – a more detailed rebuttal on the science is being drafted by PSI senior scientists)

 

Above, Lord Monckton labours the strawman inference that I claimed he was directly involved in Thatcher’s 1988 speech to the RS. I stated no such thing. But I did infer he helped guide Thatcher towards that end by my statement that “you helped your boss, Prime Minister Thatcher spin the CO2 alarm. “

 

This is proven by Monckton’s own admission he was in Downing St. promoting the “CO2 causes warming” claim until 1986 as he admits “For four years I advised the Prime Minister on various policy matters, including science. “

 

If anyone is in any doubt that his lordship sought to trumpet his influence about climate issues in Downing St. check his cited interview with the Guardian that he told, ““it was I 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.”

 

The Guardian story I cited in my first open letter reveals, “Viscount Monckton also modestly notes that he was responsible for bringing in “the first computer they had ever seen in Downing Street”, on which he “did the first elementary radiative-transfer calculations that indicated climate scientists were right to say some ‘global warming’ would arise as CO2 concentration continued to climb”. “

Splitting hairs, m’lord?

As with Al Gore’s claim to have “invented the Internet” we see his lordship similarly modest about his achievements shaming others who have sought to cast doubt on his great scientific insight and genius. Indeed the Guardian continues:

“On page 640 of her 1993 autobiography Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years, the former prime minister describes how she grappled with the issue of climate change, referring only to “George Guise, who advised me on science in the policy unit”. Indeed, given Monckton’s purportedly crucial role, it seems to be heartless ingratitude from the Iron Lady that she does not find room to mention him anywhere in the 914-page volume on her years as prime minister. “

But, your lordship, if you wish to assert you were the voice of reason at Thatcher’s side for those years while others around her were sounding climate alarm please provide evidence (e.g. any publication by you) prior to, or around 1988, where you make it plain you are skeptical and Thatcher was wrong to sound the alarm in her 1988 speech.

If you fail to provide such proof we are thus fairly entitled to infer, as per your other Downing St. claims, that they should be taken with a grain of salt.

So, which is, Chris – luminary or liar?

 

Agent 007 had it easy. In the movie From Russia with Love, all he had to do was to prevent a typewriter -(remember those?) -sized device falling into the hands of the other side. Now, the world is faced with a new and bigger problem, i.e. “From Russia – with Cold.”

It’s Cold in Siberia

Everyone knows, it’s cold in Siberia, at least some of the time, but Siberia is far away. Now comes the news that the Siberian temperatures may spread further. The Voice of Russia reports that ”Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling.” The Global Warming Policy Foundation warns says “A freezing Russian spring has reignited the climate change debate.” Even NASA states “The Sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now.” What a dreadful thought.

In case you forgot, the Maunder-Minimum was a 75-year long period starting in the mid 1600’s when the world experienced a dramatic cooling.

Sun-Spots

As has long been recognized, there is a strong correlation between the sun’s activity and the climate on earth. The sun’s activity is readily apparent from the number of sun-spots (measured for over 2,000 years), i.e. dark areas on its surface which commonly wax and wane in 11-year cycles. Superimposed on such short-term cycling are longer-term cycles, including a 200-year cycle which is to begin anew anytime.

Despite being somewhat counter-intuitive, fewer sun-spots translate into less sun-irradiance (less energy) hitting the earth, hence colder temperatures. The reason is that these (visibly dark spots) on the sun’s surface are actually areas from which strong electromagnetic fields and energy-impulses arrive here.

Declining Sun Activity

The declining sun activity is not unexpected. We are just coming off the latest 11-year cycle (Cycle-24) maximum and are going towards the next minimum. What’s different this time is that the next 200-year cycle is also kicking in and both the maxima and minima for the next several 11-year cycles are likely to be smaller than in the previous ones. It’s all coming together, as shown in Fig. 1.

  Fig. 1. Observed sun-spot numbers for the period 1749-2010, and predicted frequency thereafter.

According to the German Herald, Russian scientist Dr. Khabibullo Abdussamatov from the St. Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory it [recent cooling] is proof as he said earlier that we are heading for a “Mini Ice Age.” Abdussamatov who recently joined Principia Scientific International (PSI) is the head of space research at the Pulkovo and also Director of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. His predictions for solar irradiance for the next decades, published in early 2012, are given in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Measured (1980-2011) and predicted (2011-2040) solar irradiance; source: H. Abdussamatov.

Even The Hindu reports that “March in Russia saw the harshest frosts in 50 years, with temperatures dropping to –25° Celsius in central parts of the country and –45° in the north. It was the coldest spring month in Moscow in half a century.” Moreover, NASA scientists Drs. Matt Penn and William Livingston predict that “By the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed.”

So, what’s Next?

For the next few months (in the northern hemisphere at least) spring is coming and perhaps a nice summer. Many have been eagerly awaiting it.

For the next few years the prognosis is not as good. If the solar irradiance declines further, as predicted by Abdussamatov and confirmed by NASA and others, the globe could be in for a severe bout of cooling.

Then, no amount of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would change that; that carbon dioxide-global warming theory has been debunked for good. Not even Agent 007 will be able to change that.

Regardless of any prognostications though, time will tell.

 

This post by Douglas Cotton has been permanently deleted due to Mr Cotton’s persistent and anti-social defamatory conduct, misrepresentations, fraudulent impersonations (possibly criminal) and his deranged promotion of his junk science gravity-thermal effect pet theory nonsense.

As others have noted:

Critical mass of Cotton

Anthony Watts / March 10, 2014

The UK Met Office long term Central England Temperature record has kept a continuous and consistent data set since the 1660s.  It appears to be reliable and to have maintained its quality. It has not been adjusted as have so many other official temperature records.

Although the CET record covers only a small part of the northern hemisphere, it has shown a consistent rise since the end of the little ice age in 1850 at a rate of about +0.45°C / century or about +0.67°C in the last 150 years. This rise accords well with other temperature records.

However since the year 2000, diminishing solar activity in solar cycle 24, moving back towards little ice age patterns, appears to be having an real effect.

So since 2000 the CET shows an annual temperature diminution at the rate of -0.49°C / decade or -0.59°C in 12 years: this negates ~80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the entire CET temperature rise since 1850. Although this is a very short period, the extent of the climate change that has been observed since the turn of the millennium is remarkable.

Using the March 2013 CET value it is possible to show the winter temperature values up until March 2013 with a combination of the four months December – March for the first 13 years of this century. The diminution of the four winter months temperatures is more remarkable at a rate of -1.11°C / decade or -1.49°C in the last 13 years. This compares with a winter temperature increase rate from 1850 to the year 2000 of +0.32°C / century or +0.48°C for the whole 150 year period.

There are substantial shorter term fluctuations in temperature and since about 1850 world temperatures have been recovering from a Little Ice Age up by about +0.7°C up until the year 2000. These fluctuations have correlated well with solar activity observable by the number of sunspots. There was a particularly active solar period from about 1970 onward coinciding well with sunspot cycles 21 – 22 – 23: it lead to comparatively rapid warming.

However the current cycle 24 is very much weaker and sunspots are diminishing to the levels of the earlier Little Ice Age.

Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov joins Principia Scientific International

a review by Terri Jackson membership officer for PSI

The latest recruit to the ranks of Principia Scientific International is Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov. Dr Abdussamatov is head of space research of the Sun Sector at the Polkovo Observatory and head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. * [corrected with apologies: May 09, 2013]

 Dr Abdussamatov graduated from Samarkand University in 1962 as a physicist and a mathematician. He earned his doctorate at Polkovo Observatory and the University of Leningrad and is undoubtedly one of the world`s leading solar physicists.

The Polkovo Observatory is one of the best equipped astronomical observatories in the world and has been since its founding in 1839.  Dr Abdussamatov notes that the de-gassing of large amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the oceans have been triggered by the increased solar irradiance which warmed the earth`s oceans in the last decades of the 20^th century. The lack of any warming for the past seventeen years is a result of the decline of the total solar irradiance, a decline which is now accelerating.

Hundreds have died in the last year due to the cold. Hundreds dead in eastern europe with temperatures of fifty below. Thousands treated for hyperthermia. In the US over 3,300 cold records have been set this week alone. (www.iceagenow.info. Site of Dr Robert Felix.). Dr Abdussamatov has revealed to me that over the last 1000 years there has been five deep cold periods which occurred around 1030, 1315, 1500, 1680 and 1805. these fell in respectively the Oort, Wolf, Sporer, Maunder and Dalton minimums. These are all separated by a period of about 200 years (.+/- 70). Given the last occurred about 1805 we are well on the way to the next deep cooling. The bicentennial cycle of the sun is one of the most intense solar cycles and part of the total solar irradiance. It is basic in considering solar cycles.

Dr Abdussamatov debunks the greenhouse effect:

Referring to the present debate on the causes of climate change he says ” there is no need for the Koyoto protocol now. A global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions. The common view that man`s industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect” Mars has global warming – but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians. These parallel global warmings – observed simultaneously on Mars and on the earth can only be a consequence of the effect of the same factor: a long time change in solar irradiance.”

He notes that a new Little Ice Age will start around 2013/2014. the depth of the decline will occur around 2040 a deep freeze that will last for the rest of this century. Forget about global warming! (note: do the climate alarmist think that it was the Martians that produced the global warming on Mars in the later part of the 20^th century?)

Note: With the biased reporting in sections of the mainline printed and television media in Britain especially it is clear that Britain, Europe and the United States are ill prepared for what lies ahead. Terri Jackson membership officer for PSI and founder of the Energy Group at the Institute of Physics in London and Dr Abdussamatov were both speakers at the recent 4^th international climate conference at the Heartland Institute in Chicago.

References:

Interview with Lawrence Solomon Canadian Financial Post www.Canada.com

 Vasilev S.S Dergachev V. A Raspopov O. M Sources of the long term variations of the radiocarbon concentration in the earth`s atmosphere. Geomagn. Aeron. 1999; 39(6): 80-89

Abdussamatov H I The time of the end of the current solar cycle and the relationship between duration of 11 year cycles and secular cycle phase. Kin. Phys. Celest bodies. 2006; 22: 141-143 and other.        

* This article contained some errors which we now have corrected. Dr Abdussamatov is head of space research of the Sun Sector at the Polkovo Observatory and head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. We apologize to both Dr Abdussamatov and Professor A V Stepanov for the mistakes and misunderstandings. Regrettably Dr. Abdussamatov has now resigned from PSI.

 

PSI has removed this post by Mr Cotton (and others) due to his repeated and deranged harassment of other scientists who have patiently shown him the correct physics that proves Cotton’s pet theory of a gravity-thermal effect is junk. 

Mr Cotton is persona non grata here at PSI and we regret ever having any dealings with him. As others have shown, Mr Cotton is possessed of an anti-social obsession to harass and offend anyone who doesn’t submit to his ravings.

Critical mass of Cotton

Anthony Watts / March 10, 2014

Recently an article was posted on the WUWT web site that contained this statement:

“CO2 and other GHG’s impede the transfer of LWIR energy to the top of the atmosphere where it is finally re-radiated into space. Without GHG’s, the lower atmosphere would be very cold . . . For those who doubt this, see” Roy Spencer’s post What If There Was No Greenhouse Effect?

I do; so I did. Unfortunately Spencer’s article is just a restatement of the same hypothetical but in the form of a “thought experiment” in which he describes what he imagines the temperature profile of the atmosphere would be if there were no “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere and no standing water on Earth that could evaporate into water vapor. He then attributes to the “greenhouse effect” the difference between what the temperature profile of the atmosphere actually is and what he imagines it would be if there were no “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere or standing water on the planet.

The problem with such “thought experiments” is that they exist purely in one’s mind and produce no empirical evidence. In short, they are not testable. We cannot, for example, remove all of the “greenhouse gases” from the atmosphere and rid the planet of standing water in order to test the veracity of Roy Spencer’s imaginary world. An axiom in science is that you cannot use a hypothetical to prove a hypothetical because an actual, physical, empirical experiment is needed to sort out the difference between what actually exists in the physical world and what only exists in the minds of men.

Karl Popper (1902–1994) stressed this point. “Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—sorting the scientific from the unscientific—and lays the demarcation criterion falsifibility, such that the unfalsifiable are unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory proved true by scientific method is pseudoscience.” 

But all is not lost. Even though Spencer’s “thought experiment” is untestable and therefore unscientific it does contain two postulates that can be tested empirically:

Dear Chris,

Principia Scientific International salutes your tireless efforts in recent years in opposing the nonsense of man-made global warming. But to those of us who carefully study the history of climate alarmism you are the veritable “poacher turned gatekeeper.”

You have carefully styled yourself as “science adviser” to Margaret Thatcher during her tenure as British Prime Minister in the 1980’s. As the records show, back then the “Iron Lady” became the first world leader to promote what we now know as the man-made global warming scam. At that time you boasted you used “the first computer they had ever seen in Downing Street,” to perform “radiative-transfer calculations that indicated climate scientists were right to say some ‘global warming’ would arise as CO2 [carbon dioxide] concentration continued to climb.”

But as an armchair scientist you have been proved wrong. As the decades passed and CO2 levels rose by 40 percent we have seen global temperatures flatline for 16 years. Greenhouse gas predictions (and thus the science) are shown to be wrong.