The Science is Settled
The Warmists are very fond of saying ‘The Science is settled’ and in point of fact they are largely right. Between the Warmists and the Skeptics there is a great deal of agreement on the science. The disagreements mostly come over the use or abuse of the English language. Just as one small example, many of the Warmists are unable apparently to distinguish between ‘causation’ and ‘correlation’. That is a matter of linguistics and not of science per se.
In the comments on an article of mine in ‘American Thinker’ a certain gnome has taken me to task for not being a scientist. Believe me, I have never pretended to be one. But I am interested in the use of words, and try to use words that connect clearly with meaning. So as a layman I wrote about climate not as a scientist, but as a layman for laymen.
Anyone who has read my book ‘Climate for the Layman’ will see that I have relied for the science heavily on my mentors – Professor Tim Ball, Professor Bob Carter (now deceased), and now for some long time Hans Schreuder, Analytical Chemist. These are supported by articles and excerpts from Professor John Christy; Stephen Wilde, Meteorology; Dr David Evans; John Droz Jr, Physicist; Astrophysicist James Peden; Piers Corbyn, Physicist; Johnny Ball, Mathematician; Rev. Philip Foster, both scientist and Biblical scholar; Norman Kalmanovich and Professor Les Woodcock. Anybody can look these personages up on Google to see their full qualifications. These are just a few of the scientists who have contributed to my book, which more correctly should be called their book, but which I put together, or collated together with some of my own articles.
However, some of these scientists have been kind enough to say that I have expressed some scientific ideas in a layman language sufficiently well to grace such sites as Principia Scientific International and others.
Let us return to the theme ‘The Science is settled’ and see if we can trace out just where both the Warmists and the Skeptics agree, and having first done that we can perhaps then see clearly where they disagree, and we can then see if it is over science or over language, that is to say a matter of semantics.
- We all agree now that the globe is rotating on its own axis as it travels round the Sun at some 66,000 miles an hour. Since I am not a scientist I have to take it as read, that these suppositions are true, though it is well to remember that it was only a short time ago that you could be put upon the rack and tortured for even believing that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe.
- All scientists now agree that the Sun is between 91 and 95 million miles away, according to Earth’s elliptical swing. They also agree that the corona of the Sun is circa 6,500ºC and that the Sun is some 3,600 times larger than the Planet Earth.
- Warmists and Skeptics also agree that Outer Space is a vacuum, through which radiation (not heat) from the Sun travels.
- All scientists also agree that there are 4 levels of atmosphere, – in descending order, the Thermosphere, the Mesosphere, the Stratosphere and finally the Troposphere, where our weather occurs. All are agreed that the distance from the surface of the Earth to Outer Space is approximately 100kms or 66 miles.
- The composition of the atmosphere is also a matter of agreement. Both sides agree that the composition is roughly divided between Oxygen O2 and Nitrogen N2 together at 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} and the Greenhouse Gases at only 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}. It is important to note that Carbon Dioxide is only 0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere. Both sides in general agree these figures.
- Both sides agree that Nitrogen and Oxygen are transparent to radiation, both incoming and outgoing. That means that radiation passes through them until it (radiation) collides with mass. Now this last bit is where I, as a layman, first got lost. The concept of Physics that radiation has to collide with mass to produce heat is a difficult one not just for a layman, but also for many well-educated humans. It took Hans Schreuder to explain to me that the Sun does not send heat through space but radiation. Believe me I could not grasp this concept at first, believing that infrared was the ‘hot’ part of radiation. Physicists will smile at my naiveté. Infrared is not hot, just as electricity is not hot, but both will produce heat when encountering a resistance.
- Unlike O2 and N2, the Greenhouse Gases are di-polar in structure, which allows them to absorb and radiate. This means that unlike Oxygen and Nitrogen, they absorb infrared and so warm up. That includes Water Vapour, Carbon Dioxide and Methane. All molecules above absolute zero absorb infrared and likewise radiate away, thus cooling. As far as I knows nobody on either side disputes any of this science.
So now we can see that there are huge areas where scientists on both sides are in full agreement. However when we come to questions like the Greenhouse Effect we encounter great differences. Let us look at what the BBC website says: –
“The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which the atmosphere traps some of the Sun’s energy, warming the Earth enough to support life. Most mainstream scientists believe a human-driven increase in “greenhouse gases” is increasing the effect artificially”
Greenhouse Effect – BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm
Let us look at this a bit critically – traps some of the earth’s energy. Really? How does it do this ‘trapping’? Immediately we can see that this is not scientific – it is political. Warming the Earth enough to support life? No, this is not science. It is a sort of wishy-washy opinion. Then it goes on ‘Most mainstream scientists believe …
Of course, belief is not science – this statement is just political poppycock. Sure, all scientists accept that the ill-named Greenhouse Gases absorb and emit infrared – that is one thing, it is quite another to suggest that this results in further warming of the Earth below. Even a layman can see the frailty of this proposition, since we also know that hot air rises, just as hot water rises. Therefore, if these molecules say at 500ft are warmed – no, no that is wrong – if as a result of a photon of infrared from the Earth’s surface some warmth is produced, then what is warmed will rise up by Convection and cool.
The idea that a molecule of Carbon Dioxide could trap heat is also completely unacceptable, since heat is defined as the transfer of kinetic energy. A substance may be trapped, but a transfer cannot.
The wizards at the BBC may be able to trap a ‘transfer’, but such an idea is ludicrous and infantile. In any case, such a proposition would defy the 2nd law of Thermodynamics – all heat by itself flows from hot to cold. Whoever thought of ‘trapping’ heat? The concept is too silly for words – remembering also that every molecule above absolute zero will radiate and in so doing cool.
There is even a ludicrous illustration purporting to show how the Greenhouse Effect works, with a barrier hovering halfway up in the sky. Dear oh dear! This is just such manifest nonsense that it is difficult to believe that this was put out seriously and illustrated.
So we can see that where the laws of science are followed there is complete agreement between scientists. But where politics intervene, where corrupt scientists have as their brief to prove that certain gases cause the Earth below to warm, their arguments just do not add up. In fact they are pitiful. Yet because these lies have been repeated again and again, thousands, nay millions, of people are deceived and believe them.
The science is settled and the laws of science cannot be gainsaid. But the political shenanigans are just sick making. Man-made Global Warming is not just a hoax, it is a political scam that has affected all mankind and made many of them mad. Praise be, that there are one or two who have not been deceived.
So the science is settled all right, but the idea that there is some sort of barrier in the Troposphere forming the Greenhouse Effect is utter, unmitigated rubbish. See picture below, on the BBC website.
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