The Incorrect Postulate of Climate Alarmism 2

Svante Arrhenius 1896: If the quantity of carbonic acid (CO2) increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.

Climate sensitivity or global warming of 1.5 - 4.5 C from doubled CO2, is by IPCC presented as a consequence of Stefan-Boltzmann's Black Body Radiation Law. This argument was used by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) in On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine 41, 237 (1896), to predict a climate sensitivity of 5 - 6 C:

• For this radiation we will suppose that Stefan's law of radiation, which is now generally accepted, holds good, or in other words that the quantity of heat (W) that radiates from a body of the albedo (1-n) and temperature T (absolute) to another body of the absorption-coefficient b and absolute temperature q is W = nbg(T^4-q^4),where g is the so-called radiation constant (1.21x10-12 per sec. and cm.2) Empty space may be regarded as having the absolute temperature 0[11].
  

Alan Thorpe in Climate Change Prediction on behalf of the Institute of Physics, repeats the argument 110 years later: 

• The existence of an atmosphere that is capable of absorbing and retransmitting certain wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum means that there must be a socalled greenhouse effect whereby the atmosphere traps outgoing infrared radiation, thereby increasing the atmospheric temperature (see box insert and Andrews 2000). This was first postulated by Jean- Baptiste Fourier in 1827 and further elaborated upon by John Tyndall in 1860 and Svante Arrhenius in 1896. It was Arrhenius who first noted that, say, a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere could lead to an increase in surface temperature of some 5 to 6ºC.
  

IPCC AR4 follows up in 2007:

• The Sun powers Earth’s climate, radiating energy at very short wavelengths, predominately in the visible or near-visible (e.g., ultraviolet) part of the spectrum. Roughly one-third of the solar energy that reaches the top of Earth’s atmosphere is reflected directly back to space. The remaining two-thirds is absorbed by the surface and, to a lesser extent, by the atmosphere. To balance the absorbed incoming energy, the Earth must, on average, radiate the same amount of energy back to space. Because the Earth is much colder than the Sun, it radiates at much longer wavelengths, primarily in the infrared part of the spectrum. Much of this thermal radiation emitted by the land and ocean is absorbed by the atmosphere, including clouds, and reradiated back to Earth. This is called the greenhouse effect. 

• The glass walls in a greenhouse reduce airflow and increase the temperature of the air inside. Analogously, but through a different physical process, the Earth’s greenhouse effect warms the surface of the planet. Without the natural greenhouse effect, the average temperature at Earth’s surface would be below the freezing point of water. Thus, Earth’s natural greenhouse effect makes life as we know it possible. However, human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have greatly intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming.
  

IPCC suggests that the atmosphere with its GreenHouse Gasses GHG, mainly water vapour and CO2, acts like the window of a conventional Green House GH, "but through a different physical process".

IPCC concludes that since a  GH gets very hot inside (because the window prevents convective heat transfer), the Earth will warm from a marginal increase of GHG ("through a different physical process"). 

But that is Penguin Logic disguised by the clever use of the terminology of GH and GHG, suggesting that it is the same thing, while in effect it is "through a different physical process".

So what is then this "different physical process"? Right: it is convection (combined with evaporation/condensation). So what heats a GH (absence of convection) is precisely what

is present in the atmosphere = Penguin Logic.

In previous posts a model for the "different physical process" is discussed, suggesting that climate sensitivity may very well be much smaller than what IPCC alarmism suggests.  This is accordance with Roy Spencer's new book: The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists. And also to Roger Pielke's criticism of Kevin Trenberth's analysis of the Global Energy Budget with 0.9 Watts/m^2 (0.26% of total insolation) seemingly mysteriously disappearing. 

The following different aspect of Penguin Logic is also employed by IPCC alarmists: Since Stefan-Boltzmann's Black Body Radiation Law is a mystery based on statistics of quanta, as much a mystery as entropy based on statistics of molecular chaos, it can be used very effectively  in any argument, because nobody wants to question it and thereby risk giving the impression of not understanding the mystery...It is smarter to pretend to understand black-body radiation and its alarming message...but misunderstanding may be costly... 

• No one knows what entropy is, so if you in a debate use this concept, you will always have an advantage. (von Neumann to Shannon)
  

You can here trade "entropy" for "black body radiation". Compare with the knol Black Body Radiation.

Also compare with the recent article The Greenhouse Gas Theory Under a Cloud  by Jeffrey A. Glassmann concluding: 

• The IPCC willfully ignored the importance of the interaction between the sun and clouds probably to suit a pre-conceived agenda supportive of the man-made greenhouse gas theory.
  

PS Svante Arrhenius not only initiated AGW alarmism, but was also

• actively engaged in the process leading to the creation in 1922 of The State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala, Sweden, which had originally been proposed as a Nobel Institute. Arrhenius was a member of the institute's board, as he had been in The Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene (Eugenics), founded in 1909. Swedish racial biology was world-leading at this time, and the results formed the scientific basis for the Compulsory sterilization program in Sweden.