Einstein, Photons and Backradiation

Shortly before his death in 1955 Einstein confessed:

• All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, “What are light quanta?”. Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. 
  

In 1922 Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics with the following motivation: 

• ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY of SCIENCES has at its assembly held on November 9, 1921, an accordance with the stipulation in the will and testament of Alfred Nobel, decided to independent of the value that (after eventual confirmation) may be credited to the relativity and gravitational theory bestow the prize that of 1921 is awarded to the person in the field of physics who has made the most important discovery or invention to Albert Einstein for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.
  

The Prize motivation shows that the Nobel Commitee did not believe in Einstein's relativity theory, neither in the photon particles or light quanta used by Einstein in his derivation of the (trivial) law of the photoelectric effect:

• E + P = h nu .

Why did then the Nobel Committee give Einstein the Prize for the discovery of a (trivial) law, 

while rejecting his derivation based on photons or light particles, because they did not believe in reviving Newton's since long abandoned corpuscular theory of light? 

Because Einstein had become a celebrity after Eddington's supposed experimental verification of the general theory of relativity in 1919. The Committee simply had to give Einstein the Prize for something. But to come up with a motivation showed to be very difficult, because there were so many reasons to not give him the Prize, as indicated in the motivation. Finally, someone came up with the brilliant idea of the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. But a law without a convincing derivation is not much of a law to rely on. If you do not believe in the derivation of a law, why should you believe in the law? A physical law is not like native in the woods that you can discover.

Does this matter today? Yes, it does because the supposed "backradiation" underlying the 

supposed "greenhouse effect" is based on the idea that a radiating body is spitting out photon particles, and if there two bodies then they spit at each other, and the one who spits the most wins.

But if there are no photons, as Einstein and the Nobel Committee agreed on, then this description of radiative exchange does not make any sense at all today, as little as in 1921 and 1955.

What can make sense is a wave mechanics description in the spirit of Schrödinger, as explained 

in previous posts on the non-physics of "backradiation", following up the suggestion by Einstein:

• Would it not be possible to replace the hypothesis of light quanta by another assumption that would also fit the known phenomena? If it is necessary to modify the elements of the theory, would it not be possible to retain at least the equations for the propagation of radiation and conceive only the elementary processes of emission and absorption differently than they have been until now?
  

For more info on Einstein's Nobel Prize, check Einstein's Nobel Prize, A Glimpse Behind Closed Doors, by Aant Elzinga. A fresh approach to relativity is presented in Many-Minds Relativity

including perspectives on Einstein's life and work.

I am not the only one to question the physical reality of (virtual) photons as light particles (or mass-less charge-less "carrier of the electromagnetic force" according to the standard model of particle physics) :

• There are no quantum jumps, nor are there any particles. (H.D. Zeh, Physics Letters A 172, 189-192, 1993)

Or check The Myth of the Photon, by Marshall and Santos:

• ...we do assert that, with a certain natural extension of the term “classical”, all of the light fields, including those currently classified as “nonclassical”, which have so far been produced in the laboratory are, in fact, entirely classical; they are adequately described by the unquantized Maxwell equations.
  

Spencer's Backyard Backward Backradiation Experiment

Roy Spencer reports First Results from THE BOX: Investigating the Effects of Infrared Sky Radiation on Air Temperature: A cavity or blackbody at 300 K is opened into radiative contact with a night sky at 290 K and is then seen to cool off towards 290 K but not towards 0 K. 

Spencer seems to view this trivial observation as a sign of "backradiation" from the sky. The argument is that without this "backradiation" the cavity temperature would drop below 290 K towards 0 K.  

But this is an illusion or play with confusing words: What happens is that the cavity reads 

the temperature of the sky through its blackbody spectrum, then compares with its own

temperature and decides to cool off towards the sky temperature, if it happens to be lower,

and warm up if it happens to be higher. This is illustrated in Mathematics of Blackbody Radiation, Without Backradiation in the equation for internal energy (related to temperature T by E ~ T^4) :

• E_t = int (F^2 - RU_tt^2) dx
  

with the integral of local difference (F^2 - RU_tt^2) between incoming and outgoing radiation intensity driving the temperature (and not int F^2 dx  - int RU_tt^2 dx).

The same happens when you open the door to your garden: Your are not struck by any backconvection/conduction from the garden, are you?

You may compare your own salary with that of a more successful competitor and ask for a compensating increase, but you don't compare to somebody with zero salary, because it serves no purpose.

It is remarkable that climate science even among skeptics can be in such a complete state of confusion. Of course, Spencer does not respond to my comments on his experiment. Evidently there is not any "backradiation" here either. 

The confusion is a result of the abdication by physicists from the throne of rational mechanics, 

because the 2nd Law could not be given a correct understandable formulation, only as a deep mystery beyond human comprehension. The abdicated physicists instead flocked into string theory. And string theory physicists have no reason to say that "backradiation" is non-physical and accordingly don't do it.

Phil Jones Speaking

Phil Jones is breaking his silence in a New Scientist interview:

• I know things aren't going to be the same as they were pre-November. It's just about learning to live with it.
• Unless the alternative views are in the peer-reviewed literature, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change cannot refer to them.
• Muir Russell showed that there was no perversion of the peer-review process. The papers that we were referring to in that email were bad science.
  
• There should be an acceptance that the climate has warmed since measurements began. OK, there's then debate about what caused that warming. But I do find it difficult engaging with people who deny the evidence and say the world has not warmed.
• I haven't deleted any emails that were the subject of FOI requests, but I have deleted emails...

Evidently CRU is back in business: A little bit of warming, maybe, but what may have caused the warming is of no interest. And bad science is bad science. The message from CRU/IPCC is the same, but things aren't going to be the same as they were pre-November...

What is Phil Jones anticipating?

Mathematics of Blackbody Radiation, Without Backradiation

Blackbody in the form of a grand piano as a system of vibrating strings of different eigen-frequencies, including a "cut-off" damping mechanism transforming high overtones into heat.

Computational Blackbody Radiation presents an analysis of the following model of blackbody radiation:

• U_tt - U_xx - R U_ttt - D^2 U_xxt = F
  
• E_t = int (F^2 - RU_tt^2) dx

where U(x,t) is the amplitude of a vibrating string at position x at time t, with the subindices indicating differentiation. The string is subject to radiative forcing of intensity F^2 (incoming waves) and responds by emitting radiation (outgoing waves) with intensity RU_tt^2. The difference between incoming and outgoing radiation acts as a heat source to the internal energy

• E = vibrational energy + heat
• vibrational energy = int (U_t^2 + U_x^2) dx.

Finally, - D^2U_xxt represents a dissipative mechanism grinding waves of high frequency into heat. The coefficient D = H/T with H a (small) spatial mesh scale, represents a cut-off length or smallest coordination length, which is the smallest wave length which can be carried by the vibrating string as coordinated wave motion. Further E ~T^2 with T temperature.

As discussed in Computational Blackbody Radiation the dissipation can take different forms with more or less sharp cut-off. We here consider the simplest case including essentials.

The cut-off length D decreases with increasing temperature T: The hotter the more fine details can be represented and emitted. The colder, the "dumber" is the string.

There is a corresponding cut-off frequency T/H conforming with Wien's Displacement Law.

We assume that R is small expressing that the emission is a small perturbation on top of carrier wave of temperature T ~ 1/R. Incoming waves trigger resonances in the system from which waves are re-emitted. The effect is that an incoming blackbody spectrum below cut-off

can be fully absorbed and re-emitted as the same blackbody spectrum.

A blackbody spectrum is characterized by equal temperature of all frequencies (below cut-off).

The model can be seen as a collection of (atomic) resonators with a range of frequencies from small to medium to large, the motion of which is sustained by incoming waves (with blackbody spectrum). The resonators absorb an incoming blackbody spectrum and react by

• re-emitting a blackbody spectrum below cut-off
• transforming incoming spectrum above cut-off into heat (as part of internal energy).
  

The transformation of high frequency input comes from an inability of the system to correctly absorb certain input, because the required coordination length is too small for the

available precision, and the system therefore distorts incoming high-frequency waves into incoherent high-frequency motion kept as internal (heat) energy, which is not radiated. The heating is similar to blushing from an inability to properly respond to a (sharp/nasty) remark.

The model shows two basic features of blackbody radiation:

• low incoming frequencies are re-emitted without causing heating.
  
• high incoming frequencies are transformed into heat (=incoherent high frequencies).

The net result is that a warm blackbody can heat a colder blackbody, through incoming frequencies above cut-off. But a cold blackbody cannot heat a warmer, because incoming frequencies below cut-off will be re-emitted without heating effect.

Since "backradiation" refers to the latter case, the model indicates that "backradiation" is not physical.

The question is now to what extent the model captures real physics? Is a blackbody an analog computer performing some form of analog computation of finite precision, when absorbing and emitting radiation acting as a system of resonators with finite coordination length?

It is like a system of crickets able to emit variable pitch sound with the top pitch

increasing with "temperature" or "excitation level". Or the frequency of "the wave" in the stadium increasing as the excitation of the public increases. Or like politicians delivering increasingly high pitch coordinated messages as the campaign temperature increases towards election.

Note that the above model is deterministic with the quanta statistics of Planck's classical model (created in an "act of despair" from an apparent collapse of classical mechanics), being replaced by finite precision computation (as an "act of resurrection of the hope" of classical mechanics).

The Wise and the Fools of Backradiation

Roy Spencer feels an urge to make a follow-up to his "controversial post on the effect of infrared "backradiation", the existence some dispute" by suggesting a "simple and inexpensive Experiment to Investigate Infrared Sky Radiation Effect on Temperature Changes". 

This is simply the standard blackbody in the form of a box (cavity) with a hole absorbing and emitting radiation to the surrounding. The air in the box is initially at 300 K and the surrounding is kept at 290 K. Spencer asks for the temperature in the box after some time. 

The answer is of course 290 K. But this is not because of any form of "backradiation", but because the cavity reads the temperature of the surrounding from its spectrum, and then decides to cool or warm depending on its own temperature. As illustrated in the model studied in Computational Blackbody Radiation, now updated with a section giving evidence that backradition is non-physical.

The key feature of this model is that the form of a blackbody spectrum is determined by 

the temperature which sets the cut-off according to Wien's Displacement Law. The result is

that a warmer body can heat a colder body, because the colder body can absorb high-frequency radiation and grind it to heat. But a warmer body cannot get heated by absorbing low-frequency radiation from a colder body, because the required high frequency input is missing and cannot be created out of nothing.

Two blackbodies of equal temperature do not exchange heat energy, because the reason to do so is lacking (according to Leibniz' Principle of Sufficient Reason).

We may compare to the following familiar situation:

• One wise can teach many fools something of interest, because the fools cannot avoid absorbing the message because they are without defense. Even if the message is not understood in detail, it will have an effect as elevation of general knowledge/temperature. Education is meaningful, to some degree in some sense.
• Fools, even many,  cannot teach a wise anything of interest, because the wise will simply not listen, because of an inability to absorb trivialities: We know that intelligent FRSs proudly claim that they cannot learn anything from the blogosphere.
• In successful education, the student may over time become as knowledgeable as the teacher, but not more...as the student learns the teacher gets less and less to teach...

Necessity of High Pitch Screaming to Get Heard

In previous posts on the myth of of backradiation we have discovered that a cold blackbody B can get heated by absorbing radiation from a warmer blackbody A. We have seen that B can "read" the spectrum of the incoming radiation and thereby "understand" that it has a lower temperature than A, without literally measuring the temperature of A, thus allowing to get heated by A because A "is stronger".

But how does A get to "know" that B has a lower temperature? Is it necessary? 

Let us compare with making yourself heard over a the background noise of a party after a couple of drinks: You read the pitch of the background noise and modulate your screaming pitch so that it gets across. The body A thus can read the pitch of the background noise, that is the temperature of B, and thus understand what level/pitch of screaming will be necessary. 

We understand that the cold B reads the coherent high frequency fine detail spectrum of A and converts it to incoherent heat, while A only has to read the overall spectrum of B or its cut-off level, to set up its effective emission.

In other words, the emission of A is relative to the background given by the colder B.

But B does not warm A in some form of two-way heating with backradiation.

Similarly, a blogger has to overpower a certain level of background noise, if you want to  get listened to. The temperature/pitch of the blog must be bigger than that of the background.

Notice that it is the pitch that counts, not the amplitude: A small hot blogger (or Sun at distance) can heat a big lukewarm blogosphere (or big Earth), but not the other way around.

A high pitch soprano can get heard over a big orchestra. A melody on top can be heard over 

a powerful bass line.

Insulation works by establishing (a sequence of) relative temperature/pitch differences which add up to a total temperature difference. This is the way a cloud layer helps to keep the Earth surface warm during night. Not by backradiation!

Computational Blackbody Radiation gives the math.

Compare with the following comment by Stephen Wilde to Spencer's "Greenhouse Effect":

• A cooler object near a warmer object will slow the rate of cooling of the warmer object because of the exchange of energy to and fro between the two objects before that energy departs the combined system.
• If there is a constant energy input throughout then the slowing down of the rate of cooling will cause the warmer object to settle at a higher equilibrium temperature than would otherwise have been the case.
• Thus the presence of the cooler object does indeed result in the warmer object becoming warmer than it otherwise would have done.
• That is the essence of the greenhouse effect which is a concept I have always accepted despite the misleading nomenclature.
• Any sceptical viewpoints that rely on denying those simple facts must be rejected because they weaken the sceptical cause.

This is (more or less) correct, but has nothing to do with backradiation and to call it a "greenhouse effect" is severely misleading. As misleading as saying that an insulating blanket on your bed warms because of a mystical "greenhouse effect" based on mystical "backradiation". In science you are not allowed to deliberately use misleading terminology, only in politics, and maybe not even there in the long run...

PS "Slowing of cooling" is a bit misleading because the cooling is not slowed; it is the temperature which is "lifted" to a higher relative level. 

What the 2nd Law Tells about the "Greenhouse Effect"

To check if the basic postulate of climate alarmism (= "greenhouse effect" of 

"backradiation" from "greenhouse gases"), violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics, it is useful to understand what the 2nd Law says. 

But if there is a mystery in science, then the 2nd Law has the first place: It comes in many forms and nobody seems to know which one is the right one and why it should be valid. Some of the formulations of the 2nd Law read:

• heat cannot by itself flow from cold (but what is "heat" and  "by itself"?)
• entropy cannot decrease (but what is "entropy"?)
• disorder is always increasing (but what is "disorder")
• a heat engine cannot be more efficient than a Carnot engine (but what is a "heat engine" and a "Carnot engine"?).

To come grips with this mess I propose in Computational Thermodynamics a resolution of the mystery in terms of finite precision computation, where the 2nd Law states that

• a system evolving in time with finite precision necessarily has to destroy fine details or high frequency information in order to move ahead, 
• which effectively means grinding high frequency details into heat. 

This version of the 2nd Law is presented in understandable form in the knol The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Next, recall that "backradiation" is supposed to mean that a blackbody B of a certain temperature (top of the atmosphere) can radiatively heat another blackbody  A of higher temperature (Earth surface).

But Planck's Radiation Law including Wien's Displacement Law tells us that a blackbody radiation spectrum has a cut-off of high frequencies proportional to the temperature, which means that the high-frequency end of the spectrum of A is missing in the spectrum of B, which means that B cannot heat A. The fine details in the spectrum of A cannot be created out of the coarser details in the spectrum of B, because a blackbody spectrum has a unique form (up to cut-off).

On the other hand A can heat B because the (coherent) fine details in the spectrum of A can be grinded to heat (= decoherent fine details) increasing the temperature of B. 

In short: coherent fine details can be destroyed by a coarse process (into heat), but a coarse process cannot create coherent fine details (from decoherent heat). 

We conclude that backradiation violates the 2nd Law and thus is non-physical.

Chilling Greenhouse Gases?

In the earlier post CO2 Cooling we pondered the question if more GreenHouse Gases GHG (like water vapor) will warm or cool the Earth surface? 

Let's consider a simplistic (but possibly relevant) argument: Let's agree that without any atmosphere an isotherm Earth would have a blackbody temperature of 255 K as given by 

Stefan-Boltzmann-Planck's Law. What would the temperature be with a fully opaque atmosphere effectively extending an isotherm Earth to include the atmosphere. Right: Again 255 K.  

The real atmosphere is something in between fully transparent and fully opaque with 

an Earth surface temperature of 288 K. Apparently we cannot say a priori that making the atmosphere more opaque by adding GHG will warm the Earth surface: Adding too much would cause cooling.  

Simplistic, yes, but anyway relevant?

Collapse of Skepticism?

The recent posts by Spencer and Pielke Sr. , supported by Lord Monckton, seeking to supply apparently missing scientific evidence of the existence of a so-called "greenhouse effect" from atmospheric "backradiation", have caused a flood of mostly critical comments questioning the arguments put forward in various "thought experiments". 

Pielke Sr. does not reply to comments but Spencer has responded to quite a few mostly innocent questions, but not to critical ones like those by myself or the Hockey Schtick.

The "greenhouse effect" based on "backradiation" is the corner stone of climate alarmism, without which alarmistic feedbacks have nothing to feed on. 

If you don't buy climate alarmism right away for some reason or the other, it is natural to take a look at the science behind the "greenhouse effect" and if you do that you find that it is empty:

It is not described and documented in the physics literature, and it is difficult to argue that it is not physics. No real experiments show the effect, only invented "thought experiments". No mathematics backs the effect. On the contrary, "backradiation" visibly violates the 2nd Law, and the main argument of Spencer is to show that it does not.

The lack of evidence of any "greenhouse effect" from "backradiation"  is shown by the fact that Pielke Sr. and Spencer feel an urge to supply the missing science. But they are not physicists and their evidence is not convincing from a physics mathematical point of view. It is only suggestive hand-waving in pictures with arrows up and down depicting imagined "backradiation".

What is then the meaning? Why do leading climate skeptics suddenly jump on an alarmist wagon powered by a "greenhouse effect"? 

Why do leading skeptics not respond to skeptical arguments? Collapse of skepticism?

Dark Age of Science?

Why are skeptics adopting the bunker mentality of alarmists? 

Compare with influential IPCC reviewer Sir Brian Hoskins CBE FRS in The Economist:

• It is going warm, the question is only how much?
• Climate models were lousy, and are still pretty lousy...a long way to go...young science...
• IPCC has done a remarkably good work in giving a range of uncertainties...
• Uncertainties should not be a basis for saying that we can't use what we are talking about...
• It is always a mixture of what is predictable and what is not...
• We got to be able to highlight uncertainties and what we are not doing very well...

Compare with the analysis of propaganda techniques in Deprogramming Yourself After Global Warming Scam by Roger F. Gay. Try it out yourself! 

Roy Spencer's "Greenhouse Effect"

Roy Spencer takes on the task of explaining the physical basis of the  "greenhouse effect" in Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still. Why? How?

Some reflections:

• The "greenhouse effect" is not described in the physics literature.
• Isn't it the task of physicists to describe it and give it a mathematical dress, if it is physics? 
  
• Spencer seeks to twist the 2nd Law to allow cool objects to warm, in order to open to "backradiation" the supposed basis of the "greenhouse effect". 
• But "backradiation" is not described in the physics literature either, like "backconduction" or "backdiffusion". Why?
• Spencer does not use mathematics, the language of physics, just pictures. Is this enough? 
• Popular science is fine if there is real physics behind supported by math and observation, but what is the role of popular science without real physics basis? Replace real science?

And so to Roy:  Would you mind taking a look at my posts on the myth of backradiation (with mathematics in Computational Blackbody Radiation) and give some response. In particular concerning your statement: 

• While heat conduction by an object always flows from hotter to colder, in the case of thermal radiation a cooler object does not check what the temperature of its surroundings is before sending out infrared energy. It sends it out anyway, no matter whether its surroundings are cooler or hotter.
  

How do know that an emitting cool object is so "cool" that it does not care about the temperature of the surroundings? What is the underlying physics and mathematics? Is it like a "cool blogger" able to emit hotter information than absorbed?

PS I drafted Computational Blackbody Radiation 5 years ago in connection with work on thermodynamics and the 2nd Law. Surprisingly maybe, it seems to be at the core of the discussion on the "greenhouse effect". Hopefully someone will read it. I believe the mathematical model analyzed carries some thruths about physical reality. DS

Skeptic Believers in the Greenhouse Effect

Among the many comments to Herman-Pielke's Explanation of the "The GreenHouse Effect" on WUWT we find that Lord Monckton is a believer:

• I am delighted that this simple and clear but authoritative statement of the reality of the “greenhouse effect” has been posted here. Too many inaccurate statements to the effect that there is no greenhouse effect have been published recently, and they do not deserve to be given any credence. 
• The true debate in the scientific community is not about whether there is a greenhouse effect (there is)...

I am surprised to see Lord Monckton appeal to authority in his denial of any credibility of scientists (like me) saying that the "greenhouse effect" is non-physical and is not described in the physics literature. Does Lord Monckton no longer believe in the virtues of a skeptical scientific attitude? 

Or is Monckton listening to Roy Spencer's explanation of the "greenhouse effect":

• Even my oldest daughter, a realtor who has an aversion to things scientific, got the right answer...

Cutoff of Backradiation by Ockham's Razor

The discussion in previous posts on the non-physical nature of backradiation directly connects to the physics of blackbody radiation studied in Computational Blackbody Radiation in a mathematical model of the principal form (in stationary state)

• R = LR + HR 

where R is incoming absorbed radiation by a blackbody B at temperature TB, where the radiation originates from a body A at temperature TA bigger than TB and thus contains  both low and high frequencies, LR is the low-frequency infrared part of R after cut-off of the high-frequency part HR with the level of cut-off defined by TB.

We thus assume that the blackbody B is heated by A, because cut-off requires something substantial to be cut-off.  A thief seeks a richer to rob, not a poorer.

We know that the spectrum of R carries its emission temperature, assuming it follows Planck's Law, and thus B at absorption can check if there is some radiation to absorb and process (without having access to the temperature of A, only to the radiation from A about to be absorbed).

We thus consider a body B which is absorbing radiation R of a temperature bigger than its own.

The model describes how the body B handles this situation by cutting off the high frequency part HR (grinding it into low frequency heat) and ends up with a low frequency part LR which is prepared for emission. 

We thus focus on the absorption process with the cut-off and we can leave the emission process out of the discussion. The advantage is that that we do not have to deal with a two-way communication between A and B,  with a hypothetical backradiation from B at low temperature to A at high temperature.

By focussing on incoming instead of outgoing radiation, we focus on what is essential, and leave out what is inessential. We thus make use of Ockham's razor as the basic principle of science.  

To sum up: 

• It is interesting to study the absorption by the Earth of radiation from the Sun, but not interesting to study the absorption by the Sun of radiation from the Earth. 
• It is interesting to study the absorption by the atmosphere of radiation from the Earth, but not interesting to study fictional backradiation from the atmosphere to the Earth.

Note that Ben Herman and Roger Pielke in the post The Greenhouse Effect of today, start off:

• During the past several months there have been various, unpublished studies circulating around the blogosphere and elsewhere claiming that the “greenhouse effect” cannot warm the Earth’s atmosphere. 
  

It is possible that my blog is involved. Herman and Pielke now seek to correct what is circulating by explaining the arguments that have been put forth and why they are incorrect: 

• When absorbing gases are added to the atmosphere, more of emitted radiation from the ground is absorbed by the atmosphere. This results in increased downward radiation toward the surface, so that the rate of escape of IR radiation to space is decreased, i.e., the rate of infrared cooling is decreased. This results in warming of the lower atmosphere and thus the second law is not violated. Thus, the warming is a result of decreased cooling rates. 
  

We here meet exactly what Ockham's razor cut off, namely "downward radiation". What is the truth? Fiction or non-fiction? Is my argument incorrect?

Note that Herman and Pielke use quotation marks around the greenhouse effect and also speak about the 

• so-called "greenhouse theory"
  

with their own quotation marks. But if you put quotation marks around theory, doesn't that indicate that it is not a theory, but only a "theory". What is then the  status of "theory" in science? Is it a "theory" because it is only folklore and not described in physics literature?

Of course the presence of an atmosphere can affect the temperature on Earth, in many ways: Is this the meaning of the "greenhouse theory" and "greenhouse effect"? Maybe it would then be better to call it "atmosphere effect", but it remains to tell what this effect is.

Radiative Budget: In or Out?

Here is another argument indicating the non-physical nature of backradiation connecting to Global warming alarmists in full retreat as skeptics attack greenhouse theory. 

Do you carry a careful book of your expenditures or outflow of money? Is it accurate? Do you know how much you spend? 

Myself, like most people, don't: To keep track of the flow of money through your pocket, it suffices to know your income, and that you somehow spend whatever comes in (modulo savings).

Does Nature carry a book of expenditures or of incomes? We shall see that this question relates to our discussion of backradiation. 

Let's consider the radiation budget of an Earth at temperature TE with an income F from the Sun in interaction with an opaque Atmosphere at temperature TA absorbing radiation from the Earth and radiating to outer Emptyspace. Let's collect incomes:

• F = Earth income
• TE^4 - TA^4 = Atmosphere income assuming TE is bigger than TA
• TA^4 = Emptyspace income

where we use a (normalized) Stefan-Boltzmann's Law (with Emptyspace temperature = 0). 

Can we now formulate balance equations from income and savings accounts, without invoking 

expenditure in the form of outgoing radiation? It is then natural to view Emptyspace as a savings account from which F is borrowed and payed back: We then have

• TA^4 = F (Emptyspace receives T_A from Atmosphere to pay loan F)
• TE^4 - TA^4 = F (Atmosphere receives TE^4 - TA^4 via the Earth, as a loan F from Emptyspace) 

Altogether, we get TE^4 = 2F and TA^4 = F. Simple? Yes, but this is the basic equations of 

climate science based on Stefan-Boltzmann's Law. Knowing F you conclude that TA = 255 K and thus TE = 303 K. 

If we now in an alternative approach include expenditure, we may get the following relations:

• TE^4 = Atmosphere income from the Earth
• 0.5 TE^4 = TA^4 = F Atmosphere expenditure radiation to Emptyspace
• 0.5 TE^4 = Atmosphere expenditure backradiation to the Earth

with the same solution TE^4 = 2F and TA^4 = F.

We see that the difference lies in the account of the Atmosphere income from the Earth: 

The real income is TE^4 - TA^4 as in the first case, while in the second case there is a fictitious gross income of TE^4 which is compensated by the backradiation expenditure 0.5TE^4. 

The second case is like first getting the gross income and then paying back the tax to get the real net income = gross income - tax. The first case is like getting the real net income directly

into your pocket without having to worry about paying the tax (and maybe forgetting it). 

Which principle do you think Nature prefers?  Net income, or gross income with 

a request to pay tax? Is there a tax authority in Nature?

My basic idea is that it may be easier for a (selfish) system component to account for incoming data because it has a direct effect on the component itself, while the component may care less about outgoing data since it affects other components. You care about what you eat but less about what you deliver.

A similar situation is described in Many-Minds Relativity, where a moving observer receiving a light signal assumes it approaches with a certain constant speed (the speed of light), while the observer does not worry about the speed of a signal leaving the observer, which is possible because it is not needed.

Can You See the Earth on the Surface of the Sun?

We all know that the Sun is clearly visible on the surface of the Earth, because the Sun is big and very hot. 

In a discussion about backradiation, one may ask if the Earth is visible on the surface of the Sun, recalling that the Earth is small and lukewarm.

A rough calculation shows that the Earth blackbody radiation at surface of the Sun has to compete with a radiation intensity which is almost 10 orders of magnitude bigger. 

A sensor resolving 10 orders of magnitude requires a resolution to atomic scales, which seems beyond what is thinkable.  Just a reflection stimulated by a comment to the post Clouds as Retailers of Heat Energy.

We learn that it is easier to see a hot blackbody from a cold blackbody, than a cold from a hot.

This is because the high frequency signature of a hot blackbody is visible against a cold low frequency background, while the low frequencies of a cold blackbody disappear into a hot background. 

Blackbody Radiation vs Swedish Progressive Tax

According to Planck a blackbody of temperature T radiates light of frequency f with intensity (proportional to)

• T f^2 

modulo a cut-off at high frequencies proportional to T. The simple form of Planck's radiation law is motivated in Computational Blackbody Radiation (p 13) as a result of temperature equilibrium with all frequencies (below cut-off) having the same common temperature (T). 

How can such a temperature equilibrium be established? Is there an "invisible hand" arranging this, or is it simply an effect of cut-off? 

To seek an answer let us make a parallel study of the Swedish tax system with the following connections:

• temperature = happiness 
• frequency = income 
• radiation intensity = prestige. 

The Swedish tax system is progressive with a high income cut-off but the prestige increases with the income, maybe quadratically, while all Swedes are just about equally happy. 

How is this Swedish equilibrium established? By an invisible hand making everybody equally happy, or is it simply an effect of the Swedish progressive tax system? Any clue?

Clouds as Retailers of Heat Energy

                         Retailer meatpackers in Chicago chopping off high frequencies.

Clouds act as heat energy retailers between a warm Earth surface and a cold outer space. 

We know that retailers increase the producer price/income, as compared with a direct outlet sale. 

Similarly clouds increase the temperature at the Earth surface, as compared to a direct outlet to space a cloudless night.

But retailers do not send goods back to producers, and similarly clouds do not back-radiate to the Earth surface. 

Each retailer degrades the quality of the product by transport/unpacking/packing/transport, and similarly clouds degrade high frequencies.  

Similarly, repeated analog xerox copying degrades the quality, as does uploading images on your web page at lower resolution.  

Conduction vs Radiation

In heat transfer by conduction particles interact locally, with more energetic particles feeding less energetic neighbors in a local spatial averaging process. Heat conduction is the result of local interaction by averaging. This process has a direction in time given by decreasing differences or smoothing, or quick damping of high frequencies.

Radiative heat transfer is carried by electromagnetic waves at the speed of light over distance.

This process  may be viewed as a form of action at distance, but it appears to be more fruitful to view it (partly) as a local process where an incoming Planck spectrum is transformed into an outgoing spectrum of lower temperature by spectral cut-off of high frequencies, at the surface of absorption/emission. This process has a direction in time by the high frequency cut-off: What has been cut-off is gone and cannot be retrieved.

We conclude that conduction and radiation share the property of high frequency damping/cut-off, while their underlying physics is different.  

This post connects to earlier posts arguing that back-radiation is as unphysical as back-conduction or time moving backwards. See The Clock and the Arrow: A Brief Theory of Time and Computational Blackbody Radiation.

Eminent AGW Skeptic Physicists

Several Eminent Physicists are Skeptical to AGW:

Freeman Dyson:

• The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
  

Robert Laughlin:

• The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we’re gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control.

Edward Teller: 

• Society's emissions of carbon dioxide may or may not turn out to have something significant to do with global warming--the jury is still out.
  

Frederick Seitz: 

• Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.
  

Robert Jastrow:

• The scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities.
  

William Nirenberg:

• The available data on climate change, however, do not support these predictions, nor do they support the idea that human activity has caused, or will cause, a dangerous increase in global temperatures. ...These facts indicate that theoretical estimates of the greenhouse problem have greatly exaggerated its seriousness. 

We see that the main skeptical argument used by these eminent physicists is that climate modeling is complex and that observations do not match very well with observations. Fair enough.

But the eminent physicists do not criticize the very physics basis of climate alarmism: the greenhouse effect supposedly resulting from atmospheric backradiation. The mantra that says that doubled CO2 will cause a global warming of 1.2 C, by basic physics which cannot be questioned by anybody eminent or not.

Does it mean that the eminent physicists possess a basic physical theory supporting the mantra of the greenhouse effect and backradiation? No, it does not seem to be the case. It seems that this theory is hanging freely in the air, because upon scrutiny it evaporates into the atmosphere. Maybe it is now time for eminent physicists to make this clear to the World and its people and leaders?

No Backradiation = No Radiative Forcing

Without atmospheric backradiation there is no radiative forcing. The very basis of the IPCC climate alarmism thus seems to lack physical rationale.

There is an important difference between transfer of heat energy by conduction and radiation, which connects to the following different aspects of heat energy:

• radiative: possibly focussed in frequency but always spread out in space
• conductive: possibly focussed in space but always spread at high frequency.

Radiative heat can by itself only transfer from a blackbody spectrum with higher cut-off, that is from higher to lower temperature.

Conductive heat normally transfers from high to low temperature, but a body locally heated to high temperature, can locally heat a body of higher mean temperature. 

Radiative heating is limited to transfer only to lower temperature, which forbids any form of backradiation. In the setting of the model of the previous post, this means that not only is 

• sum (R_B(f)^2 - R_A(f)^2) non-negative
  

but also is each term

• R_B(f)^2 - R_A(f)^2 non-negative
  

for each individual frequency f, because the spectrum is given by Planck's Law. This means that 

radiative heating by a single prominent frequency in a spectrum of low (mean) temperature, is physically impossible. 

The erronous idea of backradiation may come from a confusion with conductive heat transfer,

where a form of backradiation is possible as indicated.

Non-Backradiation: Measuring Temperature at Distance

Suppose a body B absorbs light from a source A through a medium and as a response emits light into the medium. In a discussion of backradiation, B can be the top of the atmosphere, A the Earth surface and the medium a transparent atmosphere between B and A.

We ask if B is able to heat A by backradiation, assuming that B has lower temperature than A.

We recall Planck's Law stating that the intensity R_B(f) of the radiation of a light of frequency f from a blackbody B of temperature T_B is given by (with suitable normalization)

• R_B(f) = T_B f^2 C(f,T_B)
  

where C(f,T_B) is an exponential cut-off factor given by

• C(f,T_B) = f / T_B(exp(f/T_B) - 1) ~ 1 for f/T_B small, and ~ 0 for f/T_B large,

assuming that the cut-off of the incoming light being absorbed by B occurs at higher 

frequency, that is, originates from a body of higher temperature. 

The cut-off frequency proportional to temperature is referred to as Wien's displacement law, thus tells the temperature of the the emitting body. This is why by looking at the spectrum of the light emitted by (the surface of) the Sun, we can tell that its temperature is about 5778 K.

Emitted light thus carries a signature about its emission temperature from a source A, which a blackbody B records when absorbing and then reemitting the light, as if B can measure the temperature of A. 

Now to the question: Can B at lower temperature than A, heat A? Can a cold top of the atmosphere by backradiation heat a warm Earth surface? Can a fool teach a wise something?

We seek an answer in the mathematical model of blackbody radiation studied in Computational Black Body Radiation, which consists of a wave equation for B combined with an equation for the temperature T_B of B as a sum over frequencies:

• dT_B/dt = sum (R_A^2 - R_B^2)
  

where R_A=R_A(f) is the intensity of incoming light from A and R_B=R_B(f) the intensity of emitted light from B. This equation tells that as long a T_A is bigger than T_B, the body B will be heated by A. The corresponding model for the body A includes the temperature equation 

• dT_A/dt = sum (R_B^2 - R_A^2)
  

In the model, B and A will reach temperature equilibrium with T_B = T_A with the direction of the energy transfer given by the sign of sum (R_A^2 - R_B^2). 

We thus see that in the model there is no backradiation: The temperature of B will continue to rise as long as T_B is bigger than T_A as if the body B can compare its own temperature with 

that of the distant object A.

It is like two rivals measuring strength by sight at distance.

In a more realistic model the body B will loose heat to a sink S and A will be heated by a source H 

• dT_B/dt = sum (R_A^2 - R_B^2) - S
  

• dT_A/dt = sum (R_B^2 - R_A^2) + H

and equilibrium can be reached with T_B smaller than T_A. But the sign of the energy transfer sum (R_A^2 - R_B^2) keeps its significance and does not allow backradiation from cold to hot.

Physicist Illuminated by IPCC Physics

In my search to understand why physicists do not deny the physics of backradiation and thereby give silent support to IPCC climate alarmism, I recall the discussion I had with string physicist Ulf Danielsson in a sequence of remarks to the post What Does a Physicist Say about Climate Science? (in Swedish). 

In this discussion Danielsson states that he cannot see that IPCC uses any fundamental physics incorrectly and thus that the conclusions of IPCC appear to be correct.

Danielsson also states that he does not consider himself to be an expert of climate physics (backradiation/Stefan-Boltzmann) and therefore relies on IPCC.

In other words, as concerns the fundamental physics of climate science, Danielsson

as an expert of fundamental physics, relies on IPCC. It seems that many physicists argue in the same way. 

Now, since IPCC relies on fundamental physics, what Danielsson relies on is a form of backradiation of fundamental physics.  Danielsson as fundamental physicist is thus illuminated by a body of lower expertize, namely IPCC which itself is supposed to be illuminated by the expertize of fundamental physicists. 

In other words, we have an example of a warm body (Danielssson) which is heated by a colder body (IPCC). 

But this is in violation of the 2nd Law. How to resolve this paradox?

Compare with: The degree to which UN IPCC has fooled the world is amazing. 

Blackbody Radiation without Backradiation

My knol Blackbody Radiation was written well before I got interested in climate physics. It shows to play an important role in my argument that atmospheric backradiation is unphysical put forward in previous posts. The knol has so far received 3000 views. Read it if you are interested in understanding if backradiation is physical or not! 

The knol is based on Computational Blackbody Radiation, a draft of an upcoming book which I now have new incentive to try to complete. The key idea is that finite precision computation continuum wave mechanics can replace statistics of discrete particles, a possibly far-reaching idea...

The essence of the matter was understood by Leibniz in his remark that a large bill can be converted into coins, but a heap of coins is worthless because nobody will accept it. In other words: high frequency waves can be easily be converted into low frequency waves plus heat, but not the other way around. Think of it, like Leibniz.

Why Physicists Do Not Deny Backradiation

In previous posts I have noticed that physicists say nothing about the physics basis of climate alarmism in the form of backradiation, in particular not that this is an unphysical phenomenon which cannot be observed. Why do they say nothing? By conspiration? 

No, it is because (blackbody) radiation is an emergent phenomenon arising in a molecular system as coherent waves of different frequencies carried by many interacting oscillating molecules. Modern physics is extremely reductionistic in its obsession with elementary particles and has little to say about systems and emergent phenomena in systems. 

Modern physics, initiated in an "act of despair" by Planck, deals with systems resorting to statistics, but statistics is not reality because statistics concerns ensemble averages (throwing one dice many times), and reality does not come from ensembles: Voters do not throw dice to vote and neither do molecules when deciding how to interact. Physics is not statistics.

But if physicists have nothing to say about the physics of backradiation, who will then have to do the job they are paid for?

Compare with Why Schrödinger Hated His Equation.

Collapse of (Climate) Physics

The collapse of climate science, or more precisely climate alarmism based on the greenhouse-effect, which we are now witnessing, can be seen as a consequence of the collapse of physics with the takeover of Modernity in Physics, Arts and Music in the beginning of the 20th century, when Penguin Logic came to replace the rational logic and physics of the 19th century. See also the knols The Dark Age of the Uncertainty Principle and The Brainwash by Bohr.

The greenhouse-effect states that by backradiation, the Earth surface will be heated by the presence of the trace gas CO2 in a colder atmosphere. 

Now, the greenhouse-effect indicates a collapse of physics because

• it is not described in physics books
• it is not denied by physicists.

Climate alarmism is based on the greenhouse-effect, taking for granted that it has a solid physics basis. But it is not described in the physics literature and so is a free invention. 

The collapse is signified by the fact that this is not what physicists are saying: They say nothing and thereby give silent support to a climate alarmism based on a greenhouse-effect without physics basis.  

Why do physicists keep silent? Because the greenhouse-effect is based on backradiation and 

to understand that backradiation is unphysical, requires understanding the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. But the 2nd Law is a mystery to modern physicists and thus a modern physicist cannot say what should be said, namely that backradiation violates the 2nd Law and thus that the greenhouse-effect is fiction. This is a veritable collapse. To say nothing is not science.

UK Mathematics Education: No Reform!

           Math class in the UK (or Sweden) in 2010: Learning long division at the age 0f 15.

In a  State of the Nations report on Science and Mathematics Education The Royal Society nails down the following truths:

• Children are innately curious about the natural world. 
• But, year after year, large proportions are ‘turned off’ science and mathematics by the time they reach secondary school, with little prospect of that interest being rekindled. Inevitably, those who are most likely to suffer are the under-privileged.
• Computers cannot replace the direct sharing of experience and ideas through talk, discussion and argumentation—although written communication may help promote
critical thinking. 
• While computer simulations may be useful in relation to dangerous or inaccessible processes or events, they can never replace real laboratory activity and field work in science.
  
• If using computers means working alone, pupils are missing an important contribution to their understanding from their peers. 
  
• Indeed there is some evidence that computers and interactive whiteboards do not generally result in a rise in pupil attainment. 
• Finally, and most importantly, research emphasises the critical role of the teachers in, among other things, ensuring that the use of technologies ‘adds value’ to learning activities.

The Royal Society thus gives the Nation the message of a double cynism:

• young minds will "inevitably" continue to be destroyed "year after year" by a teaching model of yesterday
• the computer as the mathematical tool of today and tomorrow shall be avoided.
  

What could give a meaning to mathematics education to all pupils with an "innate curiosity", thus has to be avoided. Why? 

Because pure mathematics (in its present form) is not the computational mathematics of the computer age, and the church of pure mathematics controls mathematics education, in the UK and in Sweden...

Can politicians understand? No, not what I can see: An effect of traditional mathematics education is that politicians do not believe themselves capable of having any form of opinion about what a mathematics education of today could/should look like. The only thing they know for sure is that mathematics is difficult and beyond their horizon of thinking. In this sense traditional mathematics education is very efficient...even if not successful...

PS The report makes the following reflection on educational deprivation:

• It is interesting to note that in terms of educational deprivation, the UK as a whole ranks between 7th and 17th in OECD countries, with 9% of children having fewer than 10 books in their home, and 20% not having access to six basic educational resources out of a list that includes a desk, a quiet place to study, a computer, a calculator, a dictionary, an Internet connection, school textbooks and educational software (UNICEF 2007).
  

Evidently a computer is one of  six basic educational resources. A laptop is also a calculator and offers dictionaries, textbooks and educational software and can even serve as a desk and quiet place to study. Nevertheless it is not to be used in mathematics and science education. 

Mathematics educators apparently do not use even simple logic, as a result of the efficient education they administrate...

The foreword to the report is written by Martin Rees (Baron Rees of Ludlow), President of the Royal Society and Professor of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, specialist of black hole formation and gravitational waves (insofar they exist). The report was chaired by Wynne Harlen, Visiting professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol:

• Her work emphasizes understanding learners’ ideas, teaching that supports inquiry, assessment, and attention to national standards and outcomes.
  

The UK national standards are the standards of the precomputer Calculus of Newton, and are not functional in the computer age of today. The Royal Society with its heritage moves backwards into the future, in both education and science...while the people suffer...

PS There seems to be interest in using the BodyandSoul mathematics reform program in China: New China vs Old Europe...stay tuned...

Why a Cold Body Cannot Heat A Warm Body

This post connects to previous posts arguing that backradiation is unphysical.

Recall that backradiation from atmospheric greenhouse CO2 is the scientific corner-stone of IPCC climate alarmism, supported by in particular the Royal Society and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. This corner-stone is unphysical and purely fictional.

In Computational Black Body Radiation  I give a mathematical explanation of Planck's black body radiation law based on finite precision computation, as an alternative to the statistics of quanta used by Planck himself, as decsribed in my knol The Desperation of Planck.

The basic problem is to explain why and how nature avoids an ultra-violet catastrophy by cutting off radiation of frequencies higher than a certain cut-off frequency proportional to the temperature according to Wien's displacement Law (see fig above): Higher temperature allows higher frequencies to be radiated, as seen in the color of a fire changing with temperature.

Planck explains the cut-off using statistical mechanics by viewing radiating waves to be assembled from a certain smallest unit of energy (quanta) and assuming that high energy/frequency is rare because it requires assembly of many quanta. 

In Computational Black Body Radiation I propose an alternative explanation viewing radiation the result of a form of analog finite precision computation (performed by oscillating 

atoms/molecules) with the precision being proportional to temperature (mean oscillation amplitude) leading to high frequency cut-off.

Higher temperature means larger oscillation amplitudes, which allows sharper expression

or higher precision. Stated differently: Low temperature whispering is prone to large errors. 

The explanation of cut-off by finite precision computation offers an explanation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics expressing that heat/radiation energy by itself can be transferred from a warm to a colder body, but not from a cold body to a warmer.  Why is it so?

Because in transfer from warm to cold, high precision/energy/frequency waves are transformed to low precision/energy/frequency waves.  In short, high precision can transformed by itself (with low precision) to low precision. 

On the other hand, transfer from cold to warm, would require low precision to be transformed into high precision, and that is only possible by exterior (high precision) intervention. 

You can think of a radiating body as a choir of crickets of different frequencies, with higher frequencies requiring more coordination/precision of many crickets, in order to be heard over a surrounding lower frequency background noise.

In order for an opera solist to not be drowned by the forte of a big orchestra, high precision 

focussing of the voice is necessary. 

Let us now give some more examples illustrating that transfer from warm to cold is physical/observable while transfer from cold to warm is unphysical/nonobservable, because of limitations in analog finite precision computation:

• A wise can teach a fool, but a fool cannot teach a wise.
• Anybody can smash an expensive Chinese vase into pieces, but nobody can reassemble it.
• A resume of a book can be written by anybody, but a not a book from a resume. 
  
• A picture can be blurred by dust, but not unblurred.
• An expert can see a difference where a non-expert sees nothing. 
• Correct temperature data can be erased by one click, but cannot be created.
• One hot expert climate scientist cannot learn anything from the luke-warm consensus of thousands of non-experts. 
• The cold hearts of many neighbors cannot bring warmth to your own, but the warm heart of one stranger can.
• The more heated a debate is, the higher can the pitch be.
• The hotter the jazz is, the quicker is the tempo.
• The bigger a choir/orchestra is, the more precision of the singers/musicians is required to make good music.
• Hot scepticism is spreading into cold global warming alarmism.

You can by yourself easily come up with many more examples (because it does not require high precision).

PS You find more material on finite precision computation and its relation to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (connected to blackbody radiation), in

• Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow
• Computational Thermodynamics
• The Clock and the Arrow: A Brief Theory of Time.

Honesty vs Scientific Truth

The Muir Russell CRU Climate Gate Review concludes, without assessment of the quality of the scientific work, that CRU scientists were honest. Muir Russell thus allows 2. as a possibility in the following list of combinations of honesty and science 

1. honest and correct
2. honest and incorrect
3. dishonest and correct
4. dishonest and incorrect.

Muir Russell states that e.g. Phil Jones and Michael Mann were found to be honest (scientists), while the correctness of their scientific work was not an issue and thus was allowed to possibly be incorrect without interference with honesty.

But is it meaningful to separate honesty (as scientist) from quality of scientific work? What is best: To get a bypass operation by a skillful surgeon with (possibly) some tax problems, or by a tax-paying surgeon with (possibly) a bad track record? 

Is it advisable for governments to listen to honest scientists informing about incorrect science?

Muir Russells idea to separate (or mix up) honesty as scientist (whatever it means) with quality/truth of science, is dangerous both for heart patients, governments and the people. 

 

My experience from 40 years as scientist, is that honesty is not a virtue of scientists; many scientists steal or "borrow" results from other scientists without giving proper credit, but this dishonesty does not degrade the value to humanity of scientific (possibly inconvenient) truths. 

The conclusion of the Muir Russell Inquiry that Climategate does not give evidence of dishonesty of Phil Jones and Michael Mann, is based on a dishonest inquiry with all critics excluded, and in addition it seems to be incorrect. Nixon had to leave office because of Watergate, but Phil Jones is now back in office thanks to Muir Russell, despite Climategate. 

It is an unstable situation...

Testing if Muir Russell Means What He Says

Sir Muir Russell gives the following recommendation in his presentation of The Independent 

Climate Change Email Review:  

• First, how is science to be conducted in a new world of openness, accountability and indeed what I might term citizen involvement in public interest science? There need to be new ways of making results and data available, and we mention some aspects of current thought. There need to be ways of handling criticism and challenge, of responding to a range of different sorts of criticism and getting into a more productive relationship with critics than we have sometimes seen in this case.
  

I now test  if  Sir Muir Russell means what he is saying, by asking him to respond to the criticism I have expressed in my blog post Muir Russell: IPCC Conclusions Not Based on Science.

I will report on the response...It comes promptly:

Sir/Madam

Many thanks for your email to the Independent Climate Change Emails Review.  

Please note that the work of the Review team has now been completed and our final report     has been published. As such we will no longer be accepting submissions or responding       to questions raised. 

With best wishes

The Independent Climate Change Email Review team

A logical analysis shows that The Review Team is willing to respond only to questions raised about the Review before the Review was published. How many such questions can there be, by people not included in The Team?

Voodoo-Fysik enl Sveriges Miljömäktigaste Person

Jag fortsätter min läsning av Christian Azars Makten över Klimatet, nu på hemresa från Zaragoza, och hittar många underligheter. I noterna till kapitlet Så Säkert Det Kan Bli, läser jag:

• För att ökade halter av växthusgaser ska leda till ökad temperatur vid jordytan krävs dessutom att temperaturen i atmosfären minskar med stigande höjd. Detta beror på att växthusgaserna inte bara har förmåga att fånga in värmestrålning utan också att stråla ut densamma. I vår atmosfär sjunker temperaturen med 6-7 grader för varje km upp i atmosfären, och därför! får vi en högre temp. till följd! av en ökad halt växthusgaser. Om temperaturen hade varit konstant i hela atmosfären, hade inte en ökad mängd växthusgaser inte lett till högre temp. vid jordytan. Utstrålningen hade då! nämligen ökat lika mycket som absorptionen av värmestrålning.

Kommentar: Observerad lapse rate på 6-7 grader skulle alltså komma ur växhhusgasernas värmande, dels utgöra en förutsättning för samma värmande. Ingenting om att lapse rate kommer ur gravitationens kompression av atmosfären. Voodoo-fysik.

• Begreppet växthuseffekt är egentligen något vilseledande! Ett växthus håller kvar värmen främst genom att det förhindrar varm luft att stiga uppåt. Vår atmosfär förhindrar istället värmestrålning från att försvinna ut i universum.

Kommentar: Varför använder Azar ett begrepp som är vilseledande? Är det ett medvetet fritt val, eller måste Azar vilseleda för att det skall passa en viss agenda och publik? Inte kan väl vetenskap vara vilseledande? Men voodoo-fysik kan.

• Intressant nog kan man i iskärnor se att temperaturen har samvarierat med koldioxiden. Då temperaturen har stigit har även koldioxiden stigit, och när temperaturen har sjunkit har koldioxiden sjunkit.

Kommentar: Azar antyder här att det är temperaturen som driver koldioxidhaltren och inte tvärtom som Azars klimatalarmism bygger på. Voodoo-fysik.

I kapitlet Tiden är Sanningens Bästa Vän skriver Azar:

• IPCC utför ingen egen forskning utan dess uppgift är att sammanställa och utvärdera den vetenskapliga kunskapen om klimatet. En förklaring till IPCCs framgång är att man lyckat med konststycket att involvera politiker i processen.

Kommentar: IPCC med sina politiker skall alltså utvärdera vetenskapen om klimatet. Men detta är ju Lysenkoism, eller Voodoo-fysik.

• För att täcka behovet av 5 miljarder etanol-bilar fordras 2/3 av världens nuvarande åkerareal.

Kommentar: Azars email meddelar att han är på resa under sommare och återkommer den 16 augusti. Reser Azar med cykel, etanolbil eller flyg?

More Muir Russell Logic

We continue our logical analysis of the Muir Russell CRU inquiry:

• This was not about forming a view on the content or quality of the scientific work and the conclusions drawn by CRU.
• On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.

Combining these statements we conclude that what Sir Muir Russell is saying is:

• rigour and honesty as scientist is not related to content and quality of scientific work.

In other words, the result of the (honest and rigorous) investigation by Muir Russell is:

• the scientific work of an honest and rigorous scientist may lack quality.

This statement is depending on interpretation either trivially true or untrue, and in either case lacks quality. The conclusion is that the review lacks quality, irrespective if it was carried out with honesty and rigour or not.

Quality is probably what people hope to get for their tax money, taking honesty for granted.

It will be interesting to see if Muir Russell will meet criticism according to the standards

expressed in the inquiry report:

• There need to be ways of handling criticism and challenge, of responding to a range of different sorts of criticism and getting into a more productive relationship with critics than we have sometimes seen in this case.

I will thus test if I can get into a "productive relationship" with MR in my role as critical blogger, and honest and and rigorous scientist...