The IPCC Trick 6

The variation of the Earth surface temperature over day and night (shown in the above picture) with its diurnal temperature range DTR and phase lag L, can be used to determine the heat capacity C and damping A in the following simple model of the Earth-atmosphere system:

• C dT/dt + A T = F sin(t),

where T(t) is the Earth surface temperature deviation from its mean as function of suitably scaled time t, and F = is the mean radiative forcing of the Earth-atmosphere system. Fitting this model to the data DTR = 20 C, F = 240 W/m2 and L = 3 h, we obtain

• A ~ C ~ 0.7 x 240/10 ~ 16 .

An additional forcing of 4 W/m2, by IPCC attributed to doubled CO2, could thus be estimated to require an increase of the mean temperature of 4/16 = 0.25 C, to restore heat balance.

In other words, the observed diurnal temperature variation suggests a climate sensitivity of 0.25 C.

We have now seen two different arguments based on simple models and observation, indicating that climate sensitivity is smaller 0.3 C.

We compare with the climate sensitivity of IPCC of 3 C underlying CO2 climate alarmism obtained by a clever use of the IPCC Trick, which is 10 times larger.

Why Measure Viscosity and Temperature?

To measure viscosity is possible for heavily viscous fluids, but difficult for slightly viscous fluids.

Here is a response to a question by Anders Nordenfelt about how to measure temperature:

To measure a coefficient of viscosity of slightly viscous fluid is difficult, or more precisely virtually impossible, since it is defined as shear stress per shear deformation (velocity), which in turbulent slightly viscous flow is severely dependent on the fluid flow and not only on the fluid itself.

It is thus necessary to make a distinction between different viscosity coefficients of vastly varying size from laminar viscosity to turbulent viscosity for different elementary flow patterns. To use the appropriate viscosity coefficient in a fluid simulation thus poses the requirement that the flow is known beforehand as well as its viscosity coefficients for all elementary flows involved, which is difficult to meet.

In the books Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow and Computational Thermodynamics we show a way out of this dead end which starts with the following question:

• Why are viscosity coefficients required?

In the case of turbulent (incompressible) flow one answer is: To compute turbulent dissipation from turbulent shear force as viscosity coefficient times shear deformation (velocity).

In the books it is shown that that turbulent dissipation can be computed as a transfer from kinetic energy to internal energy, without making an explicit computation of turbulent dissipation through viscosity coefficients combined with shear deformation. The computation uses a certain form of numerical viscosity automatically introduced by residual stabilization and the only input is that the physical viscosity is small, whatever else it may be.

The net result is that it is possible to simulate slightly viscous flow without any precise input of viscosity coefficients, only that the viscosity is small.

Similarly, coefficients of heat capacity as a measure of heat energy per unit of temperature and mass, as well as temperature as heat energy per unit mass, may be difficult to define and measure, since the required precise definition of heat energy is difficult to give.

An alternative is to again view internal energy/heat energy as arising from transfer of energy from kinetic energy which makes it accessible indirectly thus avoiding the difficulty of computing internal energy through temperature and heat capacity coefficients.

Svenska Mekanikdagar June 13 - 15

The abstract of my talk: Why It Is Possible to Fly and Sail on June 15 at Svenska Mekanikdagar 2011, is now available for inspection, here with references.

For an introduction with a link to my presentation, see The Mathematical Secret of Flight.

The question is if Prandtl is still to be viewed as the father of modern fluid mechanics, with one answer given in Dr Faustus of Modern Physics.

A previous talk on the subject can be downloaded from my home page under News: The Mathematical Secret of Flight, BAIL 2010.

Einstein as Interpassive Subject

Here is an answer to the question Where Have All Einstein Opponents Gone?

Slavoj Zizek decribes the interpassive subject as a fictional subject or Other supposed to carry a belief we may have, as a substitute of ourself as believer. The Other could also carry our emotions in the form the "canned laugh" of a TV show, or as the "weepers" of a funeral ceremony.

Zizek makes a distinction between knowing and believing noting that belief is symbolic and knowledge is real:

• knowledge does not require any other who know,
• belief presupposes belief of some other.

According to Zizek:

• From the very outset, the speaking subject displaces his belief onto the big Other qua the order of pure semblance, so that the subject never "really believed in it"; from the very beginning, the subject refers to some decentered other to whom he imputes this belief.
• All concrete versions of this "subject supposed to believe" (from small children for whose sake parents pretend to believe in Santa Claus, to the "ordinary working people" for whose sake Communist intellectuals pretend to believe in Socialism) are stand-ins for the big Other.
• So, what one should answer to the conservative platitude according to which every honest man has a profound need to believe in something, is that every honest man has a profound need to find another subject who would believe in his place…

Can we find such an interpassive subject (as opposed to an interactive subject carrying emotions or beliefs under external input) also in science? Is there an interpassive scientific fictional subject which carries a scientific theory which scientists have chosen to decenter away from themselves?

Yes, Einstein´s theory of relativity is an example:

• All scientists act as if there is a correct theory in relativity, acknowledged by all scientists, but no scientist claims to carry this theory in the sense of understanding that it is a correct scientific theory.
• All scientists act as if there is a Santa Claus (relativity) which everybody believes in, but no scientist de facto believes in Santa Claus (relativity).

Note that you cannot debate with an interpassive subject and question the beliefs carried by the subject, because an interpassive subject is symbolic and you cannot debate with a symbolic subject only with a real subject. You cannot debate with Santa Claus about facts of Christmas.

Neither can you debate with Einstein about relativity theory.

This explains the difficulty of debating relativity theory, which anyone who has tried has experienced. The belief that relativity theory is rock solid is total, yet it is impossible to find

any relativity scientist open to debate. If you do not believe this is true, try it yourself.

There are several examples where dead scientists are assigned beliefs, which they never acknowledged themselves, but which have become established truths not questioned by any

living scientist. One example is the resolution of d'Alembert's paradox assigned to Prandtl,

which cannot be found in the scientific work by Prandtl, as shown in Dr Faustus of Modern Physics. As before debating with a dead scientist is impossible, and so the truth cannot be questioned.

Where Have All Einstein Opponents Gone?

Milena Wazeck describes her new book Die öffentliche Kontroverse um die Relativitätstheorie in den 1920er Jahren (about the public controverse on Einstein's theory of relativity if the 1920s) as follows:

• Shortly after the confirmation of his theory of general relativity in 1919, Albert Einstein was transformed into a media star of Weimar Germany.
• Numerous accounts published during the 1920s claimed to refute his new theory.
• Einstein’s opponents were not limited to physicists and philosophers. Engineers, doctors, businessmen, and writers also raised strong objections to one of the most important scientific theories of the twentieth century.
• ...self-proclaimed researchers alleged to have proved the theory of relativity to be scientifically incorrect... (but) rested on fundamental misunderstandings...
• ...criticisms of Einstein’s work put forward by physicists who clung to classical physics, and philosophers who saw central elements of their ways of understanding the world threatened by Einstein’s fundamental restructuring of the basic principles of physics.
• The controversy surrounding the theory of relativity was exceptionally heated.
• A complex process of marginalization and protest helps to account for the heated responses..
• ... any sort of resolution of the controversy had become impossible.
• ...the fundamental restructuring of the basic principles of physics impacted not only science, but also modes of thinking far beyond academic circles as well.

In short, Einstein's "fundamental restructuring of the basic principles of physics" met strong opposition from many professional scientists and large groups of educated laymen, in the 1920s and well into the 1950s, when the opposition suddenly died.

Is there any opposition today? No. More precisely, there are many opponents if you look for them on the web, but they are all dismissed as crackpots. If you today question Einstein, then you are a crackpot, by definition irrespective of your criticism.

Wazeck knows by definition that the opponents she is writing about, were all crackpots. But why write a book about crackpots?

If you ask a physicist to explain special or general relativity, will get you get any response? No.

Is relativity theory taught in basic physics today? No.

In short, today only crackpots can question relativity theory, but few physicists are willing to tell what it is all about, and even fewer physicists claim to understand the theory.

If you ask what the "fundamental restructuring of the basic principles of physics" means, you will be told that this question should not be asked, in fact cannot be asked unless you are a crackpot, and so you get a strong signal to stop asking that question.

In any case, after having studied the documents, I have come to the conclusion that there are many reasons to question Einstein's theories of relativity. I present my criticism in the books

• Dr Faustus of Modern Physics
• Many-Minds Relativity.

If you are an educated crackpot, I assure you that you can profit from reading the books. If you are not a crackpot, you may want to test the solidity of your conception of relativity theory. If you dare. Would you bet 100:1 that relativity theory has been confirmed to be correct?

Recall that definitions do not tell anything about reality. Can you dismiss my criticism by definition, without looking at it?

PS The book was reviewed in Svenska Dagbladet by Maj Fjaestad KTH under the silent assumption that Einstein critics were crackpots, but with some acknowledgement of the critics demand that a scientific theory should be understandable, under the silent assumption that nobody understands the theory of relativity.

The IPCC Trick 5: What Lindzen, Monckton and Spencer Missed

This thread on the IPCC trick argues that climate sensitivity as the global warming by doubled CO2, is less than 0.3 C. There are other skeptics including Lindzen, Monckton and Spencer who also argue that climate sensitivity is smaller than the 3 C of IPCC.

But Lindzen, Monckton and Spencer seem to have missed the argument of this thread:

• Lindzen presents a big radiative sensitivity moderated to about 0.5 C by negative thermodynamic feedback.
• Monckton swallows the IPCC no-feedback value of 1 C and uses negative thermodynamic feedback to bring it down to about 0.7 C.
• Spencer finds a value of about 0.5 C, or less, from measurements of variations of surface temperature and outgoing longwave radiation, which in spirit is close to that of this thread.

It would be interesting to hear what Lindzen, Monckton and Spencer say about my argument.

None of them seems to question backradiation, which is the gist of my argument. If it can be shown that climate sensitivity is less than 0.3 C, then AGW is dead.

The IPCC Trick: Climate Instability by Backradiation 4

A card force trick results in the magician (you) knowing the position of a card which you have selected. This position may be "top of the deck", "bottom of the deck" or a more advanced position such as the "fingernail cut". You then "force" this card on a victim who thinks he is picking of his own free will.

Let us now ask if the World and its leaders is subject to forced card trick by IPCC into believing that a Greenhouse Effect (GHE) is causing disastrous global warming, and therefore by free will is preparing to stop burning fossil fuels, with serious consequences for billions of people.

You can discover a trick yourself if you suspect that you are subject to a trick. Let us then suppose that you have prepared yourself by reading the previous posts 1-3 on this thread and thereby have come to suspect that you might be subject to a trick, without yet being fully sure.

Now watch how IPCC in AR4 2007 describes the GreenHouse Effect (GHE):

• The reason the Earth’s surface is this warm is the presence of greenhouse gases, which act as a partial blanket for the longwave radiation coming from the surface.
• This blanketing is known as the natural greenhouse effect.
• The most important greenhouse gases are water vapour and carbon dioxide.
• About half of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth’s surface.
• This energy is transferred to the atmosphere by warming the air in contact with the surface (thermals), by evapotranspiration and by longwave radiation that is absorbed by clouds and greenhouse gases.
• The atmosphere in turn radiates longwave energy back to Earth as well as out to space.
• Human activities intensify the blanketing effect through the release of greenhouse gases.
• Thus, humankind has dramatically altered the chemical composition of the global atmosphere with substantial implications for climate.

Further, watch the history of GHE as described by IPCC:

• In 1824, Joseph Fourier argued ``the temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in repassing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat".
• In 1859, John Tyndall identified through laboratory experiments the absorption of thermal radiation by complex molecules (water vapor and CO2).
• In 1895, Svante Arrhenius followed with a climate prediction based on greenhouse gases, suggesting that a 40% increase or decrease in the atmospheric abundance of the trace gas CO2 might trigger the glacial advances and retreats.
• One hundred years later, it would be found that CO2 did indeed vary by this amount between glacial and interglacial periods. However, it now appears that the initial climatic change preceded the change in CO2 but was enhanced by it (Section 6.4).
• G. S. Callendar (1938) solved a set of equations linking greenhouse gases and climate change. He found that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration resulted in an increase in the mean global temperature of 2°C.

Now you come to the analysis part. Are we/you subject to a trick, a Scientific Trick, or not?

How to argue? Well, a Scientific Trick can be revealed by inspecting its key elements and decide if they represent science or non-science or nonsense. OK, so here are the elements of GHE:

1. GHE discovered 1824 by Fourier
2. the atmosphere acts like a blanket warming the Earth by backradiation
3. humankind have dramatically altered the composition of the atmosphere
4. with substantial implications.

Recalling the posts 1-3 of this thread, you will be able to confront these statements with reality and decide if you are subject to a trick.

Notice that to discover a Scientific Trick you do not have to be a scientist. To understand real science you have to be a scientist is some sense, but to understand scientific fraud it may be enough with common sense. To understand why something is true, may require scientific insight, but to understand that something is seriously wrong may be possible with just common sense.

To perform a forced card trick you need to be a magician in some some sense, but to reveal

a trick it may suffice with a bit of common sense.

I hope you are now determined to go ahead and investigate if you and the World are subject to a Scientific Trick performed by IPCC? The evidence is there and you have the common sense.

Is there forcing? If so what is it? What is your verdict?

The IPCC Trick: Climate Instability from Backradiation 3

IPCC climate alarmism claims a climate sensitivity of 3 C as the global warming resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.028% to 0.056%.

The 3 C is obtained by various feedbacks from a no-feedback value of 1 C obtained by definition from Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law assuming that doubled CO2 causes additional radiative forcing of 3-4 W/m2.

Doubled CO2 represents a 1% change of atmospheric radiation properties (dominated by water vapor), while 3 C represents 10 % of the total effect of the atmosphere increasing the Earth surface temp by 33 C from the Earth-atmosphere blackbody temperature of 255 K at an altitude

of 5 km to the observed 288 K at the surface.

The IPCC climate sensitivity of 3 C thus represents an instability of global climate with a 1% perturbation being capable of causing a 10 % change, thus with a large stability factor of size 10.

But global climate shows a remarkable stability over billions of years under large perturbations, and thus the large stability factor of IPCC does not seem to reflect any reality.

Instead a stability factor of size 1 or smaller is to be expected, from experience.

This was understood by IPCC when formulating the scientific basis of its climate alarmism, according to its political agenda of AGW. The 10 % change of 33 C therefore was transformed

into a 1% change the total temperature ~ 300 K, that is a transformation was performed from net change of temperature to gross temperature.

But this required a transformation from net radiative energy exchange between the atmosphere

and the Earth surface, to gross flow of energy, and to this end the concept of backradiation was invented. A net radiative energy flow between the Earth surface and atmosphere of size

30 W/m2 could then be connected to a gross radiative interchange of size 300 W/m2 with the atmosphere absorbing radiation from the surface and then "backradiating" the bulk of it to the Earth surface.

The above picture typical to IPCC presented by Satellite Applications for Geoscience Education, displays a gross backradition of 324 W/m2 from the atmosphere to the surface.

Equipped with the new concept of backradiation IPCC could now perform the transformation

from net to gross values and thus reduce the 10% perturbation of the net to a 1% perturbation

of the gross quantity. This is the IPCC Trick behind its climate alarmism with a climate sensitivity of 3 C.

In Computational Blackbody Radiation I argue that backradiation is unphysical with only net radiative energy transfer having a physical significance. I thus give evidence that IPCC's climate alarmism based on a climate sensitivity of 3 C, is scientific fiction.

An estimate of climate sensitivity using basic real physics and observations, presented in numerous blog posts and in Climate Thermodynamics, gives an upper bound of 0.3 C as a 1% effect (1% of 33 C) of a 1% cause (double CO2) in a a climate system which is not unstable.

This is 10 times smaller than the IPCC value of 3 C and does not motivate any reduction of CO2 emission into the atmosphere.

The IPCC Trick: Climate Instability from Backradiation 2

The red curve in the above picture shows the spectrum of the outgoing longwave radiation

(OLR-spectrum) from the Earth including atmosphere, in the form of radiation intensity as a function of wavenumber/frequency. The background curves show the blackbody spectra for different temperatures. The picture gives the following information:

• The area under OLR-spectrum is the total radiation ~ 240 W/m2.
• The OLR-spectrum for wavenumbers larger than 800 represents radiation from the Earth surface at 285 K, which is not absorbed by the atmosphere (radiation through the atmospheric window).
• The dip of OLR-spectrum around 700 represents radiation from the top of the troposphere at 220 K after absorption to saturation by atmospheric water vapor and CO2.
• The red curve for wavenumbers smaller than 600 represents radiation from different levels of the troposphere at higher temperatures than 220 K after partial absorption by mainly water vapor.
• An increase of CO2 can be have the effect of widening the dip which would require a compensating increase of the radiation outside the dip.
• The area of the dip represent 10% of the total area ~ 24 W/m2.
• The change of the width of the dip by increased CO2 may represent 10% of the dip ~ 3 W/m2.
• Altogether, doubled CO2 may correspond to a "radiative forcing" of ~ 3 W/m2, which is also the number given by IPCC, and represents a 1% perturbation of the total outgoing radiation = total incoming radiation absorbed by the Earth including atmosphere ~ 240 W/m2.

The key question is now the effect on the surface temperature of a 1% change of the atmospheric absorption/radiation properties. There are two possible answers:

• The first is the IPCC answer: The surface temperature is 288 K and 1% of 288 K is about 3 C = IPCC climate sensitivity.
• There is another answer: The total effect of the atmosphere is to raise the temperature from the blackbody temperature of 255 K to the observed of 288 K, thus by 33 C, and 1% of 33 C is 0.3 C.

The alternative climate sensitivity is 0.3 C, ten times smaller than that given by IPCC. The trick by IPCC is to introduce backradiation to allow working with gross flows and corresponding gross temperatures, instead of net flows and temperature change. By introducing backradiation IPCC is able to inflate a climate sensitivity of 0.3 C, which is not alarming, to 3 C which is alarming.

The trick used by IPCC is thus to create gross two-way flows of energy by backradiation from the atmosphere to the Earth surface, and from a 1% perturbation of the gross flows obtain a climate sensitivity of 3 C, which is ten times as big as an estimate from net flows and temperature change.

The trick used by IPCC is now brought into light and it is up to you to decide its value as the scientific basis for CO2 climate alarmism:

• Is 0.3 C a realistic upper bound on climate sensitivity?
• Is 3 C a non-realistic artificially inflated sensitivity obtained by a trick of backradition creating something substantial from nothing?

What do you say?

Recall that the IPCC value of 3 C is obtained by feedback from a no-feedback value of 1 C according to the following definition of climate sensitivity used by IPCC as expressed by Gavin Schmidt:

• “Climate sensitivity” is *defined* as being the equilibrium response of the global mean surface temperature to a change in radiative forcing while holding a number of things constant (aerosols, ice sheets, vegetation, ozone) (c.f. Charney 1979, Hansen et al, 1984 and thousands of publications since). There is no ambiguity here, no choice of metrics to examine, and no room for any element of belief or non-belief. It is a definition.

This definition allows IPCC to assign (no-feedback) climate sensitivity a value of about 1 C by a direct application of Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law in its differentiad form dQ ~ 4 dT, with dQ ~ 4 W/m2 and dT ~ 1 C. This is the starting point for the IPCC value of 3 C, which is obtained by various feedbacks from the no-feedback value of 1 C.

You cannot argue about the truth of a definition, but a definition says nothing about reality, only something about language. The no-feedback sensitivity of 1 C looks like a statement about reality, but is in fact only a definition because global climate is not at all captured by Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law alone.

Without the no-feedback value 1 C the IPCC climate sensitivity has nothing to feed on, and the the 3 C has to create itself as a 1% perturbation of gross temperature resulting from a 1% perturbation of gross energy transfer by backradiation.

A more detailed argument also leading to an upper bound on climate sensitivity of 0.3 C, is presented in a previous post.

The IPCC Trick: Climate Instability from Backradiation 1

In a sequence of posts I will sum up my criticism of the CO2 climate alarmism presented

by IPCC, as a follow up on Ten Facts: Setting the Record Straight. I start with a general remark and then proceed to specifics.

Climate sensitivity as the increase of global mean temperature upon doubling of atmospheric CO2 (from preindustrial 0.028% to 0.056%), is by IPCC claimed to be in the range 1.5 - 4.5 C with a best estimate of + 3 C. Doubled CO2 represents a small perturbation of the absorption properties of the atmosphere, while a global warming of 3 C could lead to major changes of global climate. IPCC thus claims a big effect of a small cause as the greenhouse effect GHE, which requires identification of some instability capable of inflating a small cause to a big effect.

To sell climate alarmism with a climate sensitivity of 3 C to the world and in particular to its leaders, IPCC had to identify an instability mechanism. But no such mechanism was readily available in climate science. In fact global climate had shown a remarkable stability over billions of years under large perturbations.

To find an instability mechanism in a stable system is not easy and so IPCC had to fabricate one, which came out under the name of backradiation with the wonderful property of creating an instability out of nothing in a stable system by letting energy bounce back and forth without net energy transfer. The number 0 could now be written 0 = 1000 - 1000, and suddenly out of nothing big numbers could be introduced where there before was only 0. A small percentage of a big number could represent a substantial change and thus a small cause could have a big effect.

Backradiation showed to be a smart move by IPCC: To the layman it could be presented in simple terms as as energy bouncing back to the Earth surface from the atmosphere, while it was so mysterious that Nobel Laurates of Physics could not grasp it and even less question its

existence.

Is then backradiation fabricated science? Is IPCC climate alarmism based on a trick of pseudo-sience? My answer is yes, as developed in my contribution Computational Blackbody Radiation

in Slaying the Sky Dragon. More substance to my argument is given in the next post.

Recall that any claim of a big effect of a small cause, runs the risk of representing pseudo-science in the sense that it can neither be proved nor disproved. To directly prove that the flap of a butterfly in the Amazonas cannot set off a tornado in Texas, is not feasible. But observing

butterfly flaps without tornados gives evidence that there is no connection. Similarly, observing increasing CO2 together with global non-warming as during the last decade, indicates that IPCC alarmism is not based on real physics.