The Unassailable Radiative Physics of the Greenhouse Effect

Raymond Pierrehumbert concludes his featured article in Physics Today Infrared Radiation and Planetary Temperature by:

• The basic radiative physics of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is unassailable.

The greenhouse effect is described as follows:

• Adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere makes higher, more tenuous, formerly transparent portions of the atmosphere opaque to IR and thus increases the difference between the ground temperature and the radiating temperature.
• The result, once the system comes into equilibrium, is surface warming.
• The effect is particularly spectacular for Venus, whose ground temperature is 730 K. If the planet were a blackbody in equilibrium with the solar radiation received by the planet, the ground temperature would be a mere 231 K.

The article is hailed by Judith Curry:

• Raymond Pierrehumbert has written an excellent overview on infrared radiation and planetary temperature.
• So, if you have followed the Climate Etc. threads, the numerous threads on this topic at Scienceofdoom, and read Pierrehumbert’s article, is anyone still unconvinced about the Tyndall gas effect and its role in maintaining planetary temperatures?
• I’ve read Slaying the Sky Dragon and originally intended a rubuttal, but it would be too overwhelming to attempt this and probably pointless. Has anyone else read this?

What to say about this?

First, Pierrehumbert by claiming that certain radiative physics is "unassailable" (impossible to dispute) and as such makes also the greenhouse effect impossible to dispute, in fact admits that he seeks to fool people by presenting a definition as a physical fact.

A no-feedback climate sensitivity of of 1 C is also unassailable, because it is a definition disguised as a physical fact.

That Venus high temperature depends on a greenhouse effect is easy to assail: It depends on a high thermodynamic lapse rate determined by the high pressure of the thick atmosphere and is not an effect of radiation.

Second, Curry claims that she has read Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death to the Greenhouse Gas Theory, but finds it "too overwhelming" and asks for help: Is it perhaps so overwhelming even to the Sky Dragon, that it is almost unassailable? Is the slaying or assail effective and therefore not pointless?

Compare with the true story about Tyndall and His Greenhouse Effect.

PS Also Roger Pielke Sr endorses Pierrehumbert's unassailable greenhouse effect, as another skeptic confused by IPCC CO2 alarmism.

KTH vs Pope Paul III: On the Revolutions

In the Foreword to On The Revolutions, conceived by Copernicus in 1514 but kept unpublished until briefly before his death in 1543, Copernicus makes the following statements directed to His Holiness, Pope Paul III to prepare for the message that the Earth is not the Center of the Universe:

• I can readily imagine, Holy Father, that as soon as some people hear that in this volume, which I have written about the revolutions of the spheres of the universe, I ascribe certain motions to the terrestrial globe, they will shout that I must be immediately repudiated together with this belief.
• Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned.
• Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
• When I weighed these considerations, the scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken.
• For this reason I undertook the task of rereading the works of all the philosophers which I could obtain to learn whether anyone had ever proposed other motions of the universe’s spheres than those expounded by the teachers of astronomy in the schools.
• And in fact first I found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the earth to move. Later I also discovered in Plutarch that certain others were of this opinion. I have decided to set his words down here, so that they may be available to everybody:
• Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus, and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in a rotation from west to east about its own center.
• Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth. And even though the idea seemed absurd, nevertheless I knew that others before me had been granted the freedom to imagine any circles whatever for the purpose of explaining the heavenly phenomena.
• I have no doubt that acute and learned astronomers will agree with me if, as this discipline especially requires, they are willing to examine and consider, not superficially but thoroughly, what I adduce in this volume in proof of these matters.
• Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it.

Copernicus escaped conviction and punishment by the Church by hiding his new theory until shortly before his death, but not his followers Giordano Bruno, who was put on fire in 1600 and Galileo, who was convicted to prison in 1633, both accused to believe that On The Revolutions said something true about the world.

With no comparision to On The Revolutions or the old Masters, my book BodyandSoul (BS) has met a similar fate at KTH with censorship and punishment threatening those who believe that BS says something true about the world of mathematics and physics, as evidenced in the strange story named KTH-gate. Why this oppression then, today at KTH? Because BS expresses the heretic idea that

• KTH is not the Center of the Universe.

Compare with Giordano Bruno:

• It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
• It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment.

A difference with the Inquisition in the 17th century, is that at KTH there is no trial, no debate, no open discussion, only secret plots behind closed doors on how to feed media like DN with the message that my work is "rappakalja", and on campus only deathly silence with teachers muted by fear of oppression. Is this the 1984 of our time?

In 1992 Pope John Paul II lifted the ban on Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo:

• Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture...

In 2000, Pope John Paul II also issued a formal apology for all the mistakes committed by some Catholics in the last 2,000 years of the Catholic Church's history, including the trial of Galileo among others.

One may wonder if the Church of Mathematics of today is more like the Catholic Church of the 17th century than that of Pope John Paul II?

Skeptics Missing the Main Argument, Unfortunately

Both Anthony Watts (WUWT) and Lubos Motl (Reference Frame) comment on Kevin Trenberth's upcoming talk at the American Meteorological Society meeting on Jan 26 on Communicating Climate Change with the thoughtful title ClimategateThoughts.

Watts and Motl are a bit skeptical to Trenberth, but they seem to accept the energy budget of Trenberth underlying CO2 climate alarmism, discussed at length on this blog.

The following questions present themselves:

• Why are Watts and Motl not skeptical to the backbone of CO2 alarmism: Trenberth's energy budget?
• Why are Watts and Motl ignoring the devastating analysis of Trenberth's budget presented in Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death to the Greenhouse Gas Theory or Death to Trenberth's Energy budget? Is the math there overwhelming?

In short, why are skeptics not skeptic? Maybe because they view themselves as physicists, and

physicists believe in the "greenhouse effect" and Trenberth's energy budget.

Watts and Motl are joined by Lindzen and Spencer as "skeptic physicists" confessing to the "greenhouse effect" with a miraculous ability of turning a thin atmosphere into a "heat-trapping blanket". There must have been something seriously wrong with physics education during the 20th century.

Here is the basic belief to which Lindzen confesses:

• It is generally acknowledged that simply doubling CO2 should lead to a warming about 1 degree Centigrade.

Lindzen does not understand that here "general acknowledgement" is achieved by making this

statement into a definition of no-feedback climate sensitivity. Lindzen does not want to know that a (generally acknowledged) definition does not say anything about any reality, but is just a play with words, as empty as saying that there are 100 centimeters on 1 meter.

This is unfortunate because CO2 climate alarmism is based on this no-feedback sensitivity of 1 C, which then is argued to possibly become an alarming 3 C by positive feedback.

But you cannot get anything from a definition and without the 1 C to start with, the real game has to start with 0 C and this feedback game is completely open, as explained in Climate Feedbacks with Nothing to Feed On. It is not even clear if more CO2 will cause cooling, or warming or nothing.

It is unfortunate that a skeptic physicist like Lindzen does not appear to be willing to see this, (and therefore feels obliged to invent negative feedback which may be questioned). Why? Lindzen can't be so stupid that he can't see the trick used to create climate alarmism out of nothing, from a definition. But why is he willing to interprete a definition as a physical fact?

Lindzen is in good company with Judith Curry:

• Well, burning fossil fuels and other anthropogenic activities have undoubtedly changed the climate and even weather patterns, the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, and all that.

And all that: Anything is possible in physics science fiction.

What is the cost of the fiction, in the US? About $4 billion next year into climate change

research (NSF 1.6, DOE 0.6, Nasa 0.4, NOOA 0.4, DOI 0.2). Enough to pay 40.000 full-time

researchers. A good size army.

Of course peanuts compared to the $14 trillion of federal budget deficit. Anyway, what about say $1 billion to skeptic climate science? About 10.000 full-time skeptics. And it would be well spent money, since it could save the $4 billion. Maybe something for new Congress looking for cuts?

PS Lindzen repeats his mantra in A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action:

• However, the contribution of increasing CO2 alone does not, in fact, lead to much warming (approximately 1 deg. C for each doubling of CO2).

Lindzen does not understand that this mantra is precisely what underlies "Precipitous Climate Action" and so his argument is rather for than against doing something drastic quickly.

Isaac Asimov and his Science Fiction of the Greenhouse Effect

In 1977 the famous physicist (biochemist) and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov explains in very calm voice and convincing words in the CBS Radio program Quirks and Quarks, the "greenhouse effect", that the atmosphere acts like a sheet of glass, which "traps radiation" from the Earth surface and keeps it warm.

Asimov convinces the listeners that an increase of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, may cause a rise of the sea level of 200 feet and even trigger a scary "run away greenhouse effect like that on Venus". This is an early example of CO2 climate alarmism at its best.

We now know that the atmosphere does not act like a sheet of glass (preventing convection thus keeping the inside of a usual greenhouse warm), and that the "greenhouse effect" is science fiction without reality, as explained in the new book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death to the Greenhouse Gas Theory.

But it is instructive to listen to Asimov's arguments, because these arguments represent a widely spread folklore of science (fiction) confusing the minds of people, politicians and in particular physicists, responsible for not debunking the science fiction and disinformation of the "greenhouse effect", of Asimov. This blind spot may show to be one of the most remarkable aspects of modern physics.

Compare with greenhouse doomsday propaganda from 1959 and a little more aged Asimov with even bigger whiskers from 1989, telling us that

• the most interesting scientific event in 1988 was that everyone started to speak about the "greenhouse effect" just because it was a hot summer, when I had been speaking about it for 20 years.

We understand that physicists have invented the "greenhouse effect". It is now their responsibility to show that the invention is as much science fiction as cold fusion. But physicists say nothing expecting that this will not disturb the flow of money to Big Physics, forgetting that this money will be redirected to stop a "greenhouse effect" they have invented, away from strings of dark matter and dark energy.

But maybe physicists are happy with this telling themselves that also the "greenhouse effect" is physics and so it will be well spent money.

Öppet Brev till NA-gruppen om ST: Ja eller Nej?

Till NA-Gruppen KTH

NA står inför beslut att starta det nya kandidatprogrammet i SimuleringsTeknik (ST) till hösten enligt plan, eller att lägga ner ST redan innan det startat.

Beslutet är avgörande för NAs framtid och det är nödvändigt att frågan öppet diskuteras ingående och att alla får tillfälle att uttrycka sin åsikt, vilket Anna-Karin som avdelningsföreståndare säger sig vara mån om.

Som ett led i denna beslutsprocess vill jag att alla tar ställning till följande alternativ, och snarast meddelar sin preferens till Anna-Karin för sammanställning och allmänt delgivande:

1. Starta ST enligt plan på en bas av BodyandSoul (BS) Mathematical Simulation Technology, med alla möjligheter till alternativt material enligt inblandade lärares input. Regi: Johan och Johan.
2. Lägg ner ST.
3. Starta ST på en bas av ??. Regi: ?? och ??

Vad gäller BS så är alla varianter möjliga. Tex kan man plocka ut en hård kärna och lägga annat

i bakgrunden. Man kan byta namn och kalla det tex KraftWerk, som var Mårten Levenstams namn på prototypen till vårt Femlab senare FEniCS. Man kan lägga till godtyckligt antal standardböcker i Calculus, osv. Det viktigaste är principen om en syntes av matematik-beräkning-tillämpning och att denna princip får ett genomtänkt och genomarbetat uttryck. BodyandSoul kan reserveras för Kinas miljoner studenter som inte har några förutfattade meningar om vad Body and Soul är för nåt.

Tänk till och skicka Ditt svar till Anna-Karin snarast. Om Du har ett fjärde alternativ, så ange det. Bakgrundsmaterial finns på min blogg.

Vänliga hälsningar

Claes

PS Jag har frågat Germund på plan 4 och jag tycker mig ha uppfattat att han röstar för 1. med motivering

1. Realistiskt. Mycket bra för alla.
2. Realistiskt. Mycket dåligt för alla.
3. Orealistiskt ??

Germund fattade en gång det avgörande beslutet att inte låta NA ätas upp av matematik, vilket givit NA en plats på KTH och i världen. Om man tvekar kanske man kan tänka efter vad Germund skulle ha sagt, eller säger. Kanske han skulle sagt att 1. inte är korkat, medan 2. är korkat, och att numeriker inte är så korkade som matematiker gärna vill få världen att tro. DS

BS Mathematical Simulation Technology kan laddas ner från min hemsida. Delar av BS testas nu i kursen Numerical Methods II.

Simulation Technology, BodyandSoul and NADA 2

Tomorrow the committee for education GRU at CSC will decide to subject the Bachelor program in Simulation Technology (ST) at KTH based on BodyandSoul (BS), to an emergency stop, or to let it start in the Fall according to plan.

However, the decision, of vital importance for the survival of Numerical Analysis at KTH (also named NADA = Nothing), has already been taken, and the decision is: STOP! NADA ST/BS!

How do I know? Because I am not invited to the meeting and I am the author of BS: If ST/BS was to start according to plan, an agreement with me to supply BS would be necessary, and no such agreement has been signed. Not even a preliminary discussion about such an agreement has taken place. NADA.

No evaluation of the performance of BS in the test course Numerical Analysis II, has been made, and would not matter anyway: Even if BS was found to be remarkably successful, which is likely, would the emergency stop of ST/BS be prevented, because the decision has already been made: STOP ST/BS. NADA ST/ST. At any price, by all means, as displayed in KTH-gate.

This means that my work to develop a new version of BS for ST, in agreement with NA, has lacked purpose all along, simply a funny joke to keep me busy with something meaningless.

But is it so funny to start the deconstruction of NA at KTH into the same annihilation as NA at Chalmers, according to a dictate by the school of (pure) mathematics? Into NADA. Honestly speaking?

PS The GRU meeting is postponed and so the decision to stop or let go.

Applications for ST are to be made before April 15 and the ST brochure (page 9 and 87) is out for eager students to view and dream about. Every delay of the emergency stop will increase the frustration of the students finding that their dream was just a dream...

PS Jan 12: The NA group is wrestling in agony over having to reject ST because it builds on BS and there are some people who don't like BS, while owning the ST program would bring so many advantages to so many people. Rejecting ST will bring NA into free fall, and apparently the forces (they have no faces and names) are so strong that annihilation is chosen before a bit of BS. If anything, it shows the strength of BS. But it is a sad story, for many including those who destroy.

PS Jan 20: It appears that now the mission is complete: ST/BS resolutely stopped by the leadership of NADA, behind closed doors without any open discussion. The same as if parents would stop their childs in their ambitions to do something constructive with their lives, just because the parents are envious and do not want to see their children having a better life than

they were able to.

The stop was effectuated by the virtual leader of NADA Björn Engquist during one of his rare one day real time visits to his department. Efficient leadership.

Climate Science Smoke

Suppose you are a politician looking for a new tax which can be accepted by the people. Easy you say: just increase the tax on smoking referring to its hazardous effect of lung cancer.

Or you say: Why not put a tax on "pollution of CO2 into the atmosphere" from burning of fossil fuels referring to its hazardous effects. Of lung cancer? No, on global climate.

How? Well, since its is not known what effect CO2 has on climate, warming or cooling or nothing, it will be safe to connect any climate change to "pollution of CO2". If global temperature goes up, connect it with CO2, if it goes down connect it with CO2, and it always changes some. Like the present cold winter must be connected somehow to CO2, because what else?

Oh, maybe smoking?! Maybe smoking is hazardous not only to the health of the people but also to the climate surrounding the people; after all smoking means pollution into the atmosphere.

So there you have a political program which may take you to the Congress: Increase the tax on smoking because of its potentially hazardous effect of climate change!

You can always get some scientists to back your proposal, by suitable research grants, because

the effect of smoking on global climate is unknown.

Do think this post is a joke? It is not. Compare with

• Klimachutz durch Rauchverzicht
• Warning: Smoking and the Climate Change It Causes...

Compare also with Tim Ball's Corruption of Climate Science Has Created 30 Lost Years. Up in Climate Science Smoke.

And listen to this very concise summary of the climate debate and reflect over UK Met Office

attacked by its former buddy BBC:

• BBC mounting a legal challenge to force ministers to admit the truth.
• Sceptics ask: Is the UK government’s climate propaganda machine finally falling apart?

Imagine that anything like this could happen also in Sweden...

Backradiation of CO2 Climate Alarmism vs Audio Feedback

CO2 climate alarmism is based on an idea of "backradiation" from the atmosphere to the Earth (surface) of radiation emanating from the Earth, which "enhances" the radiation from the Sun

reaching the Earth, as a "greenhouse effect" from absorption by atmospheric "greenhouse gases".

The postulated "greenhouse effect" is thus based on a feedback loop between Earth and atmosphere of the same nature as occuring in audio feedback between a microphone and loudspeaker.

In the book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death to the Greenhouse Gas Theory it is shown that

"backradiation" is a fictitious phenomenon without physical reality, because it is unstable.

The postulated "greenhouse effect" is thus also dead reality.

Let us see if we can learn anything from audio feedback which helps understanding why a "greenhouse effect" based on "backradiation" is fiction.

Both a microphone and a loudspeaker can be seen as a vibrating membrane in contact with

both the air and an electric circuit. The microphone and loudspeaker connect both through the air by acoustic waves and by a connection between the electrical circuits, and thus form a

loop.

In principle the microphone and loudspeaker look the same, and so which is which? Well, you speak into the microphone and listen to the loadspeaker, but which is which?

But you say: There is also an amplifier, and the amplifier amplifies the electrical signal from the microphone to the loadspeaker, which tells you which is which.

Now, audio feedback arises when you put the microphone too close to the loadspeaker, so that

the original input to the microphone (from the vocalist say) is enhanced by the output from the loudspeaker. When that happens the audio system goes wild and the music breaks down.

Can you get audio feedback without an amplifier? No. Why? Because there are always losses,

dissipative losses generating heat, which have to be overcome by amplifcation and energy input. No matter how close you put the microphone to the loadspeaker, with the amplifier shut off there will be no audio feedback. Try it!

Now back to the "backradiation" of the "greenhouse effect": We can view the Earth as the microphone sending radiation received from the Sun (the vocalist) to the atmosphere as the loadspeaker radiating to outer space as the audience. "Backradiation" would correspond to

audio feedback requiring an amplifier. But there is no known amplifier in the Earth-atmosphere radiative system, neither is there any evidence that such an amplifier could exist.

The conclusion is that the "backradiation" of the "greenhouse effect" is as non-existent as audio feedback with the amplifier shut off. If you don't believe it, try to get audi feedback without amplifier once more.

Simulation Technology, BodyandSoul and NA

Next week the Numerical Analysis group (NA) within the School of Computer Science and Communication at KTH (CSC), will decide to run the Bachelor program in Simulation Technology (ST) planned to start in the Fall 20111, or to make an emergency stop, as if ST

was one of the nuclear reactors in Sweden shut down this winther because insufficient maintenance over long time is threatening safety.

The reason for CSC to stop ST is that ST is based on the BodyandSoul (BS) mathematics reform program, and the School of Engineering Sciences (SCI) including Mathematics, Mechanics and Physics, is objecting to ST/BS.

Why is then SCI seeking to stop ST/BS? Because ST/BS is based on a modern synthesis of mathematics and computation threatening to replace traditional programs in mathematics, mechanics and physics forming the basis of SCI. In the fierce competition between schools, SCI thus will lose students and resources to CSC, unless ST is stopped.

In the business world SCI represents a big company with traditional technology, which is challenged by a small innovative company with new technology. In business this common situtation is usually handled by the big company buying the small innovative company, thereby eliminating both the threat and getting access to the new technology. The alternative of seeking to stop the new technology by e.g. a media campaign is seldom used, because it is well understood that it does not work. Stupidity in business leads to ruin. What about in academics then?

Well, academics is becoming more and more businesslike, and so the same rules should apply:

And yes, SCI has been trying to buy out NA from CSC for a long time and the deal may be closed any day.

What could then be a good strategy for NA facing a merge into SCI and mathematics? To give up the new ST/BS technology because of SCI says so? No, that would be very stupid. A small company without new technology will simply by eaten by the big traditional company and thus perish. Example: At Chalmers a traditional NA was merged with traditional mathematical sciences and accordingly perished along with traditional courses in numerical analysis.

But a small company with new technology can get a golden position in a big company. NA with ST/BS can get a strong position in the coming merge with SCI.

What do you think NA will do? Give up ST/BS? Not give up ST/BS? The decision will be taken next week and will be reported here. The bets are high.

What about ST without BS then? Would this be accepted by SCI? No, because ST is based on the forming principle of BS of a synthesis of math-computation-application, which is the red flag to SCI. Even if resources to develop a new BS-like program from scratch were available (they are not), any new BS-like program would meet the same resistance from SCI, as long as it has not been incorporated into a core product of SCI with sign reversed.

Compare with DN today: Swedish Mathematician Gives Life to Movies.

Climate Alarmism and Real Estate Bubbles

CO2 climate alarmism is based on the global energy budget by Kiehl and Trenbert shown above with a notable "backradiation" of 324 W/m2 adding to the 168 W/m2 absorbed by the Earth surface of the incoming radiation from the Sun, adding up to a radiation of 390 W/m2 and thermodynamics of 102 W/m2 from the Earth surface.

The picture thus displays a two-way circulation of energy between the Earth and the atmosphere of about 400 W/m2. Climate alarmism is based on the assumption that doubled CO2 will give a 1% change of this circulation causing "radiative forcing" of 4 W/m2, which by

Stefan-Boltzmann's radiation law is translated to a warming of 1 C, by feedback augmented to

and alarming 3 C.

In the new book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory it is shown that

the circulating flow of energy between Earth and atmosphere, is fiction without physical reality.

Let me here illustrate the nature of the fiction in a familiar example from real estate. Suppose you want to buy an old house that costs 390 (thousand dollars say) and requires 102 to put in shape, but that you have only 168 in your bank account at your disposal. Can you do it?

No problem, you say: I will just go to the bank and borrow 324 and I will be all set: I can buy the house and fix it and I will have a prestigious house to show to the world.

All this is fine, but there is something you should not forget: You don't own the house; more than half is owned by the bank, and thus you run a risk and the risk increases with the fraction owned by the bank. A small percentage change of the value of the house may erase your net savings. To send this message can be viewed as a a form of real estate alarmism, which may be motivated by the realities of the real estate business.

Do you see the analogy with the above energy budget? Yes, there is a close analogy, but there is an important difference: There is no bank in Nature where the Earth can borrow energy. The two-way circulating flow of energy between Earth and atmosphere is pure fiction. Nature cannot build speculation bubbles of energy based on "backradiation". Why? Because speculation bubbles are unstable and in Nature unstable processes cannot exist over time (except possibly by Divine Intervention).