Royal Society in Free Fall

The Royal Society has by a group of Fellows been forced to issue a new guide to the science of climate change:

• The guide summarises the current scientific evidence on climate change and its drivers, highlighting the areas where the science is well established, where there is still some debate, and where substantial uncertainties remain.
  

So what do we then find in the new guide? Is it different from the old guide? We read:

• There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation.
• The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty.
• Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes are substantial.

What is then the strong evidence? Yes, of course the greenhouse effect:

• The surface is thus kept warmer than it otherwise would be because, in addition to the energy it receives from the Sun, it also receives infrared energy emitted by the atmosphere. The warming that results from this infrared energy is known as the greenhouse effect.

So there we have it! Take a close look at this amazing statement produced by the combined brains of RS:

• The surface receives IR energy emitted by the atmosphere!

The cold atmosphere thus heats the warm surface, by IR energy! Once this is understood the strong evidence is completed by making CO2 equal to clouds and water vapor:

• in addition to clouds, the two gases making the largest contribution to the greenhouse effect are water vapour followed by carbon dioxide (CO2).
  

This is a stunning collapse of science:

• incorrect description of the effect of clouds and water vapor
• incorrect attribution to CO2 of the same effect as clouds and water vapor.

Neverthless, armed with this amazing power of thinking RS concludes:

• There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century.
• However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made.
• Climate science – including the substantial body of knowledge that is already well established, and the results of future research – is the essential basis for future climate projections and planning, and must be a vital component of public reasoning in this complex and challenging area.
  

What decisions? Why not a big heap of money to (well established) climate science?

The message of the new guide is the same as in the old guide, just a little more of convincing comforting uncertainty. What was wrong with the old?

PS Note the clever use of the term well established science. This is not science which has been shown to be correct, but populistic science selling "truths" which serve a certain political agenda. There are many contradictory well established truths in different political circles,

which are not truths at all, and in science the truth cannot be contradictory. DS

Why Radiation before Thermodynamics?

What sets the lapse rate and thus the global Earth surface temperature? There are two competing ideas:

1. thermodynamics with gravitation under radiative forcing
2. radiative equilibrium with thermodynamics adjustment.

In short: 1. thermodynamics or 2. radiation?

The "greenhouse effect" of CO2 alarmism is based on 2, but the science of 2. is missing.

On the other hand 1. makes sense from a scientific mathematical point of view.

That politicians may believe in 2. is understandable, but how is it possible that scientists gathered in Royal Academies also buy 2. when it is very clear that science does not?

Why do scientists not buy 1. Because it is wrong? No. Because thermodynamics is feared by scientists as a subject beyond comprehension, with its 2nd Law about entropy which nobody

claims to understand.

But there is a version of thermodynamics without entropy which anyone with a bit of incentive can understand, presented in Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere and in more detail in Computational Thermodynamics.

So with a proper understanding of thermodynamics 1. makes a lot of sense, and the more you

understand the more silly 2. appears.

Why buy something cheap and simple which does not work, when the real thing is there if you just open your mind to grab it?

Frågor till KVA om Växthuseffekten utan Svar?

I inbjudan till seminariet Framtidens Klimat 6/10 arrangerat av KVA/IVA ges uppmaningen:

• Alla anmälda till seminariet är välkomna att skicka in frågor som man önskar att forskarpanelen ska besvara. Detta ger oss möjlighet att gruppera likartade ämnen varmed fler åhörare kan förväntas få sina frågeställningar besvarade.

Jag har anmält mig och ställer följande frågor:

1. Vad är växthuseffekten och i vilka huvudsakliga vetenskapliga grundarbeten beskrivs och analyseras denna effekt?
2. Är denna växthuseffekt grunden till den CO2-alarmism som IPCC framför och KVA stödjer?

Jag har tidigare ställt dessa frågor till KVA i följande form:

The Royal Academy states in The Scientific Basis for Climate Change that

• The effect of greenhouse gases is well established.

Since this statement is critical as concerns a possibly alarming global warming from CO2 threatening humanity, I would like the Royal Academy to answer the following scientific questions related to the scientific statement:

• What effect of greenhouse gases is well established?
• Which are the original scientific sources demonstrating the effect?

Fick jag något svar? Nej, KVA genom sin sekreterare Gunnar Öquist talar inte med mig sedan 27 nov 2009 då jag fick följande besked efter att förgäves sökt få svar på mina ovanstående frågor:

• Akademien har gjort ett uttalande i klimatfrågan och i det uttalandet finner du Vetenskapsakademiens ställningstagande i frågan.
• ....jag är inte beredd att fortsätta diskussionen efter detta eftersom den knappast blir särskilt fruktbar.

Så vi får väl nu se om forskarpanelen utvald av KVA kan ge en motivering till KVAs påstående att: The effect of greenhouse gases is well established. Om detta är fallet så måste den väl vara väl beskriven i den vetenskapliga litteraturen? Eller har "well established" en annan innebörd?

Rapport från mötet kommer att ges...

Vad som brukar framföras, av tex Christian Azar, är Manabe-Strickler Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Convective Adjustment (1964) som jag diskuterar i slutet av Intervju med Azar.

Har panelen månne något bättre att komma med?

Lapse Rate vs Radiative Forcing vs CO2 Alarmism

In Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere I give an argument connecting lapse rate to radiative heat forcing, indicating that increased radiative forcing of the thermodynamics, e.g. from increased CO2, is compatible with a non-increased lapse rate and thus global non-warming.

The lapse rate is the drop in temperature with altitude, observed to be 6.5 C/km.

The argument is thus that more CO2 will not cause warming. If this is true CO2 alarmism collapses.

The atmosphere is a thermodynamic system subject to radiative heat forcing and thus

thermodynamics may have an answer:

We start from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in the form

• dE = -W + D + Q, dP = W - D, (thus dE + dP = Q),

with (assuming the kinetic energy is small)

• E = heat energy
• P = potential energy = int Rho U g dx dt
• Rho density, U convective velocity
• W = work
• D = turbulent dissipation
• Q = heat forcing = 120 W/m2 (observation)
• dE rate of change of E, dP sim.

We consider a column of (rising) air above a squaremeter at the Equator reaching to the top of the atmosphere (at 5 km). Let L be the lapse rate which can vary from 0 (isothermal atmosphere) to 10 C/km (isentropic). Balancing potential energy (increase of altitude of rising air) with loss of heat according to the lapse rate, we have dE/dP = - L/10 and thus recalling that dE + dP = Q,

• dP x (1 - L/10) = Q
• with Q = 120 and L = 6.5 we get dP = 350 (W/m2)

With Q = 0 (no heat forcing) it is natural to assume L = 10 and thus (1 - L/10) = 0 and dP is not determined. If now Q is increased to the observed 120 W/m2, then L decreases to an observed 6.5 C/km and dP settles at 350 W/m2.

The key question is what happens with the lapse rate L if Q is further increased reflecting increasing effective radiative forcing of the thermodynamics from the presence of more atmospheric CO2 (more heat to be transported by thermodynamics). We have

• L = 10 x (1 - Q/dP )

1. We see that if dP stays constant, then increasing Q will decrease L and thus cause cooling.

2. If dP increases like Q (increasing rising velocity U) then L may stay constant without cooling or warming.

3. Including also phase change (evaporation/condensation), we have that increased forcing will

lead to increased evaporation/condensation which will tend to reduce the lapse rate by

lowering temperature at low altitudes and increasing temperature at high altitudes. The lapse rate will thus react to increased forcing in a battle between

• possibly increasing dP by increasing vertical convection
• decreasing L from phase change.

Case 1-2 gives no warming, while 3 may cause warming depending on the balance between

convection and phase change.

Observation indicates that out of a forcing of Q = 120 W/m2 the major part of 100 W/m2 gets allocated to phase change, which may give an indication of what sets the lapse rate: convection or phase change. Benchmark computations are on the way. Stay tuned...

Note that CO2 alarmism is based on a postulate of a "greenhouse effect" from radiation without thermodynamics, which by definition leads to warming by increased CO2. But science

by definition is empty science, and so is global climate without thermodynamics.

There is substantial evidence that the lapse rate is determined primarily by thermodynamics, not by radiation, and thus that the basic postulate of CO2 alarmism lacks scientific value.

The above connects to interesting observations of temperature (lapse rate) for regions

below sea level (The Dead Sea and deep in mines) brought to the light by Charles R. Anderson in NOAA's U.S: Standard Atmosphere Tables: Who Needs Greenhouse Gas Warming?

upon suggestion from Marty Hertzberg and Alan Siddons.

Lord Turnbull about Royal Swedish Academy

As a preparation for the upcoming seminar organized by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in support of IPCC, the following facts expressed by Lord Turnbull in A climate overhaul is needed to win back public trust, present themselves:

• climate science needs to be less dogmatic, welcoming rather than suppressing diverse views  
• “an ethos of suffocating group think” with the investigators almost as much part of the group as the scientists
• The UK’s climate policy has been based on the assessment of the IPCC...emissions must be cut globally by 50 per cent by the middle of the century, with industrialised nations cutting by 80 per cent.
• Given the enormity of the sacrifices expected of families and businesses, and the current economic prospects, it is not surprising people question if this is how it has to be. Worse, people are questioning whether the science is as “settled” as often claimed.

This describes also Swedish climate politics, ultimately based on the stated support of IPCC by the Royal Swedish Academy, so fittingly described by Lord Turnbull: "suppresses diverse views" and "suffocating group think", as demonstrated e.g. in the arrangement of the seminar only allowing IPCC to speak. 

The Academy could also profit from reading Dr. Judith Curry on No Consensus on Consensus. 

Maybe even some perspective: The Coming Ice Age (in 1974)

Lord Turnbull was UK Cabinet Secretary 2002-05. He is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Dr. Judith Curry is IPCC scientist and has the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Will Royal Academy Save IPCC from Collapse?

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences arranges a seminar in support of IPCC CO2 climate alarmism on Oct 6. The question is if this will help IPCC from collapsing?

Not so, according to former ardent CO2 climate alarmist George Monbiot: Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it's dead.

Atmosphere: Boiling Pot Air Conditioner

In Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere, I give mathematical evidence that the atmosphere acts as an air conditioner keeping the Earth surface at comfortable 15 C upon radiative forcing from the Sun.

Like a boiling pot of water the atmosphere reacts to increased heat forcing by increased vaporization and turbulent convection, while keeping the temperature constant.

I thus present mathematical evidence that the Earth surface temperature is determined by

thermodynamics rather than radiation, which indicates a small climate sensitivity to radiative forcing e.g. from increased CO2.

This is a main argument showing that the socalled "greenhouse effect" belongs to fiction and not science.

Svar från IVA/Vattenfall 3

Svar från Lennart Billfalk:

• När det gäller din nya fråga så tycker jag att jag tidigare kommenterat hur Vattenfall rimligen måste agera. 
• När det gäller IVA:s seminarium så föreslår jag att du anmäler dig till det samt formulerar skriftliga frågor rörande klimat och klimatmodellering som du önskar att panelen skall diskutera. Jag tror att en kunnig publik kan få ut mycket information genom att panelen får belysa kritiska, faktabetonade frågor.  Tanken med seminariet är dock inte att diskutera IPCC. Den diskussionen får vi eventuellt återkomma till. 
  

Vi kommer väl inte längre...tänk om Vattenfall visste vad som väntar...eller åtminstone vore intresserat av att veta...

Svar från IVA/Vattenfall 2

Lennart Billfalk svarar:

• Jag har nog inte så mycket att tillägga till det jag skrev i mitt förra mail. Några ytterligare kommentarer bara till ditt senaste mail. Din första "fråga" har jag väl egentligen redan kommenterat. Jag är väl medveten om att det finns forskare som är skeptiska till koldioxidens effekter på klimatet. Förutsägelser om framtidens klimat är en mycket komplex frågeställning som kräver djupa kunskaper inom ett flertal vetenskapliga discipliner. 
• För mig och många företag är därför sammanvägda bedömningar baserade på tillgänglig kunskap inom många områden nödvändiga för att kunna ta ställing till allvaret i klimathotet. IPCC:s vetenskapliga rapporter  är de mest omfattande sammanställningarna som görs och de uppdateras ju med jämna mellanrum med nya forskningsrön som framkommer. 
• Det känns dock också mycket angeläget att t ex vetenskapliga akademier,  som t ex KVA,  tar på sig den grannlaga uppgiften att uttala sig om en så allvarlig frågeställning som klimatfrågan. Politiker och företagare måste ju rimligen basera sina beslut på sådana sammanställningar snarare till enskilda forskares uppfattning. 
• När det gäller fråga två vill jag för egen del hänvisa till det jag säger ovan, dvs jag har svårt att värdera enskilda studier och utgår därför från att den vetenskapliga världens arbetsformer leder till att en större grad av enighet växer fram kring klimatfrågan. Jag har svårt att förstå hur du kan påstå att de inbjudna föredragshållarna skulle kunna kallas alarmister. Jag uppfattar att de är mycket respekterade inom sina forskningsfält.
  

Min reaktion:

• Det verkar inte som LB inser att IPCC är på väg att kollapsa och att IPCC är ett politiskt organ som ger en skev bild av klimatvetenskapen och speciellt koldioxidens roll.
• LB inser att KVAs stöd av IPCC utgör grunden för svensk klimatpolitik, men vet inte att KVAs stöd inte bygger på en egen vetenskaplig analys.
• LB ser inte att alla talare har nära koppling till IPCC.

Min fråga: 

• Borde inte IVA/Vattenfall eftersträva en bred belysning av den viktiga sakfrågan, och därför låta även skeptiker till koldioxidalarmism komma till tals?

French Academy of Sciences Debates Climate

Science and Le Monde reports that the French Academy of Sciences finally produced a statement after a full day of debate on climate change Monday that had been shrouded in secrecy:

• Concernant les gaz à effet de serre, dont le CO2 émis par les activités humaines, s’il existe un consensus sur leur impact direct, le rôle de leurs effets indirects est encore controversé. 
  
• (Concerning CO2 emitted by human activity, even if there is a consensus on its direct impact, its indirect effects remain controversial).

In other words, there is no consensus on the role of CO2 for global warming, since only the 

total effect (including direct and indirect effects) is of any interest to science and humanity

(and nobody knows what the direct effect is anyway).

No consensus! NO CONSENSUS! Controversy! CONTROVERSY!

This is to be compared with the upcoming climate seminar organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences October 6, where only one side of the controversy is allowed to speak.

Sweden is a society with One King, One Academy and One Truth about the controversial 

role of CO2.  France and the US are not.