Moderated Global Warming Discussion

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Mikemcc said:
Which is why temperature anomalies are used for analysis and the data is adjusted for time-of-observation... This really is climate 101.
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Malcolm,

Seriously, you are treating this as though you were the only smart person ever to have considered any of these objections you bring up, and that's not the case at all.

Have you not spent the time to learn what people have already thought of?

-Ben
 
Mikemcc said:
Which is why temperature anomalies are used for analysis and the data is adjusted for time-of-observation... This really is climate 101.
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Very true. The funny thing is that the people he’s going to for misinformation object to making adjustments for time of day and say it’s “fraud”.

Of course the real issue for them is that adjusting for the time of day temperature measurements were taken ends up increasing the warming trend. No doubt they would be all for it if it decreased the trend. Essentially they think science is “good” or “bad” based on whether it shows what they want to see, and this is really the only thing they ever look at. They accept absolute crap without question if it agrres with what they want to believe, and reject the mountains of peer reviewed science simply because it disagrees with what they want to believe.
 
jimbob said:
So what is the point of the thought experiment?
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I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation. At the start of this particular discussion (weeks ago) I suggested that total radiation from a spherical shell around a star must equal the star's output. Albedo and the material composition of the shelll may determine the wavelength of emitted radiation, but the total energy must equal the star's output. Seems to me, anyway. If this is wrong, what am I missing?

NB. "You're just stupid" is not an informative response.

In one of his autobiographical books, Richard Feinman wrote of a lesson he delivered to Physics students in Brazil in which he discussed the difference between naming and explaining. He used the example of triboluminescence. When wou smash a sugar crystal or bite a lifesaver, sometimes the process generates a flash of light. Why? Triboluminescence is the name for the phenomenon. It's not an explanation. You go to a doctor and say: "I have this pain in my chest" and he says: "Oh, coronary angina". That's a name, not an explanation. Daniel Dennett, in a comment on Tielhard de Chardin, calls this tactic "bombastic redescription of the obvious".

About evidence we bring to this discussion: I have dived around Kauaii, Molokai, Oahu, Hawaii (island), Johnston atoll and Eniwetak. Coral growth gets better as the water warms. Certainly there has to be a limit, but the excited discussions of impending crisis (at, e.g., Skeptical Science) with 4 C warming (which IPCC does not project, if I understand correctly) are off base. The Red Sea is more than 4 C warmer than Hawaii or Johnston atoll waters, and coral is more lush there than here. Coral bleaching is an effect of exposure to direct sunlight, not warmth. Reef-building corals grow quickly to the surface. Where the sun is intense and tides great enough, periodic extreme low tides will kill them to the waterline . That's routine. Too many of those Skeptical Science articles are unsigned. I wouldn't want to put my name to them either.
 
"about evidence we bring to the discussion", what a cheap trick!

You're just changing the subject again by using old tricks, Malcolm! That's a no-no.

We can deal with your "corals are doing well" escape in post #7000. Sellers of air-conditioners are doing well and that will be dealt in post #7001.

You were in problems about physics, and the role of CO2, some people you say you like and some people you say they cheat. Also you don't know the chemical changes in sea water. And that's pretty much it. You have at least two dozen of lines of reasoning open and you are refusing to follow what you started.

Follow the "purpose of your thought experiment" as you declare it to be, and don't change the subject every time you need to hide your lack of proper answers.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Got a mirror? Impartial observers will note the complete absence of any climate-related data in the above.
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And when I asked you for the alternate data sets , you flubbed it. When asked what data should be included in the models during the discussion of Dyson, you passed.

In fact that is your general pattern, when I ask you for data, you fail to provide it. When called on your inability to substantiate your claim you resort to spin.

maybe you could just answer the questions when they are asked.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation.
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We’ve already been though this with you, but here it is again, hopefully you read it this time.

It works as follows. The object absorbs photons of visible light, this added energy warms the object.

Objects also radiate photons based on their temperature, according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law (AKA Blackbody radiation). Warmer objects radiate more energy and at higher frequencies than cooler objects.

Any object will warm/cool until the energy being absorbed equals the energy being emitted. This means that for objects that are close to being black-bodies it’s temperature is a direct function of how much energy it’s absorbing which equals total solar energy – reflection.


“Greenhouse gasses” have the following characteristics. First, they do not interact with the incoming photons. IOW they are transparent, light passes through them. Second, they are NOT transparent to photons of lower frequency that are given off by warm objects so the infrared photons the object emits cannot leave. For this reason it will have a temperature higher than it’s blackbody temperature.

For any object without an atmosphere containing greenhouse gasses, you can calculate its temperature with just its distance from the sun and its reflectivity. The earth, is about 34 degrees C warmer than this due to the effect of greenhouse gasses in its atmosphere.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation. At the start of this particular discussion (weeks ago) I suggested that total radiation from a spherical shell around a star must equal the star's output. Albedo and the material composition of the shelll may determine the wavelength of emitted radiation, but the total energy must equal the star's output. Seems to me, anyway. If this is wrong, what am I missing?

NB. "You're just stupid" is not an informative response.
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Which I have never said.

At equilibrium absorbed power is equal to radiated power. This is not the same as incident power.


If one ball was a perfect reflector, then it would remain at the temperature at which it started as no more energy would be absorbed, but equally no more energy would be lost from this ball.



Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
In one of his autobiographical books, Richard Feinman wrote of a lesson he delivered to Physics students in Brazil in which he discussed the difference between naming and explaining. He used the example of triboluminescence. When wou smash a sugar crystal or bite a lifesaver, sometimes the process generates a flash of light. Why? Triboluminescence is the name for the phenomenon. It's not an explanation. You go to a doctor and say: "I have this pain in my chest" and he says: "Oh, coronary angina". That's a name, not an explanation. Daniel Dennett, in a comment on Tielhard de Chardin, calls this tactic "bombastic redescription of the obvious".
Click to expand...

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
About evidence we bring to this discussion: I have dived around Kauaii, Molokai, Oahu, Hawaii (island), Johnston atoll and Eniwetak. Coral growth gets better as the water warms. Certainly there has to be a limit, but the excited discussions of impending crisis (at, e.g., Skeptical Science) with 4 C warming (which IPCC does not project, if I understand correctly) are off base. The Red Sea is more than 4 C warmer than Hawaii or Johnston atoll waters, and coral is more lush there than here. Coral bleaching is an effect of exposure to direct sunlight, not warmth. Reef-building corals grow quickly to the surface. Where the sun is intense and tides great enough, periodic extreme low tides will kill them to the waterline . That's routine. Too many of those Skeptical Science articles are unsigned. I wouldn't want to put my name to them either.
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How many different types of coral are there? I know for certain that some of the most productive waters in the world are cold waters and with cold water corals.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation. At the start of this particular discussion (weeks ago) I suggested that total radiation from a spherical shell around a star must equal the star's output. Albedo and the material composition of the shelll may determine the wavelength of emitted radiation, but the total energy must equal the star's output. Seems to me, anyway. If this is wrong, what am I missing?

NB. "You're just stupid" is not an informative response.

In one of his autobiographical books, Richard Feinman wrote of a lesson he delivered to Physics students in Brazil in which he discussed the difference between naming and explaining. He used the example of triboluminescence. When wou smash a sugar crystal or bite a lifesaver, sometimes the process generates a flash of light. Why? Triboluminescence is the name for the phenomenon. It's not an explanation. You go to a doctor and say: "I have this pain in my chest" and he says: "Oh, coronary angina". That's a name, not an explanation. Daniel Dennett, in a comment on Tielhard de Chardin, calls this tactic "bombastic redescription of the obvious".

About evidence we bring to this discussion: I have dived around Kauaii, Molokai, Oahu, Hawaii (island), Johnston atoll and Eniwetak. Coral growth gets better as the water warms. Certainly there has to be a limit, but the excited discussions of impending crisis (at, e.g., Skeptical Science) with 4 C warming (which IPCC does not project, if I understand correctly) are off base. The Red Sea is more than 4 C warmer than Hawaii or Johnston atoll waters, and coral is more lush there than here. Coral bleaching is an effect of exposure to direct sunlight, not warmth. Reef-building corals grow quickly to the surface. Where the sun is intense and tides great enough, periodic extreme low tides will kill them to the waterline . That's routine. Too many of those Skeptical Science articles are unsigned. I wouldn't want to put my name to them either.
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It didn't really take much seraching to turn up scientific studies such as Veron et al 2009

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19782832

Temperature-induced mass coral bleaching causing mortality on a wide geographic scale started when atmospheric CO(2) levels exceeded approximately 320 ppm. When CO(2) levels reached approximately 340 ppm, sporadic but highly destructive mass bleaching occurred in most reefs world-wide, often associated with El Niño events.
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If CO(2) levels are allowed to reach 450 ppm (due to occur by 2030-2040 at the current rates), reefs will be in rapid and terminal decline world-wide from multiple synergies arising from mass bleaching, ocean acidification, and other environmental impacts.
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Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
jimbob said:
Malcolm, is W.D.Clinger right about the purpose of your thought experiment?
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No.
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Then I was wrong.

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
His emphasis on personalities detracts from the abstract discussion.
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That was an odd thing to say, because (in his next message) Malcolm Kirkpatrick stated the experiment's purpose as

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation.
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Since the relevant scientific models are well established, the purpose of the experiment appears to be limited to that one personality's mental model.

Inasmuch as that personality has taken pains to reject all assistance that might make the experiment feasible or relevant, I now concur with the consensus opinion: The experiment serves no real purpose.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
No. His emphasis on personalities detracts from the abstract discussion.
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From what I can tell, WDC is presenting a pretty fair analysis of your posts.
But fine- ignore him. Many other posters have been trying very hard to help you understand the factors that influence warming and cooling. You need this kind of understanding to have a legitimate opinion on global climate change. Make use of this help.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I'm trying to construct a mental model of the process of warming by radiation. At the start of this particular discussion (weeks ago) I suggested that total radiation from a spherical shell around a star must equal the star's output of emitted radiation, but the total energy must equal the star's output. Seems to me, anyway. If this is wrong, what am I missing?
Click to expand...

You're missing the difference between reflected radiation and emitted radiation, but at equilibrium energy out must indeed equal energy in.

Having got that out of the way, do you have any thoughts on greenhouse warming, which is what this thread is actually about?
 
Mikemcc said:
Catching him talking BS again? It's yet another change of subject for him that falls flat.
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Look at his message #6186. First, he repeats a Dysonesque story that has nothing to do with this thread's subject -but he uses "albedo" that he may believe relates to it-. Then, with this previous starting point that nobody criticized --for having been a raving off-topic-- now repeated he started a loop to escape from every physical problem that he is not able to understand, that is, from the whole realm of physics and mathematics.

He now decided that a new line of defence of denial will be speaking of not so measurable concepts, so saying the corals are lush is more defensible by using verborrhea that abstract concepts that relate with natural laws and have measurable variables attached to them.

It doesn't matter the inanity of the coral argument. Remember that he thinks he is making here a pretty good performance in the debate and he never realized he has been hit so many times, even by his own hand, that swellings don't let him see his real role.

The problem here is not his arguments, but the time lost answering his discursive meanders because he may think that he can have a fraction of reason just because he lasts in the ringside.

Let him face his own fundamental lacks and inconsistencies by no allowing him to use smoke screens.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I have to consider this. I'm hanging on "traps heat". I wonder what happens to thermometers wrapped in insulation that is painted in various colors and shades of grey, floating in space in orbit around the sun. Don't they all reach the same temperature if they're all composed of the same material (mercury or alcohol in calibrated glass tubes) and orbit at the same distance?
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Your example is not analogous to the earth. Make the insulation transparent to the light but not heat, leave a bit of regular air inside and place the material with various shades of grey to the center. Then measure the temperature of the encapsulated air.

You will see that the darker the material in the center, the higher the temperature will measure. Also, the stronger the insulation, the higher the temperature.

I hope this answered your question. If so, do you now agree with all the below arguments, can we move on??


*************

Excellent, progress again. You're of course correct that human activity is not the only force that affects the temperature. I changed the wording accordingly.

The warming influence of human activity can indeed be obscured by many natural forces, such as variations in the solar flux, the heat circulation between the oceans and the atmosphere and so on.

- You agree that the atmosphere traps heat.
- You agree that there is a greenhouse effect as described by mainstream science and that changes in the strength of the greenhouse effect can change the temperature on earth.
- You agree that there's an energy balance that will always seek a new equilibrium, when variables change.
- You agree that a change in the composition of gasses (like increasing CO2) in the atmosphere changes the strength of the greenhouse effect.
- You agree that a rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause global warming.
- You agree that human activity is the main cause for the increase in atmospheric CO2.
- You agree that human activity causes a global warming influence.

In fact, your comment brings us to the next baby step. We both seem to agree that both "natural" and "man made" forces affect the temperature.

Next baby step: Do you agree that the man made warming influence can be obscured by other forces, sometimes even causing the global temperature to decline temporarily?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Got a mirror? Impartial observers will note the complete absence of any climate-related data in the above.
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in this thread there are dozens of links to scientific publications that support AGW and not a single link to a scientific publication that contradicts AGW.

yes indeed, Impartial observers will note the absense of any evidence from the science deniers side.
 
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