Simple Physics – In reality my feather blew up into a tree ( About CO2 as a GHG )

Watts Up With That? ^ | December 28, 2010 | Guest Post by Barry Woods

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

All too often the ‘simple physics of CO2′ argument is presented to the public by the media, politicians, climate scientists and environmental advocacy groups, in a way that grossly simplifies the issue of the response in global temperature to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere.

An excellent response to the simple physics argument is to be found in the comments at Climate Etc (Professor Judith Curry’s blog)

In reality my feather blew up into a tree

“….. which is that since CO2 is a GHG it follows that increasing CO2 must increase the temperature (of something). No matter how many times we say that the climate is a system with complex non-linear feedbacks they still love this simple principle of physics.

This is because physics works by isolating simple situations from reality. That was the great discovery of physics, that if you simplified reality you could find simple laws. So far so good.

But as every engineer knows, these simple laws often do not work when reality gets messy, as it usually is.  Simple physics says that if I drop a ball and a feather they will fall at the same rate.

In reality my feather blew up into a tree.

It is not that the simple law is false, just that there are a number of other simple laws opposing it. In the case of climate we don’t even know what some of these other laws are, so we can’t explain what we see. That is where we should be looking.”

The ‘do you deny the simple GHG physics’ argument is also often an attempt to portray anyone that asks reasonable scientific questions about AGW and the complexity of climate science, as some sort of  an ‘anti-science’, ‘flat earther’ denier.

The realities and complexities and unknowns of climate science are described in the IPCC working Group 1 reports, but somehow get ‘lost in translation’ into the Summary for Policymakers, for example (and everyone knows very few politicians even read beyond the executive summary of anything).

IPCC (Chapter 14, 14.2.2.2, Working Group 1, The Scientific Basis)

Third Assessment Report: “In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

Time and time again the media and environment groups ignore this IPCC fact that the climate is a coupled nonlinear chaotic system and that the worst case scenarios of the computer model ’projections’ or scenarios (because they know they cannot use the word prediction) latest example, 4C by 2060, are just one result of computer model ‘runs’ programmed with various extreme values of these assumptions.

The low-end ’projections’ of temperature by model runs with other values and assumptions are ignored completely by CAGW advocates, the data output or projection of a computer model transmorphs into a scientific fact, the data output of a computer model becomes evidence of CAGW.

Climate Science is often portrayed to the public in simplistic terms as a mature science, narrowed down and focussed onto one primary factor - CO2, assuming all else to be equal, and not the possibilities in this type of system that varying one parameter alone, may vary other parameters in non-linear ways, even potentially flipping some from positive to negative feedback (or vice versa)

At the time of the Copenhagen Cop 15 Climate Conference, stunts on TV, rather than the discussion of uncertainties of ‘climate science’ were the order of the day.

The classic demonstration of the ‘do you deny the simple physics of CO2′ argument  is a glass tube filled with CO2, heated and then the TV presenter or preferably a senior government scientist says ‘look it has warmed!’ -

As demonstrated by the BBC in their Newsnight program, Copenhagen Climate Conference time, the BBC’s apparent intellectual response to the climategate emails and documents.  Watts Up With That, gave a critique of this particular type of TV experiment and CAGW PR.

I wonder what would have happened if a member of the audience had been able to question their methodology, or even ask simple questions like:

What is the  percentage of CO2 in the jar?

ie total atmospheric is  ~0.038%, what percentage is in the glass jar – 50% plus perhaps, or more?

[Corrected typo spotted in comments - 0.038% / 380 ppm]

If you were to mention that the CO2 effect is logarithmic, then you are likely to be labelled a ‘climate change sceptic’ or worse a ‘climate change denier’ by any passing MSM media TV presenter, environmentalist group or AGW consensus minded politician, and then they will simply stop listening, because you are obviously a fossil fuel funded denier, such has been the CAGW consensus PR.

I wonder if for a sceptical  joke, someone could produce a spoof YouTube video of a feather and a cannon ball in a glass jar experiment (non evacuated)  and the TV presenter could say to the audience:

“Proof –  The Cannon Ball FALLS faster that the feather – Simple Physics clearly show this”

Someone in the audience could then ask, but you have air in the jar? and then get ridiculed by the group as an ‘anti-science’ denier, the scientist/presenter could even bring out the ‘No Pressure’ red button to use!

The simple and not so simple physics of a number of climate parameters, are programmed into the climate computer models.  Many of these parameters, it is acknowledged, are not completely understood or that there is serious contentious debate about in the scientific literature.  ie aerosols, clouds, solar pacific and atlantic oscillations, volcanoes, etc,etc

Engineers (or  economists now, perhaps) will advice  climate scientists, model are not reality, reality is often more complicated than any computer model. Take a step back, view with hindsight with respect to risk in the financial markets. At the trouble the cream of the last few decades of science graduates – turned  computer modellers – left the world’s economy in, following the modelling of credit risk amongst many other economic assumptions.

Next time anyone starts on about the simple physics of CO2, remember the feather and a cannon ball in a very large glass jar analogy, or for the classically motivated, atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Politicians could lay trillion-dollar bets, and dozens of competing scientific groups (publically funded) could even attempt to write a computer models to predict when and where the feather would land…………

Thanks again to Anthony for the opportunity to write at Watts Up With That again. There is a little more about me here.

Or maybe you could stop by at my new blog, I hope that the Watts Up With That regulars like the name.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Be a bit wary of Judith. She’s skeptical but not skeptical enough.

I’ll take this post as a step in the right direction but she has not left the GWT camp, AFAIK.

As an aside, IIRC, she was the one who cautioned the IPCC folks about trying to us the results from AGW models to predict specific local changes in average temperature. My guess is that this stand came from her hurricane research.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks.

[Marine_Uncle]

It only seemed colder to you. Have faith. The AGW folks know what they are talking about.
I'll check out the video.
I'm nearing half way through Stan Kurtz's "RADICAL-IN-CHIEF".
The detail he goes into has me quite impressed.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Stepping out for awhile..... be back later.

[The Comedian]

This is a bit off-topic, but expecting Americans, or most humans in general, to understand simple physics and the implications of finite but chaotic systems is like expecting a black Labrador to drive NASCAR successfully.

For starters, government schools have beaten any sense of intrinsic logic right out of the population. And society shows its teeth at any display of cohesive, productive individual intelligence.

Instead, society glorifies constrained collective actions (teams) in artificial circumstances (games) that accomplish nothing (sports). And when someone actually achieves something useful (capitalists or *real* scientists who blew the whistle on this global warming baloney), they are demonized.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[GeronL]

I have read somewhere that most of the climate is localized not global, whatever that means.

[JoeFromSidney]

physics works by isolating simple situations from reality.

The biggest mess you ever saw

Is governed by some simple law.

You can make some sense of it

If you ignore enough of it.

[justa-hairyape]

The climate is a complex system to the nth degree. Boiling it down to a single factor is beyond wrong and naive.

Same thing can be said about the economy. And the progressive statist in the US have now created the largest debt in planetary history with their naive single factor policies.

[justa-hairyape]

We can conclude, though, that claims to know the temperature of the earth in 50 or 100 years are pure hokum.

We are perhaps 100 years away from being able to accurately devise a total heat content metric for the planets light based biosphere. We would need to know the heat content of all the worlds oceans across depth and of course the atmospheric heat content across altitude. And we would need high resolution and high accuracy in the real time data points. Then of course we will have to come up with a solar energetic input metric that incorporates all the newly discovered and yet to be discovered energetic pathways between the Sun and Earth. Once we accurately know the energetic solar input to the Earth, and have a way to accurately monitor the Earths Biospheric Heat Content, we could actually start doing some science. But since this is the Planet of the Apes, I would not recommend holding your breath. We are more likely to cart one another off to concentration camps and gas chambers again.

[TheBigIf]

Wouldn’t we also need a lunar energetic input metric that incorporates all the newly discovered and yet to be discovered energetic pathways between the Moon and Earth also?

I guess you could try and argue that such a metric may be irrelevant but it would distort the Earths Biospheric Heat Content, imho, enough to cause serious miscalulations in any long-term data.

[SouthTexas]

Here's one for you.

[justa-hairyape]

We will need a lunar cycle energetic metric that incorporates reflected radiation and gravitational based movement on Earth (tides). But those factors are primarily monthly based. I think Piers Corbyn uses a lunar and solar based metric. The La Nina's and El Nino's appear to be monthly based, while other ocean and atmosphere cycles are annual. Solar cycle factors are primarily annually based. And there are also the cosmic high energy radiation factors that may affect cloud formation on Earth. We will obviously learn more as we input more data points into the entire process, but we are decades away from even developing a somewhat accurate metric. We absolutely are not accurate enough to justify modifying Earth's climate in any direct non-natural operation. Decades away from that accuracy.

At any rate, looks like we are forecast to actually reach the freezing mark here in my home town Thursday and Friday. Located about 50 miles from Los Angeles. Been trying to freeze water here outside the past few winters. Looks like I got a good chance later this week. Located at about 900-1,000 feet above sea level.

[TheBigIf]

I could relate to how you see the earthly (tides) as a reflection of your attempts to freeze water outside 50 miles from Los Angeles, (hopefully upwind) but.... we still need to include a gravational metric that also reflects how global warming or climate change is changing the gravational field within the changes of ocean levels and atmospheric changes thus blocking out the Sun more and letting in a higher metric of lunar variants among the earthly bioshpere.

Of course the Moon is not a feather though. I highl;y doubt it could float up a tree because of this.

[editor-surveyor]

The greenhouse effect itself has been completely debunked as it would violate basic principles of thermo.

The only gas that effects anything is water vapor, and it doesn’t warm, it cools, by shading and reflecting away the sun’s energy. But it also stores heat as potential energy, which moderates temps.

[justa-hairyape]

I could relate to how you see the earthly (tides) as a reflection of your attempts to freeze water outside 50 miles from Los Angeles, (hopefully upwind) but....

Actually the tide mention was my attempt to bring Piers Corbyn theories into the discussion, since his theories are based on lunal tidal affects on the ocean and atmosphere, from what I gather. And you can really transfer a lot of energy to Earth via the gravitational tidal flows.

..we still need to include a gravational metric that also reflects how global warming or climate change is changing the gravational field within the changes of ocean levels and atmospheric changes thus blocking out the Sun more and letting in a higher metric of lunar variants among the earthly bioshpere.

Now that is not really science. One first must prove that either global warming or climate change is indeed occurring. Historically right now the odds are that we will soon slip back into the Glacial Age. We have also pointed out in more ways then one on this thread that accurately proving the Earth Biosphere is currently experiencing net warming is an impossible task with current available metrics. It is also difficult to accurately prove net cooling is occurring. Thus the attempt to freeze a cup of water near Los Angeles later this week. Physics has no sense of humor. Just try to imagine the amount of damage a hard freeze can cause to a local environment that never experiences a hard freeze.

Of course the Moon is not a feather though. I highl;y doubt it could float up a tree because of this.

It can in more ways then one. The moon and many biological organisms are actually in a monthly rhythmic sync.