Decorated Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics

US Senate - Environment and Public Works Committee ^ | 10/17/06

[Future Snake Eater]

'Aliens Cause Global Warming'

A must-read lecture given by Michael Crichton. I highly recommend this as an antidote to all the "world is ending" nonsense surrounding global warming and the idiots who propogate its influence.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the ping, Ernest.

Nice catch, BenLurkin:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1721561/posts?page=17#17

[lafroste]

I am far from expert in heat transfer physics, but perhaps someone who is can explain for me how the earth's gaseous atmosphere, being fully exposed to the infinite heat sink of outer space, can retain heat in the manner of a "greenhouse," a structure that by its very nature imposes a physical barrier to convectional heat loss.

I'm no expert either, but I'll take a whack at it.:

A "greenhouse" gas is a gas that readily absorbs infrared radiation (IE. heat energy radiated from warm bodies in the infrared spectrum) thus preventing it from being lost to outer space. The higher the concentration of the absorbing gas (CO2, for example), the more of this emitted radiation is absorbed and prevented from escaping into space. Therefore, one can conclude that high levels of the absorbing gas can prevent excessive energy loss into space thus heating up the planet.

Of course there are some notable holes in that theory, one being that water vapor is far more efficient than CO2 at absorbing IR and there's a heck of a lot of water vapor in the air. Second, the in-out=accumulation diff EQ presumes that the "in" is constant when it isn't, and radiated energy is a function of temperature^4 so that increased temperature causes an increase in heat loss through radiation.

Etc, etc. The bottom line is that global warming is simply the scare tactic du jour, but trying to find an objective truth is nearly impossible because the truth doesn't matter and is not the goal. The goal is lavish funding grants and/or the inate desire for power and prestige that the global warming advocates seek. I honestly think that the movers behind this scam could care less whetther we fry or freeze, as long as their intellect is revered.

[cogitator]

Do molecules of carbon dioxide, or methane, or other "greenhouse" gases, significantly limit the opacity of the atmosphere to long wave back radiation?

Yes. And don't forget about water vapor, which also does this. Water vapor responds to the temperature of the earth (relative humidity), which is "set" by the radiative balance, which is determined by atmospheric radiative forcing factors. CO2 and methane are the most significant atmospheric gases that absorb outgoing longwave radiation and which have a long atmospheric lifetime relatively unaffected by the global temperature. I.e., the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and methane does not vary directly with Earth's temperature -- water vapor atmospheric concentration does.

[AFPhys]

These developments are very important.

It is well that at least a few scientists are beginning to question their earlier reliance on "global warming" theory. They are simply following well established tradition, it turns out - as many of those now still with their religious belief in "global warming" were earlier converts (in the mid-70s and 80s) who came from the "global cooling" school.

I wonder when they are finally going to concede that it is simply true that climate changes and fluctuates on long time scales?

[TX Bluebonnet]

bookmark for later

[cogitator]

I wonder when they are finally going to concede that it is simply true that climate changes and fluctuates on long time scales?

No concessions necessary; anyone who has a basic understanding of climate science knows this. The issue now is the time-scale of changes that could happen due to human influence on a scale of decades to centuries.

[calcowgirl]

bttt!

[Seadog Bytes]

BUMP!

...ping

[Jim Noble]

It does not matter that he is a "decorated scientist". It does not matter what "most scientists think".

In science, all that matters is the data.

[Sam Cree]

*

[SierraWasp]

On 10/13/06 I printed a transcript offa Rush Limbaugh's site that I can't get back into now. I'll quote a little...

"Nuremberg-Style Trials Proposed for Global Warming Skeptics -- A US-based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore and PBS newsman Bill Moyers have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to, is now advocating 'Nuremberg-style war crimes trials' for skeptics of human-caused catastrophic global warming. The name of the magazine is Grist, Grist magazine. The staff writer, David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the 'bastards' who were members of what he termed the 'global warming-denial industry.'"

Then Rush goes on to explain that a global warming "denier" is supposed to cause one to equate those folks with "holocaust deniers."

I typed this from the printout I printed 10/13/06 from Rush's site. Hope I didn't make too many goofs! I ain't no danged stenographer!!!

[SunkenCiv]

[pp 208-216] "On June 23, 1988, climatologist James Hansen testified before a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a day when the temperature in Washington D.C. reached a sweltering 38C... Hansen had impressive data from 2,000 weather stations... which documented not only a century-long warming trend but a sharp resumption of warming after the early 1970s... Hansen flatly proclaimed that the earth was warming on a permanent basis because of humanity's promiscuous use of fossil fuels [sic]... Recently, James Hansen and a group of his colleagues have argued that the rapid warming of recent decades has in fact been driven by non-CO2 gases such as chlorofluorocarbons. Fossil fuel [sic] burning CO2 and aerosols have both positive and negative climatic forcing effects, which tend to cancel each other out. Hansen and his team point out that the growth rate of non-CO2 gases has declined over the past decade and could be reduced even further. This, combined with a slowing of black carbon and CO2 emissions, could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming. Much more research is needed to confirm this hypothesis."

In other words, in 1988 Hansen warned Congress that CO2 would raise world temperatures. About ten years went by, after which Hansen claimed that CO2 doesn't have any net impact at all. So much for his data. Mind you, this came from the book shown below, which is egregiously in advocacy of the notion of "global warming".

The Little Ice Age:
How Climate Made History 1300-1850
by Brian M. Fagan
Paperback

[dervish]

thanks. Global Hysteria wrought by the anti anything global ists.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

Our manufacturing and jobs are getting decimated by this garbage. Then the world cries because we won't sign a document that works to crush the middle class, but the rest of the world doesn't care. But Iran needs Nuclear energy even though they sit on one of the largest fields around. But we are the bad guys.