Wednesday
Jan182012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Richard B at Nature
Jan 18, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Richard Betts, writing at Nature's blog, says upholders of the climate consensus should talk to dissenters.
I think the only solution is to talk about the science as science, in the context of all its implications and also for its own academic interest – and talk about it to everyone irrespective of their position in the policy debate. This includes talking with sceptics, and not in defensive mode but as scientists willing to talk around the issue. It used to be the received wisdom that climate scientists should not engage with “sceptics” beause, it was said, it only wasted time and gave credibility to arguments that had already been countered many times before. In my view this is no longer a helpful strategy, if it ever was.
Reader Comments (231)
If it is illegal to teach Creationism in public schools in the US because it is a religion then why is it legal to teach Communism?
"Even if the claim is modified to mean that warmer objects cool slower it remains false. For example, if you immerse me in a large ice bath then I will not become warmer or cool slower."
It's still true, the problem is you're comparing it to a situation where your surroundings are warmer still, not colder.
Start by standing in a room at absolute zero, so you receive no radiation from your surroundings. How cold do you feel? Now replace it with a room made of ice at -1 C. You will feel a lot warmer, as the room radiates a little towards you. In a warm room at 20 C you feel warmer still, although again because of a room that is still cooler than you are.
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Regarding coexist/cancel, I did hesitate before using the word, but assumed people would understand I was talking about the accountancy rather than the radiation itself. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ref Richard Betts Twitter observations in the Nature article.....
Looks like my 7500 plus! Tweets in less than 6 months hsvenm't been totally pointless ;-) ;-)
@Realclim8gate
Ps not all aimed at Richard, but it might feel that way. ;-)
Richard Betts
I wold be delighted to buy you more than one pint of Yellow Hammer next time I am in the NH. But this (coming) summer I will mostly be charging around the Pyrenees with a bunch of mates on motorbikes (then relaxing with Gixxergirl by the Med at Coliourre), so am unlikely to make it to Devon. But if you might be near Hampshire/Berkshire in early July I am sure we can work something out. No 'engagement' beats pub talk over a Brakspears. Though you will have to sign the Gixxer Anonymity Act :-)
"Geronimo: not sure whether you read the whole of my Nature blog post or just BH's excerpt. If you read my whole post you'll see that I want to talk about the science and not just boring old emissions policies :-)"
Richard, thanks for you're reply, but it's not about the science is it? I have said before that the work in WG1 is outstanding, and that there are thousands of scientists doing great work, it may not be right in the long run, but every attempt at science moves it forward, right or wrong. Currently on this thread we're having a robust conversation about backward radiation, personally I can't get my head round it, but I don't think challenging Arrenhius' GHG theory a bad thing, I read about it in one of Patrick Moore's books as a schoolboy and took it on face value. It's good to see it challenged. So yes it would be nice to have more climate scientists coming on here to discuss the science, but, frankly, few people would have any interest in climate science if it wasn't for the "boring old emissions policies".
It's nice to engage with you and your colleague Tamsin, I remember some years ago Judith Curry used to come on to Climate Audit to debate with the readers there, along with Ray Pierrehumbert, and it was good to follow, even with the level of incomprehension I had, the discussions on the posts. But for me it comes back to the same thing, your scientific discipline is telling politicians that unless they reduce emissions the earth will warm by anything up to 5C, and maybe above. You're doing this on the basis of what appears to be models where the software has been written by people who themselves aren't software engineers, and an assumption about feedbacks that leave most engineers bewildered and reaching for old textbooks to see if they'd got it all wrong.
The politicians are fully committed to what you've told them and have introduced measures to curb emissions on the say so of the climate science community and lobbying of green NGOs. As an example of these lunatic policies, we are all now paying around 10% more for our energy in taxes, on top of that the solar panel scheme is nothing short of an ethical disgrace, in that all of my friends (like yours I assume, mildy left, bien pensant types) have searched in their trouser pockets for the £15k, or so, required to have solar panels fitted to take advantage of the 43p feed in tariff. As 43p is roughly 3.5 times the tariff we pay for energy the energy companies are having to charge more for their electicity to make up for the payment to my well healed friends. In other words the poor are paying more for their electricity so the wealthy can be "green" and at the same time make a few bob out of it.
I don't believe you can separate the science from the policy when the scientific advice is resulting in things like this, and in my view, jeopardising our future energy provision.
But don't let me put you off, I'm a cynic, which is probably the concomitant of a sceptic, and have a sneaking feeling that the current discussion in the climate science community about communicating with the sceptics is a case of what one of my old boss used to say, "I don't agree with you, so it can't be that I've understood what you've said and believe your wrong, it must be that you haven't communicated it to me properly and if I give you another chance I'll see the error of my ways."
Having said all that maybe it would be the reverse of what is expected, large numbers of climate scientists will suddenly find that their opponents aren't flat earthers and creationists but people from other scientific and engineering disciplines (mostly retired I'll bet) who have genuine concerns about the science and the practices of the scientists in the climate science discipline, particularly as they are driving policies that are potenially disastrously detrimental to western industrialise civilisations.
Would anyone object to this:
1. Less cold objects can prevent a warmer object from cooling as quickly as very cold objects.
2. Less cold atmosphere can prevent the surface losing heat as quickly as very cold atmosphere.
3. Less cold atmosphere can result in warmer surface than would be the case with very cold atmosphere.
4. Some people compare the two surface cases, and say that in one case the surface is "warmer" than in the other case - perhaps "less cold" would be more acceptable.
5. The physical mechanism that results in the "less coldness" is influenced by the reduced temperature differential between the warmer and colder objects.
6. The energy exchange mechanism, especially in still air, is IR radiation.
7. This reduction in radiation from the warmer to the colder objects, compared to the very cold objects, can be viewed as the warmer object emitting exactly the same amount of radiation, but the colder object returning some of it, so that the warmer object looses energy as a lower rate, and hence is "warmer" than it would otherwise be.
8. If you prefer to use the terminology of Prevost, who had no idea about the existence of radiation and thought in terms of heat fluxes and believed heat to be some kind of fluid, then you can consider that the warmer object remains warmer than it would otherwise be due to a reduced heat flux, which in turn is due to a reduced temperature differential. The sums works out exactly the same, so those who want to remain in a 16th century universe are free to do so.
Typo correction - 18th century universe.
[Snip - manners]
steveta_uk: if you allow the total radiation [emitted downwards] from the atmosphere to be part of the energy to be subsequently emitted from the Earth, instead of being annulled on contact with the earth's surface, you create a perpetual motion machine and the imaginary positive feedback of the IPCC climate models, only controlled by convection, transpiration and the 4th power emission from the TOA.
You must not formulate the problem this way because it is counter to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. By all means talk of the extra impedance to IR transport and extra warming though.
PS the GHG warming is also vastly exaggerated as proved by the fall in N. Atlantic OHC which could not take place if we had mostly GHG warming in the 1900s: http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-101.png
We are now entering the land of experimental fact, not Marxist philosophy encouraging fantasy physics.
"Richard Betts is not a friend. He is head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre. This is Political, not Scientific."
What Richard is, or isn't, is not proper to the debate. He comes on this site and always responds with courtesy to any comments thrown at him. He clearly holds a different view than I do about the certainties of climate change and the future outcomes, but that's ok, with time he'll find I'm right and he's wrong. -:)
The greens and the climate science community as whole have effectively silenced the, not inconsiderable, doubts about their theories and policies. While we were sleeping they've waged a war we didn't know had started. They've infiltrated the IPCC, the BBC and most of the mass media. Nobody on the sceptic side gets to see the ministers, but you can bet your boots that at least once a week the green NGOs have private meetings with the ministers at DECC. They've tried and succeeded in getting the educational establishment to teach climate change, which is telling our children that basically humans are evil. They've planted in the minds of the public and the politicians that people who oppose their anti-humanity policies are the ones who can be equated with holocaust deniers/creationists/flat-earthers/troofers, while pursuing policies like banning DDT and increased fuel costs to reduce the use of fuel.
Richard, as can be quite clearly seen on these threads doesn't see this, but that doesn't make him our enemy, or our friend. Give him a break.
A cautionary tale about 'back radiation', quantified.
Assume that you have a clear sky, emissivity and absorptivity 0.2 and are on the beach in summer, air temperature 25°C, sand temperature 30°C and it’s windy. You put up a wind break and to keep convected plus radiated heat transfer from the sand constant the sand temperature rises to 45°C. These a realistic figures. Assuming an emissivity for the sand of 0.85 and 20% of the extra IR is intercepted by GHGs and half that comes back, you’ve just increased DLR by 8.7 W/m^2 or 5.4 times AR4’s estimate of total net AGW.
The temperature rise is the UHI writ small. Not even the IPCC claims the UHI causes global warming……..that would be to admit CO2 was far less important. This type of argument is called reductio ad absurdum.
steveta_uk @ Jan 19, 2012 at 11:07 AM
Your list sounds fine to me - especially the bit about Prevost ;-)
There seems to be a big problem for some 'seeing' your point (3):
In other words, if make the atmosphere less transparent to IR, OLR from the surface will warm it. The warmer atmosphere will in turn radiate energy back towards the surface. The NET energy at the surface increases and the surface warms.
This is why I was being picky with NiV above about the use of 'cancel' instead of 'coexist'. I suspect that this semantic error is where some of the misunderstanding is coming from. Thinking in terms of 'cancelling' leads to breaking the first law of thermodynamics. Energy 'disappears'.
The other problem arises when people confuse thermal conduction with radiative transfer (eg Philip Bratby). ONLY thermal conduction is unidirectional. RT is BIDIRECTIONAL and that's why increasing the concentrations of atmospheric GHGs raises the temperature at the surface.
Hector Pascal
Paranoid, offensive nonsense. You owe RB an apology.
BBD: 'In other words, if make the atmosphere less transparent to IR, OLR from the surface will warm it. The warmer atmosphere will in turn radiate energy back towards the surface. The NET energy at the surface increases and the surface warms.'
Absolutely wrong: the extra impedance to IR transport [to space via longer optical path] causes surface warming but there is no change to the net energy that leaves the surface by a combination of conduction, convection and radiation.
For climate science to claim otherwise is to run counter the peer reviewed literature of every other science, including biological science where the laws of thermodynamics underpin natural processes.
It's up to you to prove experimentally your case; theoretical models don't count.
You can't buck the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
To add to the above; it's obvious now that there is a key disconnect in climate science [with the rest of science] because its practitioners fail to understand the concept of impedance [aka resistance] which increases the potential difference needed to achieve a given energy flux.
The potential here is temperature. Increase IR optical impedance and you need a higher temperature difference to transport the [near] constant net IR energy from the Earth's surface [remembering there may also be second order increases of convection and thermotranspiration].
I await a valid argument against this, the most basic of physics' concepts.
There isn't one. move along, Lacis and Hansen are pukka physicists who should never have made this mistake but they could have assigned this incorrect science to someone who did not have the physics' training. Trenberth perhaps?
"It's up to you to prove experimentally your case"
Roy Spenser has done exactly that, in his back yard, using trivially available materials. If you don't accept the results, then there is no way anyone can convince you.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/help-back-radiation-has-invaded-my-backyard/
steveta-uk: He showed there is energy flow to an insulated box! This experiment is exactly the same as the upward pointing radiometer - take out the cancelling opposite flux and you can do thermodynamic work.
Spencer is gradually getting his head around this physics. Perhaps you should too...;o)
PS, the Bedouin make ice by digging a deep pit with near vertical sides in the desert and placing a container of water at the base. If 'back radiation could heat the base of that pit, ice would not form.
The reason it works is because the heat from the near black box cavity radiates to space, the opposite of the solar oven Spencer adapted.
Just to add to the above discussion about the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, two small comments:
Jan 19, 2012 at 11:07 AM | steveta_uk. A good summary - but it is only strictly true if the atmosphere contains species that are active with respect to absorption and emission of infra-red light. If not, then all emission to space of IR light must come from the surface, and things become somewhat different. Every single real atmosphere contains some IR-active species, but there's a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about trying to understand the greenhouse effect assuming no role for radiation transfer, which neglects this point. Also point 6 about IR radiative transfer being dominant is a bit overstated - convection plays a big role.
BBD at 2:03pm: "ONLY thermal conduction is unidirectional. RT is BIDIRECTIONAL". Not quite true: right down at the level of atoms and molecules, thermal conduction is bidirectional also, with energy transfer from faster, hotter atoms or molecules towards slower, colder atoms or molecules coexisting with energy transfer in the opposite direction, but with the former being larger in magnitude to the latter, such that viewed from the macroscopic point of view, you get Fourier's law of thermal conduction.
mydogsgotnonose
While I appreciate your careful explanation to those who took Natural Philosophy, perhaps a simple explanation would help:
Jeremy Harvey
Yes, yes... But I am trying to keep this simple to avoid further confusion ;-)
MDGNN
Why doesn't the temperature fall to below zero at night?
"You can't boil water by throwing ice into it!"
Sure you can - if you throw it hard enough.
steveat_uk
Indeed. A cometary nucleus meets the ocean... ;-)
BBD says:
"The other problem arises when people confuse thermal conduction with radiative transfer (eg Philip Bratby)."
I've been solving complex heat transfer problems (involving conduction, free and forced convection, and radiation) for more years than I care to remember. I have no confusion thank you.
You can check my background, but you talk as if you have no scientific training, but I can't check you out as an anonymous poster.
Philip Bratby
Confusion between thermal conduction and radiative transfer appears to be at the root of your rejection of otherwise uncontroversial atmospheric physics.
I have no confusion. What exactly is this "uncontroversial atmospheric physics"?
PB
You could start with explaining why the temperature doesn't fall below zero at night.
BBD - here's one for you to try at home:
Required: Facilities to make fresh hot cups of tea, 1" ish thick book, freezer, two big pint glasses of ice, thermometer, stopwatch, pad of graph paper, pencil.
Run one - keep the ice in the freezer. Put the cup of tea on a table with the thermometer in it and set the stop watch running. Record the temperature every 15 seconds back down to ambient and plot the results on your graph paper.
Run two - make another cup of tea, set it down in the same place, quickly get a glass of ice from the freezer and set it down a books width from the cup of tea. Repeat the measuring as per above and plot the results on the same axis.
Run three - make another cup of tea, set it down in the same place, quickly get the second glass of ice from the freezer and set it down a books width from the cup of tea. This time insert book into the gap. Repeat the measuring as per run one and plot the results on the same axis.
Report your results to the class.
BBD: I haven't a clue what you are on about. You are as bad as zbd for not answering questions and making no sense whatsoever.
Hell, not banned yet all he has to do is take a teacup, pour in water, add ice and tea leaves and he will have a nice hot cuppa according to his physics.
Unbelievable. 'Tis no wonder Chris Huhne is Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
Don Pablo - I don't mind what facilities he uses to make the tea - I'd just like to see the results. I'm guessing he should be done around 9 to 10pm depending on what he has to hand.
nby,
What temperature is the room, and what temperature is the book?
Because you're comparing the radiation from the ice with the radiation from the room or book. If the book or room is warmer than the ice, the tea will cool slower. If the book or room is colder than the ice, it will cool faster. That's because the book, or the part of the room behind the ice are also radiating towards the tea.
We only expect the ice to cool the tea because ice is colder than our usual surroundings, so if you block part of the tea's view of those surroundings with ice you'll reduce the incoming radiation. However, if you were to conduct your experiment in a room whose walls were held at absolute zero, the thermal radiation from the ice would indeed keep the tea warm for longer.
Nullius - room and the book are at ambient. I'm not expecting BBD to live way outside the normal range.
I actually think it would be rather good if lots of us had a go at this - I proposed it to try to help figure out if it is BBD or Phillip who is confused.
I do not believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Phillip - do you have your results already!!?? :-0
I admit it. I am totally confused. I haven't a clue what is going on. I'm off to make a cup of Earl Grey and find a good book (to read).
Phillip - sorry for any confusion - should perhaps have provided the two statements which the experiment focuses on:
***********
1) BBD
Roy Spencer is talking nonsense. A cooler object cannot make a warmer object get even warmer; in the absence of a source of energy, all the cooler object can do is slow down the rate of cooling of the warmer object. If there is a source of energy, the warmer object may get hotter because it is receiving more energy than it is losing; and it is losing energy to the cooler object at a lower rate than it would in the absence of the cooler object, because the cooler object is blocking radiation from the warmer object going out to, say, space. It is the extra energy from the source that warms the warmer object, not energy from the cooler object.
Jan 18, 2012 at 9:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhillip Bratby
***************
2) Philip Bratby
Roy Spencer is talking nonsense. A cooler object cannot make a warmer object get even warmer
Confusion between thermal conduction and radiative transfer appears to be at the root of your rejection of otherwise uncontroversial atmospheric physics.
Jan 19, 2012 at 5:59 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD
************
Looking forwards to seeing BBD's graphs. Off for tea myself now! :-)
Right. But if room and book are at ambient, both will predict exactly the same result and nothing will be sorted out.
BBD quoted a bit of Spencer's blog out of context. Phillip objected that as stated it was wrong. I pointed out that in the rest of Spencer's post he said exactly what Phillip had said, there was no disagreement, it was just the quote being out of context that caused confusion. BBD instead of understanding the issue, said something irrelevant and condescending about conduction and radiative transfer, and then started on about why it doesn't freeze at night. (Depends where you are, of course. It often does freeze at night.) BBD was making no sense, and Phillip said so.
It's easy to see who's confused. But I don't think making BBD watch tea go cold is going to help. Unless perhaps for the amusement value.
Nullius -
"It's easy to see who's confused."
Perhaps to some of us.
"But I don't think making BBD watch tea go cold is going to help."
What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand.
"Unless perhaps for the amusement value."
Must go - kettle's boiled!!
Nice dodge, Philip.
What is it about the atmosphere that stops (global) temperatures falling to below zero at night? How does that work?
No. Let me rephrase that:
What is it about the atmosphere that stops (hemispherical) temperatures falling to below zero at night? How does that work?
Phillip Bratby
I would suggest a Mandarin language primer -- with this lot, the Chinese are sure to take over.
BBD - how did the first runs go?
nby
Humour me. After all, I did ask first:
What is it about the atmosphere that stops (hemispherical) temperatures falling to below zero at night? How does that work?
The same as that which stops the global oceans freezing every night.
Now, got your graphs yet?
Or are you gonna dodge?
(oh and Jan 19, 2012 at 5:59 PM preceeds Jan 19, 2012 at 7:14 PM)
nby
Philip Bratby says:
.But it is of course both. The DLW doesn't just vanish. That's why increasing the atmospheric opacity to IR will heat the surface.
It is vital to remember that the Earth is being heated by the sun at a constant rate.
If we make the atmosphere less transparent to IR, OLR from the surface will heat it. The atmosphere will now radiate more energy back towards the surface (as well as upwards). This is added to the solar DSW flux. So the NET energy at the surface increases and the surface heats.
This is uncontroversial atmospheric physics. Among other things, it explains why hemispherical temperatures do not fall below zero at night.
BBD - don't worry I read what Phillip said. In fact I cut and pasted it up thread just to be clear.
This is the quote you provided from Roy which Phillip was responding to:
"Well, I’m going to go ahead and say it: THE PRESENCE OF COOLER OBJECTS CAN, AND DO [sic], CAUSE WARMER OBJECTS TO GET EVEN HOTTER."
Now this is what you say: "But it is of course both. The DLW doesn't just vanish. That's why increasing the atmospheric opacity to IR will heat the surface."
So let me ask you - did the tea get hotter in the second run? The third run?
nby
Misdirection.
Where is the error in what I have said?
Sorry BBD - by misdirection are you refering to your use of this quote from Roy?:
"Well, I’m going to go ahead and say it: THE PRESENCE OF COOLER OBJECTS CAN, AND DO [sic], CAUSE WARMER OBJECTS TO GET EVEN HOTTER."
Do you think that is true?
Yes, if the cooler object is made increasingly IR-opaque and the warmer object subject to constant heating.
Where are the errors in what I said at Jan 19, 2012 at 9:39 PM?