My name is Joseph E Postma and I am the owner and author of this domain. I have a Masters Degree in Astrophysics which I received in 2007, and my graduate thesis can be found here (or here) and is titled “The observation and analysis of the Cepheid SZ Tauri”.
Since that time I have been working under contract to the Canadian Space Agency through the University of Calgary on an international space telescope collaboration between Canada and India called the Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT), which was subsequently launched in 2015 aboard India’s ASTROSAT spacecraft. My role was in assisting the development of the electronics hardware to ensure that it produced quality scientific data, testing and calibration of the hardware, and then in supporting data pipeline reduction software and data analysis for scientists world-wide.
My scientific publications may be found by searching the NASA Abstract and Data Service (NASA ADS).
I became interested in the climate science debate because I used to believe in anthropogenic global warming and climate change. I naturally enjoy debate and independent learning and so I wanted to understand the science of global warming, so that I could communicate and debate against “deniers” more knowledgeably. However, I experienced one of the greatest shocks and re-evaluations of my world-view when I discovered that the science which underlies global warming and anthropogenic climate change isn’t good science at all, but it is better described merely as the appearance of doing science – it is scientific sophistry!
Ultimately, I have scientifically concluded that global warming is an invented scheme for political control via manufactured politics using manufactured science, blaming everything on carbon dioxide which is actually the greenest and most environmentally-friendly gas there is. My research on climate (pseudo) science has actually uncovered a very humorous irony: the true “deniers” and “flat earthers” in the climate change debate are the people who believe in the greenhouse effect! They’re the people who deny that the climate changes naturally without humans, and that it changes at rates and magnitudes far greater than we are experiencing in modern times. And they base their climate alarmism literally on flat Earth theory. This has all been proven scientifically and all of the science actually proves that modern changes are rather benign and unimportant, but the alarmist and greenie ideologues continue to deny the science, and they have billions of dollars of charity money from oil companies and environmental organizations to continue to publicize their political reinterpretation (i.e. invention) of the actual scientific results.
Climate of Sophistry 
Joe, I like the picture, but you might consider using this tool: http://www.vicman.net/redeye/index.htm .
[Reply: Thanks. I ended up just doing it manually in paint…]
But they are still red…
[Reply: Alright…worked on it a bit more… 🙂 ]
I meant the guy at the bottom of the picture, not the other one… 🙂
How about this: http://www.filedropper.com/jasper-jp-c2new2 ?
[Oh that’s much better…lol]
Joe, have you tried to get your thoughts aired on any media sites, or other mainstream organizations? If your inherent “flat earth” GHE model criticism is correct then surely some other emminent physicists should be able to support you. Have your papers been peer-reviewed? Good luck with your endeavours.
[Reply: I did try one well-known blog site but the owner told me that it was beneath his principles to publish “contrarian science”…this was from a “skeptic” blog. That is why I am now writing about the religious underpinning of this paradigm, because I can’t make sense of what’s happening otherwise. The problem with the climate paradigm is that it isn’t mathematical enough…you don’t actually see proper heat-flow equations in it anywhere. The flat earth models are said to show the average heat flows but that is ridiculous. The ZEB Plot DOES show characteristics of heat flow but it is almost universally ignored by climate science. I will write one more paper on this detailing the physics of heat flow, and how to do it mathematically, and without all of the ambiguous language of the climate paradigm. Equation 18 on pg. 31 of my last paper is the only thing that is required to explain the heat flow…no more than that equation and no less than that equation, and yet, it has NEVER ever been discussed as far as I can tell by climate science anywhere. I find it very strange that the only actual heat-flow equation we have in mathematics and physics is *never* used to discuss heat-flow in the atmosphere. Instead, you have these flat earth models and the ambiguous language of the GHE. Peer-review means nothing in this environment…and that’s the way they want it. Thanks for the support!]
Was the picture taken at the Yerkes observatory?
The food-court in West Edmonton Mall. 🙂
I have recently had an email discussion with Dr Robert Brown, a physics lecturer at Browns University. He calls himself a sceptic but when I pointed out that the GHG theory violated both 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics went into a long diatribe which I disagreed with. I asked him to explain the desert/rainforest problem which he claimed proved the back radiation because the average temperature of a desert was lower than that of a rainforest. I have now given up all discourse with him. His final claims were that the rainforest latent heat release showed that GHG’s were real. He clearly does not understand the theory he is trying to prove since that is about re-radiated heat not latent heat.
Keep up the good work Joe!
@John Marshall,
Yes, I have talked with Mr. Brown in the past as well, and he is a lost cause. They openly violate the laws of thermodynamics and are proud of it. They just LOVE to mix up latent heat with backradiation and all other manner of things, and does that not just exactly prove that they are either totally logically and scientifically incompetent, or purposeful frauds. Latent heat release and storage has NEVER been the GHE and backradiation…the frauds.
Hi Joe. First off, thank you so much for continuing to expose the fraud of the so-called GHE. I have frequent and on going debates with my father on this issue (he is a retired MIT engineer). He seems to accept, whole heartily, that a colder object can make a warmer object warmer still. Even with all of the empirical evidence I have shown him to the contrary (including some of your writing), he still clings to this idea and the GHE as a whole. Is very frustrating to me at times.
One question for you. You mention in the reply above, “.. Equation 18 on pg. 31 of my last paper ..”, I was wondering if you would be so kind as to share this equation with me (posting it here would be nice), and perhaps include a brief description and proper usage. I continue to try to hone my scientific skills (I am a software engineer of 25+ years) and work hard to gather as many tools as I can to combat GHE and climate stupidity through the framework of physics (my own continuing education). I have already learned much from you and Scientific Principia International (for which I am a member) about radiation physics and thermodynamics. I am forever indebted to you are your colleges. Truth and knowledge are truly priceless!
Thank you in advance!
Hi Squid,
The paper which is being referred to is this at this link: https://climateofsophistry.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/a-discussion-on-the-absence-of-a-measureable-greenhouse-effect.pdf
There are entire textbooks on the actual mathematics of heat flow, some of which I have and are from the year ~2000, and nowhere inside these textbooks on heat flow is discussion of the GHE.
Also, Squid, ask your Dad to thus design a power generation system which gets more out than you put in, passively.
Hi Joe, thank you very much! I appreciate your valuable information. As for my father, I am simply amazed that a bright engineer, from MIT, who worked over 35 years for Battelle Research Laboratories, can still cling to this idea of the GHE. I am not nearly as well schooled or experienced as he, and yet I can relatively easily understand the basic concepts of thermodynamics and radiation physics and how the GHE violates fundamental physical laws. BTW, although he won’t admit it, he is getting his ass kicked in this debate with me. hehehe… thanks to great folks such as yourself! He downfall is that he raised a good researcher 😉
The greenhouse effect (GHE) disciples and defenders, including many so-called skeptics, often shout down anyone who questions the theory. (Did not Robert Wood debunk Arrhenius’ theory in the early 1900s? Only more recently has the theory been resurrected.)
Why won’t skeptics blogs such as Anthony Watts’ WUWT permit an open and free-wheeling discussion of the GHE theory? Many of us would like to see the theory scrutinized more thoroughly so that we can evaluate its validity. (Note: I’ve questioned its validity for quite some time.)
Thank you for opening my eyes to the many deficiencies in the GHE theory, which is precisely what it remains: a “theory.”
Kirk Myers
Altamonte Springs, FL
Hi Kirk,
That is the mystery: Why, in this vaunted world of skepticism of all thing climate related, is the GHE so vehemently shielded from scrutiny or actual experimentation?
Kirk, I share your feelings. Should it not be required of the AGW alarmists and those concerned, to prove the very basics of this conversation before it is brought forward? Their feet should be held to the fire, and proof of the GHE through empirical analysis and experimentation should be prerequisite to any further conversation of AGW. After all, If you can’t make it to first base, you can’t score a run.
Dear Joseph,
During a light research session not so many months ago (to state briefly, I work in variety of discourses related to Financial Software Development & Implementation of Microfinance in Developing Nations: compression algorithms, modal logic application in ledger presentation & maintenance, application of Bakhtinian Chronotopic models in microfinance, and most recently & halfheartedly unrelated to my profession Potentiality & Essence-Energies Debates in Eastern Orthodox Christianity circa the 12th Century) I came to the works of Hockney et al. This rabbit hole lead me finally to this post I’m making now. As a grad student in linguistics I became very adept at recognizing and distinguishing grammatical patterns in specific (yet anonymous) bodies of text. I’d be interested in engaging you about Mr. Hockney’s work. If you’d be interested, or wouldn’t mind humoring an old country boy from Nashville, Tennessee, shoot me an email to the address provided. Thank you for your time. Grammar structures. Like some branches of mathematics they find it hard to escape the eloquence of measurable truths.
Email sent. Not sure what the angle is on grammatical structures but interested to know.
Joe,
Did you get my eMail last Monday 12th August? I’ve been having a bit of a problem with my server these last few days.
John
Dear Joe,
I am very flattered that your article, The fraud of AGHE, Part 17, was sparked by my comment. As you certainly know, it is often a lonely and hostile journey when one stands up against the “consensus”. And disagreeing with the zealots who worship AGW is a sure-fire way of igniting hatred and scorn.
I started as a true believer in AGW. I was a supervisor of energy efficiency for a large utility and I breezed through the early power point presentations by the NRDC which, of course, made me an expert on the evil’s of modern society. I still remember flying with a friend on a business trip and watching an in-flight documentary of Greenland’s ice sheets melting and Arctic ice crumbling into the sea, forever gone. OMG, we are doomed!
But there were still a few voices of dissension so I thought I would listen to what these poor, uninformed, oil company shills had to say. In particular, I read what Richard Lindzen had to say ( I briefly corresponded with him via email) and I started to wonder why anyone who disagreed with AGW was labeled a pseudo-scientist. Soon I became a “I’m not really certain but it seems safer to reduce the use of fossil fuels” type.
But one day I did the numbers on my own; How much CO2 was in the atmosphere? What percentage was naturally occurring? How much was manmade? How much could be reduced? What was that in a percentage of the atmosphere? Anyway, I came up with .0004 ( 4/ ten-thousandth of 1%) as the amount of potential atmospheric change possible if mankind basically destroyed the economy of the world with a draconian carbon emissions policy. (I believe this small fraction is essentially unmeasurable due to seasonal variations in CO2 density.)
I then started to correspond with others, including an AGW scientist who was part of the all knowing IPCC. When I asked him his thoughts on my numbers he curtly replied: “Just read what the IPCC says.” At that moment I knew AGW was, at the very least, a gross exaggeration of cause and effect and was hopelessly hemmed into the fabric of political and environmental dogma. I was officially a skeptic.
It did not take long to realize that I was not going to convert any warmist with facts. After all, I did not take into the account the “amplification” of CO2, and more importantly, the dying polar bears! And, as we all know, those wonderful pictures on 350.org!!
I’ll close with this; If you really want to see how facts can produce hatred and scorn amongst the learned zombies, try reading “The Dark Side of Charles Darwin” and discussing his self-professed scientific views with a so-called progressive!
Best regards,
Charles O’Connor
Hi Charles,
Yes indeed, many of us share that same type of story. I too used to believe until the day I decided to learn the science in more detail so that I could argue against the deniers. Well within a few hours it was clear that I was looking at a fraud, pseudoscience, and the mere appearance of doing science rather than actual science. It was quite the shock, and took a few weeks to fully integrate. It shows just how easy it is to lie and delude people vs. how much people are actually capable of logical rational thinking. Climate alarm is the act of PRETENDING science, of APPEARING to be science, while actually being completely pseudo-scientific and even outright insane.
I’ll take a look at that book reference, thanks!
Charles O’Connor says: “In particular, I read what Richard Lindzen had to say ( I briefly corresponded with him via email) and I started to wonder why anyone who disagreed with AGW was labeled a pseudo-scientist.”
========================================
Lindzen disagrees with AGW? Did he say there was no “greenhouse effect” or no “global warming”?
His comments to me (as I recall) were confined to the uselessness of the carbon schemes that were being pushed at that time.
Charles O’Connor says: “His comments to me (as I recall) were confined to the uselessness of the carbon schemes that were being pushed at that time.”
====================================================
So, does he agree with AGW, which is “greenhouse effect of CO2” + “global warming” (A+GW) or not?
Joe:
I think you need to broaden your horizons. You are way too smart to be spending this much time with retarded AGW theory. Stupidity isn’t limited to climatology. Take a look at Meteorology/Storm theory. Did you know that the most fundamental assumption of Storm theory has never been tested. Sound familiar?
Check this out:
http://www.solvingtornadoes.org/humid-air-heavier
Joe,
In case you’re missing it, there’s a delicious luke-warmer spat under way here http://t.co/lDYOm2xU0m
Willis Escenbach v Dr Roy Spencer. Willis manages to cram a 2 minute whinge into 15 minutes. The odd thing is, Willis appears to single out thunderstorm activity as a surface cooling mechanism, yet remains oddly unaware that any evaporation/ascent/condensation in the water cycle is a cooling mechanism. He is, of course, still wedded to the myth that ‘downwelling radiation’ from a cooler atmosphere can somehow cause a warmer surface to get even warmer.
Changing stories, I was censored by Watts in this thread the other night http://t.co/lDYOm2xU0m
I was strongly applauding comments by ‘Anomalatys’, who was like a cat toying with the world’s stupidest mouse. Any relation?
Best
AS
Yes I saw that spat…so silly. I did also happen to see your comment about cats and mice the other day, coincidentally of course 😉 It was very interesting…the responses in that thread.
And in regards to thunderstorms…what supplies the raw power to create those thunderheads in the first place Willis!!?? 240 W/m^2 can’t do that!
On a lighter side, since you’re an astrophysicist, I thought you might like to read my short, satirical theory of how life, the universe, and everything came to be. It’s called “The God Snot Theory of Life” and this is the URL to my blog Eklektik and the specific article. It’s a short read. Enjoy.
http://logicversusemotion.blogspot.com/2008/10/god-snot-theory-of-life.html
JP:
And in regards to thunderstorms…what supplies the raw power to create those thunderheads in the first place Willis!!?? 240 W/m^2 can’t do that!
CD:
Willis is one of the many that can’t (and usually won’t) address this question/issue.
How about you, Joe, are you amongst the many or the few?
Not sure I follow the question, Jim. In regards to what is referenced…real time solar flux at a much higher intensity than 240 W/m^2 is what is required to create thunderheads. This fact is enough to demonstrate that the IPCC and GHE energy budget diagrams are wrong.
JP:’
” . . . real time solar flux at a much higher intensity than 240 W/m^2 is what is required to create thunderheads. ”
I think we both agree. 240 W/m^2 is absurdly small to explain the energy (and suddeness) of thunderstorms. What I’m wondering is if you were asked the same question that you asked Willis what answer could you give? And, I’m not stating this to put you on the spot. I’m mostly looking for an astrophysicists perspective.
As an astrophysicist is it not appropriate to be explicit and honest about aspects of the greater theory that don’t makes sense as it is with those that do? Do we have any evidence that this tradition is mirrored by Meteorologists?
Does this tell us something about Meteorology IYO?
Well that was my answer – real-time solar flux which has a much higher intensity and physical power than 240 W/m^2, which could never do it. I am not familiar enough with meteorology to make a comment on it.
LOL. If you know climatology you know Meteorology. There is zero difference in terms of their understanding and training regarding intellectual methodology. From the perspective of higher education, a climatologist is just somebody that upon graduation saw that the future was brighter as a climatologists than a Meteorologist. Both are indoctrinated with the belief that the rules of hard science are to be avoided–are taboo. And they both employ the same political tactics to evade rather than confront conceptual conundrums–the hallmark of pseudo-science.
In a sense Meteorologists have an excuse that climatologists don’t have in that they do serve a useful purpose and there is genuine value to society for society to pay attention to (and believe) their weather forecasts. But if one attempts to get them to reconcile their thinking with a rigorously reducible description of reality (ie. physics), they get real snotty real fast and after that it’s just the typical political tactics that we see from climatologists. There is no difference. It’s just that meteorologists have an image they can hide behind that climatologists don’t have.
If you run cover for Meteorologists you are running cover for climatologists in that, on an intellectual level, they are one and the same paradigm.
My advice: Don’t run cover for anybody.
Just for fun ……
Retouched picture of you at Edmonton Mall
with some denoise & lighting & saturation FX.
http://www.filedropper.com/jasper-jp-c2new2rt3
lol…okay. Thanks! Nice site btw.
It was very interesting article on the blog Climate of Sophistry (Perendev style Magnetic Motor “Free Energy Generator”). I could not send questions from the blog (error: can not send messages). If it is good to send questions from the address?
I would ask if it’s OK that you send vizimag filler (*. Fl2, *. Vmg, *. Tle and scripts *. Txt), and files from CAD style program from your perendev simulation.
I have two questions:
1. Can vizimag imporetrar files and what format.
2nd How could you draw such a large image, in vizimag. I download vizimag 3.18 and at only half the side of the active window can be drawn for the second half were icons for various command line.
Sorry for my english!
Thanks so much!
Sincerely
/ / Amy-maya
Hi Amy,
Yes I can send you the Vizimag files…please check your email.
I am not sure what the format of the Vizimag files are, but they should be compatible with your version. I think there is a save-feature in Vizimag to save the diagram as a bitmap, and this is what I used to collate into a moving gif with other software.
Best regards!
Joe, it appears that Willis Eschenbach may have actually made a contribution to understanding Climate.
I know you hold him and most WUWT posters in disregard, but it is worth just casting your eye over it.
Hey Joseph,
I’m someone who has wanted to take the scientific method approach to understanding climate change, much like you, so I decided I would start from a point of neutrality and work from there based on evidence. I’ve thus far leaned towards the pro-anthropogenic theory but your analysis is interesting and thought provoking and will inspire me to research into that viewpoint more.
I do have a few questions I’d like your take on. I’m not “debating” you to prove a point but sparking a respectful dialectical discussion that I’d like your clarification on.
First: Let’s start with an obvious premise: of course as a complex rock in space with a delicate ecosystem that will naturally fluctuate over time, there will always be major climate changes quite regularly as a natural process. This fact is a arguing point for the anti-anthropogenic view. However my initial reaction to this rationale is that while these changes have indeed happened since the emergence of homo-sapiens and indeed even since civilization, wouldn’t the enormously exponential trends of consumption, emissions and waste from the industrial paradigm have an “outlier” effect on whatever level of equilibrium there already was? If there would have been “X” level of change without industrial society, wouldn’t this massive explosion of consumption and emissions create a sort of “X+Y” effect, X being default patterns and Y being anthropogenic exacerbation? Mass industrialization has had such an effect on these ecosystems that scientists have dubbed this the Anthropocene era, while this of course relates to the balance within ecosystems of the biosphere rather than geosphere, can we really take a reductionist approach and isolate the two? Hence, while change of similar sort that’s happened might well have happened without us, don’t you think all this simply exacerbates it?
Also, even IF human made climate change is total BS, is the exhaustion of resources and disequilibrium of the ecosystem a worry to you?
Furthermore, would you agree that the evolution of consciousness as a species imply a greater capacity to understand and control their environment? And so wouldn’t we, as conscious extensions of Gaia, express the quintessence of this reality if we could increase our technilogical capacity to manipulate the planet’s weather processes? If so, what would be the criteria for what we would do with that technology? How should we manipulate Gaia, aka, ourselves?
Hi Phoenix,
Lovely name, first of all.
For your first question, the answer is that the energy release involved in the sum of all human processes is quite negligible compared to the energy inside the so-called “delicate” ecosystem – the ecosystem is actually quite robust and has withstood energy events far, far, many orders of magnitude in excess of what human activity amounts to. The major factor is currently 1) an increase in carbon dioxide, however, this makes the ecosystem more robust, not less, because CO2 is plant food. As you may know, I do not think CO2 causes warming as there is no valid underlying theory for why it should cause heating, but even if it did cause heating, a higher temperature ecosystem promotes robustness of that system too. Ice ages kill life and make life difficult for most creatures, and we’re still in a million-years long cycle of ice ages; temperatures are still characteristically lower than the norm in geologic history – same with CO2 levels, they were very, quite dangerously low even, before they started rising again. Another factor is albedo changes on the surface due to changing the reflectivity/absorptivity of large land areas where our cities are, but this causes the urban heat-island effect which just keep cities slightly warmer than the country-side, other than that isn’t a big deal really.
The ecosystem is not in equilibrium nor meant to be, or ever has been: it has continuously evolved and changed itself in qualitatively, not just quantitatively, drastic measures, as it has self-developed. Mind is a natural eventual result and when conscious mind evolves, it will inevitably take over, and I do believe it should. Conscious mind is much more important and valuable than no-mind or animal unconscious mind.
Yes the evidence to me shows that modern climate change would have happened without us, as much as it is benign and not-unprecedented in any case, despite the alarming rhetoric. There is simply no evidence of modern changes being alarming, despite the alarm and fear in the media. Also though, it is not an a-priori that human-induced change is some evil. We are supposed to change the environment. We survive by changing the environment. We can make the environment better and one example of making it better is by seeding it with more CO2, which is basic atmospheric fertilizer.
Exhaustion of resources is a good, natural thing. We don’t use wood any more, do we? Although keep in mind that nothing actually leaves the planet – we can recycle everything we use, except for the true consumables like wood and oil, etc. Metals etc. don’t actually get exhausted as long we we reuse them, which we do. But yes in any case, if we kept using wood we would have run out of that resource. We evolved. Our mind evolved through science and engineering and mathematics. We now use oil, and eventually that won’t be good enough anymore because, like trees, we won’t be able to extract it fast enough to produce the energy we require. We could use trees, but in fact we couldn’t burn them fast enough to produce the energy we need. Same will be true for oil. So we develop nuclear fission, and will be doing fusion soon too. The metric of evolution is in found the concept of the energy flux density of power production and utilization. This is what gauges evolution, both for animal bodies but also in the human mind reflected in our evolving development of energy resources. Cow dung, to wood, to coal, to oil, to fission, to fusion, to antimatter or wherever – the progression is from low energy density to high. Life has done the same (worms to reptiles to mammals to large brains, etc – more and more dense energy utilization).
So the only thing to worry about is regressive developmental policies which reduce or reverse our evolution in utilization of higher energy flux density technology and processes – such as green energy. These reverse human evolution because they reduce the flux density at which we utilize power, all the way back to the simple, and comparatively extremely feeble (in terms of density), energy processes of the natural environment. We produce and utilize, now, way higher energy densities than wind and solar can, and we depend on that density to sustain our population, our food sources, our standard of living, etc. If we reverse the quality of that energy utilization by going back to something we essentially have no control over, the wind and sun, it equates to loss of life, via loss of food production, loss of standard of living and sanitation, etc.
Yes indeed we should understand and then control our environment. We would manipulate the environment to make it more conducive for life. For example, irrigate the deserts with various systems, such as NAWAPA, and make the Earth more green – actually green, with actual life, not black with solar panels or white with windmills. The criteria would be as discussed above: what changes will lead to increases in the energy flux density flowing through the biosphere? So for example, deserts have extremely low biospheric (alive, life) energy density flowing through or within them; if you irrigate the desert where it makes sense to do so, such as with the NAWAPA proposal for the Southwestern US, then this will increase the biospheric energy density flowing through those lands because the presence of water means much more life will then come and live in those areas – plant and animal life as well as human life.
Though, we should probably calm down a bit and stop wasting so much energy on idiotic shit, like TV and Facebook, etc etc…that sort of reduction I am very much for. More life, less electronic distraction of life. Unless the electronic is supposed to become our conscious life and replace what we’ve considered life before…who knows.
Hello Joseph:
I am pleased to have found your blog. I am 70 years old, and love the study of mathematics and physics. Although not a scientist, I try to be a rational, critical thinker. I am finding your blog and many of the posts to be illuminating and rewarding in terms of my intellectual process. I do not watch TV, read silly newspapers, or listen to politicians…I research and read numerous articles and follow some blogs.
The reason for this post is to give my input into the GHE issue. I have concluded that followers of the GHE or AGW camp have no authenticity of clear reason. The GHE meme is nonsense.
One of the scientist that causes me to hyperventilate is Svalsgaard. His insistence that the sun has minimal impact on the earth’s climate boggles my mind. He uses the TSI data and his own model to support his conclusions. I think he just doesn’t get out of the office much, hence, unable to witness what the sun can do.
My unscientifically supported notion is that the sun heats the oceans over long periods of time, not creating any immediate response from the ocean, just a long term absortion of the sun’s energy–with the subsequent latent heat content of the oceans to remain rather stable. Of course there are periodic phenomena such as the ENSO, PDO, etc., but, the sun acts like my water heater…it just keeps the water warm. Now, there is immediate energy tranfers from the sun…sunburns, etc. But, one of the significant heat transfers of an immediate nature ( a few months) would be what happens in the Sahara. There are significant thermals produced over this region, that translate over the continent to the Atlantic. When conditions are ripe, we see the seeds of the hurricane season begin. This immediate heat effect of the sun moves over the Atlantic, and sometimes, enters into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, we know there are huge latent heat eddys in the Gulf—of course caused by the sun, not any GHE–then, we can witness huge climate events in a rather short period of time. All of this caused by the “sun.” Also, as happened in 2004-2005, there were 4 large storms. These storms caused climate change on a huge scale. How can a scientist such as Svalsgaard conclude the sun has minimal effect on climate?
The oceans have stored energy from the sun for millinia, it doesn’t matter that the total IR shows limit movement…it is like my water heater. It is the combination of various non-linear force fields that cause the climates variations—not any supposed greenhouse or CO2. I am currently studying a book by Pedlosky—Geophysical Fluid Dynamics–and hope to be able to understand the climate phenomena in more depth.
Again, I thank you for your work and insights….very happy to be here. CWells
Hi C Wells,
Yes indeed, their whole premise is based on the Sun not being able to melt ice, forget about it creating cumulonimbus clouds and the water cycle and weather, etc. That is seriously how dumb all of this is. Some suggested posts:
I am not a physicist, but I have some thoughts on the notion of global warming and climate change.First, any reasonable theory must also be able to explain the medieval warming period and the mini ice age of the past 2000 years. Also, the heavier a gas is, the closer it remains on the surface of the planet. Oxygen occurs naturally as O2 and has an atomic weight of 32, and nitrogen occurs naturally as N2 and has an atomic weight of 28. Carbon dioxide is CO2 and has an atomic weight of 44. Thus, carbon dioxide is a surface gas. However, methane is CH4 and has an atomic weight of 16. This gas naturally rises into the upper regions of the atmosphere, because it is lighter than air (ie.,oxygen, nitrogen, and miscellaneous gases)
Furthermore, plants inhale carbon dioxide and release oxygen. To complain about carbon dioxide seems to me to be a complaint about the volume of plants on the planet. What is wrong with living on a planet with lots of plants? Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that there is a disconnect in the climate change theories as proposed by Al Gore and company. As for methane, any climate change theory has to take into account the methane coming from the ocean floor and the methane coming from industrial production of crude oil.
Until I can see a viable theory that can explain these issues, the jury is still out for me. What do you think?
Carbon dioxide is plant food. And we’ll never stop the climate from changing. Starting a war on climate change, a war on weather, a war on the air, etc., is the last and final absolute insult to human intelligence.
Well that’s not to say we can’t engineer the climate and weather…we can. Of course it’s the way climate change is presented to the public and the pseudoscience sold to them which is ridiculous.
I have been looking, and was hoping you could point me more towards a beginning point of study on this. I understand that something cannot get hotter than it’s source according to laws already established, but what about the massive amounts of variables still present in the system.
How do we know what the earth radiates out to space in measurable quantity? Is this assumed by observing loss at one point and extrapolating it as even across the rest of the globe due to a vacuum being present around the globe?
[JP: Satellites measure it, and yes they probably do still need to do some interpolation.]
How do we know what energy input to the earth the Sun actually contributes? Would it not change according to the zenith at which each particular micrometer of the earth is exposed to the sun? I mean theoretically wouldn’t one point on the earth (at that point in time), be receiving more energy than every other spot of the earth due to proximity to the sun (in orbital cycle), angle to the sun (in rotation conjunctive with orbit), albedo reflection in that particular spot, evaporative cooling potential in that spot etc..
[JP: Output from the sun is very well studied. Total absorption at the Earth requires knowledge of albedo but this is estimated well. Yes indeed it is all a function of time and position! Climate models have resolution on the order of 10km to 100km, so are essentially worthless because that is far too poor of resolution to be a useful model – sure the model can run, but it produces itself, not reality.]
How do you ever get a uniform number out of something that seems to be stuck with an amazing amount of variables, am I over-complicating it, over-simplifying it?
[JP: The total average uniform number comes out of assuming conservation of energy of input from sun and earth output to space. It therefore blends together and entirely smooths over all of the physics. It is like taking an electromagnetic spectrum record from a spectrograph at high resolution, then binning it all down to a single value. That single value doesn’t tell you much and to think you can say important things about the fine or even coarse structure of the original spectrum is wrong.]
Doesn’t albedo and even moisture content provide an insulation effect in the atmosphere by decreasing the effective amount of energy transfer and instead sending some of the sun’s energy directly back in radiative loss to the vacuum of space?
[JP: Albedo is juust about the absorptivity so no insulating effect there. Emissivity however would provide a sort of “insulation”, or resistance to radiative energy loss. Moisture content is indeed a huge insulating factor, making it both cooler when present and when the sun is up, and warmer when present and at night.]
Wouldn’t then the temperature of the atmostphere and surface be a compounded equilibrium with energy entering from the sun, and energy from the core of the planet, with a function derivative of the two independent sources establishing a median equilibrium?
[JP: Something like this, yep. I do have a graphical PDE model that models this in real time for any given location and boundary conditions etc. Might release it one day.]
I know questions like this have been asked, and asked better, an not so foolishly…but I am genuinely interested, and being as you have probably answered them many times, would you take the moment just to point me to the pages encapsulating your answers?
I thank you for any time you may give me.
@DBZ, I answered in your text as it was easier to put them there rather than copy and paste – there were a lot of questions! Cheers.
Thank you so much for answering, It is so hard to get straight forward answers from people without them injecting so much of their own dogmatic belief structure into it, at least certainly as far as climate goes. I am a computer engineer myself, and study physics on the side as a hobby (ever since I read Bohm’s book when I was in high school), so the equations are not too terribly hard to understand, but the source input is vague to many including myself. The line between actual data (esp non-manipulated) and assumptive proxies is incredibly blurred on all climate sites, which to me is irritating because I can never grasp how the information used in the equations they all throw out is garnered to begin with. Equations are meaningless when variables are fluid and assumptive. I am sorry to wax so long, but just one more question. Would you then be attributing the bulk of all climate changes (warming/cooling periods) within history (eg: MWP, LIA) to be largely (though obviously not solely) a result of sun activity? I would assume the core would generally maintain heat pretty steadily or have an extremely small degenerative effect over time. (The only caveat in my limited mind would be that some extreme natural events can have a tremendous effect on a climate cycle…like a super volcano eruption, or extremely large regional flooding (although it would seemingly necessitate that these things be large enough events to affect the entire globe)).
Now see I do hate internet forums, everyone nitpicks on how you say anything (being as everyone has the omnipresent pseudo-omniscient google at their fingertips). If ever you happen to be around the Virginia area, then I’d love to pick your brain over beers and burgers, and just learn a little. Thank you once again for taking the time to answer my questions, and I do hope you continue with the necessary balance of humility and pride to challenge others, and yourself as it does seem you have been.
@BDZ, yes of course it is mainly from the Sun, but other geological and biological events have caused climate change in the past as well. Noetic/noospheric events can cause climate change now too, but via the radiative atmospheric greenhouse effect is not one of them since that phenomenon does not exist.
DBZ, you seem to believe in “global temperature” since you referred to the so called MWP and LIA as facts. May I ask you why you believe in those things, especially in the context that it comes from the same “scientists” who propagate the physically impossible “greenhouse effect”? Did you check personally how they calculate that “global temperature” thing and find it OK?
I love your blog. The other day I was debating some junk scientists at ScienceofDoom and mathematically disproved their solution to a heat transfer problem. They banned me for it! LOL!
Nice one Mike! They hate when you bring in mathematical proof! lol
Joe,
I’m not too smart. Mama told me “Son you are not the sharpest knife in the drawer but you have a lot of rough edges and you’ll just have to saw your way through it.’. For talking to people like me in your published work perhaps you could use a simple analogy. We grew up in an old house with steam radiators. Our sleeping quarters were on the third floor in the drafty old place, only one small radiator in the room. The heat from that radiator went straight up by convection and swirled about the room slowly but mixed with cooler air so we were always cold. Now according to alarmists, we could have placed an unconnected radiator in the room. This second radiator, analogously no heat source from the steam(sun), would heat from infrared radiation supplied by the first unit. This IR would have hit the far wall instead. Now this second radiator will indeed heat up and even heat by conduction too but I never knew it would make the first radiator get hotter!
If alarmist theory had been around then, I could’ve collected enough old radiators to make the room downright warm, right?
Ummm…yes something like that Shawn. The first powered radiator would get hotter from the second passive radiator being heated, which would have then heated the room some more, etc etc.
Modern day climate modelling owes a great deal to Syukuro Manabe. He is the climate scientists’ hero. His body of work provides at least the cornerstone for all climate models.
In 2015 Manabe gave the Michio Yanai Distinguished Lecture at UCLA. It is recorded at this link:
At the 20:40 minute mark he makes a statement about planetary atmospheres that is incorrect. With a body of work spanning 6 decades it gives some insight how fundamental errors have become so deeply embedded in climate models.
The AGW debate may have never existed if the course material for meteorologists in the 1950s included basic thermodynamics.
Joe, I can only imagine your response to the Exxon document that the LA Times is using (but hiding) to level accusations at Exxon. It’s here: http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/global/files/energy-and-environment/board-presentation-Feb-22-1989.pdf
We await your post with anticipation 🙂
HILLARY CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO GAS COMPANY THAT STOPPED GIVING TO CLINTON FOUNDATION
It is ALL political BS. That’s what.
Hi Joe,
While I prefer to have a private conversation via email, I cannot find an email address for you. You will have mine if you read this. So you can contact me if you wish.
First, I grew up on a farm so I am a country boy. Second, I am an experimentalist like you as you describe observing a star more than others have and thereby see something which had not been seen before.
I have come up with a novel definition of science. Novel because I have never read it or heard anyone proposing it. Science is a method of learning solely based upon observation.
I had seen your name mentioned before but had never visited your blogsite until today. And this because I was trying to see who Hans Jelbring was.
While both of us came from farm backgrounds, we are quite different in that I earned my Ph.D degree in physical chemistry in 1969 and you earned your master degree in 2007 in astrophysics. The degree difference is not important, the area of science is not important, the difference in our ages is not important. What is important is that I know that it was never suggested in my formal science education that I should read Crew and de Salvio’s English translation of Galileo’s Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences or Motte’s English translation of Newton’s The Principia. And while I do not actually know if you have read at least parts of these two classics which are often referred to, I suspect you, like me, were never given an assignment to actually read even one portion of either book.
This even though it is generally known that Newton stated: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Based on what I now read it seems that many who participate (comment) on blogsites consider themselves to be giants and know nothing of what these founders and giants of modern science actually wrote. For when I was nearing the end of my teaching career (about 20 years ago) at a small community college, I finally began reading what Galileo and Newton wrote in these classics.
And I only learned of the NOAA Surfrad project a little more than a year ago. This project was begun about 20 years ago and it has generated a vast amount of actual radiation measurements being made at the same time that temperature of atmosphere surface layer is also measured. These measurements are now being observed and recorded every minute while at the beginning it seems they were made and recorded only every three (3) minutes. I have yet to discover anyone, who participates on blogsites related to the issue of the greenhouse effect, who actually report they have seriously studied these observations as they debate and debate about some fundamentals which actually are being observed.
I am looking forward to your reply as I do not consider I am accomplishing anything by talking to myself.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Joe,
Have a little time this morning so I will share what Newton wrote at the beginning of his preface to The Principia. For the issue he addresses isn’t country boy vs. city boy, it is rational vs. practical.
He wrote (as translated by Motte): “The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration; and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as the artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical, what is less so, is called mechanical. But the error is not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic; and if any would work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that a learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems, but not geometrical problems. The solution of these problems is required from mechanics; and by geometry the use of them, when so solved, is shown; and it is the glory of geometry that from a few principles, brought from without, it is able to produce so many things. Therefore geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and is nothing but that part of universal mechanics which accurately proposes and demonstrates the art of measuring.” Ect.
I like to say: Science cannot be made rational as mathematics can; that is why scientist must be mechanics who can only imperfectly observe. Rutherford observed that a solid condensed collection of gold atoms was mainly empty space, yet atoms have volume. Is this logical in any way?
I await your reply and hopefully you have what I initially wrote as I did not compose it on my word processor so I have no idea what I actually did write. While I believe we are of like mind, I have been disappointed to learn I have been wrong about such a uninformed conclusion. For I see you have skills and knowledge that I do not have and I believe I have some knowledge, which might be useful to you, that you might not have.
Have a good day, Jerry
I fully appreciate when you say:
“Science cannot be made rational as mathematics can; that is why scientist must be mechanics who can only imperfectly observe. Rutherford observed that a solid condensed collection of gold atoms was mainly empty space, yet atoms have volume. Is this logical in any way?”
Here is some reading that solves these problems:
Try reading them in order. The series has 32 books in total if you will care to tackle them all.
Please enjoy the reading.
The latest Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks contain a pdf from John P. Holdren, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.
Holdren says to Podesta:
“I’m attaching here a PowerPoint from one of the relatively recent ( and one of the most comprehensive) public speeches I’ve given on climate change in the course of this Administration. It contains a lot of the usual stuff, but also some formulations you may find interesting.”
Here is the email: https://wikileaks.com/podesta-emails/emailid/12098
Here is the attachment: https://wikileaks.com/podesta-emails//fileid/12098/3161
I’m sharing it with you because I hope you debunk this point by point.
Hi, I really like your blogs and easy to follow style of writing. The math is logical and leads me to agree with your way of thinking. Well done. In relation to temperature and climate, I also like the “think local” effects that pressure has. To this end, take a look at what Erl Happ has to say… Https:\wordpress348.com… no models, just obsrvations – which means its very important Not to have manipulated datasets IMO. Regards macha
It is interesting how nearly every “denier” I’ve come across started as a believer and became a denier after going away to try and learn the science behind the headlines so they could better repudiate deniers!! It’s certainly how I became one. Also the moment of revalation tends to be the shared experience of being blocked somewhere for being “a big oil shill” for simply asking questions to try and clarify something that wasnt making any logical sense!
Yep. Simply cannot stand up to the simplest of honest rational questioning.
Dear Mr. Postma,
I don’t know if you lurk on Watts Up With That Blog. If not here is a recent Article and Thread you might choose to read and comment upon on you own blog: “Radiative Heat Transfer by CO2 or “what’s the quality of your radiation?”https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/19/radiative-heat-transfer-by-co2-or-whats-the-quality-of-your-radiation/
If you have been banned here is a PDF of the article and comments:
/var/folders/nk/98zqyn1j0jb1jpz0g7y21rv80000gn/T/com.apple.mail/com.apple.mail.drag-T0x61000007f100.tmp.odDKZd/Radiative Heat Transfer by CO2 or “what’s the quality of your radiation?” | Watts Up With That?.pdf [Hope this works]
Dan Kurt
p.s. Your site really needs an e-mail link.
What do you mean by email link? As in a way to email me? I guess that might be useful for people…I will see if there are any widgets for that.
Well as Willis Eschenbach correctly points out, it’s not about CO2 but it is about the mechanism posited for radiative transfer and heating. Atmospheric CO2 absorbing LWIR from the warmer ground surface and being warmed from that is fine. But that process equating to the ground surface also having to warm up is not fine.
The latter mechanism is captured by the “steel greenhouse” and is called the radiative greenhouse effect of climate alarm, and the last 3 posts examine that and demonstrate that it is impossible and it refutes itself with its own math.
I assume that providing an email address for the public to contact you would open up a Pandora’s box of Luke warmist hate mail.
That said, should I ever get into a position of political influence, I would love to be able to invite you to Australia to speak publicly and a way to contact you would be helpful to organise it.
Still that is a potential situation in the future for me at this moment, whereas your enemies are probably more immediate and more organised.
He is trying to tell you there is now a groundswell of disbelief in the thermo Joe.
It has been noticeable over the last few months on my normal travels around the ”scene” that your argument is becoming mainstream skepticism.
Its the timing that is right, they [ the mainstream skeptics ] have always known you were right.
Unfortunately it was not the kind of right they could sell, simple as that Joe, all they could do was cast doubt on the models and exaggerated forcing, it was to far ”out there] no greenhouse effect at all.
Funny seeing fat Anthony’s conversion, i am halfway through the comments on that post, but theres around 600.
Spencers the same, he has re-written edited alot of his gruff, to the no greenhouse side of debate.
Their all wankers.
ps.
Why do you think E- lie and his plates ”popped’ up.
re: “What do you mean by email link?” JP
A private link to contact you.
Also, did you read Willis Eschenbach’s recent post on WUWT “Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object?” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/24/can-a-cold-object-warm-a-hot-object/
Dan Kurt
Well, usually someone just posts a comment saying that they want to contact me by email and they use their email on the comment form which I can then email them at.
Yes I did see that post. Willis now sounds just like the Slayers at the beginning with the explanation of heat flow and that not all energy is heat, and heat only flows from hot to cold, etc. But then the rest makes absolutely no sense where he posts the heat flow equation as if it supports the greenhouse effect, when it doesn’t, and he doesn’t quantify the greenhouse effect he’s still trying to support although he pretends he does by posting that heat flow equation which, again, has nothing to do with his later argument. This is the sophistry of just linking some math without actually explaining how it supports you at all, and it doesn’t actually support you at all, but you pretend that posting something complicated looking makes you look smart and to know what you’re talking about. Look at how stupid his argument is. Someone standing in between you and a hot fire is the same as someone standing between you and ice? Those are actually 100% OPPOSITE scenarios. With the OPPOSITE things happening. But, someone standing between you and a fire is the greenhouse effect…WTF! lol
I find my eye starting to twitch like inspector Drafus dealing with inspector Cluseau in the old Pink Panther movies whenever I read one of Willis’s posts on heatflow. I can never make myself read to the end. My wife has to call the men in white coats for me before I’m half way through!
I know right!?
Hi, Just recently found this site and have a comment about what happens in an actual greenhouse:
Commercial greenhouses regularly inject CO2 as a plant fertilizer, up to 1200 ppm. I have looked into whether doing this causes the temperature inside the greenhouse to rise, and the answer from technical staff at commercial, agricultural CO2 generators is, no. Unless the CO2 is generated by a gas burner, in which case, the temperature does go up as a result of the flame. But if the CO2 is supplied by a tank and regulator system, CO2 alone does not raise the temperature inside the greenhouse. This seems like an important fact from the real world relevant to how CO2 works in the atmosphere. If 1200ppm of CO2 in a greenhouse has virtually no effect on temperature, how could a small increase in the atmosphere be the control knob of global warming?
That’s exactly right Mary! Great facts there!
Joe, my comment on ‘……….the final end” is awaiting moderation. That didn’t happen before. I hope I haven’t broken some rule. GREAT blog, BTW.
Hello Joe: I’ve seen you having a private war with Bill Hulet on The Conversation,
“Why we should stop labelling people climate change deniers “
My comments have been censored – like most who take an anti-AGW stance – so it’s useless to attempt when the “moderator” is in this mood.
You may wish to see my site for an easier thermodynamic-like argument to show ALL gases are greenhouse, and as their effect is (approximately) proportional to their amount, carbon dioxide’s effect is immeasurably small … and methane’s even less.
I also show that the effect of carbon dioxide on ocean is far too small. My PhD is in Physical Chemistry.
[Planet Earth Climate Topics on pjcarson205.wordpress.com There’s much more besides.]
Thanks for the link. I will definitely check it out in the morning. Yes…that fellow told me that I should be lined up against a wall and shot! I reported that comment and it was removed.
Do pick up a copy of my recent book! It is linked two posts back.
Well, looks like they’ve closed the comments section on that article now, but not before removing a few more of my comments which were entirely benign and only carried technical explanation of my book’s position.
I love the person saying that we should do whatever the majority says ESPECIALLY when we don’t understand or know anything about what they’re doing or asking of us! lol. Psycho’s.
Climate: Real vs Models
The following 2010 YouTube video of an experiment by a then 9-year old Linda shows that CO2 is heated more by sunshine than is air, by simply comparing the temperatures within two clear plastic bags, one containing air, the other carbon dioxide. The 100% CO2 bag was warmer by 2C. She seems happy to have proven her hypothesis.
However, her crude but real experimental results are far more valuable than all the different answers from many models used by the IPCC. The IPCC and the Paris agreement are screaming that levels of maybe 0.1% will lead to at least a 2°C rise. The video shows that’s far from possible, and that CO2 cannot achieve warming as its level is far too low, as
even 100% CO2 produces only a 2°C rise!!
This video has been around for a few years. One does wonder why researchers have not done this obvious experiment. I suspect they didn’t like the negative result.
[For those with a further interest in the science.]
The reason CO2 raises the temperature, and by only 2°C
is that specific heat of CO2 is about 20% less than air’s so that its temperature is raised by 20% more than air for an amount of heat added.
The final temperatures reached were
CO2 Air
°C 41.9 39.9 Difference = 2°C and
Rise 11.9 9.9
The initial shade temperature was not stated, but there’s exact correspondence of 20% rise if it was the realistic summer 30C. The experiment’s results are verified.
[IR does not enter the discussion.]
Absorption of heat from warm to cool, spectral absorption etc., isn’t even what the climate alarmist greenhouse effect is! They have no damned clue what they’re doing. Misinterpretation and misunderstanding!
@that The Conversation site…Where conversations aren’t allowed and are removed! lol
One has to wonder in whose interests “The Conversation” is serving.
I really appreciate your blog Joseph! I am looking to contact the Pythagorean Illuminati and thought maybe you might know how?
I do not want to contact Morgue, their “herald”.
Is there any chance at all, you know how I can do this?
Thank you for your time and everything you do, to enlighten humanity!!
V~
You should start just with reading the God Series by Mike Hockney. I don’t know how to contact them or who they are anyway.
Thanks Joseph!
I have, along with several other of the books attributed to them.
I will keep looking~
Joseph,
Would you be able to go over this paper: https://gvigurs.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/planetaryatmospheres13.pdf
It was presented to me as proof that your divide by 4 position on solar flux on earth was wrong. From what I can muster out of the paper it seems to me that you agree with most of what is presented in this paper.
Scott – yes, the paper seems to agree with most everything I point out. Entirely agrees.
One thing it doesn’t quite point out, however, is that the divide by 4 for the solar power doesn’t actually characterize the physical effect of real-time sunlight in creating the climate, with the divide by 4 value indicating that the sun cannot create the climate, etc.
The climate is actually never in thermal equilibrium, and the average of the energy systems doesn’t actually explain how the corresponding physical effects are created in real-time, etc. That is…the average of the sun (divide by 4 value) does not account for what the sun actually does, the action it actually creates, etc. The error of course is to use the average value as if it is physically meaningful, then finding that it is not capable of creating the climate we invent a “greenhouse effect” to create the climate instead, etc.
Really appreciate your thinking on this topic. Averages in general seem to be meaningless for most inferences in complex systems. I’d like to get an email conversation going about this topic if you are ok with that. I’ve been looking for someone to talk to since the math gets too complicated too quickly and I can’t find experiments to go one way or the other on the basic science.
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