Light bulb Experiments
Slaying Watts with Watts
(Original article here. Additional comments made by me below, at end of article text.)
Anthony Watts has performed an experiment in follow-up to Roy Spencer’s challenge to the Slayers/Principia Scientific International to “put up or shut up”, to which we replied that we had already put up, and in which we proved that Dr. Spencer’s understanding of the offered challenge was somewhat lacking. Curt Wilson has also done a follow-up experiment for WUWT.
Unfortunately, our successful answer to the original challenge was ignored and a new line of questioning was instead pursued by Watts et al. Sometimes this is called changing reference frames. The distraction comes from a diagram we used to present a general physical principle of thermodynamics, such that radiant emission from a source cannot act as an additional source, for the source. This means that the source cannot become brighter, which in radiative emission terms of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law means hotter, from its own radiation. If such a thing could happen, then an object’s own radiation could act as a source or cause of temperature increase for the object, which is of course plainly in violation of thermodynamics.
The diagram which has presented the hapless convenience for Watts et al. to reframe the rebuttal to their challenge, is reproduced below:
- Figure 1: A light bulb facing a mirror does not heat up or shine brighter from its own radiation coming back. (Image courtesy of Alan Siddons.)
This diagram (Figure 1) was included in the context of a previous diagram, as shown here:
Figure 2: Do two light-bulbs near each other make each other shine brighter? (Image courtesy of Alan Siddons.)
The point of the discussion surrounding these diagrams was in terms of an elucidation of the underlying physical principles which govern the fundamental thermodynamic behaviour. Unfortunately, the underlying physical principles of thermodynamics, such that a source of light cannot make itself shine brighter (i.e. become hotter) with its own light, or that two equal sources of light cannot make each other brighter (hotter at the source), can be ignored at the expense of mischaracterizing an experiment to test them. It would have been just as well if Watts et al. would have chosen to create an experiment based on Figure 2, because the brightness results would have been much more obvious. However, Figure 1 and Figure 2 do allow for significant misperception if the underlying principles are not understood, or ignored. This is something we didn’t consider would occur, and it is an important lesson for science communicators.
Regarding the underlying theoretical principles of what such an experiments requires to be understood and in regards to the greenhouse effect, Mr. Watts replied at his site: “And yet, in the diagram proposed in the essay by Postma, such fine details were not mentioned nor required. Demanding them now post facto doesn’t fly.”
Unfortunately, expecting the “fine details” to be appreciated is something we expected a-priori. That was our mistake. Unfortunately, it is the onus of the experimentalist to be competent and responsible for their complete understanding of what it is they’ll be intending to measure, and to quantify it. If all of the details aren’t sorted out, such as what the underlying physical principles are, as opposed to a simple literal interpretation of words without context and misidentifying original causes, then any such discussion by the experimentalist of the empirical results cannot be expected to be meaningful. It has always been a tricky business.
The underlying physical principles we had expected to be understood can be expressed in terms of the general equivalence of concepts between three major areas of physics: force mechanics, electrical mechanics, and thermal mechanics. It is sometimes helpful for a student to consider that a problem in one domain can be qualitatively solved equivalently in another domain, for example: voltage is like temperature is like force; current is like heat flow is like acceleration; and electrical resistance is like thermal mass is like material mass.
| Differential in: | Causes action: | Modulated by: |
| Force | Acceleration (mechanical energy transfer) | Mass |
| Voltage | Current (electrical energy transfer) | Electrical Resistance |
| Temperature | Heat (thermal energy transfer) | Thermal Conductivity
Emissivity & Absorptivity |
In terms of an energy analysis, force, voltage, and temperature all represent the potential to induce action if there is a non-zero differential in them. That is, a force differential causes acceleration, modulated by a physical parameter; a voltage differential causes current, modulated by a physical parameter; and a temperature differential causes heat flow, modulated by a physical parameter. In all cases the nature of the action is similar: the acceleration caused by the force does not increase the force; the current caused by the voltage does not increase the voltage; and the heat flow caused by a temperature differential does not increase the temperature. In all cases, if one wishes to modify the action, they must either modify the differential, or modify the relevant physical parameters. We will see ahead the importance of these facts.
In an electrical circuit, dissipation of energy is performed by the resistor. The energy dissipation takes the form of heat in the resistor, and if the physical parameters of the resistor and the circuit are appropriate, the resistor can become hot enough to emit visible light. Typically, light bulb filaments run at 3300K and produce emission close to a blackbody. It is important to comprehend that the source of the thermal emission/heat generation in the resistor is caused by the current running through it, and the current is caused by the voltage applied to the circuit. If the filament emits similar to a blackbody, then its radiant output flux density can be related to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. The radiant emission has as its source, then, the current going through the circuit, which is caused by the voltage applied to the circuit. If you want to increase the temperature of the source of light/heat so that you can produce more light/heat, and the source of those is the filament, then you have to increase the current going through the filament, and this is done by increasing the voltage across the circuit. It cannot be done by giving the filament the light or heat it produces back to itself, as the light is dissipated energy, not source energy for the circuit or filament. The filament’s dissipated energy cannot be used to increase the voltage across the circuit, and hence cannot be used to increase the brightness/temperature of the source.
Both of the WUWT experiments make the mistake of considering that the frosted glass of the bulb is the source of light and heat. PSI acknowledges that such a confusion is possible if you look naively at the diagrams and see what looks like a frosted bulb and simple-mindedly assume that the frosted glass itself is the source of the energy, and assume a bland interpretation of the words describing the scenario.
The frosted glass is a source of light in as much as it scatters the incoming spectrum, and it is a source of heat in as much as its absorbs the incoming spectrum. Obviously, the actual source of light and heat is the filament inside the bulb producing the spectrum at a typical temperature of 3300K, and the source of energy for the filament is the voltage applied to the circuit. The frosted glass is a passive semitransparent screen in front of the actual source. The frosted glass bulb itself, once heated, can be a source of heat for something cooler than it, such as a finger or hand, but it is not the source of energy.
We did not expect that the underlying physical principles would be disregarded, or plainly not understood, nor scientifically quantified. This experiment could be repeated to check for a brightness increase of the frosted glass when another bulb is brought nearby; this might actually occur, but the reason would be that the frosted glass has a high albedo and some additional light would simply be reflected back. Again, this would not actually get down to the underlying physical thermodynamic principle involved nor of what is claimed with the greenhouse effect, because the true source wouldn’t actually increase in temperature. Mr. Watts has insisted that we do not consider such fundamentals of theory and its quantification and instead focus only on the surface appearances of his experiment; doing such a thing obviously presents the opportunity for obfuscation, and we can wonder if this is intended, or simply not comprehended.
It becomes clear that it is the frosted glass of the bulb which presents the confusion regarding what is the actual source of light and heat. The opacity of the glass provides a convenient occlusion of the underlying physics. We may not be able to see inside the frosted glass bulb, but nevertheless inside the frosted glass bulb is a filament at 3300K. Indeed, this experiment would have been more obviously nonsensical if a clear glass bulb was used, because clear glass exposes the underlying source of things. Indeed such details were not discussed by us there, but we would have expected an honest experimental assessment of the true underlying physics of the fundamental concept we described, rather than this more haphazard and amateurish assessment.
To be sure, the source of this light bulb experiment is a convenient bait-and-switch away from the fact that we answered Mr. Watts’ and Roy Spencer’s challenge to us, in which we demonstrated that they did not understand their own challenge, in which we had already answered their challenge, and in which we proved that it is possible to scientifically quantify with theory and with empirical data that the Earth is spherical, that sunshine is hot, and that no greenhouse effect exists. Is it a bait-and-switch we provided the opportunity for? Yes that can be said. However, such a response was only possible in a crass environment.
The results of this experiment go back to the original challenge from Watts & Spencer, and relates directly to the confusion related to the greenhouse effect. In the greenhouse effect, it is the source input which must be added to by its own reaction in the system. Both Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson stated that their experiments showed that the heat produced by the bulb was able to come back and heat the bulb up some more. This is the same thing as saying that the light and heat produced by the circuit was able to come back and add to the voltage applied to the circuit, which is obviously nonsensical, but these are the details Mr. Watts would like to ignore.
The question ultimately goes back to the source, and what is causing the actual light and heat. In the case of the circuit, it has just been discussed – the voltage applied to the circuit, the current through the circuit, and the electrical energy dissipation in the filament. In the case of the models which create the greenhouse effect, it is the globally-diluted sunshine which is modeled at a forcing temperature of -180C, or 240 W/m2. What is required by these models, because they use a value of sunshine which is far colder than its actual value, effectively treating the Sun as if it twice as far away from the Earth as it is, is to have this forcing input become increased to a higher temperature by having the atmosphere, which is heated by that diluted solar input, send back some thermal radiation to have it augment the input heating. This is why Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson interpreted their experiments in the way that they did and stated what they stated about them. Watts: “…I have just proven in the “simplest” mirror experiment…that some energy will be returned [causing more heating]”. Wilson: “We therefore have solid experimental evidence that radiation from a cooler object (the shell) can increase the temperature of a warmer object”.
Typically this is called backradiation heating and has been the traditional mode of explanation and argument for the greenhouse effect, although within the greenhouse effect following itself there is typically little consistency. For example, Watts: “I’ve never made a doubling claim …, nor am I aware that any of the others named have claimed a doubling”. However, this PSI paper (Appendix H) lists as references twenty-five major institutions that adhere to the flux-doubling back-radiation heating argument of the greenhouse effect. It matters little whether one is claiming an exact doubling, a 50% return, or whatever, for it is the underlying concept which is the heart of the engine, such subtle details which are important to understand. But for example, a full doubling of the input is exactly what we see from the University of Washington’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, in Figure 3. It is important to note that the actual input in these greenhouse effect diagrams is a forcing of -180C or 240 W/m2, which is a Sun twice as far away from the Earth as it actually is. What is then done is to have the dissipated response heat from this input come back and add to the input again. (Although little consistency will be found within greenhouse effect advocacy because sometimes it is argued that the backradiation simply slows cooling instead of actually causing heating, among other alternative claims…this lack of consistency indicates a severe problem at the core of the theory, which has been discussed elsewhere.) In the greenhouse effect models such as Figure 3, the input forcing is augmented by its own reaction in the system, causing further action within itself, bumping the forcing temperature up to 303K. This inbred process is called “the greenhouse effect”, and it is required because the model places the Sun twice as far away as it should be. It is a plain violation of reality, and then of thermodynamics. If a real-time physical model is used instead with the actual Sun and spherical Earth, as PSI demonstrated, then perhaps not-too remarkably, the input forcing is naturally 303K. The standard models create a fiction of the Earth and Sun in order to create a greenhouse effect meme to fills the gaps between reality and fiction, whereas a natural model produces the same results without any additions. In the natural model published by PSI, for example, it is the Sun which creates clouds and drives the climate by its real-time action in the system; in the fiction models, the Sun cannot create clouds. The preference between the two should be obvious.
Figure 3: Solar radiation is diluted to an input one-quarter of its actual power density in order to create the greenhouse effect. This effectively makes the Sun twice as far away as it actually is. (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2002Q4/211/notes_greenhouse.html)
For an electrical resistive circuit such as that for an incandescent light bulb, the power being utilized by the circuit is that which is put into it, via the voltage and the current that is then generated. (In practice the inrush current takes a short time to stabilize but relatively quickly a stable resistor temperature and current is reached.) The equation for the power is P = I2R = V2/R, and has units of Joules per second, or Watts. If you can determine the surface area that this Wattage interacts with, you can then connect it directly to the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, F = σT4. If A is the surface area from which the power is being emitted by the filament, then F = σT4 = P/A = I2R/A, and so T = (I2R/σA)1/4 . So, the temperature of the filament, which is the source of the light and heat, is caused by the current in combination with the other physical parameters of the filament, as we discussed previously. In terms of the radiant source itself, if we wish to produce a higher source temperature and hence higher brightness and more heat, then we must increase the current through the circuit. This can be done by increasing the voltage because we can replace the current term with voltage from the previous equation, that is, T = (V2/σAR)1/4 . Directing the radiant output from the filament back on to the filament does not increase the voltage across the circuit, and hence does not cause an increase in brightness of the source. Such a scheme is a basic violation of the set of laws of thermodynamics let alone the basic physics of the process, because we cannot use the dissipated heat energy from a process to do more work (increase the power) in that process. Such heat produced can only go do work (such as raising temperature) on something less energetic than it.
Figure 4: Schematic of the WUWT experiments.
In Mr. Watts’ first experiment, the power rating of the light bulb is listed at 65 Watts. This is partially absorbed by the passive frosted glass bulb. Roughly, his lamp bulb had a diameter of 10cm and is approximately flat, and so, if the power were fully absorbed, this would result in a temperature of about 6200F. At the start of his experiment without the mirror, Mr. Watts recorded a frosted glass temperature of only 2100F, which indicates a glass absorptivity of about 13.1%. After he added the mirror it went to 2280F, which is marginal increase to 14.6% absorption. This result is rather obviously explained in that the mirror simply returned some of the non-absorbed, transmitted light, which passed through the frosted glass the first time, and then some of this would be absorbed on the second encounter with the frosted glass again. This is not heat coming back raising the temperature of the source, this is source energy having another go at absorption in a secondary passive element. There may have also been some convective reduction in the vicinity. There is no source being heated by its own radiation, but a passive screen being heated more efficiently by creating a partial cavity in its environment. Again, the source temperature is given by the power input to the circuit, not by the energy dissipation of the source adding to the source temperature.
In Mr. Wilson’s second experiment, the power usage of the bulb was recorded at 35 Watts. In this case the bulb glass is roughly spherical and a typical bulb of this sort has a radius of about 3cm. At full absorptivity, the glass would have a temperature of 226.60C. Without a cover, the glass had a temperature of 950C, which indicates an absorptivity of about 33.6%. The best case scenario of this experiment was with the bulb covered by the reflective foil shell, with essentially identical results being found whether the shell was by itself or covered on the outside with glass; the temperature of the frosted glass of the bulb was 1770C. With much higher inner reflectivity and a more complete creation of a cavity than the first experiment, the transmitted light from the source is presented many more opportunities for interacting with the glass bulb, with this scenario indicating a total of 75.2% of the power being produced by the source being absorbed by the glass. Again, the source temperature is given by the power input to the circuit, not by the energy dissipation of the source temperature adding back to the source temperature. The energy dissipation from the filament cannot increase the power being applied to the circuit via the voltage. The difference between the glass-only vs. black-anodized box is simply that the black box absorbs more energy and so this will allow a higher temperature inside the box to be achieved than if the radiation is mostly transmitted through the box without much absorption, together with the convective trapping occurring. The black box gets to a temperature of 470C, and if its emissivity is approximately 98%, then if the box were a cube it would have a side-length of about 11cm, which is very close to what is seen. There is nothing unexpected occurring here either. The highest shell temperature is with aluminum foil, with the foil either covering the glass container, or the foil being covered by the glass container; this resulted in about 700C for the glass/foil shell. In this case, the foil is the medium for transferring radiant thermal energy to the outside, and aluminum foil has an emissivity of about 0.04, and so theoretically the foil could have gotten to 4370C. Therefore the foil’s measured response in this scenario is still well within the bounds of the standard application of energy and heat transfer of the traditional physics that Principia Scientific International is an advocate of.
If the Slayers have ever required experimental evidence to help support our position of the traditional laws of physics that the laws of thermodynamics are also obeyed by radiation and sources of radiation, the experimental work by Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson has nicely provided that. Unfortunately, neither Mr. Watts nor Mr. Wilson performed a quantified scientific analysis of their experiments, and instead, a rather crass interpretation of their results was pursued with no scientific analysis of their numbers or experiment at all. It becomes very burdensome for those familiar with theory to have to deconstruct every misinterpreted experiment that is presented to defend an idea which has no basis in reality in the first place, as we have shown. Let us not forget that this experimental debacle has its source in the challenge brought to PSI by Mr. Watts and Dr. Spencer, which we answered and which they promptly ignored, and then changed reference frames with an experiment they didn’t scientifically analyse or quantify or discuss the theory of or understand the principles of. The whole sequence is queer, because the simple fact of the matter is that PSI has already published both model and empirical data which proved that the greenhouse effect models are wrong and that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist. This is of course precisely what Mr. Watts would like to ignore, it seems, which is a curious state of affairs for someone who likens themselves to be an advocate of science, let alone someone who makes the appearance of being a sceptic to anthropogenic global warming. Insisting on a crass interpretation of a simple experiment is hardly skeptical, let alone scientific.
Principia Scientific International would like to offer its own challenge available to all people in regards to the assumptions which underlie climate science. We simply ask for people to vote for what they think constitutes a valid scientific model of the Earth and climate:
In science, the Earth should be modeled as
a) flat, or spherical
b) static, or rotating
Sunshine should be modeled as:
c) cold with the Sun twice as far, or, its real value
d) uniform and even with no day or night, or, uneven with a day & night distribution
Water should:
e) not exist, or, be present
Clouds should be:
f) assumed, or, created by sunshine
Equations and physical parameters should be:
g) independent of time, or, time dependent
As PSI has repeatedly shown (as if it isn’t obvious), the first set of answers correspond to a fiction, and it is this fiction which creates the greenhouse effect. What has always been curious in this debate is how some people claiming to advocate for science do not want to consider what happens if researchers create a model based on the second set of answers, the set of which actually corresponds to physical reality. Is the reason as simple that the realistic model of the Earth is not desired because it does not have the greenhouse effect? Science can be advanced with better physics, better knowledge, and better models…why not do that?
The underlying error is that the models which require the greenhouse effect dilute the power of sunshine to one-quarter of its actual value, and so another fiction needs to be created to make up the difference. It is essentially the same thing as claiming that the voltage across a circuit can be increased by the light and heat the resistor produces. From time to time the claim is made that the input, even though it is modeled at only -180C, is actually capable of heating things up to the spectral temperature of sunlight (~5778K) if greenhouse gases trap the outgoing radiation. This is a falsehood. The only way to get the incoming solar spectrum to produce higher temperature than its local flux density is to either 1) have a surface with low emissivity, or 2) re-condense the sunlight with a mirror or magnifying glass, to undue the photon-density decrease experienced by the wave-front undergoing inverse-square law diminution while travelling from the Sun to the Earth. Greenhouse gases do neither of those things. Once the incoming spectrum is absorbed at the Earth, all spectral information regarding the source is lost, and turned into heat. It is this real-time heat that drives the climate in a spherical rotating Earth with day & night. This heat subsequently has its own, new and unique, spectral signature at a much lower temperature, and just like the light bulb, any subsequent interaction with it cannot augment the source of the action. The source is not a Sun twice as far away at one-quarter the power, the source is the real sun at full power.
Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson desired to conclude that an input could be increased in temperature with its own output, in some way or another, because this is what is required for the fiction of the greenhouse effect. This is and has always been a violation of thermodynamics, and the traditional understanding of physics which PSI is nearly alone in defending. Their results proved the exact opposite thing of their claims and fully support the position of PSI. Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson were not aware of what their results proved, because they did not attempt a quantified scientific analysis.
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Additional comments for my blog:
Incidentally, the light bulb experiment such as this is something which is performed by undergraduate physics majors…at least, it was by me when I was in university getting my B.Sc. Mr. Watts does not have such training, and so the result of the lack of such training has been made apparent here. The equations to describe what was happening are about the simplest you can find, and are learned in first-year undergraduate physics. Mr. Watts and Mr. Wilson have proven with their experiments that no additional heating occurred than what was the original energy input. No one trained in physics should have expected otherwise. Thus, their experiments do not lend support to a radiative greenhouse effect as is promulgated by the models. What is worrisome is that no one else, other than PSI and a few people commenting on blogs, is calling Mr. Watts out on this abuse of physics and empiricism.
It is insane that people pretending to don the mantle of science work so hard and so crassly at trying to prevent better science from being done. Amateurs with science blogs are hurting science and are harming people’s minds and are creating cults of personality around their obviously simple-minded egos; could we ever expect Mr. Watts to understand the science in his experiment? I think not. All that they have to create the GHE is this fictional simplification of the Earth into a flat plane with a Sun twice as far away that has nothing to do with the real physics of the real Earth.
It is a defined fiction, and they love it.
These GHE beliefs seems really important to some people, for some unknown reason. As you know, I can’t tell if it is a religious thing, if it just stupidity, or if it is malice? Possibly it is all of that? Some people really love the greenhouse effect, really love the fictional premises it is based upon, and they have some incredible emotional attachment to it.
So, what to do? Because the fact of the matter is that you cannot use Logos to educate or convince any Mythos person about anything; they have their beliefs and they have an emotional commitment to them, and no Mythos person can ever think beyond this emotional directorship because that is specifically what defines them. Logos vs. Mythos people process information in completely different ways, and in fact they may not even recognize the same types of information at all. Mythos people literally do not even see the same information that a Logos person sees. A Logos person has simply never been able to convert a Mythos person to Logos by presenting them logos information; this is something that a Mythos person has to do by themselves by some miraculous transformation of their own psyche, some experience or some event that forces them to begin to recognize Logos information, because they willed it of their own spontaneous desire. It happens randomly and unpredictably.
But the point is, because I had asked “what to do”, is that perhaps you must let people have their religion.
If the new Mythos is to make a religion about the atmosphere, about cold things heating up hot things, that the greenhouse effect is good and creates life but it can also punish you if you disobey it and then it will destroy life, that you need to be subservient to and worship the atmosphere and Earth, etc., well, maybe that’s just fine for now. Maybe this set-up needs to be dialectically explored for a few generations, or even millennia, for some reason or other.
Maybe we need to kill and murder each other over it for a little while.
Perhaps we can have a system where we are taxed for the air, and where our slave labour payments are made in “credits” of air, and then we can have an underground society of Logos adepts who are secret heretics of the ruling order who are trying to free the human mind and soul from its atmospheric bondage.
I mean, it’s not like this would be new or original or anything, it would just be exploring all the same old archetypes in a different skin. There would be some new stuff which comes out of it, sure, given that the conditions and the language is slightly changed, but, it’s not like this isn’t specifically and exactly the history of the human condition.
It (the GHE) is created so that people can waste time debating endlessly about a meaningless simulacrum, while at the same time other people try to tax them for the air. Printing valueless money and charging interest on it is one nauseating thing, unfortunately, we know all too well in this world; taxing the chemical basis of life itself, carbon, is just getting greedy.
May Cold bless all of you and keep you Warm.
It may not be known to all yet, but this marks the end of the debacle of climate alarm and the greenhouse effect, because this is what the defence of the GHE and climate alarm has been reduced to, and it proves itself to be void. In truth you can feel some empathy towards these GHE followers because they really, really want to be believe that the Earth is flat and static and that sunshine is cold and the Sun is twice as far away, that the cold atmosphere heats up the hotter Earth and that cold things heat up hot things by various verbose means, etc. These beliefs seems really important to them for some unknown reason.
They get really upset if you say you want to model the Earth as spherical and the Sunshine as its real value, and do it in real time, and also have water, etc.
It seems like such an idea really makes them sad. And then it also makes them really mad.
It kind of makes you feel bad when you take it away from them…I mean, when you see what it does to them.
On the other hand, this also marks the end of science, and even physics. The equations to show what their experiment was doing are basic. I mean, if you asked random people on the street the questions of the poll presented in the above article, everyone will answer the correct way. Implicitly people will know what the correct answers are. However, most people will not know what their answers imply, and most will still accept the prognostications of the appearance of authority, because they won’t have the knowledge or training to put it all together and identify the contradiction. People could understand it quite easily, this is definitely true, because I’ve tried it on random people and they do get it, easily. What most people don’t accept however is that such big lies can exist – that is the difficult thing to convince people of, that such huge mistakes can be made by people who, well let’s face it, pretend to be smart. It is probably too disconcerting to imagine. But, if you work around “smart” people like I do, then you know just how possible it is.
It is really easy to rule people…their behaviour and their minds, etc.
You simply lie to them.
Climate of Sophistry 
Do light bulbs increase the voltage across their own circuits with the light they shine? No. Stupid.
Hats off to you Mr. Postma. Well done!
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A kind and classy response from Mr. Watts via email:
I think the liar and the person who doesn’t know T = (V^2/sAR)^(1/4) has been identified.
(There wass no P&C in the email, so fair game.)
I for one am done with Watts. It is a shame too, as I have been a huge proponent and supporter of his site for many many years. Mr. Watts brings this on himself. I am sure I will not be missed. I believe however, Mr. Watts would do himself a great service to take a few steps back and take a look at himself in the mirror. He has turned into a total arrogant jackass and it is most unbecoming. I can no longer find myself feeling any respect towards him. He is now giving the climate skeptical cause a bad name and I wish to no longer be associated with him and his ilk. Oh sure, I will likely drive by his blog on occasion to checkout a good post (there are many), but I most certainly will refrain from participation in comments, and I most certainly will not be advocating for his popularity. After all, he has already won all of the bloggy awards he can, so what would he need people like me for anyway? I have already served his purpose.
Thank you Mr. Postma, I just want the truth. I don’t so much as care what that truth is, I just want to know the whole truth, and you are shining a big bright light (due to scads of back-radiation, I am sure [sarc]) on that truth, and in more than just science. Thank you!
P.S. Hey Watts, why don’t you “put up” or “shut up”? Next time you do an experiment, perform within the framework of science instead of junk, and quit trying to pass off junk as science, there is already a blog for that (junkscience.com).
I took the opportunity to share the link in a couple places which may filter various key words related to your site, http://tinyurl.com/l4nwzxu like so.
I was also interested in seeing a side-shot of the bulb (as it would show the glass was hotter on one side, and thus raise the point that if the filament was actually hotter, wouldn’t it have heated both sides?) and I noted a few points asking for a clear bulb besides my own, to no avail.
More fun: http://www.askamathematician.com/2013/01/qhow-do-lenses-that-concentrate-light-not-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-if-you-use-a-magnifying-glass-to-burn-ants-arent-you-making-a-point-hotter-than-the-ambient-temperature-without/
They give a helpful rule of thumb there: “If you can reverse it, the entropy is constant”, you can reverse focusing light with a lens, you can’t unbounce light from a mirror back out of the frosted glass, so entropy increased.
More fun reading: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=eepidifgj7an334rl32gmnadp7&topic=41679.25
Cool, thanks.
It has taken some reading, but very well put. Thanks again Joe for your clarity and explanation (and for keeping it civil).
You will no doubt have heard that an ammendment tabled in the UK Parliament by Tim Yeo (who has huge financial interests in CAGW and renewables – hence his nickname “troughre”) to the latest Energy Bill was yesterday defeated, albeit by a narrow margin. The Bill was to mandate the complete ‘decarbonisation’ of the UK energy supply. What it showed though is that MPs are now more concerned about energy prices and the UK economy than about any perceived global warming. A year ago, then Bill would have been passed by a large majority, so things are looking up.
Keep going!
Joe,
Like you I gave Anthony Watts the heads up on your post when we ran it on PSI and in less than half an hour his reply was:
“LOL, best entertainment yet!”
Does he even comprehend how critically and intellectually inept he looks?
Thankyou. As a Luddite, I would like to know,once and for all. If a cold object radiates photons to a warm object(earth), does the warm object radiate more or find diffuse more energy
Joe, John, There’s a new posting on WUWT that says “Greenhouse Theory has failed all tests”, so I left a comment drawing on that definitive, that “if GHE has failed all tests, GHE must be a fiction, which is what PSI have been saying all along”. He’s sort of walked straight into that one.
Yah I don’t get it. WUWT has been posting TONS of articles lately all which have the underlying theme that the greenhouse models have failed. Yet still he hates us. Something strange is happening.
Simon, check out Gary’s reply to you:
Do people not realize that AGW is BASED on the GHE? They’re basically synonymous. If AGW fails all the tests, and AGW is based on what they think should happen given the GHE theory, then it means that the GHE theory has failed all of its predictions.
Hi Joe,
in the linked pdf is presented how you can maintain the temperature of the filament when decreasing the watts consumed.
http://www.ies.org/PDF/100Papers/053.pdf
Here it is explained that (parts) of the filament’s reflected IR radiation is used to increase the filament temperature while using less power.
AFAIR do most halogen light bulb work with this principle. Do I get here something wrong or are you missing some basics in the paragraph starting with “In an electrical circuit, dissipation”…..
[JP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy
The output of the bulbs is not increased above the Wattage input – that is the key. The *efficacy* is being increased, the total output is not being increased above the input. This still doesn’t support the GHE which requires the input being doubled (or so) above the input. This paper supports PSI’s position and traditional physics.
The input is supplied by the voltage – backradiation doesn’t increase the voltage and hence doesn’t increase the input, although there are things you can do to increase the efficacy of lighting to make it more efficient in visible light.
You’re sophizing what is actually happening.
The bulb has higher *efficacy* – learn words and how to read them. “More light at the same power consumption” is about engineering a better light bulb – the limits are still within the original input. It is not producing more output than the actual circuit input, which is what the GHE is all about.
Nice attempt at obfuscation and sophistry. But the laws of physics win.]
Most skeptics do not even know what the greenhouse effect “theory” actually is.
Below is a compilation of what is currently taught as greenhouse effect “theory”.
Joseph Postma calls it, quite rightly, the cold sun hypothesis. The “theory” because it starts with P/4 states that the sun only warms earth’s surface up to MINUS 18C……
The global energy budgets are how they try to depict the GH in reality. Yet, quite obviously such budgets are totally done in black body!!!
Climate modelling is also totally dependent upon “greenhouse land physics” that are hidden in MODTRAN, which one can not see inside of.
Once greenhouse effect “theory” is plainly exposed as the failed (unphysical and ridiculous) hypothesis it is, then so much more falls with it too. The vested interests in GH theory are not just monetary, they are political, bureaucratic, and so, so many personal reputations and egos of people who will plain be shown to have been either incompetent, or knowingly and deliberately lying.
That to my mind probably explains a lot…. This (AGW and GH) never was a science discussion, it was always a politically motivated (and funded) debate.
Precisely. Thanks for the clarification Joe. I should take a leaf of of your book and be unambiguous, and not assume.
Simon, yes, I spotted your very apt comment on WUWT. Mr Watts is unwittingly posting ever more articles by PSI members/supporters that implicitly discredit the GHE. But as the old proverb (Isaiah 6:9-10) goes, ‘none are so blind as he who will not see.”
Ironic that Watts is actually a Christian preacher! But soon enough he will be told by his readers what a fool he has made of himself (and them!).
[JP: Whaaa?? Watts is a preacher??? Oh this is just great 🙂 It IS all about religion lol]
I think I’ve caused a bit if a stir, actuality wailing and gnashing of teeth, over at WUWT. “GHE synonymous with AGW?? Surely not!”.
[JP: It’s like: 1 + 1 = 2, do you see? No! They reply petulantly. lol
As I said: “Do people not realize that AGW is BASED on the GHE? They’re basically synonymous. If AGW fails all the tests, and AGW is based on what they think should happen given the GHE theory, then it means that the GHE theory has failed all of its predictions. Hello?”]
squid2112 says (2013/06/05 at 11:17 AM): “…Oh sure, I will likely drive by his blog on occasion to checkout a good post (there are many), but I most certainly will refrain from participation in comments,”
===========================================================
Right, do not disturb the bad guys fooling people on that blog. Make your contribution by not offering the opposite view. You are above it. Let others do it.
Anthony Watts is the pluPERfect liberal. Vast areas of civilization having it’s foundational precepts taught incorrectly doesn’t bother him because of his wide branding. He’s a T.V. media man who knows of no moral that can’t have a price tag attached.
He is one of those people who prospers because he’s just self conscious enough to want to seem interested but not truly interested enough to act conscienciously: the entire morality of episodic crime PAYS him, not impoverishes him.
After all he gets to associate on friendly terms with the most odious and the most noble characters and in an evil twist to such a “small person” personality on a man who needed more, he gets to side with the bad guys with whom he always agreed, yet seem to be a shield and protector FROM those bad guys to a gullible audience of Area 51/Bigfoot/100 watt light bulbs become 120 watt light bulbs, intellectual backwoods.
And he’s right up there mentioned in the main stream media who teach the IDENTICAL faux 100 = 120 with a squirt of Doctor Backerds’ Trenberthian Backerdizer.
As long as it breeds argument and has no end: it’s Anthony Watts country.
After Kiel Trenberth/IPCC 2007 has been out since 1997, Watts’ continual whining like a burned dog, abutted with his pretence if he talks about it differently it IS different – a brand that sells very well in Area 51/Bigfoot/100 watts = 120 country
has become professional grade and didn’t take long to get there. He knew he had to seem sincere but not be effective or the source of his new income stream would dry up, so he milked the Climate funding fraud publicity for what it seemed worth each individual moment: literally tuning the morning’s news with how he felt his own brand was faring at a given moment.
The reason he despises the Scientifica Principia guys is because Watts craves the cult of the HONEST MAN
because THAT’S where the STATISTICALLY BEST AUDIENCE is.
The “honest man” draws a consciencious audience who dutifilly purchase his weather applications which of course further his brand.
The “honest an” draws a very wide audience because – most people are honest – and Watts being a television professional knows what tuning JUST the right audience in, is: the TRUE BELIEVER who is really the lonely schmuck in need of friends or tools disguised as friends.
The Lonely Schmuck true believer is the lonely personality which obsessively derides the unwanted, sarificing dignity so he can get approval,
the tools sacrifice their reputations on Watts’ stage and Watts reaps the various “popcorn” revenues as he refers to his profiting from the fraud.
Watts will make good money as time goes by milking the funding fraud tit. He has the advantage of course that AREA51/BIGFOOT/100W=120W country is self-refilling as each day grown men get ashamed of being duped and so stupid,
another generation turns old enough to become interested in how lies are developed. How fake news and fake science can be spun into a faux reality. Area 51 must be the answer Bigfoot must be there, 100 watts MUST be able to be 120 if you hold the mirror right.
==========
Identically with Kiehl/Trenberth/IPCC2007 there MUST be some answer the cartoon shows a 168 watt light bulb’s light going into a mirror, (the gas of the atmosphere) and coming back 324 watts. There must. There just must.
That’s “The Greenhouse Gas Effect.”
The one that has 168 watts coming out of a bulb, going into a cloud of gas, and reflecting 324 watts back down to the bulb, and an additional 324 watts out to space.
Anthony Watts REPEATEDLY says HE NEVER HEARD THIS.
I’ve seen him say it myself, and couched within SEVERAL contextual situations where he made the point punch through that THAT is a LIE and the GHE breaks NO known laws of thermodynamics.
With just a dash of encouragement from the ‘TRUE BELIEVER class, Anthony Watts has one group of people BEGGING HIM to provide them free media fame so – he doesn’t work or accept any risk –
and he has the OTHER true believers: the lonely schmucks – herding all the HONEST MAN audience out there in and out of the daily episodes of WHAT’S UP at TWERK’s?
So he has the one group CREATING an AUDIENCE: CREATING UNIQUE content
he has the OTHER group making sure nobody gets far pointing out the INCREDIBLE stupidity of 100watts=120watts country,
and in between there, the entire mainstream audience dutifully passes through and links to Watts’ Brand, reviving it so sales and fame remain brisk enough that Watts can command some relevancy if he needs to spin up income some.
I didn’t mean earlier the two groups I mentioned amid the “HONEST MAN” audience were the audience in total, just that he uses these as per the oldest vaudeville theater around, to always make it seem like “there’s something new every day: at What’s Up With Twerk.
When you don’t have any physical or fundamental scientific principles, it CAN be new “every day.”
That’s What’s Up With Twerk.
When humiliated beyond redemption he laughs: calls destruction of scientific methods entertainment. Because he doesn’t care: notoriety is notoriety and as long as when he prints his book, he sees his name in lights, he’s all fine and doesn’t care what anyone knowing how he cashes checks built on abetting crime thinks. If there aren’t indictments, there aren’t problems.
Fame’s fame to him.
Integrity? Integrity’s for schmucks stupid enough to not be in media.
Joe,
Andrew asked a question that I certainly would like the ‘science expressed for the layman’ answer to, and I think is worth posting on WUWT to reinforce the falseness of GHE, and that is “If a cold object radiates photons to a warm object(earth), even a single one, what happens to it?”. I suspect all those at WUWT are assuming any photons from a cooler body ‘add’ to the energy level, therefore temperature, of the warmer body.
I think you have written on this, but a succinct answer would be very welcome.
Thanks.
[JP: Yes I’ve seen that question, answered it, and then got abused for the answer because the answer destroyed their stupid idea.
Is there such a thing as ONE photon going from cold to warm, and that’s it for the system? No. They want to focus on something basically irrelevant cause that’s the last place they have to go now. There are 10^33 (!) photons emitted in a single second from a light bulb at 100 Watts. The laws of thermodynamics, in regards to thermal process and heat flow, are in regard NOT to single photon or single atoms (although the 1st Law is obeyed for them – energy is not destroyed), but to the whole system ensembles of multiples of Avogadro’s numbers of atoms and photons etc. Look at the equations for heat flow! They are always differentials. Q as a function of the difference between hot and cold, with heat flow thus being from hot to cold in total. You don’t look at a single photon going from cold to hot, or a single atom bouncing from cold to hot, in many many many Avogadro’s numbers of these things in the whole ensemble, and thus say that cold is heating up hot! That is so freaking stupid! The 2nd Law applies to whole systems…there is never a net one-way exchange from cold to hot. The cold side of the differential determines the rate of heating of the cold side – it does NOT say that the cold side causes the hot side to heat up, and this IS THE RESULT of accounting for ALL of the cold-side atoms/photons and where they’re going.]
Hilarity at Watts’ own blog,
serving to ridicule itself:
Watts’ self sacrificing believer loonies being SWAMPED in RIDICULE as Watts sniffs the air around and tries to find relevancy.
Steven R. Vada says:
June 6, 2013 at 1:46 am
Gary Hladik says:
June 5, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Sorry, I missed the part where the so-called GHE “failed all tests”. Could you point it out, please?
Sure be glad to:
“(1) Warming not ‘global’. It is shown in satellite data to be northern hemisphere only
(2) It is now not warming. Warming (global mean and northern hemisphere) stopped in the 1990s
(3) Models suggest atmosphere should warm 20% faster than surface but surface warming was 33% faster during the time satellites and surface observations used. This suggests GHG theory wrong, and surface temperature contaminated.
(4) Temperatures longer term have been modified to enhance warming trend and minimize cyclical appearance. Station dropout, missing data, change of local siting, urbanization, instrumentation contaminate the record, producing exaggerating warming. The GAO scolded NOAA for poor compliance with siting standards.
(5) Those who create the temperature records have been shown in analysis and emails to take steps to eliminate inconvenient temperature trends like the Medieval Warm Period, the 1940s warm blip and cooling since 1998. Steps have included removal of the urban heat island adjustment and as Wigley suggested in a climategate email, introduce 0.15C of artificial cooling of global ocean temperatures near 1940.
(6) Forecast models have failed with temperature trends below even the assumed zero emission control scenarios
(7) Climate models all have a strong hot spot in the mid to high troposphere in the tropical regions. Weather balloons and satellite show no warming in this region the last 30 years.
(8) Ocean heat content was forecast to increase and was said to be the canary in the coal mine. It too has stalled according to NOAA PMEL. The warming was to be strongest in the tropics where the models were warming the atmosphere the most. No warming has been shown in the top 300 meters in the tropical Pacific back to the 1950s.
(9) Alarmists had predicted permanent El Nino but the last decade has featured 7 La Nina and just 3 El Nino years. This is related to the PDO and was predicted by those who look at natural factors.
(10) Alarmists had predicted much lower frequency of the negative modes of the AO and NAO due to warming. The trend has been the opposite with a record negative AO/NAO in 2009/10
(11) Alarmists predicted an increase in hurricane frequency and strength globally but the global activity had diminished after 2005 to a 30+ year low. The U.S. has gone seven consecutive years without a landfalling major hurricane, the longest stretch since the 1860s
(12) Alarmists have predicted a significant increase in heat records but despite heat last two summers, the 1930s to 1950s still greatly dominated the heat records. Even in Texas at the center of the 2011 heat wave, the long term (since 1895) trends in both temperature and precipitation are flat. And when stations with over 80 years of temperature data were considered, the number of heat records last July were not extraordinary relative to past hot summers.
(13) Extremes of rainfall and drought were predicted to increase but except during periods of strong El Nino and La Nina, no trends are seen
(14) Alarmists indicated winter would become warmer and short. The last 15 years has seen a decline in winter temperatures in all regions. In places winter have been the coldest and longest in decades and even centuries.
(15) Alarmists had indicated snow would become increasingly rare in middle latitudes especially in the big cities where warming would be greatest. All time snow records were set in virtually all the major cities and northern hemisphere snow coverage in winter has increased with 4 of the top 5 years since 2007/08. Also among the east coast high impact snowstorms tracked by NOAA (NESIS), 11 of the 46 have occurred since 2009.
(16) Alarmists had indicated a decline of Antarctic ice due to warming. The upward trends since 1979 continues.
(17) Alarmists had indicated Greenland and arctic ice melt would accelerate. The arctic ice tracks with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the IARC shows the ice cover was similarly reduced in the 1950s when the Atlantic was last in a similar warm mode. In Greenland, the warmth of the 1930s and 1940s still dominates the records and longer term temperatures have declined.
(18) Sea level rise was to accelerate upward due to melting ice and warming. Sea levels actually slowed in the late 20th century and have declined or flattened the last few years. Manipulation of data (adjustment for land rises following the last glaciation) has been applied to hide this from the public.
(19) Alarmists claimed that drought western snowpack would diminish and forest fires would increase in summer. Snowpack and water equivalent were at or near record levels in recent winters from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies. Glaciers are advancing. Fires have declined.
(20) Alaska was said to be warming with retreating glaciers. But that warming is tied intimately to the PDO and thr North Pacific pattern NP and happens instantly with the flips from cold to warm and warm to cold. Two of the coldest and snowiest winters on records occurred since the PDO/NP flipped cold again (2007/08 and 2011/12). January 2012 was the coldest on record in many towns and cities and snowfall was running 160 inches above normal in parts of the south. Anchorage Alaska set an all time record for seasonal snow in 2011/12. In 2007/08, glaciers all advanced for the first time since the Little Ice Age. In 2011/12, the Bering Sea ice set a new high in the satellite era. Latest ever ice out date records were set in May 2013.
(21) Mt. Kilimanjaro glacier was to disappear due to global warming. Temperatures show no warming in recent decades. The reduction in glacial ice was due to deforestation near the base and the state of the AMO. The glaciers have advanced again in recent years
(22) Polar bears were claimed to be threatened. Polar bear populations instead have increased to record levels and threaten the populace.
(23) Australian drought was forecast to become permanent. Steps to protect against floods were defunded. Major flooding did major damage and rainfall has been abundant in recent years tied to the PDO and La Nina as predicted by honest scientists in Australia. All years with La Nina and cold PDO composited show this rainfall. Drought was associated with El Ninos and warm PDO fro 1977 to 1998
(24) The office of the Inspector General report found that the EPA cut corners and short-circuited the required peer review process for its December 2009 endangerment finding, which is the foundation for EPA’s plan to regulate greenhouse gases. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirmed that EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program-which EPA acknowledges is the “scientific foundation for decisions” – is flawed, echoing previous concerns from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that the agency is basing its decisions on shoddy scientific work.
(25) Of 18,531 citations in the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report, 5,587 or 30% were non-peer-reviewed material, including activist tracts, press releases, and in one amazing case, “Version One” of a Draft. In important instances, IPCC lead authors chose non-peer-reviewed material, or papers of low credibility, favoring their argument, in the face of prolific peer-reviewed material to the contrary. Instances include alleged climate relevance to malaria, hurricanes, species extinction, and sea levels.”
=========
Gary Hladik says: “Thanks! I guess also that “168 watts into the atmosphere but 324 X 2 coming back out violation of the second law of thermodynamics sort of kept it’s options limited.
A little. ”
=========
No problem it just happened to be another endless list of the failures of this voodoo.
Others include the fact that the infrared astronomy business is stone silent on why they don’t have a bright pupil just trot out the photos of the sky for the past 100 years taken by students proving they know what such slides look like, studies done USING the earth frequency IR, etc.
Then there’s the study done by the people whose story it is, verifying there’s less infrared radiation in the frequencies demanded by GHE today, than 15 years ago. That’s just impossible if the GHE has any truth at all.
This is NOAA themselves, checking for their own Back Radiation.
For fourteen years.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim
While the magical mirror got 168 watts per sq meter out but returned 324 down to earth, 324 back out to space. While not breaking the laws of thermodynamics.
Many thanks for another nail in the coffin of GHE. Yesterday Watts posted a report by Dr Vincent Gray, expert IPCC reviewer, who states that CO2 has never driven climate and giving the data back 1Ba.
So the evidence is mounting on your (our) side and hopefully the GHE will die a natural death.
(And one in the eye for Spencer whose ”proof of back radiation heating” to me in an email was total stupidity not worth repeating.).
Many thanks for another nail in the coffin of the GHE. yesterday Watts posted a report by Dr Vincent Gray, an expert IPCC reviewer, whose report stated that over the past 1Ba CO2 has not driven temperature. The post included the data.
So the evidence is building for a spectactular plunge of the GHE into oblivion.
As an agnostic between factions, who now have begun to hate each other, I have a simple and perhaps silly question. In your former post you wrote down as first equation,
Q = σ[ (Thot)4 – (Tcold)4 ]
Is sigma a constant of nature or can it be a variable over matter and time? If the equation really holds, sigma is the only handle for those who say that something can slow down a cooling rate. Does Watts claim that he can influence sigma with a mirror?
I don’t know if Watts knows what sigma is. But yes it is a constant and it doesn’t change…although it is possible that the set of physical constants do change slightly with the expansion of the universe, but this is highly theoretical and not-too relevant for every-day physics.
Mr. Postma. I have only recently discovered Principia Scientifica and your paper entitled ” Copernicus Meets the Green House Effect.” It is astounding, though not surprising that our world is superimposed with lies of mythic proportion. I am profoundly grateful for your rational use of the scientific
method. May Elohim bless your efforts.
Cheers Samm. Thanks for the support!
F.Ketterer says (2013/06/05 at 2:31 PM): “in the linked pdf is presented how you can maintain the temperature of the filament when decreasing the watts consumed. http://www.ies.org/PDF/100Papers/053.pdf“
=========================================================
And here you are lying again, Mr.Ketterer, for the third time.
In this document it is not proven that back radiation can heat the filament, they just refer to it as a proven fact for no scientific reason. There is no proof in the document that back radiation can heat the source.
They falsely attribute a brighter light spot optically caused by a reflector to the alleged increase in the filament’s temperature allegedly caused by the back radiation from this reflector. These are 2 different things. The first one is a fact, the second one is a fiction.
Simon Conway-Smith says (2013/06/06 at 1:56 AM): “If a cold object radiates photons to a warm object(earth), even a single one, what happens to it?”
========================================================
Then answer depends on what properties photons have, actually. The notion of a photon is simply a reflection of the fact that the notion of waves can not explain some properties of light.
If someone claims that “photons” have certain properties, they need to prove it. You can not derive physical properties and effects of radiation simply from the term “photon”. Being a countable noun, the term photon suggests something, right, and is therefore a little bit misleading. Some people even portray radiation as a bunch of balls etc, this is not science.
So, the right question would be, if the radiation from cold can supply warm with energy, and the answer is no, because it would otherwise lead to an endless mutual warming if the warm object were initially at a stable temperature, which is absurd.
I just found out that “Dr. Roy Spencer” is actually a fundamentalist Christian… So, Anthony Watts is a Christian Preacher (no longer in practise presumably), and his most trusted source of science issues is Roy Spencer who is a Christian fundamentalist… To be a fundamentalist you have to deny, like, a whole lot of science.
This makes more and more sense and my intuition as to what is going on (i.e. is it a religious thing?) has been entirely vindicated.
Joseph E Postma says (2013/06/06 at 9:46 AM): “I just found out that “Dr. Roy Spencer” is actually a fundamentalist Christian…”
====================================================
Joy, sorry, but this seems to be a wrong direction to me, even if he is one, what I do not know.
What if there are some “fundamentalist Christians” who find the AGW concept to be a total crap? What if there are some very fat people with a giant mustache who find the AGW concept to be a total crap?
Let us not commit the same fallacy of unfounded attribution.
This excellent article is Joe Postma at his best, on a par with his exceptional Copernicus article.
But Joe, why couldn’t you have just left it at that for the moment? Why did you have to weaken what should have been the final floor-wiper? But no, you just could not resist adding that “Blog” section which has only given Watts his opening to push on with the silly tit-for-tat playground jibes. How long does this idiotic in-fighting have to go on?
You could perhaps have saved that last bit it for another occasion.
Like Squid, I have followed Watts’ blog for many years, but unlike Squid, I am not done with him. I still respect the enormous work he is doing on a wide range of issues, not least, the temperature station survey he initiated. However I have never been able to understand and find intolerable his scapegoating of a group, treating them in the self same way as our opponents treat the “deniers”. If ever an underdog needed to create its own underdog, this is the classic example.
I never knew Watts was a Christian preacher (that no doubt explains occasional self-righteous stances I have found a bit irritating on his part), but I believe Roy Spencer is an active Christian and I know John Christy (whom I greatly respect) was a missionary.
That’s their affair.
As for your remark about first year physics majors, yes I imagine that does describe the level of the descriptions you’ve given; I say “I imagine” because my background is in the Arts and that sort of elementary spelling out-of principles is exactly the sort of thing people like me need, can take in and defend. – That probably goes for your average policy-maker too.
On the other hand, people well-advanced in their field (and well dug in, so to speak) often lose sight of those inspiring first-year basic premises (if they ever accessed them and took them onboard…). I think that’s what may have happened to some extent with the Spencers and Lindzens of this world.
Back to basics, say I, is the way out of all these problems and this article (the main part at least) may be a first step, which in any case I shall archive for the years to come.
Regards, John Wright.
Thanks John. The original article at PSI didn’t have the “blog section”, and I never sent it to them, but when they saw it here they liked it and wanted to add it at the PSI site too. Of course, on my blog, I like to have some freedom to speak my mind.
The reason is because, it seems to me, that the science is NOT enough. If the science was enough, this whole fraud wouldn’t exist. So, the science is not enough. It is, but only for rational and smart enough people like you. I like to try figure out the context, the underlying reasons, because a lot of people do get that angle as well. I think. I do anyway. 🙂
Greg House says:
2013/06/05 at 5:58 PM
Well Greg, perhaps I would even breakdown from temptation and post, but alas Mr. Watts has blocked me from posting. I still do not know why, as I have never been rude, disrespectful or discourteous, that I am aware of. I have only asked relatively simple questions, occasionally being a bit critical, but always in the most politest of ways.
I guess I have given up the effort. I suppose I may feel differently if I thought I really had a substantive contribution to make, but I am not so skilled in the craft of physics as you, Joe and others that frequently contribute. If the time comes that I believe I have a sincere and thoughtful contribution to make, I will indeed recant my boycott and assert myself. In the meantime, my ignorance would only serve to increase the viscosity of the already muddy waters.
Cheers! … and keep up with your good stuff. I enjoy reading your posts and I am learning a lot from them. Thanks!
JP
You said your response would also destroy the experiment that I did:
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-copper-iron-green-house-revisited.html
In this a blackbody plate without heat is placed between the hot source (heated with constant power as you require. This cool plate causes the constant power to be able to gheat the hot body to a higher temperature.
Replacing the black body plate with a polished plate the constant power into the hot body causes the hot body to reach even higher temperature.
Please can you explain how this comes about?
Earlier experiments have shown the cooling rate of a hot but zero power plate to be slowed by the presence of a warm plate.
Again I do not feel your explanation covers this:
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/a-cool-object-reduces-energy-loss-from.html
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/back-radiation-early-results-no-fan.html
I have done further tests (still to be written up) which also confirm cold heating hot.
John in France says:
2013/06/06 at 9:58 AM
John, make no mistake. I have a great deal of respect for a lot of the things that Anthony Watts has done and accomplished . That said, I am bailing on him because if him, not is prior accomplishments. I no longer feel a personal respect for him, and indeed anyone who will deceive, twist, and perhaps lie in the name of self notoriety. Mr. Watts has demonstrated this ever clearly through the events of the past several months. It is now onerous upon him to reestablish trust and respect through propagation of truth, not through crassness and propaganda. If Mr. Watts would like my continued support, he can earn it. If he doesn’t, oh well, it won’t keep me awake at nights. I don’t expect Mr. Watts to trust or respect me without my earning it. Reciprocal…
Trust lost is a difficult thing to reacquire.
@TFP: To conclude that the effect is from backradiation is wrong, just like Watts’ experiment. In Watts’ experiments they thought it was backradiation, but in fact all that was happening was that the TRUE INPUT was more efficiently being turned into heat at the place where the desired temperature was measured. Is it producing more power than the input, doubling the input? It won’t be, just like Watts’ experiments didn’t. You may be increasing the efficiency or the efficacy of the conversion of the input to heat, but you’re not creating more power than the input.
You have to obey the laws of thermodynamics. You can’t create more heat than what you put in for work in the first place; it is possible to convert the input into heat more efficiently, but unlike the GHE, you can not actually create more power than the input. The GHE doubles the input.
Let me simplify this:
Is the backradiation in your system increasing the voltage across the resistor? No? Of course not. Can backradiation in any situation or heat produced by any process increase the voltage across the resistor? No, never, how or why would it. It is not possible. So, since the power input to the resistor is given by the voltage, no additional power is created than the input because backradiation doesn’t change the voltage.
The GHE is not about making the input more efficient at creating heat, the GHE is about doubling (or so) the input by having the initial output increase its own input, etc.
Greg,
As Joe knows, I would call myself a conservative evangelical Christian (UK definition), but the prime responsibility of that is to seek the truth, coupled with a fundamental attitude of care for people. In reading and digesting the 3 strands in this debate, i.e. the overt warmist (Gore, McKibben, etc.), the Luke-warmist (Watts, Spencer, etc.) and the realist (Postma & PSI), I have discerned that the realist position is clearly the one that aligns with truth and care.
The warmists clearly don’t care for truth or people, and would gladly see whole societies & nations suffer terribly ‘to save Gaia’. The Luke-warmists say they strive for truth and make sounds if caring for people’s but are in reality that is not their raison d’être. Only the realists strive to banish untruth such that people and nations can be lifted from the utter misery inflicted upon them by those who hold the GHE to be true, whether strongly or mildly.
I have a great friend in my local church who is a Cambridge University Geology Professor, but who ‘believes’ in Global Warming and thinks I’ve been ‘misled’, but this is about the truth of science fact winning out over (religious) belief, and when (not if) it does, it will lift a huge burden from the nation’s peoples.
Yes, I am a Christian, but that drives me to truth, which sets people free, not dogma which enslaves.
Nice, Simon.
squid2112 says (2013/06/06 at 12:53 PM): “Well Greg, perhaps I would even breakdown from temptation and post, but alas Mr. Watts has blocked me from posting.”
=====================================================
Jeff(?), I am under moderation there, too, and Joe can not comment freely either. There is a simple solution: you choose another alias and either create a new email account or use any valid email you can find on the web.
My understanding of that blog is that it is created as a propaganda tool disguised as “skeptical”. They allow really critical comments to an extent, but keep them confined so that the warmist
gangteam always have the majority of comments. Their strategy also includes excessive publishing of posts legitimizing the absurd “greenhouse effect” and the unproven claim of “global warming”.If you nail them with you clear argumentation, the “team” there will abuse you and provoke you, so that they can maybe ban you for “bad behavior”. If they not succeed, they will accuse you of bad behavior anyway, if you hit them properly, like demonstrating that their experiments are not correct.
Nevertheless, the opportunity to influence at least some readers by reasonable argumentation is still there and should be used, in my opinion. But, of course, it is entirely your decision, no pressure.
thefordprefect says (2013/06/06 at 12:56 PM): “… the experiment that I did: Please can you explain how this comes about?
================================================
Well, I am thinking, what would I answer if asked at a biology blog like “my elephant Tony can fly, I personally made a test. How can you explain it?”
So, my first guess would be: you made it up. As a second guess, though, maybe this: you made it up but do not know it (any more). I do not know what is worse.
Hmmm, didn’t those guys learn anything from simple experiments performed by amateurs on blogs?
Trying to improve the efficiency of a light bulb by adding a selective IR-reflecting coating to the bulb, how ridiculous!
If you want to get more efficient use of electricity by a light bulb all you have to do is put a mirror next to it, or cover it with foil, duh.
____________
But seriously, that article shows that the filament temperature remained the same, last I checked while reading through it, but the losses due to the IR radiation were reduced, they go over a theoretical maximum efficiency with perfectly selective radiatiors which would tally up to 217% or so!
In the real world with perfectly centered reflectors and realistic coatings in a tubular bulb, those values are more like 46% bumps in efficiency, note that they didn’t say output, they didn’t say it got brighter, they said it took less power to produce the same amount of light, because they weren’t wasting most of it by heating the room with invisible IR, right?
[JP: Right. They did not produce more power than P = V^2/R, which is what the GHE claims to do. The points here are becoming very fine and it is easy to see how the WORDING is confusing, but the word is “efficacy”, not over-unity etc.]
Simon, just a passing remark. Your religion and beliefs are your affair and like all things one holds deep down to be true and just, will always be the kingpin of one’s point of view in any debate or any activity. That’s OK, I know what you represent but what grates with me is the “evangelical” bit as I have always been convinced that evangelism (Christian, Moslem, Communist, free-marketist – whatever its form) causes more pain and confusion to humanity than any other force.
Greg,
I fear we may be edging towards conspiracy theory here. I don’t see any conspiracy as such : my own take on Watts – along with people like Jo Nova, Lindzen, Monckton, Curry etc. – is not to question their scepticism which I think is real enough (even in the case of Judith, who seems to make a religion out of fence-sitting). But they are moderates and as such will go along with the GH theory in order to leave some common ground with the alarmists. And as they point out, even if you accept the premise of GH warming, alarmist doctrine and recommendations just do not stand up to scrutiny. So it’s more a case of Cynicism in the old Greek sense of the word: you made the sacrifices to the gods in order to have a quiet life whether you believed or not in they were worthwhile. But of course in trying to justify such a position you can easily slide into Sophistry, inane name-calling and gagging of contrary opinions, which has unfortunately happened particularly with Watts at the present time.
I think that the first comments by Slayers were perceived as rocking the boat, but when they became more persistent and refused to be bullied or step down (Joe and Doug Cotton know something about that), there ensued endless threads that usually ended up in single combat with the webmaster until he called it a day – and of course Slayers got banned for “thread bombing”.
I think that not only Watts, but a good many of his bloggers visit this site, which remains unique on the blogoshere, and that’s the only thing we can hope for at present. But it’s not a forlorn hope (each time I come here I find ever more new commenters). So we should just arm ourselves with patience, avoid missionary zeal and keep on quietly presenting the truth as we see it through articles such as the above.
Greg House says:
So, my first guess would be: you made it up. As a second guess, though, maybe this: you made it up but do not know it (any more). I do not know what is worse.
——-
Why not replicate my experiment – you will get the same result. Your position seems to be GHG theory is wrong therefore you can never prove it to be correct. This is not scientific – where is the scepticism?
Joseph E Postma says:
2013/06/06 at 1:41 PM
You have to obey the laws of thermodynamics. You can’t create more heat than what you put in for work in the first place; it is possible to convert the input into heat more efficiently, but unlike the GHE, you can not actually create more power than the input. The GHE doubles the input.
All the energy going into the resistores is turning into heat there is no motion created, there is no light created. 100% of the volts time current is emerging as heat. Much is lost through conduction to the atmosphere through 20cm of insulation some is emerging as IR through the window. BUT IR+Conduction= total input.
There is no way you can convert power to energy more eficiently in a PASSIVE system.
Fotget that you believe that the 2nd law is violated and that this cannot be happening. It is happening and must therefore be explained.
The real GHG operation on a steel green house does not change the generated power. When you first put on your steel greenhose at absolute zero escaping radiation is zero. as the steel increases in temperature the emiytted radiation increases. It increases outwards and inwards. This backradiation allows the same power to create a greater temperature on the core.
The power to heat the core has come from the power that was stoped escaping to space when the steel was first erected. – No extra power is needed to warm the core !
The power stored in the increase in temperature of the core will be emitted again when the steel is removed.
With the stell in place there is a power debt to space.
wWhen the steel is removed this debt is repayted in full and the total power *time with the shell placed then removed will be the same as the total power * time without the shell
[JP: But this still isn’t how heat flow equations work anyway. You can have more efficiency, but you can not have more power production, and more power production is what the GHE does. 161 W/m^2 in, then 324 W/m^2 back, etc. It just isn’t real and in an obviously plain way. Why try to defend it any more when we’ve proven that the Earth is spherical? PSI has proven that the Earth is spherical and rotating…please stop trying to say that the Earth is flat and static and that the Sun is twice as far away based on table-top experiments that don’t replicate the atmosphere and solar input in the first place. In fact, there is NO argument you can use any longer to try to prove that the Earth is flat and static. Please stop trying…I’ll never accept it. Geometry rules.]
The statement “and a temperature differential causes heat flow” is not strictly correct in a vertical plane in a gravitational field. It is very important to understand this and the ramifications relating to planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. For example, if heat did always flow from hot to cold you could assume that the planet Venus would have “run cold” by now. There is a 730K surface and a far colder atmosphere with a nice temperature slope for the heat to flow down. The incident radiation from the Sun is diluted to a mere 10W/m^2 by the time it gets to the surface, so this would not have a hope against the 16,100W/m^2 of radiative flux coming out of the 730K surface. Why then doesn’t all the heat just flow down the temperature gradient? It would not need upward gas movement – it could all happen by diffusion, just like heat spreads across a room.
Then we need to ask, how can the Venus surface actually warm up by 5 degrees during its day, when so little direct Solar radiation reaches the surface? Obviously the cold atmosphere is not raising the far hotter surface temperature even more. And it would need 16,100W/m^2 to do so anyway, which is far more than is entering at the top of the atmosphere.
The fact that no one can answer these questions within the framework of the “Old Paradigm” of radiative forcing and greenhouse conjectures, and the fact that we can see that to do so would violate thermodynamics laws, shows that that old paradigm is wrong. Thus it has to be non-radiative processes which do the work, and during sunlit hours, while the surface is warming, heat is actually creeping up the temperature gradient by slow diffusion and convection processes which are restoring the thermodynamic equilibrium which the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will evolve spontaneously.
For more detail, see my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” by myself,
Uh, the temperature of Venus is isothermal at the surface, day side, night side, pole to equator, last I checked there is no BS “warmed by 5 degrees during the day” unless you’ve got some better measurements than NASA/ESA/Venera/etc.
Also you’re unsupported bit about “there should be a nice hot to cold gradient towards the surface” ignores gravity and, get this: that a gravitationally supported cloud of gas has negative specific heat, say it with me:
neg-
uh-
tiv-
spuh-
sih-
fik-
heet…
There, you’ve got it!
thefordprefect says (2013/06/07 at 4:36 AM): “Why not replicate my experiment – you will get the same result. Your position seems to be GHG theory is wrong therefore you can never prove it to be correct. This is not scientific – where is the scepticism?”
=============================================================
This is my skepticism.
a) After reading your numerous postings I have come to the conclusion that you are highly probable a liar, like the most warmists are,
b) no warmist I talked to has been able to present a real link to a real scientific experiment of the kind published prior to the IPCC reports,
c) on the theoretical level a warming effect of back radiation is absurd and physically impossible,
d) lately we have seen a few fakes on the warmists side.
John in France says (2013/06/07 at 4:04 AM): “…my own take on Watts – along with people like Jo Nova, Lindzen, Monckton, Curry etc. – is not to question their scepticism which I think is real enough (even in the case of Judith, who seems to make a religion out of fence-sitting). But they are moderates…”
================================================================
From my experience with those persons and their blogs, they support the core IPCC statements: “greenhouse gas CO2” and “global warming”. This is what they continuously post. Both have no basis in real science and are easy to debunk, but no, those blogs work constantly in support of that. Their criticism of minor and secondary issues does not change that. They make sure we lose. We have not lost everything in the first place because of opposition of China.
John in France says (2013/06/07 at 4:04 AM): “So we should just arm ourselves with patience, avoid missionary zeal and keep on quietly presenting the truth as we see it through articles such as the above.”
==========================================================
Here I agree with you, but please, do not tell me Watts &Co are interested in truth. They allow it to an extent though, so it should be used.
There’s no such thing as “truth as we see it”, there are truths, and there is everything else.
Greg House says:
2013/06/07 at 4:25 PM
“Their criticism of minor and secondary issues does not change that.”
Not sure about Judith (I rarely visit her site), but the others regularly oppose attempts to reduce CO2 emissions – CCS, emissions trading/capping, “alternative” energies, gravy-train funding ); they just say CO2 is a trace gas with little or no effect on the temperature of the earth and point out that the oceans are not rising and not likely to, the Arctic not shrinking, polar bears are thriving… (surely not minor issues) – and they support the work of McIntyre, McIttrick and their ilk.
That’s why I say I do not question their scepticism.
Their ganging up against Slayers and people like Piers Corbyn is more typical of school playground behaviour, no different from what the alarmists indulge in. However with Joe they have bitten off more than they can chew. Many of their bloggers have seen/will see that so Watts the King of the Nippers is going to have to back off somewhat in the near future.
I agree Max™, I am not interested in “truth as someone sees it”. I am only interested in truth as science proves it! I could not give a rats ass as to how someone “sees” something. For these reasons I appreciate Joe and PSI, as they show the truth through science, physics, maths and proofs.
McKitrick, sorry Ross. No excuse, seeing that as my mother was a McQuone
John in France says (2013/06/08 at 1:56 AM): “Not sure about Judith (I rarely visit her site), but the others regularly oppose …they just say … they support … That’s why I say I do not question their scepticism.”
=======================================================
This is why you should question what they have been doing.
They support 2 core unscientific notions the whole hoax is based on: a)”greenhouse gas CO2″ and b)”global warming”.
Both notions are easy to debunk, as I said before. Without these the whole scare would fall apart very fast. A real skeptic would question these in the first place. Instead, they keep promoting it.
As for other issues you mentioned, they are minor or secondary and dealing with them certainly helps to keep up appearances.
Anyway, you are welcome to give a rational explanation of their support for the 2 core unscientific notions ((a) and (b), see above) other then helping the hoax.
Anthony Watts is an alternative energy vehicle company manager. He’s in alarm scamming for money. He also of course is president or whatever of Intelliweather: he’s FAR from interested in seeing the amount of alarm go down from
BOTH
of those.
=========
That’s why Twerk-Face Tony has that smug attitude about “you don’t have the right friends.”
He’s an evil loathesome confidence man who peddles confidence for money. Confidence in alarm.
=========
John in France says:
2013/06/08 at 1:56 AM
Their ganging up against Slayers and people like Piers Corbyn is more typical of school playground behaviour, no different from what the alarmists indulge in. However with Joe they have bitten off more than they can chew. Many of their bloggers have seen/will see that so Watts the King of the Nippers is going to have to back off somewhat in the near future.
[JP: A good term for what Watts & Spencer (etc) are doing is called “bracketing”. Spencer is smart enough to know what he’s doing and so he is in on it; Watts has a grade-8 level education in science and so he’s the monkey that thinks and does what his controller, Spencer, tell him to. The bracketing comes in with these folk for shaping the, you guessed, mental boundary conditions of the whole debate. Note that both Spencer and Watts are only skeptical of alarmism, while they actually SUPPORT the idea of a small level of forcing. This brackets the skeptic side to agree with SOME level of forcing while appearing skeptical, and then simply enough in 20 years or so when everyone forgets what happened, a small amount of forcing will turn into a lot of forcing and the carbon taxes etc. will still be able to come in. That’s how politics works. Start small (we only need to wire-tap terrorists) end the largest you can (everyone needs wire tapping because we don’t know who the terrorists talk to). Etc. I have always pointed out that it is insane that these people get upset when you ask them if the Earth is spherical and rotating. It makes them bonkers. Well then, they’re obviously hiding something aren’t they.]
PSI believes in reality. Science only works in reality not wishful thinking.
“They support 2 core unscientific notions the whole hoax is based on: a)’greenhouse gas CO2″ and b)”global warming’ ”.
Completely agree on that, otherwise I would not be on this blog. Joe’s model taking into account a rotating three-dimensional spheroid earth heated from one side has to be far better than any other so far proposed. But it may be still possible to improve on it, so that’s why I say it’s the truth as he sees it – as we see it. I am not defending relative truth nor post-modern science, but I am dismayed by the absolutism displayed here, because however right we are and however wrong they are, the rigid stance you are taking going on about truth and proof can only lead to retaliation and endless energy-wasting tit-for-tat, as it is doing already.
In the here and now, I think the issues I alluded to are perhaps secondary but far from minor and should be resolved by whatever means nor are they just for keeping up appearances. There I totally disagree. Their flat-earth/cold sun models are certainly invalid but as things stand at present it’s better live with them, rather than fight against them. As you say, the two fallacies are easy to debunk and in an ideal world would fall apart very fast – but in the real world it’s not happening, is it? So how practically do we deal with that?
Rational explanation? When I first started visiting sceptic sites about 2003, especially after seeing Durkin’s film where I discovered the existence of extraordinary people like Tim Ball, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, Piers Corbyn… The CO2 pollutant idea had never rung true with me, but having passed much of my life in a largely left-wing world, on the blogs I was uncomfortable with the largely red-neck company I found I was keeping. At that time they corresponded much more to what has become the Lewandowsky vision of sceptics, now completely dépassé, but the warmists do all they can to maintain it, along with copious use of the loaded word “denier”, as it’s all they have left to smear the opposition with. Under incessant pressure, many sceptics are still trying to live down this undeserved redneck wacko denier contrarian image, leading to their being blocked in the media for “reasons” of avoiding “false” balance etc. and the way they attempt that is to accept some of the warmist premisses whilst demonstrating how weak their conclusions are. (“We do not deny that climate changes – it always has -, that there have been global temperature rises – in fractions of one degree and now none at all for 16 years, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, also plant food – with negligible effect on the earth’s temperature etc…” : http://youtu.be/C35pasCr6KI ). I do agree that the GHE fallacy should not stand but as far as the public impact of the argument is concerned and because so many sceptics will not budge, even there we have to determine if there is such a great practical difference between “negligible” and “non-existent”. Personally I don’t see very much but you obviously do, in which case we must beg to differ.
JiF, I think the “great practical difference between “negligible” and “non-existent”” is that it resides in the mind of politicians at any level. As long as there’s any notion whatsoever that CO2 could cause warming, they will interpret that as “CO2 warms, therefore we must combat it (you can see the dollar signs whirring before their eyes and the cries of “something must be done”). This is the underlying principle that needs totally and utterly destroying. Debunking is not enough, it needs all of scientific, political and mindset destruction, in the same way cancer treatment needs surgery, drugs and chemotherapy.
Greg House says:
2013/06/07 at 3:54 PM
This is my skepticism.
“a) After reading your numerous postings I have come to the conclusion that you are highly probable a liar, like the most warmists are, ”
That is a disgraceful reply.
To call someone a liar who is trying to understand and has gone to the trouble of conducting experiments to help that understanding is not Science, it is VERBAL ABUSE.
I have looked at TPF’s experiments and pointed out that they do not meet the classical “back Radiation” theory as there is far too little warming, but there is some kind of warming taking place.
Which can easily be explained by the fact that objects added to the System have changed the system conditions, especially where there is Atmosphere involved.
There is no argument that says the Radiation from the secondary plate cannot heat the Air which is at a lower temperature than both plates which in turn means loss of convection to the original heat source.
However in a vacuum the reason would be harder to theorise or establish
How can you dismiss his results without trying the experiment yourself and then providing a correct explanation for that result.
You come across as as a High & Mighty Bigot.
Greg House says:
2013/06/09 at 4:45 PM
“They support 2 core unscientific notions the whole hoax is based on: a)”greenhouse gas CO2″ and b)”global warming”.
Both notions are easy to debunk”
Of course there is “Global Warming”, just is there is Global Cooling, as there is Local warming and cooling, it is called Climate, it always has and always will happen.
AGW is something else entirely.
John in France says (2013/06/10 at 5:26 AM): “Under incessant pressure, many sceptics are still trying to live down this undeserved redneck wacko denier contrarian image, leading to their being blocked in the media for “reasons” of avoiding “false” balance etc. and the way they attempt that is to accept some of the warmist premisses whilst demonstrating how weak their conclusions are.”
==========================================================
Except there is no pressure. I do not feel any pressure. Never heard any blogger to complain about pressure. Your “pressure” is a fiction, exactly like the their “greenhouse effect” and “global warming”.
So, you failed to present a rational explanation, as I asked you, you presented a fictional one instead.
Interestingly, you have not mentioned the possibility that people like Watts and Spencer really believe the crap they keep prompting.
It’s going to be found to be “non-existent” in the sense an instrument bank ever makes it calculable. This is a turbulent frigid fluid bath: there’s a claim the main refrigerant class, is a heater.
Water’s a refrigerant. CO2’s the major coolant of the upper atmosphere.
There are 3,000 meters-deep reservoirs of the primary refrigerant covering 55% of the face of the globe. The liquid reservoirs themselves reject light so much their temperature is that of a couple of degrees above phase change to solid: 4 degrees for a substance covering half the globe is a LOT of COOLING and a LOT of cooLANT.
That hick watts is trying to play both sides against the middle peddling his bloatware and electric cars on Ebay. He is trying to draw as many liberals AND as many conservatives as possible so HIS MESSAGE must ALWAYS BE one of AMBIGUITY.
Spencer’s afraid of being relieved of his post, too. Anyone who argued with Al Gore’s political pull domestically after he made his “the world is going to end so we better install my policies anyway TERROR tour”
was prone to being fired if they were in Academia or science per se.
There’s no way to comb a heating signal out of all that refrigerant class cooling in the lower atmosphere, and that radiative blocking (cooling) coming in.
It’s not ever going to happen and all it takes is the time it takes for an elevator to go between floors to make the point to nearly anyone from a ditch digger to a chemist.
Ten THOUSAND feet deep reservoirs of the LIQUID version of the refrigerant. The tops of all those clouds with their cooling, the blocking/reflection of all that snow, all around the world: there’s no way to accurately quantify all that and then pull out a HEATING component.
Anybody who thinks of it very long knows it. Anthony Watts likes using all that free government eye candy in the form of graphs to make climate seem deeply mystifying. FREE government MEDIA in the form of graphs and press releases?
He’ll take some of THAT! So he keeps it UP.
HE doesn’t want the FUNDAMENTAL SOURCE of his FREE material drying up: government eye candy and bullshooting stories. If it dries up HOW WILL HE ADVERTISE those CARS?
How will he ADVERTISE that BLOATWARE?
Watts and all the rest of those who claim they still believe in that hogwash are doing it for M.O.N.E.Y. so they don’t have to get R.E.A.L. JOBS.
Pretty much – that’s how it shakes out.
Peace friends of truth. May Watts’ cars catch on fire and he, wind up broke, and chased by the I.R.S.
Watts has deceived the world with his ludicrous claims to still believe in that crap after all these years.
He went to school for like EIGHT years but never got an electrical engineering degree but he’s quasi-competent. He just doesn’t WANT the ALARM to GO AWAY or HIS GREEN ALARM MONEY will GO AWAY. He’s an evil grubworm on the face of science and he deserves what he gets.
You don’t need a degree to understand the frigid fluid refrigerated atmosphere, driven by convection, isn’t a ‘big warm blankie’ driven by convection suppression.
Watts is just an evil, tasteless, fraudulent liar.
Simon Conway-Smith
2013/06/10 at 8:33 AM
Good point, but it does not solve the immediate problem which is much wider than the Spencer/Watts issue.
And re Joe’s interesting reply about bracketing (that’s a new one on me) and Allen Eltor’s allusions to Watts’ green interests (can he back up his assertions?), the mental boundary conditions apply to a much wider range of sceptics than the Spencer/Watts clique. The Youtube clip I linked to is case in point. it is an interview by Andrew Bolt of three skeptical scientists: Bob Carter, Peter Ridd (whom I had never heard of) and Garth Paltridge (I have just clicked on the link I gave you but it doesn’t seem to work; I accessed it through https://twitter.com/ClimateRealists – tweeted June 9th 2013 – and that’s still OK). I don’t think the interview is quite recent but what it appears to show is that Carter and Paltridge implicitly take the GHE as a given. How many are in their case? Are they too victims of the deliberate bracketing?
Again, beware of conspiracy theories.
John in France says (2013/06/11 at 5:36 AM): “Again, beware of conspiracy theories.”
==============================================================
I suggest beware of “conspiracy theories” theories.
There is a large minority of people ready to lie for the “cause”, in the press and in politics.
It does not require a brilliant mind to see what Watts&Co have been doing.
A C Osborn says 2013/06/10 at 10:04 AM Greg House says 2013/06/07 at 3:54 PM “a) After reading your numerous postings I have come to the conclusion that you are highly probable a liar, like the most warmists are, ”
To call someone a liar who is trying to understand and has gone to the trouble of conducting experiments to help that understanding is not Science, it is VERBAL ABUSE.
================================================================
My conclusion is no abuse, it is not names calling, it is a conclusion on a certain property of this person made on the basis of reading his comments.
It is not different from coming to the conclusion that someone is well educated after reading his CV or that a person is a thief after reading his police record.
Besides, you are going in circles referring to his alleged “trying to understand and …conducting experiments”, because this is what I do not believe based on (see above) and you can not prove.
So, liars exist and we have at least one here, in my strong opinion.
A C Osborn says (2013/06/10 at 10:10 AM): “Of course there is “Global Warming”, just is there is Global Cooling, as there is Local warming and cooling, it is called Climate, it always has and always will happen.”
=====================================================
If you say there is “Global Warming” you need to prove it, what warmists failed to do. Therefore you do not know what is there. Telling unproven fictions is not science.
Alright enough inter-personal bickering for now 🙂
Me, 2013/06/11 at 5:36 AM:
“Again, beware of conspiracy theories.”
Yes I should have refrained from making that last remark because it has diluted what I mainly had to say in the comment (just like your blog extract in the P.S.I version, Joe) – and that was: the problem goes far beyond Spencer/Watts. The GHE seems to have become a paradigm – a given among a large part of the scientific community, whatever their speciality or affiliation, without second thought. The science really does appear to have become “settled” on that precise point. So what do we do about that, Joe?
Great question: how do you get people to understand the Earth is round and the Sunshine is hot when they believe otherwise? The GHE has become so entrenched simply because it is now such a shock to realize that the Earth is round and Sunshine is hot that the mind reels away from it. It is such a fundamental item of cognitive dissonance that it just can’t be faced, it is just too disturbing and too mind-altering. It is now the belief system (religion?) of PhD’s in science to think of the Earth as flat and the Sun as twice as far away – this is now accepted orthodoxy.
What to do. Keep going. I’ve won converts here. Talk to people about it…that’s the only thing that has ever been able to be done. Tell people and talk to them, tell them the Earth is round and sunshine is hot, and that science thinks the Earth is flat and the Sunshine is cold and is therefore wrong. It needs their help. Science needs help from the average person who has no formal contact with science, but contact with reality. They help science by knowing where it has failed, by being able to make fun of it and criticize it where it is stupidly wrong.
Joe could not have described it better, in my humble opinion. I believe what Joe has described as “bracketing” is spot on, and most perfectly describes Anthony and his motives.
My brother delivered the phrase to me. Smart fellow he 🙂
John in France says (2013/06/11 at 12:00 PM): “The GHE seems to have become a paradigm – a given among a large part of the scientific community, whatever their speciality or affiliation, without second thought. The science really does appear to have become “settled” on that precise point.”
========================================================
“Paradigm” is another fiction.
Smart indeed. I had never thought of it quite like that before, but the more I think about this situation in those terms, the more it makes sense, and the more accurately the [bracketing] paradigm fits the reality picture. I believe this is precisely what Watt’s and several others have been engaging in. One only needs to reflect upon the historical evolution of WUWT blog and you can clearly see this [bracketing] picture emerge. Quite startling to have ones eyes so brisk-fully opened. (I can see clearly now the rain is gone) 🙂
Just wanted to copypaste this WUWT posting of mine here. There’s a fundamental and deep-rooted connection between your argument, Joe, about the actual solar input which is absorbed during the day only (duh!), and for the most part in the tropical oceans, and Bob Tisdale’s argument about how the ENSO phenomenon of the Pacific Ocean distributes the tropical solar heat globally by both oceanic and atmospheric means and thus shapes the global climate on an annual, decadal and multidecadal level, fuelled by this unimaginably large solar input to the tropical Pacific. In an ideal world, you two would team up.
The huge heat capacity of the (tropical) ocean and its dynamic interaction with the Sun is the secret behind the global climate of planet Earth.
Tisdale, though, needs to learn that DLR is not an entity unto itself, but simply an inferred counter-flow of radiative energy from the atmosphere to the outgoing one from the surface.
From WUWT:
“Bob Tisdale says, June 12, 2013 at 9:12 am:
“Why would you combine DSR and DLR when looking at the ocean? Due their abilities to penetrate the surface, they have significantly different abilities to warm the ocean.”
This is not why you cannot combine the two. The (measured) DSR flux is a radiative heat flux, the (inferred) DLR flux is not. Only heat, like ‘radiative heat’, has the ability to ‘heat’ the ocean. Where did this fundamental knowledge go? There is no radiative heat coming down to the ocean surface from the atmosphere. The radiative heat flux between surface and atmosphere goes up. Period.
This is the warmists greatest victory: They’ve managed to coax everyone into firmly believing their core premise, without questioning, to be an established truth, that all energy automatically equals heat, that even inferred energy flows, like from cold to hot, is heat and is thus capable of heating.
Frankly it’s as elementary as what you keep emphasizing and which also no one but a measly few seem to grasp: NINO3.4 is not ENSO.
‘Heat’ is naturally spontaneous and irreversible (‘net’) energy transfer from a warm to a cool system. This transfer only goes one way. Energy is not heat except by this definition.
If people only understood and internalised these two distinctions (ENSO is more than NINO3.4 (hey, it even rhymes!); energy is not in itself heat), the whole AGW scheme would be buried at once.”
[JP: Nice, thanks! Indeed, energy is not always heat.]
Joseph E Postma says:
2013/06/11 at 9:03 AM
Alright enough inter-personal bickering for now 🙂
Joe, Greg House does your Forum no favours with stupid statements like “If you say there is “Global Warming” you need to prove it”.
If there was no Global Warming the Earth would still be in any one of the previous Ice Ages.
Note I did not mention what caused the warming or cooling, just that they have occurred.
Nor does calling someone a liar rather than trying to answer their questions help at all.
But it’s your forum.
Bye
[JP: Right, noted. Thanks.]
Planetary surface temperatures have very little to do with incident radiation. At the base of the theoretical troposphere of Uranus it is about 320K but virtually no Solar radiation reaches down through 350Km of its atmosphere to that altitude.
The Sun cannot heat the surfaces of planets like Earth and Venus to the observed temperatures with direct radiation. So it doesn’t matter how much the atmosphere slows cooling if we can’t explain how the temperature gets to 288K on Earth or 730K on Venus before any such cooling begins.
In fact it is energy from the Sun which does the warming by first heating the atmosphere with incident radiation. That absorbed energy then disturbs the thermodynamic equilibrium and this leads to convective heat transfer down towards the surface. In physics “convective heat transfer” can comprise diffusion as well as advection, but advection is not necessary. We don’t need to explain such heat transfer by imagining air moving up or down. We need to understand the process described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as in Sections 4 to 9 here.
Joseph E Postma….
Yah I don’t get it. WUWT has been posting TONS of articles lately all which have the underlying theme that the greenhouse models have failed. Yet still he hates us. Something strange is happening.
====================
Ever heard of “Controlled Opposition?”
1. You have Willis/Watts defending the Green house gas effect.
2. You have Ferdinand Englebeen defending “CO2 is a well mixed grass” and the ‘OFFICIAL’ CO2 data.
Before:
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200702142827
After:
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/cgi-bin/wdcgg/quick_plot.cgi?imagetype=png&dataid=200906040013
3. Last you have Leif Svalgaard defending ‘The Sun is Constant’ and therefore can not effect the earth’s climate.
Landscheidt is completely banned and Nicola Scafetta gets trashed.
Yes it is totally bizarre, isn’t it. As you said, a steady stream of articles from WUWT with the underlying theme that the GHG models are wrong. Yet, if you say that, which is the obvious and only pertinent conclusion of these articles, you get trashed. Cognitive dissonance or something?
Also, the Sun flux may be more or less constant (well, it varies as function of orbit actually), but something as seemingly innocuous as cosmic rays modulated by solar magnetic activity from sunspots actually has a huge effect. So, the constant flux thing is beside the point and the sunspot thing shows just how sensitive the Earth is to the SUN, independent of its flux.
I mean that’s what this post was about: the idea that the Sun has no effect on the climate, re: Leif. The Sun drives everything.
The sun is indeed a major factor in climate. Leif always dodges the point that although TSI has been rather steady lately, the distribution of energy between UV, visible and IR has not and it is the high energy visible and UV that penetrate to significant ocean depths not IR.
Solar UV also has a major effect on O3 formation and there is interaction between ozone, clouds and the amount of UV that reaches the surface. (No one seems to have that subject completely worked out yet.)
Also this last solar cycle minimum had a major effect on the height of the atmosphere. According to NASA it was less ‘Puffed-up” (colder) and this effects the Jet Stream. –
http://www.met.sjsu.edu/baesi/voss/binders_demo.doc
However the sun is not the only influence on climate. Land mass configuration has been a major factor over millenium scale so Ice build-up may also be a factor.
The oceans/water is also a big factor.
There are a couple of intriguing lines of thought that have not had much investigation. The first is the effects of the moon on the ocean.
From Jo Nova’s site:
Can the Moon change our climate? Can tides in the atmosphere solve the mystery of ENSO?
The Moons’ influence on the atmosphere over Australia
And E.M. Smith notes the timing of Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations and Bond events (~ 1500 years) is similar to the saros series.
Lunar Cycles, more than one…
“… It takes between 1226 and 1550 years for the members of a saros series to traverse the Earth’s surface from north to south (or vice-versa). ….”
So you have the moon’s gravitational pull sucking the oceans north and then suddenly reversing every 1200 – 1500 years.
More from EM Smith on the moon’s influence.
Lunar Resonance and Taurid Storms
About That Lunar Cycle
Why Weather has a 60 year Lunar beat
Last is his comments on Drake’s Passage The Drakes Passage is a pinch point for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that diverts cold water up the west coast of South America. This could have a major impact on ENSO due to changes of wind speed of the Antarctic Cirumpolar Winds as they drive the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC).
The Shackleton Fracture Zone is located in Drake Passage. There was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2010 and another 6.2 magnitude earthquake in 2012. Geophysical and geochemical evidence presented here suggests that the Shackleton Fracture Zone is an oceanic transverse ridge, formed by uplift related to compression across the fracture zone
Thanks for all that…neat stuff.
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