The following article speaks for itself. It's only been released a couple of weeks ago.
G. Gerlich, R.D. Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame of physics.
It's 114 pages long, so I'll quote the abstract:
quote:
Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
There also seems to be some straw man knocking going on in their statements that "The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system."
and
"According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist."
There is nothing in the theory of the Earth's greenhouse effect that contravenes the second law of thermodynamics. Maybe I missed it but where in the theory does entropy not increase?
I read the section about how they debunk the radiative transfer science which shows what IR forcing we should expect from CO2 increases, and I was left a bit confused. There was plenty of hyperbole about how they achieved this but I didn't see any serious discussion about it and I failed to see where they did actually debunk it. Anyone else notice this point?
I saw them knock down a lot of straw men by attacking various bits of hearsay and secondary school explanation of the greenhouse effect but there was no real debunking of the hard physics behind the radiative transfer work.
There seems to be a plethora of loony documents at the moment written by folk such as these two, a guy called Beck and another guy called Jawarowski. They're all quite entertaining, but not worthy of respect. This particular document goes out of its way to misunderstand the concept of radiative forcing, fails to discuss the properties of CO2 and obfuscates the whole argument with poorly explained, complicated looking (though mostly quite basic) equations. In and around all this are an unending repetition of allegations of scientific fraud.
Pages 80-85 are a case in point where a whole series of equations relating to magnetohydrodynamics are brought together, and because the authors can't "see" a term for CO2 they conclude the effect can't possibly exist.
As far as I can see, their only "disproof" of radiative forcing by increasing greenhouse gases is that, to paraphrase, "since the concept of global temperature is ill-defined, a mechanism that raises the global temperature is impossible". See section 3.1.13
As far as I can see, their only "disproof" of radiative forcing by increasing greenhouse gases is that, to paraphrase, "since the concept of global temperature is ill-defined, a mechanism that raises the global temperature is impossible".
But the point they are making is that sometimes T is calculated as the 4th root of the average of T^4 and some times the average of T. Two different quantities. The latter is how ground stations are averaged and the former how methods relying on radiation measurements work, and you'll get different answers.
But the point they are making is that sometimes T is calculated as the 4th root of the average of T^4 and some times the average of T. Two different quantities. The latter is how ground stations are averaged and the former how methods relying on radiation measurements work, and you'll get different answers.
1. That's only important if the temperatures are very radically different over the earth, and if the temperature anomalies are also radically different. Eg if the tropics warmed by 1C and the poles cooled by 1C such that Tmean is the same, (T^4)mean will be higher resulting in increase in outward radiation flow. 2. It's only important if the temperature anomaly were the only standard for measuring warming. It's not, it's one of many indicators and most of them are going the same way. 3. Even if you did do the sums wrong and got the wrong answer, it doesn't mean that the planet isn't being warmed by the effect described.
To illustrate their point they imagine a stationary earth which is at 0K on the dark side and unreasonably hot on the sunny side. But rather than just summarise this they insist on presenting an integration over spherical coordinates. And rather than just using total solar irradiance they calculate from solar temperature and the ratio of solar radius to earth orbit radius. All of which is (in my view) a deliberate obfuscation of the point. Someone said on a site elsewhere "I feel this is an important contribution to the debate and I hope someone can explain the maths to me".
Originally posted by Steve_M: This particular document goes out of its way to misunderstand the concept of radiative forcing, fails to discuss the properties of CO2 and obfuscates the whole argument with poorly explained, complicated looking (though mostly quite basic) equations. In and around all this are an unending repetition of allegations of scientific fraud.
If you have noticed misunderstanding of "the concept of radiative forcing," then it means you should be able to explain what it really is and how it is different from what's being analyzed in the article. The floor is yours.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve_M: Pages 80-85 are a case in point where a whole series of equations relating to magnetohydrodynamics are brought together, and because the authors can't "see" a term for CO2 they conclude the effect can't possibly exist.
Show it if you can see it. You must be good at picking at small things while passing over big things that you can't comment on, creating an impression that you've picked on the most important point. The "CO2 term" comment was in relation to only one equation of many. But in the following discussion, the authors bring the main point. Not only are the equations not exactly solvable, but: "It cannot be overemphasized that even if these equations are simplified considerably, one cannot determine numerical solutions, even for small space regions and even for small time intervals. This situation will not change in the next 1000 years regardless of progress made in computer hardware."
The reason why the computer models are able to produce any results at all is because some essential factors are discarded for simplification purposes. These factors are important enough to claim that, without them, the models are unphysical: "In computer simulations heat conduction and friction are completely neglected, since they are mathematically described by second order partial derivatives that cannot be represented on grids with wide meshes. Hence, the computer simulations of global climatology are not based on physical laws."
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Originally posted by Steve_M: As far as I can see, their only "disproof" of radiative forcing by increasing greenhouse gases is that, to paraphrase, "since the concept of global temperature is ill-defined, a mechanism that raises the global temperature is impossible". See section 3.1.13
Actually, it's Section 3.3.13 (3.1.13 does not exist). You paraphrase poorly, since you distort the meaning. They said nothing about the "mechanism" being "impossible." What they said was: "The concept of the Earth's average temperature is a physically and mathematically ill-defined and therefore useless concept as will be shown in Section 3.7." And they said this in a mini-section devoted specifically to the Encyclopedia Britannica quote, which has to do precisely with the Earth's average temperature. No more had to be said about that particular one, and it's just a small, mainly illustrative, part of the article anyway. But now you take this out of context, distort the meaning, and claim that this is what the article is all about. Pseudoskeptic tactics.
Originally posted by podbod: I take issue with points a), b), and c).
Really? That's very bold of you, 'cause even the AGW-supporting scientists don't deny (a). If you still believe that the real greenhouses warm up because of infrared absorption, then you're way behind even the AGW science.
Originally posted by podbod: I take issue with points a), b), and c).
You also don't seem to explain anywhere in your post how exactly you take issue with those. I think you references to a), b), and c) stopped right after the first sentence.
Originally posted by podbod: There is nothing in the theory of the Earth's greenhouse effect that contravenes the second law of thermodynamics. Maybe I missed it but where in the theory does entropy not increase?
You have missed it. Go read Section 3.9.
quote:
Originally posted by podbod: This isn't a very good start.
1. That's only important if the temperatures are very radically different over the earth, and if the temperature anomalies are also radically different. Eg if the tropics warmed by 1C and the poles cooled by 1C such that Tmean is the same, (T^4)mean will be higher resulting in increase in outward radiation flow. 2. It's only important if the temperature anomaly were the only standard for measuring warming. It's not, it's one of many indicators and most of them are going the same way. 3. Even if you did do the sums wrong and got the wrong answer, it doesn't mean that the planet isn't being warmed by the effect described.
Disagree - if you look at section 3.7.6 it shows a not unreasonable example and a difference of average temperatures of 0.48 deg C
If you have noticed misunderstanding of "the concept of radiative forcing," then it means you should be able to explain what it really is and how it is different from what's being analyzed in the article. The floor is yours.
Typically, a layer at the top of the troposphere is defined, and the change in the net radiation passing through this layer is calculated for a given instantaneous change. Eg. a doubling of CO2 reduces the outgoing long-wave radiation by on average 4W/m^2, so 4W/m^2 is the forcing. Or if the solar incidence goes up by 1 W/m^2 then averaged over the earth the forcing is 0.25W/m^2.
The concept of conservation of energy will state that if the net forcing is positive, then the energy of the earth is going upwards, and it is likely that the excess energy will heat the atmosphere and oceans. The energy will continue to increase till the earth is warm enough to emit enough extra energy to outweigh the forcing.
Page 80-85 equations are red herrings. Heat conduction in air is small compared to convection, so the approximation is realistic.
Yes I did mean 3.3.13. But 3.7 contains a whole series of misunderstandings and misdirections. Falsifying an illustration of energy flows does not falsify the theory. Yes radiation goes sideways as well as upwards, but surely they understand the concepts of vectors and the component of the energy flow that goes up or down. Also when trying to debunk sigma T^4, again, applying the equation to the whole earth is done for illustrative purposes. The earth is approximately uniform in temperature, so simply applying the concept of conservation of energy you can say that since solar absorbed must equal longwave out, you can characterise the "average temperature" of the earth as about 255K.
podbod's complaint about a) I suspect is because a real greenhouse retains heat by preventing convection whereas the CO2 greenhouse effect is about preventing radiation. Glad to have cleared up your misunderstanding of this.
As to the 2nd law, the changes in the sun's entropy are massive compared to the changes in entropy of the earth - the 2nd law is perfectly safe.
Disagree - if you look at section 3.7.6 it shows a not unreasonable example and a difference of average temperatures of 0.48 deg C
Here's the proof using their example:
Averages using T and T^4 are 288.15 288.62618104 which differ by 0.476C agreed.
If all temperature stations increase by 1C then:
Averages using T+1 and (T+1)^4 are 289.15 289.624541073, now differing by about 0.475C, so the temperature anomaly is the same.
If the 3 warmest stations do not warm, then the difference is 0.433C. It's diverged further, but the difference in the anomaly is still very small with respect to the change.
So while the two values are different, as long as you are consistent in your method and as long as the variation is not too large, then you are OK.
People do think long and hard about these metrics. With the oceans, they tend to talk about energy content rather than average temperature, and I assume this is because the metric of average temperature does not apply so well.
Originally posted by Steve_M: Typically, a layer at the top of the troposphere is defined, and the change in the net radiation passing through this layer is calculated for a given instantaneous change. Eg. a doubling of CO2 reduces the outgoing long-wave radiation by on average 4W/m^2, so 4W/m^2 is the forcing. Or if the solar incidence goes up by 1 W/m^2 then averaged over the earth the forcing is 0.25W/m^2.
A layer. I knew it'd come to this. You're placing an effective ceiling over the atmosphere, so no wonder that your model stars behaving like a real greenhouse. Do you realize that no such physical layer exists? If you were to draw an imaginary surface, the air would convect right through it, back and forth.
This is an example of oversimplification of a model to the point of becoming unphysical. Just the kind the article objects against.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve_M: Page 80-85 equations are red herrings. Heat conduction in air is small compared to convection, so the approximation is realistic.
Ah, but if you start talking convection, that your toy model above fails, doesn't it? But really, the equations on pp. 80-85 are derived in application to the Earth+atmosphere system in totality, because that's the system that's supposed to be in equilibrium with the environment, according to the greenhouse effect theory. It is assumed that all convection occurs inside, and no exchange with the outside is taking place. Which is not true, strictly speaking, but that's what the AGW theory claims to be the case, and it is being disproved in the article.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve_M: Yes I did mean 3.3.13. But 3.7 contains a whole series of misunderstandings and misdirections. Falsifying an illustration of energy flows does not falsify the theory. Yes radiation goes sideways as well as upwards, but surely they understand the concepts of vectors and the component of the energy flow that goes up or down. Also when trying to debunk sigma T^4, again, applying the equation to the whole earth is done for illustrative purposes. The earth is approximately uniform in temperature, so simply applying the concept of conservation of energy you can say that since solar absorbed must equal longwave out, you can characterise the "average temperature" of the earth as about 255K.
The equation is applied to the whole Earth because that's the boundaries of the system that, according to the CO2 greenhouse effect theory, ought to be at balance with the surroundings. Limited to a local area cannot be done, since even the greenhouse theorists realize the balance obviously doesn't hold.
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Originally posted by Steve_M: podbod's complaint about a) I suspect is because a real greenhouse retains heat by preventing convection whereas the CO2 greenhouse effect is about preventing radiation. Glad to have cleared up your misunderstanding of this.
You realize, of course, that negation of a negation amounts to confirmation. (a) states that the proposed CO2 greenhouse effect has nothing to do with real greenhouses. Podbod objected to that, meaning that he thinks that both are heated by the same mechanism. Which is not true, of course. And I said so.
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Originally posted by Steve_M: As to the 2nd law, the changes in the sun's entropy are massive compared to the changes in entropy of the earth - the 2nd law is perfectly safe.
Addressed in the article: "Furthermore, the system in question here is the atmospheric system of the Earth including the Earth's ground. Since this system is assumed to be in radiative balance with its environment, and any other forms of energy and mass exchange with its environment are strictly prohibited, it defines a system in the sense of thermodynamics for which the second law holds strictly, even if it is considered as a subsystem of a larger embedding system."
Originally posted by Steve_M: So while the two values are different, as long as you are consistent in your method and as long as the variation is not too large, then you are OK.
OK in what sense? In the sense of research grants keeping flowing in? The difference illustrates a principal flaw in the model. And it's not always small. The point is that the difference will keep growing, because the growth is mandated by the unphysical assumptions o the model. Garbage in, garbage out.
But with weather some could go up, others down and the averages could get closer or move apart - and as we know weather is chaotic.
Which is why I gave you an example where three of the stations warm by 1C and three of the stations stay the same. But as I said, this is just one metric among very many, and no matter which way you look at it, temperatures are going up.
You're placing an effective ceiling over the atmosphere, so no wonder that your model stars behaving like a real greenhouse. Do you realize that no such physical layer exists? If you were to draw an imaginary surface, the air would convect right through it, back and forth.
