A Moment of Silence, For the Fall of Europe

All climate blogs should post this news, of the rise of unrestrained tyranny due to an incompetent and fraudulent science:

EU Bans the Incandescent Light Bulb

Just Apologize, Climate Scientists

The wattsupwiththat site has yet another go at "constraining" the carbon dioxide "climate sensitivity", from a renowned member of the English peerage, to which I have responded:

The basic fact is, the global temperature record over the last century and more -- and many "skeptics" have pointed this out, with graphs -- shows global cooling from about 1880 to 1910, warming from about 1910 to 1940, cooling again from 1940 to 197(5), and warming again from 1975 to near 2000 (and now cooling again). There is even a well-known theory about this (involving multidecadal ocean oscillations, on top of an apparent recovery from the so-called Little Ice Age, since the 17th century). A good number of researchers have pointed out that the CO2 atmospheric concentration has gone up throughout that period, and have reasonably claimed that therefore CO2 cannot be blamed for the up and down temperature record. Believers -- and that is all they are, believers -- only muddy the debate with their attempts to distinguish between "forcings" and "feedbacks", in that up and down temperature situation.

The period 1960 to 2008, considered by Christopher Monckton here, is from the middle of a cooling period to a little past the end of a warming period, so temperatures have gone both up and down in that period, while CO2 has definitely continued to rise. Does he think this is an optimal test of CO2 "forcing"? In this, he is ignoring a basic fact in the longer temperature record that speaks against any CO2-driven "climate sensitivity" at all, and apparently finds what so many others have pointed out, simply from looking at those wider up and down periods: That the temperature is NOT driven by CO2, period. I think they did by simple observation better than Mr. Monckton has done here with the sorts of naive equations (dT = λ dF) favored by the incompetent consensus scientists. "Lukewarm" believers like him curry (whoa -- Judith Curry is another one) to the consensus theory, instead of decisively breaking with it, as they should.

If you ignore the simple evidence of the up and down temperature record vs. the monotonically rising CO2 -- solely in order to maintain there is, there MUST BE, a "greenhouse effect", of increasing temperature with increasing atmospheric CO2 -- then you are all too likely, in your fevered belief in that dogma, to dismiss any claims of definitive disproof of that effect. How could such disproof have been missed, by all of climate science, all these years? If, on the other hand, you don't ignore the ample, indeed overwhelming and simple, evidence just noted, against the greenhouse effect, put forward time and time again, then you probably already know by now that there is such definitive evidence. The only trouble is, you will have to admit that climate scientists have been, and stubbornly continue to be, fundamentally deluded by their (clearly) false theories, and that there is therefore -- and regretfully, considering the attention of the world is focused upon it -- no competent climate science in the world today.

We all make mistakes, even embarrassing ones like this one of mine. But people need to start learning from their mistakes, rather than stubbornly passing them down to the next generation. There is no greenhouse effect, of increasing temperature with increasing CO2.

Why People Today Won't or Can't Reason

The real-science site takes a dim view of what Steven Goddard calls the Democratic platform ("Lies, Superstition and Denial"), to which I respond here, in accordance with what my unprecedented research has uncovered:

"Lies, superstition and denial" is not seeing the forest for the trees, those three avoidances of truth being the "trees". The "forest", however -- the epidemic urge, in mankind today, to avoid the truth -- is the knee-jerk mental bowing to dogma, or factually unsupported or invalidated, but unquestioned, authority. In the public debates, it is commonly known as "political correctness", going by the apparent, society-wide intellectual fads of the moment (or the decade, or the generation, or even the culture). Dogma is dramatically, climactically ascendant in the world today, over true, dispassionate (i.e., focused only on finding the truth) reason. That is my overriding message now, in these dark times (whose dogmatic heart is generally unrecognized by mere partisan analyses), based upon my own research into the objective origin of the very first (and still surviving) dogmas, underlying the "ancieht mysteries" of man, and my epochal findings (primarily of a world-encompassing design imposed upon the world, by those whom ancient man was informed of, in earliest myths worldwide, as the "gods" who once reigned, thousands of years before earthbound, mortal men first became kings). When that source of the earliest dogmas, which still overshadow all the endeavors of "modern man" with the accumulated fearful superstitions, lies and scientific denial of the past, is finally confronted and accepted, mankind can cast off that nearly instinctual urge to bow to the convenient, and inherently divisive, dogmas each individual is brought up to believe. Then, I like to think, the true abilities of man -- now seemingly limited to just a few, lucky "superstars" in any field -- will flower as never before (because man will outgrow the false philosophy of "survival of the fittest", anciently known as "holier than thou").

Political Meltdown Over the Arctic

UPDATE Aug. 30, 2012: This post is pathetically wrong in its basic physics. Total internal reflection occurs in the medium with the larger index of refraction, not in the lesser. No excuses, since my internet writing is not about me, and I can only admit my mistakes, to lessen the likelihood of others being misled by them; in this, I am happy to say, I differ from virtually all others on the internet. Sorry for this, to those who wish me well.

The climaterealists site has an article, by a global warming alarmist, on a supposed Arctic meltdown, to which I have responded there with the following comment:

Look how easy it is to disprove what Mr. Monbiot is trying to make the public believe, just a small example that any high school physics student can understand:

Monbiot says: "... As the ice melts...exposing the darker sea beneath, heat that would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed." Because of melting Arctic ice, he thinks "What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet."

Very basic physics denies this completely. The arctic circle is an imaginary circle surrounding the North Pole, with a radius of approximately 23.5° (the angle subtended at the Earth's center, from the pole to the arctic circle), so it is at latitude 66.5°. The Arctic, within the arctic circle, is cold because the Sun's rays don't strike the ground "head-on" there, that is, perpendicular to the surface, but at a relatively large angle. This means, not only that the Sun's energy is more spread out due to the angle at which it strikes the surface, but in the autumn and winter months the Sun never even gets above the horizon, so no energy hits the ground at all.

Now here is some high-school physics: Light impinging upon water at a large enough angle (from the perpendicular to the surface) will not be absorbed, but will be reflected totally. For water, with an index of refraction of 1.33, the critical angle, beyond which total reflection occurs, is Arcsin(1/1.33) = 48.75°.

Even at the height of summer, and even as far south as the Arctic circle itself, the angle of incidence (measured from the perpendicular to the surface) of the Sun's rays is at least 43° (this is just 90° - 47°, with 47° being the angular diameter of the Arctic circle). The Sun's light will hit the surface at the critical angle of 48.75° just 5.75° further north, that is, any sunlight hitting a water surface at 66.5° + 5.75° = 72.25° latitude or above, will be totally reflected. And that is just the area where hysterical people like Mr. Monbiot think "transformation of the atmospheric physics of the planet" is occurring, due to melting ice -- an area where the Sun's rays are totally reflected anyway, even if all the ice were to melt.

Mr. Monbiot's fear is unfounded, but much worse, it is clearly obsessive, and is in fact a mass hysteria among those who accept the politically-sponsored (not scientifically competent) "consensus" on global warming. It is a form of insanity, politically promulgated worldwide now, that threatens the peace of the world. I urge believers in runaway global warming to stop spreading incompetent science; stop this hysterical belief in its tracks.

And there is no greenhouse effect, of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. See

Venus:  No Greenhouse Effect

The climate science communtiy itself is fundamentally deluded about how the atmosphere is warmed, and fundamentally deluded that it is at all unstable, subject to either runaway global warming OR cooling. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were, of incompetence in current scientific thinking about the Earth.

Political Delusions About Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere

The Warning Signs and Climaterealists sites have a post by Alan Caruba, about a new effort to regulate carbon dioxide gas (CO2) emissions.  The post cites an article by Hans Schreuder, saying in part that CO2 cools the atmosphere.  I submitted the following comment to the Warning Signs site:

Two points:

1) This is part of what I call "The War of the Insane Left" (capitalized so I don't lose focus upon it, because I see it as a fundamental, defining fact of our current, largely political situation, although it involves a suborned, incompetent climate science, and no doubt other sciences as well).

2) CO2 does not cool the atmosphere.  Rather the atmosphere, as a whole, because of its stable (!) temperature distribution -- due to gravity, increasing the pressure and thus the temperature, the farther down one goes in the atmosphere -- can cool the Earth's surface (as the surface rises to higher altitudes, for example, and at night, when the surface cools faster than the atmosphere closest to it); and the Earth's surface does not warm the atmosphere except locally and transiently, which drives the weather but does not affect the stable vertical distribution of temperature in the atmosphere (the decrease in temperature with altitude, throughout the troposphere).

Why There Is No True Debate, and a False Consensus

The wattsupwiththat site has a post on the need for debate, not consensus, over climate change, to which I have responded:

The problem is, the POLITICAL debate is well advanced, but the SCIENTIFIC debate is non-existent, because: Nobody knows the fundamental science they are pretending to know, or deluding themselves that they know. There are no competent climate scientists. Neither the "alarmist" nor the "lukewarm" believers in the greenhouse effect--of increasing temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (not "the temperature with, vs. without, an atmosphere", you proud fools)--know the first thing about what the evidence is telling you: that there is no such greenhouse effect, and your belief in it only marks your own scientific incompetence. There should be no public debate on the science, first and foremost because the public is not educated to competently participate, and now it should be clear (but of course it is not, which is the main point) that even the "experts" are miseducated, and clinging to failed theoretical dogma (so the dismal truth is, "climate science" is not ready for prime time--after the last 40 to 50 years of imbibed false theory). These statements are the real point of departure for any reasonable debate (which should be entirely open to the lay public, but without its participation, AND without the participation of climate scientists, who have universally failed in their professional responsibility--hand it over to non-climate scientists--preferrably physicists over the age of 60, educated before the dogma of the "greenhouse effect" was accepted as "settled science"--and anyone who respects the stable Standard Atmosphere over the hysterical "meme" of runaway climate change. And given the stillborn state of the scientific debate, cancel all governmental "climate" policies, forthwith--cease and desist now, or yesterday if possible.

Schizophrenia, and Cancer, in the System Today

The Warning Signs site of Alan Caruba has a post on the seeming "schizophrenia" involved in America's lagging commitment and investment in nuclear power for our growing energy needs, to which I respond:

It seems the energy industry and government have been increasingly at odds, since Three-Mile Island at least. The war on coal long pre-dates Obama, as I first noted it, as a research associate, back in 1991-4, while analyzing data on aerosols at remote, federally-protected sites; and even then I noted some scientists were pushing "greenhouse gases" over real air pollution, which I realized seemed stupid, though I was but a tangential observer of that group of atmospheric scientists. The turning of the environmentalists away from actual air pollution, like black carbon from diesel fuel burning (incomplete burning), to first the "ozone hole" scare and then the "greenhouse effect", plainly marked their slide into scientific barrenness and closed-minded insanity. As a bit player, I was not then in a position to connect the dots (I had my own job, requiring all my ability to sniff out the truth--for which I was summarily terminated, "due to cuts in funding", by my incompetent boss and his superiors, leading all the way up to the EPA). All roads in the current environmental insanity, by the way, lead to the EPA, and I now regard it as the fox in the hen house, or the thief in the upstairs master bedroom, or simply a cancer within the system. Those working in the system think the system is working as it should, but they are like eunuchs in an ancient temple that has been corrupted by its priests to the most licentious moral crimes. The secular corruption of today, I believe, mirrors the religious corruption of ancient times. It presages worldwide revolution, of both science and religion, and the more that timely corrections are repressed now, by the aggressive promulgators of false dogma in both science and religion, the more violent it will eventually be.

Just on the scientific side, there has been no continuing advancement--though it is sorely needed--in fundamental physical science, across all major fields, for most of my life (64 years). Instead, our civilization (and the world) is coasting on a still-advancing, but aging--and strangely shallow yet popular--technology (with internet applications like google and facebook, i-pads, i-phones, etc.). I don't know what can be done, in the near term, to get the world to address the real crisis--I have made the greatest discovery in history, of the true, objective origin of all the so-called "ancient mysteries" of the earliest known civilizations, which will require a complete re-thinking of the central, most hotly-defended and yet wrong-headed theories of our time; but I have been unable to get any recognition for it, just as my finding of the definitive evidence factually disproving the "greenhouse effect" is ignored and dismissed, not only by consensus climate scientists, but by the climate skeptics community as well. I know, as no other scientist does, that there is, quite simply, a crisis of incompetence across all of modern science (and in government worldwide), and a closed-minded rejection of any criticism of current theories--current dogma--in all fields.

The Problem With Radiative Transport Analyses

The climaterealists and notrickszone sites have posted on a new paper by Martin Hertzberg, on radiative transport between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and space, to which I responded at climaterealists, and add here:
 
I respect Martin Hertzberg and the other so-called "dragon slayers", some of whom have manned the trenches for years, against the belief--by warmists and "lukewarm" skeptics alike--in the consensus greenhouse effect, of increasing temperature with increasing carbon dioxide (I myself have tried to do so, since I disproved that effect with the definitive evidence myself, in late 2010). I agree with his most general conclusion, that the atmosphere cools the Earth (that is, the Sun provides more than enough energy to heat the Earth system to its observed mean global temperature, and the atmosphere provides the means for the system to shrug off the excess). It is an indictment of our science education system, that the climate "consensus" belief in the greenhouse effect was ever allowed to come into existence, much less prosper and thus fundamentally miseducate the last two generations of atmospheric and climate scientists.

But I have to say, that Hertzberg's analysis, based on the ideas of emissivity and absorptivity, in my opinion conceal the real physics as much as they may enlighten our partial understanding. He cautions in his papers that the emissivity and absorptivity are not just simple numbers representing the whole system, but vary from location to location and with the physical elements involved (as for example, the ocean vs. the land, and the surface vs. the atmosphere). I would emphasize his caution, as I consider, at my present stage of understanding, that "emissivity" and "absorptivity" are essentially just fudge factors, not well-defined, understandable physics, as used both in the consensus radiative transfer theory and in Hertzberg's own recent papers (specifically this latest one, and his 2009 paper). That his use of them confirms more basic, definitive demonstrations against the greenhouse effect may be fine for others, but I prefer to "keep it simple"--particularly because we are writing for the public, not each other, and the public needs to begin to see the simplest, most basic understanding, of good physics for a change, that completely destroys the "consensus" they are being bombarded with by all of our suborned institutions. If they get nothing else, the public needs to know that the atmosphere is properly described by the stable Standard Atmosphere model, which is well over a hundred years old and shows the Earth is not subject to "runaway" global warming OR cooling (so no "ice ages" by the chance working of physical processes, either!), and which was abandoned by incompetent climate scientists like James Hansen over 40 years ago. I confirmed the Standard Atmosphere model with my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison.

I commented on this latest paper by Hertzberg at climaterealists.com, where I pointed out,

"...the Sun's incident radiation quickly warms the troposphere directly beneath its rays ... to the Standard Atmosphere equilibrium, vertical temperature lapse rate--and the Earth's surface, separately heated by the Sun during the day, and prevented by the atmospheric lapse rate from further heating the atmosphere beyond transient/local effects (i.e., just those effects we call "weather", and "climate"), acts to cool the near-surface atmosphere during the night (so that many locations see a local temperature inversion near dawn)."

I think that is clearer and simpler than talk of "emissivity" and "absorptivity" affecting the temperatures. My Venus/Earth comparison also demonstrates that clouds don't have any effect on atmospheric temperatures, in both the Venus and Earth atmospheres, outside of the cloud regions themselves. To affect the surface temperature, then, clouds would have to be very near the surface (within a few hundred meters probably, or more conservatively, within one kilometer).

The main point I have against analyses focused upon radiative transport, using the ideas of emissivity and absorptivity, is that they fail to take note of the fundamental physical fact, unrecognized by the mass of scientists, that the Earth's atmosphere is heated by direct absorption of incident solar radiation, not from the surface. Put most simply, the atmosphere is independently heated by the Sun, just as you and I are when we step out into the sunlight.

Recognizing Psychological War

The Bishop Hill site has a post on a piece of YouTube global warming propaganda, which some admire for its smoothness of presentation, even though its ideas are patently misleading and unsupported by the real evidence.  I submitted the following comment in response:

It is war, people, waged on a psychological level. U.S. Senate leader Harry Reid is doing the same thing even now, by openly spreading the ridiculous rumor that Mitt Romney hasn't paid taxes in 10 years (and is therefore a crook, so must not be elected President, Reid wants the voters to conclude), although we already know, from senator John McCain just a few weeks ago, that Romney's tax records were thoroughly vetted by him in 2008, when McCain was looking for a vice-presidential running mate--but Reid is just trying to keep the lazier voters (and there are so many, who WANT to simply follow the Democrat party's line, without straining themselves to think) from actually using their own eyes and brains, to compare the real accomplishments of Romney, with the empty mask that is Barack Obama (whose watchwords are, "ignore the man behind the curtain, little girl; the Great and Powerful Oz has spoken"). I call it the War of the Insane Left, and I am surprised that few on either side of any of the current debates realize just how demented they are, indeed how insane the world is right now with the Insane Left in power, and so much human energy being used to promulgate rather obviously false dogmas upon the world. The only way to fight the rush to insanity is to remain as dispassionate as you can, in evaluating the objective evidence that is there to be found and properly emphasized--and to let the crazy man know that you know he is crazy, in pushing ideas any sane man must know are lies.