Zero Greenhouse Effect: The Only Thing That Can Save Climate Science

Prof. Claes johnson has returned to the greenhouse debate, with another argument for zero greenhouse effect, to which I have responded:

Academics, I have found, are one and all confused about "blackbodies", to such an extent that just a competent, independent physicist (not climate scientist) like myself knows enough more than they (you) do to be competent -- there are no competent climate scientists, in my professional (but heretical, according to consensus scientists) estimation.

One can gain insight by using the Standard Atmosphere model of the Earth's troposphere, whose validity I precisely confirmed when I compared the temperatures in that range of pressures to the temperatures in the Venus atmosphere at the same pressure points (see my "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect", which is the definitive disproof of the greenhouse effect, along with several other fundamental mistaken beliefs in the consensus theory, including that the atmosphere is warmed by absorption of incident solar radiation, not by heat from the warmed planetary surface as scientists almost universally believe). Then one can see your hypothesis above is not correct, for several reasons:

1) The 100 mb level in Earth's atmosphere is above the troposphere, thus outside the range of the tropospheric lapse rate structure. The top of Earth's troposphere, in the Standard Atmosphere, is about 226 mb pressure (or roughly 200 mb, not 100 mb).

2) I aver there is no such thing as "radiating like a blackbody", without specifying the other forms of heat transport from the body. A body, black or otherwise, will radiate at whatever rate is necessary so that, in combination with the convection and conduction of heat from the body, total outgoing power equals incident power at constant temperature. A blackbody will only radiate as much power as it absorbs, at constant temperature, if it is surrounded by vacuum and can only lose heat through radiation. That should be obvious to physicists working in the field, since otherwise any additional energy lost through convection and conduction would not be balanced (i.e., only the incident and outgoing radiational powers being considered balanced).

3) If by "blackbody temperature" you mean the solution of the equation

S( 1 - α )/4 = σ T^4, S=incident solar intensity

then even at 226 mb -- the actual top of Earth's tropospheric lapse rate structure -- the temperature is not the blackbody temperature of the Earth (with α = 0.3). Your hypothesis doesn't work, both because you consider the wrong pressure level as "top of the lapse rate", and because, despite what climate scientists believe, NO level within the atmosphere, within or even above the troposphere, emits strict blackbody radiation (nor CAN it so emit, from elementary physical considerations of the existence of convection and conduction within the atmosphere--so the radiative transfer theory as used by climate scientists is wrong).

I outlined what I believe is the proper use of the Stefan-Boltzmann blackbody equation here, where I emphasize that the key is the radiational power ABSORBED (if a blackbody and non-blackbody, in a vacuum, both absorb the same power, they will necessarily attain the same temperature).

I firmly believe--and have determinedly said so for over two years now--that climate science WILL NOT ADVANCE, unless and until my Venus/Earth analysis is properly confronted and accepted, by the scientific community, as the definitve evidence for correcting climate science. No one can identify what errors still need to be corrected, including my own if there are any, until they understand the fundamental correctness of my Venus/Earth analysis, and its critical importance.

Incompetent Climate Science Defenders

The incompetent climate debate shows no sign of improving, with climate scientists and their defenders showing total disdain for "deniers" like me. The following is my response to David Whitehouse, whose latest article, on the climaterealists site, pretends to make short work of those who most disdain the "consensus":

"Let's get one thing over quickly. ..." You have just lost all credibility with that paragraph. It should have been absolutely clear, to any competent physical scientist, for two years now (ever since my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison, which is definitive), that there is no greenhouse effect, of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide--that is a fact:

Venus: No Greenhouse Effect

Anyone who would dispute my Venus/Earth analysis, must show quantitatively, within the "consensus" theory (or their own pet theory, for that matter), why the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at points of equal pressure over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, is precisely--precisely--due to the ratio of the distances of the two planets from the Sun, and nothing else; no one has been able to do that, no one has even come close to doing it, so it remains wholly unexplained within consensus climate theory. Yet it has a simple, physically clear explanation, immediately obvious to a competent physicist: The two atmospheres are warmed by direct absorption of incident solar radiation, not from a warmed planetary surface--in fact, they are warmed by direct absorption of the same fraction of that incident solar radiation. No one wants to admit that, because it is clear they have all been incompetent in their thinking about how the atmosphere is warmed. My Venus/Earth analysis is seminal, but too hard a lesson for today's climate scientists and their defenders to face, honestly and humbly before the facts.

Carl Sagan championed the greenhouse effect--directly to James Hansen--and thus played a large part in getting it accepted into mainstream, "consensus" science. He does not deserve the respect of students of science, for misleading two generations and more of them. And you, David Whitehouse, are just one of the legion of braying voices that pretend to judge reasonably and expertly, but are in fact completely incompetent--just another false voice, exercising a false aura of expertise.

No, Virginia, There Is No CO2 Climate Sensitivity

The fools continue to anguish over the "carbon dioxide climate sensitivity", in a Wall Street Journal article, by one Matt Ridley, discussed on the bishop hill site. The following is my (by now harsh) response:

And so the incompetent debate goes on. You people are largely stuck in "la-la land" (as some have characterized it) with the alarmists, your thinking premised and conditioned upon the Insane Left's political abuse of the incompetent climate consensus. I refuse to accept or suborn such idiocy, and speak for those who know the science well enough to deny the consensus utterly. Mr. Montford (Bishop Hill) will probably want to refuse to air this comment, but it needs to be said: I have directed everyone, for 2 years now, to my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison, which proves that there is NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT, OF INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE WITH INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE, WHATSOEVER. Any of you who think you are competent to do it, can analyze the Venus/Earth temperature ratios I have presented at the above-linked site, and closely estimate the indicated CO2 climate sensitivity, given that Venus has 96.5% CO2 in its atmosphere, while Earth has only 0.04%. (To do it properly, you should restrict your analysis to the part of Venus's atmosphere, in the range of Earth tropospheric pressures of course, which is either above or below the Venus cloud layer -- 1,000 mb down to 700 mb, below the clouds, and 200 mb, above them; in that range, you will find there is no discernible CO2 effect at all, whether warming or cooling. Within the clouds, there is a non-CO2, constant cooling effect of about 5°C) The answer is -0.03°C +/- 0.1°C -- or essentially, ZERO temperature change -- per doubling of CO2. Are there ANY competent physical scientists out there who can verify that for themselves? Frankly I doubt it, after 2 years. Matt Ridley is a fool, Bishop Hill (Andrew Montford) is a fool, anyone (like Anthony Watts, Roy Spencer, Christopher Monckton, etc.) who thinks the "greenhouse effect" is a valid global-warming theory, is a fool. You are all playing with the insane, by their insane rules, simply because you refuse to confront and accept the observed Venus/Earth temperature ratio as clearly due only to the solar distances of the two planets. CO2 climate sensitivity is bunk -- period.

IPCC's Self-Indictment

The leaking of the latest IPCC report, not yet officially finished, is the "talk of the climate blogs" now. The following is my response, in a comment on the notrickszone site, where incidentally the following figure was presented with faulty citation:

These self-admissions by the IPCC should be understood, by honest people, as an admission of guilt, and an admission that their science is a failure. They should not be granted any authority or respect from this point; they have indicted themselves at this late date, only in order to escape the noose and retain their authority, and this cannot be allowed, if science itself (not to mention the political process, in every nation) is to be rehabilitated.

Also, the last figure above is not original to Vahrenholt and Lüning, and certainly not with their recent book. Look up Akasofu on the net, he used (and may well have originated) the image several years ago, and it is well known to anyone who has looked into the multidecadal ocean oscillations -- on top of recovery from the Little Ice Age -- theory of global warming.

[The following is the original image as I have it on hand, though without a link for it]

That's one of the really fundamental problems with the AGW fraud: It has made it necessary for scientists like me, unconnected with the academic world, to write internet articles about it "on the fly", and thus short-circuit the normal procedure for publishing in science (the peer review process, which allowed and has sustained the incompetence and fraud); in doing so, however, those of us who have made pertinent or even definitive and seminal discoveries in climate science have no protection of our priority of discovery but the openness of our internet writing and the general honesty of our audience. The enemy -- academics who champion the global warming "consensus" theories -- of course act as if only peer-reviewed articles can be taken into account, but readers here should know that is the way a fraudulent institutional agenda is protected: by claiming theirs is the only way the "debate" can be conducted and judged. The bottom line is, science has been fundamentally perverted, and it cannot be investigated and corrected from within, by those who have continued to abuse and corrupt it. Yet prior discoveries must be respected, because the truth, and thus science, demands it.

The Newtown Massacre, and The Key to Wisdom

The mass killing of a class of kindergarten students and their adult school guardians has touched a strong chord in the country, and no doubt around the world. The following is a response I wrote after reading the post, "Lambs Against Wolves":

Anyone who would attain real wisdom in this life must first come, on their own, to the realization that there is more to one's life than life on Earth, in the physical. That greater life is in a higher realm, known to man throughout history (and long before) as "spirit". The two realms -- with the lesser physical "inside" of the greater spiritual -- are bound by an overarching meaning, or meaningfulness, and can both be experienced in our thought, or mental life. (I sometimes point out that no one knows where their more insightful thoughts come from -- instantly showing us a greater meaning than we were aware of before -- and the reason is because they come, "fullbllown" as the saying goes, from the spiritual level of reality.) It is that higher realm that, in the end, gives meaning to this physical life, which is really just a learning life, in a physical classroom. What happened in Newtown is to us now a sudden, intensely frightening end of life, which happened to the most innocent of us. But that is just the viewpoint of a soul which is focused on the physical only, whose faith is in the physical. In the higher reality, in which we all truly live, nightmares (and one can liken the Newtown massacre to any nightmare, no matter how often repeated, that seems to threaten the meaning of our life) are only meant to enable each of us to finally realize that, while everything in this life has meaning, there is no ultimate meaning here, for physical life itself ends, for everyone--and meaning has no end, it is eternal, so it cannot be limited to physical life. Put another way, you can verify for yourself that every nightmare you have ever had came to an end, immediately upon waking; for every nightmare that occurs in this life, relief inevitably and mercifully comes (mercifully, as in "The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" upon each and every soul), and the terror, especially the apparent meaninglessness, instantly evaporates.