Hydrostatic Vs. "Gravito-Thermal": Real Physics Vs. Latter-Day Incompetence in Science

The Hockeyschtick site has another post hyping a "gravito-thermal" greenhouse effect. My response:

This is just a rehashing of Nikolov and Zeller's "Unified Climate Theory" (N&Z), only claiming the use of "dimensional analysis methodology", presumably meaning their mysterious "Eq(10)"--mysterious because it is not deemed important enough to actually reveal it here--has physical units consistent on both sides of the equation, that refer to the physical parameters involved in the problem (and not to an arbitrary amalgamation of variables--an ad hoc fitting function--without physical consistency, as N&Z did). There is still the "atmospheric thermal enhancement" (ATE) factor, the airy reference to the "Poisson formula", and the apparently absolutely precise fitting of the global mean surface temperatures of all the considered planetary bodies to one formula, that featured also in N&Z -- and no physics involved, of course, just carefree mathematical modelling (and the claim that it "deserves further investigation and possibly a theoretical interpretation"). The Moon, Mars and Triton are practically meaningless in it, however, as the fitting function is vertical (insensitive to the pressure) for such small-to-nonexistent surface pressures as these 3 bodies possess. And they say Titan wasn't even used in the regressions, so only Earth and Venus really matter in them (and see below for my caveat on Titan). I already, nearly 5 years ago, compared Earth's Standard Atmosphere to the temperature vs. pressure profile of Venus, not at one point (the planetary surface) but over the full range of Earth tropospheric pressures.

None of this present hype goes beyond, or even rises to the level of, my Venus/Earth comparison as the definitive correction of the false physics embraced by climate and atmospheric science today. None of it rises to the level of the utterly stable Standard Atmosphere, which was known to everyone before scientists turned away from it to pursue the chimaera of "runaway global warming". None of it rises to the level of understanding, gained from simply looking at the temperature and pressure profiles of all the planets, that they all have the same form: Above approximately 200 mb pressure, they all have the negative, constant vertical temperature lapse rate structure that Earth has, and which is due simply to the hydrostatic condition: that the pressure at any level in the atmosphere is just the weight of the atmosphere above that level. The Standard Atmosphere is of course based upon assuming the hydrostatic condition.

But none of the other planetary bodies compares so precisely with Earth as does Venus, where only the ratio of solar distances is needed to explain the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at any given pressure. So the "gravito-thermal" theory glosses over (simply does not recognize) any other variables that are necessary to explain the temperatures in the other planetary bodies considered. The comparison of Earth's Standard Atmosphere with Titan, for example, as I compared Earth with Venus, shows that the near-surface temperature of Titan's atmosphere is too low, by about 7K (while near the tropopause, around 300 to 200 mb, it comes into close alignment with Earth's atmosphere, corrected only by the effect of its different solar distance); the modelling touted here, and that done by Nikolov and Zeller, can't even recognize that awkward fact, much less explain it physically--whereas the Venus/Earth comparison can, because Venus's temperatures, inside its thick cloud layer, are also too low, by about the same amount (5K), and both are probably due to the same cause: Non-gaseous particles suspended in the atmospheres (water-based clouds on Venus, particulate haze on Titan) that increase the effective specific heat of the atmosphere, in those regions where they occur.

And, of course, my definitive contribution was left out of the list presented above. No one is learning anything. The "gravito-thermal" effect is nothing but the effect of the hydrostatic condition, so far as any real physics is concerned.

Saving The Appearances Goes On Without Pause

Roy Spencer has a recent post suggesting a way that "deep ocean warming can bypass the surface" (for those trying to explain the "pause" in global mean surface temperature, without admitting their basic theory has been proven wrong by that "pause"). My response:

The comparison of temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth, at points of equal pressure over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, shows that the Venus/Earth temperature ratio is precisely explained by the different solar distances of the two planets and nothing else. This proves there is no increase of temperature with increasing CO2, since Venus has 96.5% CO2 to Earth's .04%. And the comparison was done using temperature and pressure profiles obtained for Venus on one day (October 5, 1991, a long time ago now), compared with the same profiles as defined in the Earth Standard Atmosphere--so the comparison confirms the validity of the Standard Atmosphere as the real equilibrium state of Earth's troposphere, and as such, independent of any supposed changes in ocean heat content. And finally, since Venus and Earth differ so fundamentally in albedo, cloud cover, and planetary surface, the fact that their atmospheric temperature ratio is just precisely that expected from their different solar distances alone, tells any good physicist immediately (I realized it while writing my original posting, in November 2010, from one sentence to the next) that the troposphere is warmed, on the global scale, entirely by direct absorption of incident solar radiation (or radiation higher in the atmosphere), and not at all from the surface as today's academics universally believe and promulgate--so changes in the ocean heat content are irrelevant to the global mean surface temperature (just as it makes no difference that Venus's surface is all solid crust, while Earth's is 71% ocean). Climate scientists are, in my view, obviously chasing local and transient (and near-surface) effects--also called weather--and not global ones. All of this should have been learned and accepted years ago (as far back as 1979, when the first Venus data was obtained, which agreed with the 1991 data I used in my comparison). Empty speculation (such as that done by believers in the greenhouse effect) in order to "save the appearances" has a long history, and it is never good. The sooner the wider scientific community confronts and accepts the Venus/Earth comparison and the confirmation of an utterly stable, overarching equilibrium as the predominant reality in our atmosphere, the better for all of science (for every other earth and life science is also in need of fundamental rethinking, I assure you).

On The Dogmatic Jihad of Radiative Transfer Theory Believers

Steven Goddard has a post "categorizing idiot clans" and listing them, to which one commenter added, "I see a missing category, the geran category: Populated by mean, vicious little SOBs (a technical term, I assure you) who limit their knowledge of thermal energy transfer to simple concepts of gaseous convection and the ideal gas law and nothing whatsoever involving radiative energy transfer …". My response follows:

That's probably because the only globally effective (i.e., not localized and transient) radiative energy transfer is from direct solar to atmosphere and to ground (yes, the two separately warmed directly by the Sun, basically) and none from ground to atmosphere (although there is radiative energy transfer from the ground THROUGH the atmosphere, to space), as the comparison of temperatures in the atmospheres of Earth and Venus makes clear (for those with eyes to see--and such are few in this time of general obedience to patently incompetent consensus theories). "Skeptics" who believe in the consensus radiation transfer theory as applied in climate science--which assumes a huge loop of radiative energy between atmosphere and ground, greater than the mean incident solar radiation of 342 W/m^2, and due solely to assuming the ground radiates 390 W/m^2, as much as a blackbody, in a vacuum,at the same temperature as the ground--are unwitting fellow travellers of the "idiots" being considered by Steven Goddard in his post. The lesson of Venus/Earth, in the present context, is that thermal energy transfer--which is the real problem in climate science--encompasses radiative transfer, but radiative transfer--which is the false consensus theory--does not encompass thermal energy transfer (it takes also conductive--don't dismiss that, skeptics--and convective transfer to do that).

The IPCC Must Go (February 2011)

Claes Johnson has a post on Judith Curry, who in the wake of the latest IPCC "report" has apparently called for its dissolution. I responded with the following comment:

Competent scientists knew this long ago. I wrote the following comment on MasterResource back on February 23, 2011:

I agree, the IPCC must go, if science -- not just climate science -- is to take back its credibility from political corrupton. But that is not enough, because the IPCC could not live and prosper without a general weakening of scientific competence, indeed without a raising of false dogma to the level of proof throughout science. Science must begin to regain its intellectual health by repudiating the incompetent scientists who enabled the IPCC, and who continue even now to ride the wave of false consensus that has ensnared all of our scientific institutions (NOAA, NASA, AAAS, APS, etc.), and the public media (including all of the peer-reviewed scientific publications). James Hansen, Phil Jones, Kevin Trenberth -- all those who have continued to promulgate AGW in the face of overwhelming evidence against their poor science (including internet bloggers like "Eli Rabett", "ScienceofDoom", skepticalscience.com, realclimate.com, etc.), must be demonstrated to be wrong-headed, and ejected from science. I maintain the proper comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth (as I have done, very simply, in "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect") is the key proof, and an amazing demonstration, of the general wrong-headedness of the climate "consensus". The last generation of students has been taught nonsense masqueraded as "settled science", and a whole new generation is being brainwashed with this dogma (the "greenhouse effect", based upon an incompetent "radiation balance theory" of climate) even now. Until the Venus/Earth data is dispassionately confronted, and admitted by all to be definitive against the current consensus, all scientists are incompetent. That is the unpalatable truth that must be faced.

The Venus/Earth comparison is here. A VERY simple understanding of it, for children and smugly dismissive "experts", is revealed here.

Bottom line: Judith Curry has been as incompetent, in her dismissal of the Venus/Earth definitive evidence--indeed, in her failure to have uncovered that definitive evidence herself, long ago--as every other climate scientist. Climate science has failed, and it is too late for this generation of climate scientists to save themselves.

Don't Tell the "Experts"

I have posted the following comment on my Venus: No Greenhouse Effect page, in response to someone wanting to argue theory, rather than accept the simple facts:

I received your second comment, but I will not reward you for ignoring the plain facts by allowing you to whine about how reasonable you are in questioning the Venus/Earth comparison presented on this page.

However, since I know that even the "climate science experts" are incompetent, I will make the Venus/Earth comparison very simple for you. But you can't tell any "experts", because I want to leave the analysis just as I originally did it here, back in November 2010, because any real expert would have, like me, focused upon the actual bottom-line of the comparison--the fact of the presented Venus/Earth temperature ratio, and the physical explanation of that ratio I have given, over and over for 2 and 1/2 years--rather than gotten sidetracked by how I came to do the comparison. And I want that to become clear to everyone, eventually--that any competent physicist should have seen that the actual Venus/Earth temperature ratio, over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, is explained (and precisely so, above and below the Venus cloud layer) by the ratio of the two planets' solar distances, and nothing else. That is the fact--I repeat, the FACT--you are ignoring.

Here is the simple way to look at the comparison. Make a table of temperature vs. pressure for the Standard Atmosphere troposphere, and the same for the Venus atmosphere as measured on October 5, 1991(over the same range, of Earth tropospheric pressures). You don't have to justify doing that, it is just something you can easily do (it is the first table in my article above), and it is what any competent student--much less experienced scientist--interested in comparing the two atmospheres would do as a matter of routine.

But, having done that little chore, a good physicist would ask if there is a simple explanation for the fact that the Venus/Earth temperature ratio is in fact basically a constant (1.176), and that particular constant. A merely competent student in the physical sciences would pretty quickly discover that the temperature ratio is just that expected from the different solar distances alone, from the Stefan-Boltzmann formula. (How using that formula can be justified is what most critics of my analysis homed in on, but they did so incompetently. And it was not until a year and a half later that I myself added an update that properly explained it, with the physically pertinent simple equations.)

Now here is where the really simple part comes in, that was not in my original presentation, but should have been brought out very quickly by any real "expert". Imagine if Venus were simply moved outwards to the same distance from the Sun as Earth (so it was still heated by the same portion of the incident solar radiation, but that portion would be reduced, as the total incident solar radiation would be, by the greater solar distance), how would the Venus temperatures, at the various pressures in your table, change? The answer is that they would be reduced, by the factor 1/1.176--and that is what is shown in the fourth column of my table above. Graphing the resulting T vs. P curves of Earth and the newly-moved Venus, one gets the graph I presented in the post here.

Now, don't tell anyone what I have just told you, about simply "moving" Venus to the same solar distance as Earth. I want to see how long it will take a competent scientist to come to the realization on their own, instead of incompetently saying, 1.176 is "just a coincidence", or "you failed to account for the difference in albedo". Of course, you are free to inform President Obama of how easy it is to disprove the CO2 "greenhouse effect", which he and the EPA are using for the most venal of political purposes (to wit, the exercise of ruinous and fraudulent power over the lives of millions of innocent and unwary people).

The Hydrostatic Condition of the Real Atmosphere

I have submitted the following comment, affirming the stable Standard Atmosphere model for our troposphere, to the wattsupwiththat site of Anthony Watts, in reply to another comment by one DirkH:

DirkH @9:14a.m.: "The principal and terminal fault with climate science and climate models seems to be that they assume the atmosphere to be hydrostatic. It is known that it isn’t ..."

You should be aware of the definitive evidence by now, my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison. That comparison is between the temperature-versus-pressure (T-P) curve of the Standard Atmosphere model, for Earth, and the T-P curve of Venus as measured on October 5, 1991 (over 21 years ago now). The clear result can be stated thus: If you imagine moving Venus to the same distance from the Sun as the Earth, or Earth to the same distance from the Sun as Venus, then their T-P curves are essentially, and precisely, the same (for pressures above and below the cloud layer of Venus, over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures) . Not only does this disprove the "greenhouse effect", of increasing temperature with increasing CO2 (as the temperatures in Venus's 96.5% CO2 atmosphere are no different from Earth's, when corrected for solar distance), but it confirms the Standard Atmosphere, with its defining hydrostatic condition, as the real, stable equilibrium state of our troposphere. If current academics believe the hydrostatic condition does not apply to the real atmosphere, that is just one more wrong belief they harbor, while stubbornly ignoring my definitive Venus/Earth evidence against their theories. Alarmists and lukewarmers alike will get nowhere, no matter how protracted or how honest the debate, unless and until they understand and accept the clear corrections to climate science indicated by that definitive evidence.

Climate Science Is Doomed

I have submitted the following comment, on CO2 climate sensitivity, to the bishop hill site:

The ongoing CO2 climate sensitivity debate is a festering parade of incompetence. Outside of 1975-2000, the up-and-down global temperature record does not correlate with the level of CO2 in the air (but it does correlate, quite well, with the multidecadal ocean oscillations, on top of a presumed half-degree-per-century of warming since the Little Ice Age--so why bother with CO2 at all, why treat the CO2 "greenhouse" theory as sound and settled, is the proper scientific question). When one looks for the simplest, most definitive evidence to force the "consensus" to admit the obvious--that CO2 is not to blame, and their models which assume it is are simply bad science enshrined as "settled"--one need go no further than a proper Venus/Earth temperatures comparison (at points of equal pressure in the two atmospheres, and over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures). Then one finds a definitive rethinking of basic atmospheric warming theory is forced by those two real, detailed atmospheres--a rethinking that denies any global-warming "greenhouse effect" at all, and any non-zero CO2 climate sensitivity whatsoever:

CO2 Climate Sensitivity Vs. Reality

...and one is embarrassed by the continued childish fussing and fighting that masquerades as "expert" estimates, of that which simply does not exist, according to that most simple, competent comparison of the Temperature-vs-Pressure curves of Venus and Earth. One realizes climate science is a farce, and a fraud, and above all a mass delusion, and one wonders how to disabuse the world of that delusion before it is too late--when even the "lukewarmers" insist the "basic science" is settled. (The basic science is a total lie, gentlemen and ladies. You are pursuing a phantom, created by the most incompetent scientists ever, and are rendered incompetent yourselves thereby. You are made idiots by your continued serious consideration of patently false science. You are mumbling incoherently in a madhouse, and you need to slap yourselves out of it, and refuse to dignify idiot "experts"--alarmists and lukewarmers alike--any further....unless you or they can explain, within the "consensus" theory, why the Venus/Earth temperature ratio should be precisely (!) due only to the relative distances of the two planets from the Sun, and nothing else. Hint: You cannot, and they cannot. Their science is doomed.)

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.

Climate Science Denies the Standard Atmosphere, In Order to Save Itself Embarrassment

I have just learned, from a comment on Steven Goddard's Real Science site, that climate scientists have announced a new value of the average surface temperature on Earth, of 14°C. This, however, amounts to an unjustified and unauthorized trashing of the Standard Atmosphere model, which has for a century or more given 15°C as that average surface temperature.

Anyone who has read my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison, which uses the Standard Atmosphere model, knows that model is precisely confirmed by that analysis. There is no room for an arbitrary change in the mean surface temperature by even that 1°C now being arbitrarily claimed by climate scientists.

I have, in the past two years, made the comment on a few sites that the mean surface temperature in the Standard Atmosphere model, which my analysis confirmed, is warmer than that propounded by today's climate scientists, even after a century of supposed global warming. It is utterly clear to me that they could not deal with such a trenchant criticism of their fraudulent theory of global warming. So they deny the Standard Atmosphere, hoping that thereby no one can anymore embarrass them with it, and hoping also that my confirmation of the Standard Atmosphere, and definitive disproof of their theory, will go away. It will not -- ever. Climate scientists have all doomed themselves, not the Earth.

How Do We Stop the Fraudulent Science?

The real-science site has a post on climate data manipulation at NOAA, and asks at the end, how do we stop this fraudulent US government activity? I have responded:

At root it's scientific incompetence, only compounded by two generations of miseducation and a generation of political manipulation on top of that. First we have to have a new top-down political leadership that understands "climate policy" is an absurdity at the present state of the science. At nearly the same time, we need a top-down recognition among scientists and scientific institutions that a thorough, fundamental rethinking of climate science is needed. I can tell you how to do it in a decisive way, but how to do it practically eludes even me, and you're not going to like it, because I have said it many times over the last 2 years or so: Force every interested physical scientist to explain, within the consensus theory, why the Venus/Earth temperature ratio does not show an additive "greenhouse effect", due to the much larger concentration of CO2 in Venus's atmosphere over Earth's, but that temperature ratio is instead a constant, over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures in both atmospheres, and that constant is completely and precisely explained by the ratio of the two planets' distances from the Sun, and NOTHING ELSE. If they can't do that, they MUST ACCEPT the need for a fundamental rethinking of climate science. Calling it a "coincidence" is not allowed; they must explain, quantitatively, how their theory necessarily produces that amazing result. NONE of those who have dismissed my little analysis, or my simple interpretation of the physical reason for it (both atmospheres are warmed by direct absorption of incident solar radiation, and indeed both by absorption of the same fraction of that incident radiation) have even come close to doing that; those that have tried, have promulgated nonsense (or avoided the problem by calling it a "coincidence", as already noted). And, since climate scientists will all have clearly failed in their professional responsibility to promulgate science in agreement with definitive observations (the Venus/Earth comparison), that rethinking should NOT be entrusted to climate scientists, nor equally suborned climate institutions. But from my experience so far, it looks to me like it will take a new generation -- and perhaps 2 or 3 generations down the road -- to do this little, definitive exercise. There is a good chance the world will have to endure a third World War before the insanity of this generation is discharged and left behind by the true progress of science (and the human spirit), through hard self-correction.

Of course, all of science would bo better to confront, verify and accept my discovery of the great design of the "gods", remembered up to now only in ancient myths and religiously-held superstitions.

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.

Children In Charge in the Climate Debates

I have submitted the following comment on the Real-Science site, where Steven Goddard concluded:  "Temperatures continue to plummet below Hansen’s Scenario C – which represents humans having disappeared off the planet twelve years ago. The only possible interpretation being that human generated CO2 has little or nothing to do with global temperatures.  Our alarmist friends, being the crooks that they are, will continue to pretend that they don’t notice this disaster.":

And the "lukewarmers" will also continue to pretend, that there is a greenhouse effect, of increasing temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide--just not a "catastrophic" one. Well, as a real scientist, I say anyone who thinks there is ANY such global-temperature-raising greenhouse effect, is incompetent and should be thrown out of science. Once again, my comparison of temperatures in the tropospheres of Venus and Earth, here--which should have been done by any competent, interested scientist 20 years ago--is the definitive evidence, that makes the "no greenhouse effect at all" obvious. If there were a greenhouse effect, it would ADD to the temperature in Venus's atmosphere (which has over 2400 times, or over 11 doublings of, Earth's carbon dioxide concentration), but in fact the Venus/Earth temperature ratio is a CONSTANT, and even more amazing, that constant is PRECISELY, physically explained by the two planets' relative distances from the Sun, and nothing else. Until that is faced, there is no viable climate science at all.


I am also still waiting for someone to find independently what I suggested many months ago, that the global temperature record is really not that at all, but only an unrecognized proxy for the multidecadal ocean oscillations, and that is really why the former and the latter are so well correlated since the 17th century. I am sadly amused that the surface temperature in the Standard Atmosphere--which I confirmed in my Venus/Earth analysis--is 288.15K, and has been for a century, and that is higher than the supposed mean global surface temperature, even after a century of "global warming".

Unfortunately, the climate "debate" is just so many barking dogs, unwilling to learn anything but only wanting to defend their respective territories. (The consensus is thus a "Lord of the Flies" phenomenon: Out of control children, really, without any responsible parental authority.)

Why the Climate Debate Is Over, and Why Both Sides Continue to Debate Anyway

I have submitted the following short post to Steven Goddard's Real-Science website, where the recent corrupt actions, and underlying belief, of Peter Gleick are the topic of discussion:

I agree with Gleick (but he is wrong): I also think the debate/war is over, just on my terms (there is no greenhouse effect whatsoever, of increasing temperature with increasing carbon dioxide, and there are no competent climate scientists whatsoever, because they refuse to accept the definitive facts of the Venus/Earth temperatures comparison, which shows that only the ratio of the two planets’ distances from the Sun is needed to precisely explain the Venus/Earth temperature ratio at points of equal pressure in the two atmospheres. Fraudulent “experts” are those who say they will only recognize evidence presented through the peer-review process, even though that has been shown to be merely “pal-review”, and those who say the Venus/Earth comparison result (over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, mind you) is just a “coincidence”. In other words, the “debate”, on both sides, is insane, and everyone knows why–1) the emotional (not scientific) intransigence of the individual ego, multiplied over the millions of individuals who are invested in the consensus, 2) the ideological (not scientific) linking of the idea of “runaway global warming” with a reasonable concern for the environment, and 3) the political (not scientific) assumption of tight control over the people of the world, on the basis of fraudulent, wrong-headed “scientific consensus”.

In Science, Competence Can Overcome Bias

I have submitted the following comment to Dr. Judith Curry's Climate Etc. blog site, where she has posted on "The Bias of Science":

The issue is competence. With competence, bias can be quickly overcome; without it, bias inevitably becomes hardened, unquestioned dogma. When I compared the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth, I very simply--and as it turned out, naively-- used the Stefan-Boltzmann equation as applied beyond the atmosphere, without consideration of the difference in albedo for the two planet-plus-atmosphere systems. I did not consciously assume the planet-plus-atmosphere system was a blackbody, however (I just used the easiest model that occurred to me, to investigate the expected temperature ratio--the simple approach I learned from my earliest physics education, starting in high school and continuing throughout college), and when I discovered, quite directly by my simple approach, that the actual Venus/Earth temperature ratio was a constant that in fact depended only upon the ratio of the two planets' distances from the Sun--thus definitively disproving the "greenhouse effect" hypothesis, of increasing global mean temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, as well as disproving the need for any correction due to the large difference in albedo--I was able to immediately interpret this, with correct physical intuition, as being necessarily due to both atmospheres directly absorbing, and being fundamentally warmed only by, the same physical fraction of the incident solar power. In a March 2012 update to my original "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect" post, I provided the proper Stefan-Boltzmann equations for the temperature in each troposphere, assuming both tropospheres are warmed by the same fraction of incident solar power, and showed that their temperature ratio at any given pressure is indeed independent of the fraction of solar power absorbed, and is just dependent upon the ratio of their solar distances. This of course confirms my original, insightful interpretation of my Venus/Earth comparison.

So my basic scientific competence and physical insight overcame the naivety (a form of bias, one might say) of my overly-simple approach; I in fact made the correct physical interpretation, and I have correctly stood by it ever after (see here for example). Not so for all of those (including Judith Curry), who have dismissed my findings when informed of them, generally with the flat--and in fact wrong--statement that my comparison was worthless because I had not "corrected for the difference in albedo" in the two planets, and also no doubt because no one was willing to seriously consider that these two atmospheres were both warmed by direct absorption of incident solar power, rather than from the surface (which was and continues to be the consensus belief--that is, the consensus bias). As a competent physicist, I knew, and know, my original interpretation was correct, and I maintained that any competent physicist must come to the same conclusion as I did, from the observed constant Venus/Earth temperature ratio, but it has done no good, from November 2010 to now. Even after posting those equations that starkly PROVE my original interpretation was good, there has been no sign of any growing acceptance, on either side of the climate debate, of my Venus/Earth comparison as a definitive correction to the patently incorrect consensus beliefs of climate scientists.

So the basic INcompetence of all of the defenders of the climate consensus has so far kept them from overcoming their bias against my definitive disproof of the "greenhouse effect", which continues to be promulgated to the public, falsely and incompetently, as unarguable fact.

The Climate Science "Debate": All Should Come Clean

I have submitted the following comment to the Roy Spencer site:

Roy Spencer wrote: "...we have only one subject to study, the Earth. Establishing causation in such a situation is dicey, at best."

Wrong. We have Earth AND Venus, which are easily shown to be warmed alike, despite the great differences in albedo (30% vs. 70%), CO2 atmospheric concentration (.04% vs. 96.5%), and planetary surface (Earth is 70% ocean, Venus all solid crust), because: The ratio of atmospheric temperatures, Venus/Earth, is essentially a constant over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, and especially so away from the Venus cloud layer, where the constant (1.176) is PRECISELY due to the ratio of the two planets' distances from the Sun. This fact can only be explained by concluding that both atmospheres are warmed by absorption of the SAME fraction of the incident solar irradiation, and not from the planetary surface: I have explicitly given (at the above link) the simple equations for the mean temperatures in the two atmospheres based upon that assumption, and shown that the fraction (f) absorbed by the two atmospheres drops out of the equation for the ratio of the temperatures, so that one can apply the basic Stefan-Boltzmann formula, without any albedo correction, as I did boldly and simply in my original approach. With the temperature ratio due only to solar distances, there is simply no greenhouse effect due to the much larger CO2 in Venus's atmosphere. That is how easy it is to establish (the lack of) causation, of a supposed temperature increase with increasing carbon dioxide (and thus for any "greenhouse gas"). See also "For Climate, All the World's a Stage".

There have been no competent climate scientists since the Venus temperature and pressure data was obtained over 20 years ago, an elementary study of which (like mine) should have quickly killed the "global warming greenhouse effect". The only real atmospheric warming by IR-absorbing gases is the fundamental warming by direct absorption of incident solar radiation. There is no extra warming due to increasing CO2--nor is there extra warming from the surface (surface warmth merely drives the weather/climate).

This is the revolutionary correction to climate science that everyone is steadfastly ignoring. Everyone needs to admit, first to themselves and then immediately to the world, their mistakes, but right now, everyone but me continues to double down on their invalid scientific prejudices. I understand that, but it makes all the debates since my Venus/Earth analysis simply irrational avoidance behavior, entirely unworthy of true, dispassionate science.