Comments on Dr. Murry Salby's Critique of the Climate Consensus

I have commented upon the Dr. Murry Salby presentation recently touted by the critics of the academic climate science consensus, at the claes johnson site:

I prefer the summary analysis presented at appinsys.com. And if you look at the temperature record (the first graph at the appinsys link), you will see what everyone should know, that the temperature decreased from 1880 to 1910, increased from 1910 to 1940, decreased again from 1940 to 1975, and increased again from 1975 to about 2000. Now the CO2 record from 1957 onward shows dC/dt has increased monotonically over that period, i.e., d/dt(dC/dt)>0 from at least 1957 onward. But your CO2 vs. T relation above requires d/dt(dC/dt)=dT/dt, and dT/dt was negative from 1940 to 1975 (including the period 1957 to 1975). So the posited relation dC/dt=T is empirically wrong. And physically, that relation flies in the face of what I (a general physicist, not a climate scientist) have heard repeatedly as common knowledge: That a warmer ocean cannot hold as much CO2 dissolved in it, and releases more CO2 into the atmosphere the warmer it gets (in line with the skeptic's claim, "atmospheric CO2 follows temperature, not vice-versa as the consensus claims"). So the posited CO2 vs. T relation is also falsified according to (the general understanding of) the basic physics of CO2 sequestration by the ocean as a function of T. So, again, I prefer the appinsys summary of the situation. I commented on Dr. Salby's presentation at hockeyschtick also.

The Necessary Correction of Climate Science Is Still Far Away

Update 10 March, 2012: I have realized that my claim here, that the blackbody temperature of the Earth-plus-Atmosphere system is 279K, is wrong, and have posted on this at "My Own Blackbody Error". That claim should no longer be taken to be my scientific position.

The following is an updated version of my comment submitted in response to the latest John O'Sullivan post, at climaterealists.com:

Lay readers need to know they are being fed incompetent science by all sides of this "climate science war". For example:

The article states: "Climate scientists then commit a very grave error in the numbers: they equate the energy flux density of the incoming power to that of the outgoing power (not a requirement of the Law of Conservation of Energy (LCE))."

The scientific truth is, equating incoming and outgoing power IS a fundamental requirement. The consensus merely does it at the wrong place--the surface of the Earth--rather than beyond the atmosphere, where the requirement is "radiation in equals radiation out", which is what the ruling Stefan-Boltzmann formula specifies (but the current generation of scientists, both consensus and skeptic, refuse to adhere to that).

Both sides are ignoring the truly definitive evidence, that not only disproves the greenhouse effect (as correctly stated, and as understood by any interested layperson--of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide), but corrects a whole handful of basic mistakes common to both sides in the debate, and which is the necessary starting point for a re-examination of climate science.

See "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect" and "The True Energy Balance of the Earth+Atmosphere".

The scandal is, both sides feel smugly free to ignore the need to fundamentally correct climate science, they all think it is just the "other guys" that are wrong, yet they both pay heed to the same false, and thus misleading, concepts (such as, that the radiating temperature of the Earth-plus-atmosphere system is 255K, or more telling, that peer-reviewed literature--and nothing else--is verified correct science; the true radiating temperature is 279K, and only hard facts verify scientific theory, not a few anonymous reviewers subject to conflicting interests and blind, dogmatic prejudices, instead of to the simple physical truth and the integrity of science). The whole situation is insane, to any competent physical scientist, and laypersons should not be taken in by any of it. Just remember that the direct comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth is the definitive evidence that disproves the consensus, and fundamentally corrects current, entrenched, mistaken beliefs among the scientists on both sides.

Strong and Growing Evidence of What?

I have submitted the following comment to real-science.com, on why we are still seeing alarmist warnings about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the media, when so many now know better:

It is basically a matter of "cover your backside", or bargaining for their future credibility, by both alarmists and "lukewarmers"--they want to set up the public to believe that they are just going by the "best evidence" and that, at worst, the evidence is not good enough to decide just yet whether AGW, or the greenhouse effect of increasing temperature with increasing CO2, is real. The alarmists will insist upon "AGW is real and dangerous" as long as they can, and only admit, over as many years as they can stretch it, that the growing evidence is looking more and more against the present "consensus" belief. And the "lukewarmers" are helping them, by also insisting the greenhouse effect is real, and forcefully stating at every opportunity that those who deny it are a lunatic fringe. Well, some scientists like me KNOW (and all should know, by now) there is no such greenhouse effect, AT ALL, and in fact that the very idea is incompetent. As a competent scientist (but with strong experience in piercing to the heart of a problem), it took me, from knowing nothing (and caring nothing) about the climate debate, only one year to come across, and immediately focus upon, the strongest evidence against the consensus (the lapse rate structure of the atmosphere, already long known in the Standard Atmosphere), and quickly nail down the definitive evidence that proves the incompetence of that consensus (my Venus/Earth temperature comparison, which not only totally invalidates the greenhouse effect, but also corrects climate science on a whole handful of basic errors in physical understanding of the warming of the atmosphere--including the amazing abuse of the Stefan-Boltzmann formula at the heart of the "settled science" of the radiative transfer theory, that underpins the greenhouse effect hypothesis--and confirms the stable Standard Atmosphere model as THE equilibrium state of our atmosphere, rather than a climate balanced on the razor edge of "radiative forcing" and routinely subject to "runaway climate"). What I did in a year, of casual internet study of the debate, climate scientists had 20 years to do, since the Venus data was first obtained by the Magellan spacecraft, in October 1991, and it could have been done by any student, much less climate science "expert", at any time. That scandalous reality, of the incompetence of all of science, to allow a false consensus to suborn all of our institutions, is what everyone who has aided or abetted that crime against science wants to keep the public from knowing. This should be the front-page news around the world (as I have been writing, on many web sites, for more than a year), but even 97% of skeptics refuse to heed it (and thus show themselves emotionally prejudiced, to the point of incompetence as scientists). The science is not hard, as I have proved to my professional scientific satisfaction, though the "avoiders" (the greenhouse effect believers) want to paint it so. The EGOS of 97% of the debaters, on both sides of the AGW debate, are on the line (not their funding).