Another alarmist junk science article, Manhattan Heat Waves Sign of City Scorchers to Come, confuses the urban heat island effect (UHI), "anthropogenic" global warming (AGW), and seasonal weather to spin a tale of more frequent and intense "city scorchers to come." The article begins by correctly noting the urban heat island effect (UHI) is the reason for the increase of 10-15°F in nighttime temperatures in Manhattan compared to outlying areas. Dr. Kevin Trenberth, eternal seeker of the "missing heat," is stated to be surprised at the magnitude of this "huge" effect, and perhaps this explains why he and his colleagues have previously dismissed the findings of Anthony Watts et al at surfacestations.org. Dr. Trenberth also states, "I'd expect that all the air conditioners and such churning away would easily be 20 to 40 times greater than the global greenhouse effect." Since the claimed effect of AGW over the past century is a total of 1°F, that would mean that the urban heat island effect would easily be 20° to 40°F compared to 1°F "due to" AGW. Nonetheless, the piece concludes, "frazzled New Yorkers can expect such heat waves to become more frequent and intense because of climate change warming." Is the hoax again being re-framed from "global warming" to "climate change" to now "climate change warming?"
LiveScience July 30, 2010 [emphasis added]:
The dog days of summer, uh, nights are here. New Yorkers living in Manhattan suffered nighttime temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in New Jersey or Long Island during the first July heat wave, according to an area-wide network of sensors.
The difference arose because of Manhattan's urban heat island effect, researchers said. Energy demand, air quality, asphalt surfaces and exhaust fumes all prevent the city from cooling off as fast as the surrounding areas. The same holds for other metro areas.
These heat waves could become more frequent in cities, scientists say, mainly as a result of global warming and the increase in high-rises and other buildings.
Hot summer nights
"While surrounding suburban and green areas may perceive the same maximum temperatures, the built regions will perceive them for longer periods of time," said Jorge Gonzalez, a mechanical engineer at The City College of New York.
That explains why the nighttime heat lingered in Manhattan, even as both the city and surrounding areas had the same maximum daytime temperatures.
Such an effect makes sense in New York City and other large cities, said Kevin Trenberth, a leading climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who did not take part in the research.
But he expressed some surprise about such a huge night-day temperature difference between Manhattan and the outlying areas. He added that such measurements depend on factors such as placement of the sensors, as well as the extreme conditions in July.
"These city effects are most apparent when winds are very light," Trenberth told LiveScience. "That occurs in heat wave conditions, rather than in regular conditions when you have sea breezes."
Perhaps only Central Park might offer relief with its trees and lawns, which hold onto moisture and divert part of the heat into energy for evaporating that moisture. By contrast, rain that falls on New York pavement runs off into the gutters and sewers.
"Water acts as the air conditioner of the planet," Trenberth explained. [another reason accounting for the extreme UHI effect]
Manhattan's heat island effect may also lead to so-called split storms, such as those this summer that drenched some Long Island communities and left other villages untouched. The city essentially acts as a barrier to storm fronts that create concentrated storms in scattered areas.
More heat to come
Frazzled New Yorkers can expect such heat waves to become more frequent and intense because of climate change warming the northeastern United States, Gonzalez noted. Manhattan's urban heat island effect will also become magnified as new buildings go up.
"To mitigate these effects, landlords and policymakers should strive [for] greening the cities with urban parks and vegetated roofs, and motivate construction and retrofits that are thermally light and reflective to the sun when possible," Gonzalez said.
Aerosols, or fine particulates of solids and liquids, may also play havoc with the severity and frequency of storms. Urban areas such as Manhattan typically produce many such aerosols.
In the long run, Gonzalez and his colleagues plan to see how an expanding city affects its regional climate. The researchers rely upon the City College's New York City Meteorological Network, which includes several hundred ground-based sensors and roof-monitoring stations that collect temperature information.
"In the case of New York City, I'd expect that all the air conditioners and such churning away would easily be 20 to 40 times greater than the global greenhouse effect [for heating up the city]," Trenberth said.
Still, Trenberth cautioned that the exploding population of urban dwellers worldwide could lead the urban heat island effect to have a bigger global impact in the future. [note to Trenberth: UHI is a local not global effect]
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
This just in: Uncertainty of "CO2 caused" warming is twice IPCC estimates
That would mean that "unequivocal" anthropogenic global warming is no longer "unequivocal."
Just published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL):
Uncertainties of global warming metrics: CO2 and CH4
Geophysical Research Letters by Andy Reisinger, Malte Meinshausen, Martin Manning and Greg Bodeker
Abstract: We present a comprehensive evaluation of uncertainties in the Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature Change Potential (GTP) of CH4, using a simple climate model calibrated to AOGCMs and coupled climate-carbon cycle models assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). In addition, we estimate uncertainties in these metrics probabilistically by using a method that does not rely on AOGCMs but instead builds on historical constraints and uncertainty estimates of current radiative forcings. While our mean and median GWPs and GTPs estimates are consistent with previous studies, our analysis suggests that uncertainty ranges for GWPs are almost twice as large as estimated in the AR4. Relative uncertainties for GTPs are larger than for GWPs, nearly twice as high for a time horizon of 100 years. Given this uncertainty, our results imply the possibility for substantial future adjustments in best-estimate values of GWPs and in particular GTPs.
Also just in from the settled science:
Decadal changes in tropical convection suggest effects on stratospheric water vapor in GRL by George Tselioudis, Eric Tromeur, William B. Rossow and C. S. Zerefos
Analysis of satellite observations of tropical Weather States derived from a cluster analysis of ISCCP cloud property retrievals, shows that the deep convection Weather State increased in frequency from 1983 to about 2000 and remained at a nearly constant level after that. The sharpest deep convection increase occurred between 1993 and 2000. This convection variability is driven by changes that occur in the Indian Ocean and the Western-Central Pacific regions, which are the regions where the majority of deep tropical convection occurs. Analysis modifications to account for satellite coverage changes during the period under examination do not alter these findings. Previous studies showed that stratospheric water vapor increased from 1980 to 2000 and dropped after that to lower levels that persist until today, and that this change could explain part of the recent global temperature variability. Since tropical deep convection is an important mechanism affecting stratospheric water vapor concentrations, the observed decadal changes in tropical deep convection could explain in part the stratospheric water vapor variability patterns.
Just published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL):
Uncertainties of global warming metrics: CO2 and CH4
Geophysical Research Letters by Andy Reisinger, Malte Meinshausen, Martin Manning and Greg Bodeker
Abstract: We present a comprehensive evaluation of uncertainties in the Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature Change Potential (GTP) of CH4, using a simple climate model calibrated to AOGCMs and coupled climate-carbon cycle models assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). In addition, we estimate uncertainties in these metrics probabilistically by using a method that does not rely on AOGCMs but instead builds on historical constraints and uncertainty estimates of current radiative forcings. While our mean and median GWPs and GTPs estimates are consistent with previous studies, our analysis suggests that uncertainty ranges for GWPs are almost twice as large as estimated in the AR4. Relative uncertainties for GTPs are larger than for GWPs, nearly twice as high for a time horizon of 100 years. Given this uncertainty, our results imply the possibility for substantial future adjustments in best-estimate values of GWPs and in particular GTPs.
Also just in from the settled science:
Decadal changes in tropical convection suggest effects on stratospheric water vapor in GRL by George Tselioudis, Eric Tromeur, William B. Rossow and C. S. Zerefos
Analysis of satellite observations of tropical Weather States derived from a cluster analysis of ISCCP cloud property retrievals, shows that the deep convection Weather State increased in frequency from 1983 to about 2000 and remained at a nearly constant level after that. The sharpest deep convection increase occurred between 1993 and 2000. This convection variability is driven by changes that occur in the Indian Ocean and the Western-Central Pacific regions, which are the regions where the majority of deep tropical convection occurs. Analysis modifications to account for satellite coverage changes during the period under examination do not alter these findings. Previous studies showed that stratospheric water vapor increased from 1980 to 2000 and dropped after that to lower levels that persist until today, and that this change could explain part of the recent global temperature variability. Since tropical deep convection is an important mechanism affecting stratospheric water vapor concentrations, the observed decadal changes in tropical deep convection could explain in part the stratospheric water vapor variability patterns.
Multiple episodes of Antarctica Record Warming 3-4°C Higher than Present
The settled science a.k.a. climatology is struggling to explain why ice core samples show that both Greenland and Antarctica have had multiple interglacial periods over the past several hundred thousand years during which temperatures exceeded today's "record high" temperatures by a very considerable 3-4°C, despite the global climate "control knob" a.k.a. CO2 remaining at least 30% lower than the present. The latest attempt is a paper just published, Interhemispheric coupling, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and warm Antarctic interglacials:
Abstract. Ice core evidence indicates that even though atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not exceed ~300 ppm at any point during the last 800 000 years, East Antarctica was at least ~3–4 ◦C warmer than preindustrial (CO2 ~280 ppm) in each of the last four interglacials. During the previous three interglacials, this anomalous warming was short lived (~3000 years) and apparently occurred before the completion of Northern Hemisphere deglaciation. Hereafter, we refer to these periods as “Warmer than Present Transients” (WPTs). We present a series of experiments to investigate the impact of deglacial meltwater on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and Antarctic temperature...The paper attempts to explain this phenomenon on meltwater from Antarctic glaciers causing alterations in ocean oscillations resulting in a seesaw coupling between the Arctic and Antarctic glaciation and deglaciation, perhaps similar to what we are witnessing today as shown in the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice anomaly charts in the right column→→. I find no mention in the paper why CO2 was not a "control knob" in the past but is now, why "record higher" temperatures occurred multiple times over the past 350K years, and why the "positive feedback from decreased albedo" didn't cause the planet to spin out of control each of those times. Of course it could just be interacting Milankovitch, solar, and oceanic cycles explaining all of this and today's climate, but that would be too simple. see Occam's razor.
Temperature graph at top, temperature anomalies at right of y axis, thousands of years before present along x axis
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Survival of the Fattest
What a deal: Ethanol reduces CO2 for only $754 a ton
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL JULY 26, 2010
The best refutation of the theory of the survival of the fittest is probably the corn ethanol lobby, whose annual $6 billion in federal subsidies have managed to outlive both its record of failure and all evidence and argument. So while we doubt another devastating study will result in any natural selection, recent findings from the Congressional Budget Office deserve more attention all the same.
CBO reveals that it costs taxpayers $1.78 in ethanol "incentives" to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by one gallon—or nearly two-thirds of the current average retail gas price. CBO also estimates that cutting carbon emissions by one metric ton via ethanol runs to $754. To put that number in perspective, the budget gnomes estimate that the price for a ton of carbon under the cap-and-tax program that the House passed last summer would be about $26 in 2019.
That isn't a one-to-one comparison, for reasons too complicated to get into here, though CBO does note that cap and trade or a straight carbon tax would "generally be cheaper than reductions resulting from a tax credit that encouraged specific actions in fewer sectors of the economy." An even more astounding feat is that these ethanol subsidies are redundant—consumers are already required to buy ethanol at the pump under the arbitrary gasoline-blending mandate that Congress imposed in 2007.
CBO is also honest enough to mention that in reality $754 may be purchasing a net carbon [dioxide] emissions increase. "Because the production of ethanol draws so much energy from coal and natural gas," the authors write, "it can be thought of as a method for converting natural gas or coal to a liquid fuel that can be used for transportation." Meanwhile, the assumptions of their model also exclude indirect land-use changes toward energy-intensive crops that also tend to boost overall CO2.
Given these realities, the only mystery is how an industry that produces a fuel that no one would willingly buy has managed to be subsidized over four decades at costs that are higher than anyone ever imagined. But then, maybe it merely illustrates the theory of the politically fittest.
added: bogus carbon dioxide offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange are trading for a "bargain" 10 cents/ton
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL JULY 26, 2010
The best refutation of the theory of the survival of the fittest is probably the corn ethanol lobby, whose annual $6 billion in federal subsidies have managed to outlive both its record of failure and all evidence and argument. So while we doubt another devastating study will result in any natural selection, recent findings from the Congressional Budget Office deserve more attention all the same.
CBO reveals that it costs taxpayers $1.78 in ethanol "incentives" to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by one gallon—or nearly two-thirds of the current average retail gas price. CBO also estimates that cutting carbon emissions by one metric ton via ethanol runs to $754. To put that number in perspective, the budget gnomes estimate that the price for a ton of carbon under the cap-and-tax program that the House passed last summer would be about $26 in 2019.
That isn't a one-to-one comparison, for reasons too complicated to get into here, though CBO does note that cap and trade or a straight carbon tax would "generally be cheaper than reductions resulting from a tax credit that encouraged specific actions in fewer sectors of the economy." An even more astounding feat is that these ethanol subsidies are redundant—consumers are already required to buy ethanol at the pump under the arbitrary gasoline-blending mandate that Congress imposed in 2007.
CBO is also honest enough to mention that in reality $754 may be purchasing a net carbon [dioxide] emissions increase. "Because the production of ethanol draws so much energy from coal and natural gas," the authors write, "it can be thought of as a method for converting natural gas or coal to a liquid fuel that can be used for transportation." Meanwhile, the assumptions of their model also exclude indirect land-use changes toward energy-intensive crops that also tend to boost overall CO2.
Given these realities, the only mystery is how an industry that produces a fuel that no one would willingly buy has managed to be subsidized over four decades at costs that are higher than anyone ever imagined. But then, maybe it merely illustrates the theory of the politically fittest.
added: bogus carbon dioxide offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange are trading for a "bargain" 10 cents/ton
Monday, July 26, 2010
Paper: Global Warming Improves Biodiversity
Several recent alarmist news reports have documented 'biodiversity" as the latest eco-scare:
Tropical Biodiversity Explained by Steady Temperatures
By OurAmazingPlanet Staff 25 July 2010 02:15 pm ET
The astounding array of species that call the tropics home is the result of the near-constant year-round temperatures found in these areas, a new study suggests.
The study, which surveyed insect diversity at a variety of latitudes and points in Earth's history, answers a question that has bugged biologists for centuries. It also shows that the exceptional biodiversity of the tropics is not a result of higher temperatures or more sunlight, as once assumed.
The findings, detailed in the August issue of the journal Paleobiology, also suggest, intriguingly, the world is likely far less diverse today than it was tens of millions of years ago, when the entire Earth had consistent year-round temperatures, much like the modern tropics.
"The latitudinal diversity gradient has been recognized for 150 years as one of the most general observations in nature, and has produced more explanatory hypotheses than nearly any other observation," said study co-author Brian D. Farrell, a biologist at Harvard University. "We show that when most of today's organisms were diversifying, up through the Eocene [about 56 million to 34 million years ago], the world lacked pronounced seasonality, more like today's tropics, even in areas where the temperature was low."
"It appears it's not the heat of the tropics that promotes diversity; it's the more recent seasons of the temperate zone that depress diversity," Farrell added.
Scientists' explanations for tropical biodiversity have tended to focus on the greater heat and light found closer to the equator, and to a lesser extent the low seasonality of the tropics, where average temperature in the hottest and coolest months may vary by only a few degrees.
"These factors tend to change together as you travel away from the equator toward the poles, leaving it difficult to separate their individual effects on diversity," said study author S. Bruce Archibald, a research associate at Simon Fraser University, Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Royal British Columbia Museum. Archibald conducted the research for his doctoral dissertation at Harvard, where Farrell was his advisor.
Farrell, Archibald and their colleagues used the fossil record to solve this conundrum. They compared modern insect diversity at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass., and in a Costa Rican jungle with that seen at the 52.9-million-year-old McAbee fossil bed in British Columbia, Canada, noted for its exceptionally well-preserved insects.
At the time the McAbee fossils were created, Earth's climate was far less seasonal at all latitudes, allowing tropical species, such as palm trees and crocodiles, to live in what is now the high Arctic. So when the Arctic was warm in the past, like the rest of the planet, it had a high degree of biodiversity, like the tropics do today.
- Biodiversity is next...Elite environmentalists and globalists appear to be preparing to dump global warming as their cause celebre
- 'IPCC for nature' proposed -- 'Biodiversity crisis...International body to monitor destruction of flora and fauna' -- On 'equal footing' with climate
- Update: UN Biodiversity report 'has multiple errors in first chapter alone' (It really is 'IPCC like')
- Tom Nelson posts
Tropical Biodiversity Explained by Steady Temperatures
By OurAmazingPlanet Staff 25 July 2010 02:15 pm ET
The astounding array of species that call the tropics home is the result of the near-constant year-round temperatures found in these areas, a new study suggests.
The study, which surveyed insect diversity at a variety of latitudes and points in Earth's history, answers a question that has bugged biologists for centuries. It also shows that the exceptional biodiversity of the tropics is not a result of higher temperatures or more sunlight, as once assumed.
The findings, detailed in the August issue of the journal Paleobiology, also suggest, intriguingly, the world is likely far less diverse today than it was tens of millions of years ago, when the entire Earth had consistent year-round temperatures, much like the modern tropics.
"The latitudinal diversity gradient has been recognized for 150 years as one of the most general observations in nature, and has produced more explanatory hypotheses than nearly any other observation," said study co-author Brian D. Farrell, a biologist at Harvard University. "We show that when most of today's organisms were diversifying, up through the Eocene [about 56 million to 34 million years ago], the world lacked pronounced seasonality, more like today's tropics, even in areas where the temperature was low."
"It appears it's not the heat of the tropics that promotes diversity; it's the more recent seasons of the temperate zone that depress diversity," Farrell added.
Scientists' explanations for tropical biodiversity have tended to focus on the greater heat and light found closer to the equator, and to a lesser extent the low seasonality of the tropics, where average temperature in the hottest and coolest months may vary by only a few degrees.
"These factors tend to change together as you travel away from the equator toward the poles, leaving it difficult to separate their individual effects on diversity," said study author S. Bruce Archibald, a research associate at Simon Fraser University, Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Royal British Columbia Museum. Archibald conducted the research for his doctoral dissertation at Harvard, where Farrell was his advisor.
Farrell, Archibald and their colleagues used the fossil record to solve this conundrum. They compared modern insect diversity at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass., and in a Costa Rican jungle with that seen at the 52.9-million-year-old McAbee fossil bed in British Columbia, Canada, noted for its exceptionally well-preserved insects.
At the time the McAbee fossils were created, Earth's climate was far less seasonal at all latitudes, allowing tropical species, such as palm trees and crocodiles, to live in what is now the high Arctic. So when the Arctic was warm in the past, like the rest of the planet, it had a high degree of biodiversity, like the tropics do today.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The Comment Dr. Roy Spencer Wouldn't Publish
There has been quite a flurry of activity over the past two days between the small band of "true skeptics" [Gerlich, Tscheuschner, Kramm, Chilingar, Sorotkin, Thieme, Siddons, Schroeder, Hertzberg, Johnson, etc] and the more numerous "lukewarm skeptics" [Spencer, Lindzen, Monckton, Watts, Pielke, etc.], perhaps triggered by Kirk Myers' newspaper article: Global warming alarmists in full retreat as skeptics attack greenhouse theory, with WUWT publishing Explaining misconceptions on the "greenhouse effect," which apparently accomplished nothing of the sort judging from the over 200 mostly critical replies. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Roy Spencer posted Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still, which also generated several negative comments. I took 10 minutes to prepare my comment below on Dr. Spencer's post, but am sad to report that after more than 8 hours, my former hero has not published my comment, despite publishing no less than 30 additional comments by himself and others timestamped AFTER my comment was sent in:
Since I took the time to carefully prepare this and didn't want the 10 minutes to go to waste, I post the comment below for anyone interested who wants to show me why it was not worthy of publication on Dr. Spencer's site:
Hockey Schtick says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 24, 2010 at 8:03 AM
Dr. Spencer,
Love your site and most of your skeptical approach, but have to agree with several other comments that AGW violates not only the 2nd law, but the 1st law as well. Here’s why:
Violation of the 1st law:
Assumes that GHGs can perpetually recycle IR from the earth’s surface and thereby ADD energy or work input to the system. Take a look at this University course diagram showing 239.7 W/m2 solar input, but somehow the GHGs are then capable of radiating 239.7 W/m2 BOTH UP AND DOWN FOR A TOTAL OF 479.4 W/m2!!!
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2002Q4/211/notes_greenhouse.html
(other similar diagrams (e.g. K-T) show a TRIPLING of energy by the atmosphere!)
or look at this online “greenhouse effect” calculator from another University climatology course for another flagrant violation of the 1st law:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/07/u-mass-hasnt-heard-of-1st-law-of.html
Violation of the 2nd Law:
Clausius formulation: “Heat DOESN’T flow from cold to hot (WITHOUT WORK INPUT)” AND “total entropy always increases until equilibrium”
AGW assumes the perpetual heat pump created by the violation of the 1st law DOES THE WORK INPUT TO MAKE HEAT FLOW FROM COLD TO HOT.
AGW also incorrectly assumes the total entropy of the system can DECREASE because from the mathematical description of entropy, if heat flows from cold to hot, entropy must locally DECREASE while the total entropy must INCREASE. Therefore, the AGW “hotspot” hasn’t happened, and won’t happen, and heat will not flow from cold to hot because the atmosphere cannot ADD WORK INPUT.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-agw-hot-spot-wont-happen.html
GHGs only slow the rate of cooling of the earth, but they cannot make the warm earth warmer.
I do hope you take a look at the posts from Professor Johnson (author of several textbooks on thermodynamics):
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/07/roy-spencers-greenhouse-effect.html
all the best!
Since I took the time to carefully prepare this and didn't want the 10 minutes to go to waste, I post the comment below for anyone interested who wants to show me why it was not worthy of publication on Dr. Spencer's site:
Hockey Schtick says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 24, 2010 at 8:03 AM
Dr. Spencer,
Love your site and most of your skeptical approach, but have to agree with several other comments that AGW violates not only the 2nd law, but the 1st law as well. Here’s why:
Violation of the 1st law:
Assumes that GHGs can perpetually recycle IR from the earth’s surface and thereby ADD energy or work input to the system. Take a look at this University course diagram showing 239.7 W/m2 solar input, but somehow the GHGs are then capable of radiating 239.7 W/m2 BOTH UP AND DOWN FOR A TOTAL OF 479.4 W/m2!!!
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2002Q4/211/notes_greenhouse.html
(other similar diagrams (e.g. K-T) show a TRIPLING of energy by the atmosphere!)
or look at this online “greenhouse effect” calculator from another University climatology course for another flagrant violation of the 1st law:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/07/u-mass-hasnt-heard-of-1st-law-of.html
Violation of the 2nd Law:
Clausius formulation: “Heat DOESN’T flow from cold to hot (WITHOUT WORK INPUT)” AND “total entropy always increases until equilibrium”
AGW assumes the perpetual heat pump created by the violation of the 1st law DOES THE WORK INPUT TO MAKE HEAT FLOW FROM COLD TO HOT.
AGW also incorrectly assumes the total entropy of the system can DECREASE because from the mathematical description of entropy, if heat flows from cold to hot, entropy must locally DECREASE while the total entropy must INCREASE. Therefore, the AGW “hotspot” hasn’t happened, and won’t happen, and heat will not flow from cold to hot because the atmosphere cannot ADD WORK INPUT.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-agw-hot-spot-wont-happen.html
GHGs only slow the rate of cooling of the earth, but they cannot make the warm earth warmer.
I do hope you take a look at the posts from Professor Johnson (author of several textbooks on thermodynamics):
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/07/roy-spencers-greenhouse-effect.html
all the best!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
MUST READ: Global warming alarmists in full retreat as skeptics attack greenhouse theory
July 22, 1:27 PM EXAMINER.COM Environmental News By Kirk Myers
Sensing that their sky-is-falling theory is crumbling under scientific scrutiny, the always-insecure global warming True Believers are losing their cool, lashing out at critics with a mounting campaign of scurrilous personal attacks, impugning the motives, integrity and mental state of anyone who refuses to genuflect before the high priesthood of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
The latest target of the Warmists: Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, a mathematician and leading critic of the global warming theory, a.k.a. "climate change." Monckton was recently mocked and browbeaten in a 115-slide presentation by John Abraham, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. His "hit and run" slide-show attack was an attempt to discredit a presentation that Monckton had given in St. Paul, Minnesota, in October 2009.
Monckton replied with a powerful rebuttal that, point by point, eviscerated Abraham's embarrassingly dishonest production. Monckton called on Abraham and the university to issue a formal apology, remove the libelous presentation from the Internet, and donate $110,000 to a Haitian charity as compensation for the damage done to his reputation.
As Joanne Nova observes: "Abraham went on to assemble a list of things Christopher Monckton didn't say, complained about things he didn't cite (even if he did and it's printed on his slides), pretended he couldn't find sources (but didn't take ten minutes to ask), and created a litany of communication pollution in an effort to denigrate Monckton's character."
The assaults on Monckton and other high-visibility skeptics (for example, Marc Morano of Climate Depot, Joe D'Aleo of ICECAP, Dr. Willie Soon, Dr. Fred Singer, Anthony Watts and Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi) are further evidence that the global warmists are in full retreat and resorting to slash and burn tactics as they make a desperate last stand to defend their cherished theory from an onslaught of countervailing scientific evidence.
Recently, the so-called "greenhouse effect" has itself come under increasing attack by a phalanx of scientific experts, including Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Dr. Ralf D. Tscheuschner, professor Nasif Nahle, applied mathematician Claes Johnson, former radio-chemist Alan Siddons, analytical chemist Hans Schreuder, combustion research scientist Martin Hertzberg, and engineer Heinz Thieme.
Last year, 130 skeptical German scientists co-signed an Open Letter of protest to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, asserting, among other things, that a "growing body of evidence shows anthropogenic CO2 plays no measurable role" in Earth's climate.
The scientists derided global warming as a "pseudo religion," said the "UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility," and dismissed the alarmist warnings of rising CO2, claiming it "had no measurable effect" on temperatures.
The critics of the atmospheric greenhouse effect have been relentless in their attacks. They continue to blast holes in the theory, whose roots go back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896).
As professors Gerlich and Tscheuschner have pointed out in their research paper, "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics":
"[The greenhouse theory] 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.
"Neither the absorption nor the reflection coefficient of glass for the infrared light is relevant for this explanation of the physical greenhouse effect, but only the movement of air, hindered by the panes of glass."
A growing body of scientists have joined Gerlich and Tscheuschner in exposing the "accepted science" underlying the greenhouse effect. Here are a few of their more damning statements:
(Heinz Thieme, engineer)
"The phenomenon of 'atmospheric backradiation' is presently advanced as an explanation of thermal conditions on Earth, and as the basis of some statements about climate change. However, scientific evaluation in strict accord with the laws of physics and mathematics suggests that 'atmospheric backradiation' is physical nonsense.
"An assessment conducted in the light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the principles of vector algebra of the key greenhouse theory concept of 'atmospheric backradiation' suggests that it is simply a mirage. The only 'Backradiation Phenomenon' that needs explaining is how this physical nonsense maintains its place in numerous earth sciences textbooks at both school and university level.
(Alan Siddons, radio chemist)
". . . if the tenets of this [greenhouse] theory are valid there can be no outcome other than a doubling of surface energy (a doubling at minimum, that is, since there's no reason to suppose that radiation from the now-warmer surface would not continue to be back-radiated, absorbed, and amplified in a 'runaway' heating cascade).
"Simple as it is, though, no scientist in the world is able to construct a model that exhibits any radiative gain because the theory's tenets (called 'the basic science') are not valid. On a theoretical basis alone, conservation of energy (the First Law) forbids a model like this from working. You can't obtain more energy than you put in.
"Just like temperature, radiant energy flows do not add. Lumping two 70° balls of clay together doesn't result in a single ball that's 140°, nor do 70 watts per square meter beaming back onto a body that's radiating 70 [degrees] raise it to 140 [degrees]. Frankly, it is stupid to think otherwise."
(Claes Johnson, professor of applied mathematics)
"It is surprising to see large parts of the scientific community including academies of sciences embracing a hypothesis of global warming from atmospheric CO2, without any convincing scientific support. It appears that the mere mentioning of Stefan-Boltzmann's Radiation Law has been enough to annihilate any further demands of scientific evidence.
"This may be a result a 2Oth century physics education with both the Radiation Law and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics being based on statistical mechanics not understood by anybody. In any case, the acceptance by the scientific community of CO2 climate alarmism without physical basis, needs to be understood and corrected."
(Dr. Martin Hertzberg, combustion research scientist)
"The most significant atmospheric component in the radiative balance is water: as a homogeneous absorbing and emitting vapor, in its heat transport by evaporation and condensation; as clouds, snow and ice cover, which have a major effect on the albedo, and as the enormous circulating mass of liquid ocean, whose heat capacity and mass/energy transport with the atmosphere dominate the earth's weather.
"In comparison to water in all of its forms, the effect of the carbon dioxide increase over the last century on the temperature of the earth is about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane!"
Siddons, Hertzberg and Schhreuder, "A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?"
"The Earth is not "unusually" warm. It is the application of the predictive equation [Stefan-Boltzmann formula] that is faulty. The ability of common substances to store heat makes a mockery of blackbody estimates. The belief that radiating trace gases explain why earth's surface temperature deviates from a simple mathematical formula is based on deeply erroneous assumptions about theoretical vs. real bodies."
These are just a few examples of the mounting criticism directed at the very foundation of the AGW theory -- a theory driven not by science, but rather by a cabal of powerful elitists who seek to dominate and control the planet's economy through a system of confiscatory taxation and Orwellian people controls.
The "science" underlying greenhouse warming alarmism increasingly is being exposed as pure fantasy -- a house of cards built on manipulated climate models supporting pre-ordained conclusions based on cherry-picked land-based temperature data that has been homogenized, interpolated and adjusted to produce, without fail, a politically correct increase in planetary warming.
But as Gerlich and Tscheuschner observe, the science of climate change is fraught with uncertainties and unknowns that make a mockery of the predictive powers of laboratory computer models:
"The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing in their own models."
Sensing that their sky-is-falling theory is crumbling under scientific scrutiny, the always-insecure global warming True Believers are losing their cool, lashing out at critics with a mounting campaign of scurrilous personal attacks, impugning the motives, integrity and mental state of anyone who refuses to genuflect before the high priesthood of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
Monckton replied with a powerful rebuttal that, point by point, eviscerated Abraham's embarrassingly dishonest production. Monckton called on Abraham and the university to issue a formal apology, remove the libelous presentation from the Internet, and donate $110,000 to a Haitian charity as compensation for the damage done to his reputation.
As Joanne Nova observes: "Abraham went on to assemble a list of things Christopher Monckton didn't say, complained about things he didn't cite (even if he did and it's printed on his slides), pretended he couldn't find sources (but didn't take ten minutes to ask), and created a litany of communication pollution in an effort to denigrate Monckton's character."
The assaults on Monckton and other high-visibility skeptics (for example, Marc Morano of Climate Depot, Joe D'Aleo of ICECAP, Dr. Willie Soon, Dr. Fred Singer, Anthony Watts and Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi) are further evidence that the global warmists are in full retreat and resorting to slash and burn tactics as they make a desperate last stand to defend their cherished theory from an onslaught of countervailing scientific evidence.
Recently, the so-called "greenhouse effect" has itself come under increasing attack by a phalanx of scientific experts, including Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Dr. Ralf D. Tscheuschner, professor Nasif Nahle, applied mathematician Claes Johnson, former radio-chemist Alan Siddons, analytical chemist Hans Schreuder, combustion research scientist Martin Hertzberg, and engineer Heinz Thieme.
Last year, 130 skeptical German scientists co-signed an Open Letter of protest to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, asserting, among other things, that a "growing body of evidence shows anthropogenic CO2 plays no measurable role" in Earth's climate.
The scientists derided global warming as a "pseudo religion," said the "UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility," and dismissed the alarmist warnings of rising CO2, claiming it "had no measurable effect" on temperatures.
The critics of the atmospheric greenhouse effect have been relentless in their attacks. They continue to blast holes in the theory, whose roots go back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896).
As professors Gerlich and Tscheuschner have pointed out in their research paper, "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics":
"[The greenhouse theory] 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.
"Neither the absorption nor the reflection coefficient of glass for the infrared light is relevant for this explanation of the physical greenhouse effect, but only the movement of air, hindered by the panes of glass."
A growing body of scientists have joined Gerlich and Tscheuschner in exposing the "accepted science" underlying the greenhouse effect. Here are a few of their more damning statements:
(Heinz Thieme, engineer)
"The phenomenon of 'atmospheric backradiation' is presently advanced as an explanation of thermal conditions on Earth, and as the basis of some statements about climate change. However, scientific evaluation in strict accord with the laws of physics and mathematics suggests that 'atmospheric backradiation' is physical nonsense.
"An assessment conducted in the light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the principles of vector algebra of the key greenhouse theory concept of 'atmospheric backradiation' suggests that it is simply a mirage. The only 'Backradiation Phenomenon' that needs explaining is how this physical nonsense maintains its place in numerous earth sciences textbooks at both school and university level.
(Alan Siddons, radio chemist)
". . . if the tenets of this [greenhouse] theory are valid there can be no outcome other than a doubling of surface energy (a doubling at minimum, that is, since there's no reason to suppose that radiation from the now-warmer surface would not continue to be back-radiated, absorbed, and amplified in a 'runaway' heating cascade).
"Simple as it is, though, no scientist in the world is able to construct a model that exhibits any radiative gain because the theory's tenets (called 'the basic science') are not valid. On a theoretical basis alone, conservation of energy (the First Law) forbids a model like this from working. You can't obtain more energy than you put in.
"Just like temperature, radiant energy flows do not add. Lumping two 70° balls of clay together doesn't result in a single ball that's 140°, nor do 70 watts per square meter beaming back onto a body that's radiating 70 [degrees] raise it to 140 [degrees]. Frankly, it is stupid to think otherwise."
(Claes Johnson, professor of applied mathematics)
"It is surprising to see large parts of the scientific community including academies of sciences embracing a hypothesis of global warming from atmospheric CO2, without any convincing scientific support. It appears that the mere mentioning of Stefan-Boltzmann's Radiation Law has been enough to annihilate any further demands of scientific evidence.
"This may be a result a 2Oth century physics education with both the Radiation Law and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics being based on statistical mechanics not understood by anybody. In any case, the acceptance by the scientific community of CO2 climate alarmism without physical basis, needs to be understood and corrected."
(Dr. Martin Hertzberg, combustion research scientist)
"The most significant atmospheric component in the radiative balance is water: as a homogeneous absorbing and emitting vapor, in its heat transport by evaporation and condensation; as clouds, snow and ice cover, which have a major effect on the albedo, and as the enormous circulating mass of liquid ocean, whose heat capacity and mass/energy transport with the atmosphere dominate the earth's weather.
"In comparison to water in all of its forms, the effect of the carbon dioxide increase over the last century on the temperature of the earth is about as significant as a few farts in a hurricane!"
Siddons, Hertzberg and Schhreuder, "A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?"
"The Earth is not "unusually" warm. It is the application of the predictive equation [Stefan-Boltzmann formula] that is faulty. The ability of common substances to store heat makes a mockery of blackbody estimates. The belief that radiating trace gases explain why earth's surface temperature deviates from a simple mathematical formula is based on deeply erroneous assumptions about theoretical vs. real bodies."
These are just a few examples of the mounting criticism directed at the very foundation of the AGW theory -- a theory driven not by science, but rather by a cabal of powerful elitists who seek to dominate and control the planet's economy through a system of confiscatory taxation and Orwellian people controls.
The "science" underlying greenhouse warming alarmism increasingly is being exposed as pure fantasy -- a house of cards built on manipulated climate models supporting pre-ordained conclusions based on cherry-picked land-based temperature data that has been homogenized, interpolated and adjusted to produce, without fail, a politically correct increase in planetary warming.
But as Gerlich and Tscheuschner observe, the science of climate change is fraught with uncertainties and unknowns that make a mockery of the predictive powers of laboratory computer models:
"The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing in their own models."
NASA Makes Another Boo-Boo
Through it's alarmist eyes, NASA's Earth Observatory looks at this global map of temperature anomalies and writes only about global heat waves, and somehow misses the more extant global cooling waves:
The Global "heat wave" phenomenon
But, at least they finally acknowledged (thanks to skeptical protests!) a part of their boo-boo, admitting in the fine print of their updated version of the alarmist piece: Correction: This post originally stated the early July 2010 heat wave was a "global phenomenon." We have revised to make our meaning more precise: many places around the globe experienced heat waves in early July.Still waiting on a forthcoming even more precise correction "many more places around the globe experienced cold waves in early July"
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Skeptic Magazine Reviews Alarmist Book
Skeptic Magazine review by James N. Gardner of The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps
IS ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING the cataclysmic threat that Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proclaim it to be? Or do powerful natural forces like variable solar output, plate tectonics, and volcanic activity dwarf the climate impact of human-generated greenhouse gases?
That is the deep question that lurks beneath the surface of a fascinating new book — The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps — by University of Washington scientist Peter D. Ward. Ward, co-author of the highly acclaimed Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, is at his best when he provides snapshots of the climate extremes our planet has experienced over the billions of years of its existence. Here is his description of ancient episodes of global warming that make the dire warnings of current climate prognosticators seem almost benign:
If nature is capable of this level of environmental catastrophe on its own, just how much can we feeble humans really influence the future evolution of the vast, complex global climate system? The optimistic answer, favored by Ward, is that humankind is now firmly in the driver’s seat of climate change:
Ward’s implication is that if we humans will only cease our global warming malefactions, the violent climatic oscillations he so colorfully documents — oscillations that predate by millions of years humanity’s evolutionary emergence on the savannahs of Africa — will be brought under tolerable control.
The pessimist would argue that the mountain of geological evidence assembled and expertly presented by Ward points to precisely the opposite conclusion — that what happened in the past can and will happen again regardless of what human beings do.
What seems incontrovertible from Ward’s compelling narrative is that, irrespective of the precise causal interplay of human-induced and natural factors, the Earth’s deep history offers ample evidence that the atmospheric conditions on this planet are likely to continue to fluctuate dramatically, with potentially dire consequences for the biosphere. From the mysterious Permian extinction 250 million years ago, in which 96% of all marine species went extinct, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years which killed off the dinosaurs, the story of our planet’s long environmental history is a tale of repeated episodes of dramatic change that have threatened the very survival of complex life. In the face of this overwhelming evidentiary record, only a cock-eyed optimist would contend that what is past is not prologue.
Added note: time until all ice-caps melt at the current rate: ~38,000 years
IS ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING the cataclysmic threat that Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proclaim it to be? Or do powerful natural forces like variable solar output, plate tectonics, and volcanic activity dwarf the climate impact of human-generated greenhouse gases?
That is the deep question that lurks beneath the surface of a fascinating new book — The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps — by University of Washington scientist Peter D. Ward. Ward, co-author of the highly acclaimed Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, is at his best when he provides snapshots of the climate extremes our planet has experienced over the billions of years of its existence. Here is his description of ancient episodes of global warming that make the dire warnings of current climate prognosticators seem almost benign:
Long before humans were even a gleam in nature’s eye, the convergence of geological forces repeatedly caused the planet to heat up. Such events, however rare, hugely altered life and its evolution. The warming had resulted from enormous volumes of carbon dioxide that emanated from the flood basalts, creating atmospheric greenhouse conditions that quickly heated the planet to a point that the poles were nearly as warm as the equator, leading the normal winds and ocean currents to diminish and in some cases totally stop. A stilled ocean, eventually even on its surface regions, loses oxygen. The apparent result was a series of nasty events, such as oceanwide “dead zones” … where conditions of eutrophication — where a body of water first warms and then loses its oxygen as its enclosed life dies and then rots — have eliminated all the life-giving oxygen in the water.
If nature is capable of this level of environmental catastrophe on its own, just how much can we feeble humans really influence the future evolution of the vast, complex global climate system? The optimistic answer, favored by Ward, is that humankind is now firmly in the driver’s seat of climate change:
As I give talks around the country about a newly discovered phenomenon of the deep past greenhouse extinctions, people always ask about the relevance of these studies to the present and near future. That question is simple to answer, at least for me: what happened in the past can and will happen again if we continue to heat the planet at present rates.
Ward’s implication is that if we humans will only cease our global warming malefactions, the violent climatic oscillations he so colorfully documents — oscillations that predate by millions of years humanity’s evolutionary emergence on the savannahs of Africa — will be brought under tolerable control.
The pessimist would argue that the mountain of geological evidence assembled and expertly presented by Ward points to precisely the opposite conclusion — that what happened in the past can and will happen again regardless of what human beings do.
What seems incontrovertible from Ward’s compelling narrative is that, irrespective of the precise causal interplay of human-induced and natural factors, the Earth’s deep history offers ample evidence that the atmospheric conditions on this planet are likely to continue to fluctuate dramatically, with potentially dire consequences for the biosphere. From the mysterious Permian extinction 250 million years ago, in which 96% of all marine species went extinct, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years which killed off the dinosaurs, the story of our planet’s long environmental history is a tale of repeated episodes of dramatic change that have threatened the very survival of complex life. In the face of this overwhelming evidentiary record, only a cock-eyed optimist would contend that what is past is not prologue.
Added note: time until all ice-caps melt at the current rate: ~38,000 years
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Schizophrenic EPA wants more biofuels to cut greenhouse emissions while raising them
Headline today: U.S. Government Mandates 800,000,000 Gallons of Biodiesel by Next Year:
Thus, most of the 800 million gallons of biodiesel required for next year will need to come from "agricultural oils," which the EPA claims in this press release will cut greenhouse emissions up to 86%. Apparently, the EPA is unaware of another of it's press releases which states:
"It is important to note that biofuel production and consumption, in and of itself, will not reduce GHG or conventional pollutant emissions, lessen imports or consumption of petroleum, or alleviate pressure on exhaustible resources. Biofuel production and use must coincide with reductions in the production and use of fossil fuels for these benefits to accrue. These benefits would be mitigated if biofuel emissions and resource demands augment, rather than displace, those of fossil fuels.
Economic Costs of Biofuel Production
Biofuel feedstocks include many crops that would otherwise be used for human consumption directly, or indirectly as animal feed. Diverting these crops to biofuels may lead to more land area devoted to agriculture, increased use of polluting inputs, and higher food prices. Cellulosic feedstocks can also compete for resources (land, water, fertilizer, etc.) that could otherwise be devoted to food production. As a result, biofuel production may give rise to several undesirable developments:
1. Land use patterns may change, resulting in GHG emissions. Biofuel feedstocks grown on land cleared from tropical forests, such as soybeans in the Amazon and oil palm in Southeast Asia, generate particularly high GHG emissions.
2. Even when feedstocks are not directly grown on forests or native ecosystems, higher crop prices can encourage the expansion of agriculture into undeveloped land, leading to GHG emissions and biodiversity losses.
3. Biofuel production and processing practices can release GHGs. Fertilizer application releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Most biorefineries operate using fossil fuels. The magnitude of the total GHG emissions resulting from biofuel production and use, including those from indirect land use change, might even exceed those generated by fossil fuels in some circumstances.
4. The quantity of food brought to market might decrease, resulting in higher food prices and possibly more malnutrition.
5. Water quality could suffer as rising prices for agricultural commodities induce more intensive agricultural practices (e.g., greater use of inputs such as fertilizer). Increases in irrigation could unsustainable deplete aquifers.
6. Air quality could also suffer if the total impact of biofuels on tailpipe emissions plus the additional emissions generated at biorefineries increases net conventional air pollution."
And that's just what the ever-trustworthy EPA has to say. Here's a small sampling of additional analyses to consider:
1. "As large-scale biofuels subsidies and mandates are enacted in the future, more and more forests, grasslands, etc., will be cleared, either directly or indirectly, releasing their tremendous stores of carbon (soils and plant biomass contain almost three times as much carbon as the atmosphere). When properly accounting for these land-use changes, Searchinger et al. (2) estimated that rather than reducing GHG, corn-based ethanol doubles emissions for over thirty years and results in increased emissions for 167 years. Switchgrass-based biofuels, even if grown on U.S. corn fields, would still increase GHG emissions by 50% over thirty years. "
2. Lose-Lose on Biofuels? The EPA’s analysis suggests that the switch toward renewables will significantly increase various emissions.
3. Palm oil biodiesel can increase greenhouse emissions by 2,000%
4. New study claims ethanol and biodiesel may actually boost GHG emissions
case study for the state of Vermont, if every single ounce of waste grease from the 812,623 restaurants in the USA was somehow recycled in a 1:1 ratio to biodiesel, the maximum yield of biodiesel would be 940 million gallons, just slightly above the EPA requirement for next year. This doesn't take into account the massive amounts of fossil fuel and non-existent infrastructure requirements required to gather, transport, and convert the waste grease.
"Could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 86 percent"
"Keeping in line with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed that it will need 800 million gallons of biodiesel in the United States domestic market in 2011.
The EISA "expanded" the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2), which has volume requirements for Biomass-based Diesel, undifferentiated Advanced Biofuels and Cellulosic Biofuels. Biodiesel is the only commercially accepted U.S.-made Advanced Biofuel that fits the description of an undifferentiated Advanced Biofuel and Biomass-based diesel, and it can cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 86 percent when made from animal fats, agricultural oils, and waste greases.
"We applaud EPA for this announcement and for reaffirming the common sense notion that we should displace petroleum diesel fuel with Advanced Biofuels like biodiesel," said Manning Feraci, Vice President of Federal Affairs for the National Biodiesel Board.
Biofuel producers are concerned with whether these production levels can be reached due to biodiesel prices being much more expensive than regular diesel. Producers would like to see Congress pass a $1 per gallon biodiesel tax once again, since it expired last year, in order to make biodiesel more affordable."According to my quick & dirty analysis based on a
Thus, most of the 800 million gallons of biodiesel required for next year will need to come from "agricultural oils," which the EPA claims in this press release will cut greenhouse emissions up to 86%. Apparently, the EPA is unaware of another of it's press releases which states:
"It is important to note that biofuel production and consumption, in and of itself, will not reduce GHG or conventional pollutant emissions, lessen imports or consumption of petroleum, or alleviate pressure on exhaustible resources. Biofuel production and use must coincide with reductions in the production and use of fossil fuels for these benefits to accrue. These benefits would be mitigated if biofuel emissions and resource demands augment, rather than displace, those of fossil fuels.
Economic Costs of Biofuel Production
Biofuel feedstocks include many crops that would otherwise be used for human consumption directly, or indirectly as animal feed. Diverting these crops to biofuels may lead to more land area devoted to agriculture, increased use of polluting inputs, and higher food prices. Cellulosic feedstocks can also compete for resources (land, water, fertilizer, etc.) that could otherwise be devoted to food production. As a result, biofuel production may give rise to several undesirable developments:
1. Land use patterns may change, resulting in GHG emissions. Biofuel feedstocks grown on land cleared from tropical forests, such as soybeans in the Amazon and oil palm in Southeast Asia, generate particularly high GHG emissions.
2. Even when feedstocks are not directly grown on forests or native ecosystems, higher crop prices can encourage the expansion of agriculture into undeveloped land, leading to GHG emissions and biodiversity losses.
3. Biofuel production and processing practices can release GHGs. Fertilizer application releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Most biorefineries operate using fossil fuels. The magnitude of the total GHG emissions resulting from biofuel production and use, including those from indirect land use change, might even exceed those generated by fossil fuels in some circumstances.
4. The quantity of food brought to market might decrease, resulting in higher food prices and possibly more malnutrition.
5. Water quality could suffer as rising prices for agricultural commodities induce more intensive agricultural practices (e.g., greater use of inputs such as fertilizer). Increases in irrigation could unsustainable deplete aquifers.
6. Air quality could also suffer if the total impact of biofuels on tailpipe emissions plus the additional emissions generated at biorefineries increases net conventional air pollution."
And that's just what the ever-trustworthy EPA has to say. Here's a small sampling of additional analyses to consider:
1. "As large-scale biofuels subsidies and mandates are enacted in the future, more and more forests, grasslands, etc., will be cleared, either directly or indirectly, releasing their tremendous stores of carbon (soils and plant biomass contain almost three times as much carbon as the atmosphere). When properly accounting for these land-use changes, Searchinger et al. (2) estimated that rather than reducing GHG, corn-based ethanol doubles emissions for over thirty years and results in increased emissions for 167 years. Switchgrass-based biofuels, even if grown on U.S. corn fields, would still increase GHG emissions by 50% over thirty years. "
2. Lose-Lose on Biofuels? The EPA’s analysis suggests that the switch toward renewables will significantly increase various emissions.
3. Palm oil biodiesel can increase greenhouse emissions by 2,000%
4. New study claims ethanol and biodiesel may actually boost GHG emissions
case study for the state of Vermont, if every single ounce of waste grease from the 812,623 restaurants in the USA was somehow recycled in a 1:1 ratio to biodiesel, the maximum yield of biodiesel would be 940 million gallons, just slightly above the EPA requirement for next year. This doesn't take into account the massive amounts of fossil fuel and non-existent infrastructure requirements required to gather, transport, and convert the waste grease.
Monday, July 19, 2010
End of the road for Greenhouse Gas Theory: Bogus Budget Busted
Shocking new statistical error uncovered in NASA’s Earth Energy Budget equations: global warming numbers are incorrect not by factor of two, but three times over
By John O'Sullivan at Johnosullivan.livejournal.com {newly updated}
Long-time greenhouse gas theory denier, Alan Siddons, has done it again in exposing NASA’s climate change fraud. In an earlier article I reported how the former radio-chemist had uncovered a bogus ‘X-Factor’ in the Earth Energy Budget equations, or ‘Kiehl-Trenberth diagram’ (K-T). The K-T equations are the foundation of environmentalist claims that emissions from burning fossil fuels are raising global temperatures.
That article illustrated how, since 1997, NASA got away with double counting the ‘up and down’ heating effect of carbon dioxide by using the K-T calculations to exaggerate the heating effect of carbon dioxide by a factor of two.
Fallacy of the Perpetual Motion Heat Engine
What I sought to explain in my earlier article was that alarmist climatologists were suggesting that from the 168Wm-2 of heat received by our planet’s surface there comes an ‘up and down’ re-radiation so that half is always being ‘back radiated’ again to Earth’s surface.
Thus from 168Wm-2 would come a further 84Wm-2; from that in turn comes back radiated a further 42Wm-2, etc., etc. Thus the notion of ‘trapped’ atmospheric heat was born. Yet, as numerous highly qualified independent scientists have pointed out (e.g. Charles Anderson PhD, Professor Claes Johnson, physicists Gerhard Gerlich and Ralph Tscheuschner , etc., etc.) such a cyclical re-heating effect is against the laws of physics. Such experts dismiss the entire hypothesis as an impossible perpetual motion heat engine better suited to the realms of science fiction.
However, not satisfied with leaving the debunkery at that, Siddons perused the numbers again after reading my last tome, 'Kitchen Colander Proves Greenhouse Gas Theory Won't Hold Water,' The eagle-eyed researcher soon spotted a flaw in my calculations; I had under-estimated the full extent of Trenberth’s (and thereafter, NASA’s) factoring errors.
Trenberth Comes Out to Answer His Critics
Siddons’ latest revelation surpasses even the malfeasance of that previously uncovered trickery. What is now being exposed is so damning it is sure to heap further embarrassment on the beleaguered space agency.
The climate researcher accuses Trenberth (and NASA) of using a multiple layered model that fraudulently allows doomsayers to triple the solar-originated energy in the atmosphere.
The fuse to the latest bombshell was lit last week when the ‘Hockey Schtick’ blog pitched an email query direct to Kevin Trenberth, the architect of the NASA equations. Calamitous Kevin of Climategate infamy was asked to explain his grotesquely inflated number-crunching.
To our delight and amazement he replied, “the atmosphere is not a single layer, it is 3-dimensional.”
Siddons picked up on the subtle word play, “he's almost explicitly declaring that multiple layers multiply energy.”
You can bet that on reading this new stunner NASA will be as tight-lipped as when we asked them to explain why their education department no longer publishes the K-T diagram in their high school textbooks.
Heat is Transferred According to Temperature Difference
To assist readers in better understanding the mire of this pseudo-science gobbledygook we need to make use of the "New Unphysical AGW Simulator."
By availing ourselves of the ‘AGW Simulator’ (thanks University of Colorado) we see that solar-originated atmospheric energy is almost exactly tripled according to the K-T method:
519 ÷ 169 = 3.07. Thus a multiplying factor of 3.
That’s how our imaginary "greenhouse" of gases goes from having one pane of glass to 3 panes!
By Trenberth’s ‘magic’ we can have multiple "layers;” all the better for us to then multiply our data by a factor of three because the “atmosphere is not a single layer, it is three-dimensional.”
As Siddons says, “It’s similar to heating a 70 degree pair of pants with a 200 degree iron. The temperature of the pants doesn’t rise to 270 but only to 200 at most. Heat is transferred according to the temperature difference, not according to a sum.”
Thereafter, all climate scientists, taking the equation on trust, wrongly concluded that human emissions of carbon dioxide were far more significant to climate change than they are.
Why fudge by two, if three looks Better?
This kind of wanton fakery has long been enshrined in the ‘bible’ of doomsaying: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.
The IPCC's Report of 2001 (in ‘Figure 1.2’) states that, “Of the incoming solar radiation, 49% (168 Wm-2) is absorbed by the surface. That heat is returned to the atmosphere as sensible heat, as evapotranspiration (latent heat) and as thermal infrared radiation. Most of this radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, which in turn emits radiation both up and down.“
Did you see it? That old double counting ‘up and down’ hoax gets slipped in to fool the unwary yet again.
The fraudulent ‘X-Factor’ of energy released from carbon dioxide is justified by claiming it forms a "two-sided surface" (in the atmosphere). This swindle has been well sold to unthinkers like politicians and the ‘useful idiots’ in the mainstream media who long ago scorned old fashioned virtues such as due diligence and investigative responsibility.
'Back radiation' as unphysical as 'back conduction' or 'back convection'
Like other analysts, I refuted this ‘up and down’ gambit that K-T used to multiply the effects of CO2 by a factor of two because this ‘back radiation' folly has no precedent in the laws of science. For over 30 years a clique of climatologists (collective noun: a ‘conspiracy’?) has been trying to get away with skewing the laws of physics when applied to radiation.
As a simple comparison, no scientist claims there is such a thing as ‘back-convection’- likewise, none claim there is such a thing as ‘back-conduction’ as both these concepts would be so preposterous as to be universally laughed at. Yet somehow the proposition of ‘back radiation’ gets a ‘free pass’ supposedly avoiding all accountability in the laws of thermodynamics: sorry, my ‘denier’ associates and I don’t buy that!
Pointing out the Purpose of Poynting Vectors
Kiehl, Trenberth and the rest of the doomsaying fraternity also ‘forget’ that when calculating any transport of electro-magnetic energy (radiation) all such flow is to be determined by field vector calculus (i.e. Poynting's vector theorem) which is an energy conservation law: see the ‘gold standard’ textbook by John David Jackson Classical electrodynamics.
Vectoring laws must be applied in any three-dimensional calculus of electro-magnetic forces in motion (i.e. radiation). As Trenberth has explicitly stated his intention is to model in 3-D, therefore there is no escaping the requirement of applying Poynting’s laws.
Poynting’s theorem specifically requires that when the direction of such energy flow is equal and in opposite motion (that spurious K-T ‘up and down’) all such flows must be summed to zero.
In the doomsayers’ failure (and in mine), the true extent of the misapplication of calculus was overlooked.
This is a mighty hefty debunk because this is the core of NASA’s preferred calculation of our planet’s energy budget. The K-T diagram has risen then fallen just as ignominiously as the discredited ‘hockey stick’ graph of Michael Mann.
Satellite Data Says Siddons is Correct
Finally, to reassure ourselves the real world concurs with our take on the physics, if we check the satellite evidence from ERBE, as shown by Lindzen and Choi (2009) and admitted to by Trenberth, back radiation appears to present no impediment to the outward flow of radiation.
Thus, empirical observations, the laws of thermodynamics and Poynting's vector calculus together deliver the GHG hypothesis a knock out blow. Falling with it is all vestige of scientific credibility of that doomsaying ilk associated with Kevin Trenberth, NASA and the IPCC.
References:
Dr. Hertzberg, M., Siddons, A, & Schreuder, H., 'A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?" (May 2010).
Lindzen, R. S., & Choi, Y., ‘On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data,’ (August 2009), Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 36, L16705.
Jackson, J. D. ‘Classical electrodynamics’ (1998), (Third ed.), New York: Wiley. ISBN 047130932
By John O'Sullivan at Johnosullivan.livejournal.com {newly updated}
Long-time greenhouse gas theory denier, Alan Siddons, has done it again in exposing NASA’s climate change fraud. In an earlier article I reported how the former radio-chemist had uncovered a bogus ‘X-Factor’ in the Earth Energy Budget equations, or ‘Kiehl-Trenberth diagram’ (K-T). The K-T equations are the foundation of environmentalist claims that emissions from burning fossil fuels are raising global temperatures.
That article illustrated how, since 1997, NASA got away with double counting the ‘up and down’ heating effect of carbon dioxide by using the K-T calculations to exaggerate the heating effect of carbon dioxide by a factor of two.
Fallacy of the Perpetual Motion Heat Engine
What I sought to explain in my earlier article was that alarmist climatologists were suggesting that from the 168Wm-2 of heat received by our planet’s surface there comes an ‘up and down’ re-radiation so that half is always being ‘back radiated’ again to Earth’s surface.
Thus from 168Wm-2 would come a further 84Wm-2; from that in turn comes back radiated a further 42Wm-2, etc., etc. Thus the notion of ‘trapped’ atmospheric heat was born. Yet, as numerous highly qualified independent scientists have pointed out (e.g. Charles Anderson PhD, Professor Claes Johnson, physicists Gerhard Gerlich and Ralph Tscheuschner , etc., etc.) such a cyclical re-heating effect is against the laws of physics. Such experts dismiss the entire hypothesis as an impossible perpetual motion heat engine better suited to the realms of science fiction.
Simplified Illustration of the K-T Earth Energy Budget
However, not satisfied with leaving the debunkery at that, Siddons perused the numbers again after reading my last tome, 'Kitchen Colander Proves Greenhouse Gas Theory Won't Hold Water,' The eagle-eyed researcher soon spotted a flaw in my calculations; I had under-estimated the full extent of Trenberth’s (and thereafter, NASA’s) factoring errors.
Trenberth Comes Out to Answer His Critics
Siddons’ latest revelation surpasses even the malfeasance of that previously uncovered trickery. What is now being exposed is so damning it is sure to heap further embarrassment on the beleaguered space agency.
The climate researcher accuses Trenberth (and NASA) of using a multiple layered model that fraudulently allows doomsayers to triple the solar-originated energy in the atmosphere.
The fuse to the latest bombshell was lit last week when the ‘Hockey Schtick’ blog pitched an email query direct to Kevin Trenberth, the architect of the NASA equations. Calamitous Kevin of Climategate infamy was asked to explain his grotesquely inflated number-crunching.
To our delight and amazement he replied, “the atmosphere is not a single layer, it is 3-dimensional.”
Siddons picked up on the subtle word play, “he's almost explicitly declaring that multiple layers multiply energy.”
You can bet that on reading this new stunner NASA will be as tight-lipped as when we asked them to explain why their education department no longer publishes the K-T diagram in their high school textbooks.
Heat is Transferred According to Temperature Difference
To assist readers in better understanding the mire of this pseudo-science gobbledygook we need to make use of the "New Unphysical AGW Simulator."
By availing ourselves of the ‘AGW Simulator’ (thanks University of Colorado) we see that solar-originated atmospheric energy is almost exactly tripled according to the K-T method:
519 ÷ 169 = 3.07. Thus a multiplying factor of 3.
That’s how our imaginary "greenhouse" of gases goes from having one pane of glass to 3 panes!
By Trenberth’s ‘magic’ we can have multiple "layers;” all the better for us to then multiply our data by a factor of three because the “atmosphere is not a single layer, it is three-dimensional.”
As Siddons says, “It’s similar to heating a 70 degree pair of pants with a 200 degree iron. The temperature of the pants doesn’t rise to 270 but only to 200 at most. Heat is transferred according to the temperature difference, not according to a sum.”
Thereafter, all climate scientists, taking the equation on trust, wrongly concluded that human emissions of carbon dioxide were far more significant to climate change than they are.
Why fudge by two, if three looks Better?
This kind of wanton fakery has long been enshrined in the ‘bible’ of doomsaying: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.
The IPCC's Report of 2001 (in ‘Figure 1.2’) states that, “Of the incoming solar radiation, 49% (168 Wm-2) is absorbed by the surface. That heat is returned to the atmosphere as sensible heat, as evapotranspiration (latent heat) and as thermal infrared radiation. Most of this radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, which in turn emits radiation both up and down.“
Did you see it? That old double counting ‘up and down’ hoax gets slipped in to fool the unwary yet again.
The fraudulent ‘X-Factor’ of energy released from carbon dioxide is justified by claiming it forms a "two-sided surface" (in the atmosphere). This swindle has been well sold to unthinkers like politicians and the ‘useful idiots’ in the mainstream media who long ago scorned old fashioned virtues such as due diligence and investigative responsibility.
'Back radiation' as unphysical as 'back conduction' or 'back convection'
Like other analysts, I refuted this ‘up and down’ gambit that K-T used to multiply the effects of CO2 by a factor of two because this ‘back radiation' folly has no precedent in the laws of science. For over 30 years a clique of climatologists (collective noun: a ‘conspiracy’?) has been trying to get away with skewing the laws of physics when applied to radiation.
As a simple comparison, no scientist claims there is such a thing as ‘back-convection’- likewise, none claim there is such a thing as ‘back-conduction’ as both these concepts would be so preposterous as to be universally laughed at. Yet somehow the proposition of ‘back radiation’ gets a ‘free pass’ supposedly avoiding all accountability in the laws of thermodynamics: sorry, my ‘denier’ associates and I don’t buy that!
Pointing out the Purpose of Poynting Vectors
Kiehl, Trenberth and the rest of the doomsaying fraternity also ‘forget’ that when calculating any transport of electro-magnetic energy (radiation) all such flow is to be determined by field vector calculus (i.e. Poynting's vector theorem) which is an energy conservation law: see the ‘gold standard’ textbook by John David Jackson Classical electrodynamics.
Vectoring laws must be applied in any three-dimensional calculus of electro-magnetic forces in motion (i.e. radiation). As Trenberth has explicitly stated his intention is to model in 3-D, therefore there is no escaping the requirement of applying Poynting’s laws.
Poynting’s theorem specifically requires that when the direction of such energy flow is equal and in opposite motion (that spurious K-T ‘up and down’) all such flows must be summed to zero.
In the doomsayers’ failure (and in mine), the true extent of the misapplication of calculus was overlooked.
This is a mighty hefty debunk because this is the core of NASA’s preferred calculation of our planet’s energy budget. The K-T diagram has risen then fallen just as ignominiously as the discredited ‘hockey stick’ graph of Michael Mann.
Satellite Data Says Siddons is Correct
Finally, to reassure ourselves the real world concurs with our take on the physics, if we check the satellite evidence from ERBE, as shown by Lindzen and Choi (2009) and admitted to by Trenberth, back radiation appears to present no impediment to the outward flow of radiation.
Thus, empirical observations, the laws of thermodynamics and Poynting's vector calculus together deliver the GHG hypothesis a knock out blow. Falling with it is all vestige of scientific credibility of that doomsaying ilk associated with Kevin Trenberth, NASA and the IPCC.
References:
Dr. Hertzberg, M., Siddons, A, & Schreuder, H., 'A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?" (May 2010).
Lindzen, R. S., & Choi, Y., ‘On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data,’ (August 2009), Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 36, L16705.
Jackson, J. D. ‘Classical electrodynamics’ (1998), (Third ed.), New York: Wiley. ISBN 047130932
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)