Zarathustra wrote:If our GHGs are increasing (and they are), and the temperature of the planet is increasing (well, that's the claim), then we're not talking about a one-time event that would show a temporary decrease in escaping heat, and then stabilize at this higher temperature. The amount of heat escaping to space would necessarily have to be decreasing; that energy has to come from somewhere.
If the out-going radiation is constant, then the temperature due to the greenhouse effect has to be constant, even granting you this hypothetical one-time rise. And if it's constant, then there is no crisis. We're supposed to be worrying about a continuing rise, extending to the future. (However, as Orlion pointed out, it can be rising for other reasons not related to increased GHGs. But even Phil Jones admitted that there has been no global warming for 15 years.)
First of all, all of the above assumes a steady input energy – which funnily enough counters the anti-AGW argument of “cycles” they like to lean on so much. So where are the cycles if the radiation is constant? It seems the skeptics aren’t any better at producing sound theory than they claim of the advocates.
Second, Lindzen and Choi have already been debunked in their peer reviewed paper on using satellites to record radiation over the last 15 years. I provided an example of that for you in this very thread back in November of 2009, here:
That’s all nice and dandy, except for the fact that Lindzen’s paper contain a colossal (deliberate?) mistake :
He measured changes in Earth’s outbound radiation (using ERBE) and he found 4 W/m^2 change per C change in sea surface temperatures. Now that’s exactly what you would expect from Stephan Boltzmann equations for a system without feedback. So why did he conclude otherwise ?
The problem is here :
In his formula (and in Figure 3, pane 2) he assumes a feedback
factor of -1 if there is NO increase in short-wave radiation.
That is a very obvious mistake because no change in SW radiation means no feedback.
Or differently worded : he confused radiative ‘forcing’ with it’s effect (increase in black-body radiation).
This changes all the plots and graphs, since all numbers for SW and the ’slope’ for the models goes up by 4 W/m^2/C, essentially becoming in line with the ERBE observations.
More importantly, it changes the conclusion too, since there is now no measurable feeback.
The only thing that Lindzen could conclude from the ERBE/SST data is that he found no significant feedback on the short term, and that this is in line with model predictions.
However, now we have even better rebuttals and peer reviewed ones.
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/a-rebuttal-to-a-cool-climate-paper/ - that one is waiting for Lindzen and Choi’s rebuttal. Just part of the process, so LC could recover still, but I doubt it.
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/ ... unraveled/ - this is a bit easier to read and understand the issues with Lindzen and Choi’s methods.
Lindzen and Choi have not proven anything about radiation for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the feedback mechanism they entirely ignored in the math. And when you include them, it miraculously matches the results predicted by the AGW theory. You can’t ignore physics and expect to be correct about how the world works.
Of course, this is why I also said, back in November, that it’s a misleading and futile exercise to cite articles and fractionally educate yourself by cherry picking which article you happened to find and looked cool or sounded correct – unless you’re an expert, you’re basing your beliefs on irrational attachments to documents. For every article or document you think proves your view, I can mine a document or article that refutes it. It becomes a silly game of my favorite articles against your favorite articles, while both of us are too ignorant to distinguish the fact and fiction in them. They all sound “smart”. That’s not a measure of legitimacy or accuracy as anyone can sound smart.
Zarathustra wrote:But even Phil Jones admitted that there has been no global warming for 15 years.
No he didn’t. Here’s the whole interview for those who appreciate context.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming.
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Pay attention to what he’s saying here. If you’re not familiar with statistics and what “significance” means, range of error, then this is not common sense. This is why they look at long term trends, not short term ones as much. The shorter the term, the more problematic the error range is. That’s pure math.
In this case, you could draw a line with twice the slope (.24 c per decade) and it would have the same statistical significance as a zero slope line (0 c per decade). We could just as easily conclude there is TWICE the warming as we could say there is NO warming.
Phil has a golden opportunity to spin this as twice the warming using the same logic as the anti-AGW crowd, if he wanted. Instead, he sticks to science and has to accept that his measurement is too small over a really short time line and so he cannot responsibly conclude any statistically significant warming.
Statistics work better for the long term because we get further away from the range of error. That’s just math.
So, it's more of the same. Cherry picking statements out of context and getting excited about articles that say what we want to hear. Still no demonstration of valid distinction methodology. I'll stick with peer review and the debates that take place in academic context - scientists and experts arguing with scientists and experts.
Anything involving laymen drawing their
own conclusions is worthless to me. All they have is emotional preference for one thing over another.