Quote of the week #30


From an AP story interview, we have a what I’ll call a “Lubchencoism”.

“There is a well-orchestrated and fairly successful effort under way to confuse and sometimes cherry-pick information,” Lubchenco said.

Heh. Apparently she’s never reviewed how USHCN and GHCN came to have their station lists.

But here’s the quote that had me ROTFL

“I don’t view our role as trying to convince people of something,” she said. “Our role is to inform people.”

Apparently she’s never read the NOAA CCSP synthesis report. See this:

NCDC: Photoshopping the climate change report for better impact


91 thoughts on “Quote of the week #30

  1. Old Man Winter (14:25:53) :
    Warmists assert: Ve vill photoshop und powerpoint you into sub-mission, ja!

    She is not being honest.
    Social engineering is just “helping the planet”

    She meant the IPCC, right?

  3. With Holdren, Chu, Browner, Lubchenko, and Jackson, I’ve asked Chris Mooney when he’s going to write ‘The Democrats’ War on Science’. Crickets. It’s like ‘Calm World’ over there.

  4. Personally I don’t see any problem with that statement.
    The basic idea, I guess, is that they are not trying to convince people of something that is not supported by the facts, but rather they are trying to inform the people of the (maybe convincing) facts so that the people can make up their own minds about the issues.
    I have no problem with the photoshopped picture either. It should be widely accepted (if it is not) to use digitally created material for the purpose of communicating information about possible future events. We are not complaining about animations, bar graphs, temperature trend graphs, etc (at least I hope we are not :)).

  5. I came across this passage regarding sceptics and occultists in an article by Chaz Bufe entitled Astrology: Fraud or Superstition? (found at http://www.seesharppress.com/astro). There seem to be some parallels with the sceptics vs warmist debate currently in session…..

  6. latitude (08:01:54) :
    She meant the IPCC, right?
    More likely the GISS. Its closer to home.

  7. There are a few QOTW statements in there, this is my favorite: “We are no longer constrained by talking about some possible future.”
    The mind boggles.

  8. Mikael Lönnroth (08:15:54) :
    > I have no problem with the photoshopped picture either.
    I don’t feel well informed when the informer resorts to falsehoods. There are plenty of photos of flooded homes, though most houses of that style aren’t built in flood plains.

  9. “Mikael Lönnroth (08:15:54) :
    So you say we are already used to the fact that e.g. we have that usual picture of the dry bed of an empty hydropower storage lake over an article that says “Drought in Spain.” Everybody already knows and fully expects that a drought article is headed by a foto of a dry hydropower storage lakebed (whether that lakebed was fotographed 10 years ago in a different continent or not; stock photo, generic).
    And when an article says “Flood” we get, well, maybe a Roland Emmerich-produced photo of Manhattan under water, why not, beautiful photo, somewhat fitting, the agency didn’t charge that much, let’s take it.
    You would still call that “information”? I’d rather call that “Edutainment”. But go ahead, dumb down the masses so that they don’t even expect to ever not being lied to. We can right away call it “Black Propaganda”. Look up the definition. Even the wikipedia has that one right.

  10. “DirkH (09:07:32) :
    I should add that these stock photos are usually made during maintenance work of hydropower dams because the lakes usually don’t fall entirely dry. We don’t have to mention that under the photo, of course, it would confuse the sheeple and not help their suspension of disbelief.

  11. Have you seen the film “The bridges over Toko-Ri” ?
    At the end of the film, Rear Admiral Tarrant says;
    “Where do we get such men?”
    He is thinking of the brave men, giving their life in Korea.
    Fighting Communism.
    Now we can say; “Where do such men come from?”
    The Holdren’s, the Schneider’s, the Erlich’s? (The Jackson’s, the Boxer’s)

    Air is 20% oxygen and 79% nitrogen and 0.0385% CO2
    Inconvenient truth:
    Air, pure oxygen and pure nitrogen all absorb more heat than pure CO2.
    For proof, see here: “AGW Debunked for £3.50”
    and for verification see here: “Specific Heat Capacity of Gases”
    If CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” so to is oxygen and nitrogen.
    AGW R.I.P.

  13. She is of course, 100% correct, and WUWT is a prime example. Most importantly, I thank Anthony for being such! Honest questioning and criticism is the only thing that will keep it AGW research honest, with data being shared, peered reviewed, and open to all.

    It’s clear that after all the IPCC orchestration to deceive the public about the real state of Earth’s climate, Lubchenco is no-longer capable of seeing the truth.
    It is risible that the CAGW cabal accuse sceptics of cherry picking, when this is their very own tactic of choice which is used to push their ‘green’ agenda.

  15. “I have no problem with the photoshopped picture either. It should be widely accepted (if it is not) to use digitally created material for the purpose of communicating information about possible future events.” So it’s OK to make things up?

  16. She must have completely forgotten the intent of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize:

  17. In a time of trillion dollar deficits we want to duplicate the Nat. Weather Serv.. Why?
    Lubchenco was part of IUCN which is one of the special status UN NGOs– in effect it is a quasi UN agency.

  18. perhaps the director should spend more time investigating and less time directing.
    Or maybe too much education and not enough study.

  19. Interesting, so where is the conductor? Every orchestra needs a conductor. So who is leading the skeptics?
    As far as I can see, skeptics are absolutely everywhere.. from scientists to engineers to laypeople…perhaps many people simply looked out their windows this winter and saw more snow then they have seen in decades – who knows but the skeptics do not appear to have a leader and to be well orchestrated at all. It is hard to be lead when there is no cause. Skeptics have no real cause to fight for – they simply question the alarmist’s wisdom and wonder if legislation and taxes are really justified by “science”. Skeptics are simply against unjustified waste and panic.
    However, whatever the reasons, there is clearly a strong groundswell or backlash of distrust and suspicion of the highly orchestrated IPCC, CRU, NASA GISS, ACTONCO2, WWF, Greenpeace and countless other institutions/media parroting catastrophic man-made warming alarm.

  20. I’ve tried to spread the word on Lubchenco and her ways.
    Oregon goverment and academia institutions have been refining their propaganda and manipulation techniques for years.
    The parasite of dishonesty has grown throughout every agency and program.
    Public deceit for self preservation and advancement of casues has become standard operting procedure
    Thier various methods mascarading as educating the public are many.
    I predicted what Lubchenco would be doing as head of NOAA. Her bringing the Oregon model to NOAA meant she would immediately initiate public “education”.
    Her propoganda campaign kicked off almost immediately and now her ClimateCentral.com web site is in full bloom.
    Or rather stench.
    That web site is a high tech, cutting edge display of all things the public, press and our children need to know about AGW.
    There is no limit to the misinformation, distortion and fabrication Lubchenco will use.
    We’re dealing with a person who says things like
    “CO2 emissions are causing osteoporosis of the sea”.
    Her fabricated a link between AGW and the routine seasonal “dead zones” off the Oregon coast is so egregious it rivals any WWF or Greenpeace tale.
    Without ANY scientific basis at all RealClimate thugs
    have since repeated her claim while calling it “established science.”
    Dishonesty knows no limits with these people.
    Lubchenco is moving towards creating a National Climate Service to expand her participation and the raudulent movement itself.
    Lubchenco is now a leading scoundrel.

  21. In an earlier WUWT posting Dr Judith Curry said essentially that the image of “science” needs to be gussied up a bit, implying the problem was communicating.
    Today’s Lubchenco message overall sounds like what Dr Curry said — “the problem we see isn’t that we’re full of crap, but that we’re not dumbing the message down enough so that neanderthals can grasp it.”
    Meanwhile, the self-appointed enlightened amongst us sagely nod their heads at this notion.
    It must be really frustrating to be so brilliant and so poorly understood.
    It seems that the entire AGW argument is wrapped up in personality type and other psychological phenomenae where True Believers fail to see themselves as True Believers but instead as the Enlightened, the chosen, those who are simply smarter than the great masses.
    In one of life’s great ironies the average WUWT reader knows more about the actual science than the average self-appointed Enlightened. Of course, they would be horrified at that assertion — it’s worse than finding out that your IQ test results show you to be utterly average, perhaps a bit below, after you spent the past 30 years “knowing” you were on the upper 2 sigma divide.
    Were it nor for the political danger level here, the entire AGW episode would be highly amusing. I don’t know why the Enlightened assume they’re smarter than everyone else, but they do.

  22. Lubchenco……..
    I guess there is no relation to Trofim Denisovich Lysenko
    I thought just for a minute…..
    Steamboat Jack

  23. Listen to the tone of voice in this article entitled, “NOAA director urges better explanations of climate”. Words such as “climate change is happening NOW… seriously UNDERESTIMATED the importance…MELTING of Arctic sea ice…THREATS to birds and forests… spread of DISEASE … 2000 – 2009 WARMEST decade on record…STOLEN e-mails from climate scientists…FEW errors (in the IPCC report)… confuse and sometimes CHEERY-PICK information… TRUSTED sources such as NOAA.
    This article is planting the seed in people’s mind that climate change is manmade and bad. I just shook my head when I read the Director of NOAA final quote, “I don’t view our role as trying to convince people of something, our role is to inform people”.
    Let’s start by sharing all the information on climate change, such as 1) Indeed climate change is happening now because since 2002, the Earth has cooled not warmed as predicted by the IPCC. Inform the people that climate change has had more natural extreme temperature changes in the past than what occurred during the modern times, 2) that we underestimated our understanding of climatology. What has become obvious is that there are strong natural variations that are not yet understood, nor adequately accounted for in the computer global climate models. The current global computer models have over-estimated global warming. There has been lots of speculation about what is causing the present pattern – changes in solar activity, changes in ocean circulation, or changes in clouds and wind and dust patterns, 3) exactly which birds are forests are threatened by purely climate change and not other manmade stresses like deforestation and hunting. Please do not tell me it was the Golden Toad of Costa Rica, 4) exactly which diseases are spreading more due to climate changes only?, 5) 2000 – 2009 as the warmest decade on record, but according to which data? Do you trust Jim Hansen in that his temperature data is unbiased, or did he delete the thermometers from cold locations to argue his extreme global warming political belief? 6) Stolen e-mails, reads more like a whistle-blower with the inside connection as the e-mails released were not just random one but very important insights like “hide the decline” in both words and computer code. Findings within these documents indicate that the scientific method was not followed, specifically when it comes to the self-correction clause. This important component of the scientific method states that if valid data is found to be in conflict with the current theory, the theory gets modified not the valid data, 6) only a few errors in the IPCC reports? How about the smoking gun that Earth’s atmosphere is actually cooling down exactly the same location where all IPCC projections state they should show the greatest slope increase. The temperature data from weather balloons and satellites give this result: no increasing warming, but rather a slight cooling with altitude over the equator. Many scientists are now second guessing the entire premise that CO2 is the cause of a two decade warming, 7) Who is cheery-picking the data? Just recently Professor Phil Jones at CRU stated that there is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the parts most likely to be read by policy makers, and 8) Trusted sources such as NOAA, for what precise land temperature data? Strong evidence shows that the urban heat island skews the temperatures being recorded with a warm bias.
    I do agree with one statement in this article in that we need a better explanation of climate.

    That comment of hers actually describes what NOAA does as demonstrated in the Draft report ‘Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States’. It shows that she is still ‘at it’ as she speaks. The article reminds me of the Old Testament prophets to keep the ‘children if Israel under their thumb.

  25. Mikael Lönnroth (08:15:54) said
    ‘Personally I don’t see any problem with that statement.‘
    Michael I take it that you believe that everything she said in the article is supported by facts. That’s alright then.

  26. Mikael Lönnroth (08:15:54) :
    Lubchenco is among the worst for playing loose with the facts by making up her own.
    What does it take for someone like you grasp what institutional fabrication is?
    Lubchenco, while at OSU, used a $9million NAS grant for a 5 year study of Oregon’s Ocean dead zones.
    The end result was her OSU research team “cautioned they were unable to establish the extent of the link, IF ANY to AGE.”
    Lubchenco moved forward with suggestions of a link where none was found.
    She embellished her fabrication by suggesting these seasonal dead zones were new, larger and lasting longer.
    She piled on photos of dead crabs on the ocean floor and blew the AGW alarm siren.
    Her despicable conduct has paid off like none other.
    She has arrived as the new head of NOAA, Her husband is on the gravey train, OSU has raked in many millions in new grant money, and the NOAA fleet is scheduled to move from Puget Sound to the Oregon State University research unit at Newport Oregon.

  27. She’s living in some delusional world of makey-nicey . . . wonder if she still believes in too fairies?
    Probably thinks Avatar is a documentary . . . .

  28. LOL! Sure, Lubchenco, whatever you say. By all means, keep the propaganda machine primed and pumping the usual CAGW/CC bilge. We dare ya.

  29. IQ Test
    Which Statement Is True?
    A. Psyentists on AGW Message: “The psyence is settled, it is not in dispute! Or data is rock solid. We know everything there is to know about everything regarding the weather and what climate will be like for the next 2,000 years.”
    B. Hathaway on the solar conveyor belt and deep solar minimum: “Ooops! I guess I got it wrong.”

  30. “Climate change is happening now and it’s happening in people’s back yards.” — Calamity Jane Lysenko.
    OMG. In my backyard? Quick, call the exterminators. If only we could all pay higher taxes and shut down our economy at the same time. That’ll fix it.

  31. Steve Oregon (09:58:18) :
    As a fellow Orygunian and follower of the career of Commissar Lubchenco
    I agree 100%. She does not like they who make their living from the sea.
    I was at a Greenpeace meeting, with a few old South Coast fishermen,
    and some OSU (guess who was there) drones. One old fisherman stood up pointed at the assembled horde and said” They are not your friends.””We are
    being used by them and then when they are done, you will be next.”
    This was an issue of offshore mining and drilling. He was right..

  32. I suppose if someone thought that skeptical observations of CAGW claims all seemed similar, it might mean the comments had been “orchestrated” or the commenters somehow were “orchestrated” to make these observations.
    On the other hand, one could be seeing similar observations because they are accurate.
    Has anyone ever identified with names and places, how skeptics are being orchestrated?
    Or is it another unsubstantiated claim from the people who seem to be in the business of making unsubstantiated claims?

  33. Pursuant to my earlier missive, I would defy any of the Enlightened to take on a skeptic such as Lubos Motl, who thoroughly destroys Tamino’s attempts at mathematics in a Reference Frame post from Friday 3/12:
    Reading Motl, it becomes clear that the AGW argument is premised on the attempted assignment of linear trends to nonlinear data. This tells me the Enlightened are so ignorant of math that they read rubbish like Tamino and assume it’s correct because it looks complicated. (Surely many of these must be the same people who think they can use their sophisticated palates to distinguish $5 from $35 wines? Expensive = better, right?)
    Unfortunately it’s difficult to argue mathematics alone when the Enlightened aren’t conversant. Ironically what we have here is a situation where skeptics are bemoaning the vapidity of the Enlightened (the logical obverse of Lubchenco!) However, at least we’re all aware that the task at hand isn’t merely polishing the skeptic image.
    So I put it to you all — what is the best course of action here? Continue exposing chinks in the armor (bottom up)? Unleash skeptic hell by working to arrange a national debate between Motl and Tamino (e.g.) and squashing the AGW assumptions from the top down?

  34. At 27 comments into this session we still haven’t had a reference to
    George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. So I’ll nominate Jane Lubchenco as the Minister of Truth.

  35. G L Alston (10:10:03):
    You’re spot-on in your analysis of junk science being defended now as merely a “communication” problem. As to why the Enlightened assume they’re smarter than everyone else, it’s because they’re academics, largely unacquainted with the actual workings of the real world. And they’re unaccustomed to their ex cathedra pronouncements from the ivory tower being challenged by anyone.

  36. Global Warming Alarmism is a Grave Threat to our Liberty.
    Speech by Václav Klaus, 2010 Club for Growth Economic Winter Conference, Palm Beach, Florida, March 5, 2010. Václav Klaus is President of the Czech Republic.

  37. For Science Through The Looking Glass there is this motto on The Society of Environmental Journalists website: http://www.sej.org/
    “The first essence of journalism is to know what you want to know; the second, is to find out who will tell you. ”
    — John Gunther
    Beware the open mind!

  38. Ric Werme:
    For the purpose of visualising something that is projected to happen in the future I really don’t see the big issue with using altered photographs. It’s like talking about a lake drying out and then showing the (altered) picture of that dry lake to demonstrate what it would look like. If the presented picture is supported by the scientific projections (height of water etc), of course, otherwise it’s obviously wrong to use it.
    No, I’m not saying that doing it like some news organizations (most?) do it, illustrating events by showing completely unrelated stock material, is something that should be accepted in information material about scientific conclusions. I’m just saying that when trying to visualise future projections, it’s should be ok to use altered images. The report was a bit ambigous in that respect as it also talked about historical events (floods), but the overall objective, I felt, was to convey information about future projections. Do you see my point here? No? Of course they could respond to these concerns by clearly marking all altered pictures as such.
    Robert Austin:
    No, but I had to look up that word on the Googles 🙂
    No, I’m just looking at what is presented without (overly) tinted glasses. But I guess I’m not the right person to make convincing statements about my own group think? 🙂

    Who knew that she would admit to her dastardly deeds?

  40. Climate changes. We know that. That man’s recent perturbation of the climate system will lead to doom and gloom is based on only one basic thing – an average of computer climate model “realizations.”
    I see very little effort by those “trusted sources” on informing people of that. Probably because they have little evidence that shows climate models are any good.
    Keep playing the music oh ye humble orchestra.

  41. It must really frustrate the CAGW cabal that they have been completely unsuccessful in identifying the leaders of these “well orchestrated efforts”, since there aren’t any.
    Someone needs to assemble the financial numbers for support of the CAGW fraud by the big bad oil and coal companies, and compare that number to the one they try to use against the sceptics. This would, of course, include the money laundered through various governmental entities and NGOs.

  42. G.L. Alston (10:10:03)
    Great post! Might I add from the Tao Te Ching:
    He who recognizes his limitations is healthy;
    He who ignores his limitations is sick.

    I’ve always felt that the more you know, the more you should know you don’t know… and that to pretend otherwise is either deceit or insanity.
    I think I still have a collection of Einstein’s non-scientific writings – there was a guy who understood the importance of humility even when he would have been well justified to walk around like the cock of the walk.

  43. “Mikael Lönnroth (12:45:09) :
    I see your point. Or they could resist the urge to use altered images. As Anthony said, there are enough real pictures of flooded houses available.
    By using manipulated material when not necessary they lose trust.

  44. Doug in Dunedin:
    I didn’t read the whole article so I have no idea, sorry. Floods will become more common if sea level rises as projected, hence I accepted the manipulated picture of a flooded house which in the original article was presented as the evidence against the sincerity/validity of the quoted statement.
    Steve Oregon:
    Valid evidence of fabrication that I believe, I would say (I’m not saying that there isn’t any). The original message quoted what I think is a sensible statement along with a link to the manipulated picture story as evidence of insincerity– this is what I commented on, not anything else. As always, I’m very open to the fact that people in power may abuse the truth in pursuing their own goals.
    It made me happy! And I agree, they could have used a real picture instead.

  45. John F. Hultquist (11:34:54) :
    John I hate to tell you but actually —- she got that job from the UN last week. Too late I’m afraid.

  46. During the last few month’ of whining climate cultists I believe this hollywood quote is on the bulls eye, something like this:
    Just because I’m suffering from paranoid schizophrenia doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get me.
    And this quote from bagdad bob which serves so well fro all the climate bobs:
    “These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying”

  47. Rob (11:51:42) :Can someone explain this graph to me, please?
    If you mean the map that has a lot of red on it and a little pale blue it appears to say that the winter temperature of 2010 has been nearly the same “as normal” along the US-Canadian border near the center, while as one goes north, NW, and especially NE, the temperature was, on average, warmer — as much as 7+ C degrees.
    Near the bottom the dates indicate the graphic was created in June of ’02 and then re-designed a year later – and then updated with new data since then. The dates of the new data are at the top.
    Seems simple enough, so maybe I don’t grasp your problem with this?

  48. Rob (11:51:42) said:
    Can someone explain this graph to me, please?
    Rob, if that chart is accurate, it would reflect the fact that during the negative AO index that we’ve seen this winter, the cold air gets forced south, as high pressure and higher temperatures take over the arctic areas. Someone on another thread commmented about the “record cold” that the N. Hemisphere had seen this winter, but that really was not accurate. Only parts of the N. Hemisphere have seen unusually cold weather…and on average the N. Hemipshere temps in January were actually something like the 4th warmest, and the S. Hemisphere was warmer still. Botton line: the warmer arctic temps prevented the arctic sea ice from going into a positive anomaly for the 6th winter in a row– but of course, the AGW skeptics made much ado about the snow in Florida, etc., but now from the chart you referred to, we see where that cold air came from. The N. Hemisphere (and entire planet) is seeing record warmth right now in the troposphere…exactly as predicted by AGW models, and despite the recent deep solar minimum…

  49. Is this worthy of next week’s quote? Seen in Andrew Bolt’s blog (Australia)
    “It’s being reported in Europe (Bishop Hill blog) that subsidies for alternative energy are now so high that it is profitable to buy solar panels, shine arc lamps on them (using coal-fired power) and sell the resulting electricity back to the grid at hugely subsidised rates. I guess the next step is to bypass the arc lamps and wire the base load power inlet direct to the subsidised alternative energy outlet. “

  50. Rob, the DMI graph has shown the north of 80 deg temperature this winter to be pretty much in line with the historical average. I think you’re suffering the effects of the intentional dropout of cold latitude temperature stations which was necessary to propagate the myth of AGW.

  51. Notice how the warmers are so quick to point to warmness due to El Nino as proof of AGW. When the El Nino fades, they’ll say we’re cherry picking data when we point out temperatures have returned to their average.

  52. It has occurred to me that a lot of these ‘mistakes’ are so obvious, that they could almost be deliberate. Perhaps what we are seeing is a campaign of ‘civil disobedience’ from within the climate change industry. After all given the current financial situation no one wants to risk their family’s well-being, by finding themselves fired for coming forward and speaking out in public. So instead they are undermining the credibility of AGW. By appearing to toe the party line, but over saucing the pudding to the point where no one can miss it.
    Just a thought!

  53. Not one of the approximately two dozen GCMs [computer climate models] were able to predict the flat to cooling temperatures over most of the past decade: click
    And if the Arctic is warming, why was the North Pole ice-free in 1986, and in 2000? Notice that the North Pole is solid ice again, despite scary predictions to the contrary. What made it freeze up? Global warming?
    Climate models are almost always wrong. You could do better by flipping a coin: click. When one prediction out of many happens by chance to occur, the “I told you so” chants start. But it’s like losing a football game 42 – 3, and the losing team pointing to their one field goal and screaming, “That proves we were right all along!” As if.
    This provides an easy to understand explanation: click
    The ginned-up controversy comes from the overstated claims that anyone can accurately measure tiny fractions of a degree changes in temperature. The recent deconstruction on WUWT of the un-calibrated satellite PRTs show that the error bars are much larger than the supposed tenth of a degree-scale temperature variations.
    The warmist arm-waving comes from those presumed minute changes, which are well within the margin of error; down in the noise. But when the y-axis is measured normally, this shows what the planet has been doing: click
    Nothing occurring now is outside the parameters of past natural climate variability. Nothing. The planet is acting completely normally. Rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature on all time scales. There is no cause and effect relationship between increasing CO2 followed by increasing temperature; the reverse is true. As the planet naturally warms from the LIA, CO2 is outgassed from the oceans.
    Since CO2 as a cause of global warming has been debunked, the goal posts are now being moved to make methane the next scare.

  54. Smokey,
    First, if the north pole happened to have been ice free in 1986, and again in 2000 (I’ll have to take your word for this, as you don’t cite any references), then it would have been a polynya, and not indicative of anything, especially not that the entire arctic was free of ice– for we know that did not occur in those years, or any years in modern history. The total sea ice extent in the arctic has been dropping for many years, and whether or not the exact north pole happens to be covered with ice at any given time, tells us very little about the condition of the whole arctic sea ice extent.
    Second, of course CO2 has not been “debunked” as you say, as a cause of global warming, for certainly we know that it is– and thank god it is, or we’d all be frozen solid! The issue isn’t whether or not CO2 causes global warming, for certainly we know that it does, but rather, does whether or not the excess CO2 caused by human activities causes global warming enough to bring about climate change. If you don’t even aknowledge that CO2 helps to warm our planet, along with then other GH gases, then we have aboslutely nothing we can agree on…

  55. Binny (19:03:55)
    The “mistakes” are not “mistakes”. They are a deliberate attempt to deceive.
    The AGW movement ran into 2 problems. One, the weather did not cooperate. Two, the resistance, or the blog auditors as they are called today, proved to be effective.
    Solution. Expose some of these mistakes to the public at large, expose those who made them (a human sacrifice if you will, ala Watergate), replace the fraudsters in the public domain with more Honest Scientists (actually, no more honest), and try to win over some of the blogs who have been critical (access to information, a respectful name-in auditors-as opposed to deniers, perhaps even some donations). At the end of the day, when the weather turns back to a warmer cycle, declare problem solved, science is good again, and terrorize the population at large with more alarmism.
    This stuff happens all the time in business (only different words are used).
    I don’t live in the US, but I hear many folks are not getting the word about Climategate aside from the earliest reports. This is a favorite tactic of those who control the MSM, report the story so you can not be accused of censoring it, but stop reporting on it after awhile. The average person does not remember what was on the news last month unless it is constantly rehashed by the MSM, so it goes down the memory hole when the MSM ignores it. For those who do happen to recall due to their blogging, they might be duped into thinking something has changed. Nothing has changed. Just an army in retreat and regathering it’s strength for another go.
    Scientists are controlled via the following mechanisms:
    a) grants for research, most of them issued by the government, which supplement their income and provide them with research that allows them to publish papers which gives them status and promotions
    b)pleasing those who grant tenure and promotions
    c)those who grant tenure and promotions are driven by pleasing those who fund the endowments (the powers that be)
    d)pleasing those who invite them to attend or speak at conferences (arranged by the powers that be)
    e)pleasing those who publish their papers (owned by the powers that be)
    f)pleasing anonymous reviewers who must approve their paper before publishing, and who is likely conflicted by one or more of the above
    Nothing has changed in this regard. Money and self-interest drive all professions. The money is behind AGW, and that is where science will go.
    Try to get a grant to disprove the CO2 hypothesis, or a paper published that does not say kind words about AGW even if their data conflict with the hypothesis. Scientists have to eat too. This is not to say most scientists will do bad things that compromise their integrity, thats limited to a chosen few, a minority. The majority will just deal with the reality, and play the game by researching that which is of interest within their narrow window of expertise, an area likely to get them a grant, tenure, whatever, and speak/write carefully to not offend the AGW powers that be.
    It’s only the retired scientists who dare speak out on AGW.
    The education system being what it is, with false paradigms being taught by those taught the false paradigm themselves, after 20 years or so, those who can see through the fraud will either have died off or be old enough to not care. Folks who can afford it will pay the equivalent of 100 dollars for a pound of hamburger, payable in carbon credits via implanted chips that also measure your oxygen consumption and CO2 production for tax purposes.

  56. R. Gates (20:45:06),
    I have repeatedly provided this reference: click. Claiming ignorance is no excuse. Read the references for enlightenment.
    And note that I always say “measurable” when referring to CO2. That is the critical point. It is empirical science. If the putative warming from CO2 is so small that it is not empirically measurable, then it’s best for the alarmists to move on to their next scare; if something can not be quantified, it is simply a conjecture.
    A small fraction of a degree warming – whether caused by CO2 or natural variability – or both – is nothing to get alarmed about. Rational people will take a few tenths of a degree warming over global cooling any time.
    The amount of anthropogenic CO2 attributable to human activity is vanishingly small: click
    Those are the IPCC’s own numbers. Face it, human activity is nothing compared with natural climate change. Time to move the goal posts to the methane scare. CO2 as a cause is a dead duck.

  57. Smokey (21:03:30) :
    R. Gates (20:45:06),
    Don’t cast your pearls, Smokey.
    Anybody who continuously refers to “the AGW hypothesis” or “AGW models” like they are some sore of robust “it”…well….let’s just say….
    The words…”Survival of the Fittest” comes to mind.
    Here is another poster’s “Smokey-like” response from another thread which I thought I would reproduce here for everyone’s enjoyment:
    R Gates: “So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels?”
    kirkmyers: “ You continue to talk about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as if it were a proven fact. It is an unproven hypothesis. There is no empirical evidence to support the hypothesis; only computer models that have been manipulated to conform to a political consensus driven by powerful monied interests.
    Let’s start at the beginning. CO2 molecules capture a small portion of surface energy and transfer this energy to the other gas molecules in the atmosphere. Some of this energy escapes into space and the rest finds its way back to the surface, where it’s eventually re-radiated.
    Note that CO2 doesn’t actually retain energy; it acts only to transfer captured energy to the other molecules in the atmosphere through collisions. In short, the greenhouse effect of CO2, even at concentrations well below current levels, is energy-limited and not concentration-limited.
    Some climate scientists claim that water vapor amplifies the radiative “forcing” of man-made CO2 — creating a sort of magic “multiplier effect” that raises surface temperatures. But where’s the proof? There isn’t any. (“The models all agree,” isn’t proof.)
    Hundreds of thousands of radiosonde measurements have failed to find a pattern of upper trophospheric heating predicted by the models. Global temperatures flatlined in the late 1990s and have been declining slightly since 2002. The IPCC models predicted a steady upward trend, not a decline. Ergo, their predictions have been falsified.
    Scientists don’t understand how the sun works, they don’t understand how clouds work, they have a rudimentary understanding of how oceans work, and they’re still studying the impact of volcanic eruptions. In other words, they still have a lot to learn about the earth’s climate system. Yet, the AGW camp is absolutely certain human-induced CO2 emissions cause global warming.
    There’s not a single piece of evidence in the data record that supports the AGW hypothesis. It is a belief driven by money and a hatred of “polluters,” those nasty capitalists on a mission to destroy Mother Earth through their relentless efforts to raise mankind’s living standards. All of its claims are based on inaccurate, incomplete and misleading analysis. As such, it ranks in the same scientific category as a belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
    But there are still save-the-earth diehards who cling to the bogus man-causes-warming theory.

    Give em hell, Kirk and Smokey!
    Norfolk, VA, USA

  58. Smokey,
    Do you have any scientific (as opposed to AGW skeptics) data you’d like to posi? John Daly and his AGW skeptic focued website is hardly a neutral party (rest his soul). Please give me a peered reviewed, published study that show that CO2 has no significant effect in terms of global warming. Of course you can’t, so I won’t hold my breath. Of course CO2 causes global warming (thankfully!)– just how much does the extra CO2 pumped out by humans affect the climate– that’s the issue.
    Also, your point in the previous post about CO2 beging “outgassed” by the oceans…this is just plain wrong. The oceans have been large net CO2 sinks, taking UP much of the excess CO2 that we humans have managed to generate. See:
    Really Smokey, give me some CREDIBLE sources, and get your science right before making such unsupportable statements…

  59. R Gates — John Daly and his AGW skeptic focued website is hardly a neutral party (rest his soul).
    Given that the peer review process seems owned and controlled by the warmer interests (or money behind them), it’s tough to find “neutral.” AGW skeptic sites aren’t all the rage at university campuses worldwide. You expected a link from… where, precisely? Link to Watts or McIntyre, and the warmers go “hey, link to sites from the pros, not a weatherman or a hasbeen accountant fed by corporate mining.” The link is the link. Dispute WHAT THE LINK SAYS, not the originator of the data.
    You (and your fellow warmist travelers) remind me of the old guys who used to yell at teenagers — “Get a job!” Teenager says “I’m trying; every place I apply to says I have to have experience, and I can’t get the experience to land a job without a job.”
    Catch-22 certainly seems like a common debating argument given the sheer number of people who employ it.
    Logically impossible since the term “global warming” presumes CO2 by definition. On top of this it’s a loaded request — disprove a given by disproving the given’s given. I mean… seriously? Dude.
    You must be new at this. Oceans both soak and emit; it’s part of the standard bits of knowledge herein. Do your own homework. It’s not smokey’s job to do it for you.

  60. G. L. Alston, Enjoyed your comments concerning the frustrations of the enlightened. The enlightenment has become dark. “….and the tranquil waterway leading to the utmost ends of the earth….seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” ( Joseph Conrad.’Heart of Darkness.’)

  61. G.L. Alston (23:09:07) :
    Very good points.
    The troll is not satisfied by logic an reason, though.
    He/she would rather just clog up everyone’s time with smoke and mirrors and sophistry.
    The good thing is…everyone who has a logical mind….sees through the used-car-salesman approach to science.
    Not sure what his/her agenda is…..I would guess that they don’t have anything better to do with their time than a 24-hour non-stop attempt at throwing a lame monkeywrench in the argument.
    What a waste of energy and time, nonetheless. Off to bed for me….geez talk about wasting energy and time. Its 4:30 daylight savings time. Crap.
    Norfolk, VA, USA

  62. The last sentence in the referenced article states:
    “NOAA recently announced plans to consolidate its climate studies and plans to set up a new Climate Service in parallel to the National Weather Service.”
    So is there now an officially defined boundary between weather and climate, or will they remain labels of convenience?


    At the point, the shark has officially been jumped.

  64. R Gates simply ignores all the evidence that debunks his CAGW conjecture, and instead constructs his own mental world, like the UFO cultists in Dr Leon Festinger’s When Prophecy Fails.
    Anyone who casually dismisses the role of the oceans’ effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration is being deliberately ignorant. Surely Gates can’t be serious. But of course in his own mind, he is.
    The graph posted above showing the direct relationship between water temperature and CO2 is ignored because it doesn’t fit the CAGW conjecture – just as Festinger’s UFO cultists ignored the fact that the flying saucers didn’t appear on the predicted date. They simply rescheduled the arrival of the flying saucers, unwavering in their true belief.
    The CAGW cultists move the goal posts in exactly the same way as the UFO cultists. They confidently predicted a fast ramping up of global temperatures due to increasing CO2. When that didn’t happen, other excuses were invented on the spot, obeying Prof Langmuir’s laws of pathological science.
    Cognitive dissonance is the hallmark of cultists everywhere. Scientific skepticism is the antidote, but skepticism requires an open mind and the understanding that those proposing a hypothesis [or a conjecture like CAGW] have the burden of providing real world, testable, verifiable evidence of their claims. They fail, because no such empirical evidence exists.
    Skeptics have nothing to prove. The burden is entirely on those proposing the fantastic notion that a tiny trace gas will cause runaway global warming. There is no evidence supporting that preposterous conjecture, yet those afflicted with cognitive dissonance never question it. As in Hoffer’s The True Believer, they take comfort in their belief system; skepticism is rigorous and hard. Beliefs are comfortable and easy.
    Cognitive dissonance is the enemy of the scientific method, which requires that those putting forth a hypothesis have the duty to also give all the reasons that their hypothesis might not be valid. Richard Feynman explained that it isn’t science if they don’t cover all the bases, both pro and con.
    When have we ever heard the promoters of CAGW seriously try to refute their own CAGW hypothesis, showing why it might be invalid? Answer: never. Thus, CAGW is propaganda, not science. It is pseudo-science; science fiction. It is anything but science.
    CO2 induced runaway global warming will be proven at about the same time the flying saucers arrive.

  65. R. Gates (22:28:01) :
    “Do you have any scientific (as opposed to AGW skeptics) data you’d like to post? John Daly and his AGW skeptic focued website is hardly a neutral party”
    Good grief Gates! Have you been over there looking at the plots? Do you know where the data comes from?
    Its raw data, Gates! Not homogenisised. Not fudged.

  66. savethesharks — The good thing is…everyone who has a logical mind….sees through the used-car-salesman approach to science.
    I don’t know that this is true either. Unlike the True Believers we skeptics seem to be all over the map.
    e.g. smokey seems to be to be the type I’d call a denier. Extreme deniers would be the ones who think the entire thing is invented from the ground up and is a leftist plot. I’d call these guys the “hoaxers” (they believe it’s a hoax.)
    Me, I’m probably what you’d call a lukewarmer. It seems clear that temps have gone up a bit since the LIA; likewise, it seems that Arrhenius was right. Man affects his environment (as all living creatures do by definition) so it seems illogical to presume that man is incapable of cumulative effect.
    That said, where it concerns ramifications of policy I come down firmly on the side of the skeptics. I don’t have the quasi-religious belief of the True Believers who seem to posit that an environment is in stasis, e.g. a rainforest stays a rainforest forever except for evil human meddling. That sort of assumption is breathtakingly stupid. Living systems are dynamic.
    As with all things objective Trvth is likely somewhere in the middle ground between deniers and True Believers — yes, man changes the climate, and it can’t hurt to be careful; i.e. use nuclear power as we can; start lofting solar power sats. However, that doesn’t mean we need Enlightened socialist overlords dictating to all via the latest human version of theocracratic rule.
    What we all seem to share here is the anti-theocratic meme; we can all see where the Enlightened overlords are going with it.
    Of course, I’m just one voice, and I’m probably full of it. But that’s my take.

  67. Smokey said: “CO2 induced runaway global warming will be proven at about the same time the flying saucers arrive.”
    Hey Smokey don’t insult the possible aliens out there by comparing/using them in the same sentence with the CAGW pseudoscience. 😉
    Norfolk, VA, USA

  68. Kwik & Smokey,
    The AGW hypothesis is very clear about the expected effects and the early signs. Warming of the polor regions is one of those early signs, and is what is being observed right now in the arctic, and no amount of slicing the data into 2 year or 5 year chunks (as we’ve seen some posters here on WUWT do) to deny the long term trend is honest. The arctic sea ice has not had a positive anomaly in 6 years, and if the sun is THE major driver of the climate on earth (as so many AGW skeptics like to believe) than why could not even a deep and prolonged solar minimum boost the arctic sea ice into a positive anomaly range? AGW models show that the sun is only a minor player and that GH gas concentrations play a much bigger long term role than the relatively weaker solar cycle. Now I am truly open to the AGW hypothesis being wrong, and if the arctic sea ice recovers and goes into a long term positive anomaly situation (over more than just a few months) than I will start to seriously doubt AGW. Right now though, the climate is behaving as if AGW theory is essentially correct.
    Also, when speaking about the absorption of CO2 by the oceans, one must speak of NET gains or losses on a global basis. The basic chemistry of this is not in dispute, and somewhere around 30% of human emissions of CO2 have been taken up by the oceans. We pretty much know how much CO2 humans prooduce, and we know how much is winding up in the atmosphere, so it is not hard to figure out how much the oceans are absorbing. Also, ocean acidification levels are rising, and this a secondary way of knowing the CO2 is going to the oceans. Essentially, the chemistry on this is straight forward, and accepted by thousands of scientists. Until I see an explanation for where the excess CO2 would be going, or how the oceans are acidifying without hte uptake of CO2, I would favor the data that shows it is going in the oceans.
    Finally, to equate the AGW hypothesis with a “runaway greenhouse” effect is not accurate. The hypothesis in a pure form only says that human caused CO2 accumulates in the tropospohere and will warm the planet more than would be expected above natural variations and cycles and the first signs of this happening will be the warming of the polar regions.

  69. R. Gates (09:20:23) :
    I repeat; Plot the stations on John Dalys web-site yourselves.
    Are they correct?
    If they are ( those I checked was correct), what is your conclusion?

  70. G.L. Alston (09:13:49),
    I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I’ve always acknowledged that CO2 can have a slight warming effect. But the effect is so insignificant that it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. As I said in my post above:


    There is no real world, measurable evidence showing that an X increase in CO2 causes a Y increase in temperature. The speculation is based primarily on computer models that can not make reliable predictions.
    CO2 is entirely beneficial. No evidence has shown that an addition of CO2 is harmful. The CAGW scare is based only on conjecture; speculation by the alarmist crowd driven by their need to be proven right. So far, they have been wrong.
    I am a skeptic. Simply show me the empirical evidence that for a quantifiable rise in CO2 there is a corresponding quantifiable, testable, measurable rise in global temperature, and I will accept that. Just because there is no such evidence does not make me a “denier,” but rather, a scientific skeptic in the truest sense of the word.
    The alarmist crowd hates having their feet held to the fire when we ask for solid evidence of their hypothesis. But look where “Trust us” has led: it is now clear that GISS and NOAA “adjusts” its raw temperature data, and that CRU scientists completely fabricated many years of temperature data. Do you think Michael Mann is refusing to publicly archive his publicly financed data, code and methodologies because they can withstand falsification? No. He stonewalls such requests because he knows damn well that his hypothesis will be decisively falsified in short order.
    I do not “deny” that CO2 has an effect, and I never have. But if the effect is so tiny that numerous other forcings overwhelm it, then there is no need to spend another dime on any kind of mitigation, sequestration, “carbon” credits, or anything related to CO2.
    The money would be better spent on the many other areas of science that are currently starved of funding because the CO2/CAGW lobby sucks up the available funds. And it is now clear that they have gamed the system to their own benefit. The world needs more true skeptics, and fewer true believers.

  71. Smokey (12:58:52) :
    As always….like a knife!! Your posts get me fired up. Irrefutable, untouchable logic.
    Norfolk, VA, USA

    Look, mainstream science seems to have a reasonable grip on CO2, so unless you’ve published your alternate physics theory somewhere, I would classify your statement as ideological.
    As per my recent post elsewhere —
    “The skeptical side alone has a wide range. At the extreme we have outright deniers, deniers who claim to be skeptics, and so on. There are those who –
    a) think it’s a leftist plot
    b) think there’s no evidence of warming at all
    c) question the underlying physics/math
    d) get the physics but think it’s being misapplied
    e) get the physics and the application but distrust individuals
    f) agree in principle but not the conclusion(s)
    g) agree in principle and the conclusions but not the solution(s)
    h) agree in principle but distrust the political results
    I tend to think of a-c as flat out deniers, d-up as the actual skeptics, and f-h as the lukewarmers. It’s the skeptics on up who can follow the scientific argument. Most of the posters on this site seem to be somewhere in the a-c range where ideology rules all. Most of the skeptic sites giving hell to the alarmists are in the d-g range. Lucia, Watts, and McIntyre are all “lukewarmers” as per the definitions above. Certainly the serious skeptical community isn’t in the denier/hoaxer range.
    About the only thing any of these groups have in common is the belief that politicians will do much harm. It’s what we can all agree upon. It’s the only thing.
    As a skeptic (e-g) I’ve been called an oil company shill, ignorant denier, and so on at the believer sites. Meanwhile at PJM I’ve been labeled as one of “them” who want to hike the price of gas and take away their freedumbs.”
    Point is, I see your statement as c) question the underlying physics, and that is the denier range.
    You’re free to disagree with my range list, of course.

  73. Well Lubchenko, just needs to examine her own scientific demonstrations to see how cherry picking works.
    For example, she demonstrated how ordinary tap water, containing chlorine, and probably Fluoride too, when dyed with an “ordinary laboratory blue dye” kept at room temperature, is apparently perfectly capable of supporting coral reefs, and shell fishes; but if the ordinary tap water, along with Chlorine and maybe Fluoride, is dyed yellow with an ordinary yellow laboratory dye, and chilled with deka grams of dry ice per litre of ordinary tap water; then it no longer can support coral and shellfish growth.
    Well that was the presumption one would make from her demonstration to a bunch of lawmakers apparently ( I saw the video myself).
    I think the ordinary blue/yellow laboratory dye is called PhenolPhthalene, or something like that. Well its over 50 years since I last used that dye, so they may have better ones today.
    Yeah Jane; you sure know how to pick cherries.

  74. “”” Politicians cost lives (18:53:05) :
    Air is 20% oxygen, 79% nitrogen and 0.0385% CO2
    Inconvenient truth:
    Air, pure oxygen and pure nitrogen all absorb more heat than pure CO2. “””
    Well for starters, “heat” is not something that gets absorbed by anything. Heat is a process, not a thing; and the process is one of increasing the mechanical kinetic energy of atoms/molecules, which in a fixed volume of a gas, increases the rate of collisions between molecules, and so raises the pressure.
    But that is not the point of the effect which we call the “Greenhouse effect”, even though real green houses work on different physical principles.
    What we call the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, involves the absorption; not of “heat”, but of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation; which is best viewed in its quantum guise, as photons where the frequency and energy are related by Einstein’s equation; E = h.(nu) where nu is the frequency of the EM wave representation; and h is Planck’s constant; arguably introduced to Physics by this equation. It is odd that Einstein did not receive a Nobel prize for his much more famous E = m.c^2 derived from the special theory of relativity; but from E = h.nu the governing formula of the Photo-Electric effect, which was what Einstein received the Nobel Physics Prize for.
    Prior to Einsteins exposition, of the PE effect, Physicists were at a loss to understand, why photo electric materials emitted electrons immediately, upon being irradiated with light; no matter how low the light level was attenuated. If the process, was like filling a bucket with water, the expectation was that there would be a delay, before enough energy was accumulated (water in the bucket) to cause the release of an electron. In stead the release was effectively instantaneous, even with the lowest possible light levels. Einstein realized, that only an “energy packet” concept would work to explain that. You either got immediate electron release, or you got nothing.
    Rather ironic actually, that Einstein should get a Nobel prize for a clearly quantum effect, since he rejected the quantum theoiry for quite some time.
    Maybe Phil or Merrick can check me on this; but to my knowledge; to this day, Classical Physics, has absolutely no explanation for the Photo-Electric effect. The quantum theory seems irrefutable, when you examing the PE effect. Have at it, if you want to try for an alternative explanation.
    Arguably, the PE effect, which enables experimental verification of the value of Planck’s constant (h), can be considered the defining formula for (h).
    In that case, we have the remarkable result, that Planck’s formula for the Black Body Radiation; one of the epic results of modern Physics, contains absolutely no arbitrary constants.
    But in any case, it is the absorption of LWIR photons by CO2 and other GHGs that the warming of the atmosphere relies on, as well as the quite analagous absorption of solar spectrum frequency photons, principally by water vapor. The ultimate effect of warming the atmosphere is the same in either case. The Nirtrogen, and Oxygen molecules, and Argon atom, do not care one iota whether they obtained their kinetic energy from a solar photon excited GHG or from an LWIR photon. The associated energies are of course different (lower for the LWIR), but the effect is the same. Energy is trapped by GHG molecules, and conveyed to the ordinary atmospheric gases by collisions.
    Denying the GH effect, is not a productive way of trying to earn a living or scientific recognition. It is other issues of the AGW thesis, that need to be disputed; not the GH effect.

  75. “”” “”” Politicians cost lives (18:53:05) :
    Inconvenient truth: “”
    That leads nowhere.
    The density of silicon atoms, in single crystal silicon is 5.0 x 10^22 atoms per cc.
    The typical layer doping levels of often Boron or Phosphorous in CMOS integrated circuits like the ones that function inside your computer or cell phone, is of the order of 10^16-10^18 atoms per CC.
    At 10^18 level, that is 50,000 silicon atoms per Boron (or P). So your computer fnctions quite well, with silicon impurity levels way below the density of CO2 in the atmosphere.
    So get over it; the fact that CO2 is about 0.0388% of the atmosphere, is quite irrelevent, to the effect that it has.
    And NO, I do not believe that CO2 has any appreciable effect on earth’s climate (H2O does); but it is silly to argue that one molecule in 2500 can’t do anything.

  76. ” COCKTAIL PARTY PHYSICS.” An essay.
    Cocktail parties are a fixture of technical conferences; I attended many; one very notable one of the Electro-Chem Society in NYC in the early 1970s.
    Let’s imagine a cocktail party for the visitors to WUWT; a big one; we’ll have one million attendees; so we need a big ballroom. As is typical of cocktail parties in hi tech confabs, the guys always outnumber the girls about 4:1.
    The girls are the exciting ones with that big O2 on their name badge. The guys all wear the N2 badges (stands for Nerd) Everybody mills around on the ballroom floor, and with the guy to gal ratio, everybody moves around looking for an unattached girl. There’s always empty spaces on the ballroom floor, and everyone immediately moves towards an empty space; which promptly moves the empty spaces somewhere else. So it is a dynamic situation. Everybody has a drink of course, and some of them get more excited than others. For many of the guys its a beer; hopefully not one of those Colorado ones made from yellow snow.
    I always drank screwdrivers. Actually, I drank ONE screw driver, and then I told the Phaetons that were wandering around supplying liquor, to just bring me the Orange juice. That way I could stay sober, and pick up more G2 from the vartious people I happened to bump into. You do a lot of bumping into at cocktail parties, and you can learn quite a lot, and meet some interesting folks.
    If that is all there is to cocktail parties; don’t bother going. The girls are mostly married anyway, and not looking for a nerd, if they are single.
    But what really makes cocktail parties tick is the “Special People”. The giants of science or whatever; and everybody at a cocktail party would like to meet some of those, and bend their ear, or try to impress them.
    We have a few of them at our million guest WUWT cocktail bash. Actually there are 388 of these special folks at the party. They all have one of those special CO2 badges; stands for Celebrated Obscurity.
    See there’s Roy Spencer just over there, with a whisky in his hand. He has a gaggle of attendees. You can only get six people around one person, without someone getting to close for comfort, so we have likely some post docs, or PhDs around Roy. Well the second layer of hangers on can hold 12 people, just like in a 19 strand cable. Mostly Bachelors or Masters candidates I would guess; all shoving and pushing trying to get Roy’s attention.
    Periodically one of the Post docs, may hear something slip from Roy, and he may head off to call his publisher, giving then opportunity for some lesser light to break the inner circle.
    The third layer of course contains up to 18 folks; just guess how many of them are likely to get Dr Spencer’s attention.
    Now I am sure John Christy is in the ballroom somewhere; but it’s a sure bet that Roy has no idea where; because Prof Christy also has a gaggle of pursuers. Periodically the Phaetons arrive for a refill to keep Roy and John working towards an inebriated state.
    If you look at the floor from a sky camera, you’ll find Prof Lindzen in there, and Fred Singer; Hansen and Schmidt are also there; even Al Gore, is in that assortment of 388 special folks.
    Hey none of them have any idea that those other guys are at the party. John has been trying to get some new info to Roy about Population Densities and UHIs; but they have no idea where the other one is.
    You see, with only 388 of these chick magnets in the room, there’s only one for every 2577 guests. If you do the math; you find that on average theres 13.7 layers of guys and gals in between any one of these experts, and the closest other one to them. They have no idea that they don’t have the entire party to themselves.
    But the Phaetons seek them out to replenish their egos. I once attended a small cosy gathering of about 650 guests at a n electronics party at the Hilton Hotel Ballroom in Sunnyvale CA. There were only two Phaetons plying the whole floor; well you could go to the bar yourself for a refill. This one in a little black Tutu, with a white ruff collar blouse was a real hottie. She brought me my first screwdriver, and I told her to just make it Orange juice after that; If she could remember that.
    Oh she said; that’s why they hire me; I will remember what you are drinking, and keep bringing you that until you tell me otherwise. In fact she said, I can keep track of what everyone on the ballroom floor is drinking, and keep them going all party long. Wow ! that’s incredible.
    What’s more she said; if you come back to one of my parties five years from now, and I see you, I will bring you a screwdriver.
    That’s why they pay me the big bucks.
    Well the microdynamics of what is going on here, is pretty interesting. The general congregation are relatively boring folks, and it is hit or miss; but once in a while you will collide with someone who happens to be quite interesting; who knows one of those pretty girls with the O2 tags, may be unattached, and find you interesting.
    But if it wasn’t for those special folks; the 388 Icons, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of much happening; but in the neighborhood of each of them, a whole microclimate of onformation exchange, and personal interplay is happening; and periodically, you will see some grad student peel off one of those confabs, and head for some gal and then lay on her what he just learned from Tim Ball or Phil Jones; and try to make out that it was his own idea.
    Yes; Cocktail parties are just like the atmosphere. The general milling around of the N2s and the O2s despite the 4:1 outnumbering; the whole place looks pretty much the same with just general random walk Brownian motion like events happening.
    But the driving force of the real dynamics at the party, is what goes on around one of those odd CO2 or other special characters; and so long as the Phaetons continue to liquor them up; they can energize a pretty good sized bunch of ordinary folks around them.
    I’m guessing that John Christy maybe has a red wine in his hand; not one of those so yesterday, Califonia Cabernets; maybe a nice Pinot Noir or something more refined.
    Haven’t figured out what Fred Singer drinks; I know with al Gore it is just Coolade.
    Yes if you haven’t ever been to a big cocktail party, you simply wouldn’t understand how the atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect really works.
    So don’t go knocking those odd fellows, even though they are loners, unaware of any like folks around; they really are the life of the party; well so long as the Phaetons keep coming back; and also remember what they are drinking. Remember each odd fellow, has a liking for a particular drink, and that is what makes him(er) tick. All manner of drinks are available; but each of the special guests has a preference for only a certain kind of drink.

  77. George E. Smith
    When you claim that heat cannot be absorbed, that is not strictly true is it? Heat after all is kinetic energy and absorption of kinetic energy is a mode of energy transfer through motion.
    But for the sake of argument lets just avoid the hair splitting and change the first sentence to :
    “Air, pure oxygen and pure nitrogen all absorb more infrared radiation than pure CO2.”
    Then if I can ask you to please comment on my entire post, not just the parts you decide to select in order to take me out of context. Remembering to include that all important conclusion, if you don’t mind.
    It may or may not be silly to argue that one molecule in 2500 can’t do anything and perhaps we may well differ considerably on that point. But it is a point that you are assuming I actually made when in fact, I did no such thing.
    The point I made, if you care to read my post properly, without any convenient and selective omissions, is that 2500 molecules in 2500 (all atmospheric gases) are actually effecting temperature.

  78. Well Pol, have it your way. I believe I explained that heat(ing) is a process, not a product; it’s a VERB.
    Yes you got it right gases absorb Radiation not “heat”; In the process they do heat up; ie undergo an increase in Temperature, which is just another way of describing the mean energy (kinetic) per molecule. But before you claim that nitrogen and oqygen absorb more infrared radiation than CO2, you need to look at the absorption spectra of those molecules.
    And if you insist on considering heat as a noun, it isn’t absorbed, it is merely conveyed from one bplace to another usually by either convection or conduction; the first comprising mass transport of the material, and the second involving intermolecular(atomic) collisions.
    Heat is NOT conveyed by radiation. Photons have no notion of Temperature.
    “”” But for the sake of argument lets just avoid the hair splitting and change the first sentence to :
    “Air, pure oxygen and pure nitrogen all absorb more infrared radiation than pure CO2.” “””
    Your chosen sentence. The word “pure” is one you put in there. None of those things exist in the atmosphere, which is a conglomerate of mixed gases.
    So that gets us to consider pure gases which we can get out of high pressure bottles. Well we can get them to at least 7 nines purity; maybe 8, as in 99.99999 or 99.999999 % purity.
    so in reality we are comparing them on a strictly molecular basis.
    One molecule of CO2 versus one molecule of O2 or one molecule of N2. Feel free to throw in any others; say one molecule of H2O.
    So they are all pure substances. not all the same mass, but you can divide by the molecular weights if you want to normalize that.
    I suspect you migth find that they absorb INFRA-RED RADIATION about in the order; H2O, CO2, O2, N2.
    If I got that order wrong, I suspect Phil will correct me.
    So I don’t know that your thesis is supported by the facts.
    Now if you want to argue that the thermal energy (kinetic energy due to heating) of those atmospheric molecules all 2577 of them combine to warm (in some small way) the surface of the earth; well I don’t have any argument with that.
    That amount of heating isn’t much compared with the heating that the incoming solar energy does to the surface.
    But the phenomenon usually known as the greenhouse effect, even though real greenhouses don’t work that way, relates to heating of the atmosphere as a result of capture of outgoing LWIR radiation photons by so-called green house gases such as H2O, or CO2 CH4 as well if you like. Very little of theat LWIR is captured directly by either O2 or N2., even all 25 76 molecules of them (less 1% for the Argon).
    You choose a somewhat valueless hill to die on, if you think 0.0389% of the Atmosphere doesn’t do much because it is just Carbon Dioxide.
    Far better to choose some more valuable chink in the armor of the AGW mythology to attack; there are plenty of them.

  79. George E Smith
    You maintain that it is only greenhouse gases that absorb IR. If that is the case then 99% of the atmospheric gases must be heated by conduction and that is simply nonsense.
    I am saying that all gases absorb IR. Even water vapour is transparent to IR at certain frequencies, between 3-4.6 microns I believe. I don’t care what the scientist have to say on this subject and I have spent the last 18 month questioning the science. I conclude that the science is wrong (big surprise) and that all gases absorb IR as do all substances (natural).
    I know perfectly well what the science say’s about oxygen and nitrogen being transparent to IR and I know exactly where the claim comes originates.
    John Tyndall in his book Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat was where the claim originated in which he states that oxygen and nitrogen are quote:
    “Practically transparent to radiant heat.”
    This statement is the origin of such claims as “the science is settled” and “the greenhouse effect is 150 fifty year old established physics”. It is also the origin of AGW fraud as far as I am concerned. From the deeply flawed conclusions of John Tyndall has sprung the entire AGW bandwagon.
    If 99% of the atmosphere were transparent to infrared radiation this would mean that only greenhouse gases could absorb and re-emit IR. As all the energy leaving the system must do so as infrared so were is the bottleneck?
    No gases are transparent to infrared. To claim that they are is false. At certain frequencies they may be less absorbent but the electromagnetic spectrum huge. Anything above 0 K has absorbed IR. Oxygen and nitrogen have melting points of 54.36 K and 63.15 K respectively. CO2 and water (the two main greenhouse gases) melt at 194.65 K and 273 K respectively.
    A gas that is transparent to infrared is called ice. In view of the fact that the Earth (initial) surface is covered by 70% water. conduction is not a viable heating mechanism for the atmosphere. Also in view of the fact that air is a poor conductor of heat, radiation is the only viable heating mechanism for the atmospheric gases. Therefore no gases are transparent to IR.
    To imply that 99% of all gases in the atmosphere are heated by conduction is just silly. But that is what the greenhouse hypothesis requires one to believe.
    I know the the greenhouse effect is the goose that lays golden eggs but that goose has long since flown dear boy.
    Snip away.

  80. Well Pol, I have no idea where it is, that you live; doesn’t really matter; anywhere is ok by me.
    But here in the USA, we are (somewhat) free to believe anything that we want to; one of the advantages of livng in a somewhat free country.
    So I have no wish to change your mind on anything; including if you want to, that Hydrogen and Helium, being ordinary gases, are able to absorb (not insignificantly) infra-red radiation.
    In this day and age, one can Google almost anything up on the web; you might look for the infra-red absorption spectrum of Helium. But that would be something a scientist put together and you know how much you can believe them.

  81. As for the scientific writings of John Tyndall; well lots of scientists predated him. You could study the history of “caloric” to see what some early scientists thought about “heat”.

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