[snow hope]

Maybe this has been discussed here before and I missed it?

This is a very interesting and somewhat mathematical study and seems to make a lot more sense to me than the (rather weak) AGW Theory. If Maths isn't your strong point, stay with it as it should still make a lot of sense.

http://wattsupwithth...ory-of-climate/

[John Mason]

snow hope, on 12 February 2012 - 22:22, said:

Maybe this has been discussed here before and I missed it?

This is a very interesting and somewhat mathematical study and seems to make a lot more sense to me than the (rather weak) AGW Theory. If Maths isn't your strong point, stay with it as it should still make a lot of sense.

http://wattsupwithth...ory-of-climate/

This caused a major storm in the Opposition camp a few weeks ago which was like sitting back and watching a train-wreck in slow-motion. When they're not fighting us they're fighting amongst themselves. For the latest, see http://wattsupwithth...-at-tallblokes/ and follow the links from there.

Cheers - John

[Rupert Wood]

John Mason, on 13 February 2012 - 06:44, said:

This caused a major storm in the Opposition camp a few weeks ago which was like sitting back and watching a train-wreck in slow-motion. When they're not fighting us they're fighting amongst themselves. For the latest, see http://wattsupwithth...-at-tallblokes/ and follow the links from there.

Cheers - John

And may that camp continue to experience discord!

[John Mason]

Chris, we are under constant attack by them. It is very political! Only recently has the fightback become more coordinated - I think the emails pseudo-scandal was the last straw for a lot of climate scientists. The opposition well and truly poked the wasps' nest one time too many!

Cheers - John

[snow hope]

Very disappointing responses so far. Is there no chance we can discuss the study? Is the science in the research wrong? Looks good to me, but I am no expert.

[John Mason]

Michael don't be disappointed. Instead - if you follow the link I provided there are links to in-depth discussions of the maths - which is quite beyond me and a lot of people. However, some of the equations are hotly disputed by WUWT regular blogger and climate change sceptic, Willis Eschenbach and some others. You need to read the threads on WUWT and at Tallbloke's blog to follow the story. It has caused a bit of a rift in the "sceptic community", as you will see. Perhaps the best take-home I can offer from the whole lengthy episode is that even crap can look good if you spray it with gold paint!

Cheers - John

[PK2]

snow hope, on 13 February 2012 - 12:49, said:

Very disappointing responses so far. Is there no chance we can discuss the study? Is the science in the research wrong? Looks good to me, but I am no expert.

Why does this study convince you and what is it that you think makes the AGW theory "rather weak"? I've not sufficient time or inclination to go looking in detail at the study's science to see if there's a problem.
Rather than me type anything (too jaded these days) these posts might be interesting for you. Each is made by someone who (AFAIK) doesn't think the greenhouse effect is going to lead to doomsday (or whatever it is people who think AGW is a real effect are claimed to think). Whether or not that makes them more "believable" I don't know but they both think this study has flaws:
http://wattsupwithth...f-some-gravity/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/12/why-atmospheric-pressure-cannot-explain-the-elevated-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/

[Peter H]

snow hope, on 13 February 2012 - 12:49, said:

Very disappointing responses so far. Is there no chance we can discuss the study? Is the science in the research wrong? Looks good to me, but I am no expert.

Michael, I think I'd say since you're putting the idea forward you should advocate it. I'm also tempted to play the gambit people like me often face and ask for 'proof' and I might even try to discredit it as 'only a theory' - whistles

But, I do agree with the like of Dr Roy Spencer and Willis Eschenbach about this, proper physics it isn't.

This post has been edited by Peter H: 13 February 2012 - 19:28

[Flatlander]

I've had a read and it doesn't look very good to me. Given 4 parameters you can make just about anything correlate with 8 data points. Whether or not the physical theory is any good. The 'debunk' makes this entirely valid point although it goes way off beam with the mathematics.

Mind you, the same (too many parameters, too few data points) could be said about AGW models as well...

[Peter H]

Tim Prosser, on 13 February 2012 - 19:55, said:

I've had a read and it doesn't look very good to me. Given 4 parameters you can make just about anything correlate with 8 data points. Whether or not the physical theory is any good. The 'debunk' makes this entirely valid point although it goes way off beam with the mathematics.

That and other things.

Quote

Mind you, the same (too many parameters, too few data points) could be said about AGW models as well...

For me AGW is essentially simple.

CO2 is a ghg, we're adding it to the atmosphere, a doubling of CO2 conc (still some way off) will cause ~1C warming effect. Beyond that models are essentially refining what the ice melting and WV feedbacks will be and, fwiw, I think the contortions needs to make those not +ve are amazing. I can't see how a warmer atmosphere wont have more WV in it = I think WV feedback is +ve, I also can't see how ground freed of ice wont be warmer and I also don't think I know better than the people I've listened to who work at Hadley...

[andre]

Okay I read this:

Quote

GHE is often quantified as a difference between the actual mean global surface temperature (T_s = 287.6K) and the planet’s average gray-body (no-atmosphere) temperature (T_gb), i.e. GHE = T_s - T_gb. In the current theory, T_gb is equated with the effective emission temperature (T_e) calculated straight from the S-B Law using Eq. (1):

where α_p is the planetary albedo of Earth (≈0.3). However, this is conceptually incorrect! Due to Hölder’s inequality between non-linear integrals (Kuptsov 2001), T_e is not physically compatible with a measurable true mean temperature of an airless planet. To be correct, T_gb must be computed via proper spherical integration of the planetary temperature field. This means calculating the temperature at every point on the Earth sphere first by taking the 4^th root from the S-B relationship and then averaging the resulting temperature field across the planet surface, i.e.



where α_gb is the Earth’s albedo without atmosphere (≈0.125), μ is the cosine of incident solar angle at any point, and c_s= 13.25e-5 is a small constant ensuring that T_gb = 2.72K (the temperature of deep Space) when S_o = 0. Equation (2) assumes a spatially constant albedo (α_gb), which is a reasonable approximation when trying to estimate an average planetary temperature.

Since in accordance with Hölder’s inequality T_gb ≪ T_e (T_gb =154.3K ), GHE becomes much larger than presently estimated.

According to Eq. (2), our atmosphere boosts Earth’s surface temperature not by 18K—33K as currently assumed, but by 133K!

I have been playing with that, I made the calculations for every degree lattitude and elaborated in this thread years ago but came out only a few degrees lower but obviously my little model was still highly artificial with no atmosphere, no earth rotation, etc.

However the whole exercise is moot since the role of convection is excluded.

[Flatlander]

Peter H, on 13 February 2012 - 20:16, said:

That and other things.



For me AGW is essentially simple.

CO2 is a ghg, we're adding it to the atmosphere, a doubling of CO2 conc (still some way off) will cause ~1C warming effect. Beyond that models are essentially refining what the ice melting and WV feedbacks will be and, fwiw, I think the contortions needs to make those not +ve are amazing. I can't see how a warmer atmosphere wont have more WV in it = I think WV feedback is +ve, I also can't see how ground freed of ice wont be warmer and I also don't think I know better than the people I've listened to who work at Hadley...

The radiation physics of CO2 is relatively simple, but I'm not wholly convinced that there will be amplification of this input and nor am I convinced that the climate isn't capable of doing its own thing (+ve or -ve) regardless of the CO2 levels. If the Hadley group were producing accurate predictions of the global temperature over a year or ten then I'd be more inclined to believe their models - but they aren't, at least to any precision. There is something missing. Whether that is something fundamental or just a matter of fine tuning is the question.

The bit I'm _really_ not convinced by is all the political nonsense that goes with it, but that is nothing to do with the science.

Anyway, back to the topic - dodgy maths is dodgy maths, whoever committed the "crime".

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

To a large degree, I agree with Andre here.

Radiative changes mainly effects the thermal emission pathways not necessarily the thermal load. Now variations in thermal paths other then radiation emission are more susceptible to delays or variability. The end result, higher variability, which was the more normal status of Earths climate until roughly 10kya. Whether CO2 or vegetation/water vapor content is responsible is just a matter of "eye wash". To a large extent the long term science still suggests, we see what we want to see, at this time.

In the meantime, I do not know that chasing the latest noise around the net is the best choice of topics... Thermal emissions for all the static physics or therodynamic formulas are still irrelevant as the Earths Climatic system is near impossible to model dynamically. We model in digital steps, the climate system is analog. Depending on the range and resolution the data requires no less then 2^64 times the computing capacity to replicate digitally each node of data. Hence, there simply is insufficient capacity to predict real world measures/changes accurately, at best we can suggest a direction, and rely on the knowledge that the amplitide of future change is written in the past...