CLIMATE GUY

Ray Pierrehumbert's peer review of Rancourt's planetary warming physics article "CO2 has little effect"

2012-01-08T15:40:00.010-05:00

Dr. Denis Rancourt's "Most downloaded free-access scientific article about planetary warming physics" has been extensively commented upon and critiqued by Prof. Dr. Raymond Pierrehumbert (Louis Block Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago), arguably the leading establishment expert on such physics models.

See the complete email exchange HERE.

The complete email exchange was initiated by an email from Rancourt to the scientists at Real Climate and is posted HERE. Further replies will be posted as comments to the present blogpost (below).

Rancourt's January 8, 2012 email concludes:

"You are a recognized establishment-science expert in these simple models. You have not identified any errors in my model. I think you will agree that when a simple model contains no physics errors and no calculation errors and obtains correct results without over stretching (without seeking results that the model is not structurally able to legitimately obtain), then if you wish to argue that the model needs more complexity the onus is on you to demonstrate that the added complexity is required rather than being superfluous."

Most downloaded free-access scientific article about planetary warming physics

2011-12-03T12:22:00.010-05:00

The most downloaded free-access (open-source) scientific article about planetary warming physics was first posted on Climate Guy (link) on June 3, 2011, and is available in full pdf version at archive.org here:

Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect

(And direct link to PDF file HERE.)

Abstract – I describe the basic physics of planetary radiation balance and surface temperature, using the simplest model possible that is sufficiently realistic for correct evaluations of predicted surface temperature response sensitivities to the key Earth parameters. The model is constrained by satellite absolute integrated intensity and spectroscopic measurements and the known longwave absorption cross section of CO2 gas. I show the predicted Earth temperature for zero atmospheric resonant absorption of longwave radiation (no greenhouse effect in the otherwise identical atmosphere) to be –46 C, not –19 C as often wrongly stated. Also, the net warming effect from the atmosphere, including all atmospheric processes (not just greenhouse forcing), without changing anything else (except to add the removed atmosphere) is +18 C, not the incorrect textbook value of +33 C. The double-layer atmosphere model with no free parameters provides: (a) a mean Earth surface temperature of +17 C, (b) a post-industrial warming due only to CO2 increase of δT = 0.4 C, (c) a temperature increase from doubling the present CO2 concentration alone (to 780 ppmv CO2; without water vapour feedback) equal to δT = 1.4 C, and (d) surface temperature response sensitivities that are approximately two orders of magnitude greater for solar irradiance and for planetary shortwave albedo and longwave emissivity than for the atmospheric greenhouse effect from CO2. All the model predictions robustly follow from the straightforward underlying assumptions without any need for elaborate global circulation models. The same longwave optical saturation that provides such a large radiative warming of the planet surface also ensures that the warming effect from increasing CO2 concentration is minimal. I conclude with suggested implications regarding warming alarmism, errors by sceptics, research funding, and scientific ignorance regarding climate feedbacks.

Changes to the June 3, 2011, article: Small clarifications were added and several typos were corrected in the December 3, 2011, pdf version.

Has been download more than 400 times.

On the Green God of Environmentalism

2011-08-07T10:25:00.004-04:00

US Christians have correctly identified that environmentalism is a religion and key aspects of its world view, and they are fighting back this green dragon...

Live radio interview with Richard Lindzen: "Scientists are in an awkward position on this one..."

2011-07-08T15:58:00.009-04:00

On July 7, 2011, Ottawa radio host Denis Rancourt interviewed Richard Lindzen of MIT about the practice of global warming science. (Radio show HERE and download HERE.)

The interview provides one of the best descriptions of the mechanisms that drive unethical reporting by scientists...

How and why would even a 5 degree C warming be of concern?

Lindzen is "offended" that global warming was made into an "end-of-the-world issue".

As a former IPCC contributer, Lindzen dislikes the IPCC "spin" and opines that none of the IPCC scientific statements is alarming. "None of it points to alarm."

On the precautionary principle: "It's incoherent..."

Raymond Pierrehumbert debates Denis Rancourt on the physics of AGW -- live radio

2011-07-04T19:00:00.011-04:00

On June 30, 2011, Raymond Pierrehumbert debated Denis Rancourt on CHUO 89.1 FM Ottawa - live.

Does basic physics lead to the unavoidable conclusion that we must be concerned about global warming?

The CHUO blog article about the interview is HERE. The MP3 of the interview can be downloaded HERE.

In this lively radio debate, Pierrehumbert compared the certainty of climate physics predictions in complex global circulation models to the certainty of the theory of gravitation, no less. He also advanced that physicists (e.g., Rancourt) who don't agree that global warming is of significant concern for the environment and humanity are physicists who don't understand physics.

Pierrehumbert also had "kind words" about Richard Lindzen of MIT.

David Evans on the financial driver of AGW

2011-06-17T10:29:00.004-04:00

Well said!

Renowned historian David F. Noble made this point most powerfully in his 2007 essay "The Corporate Climate Coup".

Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect

2011-06-03T21:58:00.009-04:00

By Denis G. Rancourt
Former physics professor, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.

Abstract – I describe the basic physics of planetary radiation balance and surface temperature, using the simplest model possible that is sufficiently realistic for correct evaluations of predicted surface temperature response sensitivities to the key Earth parameters. The model is constrained by satellite absolute integrated intensity and spectroscopic measurements and the known longwave absorption cross section of CO2 gas. I show the predicted Earth temperature for zero atmospheric resonant absorption of longwave radiation (no greenhouse effect in the otherwise identical atmosphere) to be –46 C, not –19 C as often wrongly stated. Also, the net warming effect from the atmosphere, including all atmospheric processes (not just greenhouse forcing), without changing anything else (except to add the removed atmosphere) is +18 C, not the incorrect textbook value of +33 C. The double-layer atmosphere model with no free parameters provides: (a) a mean Earth surface temperature of +17 C, (b) a post-industrial warming due only to CO2 increase of δT = 0.4 C, (c) a temperature increase from doubling the present CO2 concentration alone (to 780 ppmv CO2; without water vapour feedback) equal to δT = 1.4 C, and (d) surface temperature response sensitivities that are approximately two orders of magnitude greater for solar irradiance and for planetary shortwave albedo and longwave emissivity than for the atmospheric greenhouse effect from CO2. All the model predictions robustly follow from the straightforward underlying assumptions without any need for elaborate global circulation models. The same longwave optical saturation that provides such a large radiative warming of the planet surface also ensures that the warming effect from increasing CO2 concentration is minimal. I conclude with suggested implications regarding warming alarmism, errors by sceptics, research funding, and scientific ignorance regarding climate feedbacks.

Introduction

Historically, the greatest ability of the physicist has been to perform simple calculations that capture the essential features of a physical phenomenon in order to correctly elucidate the underlying principal causes. This is the ultimate “What is going on?” challenge.

Too many practicing physicists, in the many areas where physics is applied, have lost or never had this ability. Instead, they have been incorporated into the enterprise of using computers to simulate reality using questionable selections of approximate or invalid algorithms in large simulation programs.

These programs develop lives of their own, as careers and reputations are invested in their incremental development and in their predictions. A pathological optimism envelops the practitioners with the illusion that their algorithms capture complex features in some “average” or “effective” way and efforts are made to demonstrate this in so-called “validation” exercises rather than perform simple calculations that would demonstrate the algorithms themselves to be wrong for the intended application.

Physicists have largely abandoned their gadfly role of fundamentally challenging broad interpretive schemes in order to serve and benefit from career-enhancing collective enterprises, often dressed in elaborate conceptual edifices and often supported by computer simulations.

I believe this situation is playing itself out today in climate modelling science. As a physicist, if on close examination I can’t understand what the CO2 warming alarmism is about and I can’t get any of my colleagues to explain it – without computer-black-box magic, in published papers or elsewhere – then I am not going to believe it.

At its core, planetary surface temperature is a macroscopic radiation balance phenomenon that has been understood for one hundred years or so. If global warming alarmism is justified then it must be possible to explain why it is justified in simple terms and without appealing to faith or authority for any essential point in the argument.

I’ve tried to do this, as honestly and openly as possible, and I have asked my peers to find any errors. I believe the present article to be error-free and to conclusively show that we should not be focussed on CO2 if we are concerned about the planet’s surface temperature. I am additionally of the opinion that we should not be concerned about the planet’s surface temperature.

Regarding the sceptic-warmist debate, my conclusion is: The sceptics say many incorrect things but they are right whereas the warmists say many correct things but they are wrong. The skeptics appear to be motivated by skepticism whereas the warmists appear to be motivated by conformism. The incorrect things have been used to discredit the sceptics and the correct things have been used to mask a lie.

MORE... (alternative link)
(With small clarifications added and some typos corrected on December 3, 2011.)

Peer criticism -- REVISED version of Rancourt radiation physics paper

2011-05-13T16:49:00.015-04:00

[Prof. Ray Pierrehumbert]

Rancourt writes original version of article, HERE.
Asks for and receives peer criticism, HERE.
Rancourt writes significantly revised version of article, HERE.
Asks for and receives further peer criticism about revised version, PRESENT POST.
It appears that Rancourt's revised paper is correct: The predicted effect of CO2 is two orders of magnitude smaller than the effects of other parameters.
Final June 2011 (Third) version is significantly augmented, LINK-HERE.

Following the posting of THIS significantly revised version of Denis Rancourt's paper about Earth's radiation balance, Rancourt asked the climate scientists at RealClimate for follow-up criticism -- resulting in this email exchange:

----------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, rtp1@geosci.uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Revised version posted:
http://climateguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global_12.html

Please provide any feedback.

Denis Rancourt

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From: Eric Steig
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, rtp1@geosci.uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Denis,

I applaud your efforts to take Ray's criticisms into account, but your post is still full of errors. I really don't have the time to get into all of them, but case in point is where you write that

"The longwave atmospheric absorption in the CO2 absorption band is saturated in Earth conditions and this is important because it is the physical reality ..."

This is simply wrong. See here: for example an explanation of why.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/

Eric Steig

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From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Yes, Denis, Eric is right about that. I did say that your failure to understand Kirchoff's law was only ONE of the problems with your post. I collaborated on writing the post Eric refers to, and I also wrote the accompanying post on "What Angstrom didn't know"

I appreciate your efforts to learn this material, but writing nonsense and having us correct it bit by bit is very inefficient of everybody's time. I suggest that before you make such sweeping pronouncements about the subject, you take the time to educate yourself on the basics. David Archer's book, "Understanding the Forecast" is a good place to start, and you can follow that with my book, Principles of Planetary Climate." For that matter, if you had read my Physics Today article, which I pointed out to you in connection with the G&T nonsense, you would have already known about the saturation fallacy.

--Ray

------------------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: 2011/5/12
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Hi Ray and Eric,

Actually, Ray, the first version did not use the saturation approach so this could not have been an error in the first version.

The physical model I now use is a single-layer atmosphere that is longwave opaque withing a certain width on the main CO2 band and that does not emit at other wavelengths. It either lets ground longwave through or it blocks it within this "saturation band". The width of the assumed saturation opaqueness band increases with CO2 content by assuming a binary cutoff of transmission/opaqueness at a characteristic value of cross section giving opaqueness and a Gaussian cross section profile.

While these are simplifying assumptions they do not violate any physical law or principle. One can argue that the longwave absorption of the real atmosphere can be approximately parametrized in this way.

The model clearly shows how a saturating atmosphere would work (in the limit of black/white saturation circumstances) regarding surface temperature, without using a full thick infrared radiative transfer theory calculation. The model treats only the atmosphere's role in blocking or letting through ground thermal emission. It says that role for the CO2 15 um band works this way.

It seems to me that the (one-layer) atmosphere's own thermal emission is not relevant because half goes up and out while half goes down and back to be fully absorbed (e ~ 1). In the limit of all-thermalization of absorbed longwave, this only means that ~half that is resonantly absorbed at saturation actually gets out. This is easily handled by reducing the cross section by a factor of ~two. This factor of two would appear in the "ln(σm/σe)" term of my equations 8 and 9 and therefore would have no significant effect.

Therefore it appears that your negation relies mostly on the differences that there would be between a one-layer radiating and absorbing atmosphere and a thick (multi-layer) atmosphere. It seems to me that this would only lead to yet another small re-normalization of my characteristic model parameters. But I will examine this.

Do you have a simple code that simulates the radiation transfer in a multi-layer model atmosphere?

Thank you for your help.

-denis

--------------------------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: 2011/5/12
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Also, is it possible that you did not read my revised article beyond the word "saturation"?

I actually apply what you describe here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii/comment-page-13/#comments

The only difference is that I make the estimation quantitative by using a Gaussian shape cross section and a sharp cut-off.

The warming on increasing CO2 in my model directly comes from the extra absorption in the wings of the band...

-denis

-------------------------------------------------------

From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Denis, you are making a small amount of progress. The single layer version catches up with Arrhenius, and (when used with modern spectroscopy) has the exact same problems that Arrhenius had, as only became clear later when things got sorted out in the 60's by Manabe. There is a full discussion of this in The Warming Papers.

I still recommend you would do better to educate yourself on the basics, and show a bit of humility about those things of which you are ignorant, before you make sweeping pronouncements.

--Ray

---------------------------------------------------------

From: Raymond P.
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Dear Denis,

This conversation started out well, but now it's degenerating. I was pleased that you were able to learn something about Kirchoff's Law, and were willing to update your essay to correct that blunder. Every little bit that eliminates propagation of nonsense, and gets some truth out into the arena, is a step forward. But you still clearly have a lot to learn, and I'm suspicious because so far as I can tell, you seem to have made up your mind before you even have gotten pinkie deep into learning the subject matter you'd need to pass judgment.

So, what's especially on my mind (and I would love to be proved wrong) is that back in 2007 you declared that the entire man made global warming movement is nothing more than "a corrupt social phenomenon." That statement has been featured prominently by Marc Morano, which is indeed where I first came across your name. This quote has been picked up widely by inactivists everywhere, and is particularly choice to that community because it comes from a self-professed leftist.

So were you quoted fairly? If not, have you ever taken steps to rectify the way your name is being used? If you were indeed quoted correctly, to you still stand by this statement? Have you ever retracted it in the face of things you have learned since? I am much disturbed by the fact that you would make such a statement years before you had progressed to the point where you even understood Kirchoff's Law (that point being evidently the day before yesterday, or thereabouts). How can you justify having made such a pronouncement at a time when you had such a thoroughly inadequate understanding of the subject? And, the fact is, you still have a thoroughly inadequate understanding of the subject.

I would like to think that we have some common ground, but I need an explanation as to how in the world you came to the opinion you expressed without having an inkling of the physical basis of the subject.

--Ray

------------------------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Hi Ray,

It's good that you accepted to engage on the science despite my political statements.

I think it is possible to examine and evaluate the science separately from our evaluation of the political and social forces that drive the science establishment.

I also think that one can evaluate the latter without being a specialist in the former. Otherwise, we will need to eliminate the field of social history of science and technology.

In addition, my understanding of the science, having corrected my Kirchoff's Law error and having implemented a reasonable model of longwave absorption by CO2, suggests that my "sweeping statements" about the science are worthy of attention.

In particular, given the simplicity of my model, you would need to provide a quantitative estimate showing how my single-layer model with the correct absorption cross section and relevant characteristic parameters can be off in terms of estimated relative sensitivities compared to a multi-layer model.

Since my model uses the most straightforward and simplest assumptions and the actual known characteristic parameters, you need to show where it is wrong, beyond waving a broad "read my book - multi-layer or die" magic wand.

Is that not fair for a seasoned expert such as yourself?

I have already demonstrated how I respond to being correctly shown to be in error. And I assure you that I am open to changing my views.

Do you have a simple code that simulates the radiation transfer in a multi-layer model atmosphere? (If not, then how do you gauge the importance of using a multi-layer model?)

cheers,
-denis

-----------------------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Fri, May 13, 2011 at 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: Gavin Schmidt , mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, Rasmus Benestad , Ray Bradley , Stefan Rahmstorf , Stefan Rahmstorf , Eric Steig , Eric Steig , David Archer , garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, Jim Bouldin , William Connolley

Dear Ray,

I have posted our exchange here:
http://climateguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/peer-criticism-revised-version-of.html

(The picture links to your web site.)

I await any next installment in our communication about these simple models that allow an estimation of climate sensitivity to different key parameters.

best,
-denis

-----------------------------------------------

Peer criticism -- Original version of Rancourt radiation physics paper

2011-05-13T16:13:00.012-04:00

Following THIS request for peer criticism of THIS original version of a paper about Earth's radiation balance, the following email exchange occurred.

---------------------------------------

From: Michael Mann [mem45]
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: denis rancourt

I will be away from my email through May 14, 2011.

Any email sent before then may remain unread and be discarded. If your message is important, you will need to resend after that date.

-------------------------------

From: Raymond P.
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:24 PM
Subject: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: allrc

Dear Mr. Rancourt,

Your discussion of energy balance starts off soundly, but then you get mired in a nest of mistakes, the most critical of which is your misunderstanding of Kirchoff's Law. Kirchoff's law only requires that emissivity and absorptivity be equal at the same wavelength. Since Earth's incoming radiation is shortwave, but outgoing is longwave (infrared), there is no contradiction between a surface emissivity near unity and an albedo of around 0.3 . Your calculation erroneously attributes the effect of atmospheric infrared opacity to surface emissivity.

By the way, climate models do not assume surface infrared emissivity to be unity. The deviations from unity are not a major effect in the surface budget, but the emissivity of common Earth materials can be easily measured, and in full GCM's the emissivity is taken into account in the lower boundary condition for radiation models.

Thank you for your interest in this subject.

--Ray Pierrehumbert

--------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011 at 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: allrc , gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Dear Mr. Pierrehumbert,

Thank you for your critique. I will post it. You are correct that Kirchoff's Law strictly applies for a given wavelength and that I took it to apply at all wavelengths for a given material. (I took albedo and emissivity to be wavelength-independent. This could indeed be rather off, depending on the material.)

Could you point me to a paper where shortwave albedo and longwave emissivity were measured in a common Earth material?

Do you believe that a correct longwave emissivity for Earth is 1 and that therefore the atmosphereless Earth would be at -19C? This is stated on the RealClimate web site.

Also, it would be useful if you could state what other errors you have found in the article, since you have already ascertained these errors.

Sincerely,
Denis Rancourt

---------------------------------

From: Raymond P.
Date: Wed, May 11, 2011 at 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt
Cc: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Emission-weighted emissivity is one of the easiest quantities to measure. It is even routinely used in engineering studies. Detaied spectrally resolved emissivity measurements are routinely reported in Icarus and JSQRT, since they are crucial to the use of infrared spectroscopy in estimating mineral composition of planetary surfaces. The literature is far too vast to summarize, but an example of some typical emissivities at various temperatures for common building and terrestrial materials is listed, for exampe, at:

http://www.coleparmer.com/techinfo/techinfo.asp?htmlfile=Emissivity.htm&ID=254#anchor4

Also emissivity can be computed in a straightforward way from measured absorption coefficients of condensed substances. Detailed data for water, water ice and CO2 ice is given in Chapter 4 and 5 of my book, Principles of Planetary Climate. Data sets and references are found on the book web site. (go to geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1 and follow links to ClimateBook).

The emissivity of ice and water, which makes up most of the surface of the Earth, is very accurately known. The emissivity of land varies more, especially in response to vegetation cover, but it is known well enough for the purposes of determining energy balance; there can be problems with microwave emissivity of land surfaces which complicate doing microwave retrievals over land in some circumstances.

I do not actually agree with the statement that the Earth's temperature would be -19C if you removed the atmosphere. This is a true statement of what you would get if you replaced the atmosphere with an IR-transparent atmosphere (e.g. N2), which could still transport heat, and if moreover you could prevent the ocean from freezing over. In reality, if you did that, the oceans would freeze, and the mean temperature would be much colder than -19C (see my AREPS Neoproterozoic review article for numbers). But if the Earth had no oceans and you took away the atmosphere, first of all, you would also take away the clouds (which changes the albedo) and second of all you would take away heat transport. In that case, the temperature distribution would be rather like the Moon -- 100C at the subsolar point, maybe -100C on the night side. (Slightly warmer than the Moon on the night side, because the Earth is more rapidly rotating, so there's less time for the surface to cool down).

But there is absolutely zero question that removing CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere would make it much colder than -19C, and probably cause the Earth to turn into a snowball. The radiation physics of this is unassailable, and based on more than a century of work by some of the best physicists around, backed up by thousands of laboratory and satellite measurements. You are really barking up the wrong tree.

--Ray Pierrehumbert

-----------------------------------

From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: climate
To: "Raymond P."
Cc: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Thank you for your detailed response.

From now on, whenever I describe the simple radiation balance equations I will stress that the albedo is for shortwave whereas the emissivity is for longwave (and that Kirchoff's Law therefore is not relevant). That arbitrary step of setting emissivity equal to 1 in textbook descriptions (without explaining that water and vegetation emissivities are close to 1) always bothered me, since I was 18 in first year.

I will make a revised article and I will also correct others who may make the same error about Kirchoff's Law.

Thanks.

Denis Rancourt

-------------------------------------

From: Raymond P.
Date: Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: climate
To: Denis Rancourt

No problem. Radiation balance and planetary temperature is a really fascinating subject, and I'm always happy when people take in interest in it. You might be interested in some of the classic papers Dave Archer and I compiled (with interpretive essays) in our book, "The Warming Papers" -- particularly the things Arrhenius did or didn't get right, the false steps along the way (e.g. Plass getting mired in a surface budget fallacy) and the way Manabe finally got everything right in the 60's. It's pubished by Wiley/Blackwell. The pricetag unfortunately got rather high, but that was out of our control, since most of the cost of the book was in copyright fees payed to copyright holders for permission to reprint.

--Ray

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...
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From: Denis Rancourt
Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: climate
To: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, rtp1@geosci.uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wconnolley

Revised version posted:
http://climateguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global_12.html

Please provide any feedback.

Denis Rancourt

----------------------------------------

Note: The June 2011 (third and final) version of Rancourt's paper, corrected and largely augmented is LINK-HERE.

Radiation physics constraints on global warming – Revised

2011-05-12T15:30:00.005-04:00

The original version of this article was published on the Activist Teacher blog on May 8, 2011.

The present (SECOND version) is the May 12, 2011, revision following peer criticism. See below for the section on changes made to this Revised version. A PDF version of the REVISED version is available with the original HERE.

There is also a MUCH improved and corrected THIRD and final version, which includes a more realistic Earth atmosphere and more explanations: HERE. It is the most downloaded open-access article about planetary warming physics (link).

This research was opposed by the University of Ottawa: LINK.

By Denis G. Rancourt

Abstract – I describe the basic physics of planetary radiation balance and surface temperature, in the simplest and most robust terms possible that capture the essential ingredients of planetary greenhouse warming. Our revised simple radiation-balance model uses only (i) the satellite-measured absolute longwave Earth emission, (ii) a present mean global surface temperature of 14C (14 degrees Celcius), (iii) the satellite-measured fraction (~0.26) of longwave absorbance due to CO2, (iv) a satellite-measured global mean surface albedo of 0.30, (v) the season-average solar constant and (vi) known characteristics of the CO2 longwave absorption cross section at the dominant 15 μm absorption band. The model gives: (a) a total longwave emission atmospheric mean transmittance {te} and mean longwave emissivity {ε} product {te}{ε} = 0.62, (b) a zero-greenhouse-effect Earth mean surface temperature of To = -18C, (c) a post-industrial warming due only to CO2 increase of ΔTind = 0.29C, and (d) a temperature increase from doubling the present CO2 concentration alone (to 780 ppmv CO2; without water vapour feedback) equal to ΔTdbl = 1.0C. Earth’s radiative balance determining its surface temperature is shown to be two orders of magnitude more sensitive to solar irradiance and to planetary albedo and emissivity than to the atmospheric greenhouse effect from CO2. All the model predictions robustly follow from the starting assumptions without any need for elaborate global circulation models. A recent critique of the dominant climate change science narrative is evaluated in the light of our model.

Simplest model with essential features

Let us start by building the simplest possible model of planetary radiation balance, realistic enough to capture the essential global average features.

We take the planet to be a perfect sphere with a smooth and homogeneous surface and to have a thin (compared to the planet radius) and homogeneous atmosphere. The planet is uniformly irradiated by a distant sun.

The incident intensity (in Watts per square-meter, W/m2) of “shortwave” radiation (largely visible light) from the sun at the planet is the so-called solar constant, Is, where for Earth Is = 1366 W/m2 (having a real seasonal variation in magnitude from 1412 to 1321 W/m2, or 6.7% of its average value).

Different parts of the planet’s surface receive different intensities of incident shortwave radiation. This is because the surfaces at different latitudes receive the incident rays at different angles and because half of the planet’s surface is shielded from all incident rays (only one hemisphere is exposed to the sun at any given time).

Rather than deal with the latter complexity of non-uniform irradiation, instead we take the entire planet’s surface to be uniformly irradiated with an intensity equal to the corresponding average solar constant. The correct average solar constant is {Is} = (1/4)Is = 341.5 W/m2, as is well known and easy to calculate.

In our model, therefore, every part of the planet’s surface is identical in terms of the radiation balance conditions. Each part of the planet’s surface represents what is happening on average, in terms of radiation balance, and of the planet properties which we will take to be the Earth’s average properties.

Of all the incident shortwave solar radiation that strikes the planet a fraction is reflected back into outer space without being absorbed by any part of the planet (surface or atmosphere). This fraction (from zero to one) of the incident shortwave solar radiation energy that is reflected out from the planet is called the planet’s (Bond) albedo. Put simply: Albedo = Solar-Out/Solar-In.

The reflected outgoing shortwave radiation need not have the same spectral distribution (radiation intensity versus radiation frequency or wavelength) as the incoming incident solar shortwave radiation because the amount of absorption/reflection can be (and generally is) dependent on wavelength. The albedo is the net energy fraction that is reflected.

Modern satellite spectroscopic measurements can quantify the solar constant and the amount of out-reflected shortwave radiation, can resolve these radiations from longwave thermal radiation, and can measure continuously in orbit to obtain planet-wide averages.

Satellite measurements allow us to conclude that the average Earth albedo is {a} = 0.30 [1]. Arguably-more-direct and reliable Earth-based so-called “Earthshine observation” measurements give {a} = 0.297(5) where, using scientific error notation, the latter means 0.297 ± 0.005 [2]. There are daily changes in Earth’s albedo (from large scale weather changes) of ~5% and seasonal variations of ~15% (from snow and ice cover, vegetation, and weather and cloud cover) [2].

The source of heat on the planet is taken to be the planet’s surface that absorbs shortwave solar radiation. The physical absorption process transforms the electromagnetic energy of the incident solar radiation into heat energy (vibrational energy of the surface’s molecules).

Any opaque body at any temperature above 0 K (i.e., having vibrating rather than motionless molecules) in turn emits electromagnetic radiation. The latter so-called “thermal” or “black-body” radiation has characteristics that depend of the body’s (emitting) surface temperature. For the temperatures of interest the surface thermal radiation is shortwave (or infra-red) radiation.

The intensity Ie (in W/m2) of the emitted thermal (shortwave) electromagnetic radiation coming from the surface of an opaque body is given by the Stefan–Boltzmann law:

Ie = ε σ T^4 ... (eq.1)

where T is the temperature of the emitting surface in K, σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant σ = 5.6704 10^-8 W/m2K4, and ε is the “emissivity” of the emitting surface. “T^4” means T to the power 4 and “10^-8” means times 10 to the power minus-eight, giving 0.000000056704 W/m2K4.

The emissivity has a dimensionless value between zero and one. It is the fractional energy emission from the surface compared to the surface’s emission if it were an ideal black body emitter. ε = 1 for an ideal black body surface and ε = 0 for an ideally reflective surface (i.e., a surface having an albedo of exactly 1).

The global average longwave emissivity, {ε}, of Earth’s surface is difficult to evaluate. It can be reasonably estimated or deduced from relevant physical principles.

Let us next describe how the planet’s mean surface temperature is established.

If the net radiant energy into the planet is larger than the net radiant energy escaping from the planet then the net received energy will heat the planet and increase its temperature. Likewise, if the net radiant energy out from the planet is larger than the net energy into the planet then the net loss of energy of the planet will cause the planet to loose heat and decrease its temperature.

Therefore, in a “steady state” situation, after a certain planetary response time following any change affecting radiation balance, the temperature of the planet’s longwave radiation emitting surface will stabilize at some value corresponding to the rate of energy-in being equal to the rate of energy-out and there will be “radiation balance” at a stable surface temperature.

The net energy-in is the incident solar radiation minus the albedo loss. The net energy-out is the portion of all the shortwave emission energy that manages to escape the planet into outer space. By setting in = out we can solve for the resulting radiation-balancing planet surface temperature.

The corresponding radiation balance equation, therefore, is:

{Is} (1 – {a}) = {te} {ε} σ T^4 ... (eq.2)

where {te} is the fractional transmittance (having a dimensionless value between zero and one) of the total emitted longwave radiation energy.

In other words, {te} is the planetary average transmission coefficient for escape of the emitted longwave radiation through the atmosphere and into outer space. In the absence of all greenhouse effects {te} = 1. For a completely infrared-opaque atmosphere {te} = 0.

Solving for the planet surface temperature (in K), eq.2 gives:

T = [ (1 – {a}){Is} / {te}{ε}σ ]^(1/4) . ... (eq.3)

where “^(1/4)” means “to the power ¼”.

Eq.3 is the central result for the steady state surface temperature in our simplest possible radiation balance model.

Evaluating needed parameter {te}{ε}

Note that {te}, like {ε}, is difficult to measure. It is usually only estimated using model assumptions (e.g., [1]: Fig.1). Note also, that for infrared-opaque atmospheres, as {te} approaches a value of zero the resulting temperature tends to an infinite value (things get very hot).

On the other hand, the average net outgoing longwave intensity, {te}{Ie}, is accurately measured by satellite [1]. It is {te}{Ie} = 238.5 W/m2 [1]. Since the global average surface temperature is accepted to be accurately known [3], it is therefore possible to calculate the value of the product quantity {te}{ε} for Earth as:

{te}{ε} = {te}{Ie} / σ T^4 ... (eq.4)

by using T = 287.15 K, since the reported mean surface temperature is 14.0 C [3].

This gives an accurate evaluation of {te}{ε} for the current Earth as {te}{ε} = 0.62.

[Note that all such products of average physical parameters assume statistical independence of the parameters, or that the inter-parameter correlations do not affect the averaging – that is, we assume {te ε}={te}{ε} and so on.]

As a self-consistency verification, using the latter value of {te}{ε} in eq.3 indeed gives a mean surface temperature of 14.0 C, as expected since satellite measurements confirm the near equality (1 – {a}){Is} = {te}{Ie} relating energy-in and energy-out [1].

Having determined the Earth value of {te}{ε}, one can use the determined value in eq.3 and explore the impact of variations in {a}. This is reported below.

Earth temperature with zero greenhouse effect, To

Next, we calculate the Earth’s mean surface temperature in the absence of all greenhouse effects (i.e., when {te} = 1). We take “To” to be the symbol for the latter zero-greenhouse-effect surface temperature. In order to use eq.3 for this purpose it is necessary to know the Earth value of {ε} itself.

Virtually all researchers and authors have used {ε} = 1, usually without providing a justification. That is, they have assumed that the Earth’s surface is an ideal black body emitter for longwave radiation.

Using the latter assumption for {ε} and with {te} = 1 eq.3 gives To = 254.8 K or minus (–) 18.3C. Compared to the accepted actual mean global surface temperature of 14.0C this would imply a total global greenhouse effect warming on Earth of 32.3C – corresponding to the repeatedly stated textbook value of 33C of greenhouse effect warming [4]. I also taught this value in my university physics courses and repeated it in my 2007 critique of global warming [5]. Wikipedia is no exceptions [6]. American Geophysical Union (AGU) press releases typically announce [7]:

“Overall, the greenhouse effect warms the planet by about 33 °C, turning it from a frigid ice-covered ball with a global average temperature of about -17 °C, to the climate we have today. Heat-absorbing components contribute directly to that warmth by intercepting and absorbing energy passing through the atmosphere as electromagnetic waves.”

In describing the “physical science basis” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 “Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report” put it this way [8]:

“The energy that is not refl ected back to space is absorbed by the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. This amount is approximately 240 Watts per square metre (W m–2). To balance the incoming energy, the Earth itself must radiate, on average, the same amount of energy back to space. The Earth does this by emitting outgoing longwave radiation. Everything on Earth emits longwave radiation continuously. That is the heat energy one feels radiating out from a fi re; the warmer an object, the more heat energy it radiates. To emit 240 W m–2, a surface would have to have a temperature of around –19°C. This is much colder than the conditions that actually exist at the Earth’s surface (the global mean surface temperature is about 14°C). Instead, the necessary –19°C is found at an altitude about 5 km above the surface.

The reason the Earth’s surface is this warm is the presence of greenhouse gases, which act as a partial blanket for the longwave radiation coming from the surface. This blanketing is known as the natural greenhouse effect.”

The scientists at RealClimate.org also use this 33C number in their interpretations [9]:

“Since we are looking at the whole of the present-day greenhouse effect (around 33 C), it is not surprising that the radiative forcings are very large compared to those calculated for the changes in the forcing. The factor of ~2 greater importance for water vapour compared to CO2 is consistent with the first calculation.”

Virtually all mainstream science and teaching has accepted this idea that the planetary greenhouse effect on Earth causes a warming of approximately 33C. In addition, research scientists use it ({ε} = 1) in their peer-reviewed published calculations about Earth global processes [1].

In all of these sources the assumption {ε} = 1 is virtually never explicitly justified. It is important to provide a justification because, at first glance, the assumption appears to violate Kirchoff’s Law of radiation physics.

Kirchoff’s Law of radiation physics says generally that the larger the reflectivity the smaller the emissivity. More precisely, Kirchoff’s Law is expressed for a given wavelength λ as:

1 – a(λ) = ε(λ). ... (eq.5)

It is essential to note that the law holds at each wavelength (and direction) of radiation but that albedo at one wavelength need not be related via eq.5 to emissivity at a different wavelength.

On Earth, the relevant mean (Bond) albedo is for shortwave radiation (solar radiation, largely visible) and has a value {a} = 0.30 whereas the needed emissivity is for longwave radiation (infra-red or thermal Earth-surface radiation) such that {ε} can have a value significantly different from the 0.70 (incorrectly) predicted by eq.5.

We must therefore appeal to measurements of ε for representative Earth surface materials. A main Earth surface material is water. The longwave emissivity of water is indeed almost 1. This is understandable because water is almost perfectly absorbing in the infrared. Dry rocks and sand also have near-1 values of their longwave emissivities, that is values of ~0.91-0.92. Any vegetation coverage significantly increases the value of the emissivity, given the water content of vegetation. For example, green grass has emissivity in the range ~0.97-0.99 [10].

This is why it is not unreasonable to use {ε} ~ 1 for our ocean, lake and vegetation-covered Earth.

Note that despite the large (~33C) predicted greenhouse warming on Earth this is for the total planet greenhouse effect whereas CO2 absorption is presently saturated (see below), such that a large CO2 change impact is not implied.

Evaluating longwave atmospheric transmission, {te}

Using {ε} = 1 and {te}{ε} = 0.62 (determined above gives {te} = 0.62. The latter value of {te} in turn implies a value of the so-called “longwave radiative forcing” (1 – {te}) of 1 – 0.62 = 0.38 (38%).

As a self-consistency check, one uses {ε} = 1 and the measured mean surface temperature (14.0C [3]) with eq.1 to obtain a surface emission intensity of {Ie} = 396 W/m2 [1]. By comparison with the satellite-measured outgoing longwave radiation intensity (239 W/m2 [1]) one has {te} = 239/396 = 0.60, in acceptable agreement.

One can measure the longwave scattering transmittance (or cross section) of a greenhouse effect gas (e.g., CO2, H2O) in the laboratory. However, almost all such measurements evaluate the loss of transmitted intensity in the incident beam direction, thereby quantifying the amount of longwave radiation (incident on the gas sample) that is not scattered away from the incident beam direction. The error in using this measured total scattering cross section when reasoning with the atmosphere is that much of the scattered (and multiply scattered) radiation may actually escape to outer space and therefore must be counted as part of the atmosphere’s net transmittance {te}.

In other words, one cannot, as has too often been done, calculate atmospheric scattering transmittance from collimated-beam laboratory measurements of scattering cross sections without calculating the escape probabilities for the atmosphere of all the scattered and multiply scattered radiation.

Instead, one must perform the correct calculation of infrared radiative transfer theory, as recently reviewed by Pierrehumbert [11].

Refining the model

We now have a robust model (eq.3) that can be used predicatively. Here {te} directly arises from all contributions from greenhouse effect gases, clouds, etc., and any solar input variations (whether due to solar activity or Earth’s orbit) are modelled by {Is}. In particular, this allows robust sensitivity analyses (see below).

The model could be refined to include correlations between surface and atmosphere properties in doing the global time (day, season) and planet surface averages, as mentioned above.

Given the straightforward nature of the model (eq.3) following directly from the most fundamental considerations of radiation physics, those who argue [12][13][14][15] that the more complex circumstances of a real (and thermodynamically active) atmosphere and a real non-uniform and non-smooth surface are such that no net global greenhouse effect warming of the planet surface can result have the burden of the proof in that they must explain in simple physical terms how no warming (whether measurable or not [5][16]) would occur despite the prediction of eq.3.

On the latter point, recognized expert Pierrehumbert [11] had this to say informally to the present author:

“Gerlich and Tscheuschner is utter rubbish. The criticisms leveled at G&T are correct, but only scratch the surface of what was wrong with that paper, which was so fundamentally flawed it should never have been published. Further, G&T are flatly in contradiction with satellite and laboratory measurements which completely confirm the greenhouse effect calculations as conventionally carried out (see my Physics Today article, available on my web site for free).

It is a complete waste of time to argue about the reality of the basic greenhouse effect. If people want to argue about how well we know the bounds on climate sensitivity, and how the policymakers should deal with that uncertainty, that's a worthwhile discussion. But arguing about the greenhouse effect is in the same category as being an Obama birther.”

I have not examined the physics calculations of “G&T” nor do I have a negative opinion a priori of Obama birthers.

Further predictions from the model

Next we consider the model (eq.3) predictions for doubling the present atmospheric CO2 concentration and for the post-industrial increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, without changing anything else. That is, in the absence of any water vapour feedback or any other such positive or negative feedback.

For these calculations we must develop an equation that relates changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration to corresponding changes in net longwave transmission through the atmosphere, {te}. A given atmospheric CO2 concentration (in ppmv, parts per million per volume) is denoted Cco2.

The present value of {te} (~0.62) is significantly smaller than 1 and CO2 longwave absorption occurs in a limited wavelength range (from ~600 to ~800 wavenumber, 1/cm) predominantly centered on ~15 μm (micro-meter wavelength), such that absorption saturation occurs in this main relevant CO2 absorption band [11].

This implies that the induced change in {te} is not simply (anti-)proportional to the considered change in CO2 concentration (change in Cco2) but instead is highly attenuated. Indeed, the decrease in {te} from an increase in Cco2 arises not from an increased absorption at resonance but instead from increased absorption on the outer edges of the absorption band, thereby increasing the wavenumber-width of the absorption region that corresponds to saturation absorption conditions (e.g., [11]: Fig.2).

Here, we derive the needed relation between {te} and Cco2 as follows.

We take the main relevant CO2 longwave absorption band to be mathematically represented by a Gaussian function having a height and width equal to the height and width of the actual (non-saturated) absorption cross section for the CO2 band centered at the radiation frequency (νo) corresponding to 15 μm wavelength.

This choice is mathematically convenient, is motivated by the fact that a single motion-broadened resonance band in a gas atmosphere has a Gaussian shape, and gives a fair though approximate representation of the actual resonant absorption cross section for CO2 in the atmosphere.

The Gaussian cross section is written:

G(ν) = σm exp[ – ( ν – νo )^2 / 2 ω^2 ] ... (eq.6)

where σm is the (maximum) absorption cross section at resonance (at νo) and ω is the Gaussian width of the cross section function. [Note: I am using total cross section, not specific cross section on a per molecule or per mass of gas basis.] The Gaussian function is such that the half width at half maximum (HWHM) of the cross section function (intrinsic absorption band) is related to ω as:

HWHM = (2 ln2)^(1/2) ω ... (eq.7)

Next, we find the needed frequency-width of the region of absorption saturation by setting G(ν) equal to the cross section σe at which the CO2 longwave absorption becomes effectively saturated. That is, we set G(ν) = σe and we solve for the two absorption band edge positions in frequency ν, on either side of the central resonance frequency νo.

This gives a saturation band full width as:

Δν = 2 ω [ 2 ln(σm/σe) ]^(1/2) ... (eq.8)

Here, σe is a constant property of a CO2-bearing Earth atmosphere and σm, by definition, is directly proportional to the atmospheric concentration of CO2. Also σm/σe ~ 10^4 for CO2 at Earth concentrations ([11]: Fig.2, using intrinsic specific not total cross section).

We then examine the variation (δ(Δν)) of Δν (eq.8) with σm and obtain:

δ(Δν) / Δν = [ 2 ln(σm/σe) ]^(-1) δ(σm)/σm ... (eq.9)

where δ(σm) is the considered variation or change in σm. Next, we note that:

δ(Δν) / Δν = -δ({te})/{te} ... (eq.10)

since the saturation band width, by definition, negatively and proportionally affects the relevant CO2 longwave transmission through the atmosphere (nothing at saturation escapes the planet), and

δ(σm)/σm = Fco2 δ(Cco2)/Cco2 ... (eq.11)

where Fco2 is the present fraction (from 0 to 1) of all greenhouse effects that arise from CO2. Eq.11 follows from the linear proportionality of cross section with greenhouse effect gas concentration for a given gas.

Therefore we need Fco2. It can most reliably be obtained from satellite spectral measurements. This was done in [17] where Fco2 ~ 0.26 (for clear sky conditions).

Next, we choose to express changes in {te} or in {ε} or in {te}{ε} or in {te ε} as fractional (τ) changes relative to 1. For example, a new value of {te} could be (1+τ) times the old value of {te}. That is, the change in {te} would be τ{te}. The resulting new surface temperature Tτ is:

Tτ = (1 + τ)^(-1/4) Tp ... (eq.12)

where Tp is the present global surface mean surface temperature (14.0C, [3]) in K, given by eq.3 with present values of all the parameters. Therefore, the change in surface temperature is:

ΔT = Tτ – Tp = [(1 + τ)^(-1/4) – 1 ] Tp ... (eq.13)

For {te}, τ = δ({te})/{te}; for {ε}, τ = δ({ε})/{ε}; and so on.

Using eq.13, eq.11, eq.10, and eq.9, we deduce ΔT for a change from present (390 ppmv) to pre-industrial (280 ppmv) Cco2 to be ΔTind = -0.29 K or -0.29C. Here the value of τ was 0.0040. Since 0.0040 is much smaller than 1, we used the approximation

ΔT = – (1/4) τ Tp ... (eq.14)

Therefore, the predicted pre-industrial to present warming from the increase in CO2 alone is approximately 0.29C.

Similarly, we calculate the effect of doubling the present atmospheric concentration of CO2 (without changing anything else). Here δ(Cco2)/Cco2 = [(780 ppmv – 390 ppmv) / 390 ppmv] = 1. This gives τ = -0.014 and a predicted warming ΔTdbl = 1.0 K (or 1.0C).

And so on. It is immediate to calculate the warming effect of positive or negative so-called water vapour feedback simply by applying the assumed multiplicative factor to the modelled change in CO2 concentration.

We note that our simple and correct model for global radiation balance gives all the same predictions as the state of the art global circulation models (GCMs). This suggests that the complexities of surface-wise inhomogeneities, altitude-wise atmospheric inhomogeneities, and atmospheric circulation are not relevant to the global mean radiation balance and resulting mean temperatures, as the above simple physics suggests.

Sensitivity analysis of the model

Finally, let us consider the simple-model-calculated sensitivities regarding mean global surface temperature for different model parameters applied to the present Earth.

Using the same methods as described above, ΔT for small changes (fractional changes τ relative to 1) in either the mean solar constant {Is} or the shortwave transmittance+absorbance (i.e., (1 – {a})) is given by:

ΔT = + (1/4) τ Tp ... (eq.15)

Likewise, ΔT for a small fractional change τ (relative to 1) in shortwave albedo {a}, is given by:

ΔT = – (1/4) [{a}/(1 – {a})] τ Tp ... (eq.16)

where {a} is the starting value, before the change.

Since the solar constant itself varies by 6.7% of its mean value over the course of the seasons, let 6.7% variations be our standard of variation (τ = 0.067). The results are as follows:

• 6.7% increase in {Is} causes ΔT = +4.8 K
• 6.7% increase in the transmittance+absorbance (1 – {a}) causes ΔT = +4.8 K
• 6.7% increase in {te} or {ε} or {te}{ε} causes ΔT = -4.8 K
• 6.7% increase in albedo {a} causes ΔT = -2.1 K
• 6.7% increase in Cco2 causes ΔT = +0.068 K

The radiation balance steady state temperature of Earth’s surface is two orders of magnitude more sensitive to changes in solar constant, albedo and emissivity than to changes of atmospheric concentration of greenhouse effect CO2.

This arises because of attenuation of the CO2 greenhouse effect due to absorption saturation of the dominant CO2 longwave absorption band centered at 15 μm.

It stands to reason, therefore, if reason matters and if we are concerned about the global mean surface temperature, that more research funding should go into studying solar variations and regional/planetary shortwave albedo and longwave emissivity rather than trying to deduce the relatively subtle effects of changes in “longwave radiative forcing”. After all, large scale human land use changes can have dramatic effects on both surface radiative properties and colloidal atmospheric particle pollution concentrations and depositions.

Likewise, land use practices should be subject to much more scrutiny, if radiation warming is our concern, than CO2 fluxes into and out of the atmosphere.

In addition, the tenuous practice of assuming a positive water vapour feedback in models would need rigorous validation, despite recent overly optimistic opinionating [18].

I have extensively argued from both the social science and climate science perspectives that global warming should not be our concern regarding environmental destruction and social injustice [5][19].

In view of the above model sensitivity calculations and given the physical simplicity of the model based on established physical principles it is clear that many factors will have a larger effect on surface-temperature-determining radiation balance than CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. For example, such factors as changes in longwave emissivity due to changes in land use (soil humidity, vegetation type), changes in surface temperature response times regarding the diurnal irradiation cycle, changes in albedo from aerial mineral dust variations due to land use changes, changes affecting cloud dynamics, changes affecting dynamic radiation balance response times on a rotating Earth, solar irradiance variations, and many more, are all expected to have larger impacts than CO2 concentration under present saturation absorption conditions.

Anyone wishing to focuss on CO2 concentration as a climate driver should have the onus to explain ignoring the above straightforward demonstration of a two order of magnitude irrelevance of CO2 relative to solar irradiance (of known seasonal variation) and albedo and emissivity (both under-studied and significantly complicated).

The above sensitivity results corroborate these statements in my recent critique [20]:

“There are three main problems with this amplification hypothesis [positive water vapour feedback]. First, there is no empirical support or experimental verification for it. Global average atmospheric water vapour concentration is impossible to measure because water constantly changes phase (vapour, liquid, ice) and is distributed inhomogeneously (vapour, rain, snow, clouds, fog, surface condensation/sublimation/vaporisation, etc.).

Second, there are innumerable hypothetical mechanisms whereby any feedback between CO2 and water vapour could be negative rather than positive and no practical way to evaluate most of these possible mechanisms. For example, just to name one, an increase in CO2 could change the plant ecology in such a way as to reduce evaporation from plants. One could sit and invent hundreds of such plausible scenarios (all equally irrelevant with respect to global climate).

Thirdly, it is likely that there are other negative (or positive?) also negligible climate feedbacks with CO2 that do not depend on coupling with water vapour. CO2 can be a growth limiting plant nutrient such that its impact on albedo might produce greater climate leverage than any greenhouse effect gas coupling could ever achieve?

In summary, as I showed in 2007 [2]: “There is of course much more wrong with state-of-the-art global circulation models (climate models) than the assumption and implementation of CO2-H2O feedback. Although these models are among the most elaborate predictive models of complex non-linear phenomena, they are nonetheless sweeping oversimplifications of the global climate system and its mechanistic intricacies.”

Overall, therefore, there is no established reason to believe that CO2 could be a climate driver and many reasons to conclude that, although CO2 may often follow or correlate with climate indicators [2], climate drivers are related to solar irradiance and albedo and have nothing to do with CO2.”

Original versus Revised versions of this article

The present revised article has benefited from the helpful criticism of Ray Pierrehumbert (author of reference [11]). Pierrehumbert’s criticism (“peer review”) has been made public here [21].

In the original article [22] Kirchoff’s Law was incorrectly applied to the spectral-region-averaged shortwave Bond albedo ({a}) and longwave emissivity ({ε}) whereas Kirchoff’s Law (eq.5) is only valid for a given specific wavelength and direction.

This caused an artificially small emissivity {ε} to be used (0.7 instead of ~1) which in turn caused the incorrect conclusion that longwave atmospheric transmission {te} was large (0.9 instead of ~0.6) and far from saturation conditions.

The longwave atmospheric absorption in the CO2 absorption band is saturated in Earth conditions and this is important because it is the physical reality and because it significantly attenuates the climate impact of changing CO2 concentrations. It was necessary to take this saturation effect correctly into account (eq.6 and so on).

My error stems from trusting the conclusions of an expert author regarding Kirchoff’s Law rather than examining the physical foundation of the law myself. One must never build on the conclusions of experts without examining every assumption directly.

Radiation process expert Martin Hertzberg has made the same error about Kirchoff’s Law in his critical assessments of climate warming mechanisms [23][24]. It is unfortunate that climate scientists do not take the time to transparently communicate with those outside their “clubs” and point out straightforward errors in published reports that are of public interest.

Relevance to the dominant climate science narrative

Recently, I critically reviewed the dominant narrative of climate science on several of its central points [20]: That the post-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration increase is directly a result of fossil fuel burning production of CO2, that the post-industrial increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration causes a greenhouse warming, that a measurable global mean surface warming has occurred in the post-industrial period, and that anthropogenic global warming radiative forcing drives “climate chaos” and produces extreme weather events.

The considerations of the present model are consistent with the critical review of reference [20].

The global inter-carbon-pool flux dynamics of exchanges with the atmosphere and the factors affecting these inter-compartment fluxes remain the dominant determinants of the resulting atmospheric CO2 concentration value [20] (and references therein).

There remains a vehement debate among atmospheric physicists on the question of whether or not a planetary greenhouse effect can occur on a real planet having a greenhouse effect gas bearing atmosphere [12][13][14][15][20]. However, as mentioned above, the simplicity and robustness of the model developed in the present paper imply that scientists claiming a complete absence of a planetary greenhouse effect mechanism should have the onus to provide a simple physical explanation regarding the strict absence of a planetary greenhouse effect in models of the radiation balance with a realistic atmosphere.

The physical-measurement and mathematical-statistics difficulties in obtaining a mean global surface temperature and in estimating the uncertainty error in this mean global surface temperature remain [5][16][20].

The reality of a post-industrial increase in extreme weather events remains undemonstrated and highly contested by climatologists and the physical mechanism whereby “climate chaos” would result from extra-CO2 “greenhouse radiative forcing” is at the level of a tenuous theoretical fantasy [20].

I hope that the present revised paper will further help to clarify concepts regarding Earth’s planetary radiation balance in relation to global mean surface temperature.

References

[1] “Earth’s global energy budget” by K.E. Trenberth, J.T. Fasullo, and J. Kiehl. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, March 2009, 311-323, and references therein.

[2] “Earthshine observations of the Earth’s reflectance” by P.R. Goode et al. Geophysical Research Letters, 2001, v.28, 1671-1674.

[3] “Surface air temperature and its changes over the past 150 years” by P.D. Jones et al. Reviews of Geophysics, 1999, v.37, 173-199.

[4] “Physics: Concepts and connections” by A. Hobson, Prentice Hall, 1999.

[5] “Global Warming: Truth or dare?” by D.G. Rancourt, Activist Teacher blog, February 2007. http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2007/02/global-warming-truth-or-dare.html

[6] “Greenhouse effect”, Wikipedia article, accessed on April 26, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

[7] “Taking measure of the greenhouse effect” AGU Release No. 10–33.
October 14, 2010. http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-33.shtml

[8] Le Treut, H., R. Somerville, U. Cubasch, Y. Ding, C. Mauritzen, A. Mokssit, T. Peterson and M. Prather (plus 26 other contributing authors and two review editors), 2007: “Historical Overview of Climate Change.” In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

[9] “Water vapour: feedback or forcing?” by G.A. Schmidt, RealClimate.org, 2004. (And other articles on the site.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/gavin-schmidt/

[10] “Evidence of Low Land Surface Thermal Infrared Emissivity in the Presence of Dry Vegetation” by Albert Olioso, Guillem Sòria, José Sobrino, and Benoit Duchemin. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 4, 1 (2007) 112-116.

[11] “Infrared radiation and planetary temperature” by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert. Physics Today, January 2011, 33-38.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf

[12] "Falsification Of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame Of Physics" by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner; International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) pages 275-364.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf

[13] "Proof of the atmospheric greenhouse effect" by Arthur P. Smith; arXiv:0802.4324v1 [physics.ao-ph]
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf

[14] "Comments on the "Proof of the atmospheric greenhouse effect" by Arthur P. Smith" by Gerhard Kramm, Ralph Dlugi, and Michael Zelger; arXiv:0904.2767v3 [physics.ao-ph]
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0904/0904.2767.pdf

[15] "Reply to 'Comment on 'Falsification Of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame Of Physics' by Joshua B. Halpern, Chistopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith, Jorg Zimmermann" by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 24, No. 10 (2010) pages 1333–1359.
http://www.skyfall.fr/wp-content/gerlich-reply-to-halpern.pdf

[16] Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick, Bjarne Andresen. “Does a Global Temperature Exist?” Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Feb 2007, Vol.32, No.1, pages 1-27.
http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/JNETDY.2007.001
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ArmstrongGreenSoon08-Anatomy-d/EssexMcKitrickAndresen07-globalT_JNET2007.pdf

[17] “Earth’s annual global mean energy budget” by J.T. Kiehl and K.E. Trenberth. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, February 1997, v.78, 197-208, and references therein.

[18] “A matter of humidity” by A.E. Dessler and S.C. Sherwood. Science, February 2009, v.323, 1020-1021.
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler09.pdf

[19] “Questioning Climate Politics” by Dru Oja Jay (an interview with Denis Rancourt). The Dominion magazine, April 11, 2007.
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1110

[20] “On the gargantuan lie of climate change science” by Denis G. Rancourt, March 2011, Activist Teacher blog.
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-gargantuan-lie-of-climate-change.html

[21] “Request to RealClimate scientists” post on the Climate Guy blog, May 10, 2011. (See Comments to the post for the exchange of communications.)
http://climateguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/request-to-realclimate-scientists.html

[22] “Radiation physics constraints on global warming” by Denis G. Rancourt. Posted on the Activist Teacher blog, May 9, 2011. (Original version of the article.)
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html

[23] M. Hertzberg and J.B. Stott. "Greenhouse warming of the atmosphere: Constraints on its magnitude". Twenty-Fifth International Symposium on Combustion; Work-in-Progress Poster. 1994.

[24] “Earth’s radiative equilibrium in the solar irradiance” by Martin Hertzberg. Energy and Environment, 2009, v.20, 83-93.

Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science (including physics and environmental science) which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals and several social commentary essays. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009. His dismissal case court hearings are presently on-going and will extend into 2012.

http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/

Remember this? : Magazine interview on climate politics

2011-05-12T10:35:00.001-04:00

LINK TO PRINT INTERVIEW
April 11, 2007
.

Very effective propaganda!

2011-05-11T21:22:00.001-04:00

Request to RealClimate scientists

2011-05-10T16:12:00.004-04:00

From: Denis Rancourt <>
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Subject: climate
To: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov, mann@psu.edu, ammann@ucar.edu, rasmus.benestad@met.no, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, steig@u.washington.edu, d-archer@uchicago.edu, rtp1@geosci.uchicago.edu, garidel@marine.rutgers.edu, jrbouldin@ucdavis.edu, wmconnolley@gmail.com

Dear Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, Caspar Ammann, Rasmus Benestad, Ray Bradley, Stefan Rahmstorf, Eric Steig, David Archer, Ray Pierrehumbert, Thibault de Garidel, Jim Bouldin, and William Michael Connolley,

Dear contributors to Real Climate,

Dear colleagues,

Re: A new article for your review

Please consider this new article:
"Radiation physics constraints on global warming"
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2011/05/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html

I believe this article contains proof of incorrect/unjustified assumptions and corresponding results published on the Real Climate web site.

I would welcome your reviews of my article for posting.

I will feature all your comments and criticisms on the same blog.

Sincerely,
Denis Rancourt, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. (Physics)
Former professor and environmental researcher, University of Ottawa, Canada
http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/blogs-etc/scientific-work.html

Radiation physics constraints on global warming

2011-05-09T16:12:00.008-04:00

Please check out this clear and pithy summary of radiation physics as it applies to the global warming aspect of climate science, by Climate Guy:

HERE

Scientific proof of persistent errors in climate science dogma (if proof matters?).

Soon to be peer reviewed... if the peers will oblige...

Also available as a PDF file HERE.

A SIGNIFICANTLY REVISED VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE, FOLLOWING PEER CRITICISM, IS POSTED HERE, HERE.
.

Australia's carbon tax battle::: Enter the $10K Climate Challenge

2011-04-21T10:47:00.007-04:00

REWARD: Take the climate change challenge

By John Mikkelsen

"The Carbon Rush" - A done deal...

2011-03-31T15:30:00.012-04:00

Carbon trading is rushing ahead under the directives of the real bosses. You know it's a done deal when the Left intelligentsia makes a documentary film to question whether or not it's the best idea... HERE.

Whether or not it's the best "solution" to a displaced and fabricated problem that is accepted because establishment scientists are objective, smart, and well intentioned... (vs. careerist, obedient and naive)

The only hope to kill this new instrument of global financial predation would be to reject "climate change" for the psycho-transfer device that it is and to start thinking for ourselves but it ain't gonna happen on the Left...

Versus a video attempt to inject sanity:

Example of a scientist's talk

2011-03-31T11:35:00.003-04:00

International climate conference, Berlin, 2010.

On the gargantuan lie of climate change science (re-posted)

2011-03-22T11:12:00.009-04:00

[Illustration: Ravy Puth]

THIS article deconstructs the scientific building blocks used to promote the myth of an established anthropogenic global warming (AGW) (or climate change). IT is a definitive and incisive critique of the dominant climate science narrative; going to the heart of the main incorrect underlying assumptions and devices of the AGW construct.

David F. Noble interviewed about his 2007 Corporate Climate Coup essay

2011-01-02T20:31:00.011-05:00

Videos made by Nicholas Roberts, based on a Redeye Radio interview.

Historian David F. Noble describes carbon propaganda history in the making, its design and motives...

LINK TO THE 2007 ESSAY: The Corporate Climate Coup by David F. Noble

David F. Noble: In Memoriam

Global Cooling: The Coming Ice Age...

2010-12-21T13:53:00.004-05:00

You will love this little history and social alarm behaviour lesson:

Notice any parallels?

On the hypocrisy of climate change threat advocates

2010-12-18T18:10:00.002-05:00

New essay at Activist Teacher: HERE.

Richard S. Lindzen on the Corbett Report

2010-12-18T17:40:00.003-05:00

A must view for warmists. MIT climatologist and former IPCC lead author says...:

and cites this brilliant book by Berkeley professor for background reading:

But Is It True? A Citizen's Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues

Peer review of Harrit et al. on 911 - Can't see any nanothermite?

2010-11-09T22:42:00.025-05:00

[See follow up articles about Harrit's response HERE.]

Climate Guy has peer reviewed the paper by Harrit et al. (Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2, 2009, 7-31) and finds no conclusive evidence for nanothermite.

Here is the peer review report.

There is much wrong with this article. It would not have passed my expert peer review in its published state.

Particles were separated from untreated dust using magnetic separation (a simple bar magnet). The separate contained small bi-layer (grey-layer + red-layer) flakes.

The red layers were concluded to be synthetic nanothermite.

Separated particles were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA). Samples were mounted for the SEM/EDXA measurements using carbon tape adhesive on bulk aluminum plugs, the standard simplest mounting for SEM/EDXA work.

The authors argued that since the red layers were seen by SEM (back scattered electron images) to be aggregates of dense nanoparticles and less dense nanoflake-like particles and since the EDXA spectra showed the presence of both Fe (iron) and Al (aluminum) that the flake-like particles must be elemental aluminum, whereas the smaller nanoparticles were presumed to be iron oxide.

They further argued that a nano-scale mixture of Fe-oxide and Al-metal is by definition a nanothermitic material.

The authors also provided differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements of bi-layer grey-red flakes and observed exothermic peaks at approximately 420 C (degrees Celsius) for all four WTC dust samples.

There are more problems with all of this than I have the patience to outline but here are some main points.

The Al slugs would give inhomogeneous background Al signals in the EDXA spectra. This was not considered or discussed in the paper. There could be no or little Al in the red-layer.

The carbon adhesive tape will give inhomogeneous background C signals in the EDXA spectra. This was not considered or discussed in the paper. There could be no or little C in the red-layer.

There is as much or more Si (silicon) in the EDXA results than Al in all the red-layer results and Si and Al are closely correlated in their spatial distributions (e.g., their Figure 10). No probable explanation is given for this. This is not consistent with the presence of metallic Al.

Oxygen (O) is more closely spatially correlated with Al and Si than with Fe (e.g., their Figure 10). No probable explanation is given for this. This contradicts the conclusion of the presence of metallic Al.

No effort was made to estimate the Fe:Al elemental ratio in the red-layer. Synthetic thermite or nanothermite would have a ratio of 1:1. The point is never discussed.

The exothermic peak in the DSC traces occurs at a temperature (420 C) approximately 90 C below the temperature for the thermite reaction. No explanation is proposed for this. Chemical activation energies of known reactions cannot be so sample dependent, whether nano-sized or not. This is not the thermite reaction.

In the reacted product (after heating in DSC), no Al-oxide is observed as a residue, as required by the thermite reaction. No explanation is given for this.

The obvious needed measurement of X-ray diffraction was not used to confirm the solid mineral species (oxides or metals). This is unacceptable in a materials chemistry paper. This is not considered by the authors.

Much is made of the fact that Fe-rich spheroids are present after reaction but there is no discussion of the grey-layer or of the origin of the Si-rich spheroids. Heating causes many things and there is an exothermic reaction so the conclusions about the presence of Fe-rich spheroids (which are reported to contain oxygen) as evidence for the thermite reaction is tenuous.

Here is an alternative explanation for the observations reported by Harrit et al.

Steel rusts. Rust crusts crack and blow off the steel when physically disrupted.

Rusting steel is one of the most studied materials science problems in engineering.

When steel rusts in a humid building environment it grows a crust composed of layers of different Fe-oxides and Fe-oxyhydroxides. These are stratified micro-layers with successive layers of different Fe-oxides species (wustite, maghemite, hematite, etc.). In a humid atmosphere the outer layers will be Fe-oxyhydroxides such as goethite, lepidocrocite and akaganeite. The latter three Fe-oxyhydroxides have the same chemical formula: FeOOH, and differ only in their crystal structures.

These Fe-oxyhydroxides typically form as nanoparticles and have the same needle and nanoflake-like morphologies as observed here.

When these Fe-oxyhydroxides are heated in a DSC they undergo a solid to solid exothermic reaction of dehydroxilation (loss of OH) and transform from FeOOH to Fe2O3 (hematite) at a temperature of approximately 400 C. The temperature of the transformation can vary depending on exact chemical composition, and on the crystal structure, but it is always at approximately 400 C.

Looks like our boys may have been discovering the properties of rusted steel. Steel contains C and Si which would end up in its oxidation products, especially in the oxyhydroxides.

I may be wrong but if I had been a reviewer I would have required that the authors prove the presence of metallic Al nano-flakes by X-ray diffraction (or electron diffraction) and that they be much more careful in their EDXA work. I think they would have seen FeOOH not metallic Al.

I would have also required that they make nanothermite by known recipes and measure its DSC trace and look for the Al-oxide residue after reaction.

In my opinion the Open Chemical Physics Journal did a very sloppy job on this paper, especially given the importance of 911 as a historic event and societal phenomenon.

$10K Climate Challenge

2010-11-08T23:21:00.013-05:00

Peter Laux, Locomotive Engineman from Australia, “will pay $10,000 (AUS) for a conclusive argument based on empirical facts that increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning drives global climate warming.”

See Peter Laux’s signed and authorized Statutory Declaration (affidavit) to this effect HERE.

The Statutory Declaration is a legal and binding document: “a false declaration is liable to the penalties of perjury.” The authorising witness is Constable Jack Armstrong 37499 of the Victoria Police, Australia.

As stated in the Statutory Declaration, all submissions for the “$10K Climate Challenge” must be made using the submitter’s true identity and must be submitted as a comment to the present Climate Guy blog post.

It is understood that $10K (AUS) will be paid to the first person to send a complete submission. This challenge is open for 20 years from the date of this post.

Warmists of the world: The ball is in your court. The $10K Climate Challenge is declared open.

-Climate Guy

Peter Laux’s Statement - Re: $10K Climate Challenge is posted HERE.

Climate fool's day !

2010-10-27T21:22:00.008-04:00

Yup. In the UK. The Brits are great. Hilarious.

I agree. There is no evidence of CO2 ever having driven warming or climate change. None.

That's right. Give us your best supporting evidence. What was it again? Something about a trace gas on a planet with some physics and a line of code...?

Why would we believe the climate modelers here? What would the modelers be if we all stopped believing them?

And when was the last time a scientific paper about "chaos" was of any actual use to anyone? Something about a new paradigm in causality that helps us think more clearly about natural phenomena...?

Related Reading:
Some Big Lies of Science

Wind power authoritarianism and corporate cronyism in rural Ontario, Canada

2010-09-27T08:44:00.005-04:00

Here it is:

A radio show and many useful links
.

Climate Guy joins ICSC

2010-09-26T10:34:00.011-04:00

Climate Guy (skeptic Dr. Denis G. Rancourt) has joined over 100 scientists in endorsing the Climate Scientists’ Register of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC).

These scientists endorse this ICSC's strong position:

“We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming."

Climate guy explained his position in detail in his February 2007 article:

Global Warming: Truth or Dare?

One basis of Climate Guy's position in this regard is that recent (last 20 or 100 or 1000 years) warming itself cannot be measurably shown to have occurred because of the inherent technical and statistical difficulties in evaluating a "global mean temperature".

Another basis is that any such warming that cannot be reliably demonstrated to occur is not dangerous by any reasonable standard compared to direct human environmental (habitat) and societal devastation (oppression, exploitation, occupation, war).

Dean of Science Quashes Skeptic's Research

2010-09-22T18:29:00.006-04:00

(Photo: Dean of Science Dr. Andre E. Lalonde sends vehement email to quash research of AGW critic, collateral damage student. Credit: University of Ottawa.)

FULL REPORT AND LINK TO ALL DOCUMENTS

Useful resource: A critique of wind power

2010-09-17T09:16:00.008-04:00

Here is a useful link:

Wind Power Facts, Toolkit of Information

Radio conversation about global warming

2010-09-10T20:29:00.011-04:00

Here is an interesting radio (CHUO 89.1 FM Ottawa, Canada) conversation about global warming and how it is perceived by train drivers in Australia...

LINK (with background information)

Physicist and environmental scientist Denis Rancourt interviews Austalian train driver Peter Laux. The conversation is all over the Australian and climate change landscape.

CO2 emission from fossil fuel burning is not more than from breathing

2010-08-22T18:33:00.005-04:00

A new essay about carbon and CO2 posted at the Activist Teacher blog:

HERE

Is the burning of fossil fuel a significant planetary activity?

2010-08-21T22:08:00.003-04:00

A new essay about carbon posted on the Activist Teacher blog:

HERE

Featured mail::: Peter Laux, Australia

2010-08-01T10:52:00.010-04:00

From: peter laux <>
Date: Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 5:11 AM
Subject: AGW
To: denis rancourt [Climate Guy]

Denis,

thank you ! Just read some of your stuff re' Anthropogenic global warming and Ozone. [HERE]
I am an Australian Trade Unionist and Official of the 'Militant' kind.
I have been so disillusioned with the left as it appears now nothing more than a club of misanthropic nature worshippers, dominated by the middle-class and their angst.

I am dumbfounded when the left see a Emissions Trading Scheme as progressive!
Regressive is more like it ! Their dumb, anti-corporate angst makes them want to 'make the polluters pay' - fuck how dumb.
Workers and the poor will pay and pay. Rent taking and monopoly capitalists will clean up.

This anti-coal/oil hysteria is insane. I know that my prosperity as a worker rides primarily on the cheap energy that the English first unlocked in coal to bring about the Industrial Revolution, now we want to bite the hand that feeds us ! Such is the blind hatred, that we turn agriculture from food production to fuel production, ethanol.

This has caused untold misery and devastation as it has according to the UN caused food prices to double.

A friend of mine says that "when we use food for fuel, the end of civilisation is near."
Ironically, ethanol needs 30 litres of water to produce a litre, whilst oil only requires 3 and ethanol produces more CO2 (the alleged demon gas) than oil!
But some tool will think he/she is 'saving the planet' by filling up on ethanol fuel !

again thanks mate,

peter laux

p.s. these two links are to Emission Trading pressue groups, the IETA is the most powerful 'cap and trade lobby on the planet - every major corporation is involved including, 'Big Oil' (i hate that dog whistle)

http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index.php?IdSiteTree=1249
http://www.etg.uk.com/memberslist.asp?category=Companies
.
.
And peter's response with permission to post:

Denis, no problems mate use it ! If it can help anybody to stopping drinking the 'cool-aid' of misanthropic fear - it will be worth it!
[...]

all the best,

peter laux.

p.s I am a train driver, so I found the radio name [of your radio show "The Train"] amusing but more importantly, i work with about 300 workers, yet hardly any 'buy' the anthropogenic warming fairy tale, my mates in construction say the same - its called a 'Doctors wives' issue, here.
Those who are secure, wealthy and have enough time buy it.
You are far better informed than I, but I loved this guys take, - Geraldo Luis Limo, director of the Ibero-ameriacan solidarity movement:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9199

George Marshall is saddened by Climate Guy's outspoken position on climate change

2010-07-26T23:02:00.007-04:00

From: George Marshall
Date: Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 12:34 PM
Subject: attn Denis Rancourt re climate change
To: Denis Rancourt via claude.cde@gmail.com

Dear Dr Rancourt,

I am saddened by your outspoken position on climate change.

I and many of my colleagues in COIN share your progressive politics . We have specialised in working with trades unions, human rights, refugee and asylum organisations. We also have a critical analyses of the environmentalists and see climate change as primarily a resource and social justice issue.

However I would like to point out:

Firstly that climate change is not just an environmentalist issue. To label is as such whilst conveniently denouncing environmentalists is slopping thinking. As you know very well, concerns about climate change are spread very widely across the political spectrum. You are no doubt also very well aware that the some of people keenest to champion your views- in particular Senator Inhofe and his former staffer Marc Morano, are deeply rooted in the far right of the Republican party.

Secondly I would urge you to talk to intelligent and independently minded scientists on this. I have many criticisms of the IPCC and there are lots of issues. However it is also clear that the evidence for the increase in greenhouse gas levels, the significant and continuing increase in temperatures is very sound, as is the link between the two.

Speaking personally I am no fool and make up my own mind on issues, but having worked in this issue for ten years now, having met many of the leading scientists and having fervently wished that it was not as serious as people made out (contrary to the ludicrous conspiracy theories most people working in this field would be very happy to be out of work) I have seen no reason yet for doubting that this is a godawful mess. We need every right thinking person on side working with us.

Yours
George

George Marshall,
Director of Projects,
Climate Outreach Information Network
george@coinet.org.uk

Direct Telephone ---
Mobile ---
Skype: climategeorge

Main COIN Office
01865 403 334
www.coinet.org.uk

The Climate Outreach and Information Network is a charitable trust formed in 2004 to directly engage the public about climate change, COIN inspires lasting changes in attitudes and behaviours through the use of innovative action learning methods and by assisting people to communicate their own messages to their peers. Charity registration number 1123315

Climate Guy on ClimateDepot and youTube

2010-07-26T22:30:00.006-04:00

Left-wing Env. Scientist Bails Out Of Global Warming

The Green exodus from the Big Scare

New Eco-Friendly Cigarettes Kill Destructive Human Beings Over Time

2010-07-23T21:13:00.005-04:00

brilliant.
hilarious.
goes to the heart of the question.

See news story HERE.

Related post:
Taking CO2 seriously

In-depth radio interview with Marc Morano of ClimateDepot

2010-05-17T12:16:00.004-04:00

Denis rancourt interviewed Marc Morano from Climate Depot for a solid hour on CHUO 89.1 FM, Ottawa, The Five O'Clock Train.

A lot of ground was covered, including some hard questions about Climate Depot's funding.

Link to radio interview HERE.

UN launches climate change investigation

2010-05-17T10:04:00.005-04:00

Oooops, the political body known as the IPCC got it wrong despite extensively veiling itself in peer reviewed career-driven drivel...

So the UN needs to save face and salvage what it can:

We told you so... back in February 2007 HERE.

In French / en francais: Montreal radio interview with Denis Rancourt on Climategate

2009-12-23T09:16:00.008-05:00

In French / en francais

98.5 FM radio Montreal, Puisqu'il faut se lever, 27 November 2009, 8:25am.

Denis Rancourt interviewed by Paul Archand on global warming and "Climategate".

LISTEN TO RADIO INTERVIEW HERE

Alternatively, the radio interview is available as a video link:

2009-12-985fm - Entrevue Denis Rancourt -Climategate
Uploaded by exprofesso. - Up-to-the minute news videos.

More about Denis Rancourt HERE.

Key essays about global warming myth of a dominant threat:

Dominion magazine interview

Gloabal Warming: Truth or Dare? essay

Corporate Climate Coup essay

Corporate Climate Coup Confirmed essay

Corporate Climate Coup Confirmed

2009-12-04T19:46:00.005-05:00

by David F. Noble

In the wake of the climate change meltdown, we might perhaps still have something like a predictive science here but it's not about global warming. Back in May, 2007 I published an article entitled "the Corporate Climate Coup" in which I offered a brief history of the corporate campaign begun in the late 1990's to promote the profit-prospecting idea that the planet is warming up due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions (AGW). I described in some detail the corporate political agenda to derail the anti-globalization movement and the concurrent corporate economic agenda to supplant the moribund dot.com bubble with a new bonanza based upon carbon trading. I identified the central corporate players, notable among them the powerhouse investment bank Goldman Sachs, Generation Investment Management (Al Gore's Goldman Sachs spin-off), and two of the world's four largest oil companies, BP and Shell, both Goldman Sachs clients. The article pointed out how their campaign was grounded upon the restoration of faith in two of the main targets of the anti-globalization movement: the imagined beneficence of the self-regulating market and, most stridently, the allegedly unimpeachable authority of science. That ideological restoration effort is now doubly in doubt. As popular dismay mounts over the scurrilous surreality of the market-based carbon-trading scam, the corporate campaign has been thrown into possibly fatal disarray with the inelegant demolition of the preposterous pretensions of pure, peer-reviewed, science. And as the veil is lifted from the habitat of the gaming wizards of global warming, the UK Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University, we would expect, given this historical review of the political economy of AGW, to find familiar faces, and we do. There they are, in the fine print of the history of the outfit (www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history), among the funders of the Nobel-lauded independent minds that supposedly certified our sanity in this madness: BP and Shell. You guessed it.

LINKS:
Corporate Climate Coup
Global Warming: Truth or Dare?
Regression on the Left

David F. Noble is a historian of science and technology and a professor at York University, Toronto, Canada.

CLIMATEGATE - Warming bubble burst - YouTube videos

2009-11-27T21:29:00.011-05:00

We told you so... LINK

[en Francais]

The Big Electron

2009-07-07T21:14:00.003-04:00

Critique of environmentalism and perspective on our place in the world by George Carlin...
..

..

The Problem with Scientist Denyers…

2007-12-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Are scientists who are not on the corporate payroll objective and disinterested?

This may be a purely theoretical question since even universities are corporations directed by board members with corporate and finance allegiances and since government scientists are managed via a corporate-friendly political apparatus (that’s an understatement). But let’s pretend that tenure and government grants might confer some measure of independent thought.

Are scientists who are not on the corporate payroll objective and disinterested?

The fact that many “independent” scientists are either for or against interpreting “the data” as showing CO2-driven global warming suggests that independent thought may exist among scientists, on at least one side of the climate change debate. But let us not draw premature conclusions.

David Noble, in The Corporate Climate Coop, recently exposed some of the corporate scheming that has boosted and supported mainstream global warming alarmism. Likewise, in Global Warming: Truth or Dare? I have analyzed some of the motives that unaligned scientists have for trumpeting global warming as a dominant threat to human kind. But what motives do unaligned scientists have to be so-called denyers?

Part of the answer is the same as for the scientist believers. Both believers and denyers are drawn to popular themes, powerful players, and media attention. Public scientists want to be useful beyond blatant corporate servitude and beyond training the obedient and indoctrinated service intellectuals of tomorrow. They, like most professionals, often seek meaning and societal recognition beyond tenure and a pay cheque.

And they know an opportunity when one smacks them in the face… In the words of Dick Peltier, Director of the University of Toronto’s newly funded Centre for Global Change Science (InterActions, Fall 2007, p.11):

“Faculty engaged in scientific research on the ongoing environmental crisis came together to discuss how best to take advantage of this exciting opportunity.”

Crisis as opportunity… Finally, public science is learning from high finance and corporate exploiters. A healthy business ethic has now completely permeated the ivory tower. The world can sleep a little more soundly.

The corporate ideology of profit as a cure and trickle down as the best of all possible solutions is not only a justification for planetary destruction, however. The ideology itself, although barely developed beyond a mantra, is also the motivating thread for most “independent” scientist denyers.

This was made abundantly clear in a recent open letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations signed by over one hundred top “independent” scientist denyers (National Post, December 12, 2007): LINK.

The letter’s first paragraph explains that:

“We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.”

Somehow, these brilliant minds have come to the observation and conclusion that “economic growth and wealth generation” is a recipe for environmental preservation and amelioration. The spectacular correlation between mass poverty and associated environmental degradation and increased profit and wealth for the wealthy has somehow escaped their quantitative analysis.

Could these hard-science practitioners have strayed into the make-believe world of economists – the same economists who now propose carbon credits as something other than a scam that will benefit global finance racketeers and a tool that will serve the most powerful global players?

As protectors of the now-abandoned corporate stance, the signatories of this open letter to the UN are truly exemplary:

“the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity.”

Whose prosperity? A large faction of elite corporate and finance power want this – they have engineered it. Wake up.

“attempts to cut emissions will slow development”

Burning fossil fuel equals “development”? Well then, let’s burn more. Wouldn’t bigger hummers be safer?

“Attempts … constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.”

Who said anything about allocating resources? Some corporations would make less profit, the largest would make more, and massive government subsidies to corporations (such as those that keep the US military economy afloat) and to private capital managers (such as those inherent in the fractional reserve banking system) might be modestly redistributed. These hard scientists seem to think that “society” makes resource allocation decisions.

The open letter’s last paragraph closes on a humanitarian note:

“National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead.”

Hey! How many of the signatories of this open letter have ever made moves to help “our most vulnerable citizens”? Let’s see, our most vulnerable First World citizens would be “our” aboriginal peoples… Our most vulnerable world citizens would be Third World citizens displaced from their lands by corporate “development” that serves Third World debt, the most powerful lever of extortion on the planet…

Our most vulnerable citizens can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing that scientist denyers have noticed their plight. I expect this will help them as much as carbon credits and emission ceilings.

Are Physicists Smart?

Politics of Climate Change

Scientist’s blog cited in US Senate speech on global warming turning point

2007-10-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

US Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, delivered a more than two-hour floor speech on October 26, in which he cites Professor Denis G. Rancourt (University of Ottawa, Editor/Manager of the Climate Guy and Activist Teacher blogs), in some detail here…:

EPW-Senate.gov/Inhofe-speech

The citations are drawn from (and linked to) Rancourt’s February 2007 article Global Warming: Truth or dare? which will be print-published in part in the next issue of DESIGNER/builder magazine.

This may be the first time that authoritative material is used in the US Senate directly from a scientist’s blog; thereby circumventing the scientific peer review process, that has recently been severely criticized.

The complete citation is as follows.

‘Unverified, remote, and abstract dangers'

The global warming scare machine is now so tenuous, that other liberal environmental scientists and activists are now joining Giegengack and refuting the entire basis for man-made global warming concerns.

Denis G. Rancourt professor of physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, believes the global warming campaign does a disservice to the environmental movement.

Rancourt wrote on February 27, 2007: "Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations. It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures." (LINK)

Rancourt believes that global warming "will not become humankind's greatest threat until the sun has its next hiccup in a billion years or more in the very unlikely scenario that we are still around." He also noted that even if C02 emissions were a grave threat "government action and political will cannot measurably or significantly ameliorate global climate in the present world."

Most significantly, however, Rancourt -- a committed left-wing activist and scientist -- believes environmentalists have been duped into promoting global warming as a crisis. Rancourt wrote: "I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized."

"Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass," Rancourt added.

Finally, Rancourt asserted that in a warm world, life prospers. "There is no known case of a sustained warming alone having negatively impacted an entire population," he said, "As a general rule, all life on Earth does better when it's hotter: Compare ecological diversity and biotic density (or biomass) at the poles and at the equator," he added.

Indeed, 2007 has turned into the "tipping point" for the unsubstantiated fears and gross distortion of science by activists who have committed decades trying to convince the world it faced a man-made climate crisis. Rancourt so eloquently summed up the movement as one featuring "Unverified, remote, and abstract dangers."

One theme of the Senator’s speech is that 2007 is a turning point in becoming conscious of the fabricated nature of the global warming threat.

Climate Guy and Activist Teacher have argued that such consciousness would be a contributing small step in the overall turning point towards global fairness and democracy that must occur, if it is accompanied by deep activism of the heart rather than replaced by another superficial myth of the mind again intended to divert our attention and energy. Examples of past and present such superficial myths of the First World middle class mind are: acid rain, ozone depletion, soil depletion and peak oil. These sanitized and distributed-responsibility abstracted phenomena replace the real problems of continental-scale profit and power driven finance and corporate extortion and exploitation, enabled by genocidal destruction and backed by military might.

9-11 and global warming are both inside jobs

2007-10-01T16:19:00.000-04:00

Glimate Guy has recently come across the most remarkable and in-depth article on how and why the Twin Towers collapsed…! It was published in the November/December 2001 issue of the print magazine DESIGNER / builder: A Journal of the Human Environment and has not previously been posted on the web, but HERE IT IS.

DESIGNER / builder (Db) is a gem of a small-circulation radical magazine out of Santa Fe, NM. Db’s publisher Kingsley Hammett located and interviewed now 67 year old Jim Malott, a welder, architect, and jet crash expert who followed the birth and rise of the Twin Towers with the passion of an investigative photo journalist and materials engineer enthusiast… His analysis is unparalleled and puts the mainstream scientific community to shame.

The article contains dozens of historic photographs – a must read for all 9-11 activists.

In a nutshell, the business lobby transformed building code regulations in order to maximize profits for powerful interests, while covering their asses with made to order safety tests… Sound familiar?

First World activists turn to tenuous 9-11 conspiracy theories about homeland threats while the real crimes are the murderous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the broader global stranglehold that they enforce and the profits that they directly generate…

First World climate change activists turn to tenuous model predictions anchored on CO2 while the real crime is the global-scale exploitation and resource extraction monster that feeds financial lust at the cost of everything.

They’re both inside jobs, performed by the power insiders that compulsively strive to generate continuously growing returns on capital, here on this finite planet.

Let’s get away from the red herring details and take down the beast. Capital concentrations that change human and geographical landscapes are tyrannical. Profit predation is democracy’s main enemy and the planet’s worst scourge. People need to control their own spaces: We don’t need landlords. We don’t need maximum profit.

Fight it where you can: At work, at home, at school. Don’t let capital, corporations, institutions, or anyone be the boss of you. Fight back. Don’t drop out. Don’t cooperate. Don’t hide. Fight the machine! That’s something we can all do that’s good for everybody and good for the soul. Risk it. Do it. You can’t learn it from a book!

First World wimps and gatekeepers are accessories to murder and genocide.

RELATED LINKS
Gradual Change Is Not Progress
Balance Kills
Global Warming: Truth or Dare?
DESIGNER / builder magazine
Archive.org posting of the full original article with pictures

Put your global warming glasses on!

2007-08-12T09:40:00.000-04:00

That's right! Let's all change our incandescent light bulbs to these expensive, unreliable, impossible to recycle, made in Third World slave camps, mega manufacturing-packaging-transportation footprint, mercury-gas-loaded kind... Let's trust the manufacturers on this one. Better to be safe than sorry, right? (Yet another victory for the precautionary principle.)

In addition, there is that wonderful psychological side benefit that you have empowered ordinary citizens by training them to participate in solving problems via add-campaign-induced consumer choices. (And they can spend the projected electricity savings on credit now.) Luckily for the planet, it's easy to market green responsibility.

How Many Scientists?

2007-06-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

David Noble asks: How many scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: A consensus.

Regression on the Left

2007-05-30T12:19:00.000-04:00

David F. Noble

Sometimes the Left is its own worst enemy, particularly when it uses its enemy’s tactics to silence internal dissent. In response to recent challenges to the current crusade against global warming, this dogmatic tendency of the left, here rooted in a naive scientism, has resurfaced with a vengeance. In its resolute repudiation of corporate “deniers,” the left has allied itself wholeheartedly with the “advocates,” adopting a stridency intolerant of doubt or dissent. Those on the left who dare to disagree are instantly denounced as deluded or, worse, deniers themselves. Perhaps most importantly they are accused (by Justin Podur in his response to challenges by Denis Rancourt, David Noble, and Alexander Cockburn) of launching “an attack on science,” of adopting an “anti-science tone”, and taking “anti-science positions.” George Monbiot, admitting his own scientific incompetence, repeatedly derides Cockburn for not grounding his dissenting views upon the allegedly irrefutable foundation of "peer-reviewed scientific journals," for only then, he avers, could we be sure "that they are worth discussing." The source of this new orthodoxy is an exaggerated reverence for science, which has in fact marked socialism since its inception, when supposed scientific verities served as the antidote to religion and religion-based power. Among the earliest socialists, for example, the followers of atheist Robert Owen, turned their devotion from God to steampower: “science was heard and the savage hearts of men were melted; the scabs fell from their eyes, a new life thrilled through their veins, their apprehensions were enobled, and as science spoke, the multitude knelt in love and obedience.” The so-called “scientific socialism” of Marxism followed this furrow for over a century. But such primitive faith in science has long since been powerfully challenged on the left, by fifty years of sustained critical analysis of, and direct confrontation with, the social construction and political realities of presumedly objective scientific enterprise. It is thus indeed remarkable, and alarming, how readily the left regresses into reflexive reliance upon its formative substitute religion.

From the late nineteenth-century on, the professionalizing practice of science was increasingly monopolized by a privileged elite and harnessed to the pecuniary ends of corporate capitalism, both subverting whatever liberatory potential it might ever have had. But periodically there have emerged popular challenges to this class-bound institutionalization of science. Taking the United States as a prime example, following the First World War and throughout the 1930's there was continuing criticism of the nefarious military uses of science, the corporate command over the agenda of science, and the private monopolization of the patented fruits of science. World War Two constituted a pivotal moment for this popular challenge, with its unprecedented government-sponsored mobilization of the nation's scientific resources for the war effort. For the first time, and forever thereafter, the taxpayer became by far the major source of funds for scientific endeavor, through a new system of government contracts and grants. And, in a democracy, if the taxpayer was paying for science, the taxpayer would have to have a degree of control over the content and agenda of science. Indeed, corporate and scientific leaders had in the past eschewed public support of their activities precisely for that reason, out of fear that reliance upon the public purse would bring with it public interference and oversight. Now, however, the scale of the financial support available made it too good to refuse, or ever give up. The problem was what to do about democracy.

During the war the problem was solved through military security. Under wartime pressures, the direction of science was vested in a civilian agency but dominated by leaders of the elite academic and professional institutions with close ties with major corporations. The chairman of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), Vannevar Bush, an official of MIT and a director of Raytheon and AT&T, was the embodiment of this elite assemblage. Predictably, the lion's share of contracts and grants went to the elite private universities and the largest corporations, along with patent rights to the most lucrative inventions. But by the middle of the war, just when the privileged few had begun to plan for the postwar continuation of this largesse, those left out of the arrangement and opposed to the wholesale corporate subsidy it entailed, had begun strenuously to object, and to propose a more egalitarian and democratic peacetime scientific establishment. Led by New Deal senator Harley Kilgore they put forth a plan for a postwar National Science Foundation that emphasized lay control over science and political accountability. It was to be headed by a presidentially appointed director advised by a board whose members would include citizens representing consumers, labor, and small businesses as well as large corporations and scientists. The agency would let contracts to firms and universities on an equitable basis and would retain public ownership of all patents. Kilgore envisioned the new agency as a democratic means to socially responsive science.

This democratic proposal alarmed Bush and his elite academic and corporate colleagues who formulated a counter proposal, for National Research Foundation (later, also called the National Science Foundation). Central to this plan was an agency that guaranteed professional rather than lay control over science, was insulated from political accountability, and gave its director discretion over the awarding of patent ownership. In essence, the Bush agency was designed to guarantee public support for scientists – and, indirectly, for the corporations they served as well - without public control, a regime of science run by scientists and paid for by the taxpayer. The two proposals for a postwar agency were debated in Congress for several years after the war. Kilgore's bill was backed by President Truman. The Bush bill was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress in 1947 but was vetoed by Truman, who stated, "the proposed National Science Foundation would be divorced from control by the people to an extent that implies a distinct lack of faith in democratic processes." In 1950 a compromise version of the Bush bill was passed and signed by Truman, now once again under (cold)wartime exigencies. The new agency included a presidentially-appointed director but a board composed only of scientists committed to continuing the comfortable patterns established by the OSRD during the war. As a bulwark against democratic oversight and lay involvement in the awarding of scientific contracts and grants, the agency adopted a new mechanism of exclusion: "peer review." Only peers - fellow privileged professionals, whatever their unacknowledged ties to commercial enterprise - could be involved in deciding upon the merits and agenda of science.

Peer review was a relatively novel concept. Editors of journals had in the past, at their own discretion on an ad hoc basis, referred manuscripts to anonymous reviewers before publication to aid them in their decisions, but this would now become required and routinized into standard practice. Peer review certainly had its benefits, such as credibility (peer review as PR), convenient credentialling (no need to read it if it has been peer reviewed), and consensus-building (through mutual back-scratching). But it also had its costs, such as prior censorship (by interested parties), and, especially, the coercive encouragement of conformity. If peer review served to immunize science from democratic scrutiny and intervention, it also imposed a measure of like-mindedness upon the scientific community itself, mistakenly celebrated as consensus. Invariably, this tended to narrow the scope of respectable discourse and, hence, of the scientific imagination, inbreeding often entailing a degree of enfeeblement. A safeguard against error, it might also eliminate eccentric approaches and illuminating mistakes, often the key to significant discovery. And if intended to insure that only correct papers were permitted to be published, why then the need for the community of science at all? Peer review before publication would suffice to guarantee that only the truth prevailed. Such perils of peer review were early detected and condemned by the physicist Albert Einstein, after his arrival in America. Having submitted a co-authored paper to the journal Physical Review, he was dismayed to learn that it had bean sent by the editor to an anonymous reviewer. "We had sent our manuscript for publication and had not authorized you to show it to specialists before it is printed," an irate Einstein wrote the editor. “On the basis of this incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere.” Einstein never again contributed to that journal. In Germany he had published in a journal edited by Max Planck, whose editorial philosophy was “to shun much more the reproach of having suppressed strange opinions than of having been too gentle in evaluating them.”

Despite its defects, peer review became the hallmark of the exclusive scientific establishment (and, eventually - and disastrously - of all of academia), and for a short while the hegemony of the elite remained relatively secure. But it did not long remain unchallenged. By the late 1950's growing concerns about the abuse and misuse of science and its deleterious effects, both intended and unintended, focused increasing attention on the responsibility of scientists, ultimately crystallizing into something new: criticism of science itself. Campaigns against the atomic and hydrogen bombs, nuclear power, radiation, pesticides and other petrochemicals, as well as pollution and environmental degradation, thus gave rise to unprecedented scrutiny of scientists themselves and, eventually, to critical studies of the historical, social, political, and cultural context, and epistemological framework, of western science.

In 1962 Rachel Carson, mother of the modern environmental movement, published Silent Spring, her landmark expose on the dangers of pesticides. Carson's enormously influential book, serialized in the New Yorker, directly and courageously challenged the then sacrosanct petrochemical industry and the complicit scientific establishment that supported it. Carson had no Ph.D. and her work was not peer-reviewed. That same year 1962 Thomas Kuhn published his equally influential critical study of the history of western science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Introducing the concept of scientific "paradigm" and "paradigm shift," Kuhn argued that scientific theories were not the product of some detached, disinterested community of truth-seekers, but of more familiar social and cultural forces and contexts, which tended to encourage conformity and discourage dissent and bold departures. While Carson's work heightened ecological awareness and propelled the environmental movement into popular focus, Kuhn's work, wittingly or not, opened the pandora's box on the politics of science, giving rise to troublesome questions about supposed truths and paving the way for popular challenges to the authority of the expert. The convergence of these developments was epitomized by the audacious efforts of “ordinary housewife” Lois Gibbs and her neighbors in the Love Canal community of upstate New York, who came to their own independent, and correct, conclusions about the dangers of the toxic waste dump in their midst, rejected the dismissive reports of state and federal scientists and, ultimately, after gaining national media attention and taking federal authorities hostage, succeeded in their demands for subsidized relocation.

Throughout this period, the left newly informed by ecological and feminist sensibilities, belatedly came to understand that the verities of science and technology were in fact contingent, like everything else. Scholars and activists on the left played a major role in opening up and exploring this newly revealed realm of power and ideology. Their efforts implicated science in the depredations and deformations of corporate capitalism, and, at the same time, disclosed a more expansive and emancipatory understanding of the range of scientific possibilities, of alternatives, of different kinds of science, of a "science for the people." By the late 1970's, however, with the launching of a broad corporate counter-offensive against government regulation, in the name of competitiveness and marked by a strident reaffirmation of faith in science (renamed “innovation”) and the authority of experts, this new critical comprehension of the nature of science came under sustained attack for being “anti-science.” The corporate agenda and corporate propaganda dominated the terrain and the discourse for a decade and a half, marginalizing the left and drowning out its new critical voices. Ultimately, the corporate message congealed into a single word, which hinted at a unified corporate-controlled world: "globalization."

Alas, to the delight of the dialecticians, this unity invariably elicited its opposite, the “anti-globalization” or “global justice” movement. Erupting worldwide in the wake of the Zapatista rebellion against neoliberalism, this new movement took aim against all manifestations of the corporate agenda as well as its institutional and ideological foundations. Once more the critical voices re-emerged, amplified, against the ravages of capitalism, the market, and the corporation. And here again science and technology came under critical surveillance and challenge, with a particular focus on genetic engineering and genetically-modified organisms. As Rachel Carson had confronted the petrochemical industry and its scientific penumbra so now activists confronted agribusiness and the so-called “life science” industry and their academic attendants, exposing the error of their ways and, in the process, the politics of science.

In the midst of the corporate globalization movement, the giants of the oil and gas industry, fearing a threat to their soaring profits, launched their campaign of denial against the spectre of global warming. At the height of the anti-globalization movement, other corporate players, seeing new profit-making opportunities in the same spectre, launched their opposing campaign of advocacy and alarm. (For a fuller discussion, see my article "The Corporate Climate Coup.") Meanwhile, in the face of mounting repression, a war on terror, corporate cooptation, and the need to divert energies into an anti-war movement, the global justice movement eroded. With the dissipation of that movement, its critical revolutionary voices were once again marginalized, along with its radical critique of science. In remarkably short order, debate within the left on the issue of climate change became a mere reflection of the orchestrated duel between corporate rivals, deniers and advocates, shorn of any radical substance of its own. Regressing instead, in apparent disarray and desperation, to the false securities of its former innocence, the left has all but abandoned the field on its own terms, avoiding any confrontation with power. Relying now upon the weapons of the left's erstwhile enemies to defend their own witting or unwitting complicity, its mainstream mavens, ever protective of their respectability astride the corporate wave, condemn and dismiss the remnant of critics of science as “anti-science” and disregard dissenting arguments on the grounds that they have not been subjected to “peer review.” In light of such a dismal display, it is perhaps time for the left once again to put science in perspective, and aside, and return to the revolution.

Historian David F. Noble teaches at York University in Toronto. His latest book is Beyond the Promised Land (2005). Like all of his other publications, this article has not been peer-reviewed.

DGR's suggested related links:
The Corporate Climate Coup
Global Warming: Truth or Dare?
Taking CO2 Seriously
Are Physicists Smart?

TAKING CO2 SERIOUSLY

2007-05-07T15:13:00.000-04:00

David F. Noble and Denis G. Rancourt

The Swift Institute on Global Warming
May, 2007

Life is deadly. All living things that breathe oxygen burn their food and emit poisonous CO2 as a pollutant. With every breath they contribute to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and, hence, to global warming. And yet, for all the frantic formulas floating around aimed at the reduction of CO2 emissions, particularly through limitations on the burning of fossils fuels (dead living things), little attention has been paid to this obvious other source (still living things). Rough calculations suggest that CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are dwarfed by the emissions from these living things, including human beings. Emissions from human metabolism alone, assuming a world population of six billion people and an averaging of their state of activity, are estimated to be equivalent to approximately half of 1990 fossil fuel emissions. Add to these human sources the CO2 emissions from all other creatures on the planet, including plants which respire as well as photosynthesize, and the total amount of emissions from living things is staggering.

To forestall the forecasted calamities of global warming, there must be a reduction of “living things emissions” (LTE’s). This can be approached in two ways, by reducing the number of living things, through their humane or not so humane elimination, and by reducing the amount of respiration of each living thing, through enforceable limits on exertion. With regard to the first, we appear to be well on our way. The loss of habitat through development, deforestation, and agribusiness has contributed greatly to loss of life and species extinction. Warfare will continue to contribute significantly as well, along with genocide. Human and animal population control and sterilization further limit LTE’s. All of this is a good start, but just a start. It’s time to let go of our pets. The number of livestock on farms, which has swelled enormously, could be cut back substantially with the elimination of meat from our diet. We must also begin to give serious consideration to euthanizing expendable members of our family and community. With regard to worklife and lifestyle, we must work hard at not working hard, thereby lowering our metabolism, respiring less, and reducing our CO2 emissions. The impulse to exercise must be exorcised, along with fitness clubs, marathons, and organized sports. Caffeine, which speeds up metabolism, must be banned. The work ethic must be replaced by yoga and meditation. Only by minimizing all effort will we survive. If we are serious about reducing CO2 emissions, we must all do our part, as little as possible.

Questioning Climate Politics

2007-05-06T16:25:00.000-04:00

Denis Rancourt says the "global warming myth" is part of the problem

Dru Oja Jay of The Dominion interviews Denis Rancourt about his article Global Warming: Truth or Dare?

This interview, with introduction and comments, is posted HERE.
[The Dominion, April 2007 - Issue #44, p.14-15.]

An Inconvenient Truth Is Too Convenient

2007-05-06T16:12:00.000-04:00

Denis G. Rancourt
June 2006

[Edited version: Peace and Environment News (PEN), vol.21, no.6, July-August 2006, Insider, p.2.]

I recently saw Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. It was exactly what I expected, in every detail, like getting the Big Mac you expect when you go to Mac Donald’s. What I did not expect, however, is how the theatre filled and how everyone in the theatre seemed to swallow it down. That’s why I am writing this critique of what is an American mainstream film that serves the same political purpose as any Hollywood blockbuster – to neutralize political awareness and response.

Yes, the atmospheric trace gas CO2 has the highest concentration it has had in the last million years. Yes, this is due to fossil fuel burning. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Yes, there have been intense weather events in recent years and yes glaciers are melting.

Therefore, let us abstract away the greatest assault on the planet and its people in the history of humanity, namely finance-driven corporate devastation and exploitation backed by military might, and change our light bulbs to the energy saving kind!

Make no mistake. No change in superficial personal lifestyle choices or even voting Democrat instead of Republican or even sending post cards to your representative is going to noticeably slow down the beast. Do these things because they make you feel good but don’t be fooled that you are making a significant difference or even that you are acting morally.

It’s important to feel good by securing the necessities and by integrating a nurturing community (even a media-based one) but if you want to be worried about global problems start with global-scale exploitation of the third world and the crimes against humanity that our governments participates in, both at home and abroad. Start by looking beyond the agenda rags we call newspapers, Hollywood productions, and the planet as a religion.

Our moral responsibility extends far beyond checking out Al Gore’s web site, and has relatively little to do with lifestyle choices; including vegetarianism, fair trade purchases, renewable consumer choices, not owning a car, etc. Our responsibilities instead include getting informed (not only on the web but on the streets also), and demanding moral accountability of all those who should serve people (including the corporations and private banks).

To demand is to put yourself out there. To demand is to show what you stand for. To demand is to risk. We must risk as much as will make us as effective as possible in producing justice.

Economic, human, and animal justice brings economic sustainability which in turn is always based on renewable practices. Recognizing the basic rights of native people automatically moderates resource extraction and preserves natural habitats. Not permitting imperialist wars and interventions automatically quenches nation-scale exploitation. True democratic control over monetary policy goes a long way in removing debt-based extortion. Etc.

Concentrated power and capital are not about to give up their practices or their imperative for profit. Resistance to the insane return-on-investments hydra that inhabits our planet is our main responsibility if we are concerned about future generations. It’s time to declare bankruptcy and start again, in collaboration, without debt or interest.

One cannot control a monster by asking it not to shit as much. The monster is the problem, not the fact that it shits, no matter what colour the shit is.

In Al Gore’s masterpiece there is not a single questioning at the root. A sanitized problem of atmospheric chemistry is used to funnel attention into lifestyle choices or filling out feedback forms for the monster’s suggestion box.

The way to help people is to help people. And the first way to do that is to stop f&%king them over.

My burger made me sick.

Global Warming is Causing Extinction of the Political Species

2007-05-06T15:43:00.000-04:00

Denis G. Rancourt
February 2006

[Caucus, The Political Magazine of the Students, University of Ottawa, Vol.6, Issue 3, February-March 2006, page 10.]

A castrated animal looses its territorial and reproductive drives to become primarily concerned with its consumption. Environmentalism is being used to neutralize citizens that would normally be politically engaged in proportion to the magnitude of current problems. Mainstream treatment of global warming, from media reports to Discovery Channel documentaries to Canada’s Two Ton Challenge, and its measurable influence on public opinion and concerned citizen involvement are records of an effective program of indoctrination, away from direct challenges to concentrated and institutionalized power and towards personalized involvement that is in harmony with capital’s undemocratic control of the economy and resources.

Consciousness regarding environmental problems leads to a large array of reactions on a multidimensional continuum that includes at least two end points: To concentrate on one’s own consumer and lifestyle choices and to encourage others to do the same, to treat the problem from the perspective of individual psychology, or to act politically to remove the power structures and institutions that are the societal root of the problem. While it is true that ecological lifestyle choices and effective political commitment are not necessarily contrary, just as one can be a meat eater and a dedicated environmental activist or a vegan vegetarian enrolled in an MBA program, environmental consciousness can be and is manipulated away from any consequential attack on the status quo. The apolitical variety of environmental involvement is strongly encouraged by capital and its government shadow, via everything from foundation funding to media coverage to government programs to responsible corporate citizen endorsement, etc.

And let us be clear, the status quo is a world run by profit-driven investors and corporations, backed by military might, that are by far the main destructive forces on the planet. If we shed our privileged perspective for a moment and let go of the absurd notion that the greatest threat to humankind is global warming and associated climate changes, we might see the Empire and its satellites for what they are, we might see war crimes and exploitation on a scale that would perturb even a global circulation model theorist.

The best measure of these crimes is not anthropogenic CO2 emission. There are more graphic statistics than that. There are real and immediate regional and continental-scale environmental consequences that are best measured by their impacts on life, human life in particular since we inhabit every environment. These include: the effects of economic sanctions on national populations, declared and undeclared wars of occupation, US state-sponsored terrorism (most other terrorist networks pale in comparison), the effects of capital mobility (in both First and Third Worlds), the effects of First World financed corruption, the effects of capital exploitation via national debts, the effects of First World imposed economic structural adjustments, the effects of forced market, work-force, and resource access on the terms set by capital (i.e., so-called globalization), the consequences to native inhabitants of being in the unfortunate situation of living on resource-rich territories, the effects of television, mass media, and advertising on the human spirit and on family and community, etc. These translate into traditional environmental measures such as: depleted uranium pollution on regional scales (ugly stuff if you plan on having a family in the next thousand years), chemical industry accidents in populated areas, deforestation and associated water table losses, agri-business impacts on soil depletion, water pollution, food safety, habitat destruction, etc., ecological, biological, and societal consequences of human pharmaceutical use, etc.

Communities based on the quality of human connections, not serving corporate greed or manufactured dreams of wealth, fame, and immortality, and tied to the needs of others and their dependence on a shared environment, are sustainable and environmentally sound. The environmental movement itself is an expression of this vital human thrust but, as informed First Worlders, we cannot simply behave as though an ideal world of collaborating communities of sensitive individuals were possible under the present regime of madness. We need to force our governments and corporations to stop destroying the web of such communities that spontaneously wants to create itself. We have a responsibility to sustainably risk as much as we can in being as effective as possible in dismantling the power structures that will otherwise turn our planet into an illusion of heaven for few and a real hell for everybody.

The enemy is not individual stupidity or any human trait. The enemy is the very real network of exploitation and mind control that we have allowed to take root in our society. We must take it out, action by action, reaching deeper and deeper with every new tactic and strategy. We must be as conscious of our mental and political environments as we have become knowledgeable of atmospheric chemistry. Let us be environmental at home and political – far beyond voting and postcards to MPs – at work. Consider that we are at war. This is a war, literally. It is insane. It could destroy the planet. It’s time to be radical; to uproot the cancer of undemocratically controlled investment capital and to disallow capital and military invasions.

Radicals needed. Environmentalists go home.

Epilogue: I have received some rather harsh criticism for this piece. By "Environmentalists go home" I mean go to the source; the fact that environmentalism can be an expression of community building but is not activism in itself. I explain this in detail in Activism and Risk - Life beyond altruism. These writings are intended to jolt community builders into realizing the need for activism.

The Corporate Climate Coup

2007-05-06T15:07:00.000-04:00

David F. Noble
May 2007

This article reports the hidden side of the present media frenzy surrounding global warming: How large financiers and corporations have promoted and appropriated the warming movement...

This article was first published on Activist Teacher HERE.

It is a companion article to DGR's Global Warming: Truth or Dare?

Global Warming: Truth or Dare?

2007-05-06T14:06:00.000-04:00

Denis G. Rancourt
February 2007

This article is a broad radical analysis of the global warming social, media, and scientific phenomenon. It was first published on Activist Teacher HERE.

It was reviewed and critiqued in The Dominion HERE.

It inspired collaborator David Noble to research and write The Corporate Climate Coup.