Topic: Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers. - page 45. (Read 636446 times)

In a simplistic world, I'd basically answer 'no'.  If it did, all smokers would get cancer and no non-smokers would.

Obviously tobacco use contributes to at least several kinds of cancer.  It increases the risk of said.

I call bullshit on the 2nd-hand smoke scam.  I simply don't see it being anything but a tiny fractional statistical increase except perhaps in unusual situations such as taverns.  I still agree with the basic no-smoking policies implemented as they are now (or at least as they were 10 years ago.)  The reason is simply that it is uncool to expose others to the smoke if they don't care for it.  No pseudo-science and no fraudulent statistics, or statistics that only work because people are ignorant necessary.

FWIW, I've been an avid tobacco user for about 30 years.  For the first 10 I smoked but it was clearly fucking up my lungs and was a hassle due to the no-smoking policies (for which I am actually kind of grateful.)  Now I chew tobacco almost constantly though nobody really can tell.  I would not be surprised if nicotine itself ended up being found to have certain positive effects.  I've read claims of such but they seem corner-case and/or unconvincing at present.  Of course I worry about increasing my risk of throat cancer, but I balance it against the enjoyment I get out of using the substance which is significant.

Here's one way you can look at the matter.  Suppose you pointed a sensor at the Earth from a considearable distance.  Your sensor looks at the Earth and gives you one number for albedo.  From that you can figure the entire energy budget of the planet.  Day and night.  

You could then acquire data on "global warming."  All you need to do is predict the change in the energy budget in 5, 10 or 15 years, take more measurements, and you have proved or disproved the theory of global warming.  More precisely, you have measured climate sensitivity.

The next best way to do this is with a polar orbiting satellite that takes temperature at altitudes above the Earth.

The absolute worst way to do this is with an old bunch of thermometers in various altitudes and locations, coupled with subsurface sea temperatures from water passing through ship engines, and so forth.

And there's no confusion on my part.  The companies taking money on the global warming gravy train are today's tobacco companies.  I encourage you to stick around this thread, as you can tell there are many things to learn.  There are many fields of science associated with the mismash loosely called "climate science."

Thank you for your serious and thoughtful reply.

I agree that there are concerns with ground based temperatures, but it isn't clear that systemic changing of the data couldn't happen with any measurement mechanism.  Regardless, the ground based temperatures are preferred.  What is not preferred are the various ways the data can be manipulated. That has more to do with the method of measurement than the data itself.  Spendalus is constantly confused over this.

It seems obvious that both are useful, but to unequivocally dismiss ground based temperature is clearly wrong. I've been reading other sources and they admit that there are times when temperature has decreased, but anyone who pulls a trend out of that is clearly cherry picking.

If you guys were older, I'd ask you if you believe tobacco causes cancer to form a baseline of opinions.

Here would be my answer:

Everyone knows that the earth is constantly changing in a variety of ways.

One hypothesis is that the earth is heating up and it is due to carbon dioxide produced by human use of fossil fuels.  Following from this conjecture is that every human should modify their behavior in a variety of ways, and one of the main ones is that they should give certain groups a lot of money.

One of the ways to test the AGW hypothesis is to validate it with data gathered in an environment where there are potentially fewer aggravating factors.  If the theory is valid then it follows that we should see a variety of predicted artifacts in a variety of areas.  If we do see them, it strengthens the theory.  If we do not, it weakens the theory or completely blows it out of the water.  Science is tough, and it works only if there is complete honesty.

While we can agree there are problems with surface based temperatures, you have given no actual reasoning why temperatures far up in the atmosphere are preferred.


Here is the question.

Why is it preferable to measure the temperature far up in the atmosphere versus the surface when attempting to demonstrate whether global warming is a legimate concern or not?

Seriously, if I was to approach arguing in the same way as yourself, I'd ask you a dozen barely relevant questions to further confuse the issue.  Then of course you won't respond, and I'd say you don't understand and blah blah. It is silly but I don't expect any better from you by this point.

You don't have any tough questions.  You have confused statements in unscientific language which don't make sense.  Pointing out how they don't make sense, or how the terms are used completely wrongly is really about I have done with you.  You haven't had much in the way of questions at all.

Actually that was the first thing I explained to you.  Lapse rate.  Now go back and learn how it answers your question.  If it still doesn't make sense look at partial pressures of gases, and equilibrium conditions.

You also apparently did not understand my initial criticism of the application of an averaging of temperature to a system with multiple states of matter flowing between states.  Gas <--->  Liquid <---> Solid.

If you can't keep up with the class, go back a grade or two.  We're about at a freshman or sophomore level here in a meteorology class.

I will say good job on the references etc.  You are increasing my own level of knowledge.

You think the temperature far up in the atmosphere where the temperature only impacts things indirectly is more important than the temperature of where we actually live.  Okey dokey. Tell me what part of that is wrong or you can not understand and I will go into further detail.

I love how you never answer any tough question.  If you can deflect with some tidbit of information, you're all over it and act like that settles everything.  If you can't find a tidbit, then it is silence!

Well, you'll just have to explain those "various reasons." 

"Spectral absorption is different" 

Really?  Between where and where?  How does that support your idea that Ground is Good?  Not consistent throughout the atmosphere?  How so?

All you need to do now is find spectral transmission and absorption charts for specific atmospheric levels which shouldn't be hard.  I guess if you have trouble let me know.  But your basic premise is refuted by Warmers themselves.  Like many a fervent religous believer, you don't know your own Creed.  See the below article for an explanation. 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/

Over at the Climate Dialogue website we start with what could become a very interesting discussion about the so-called tropical hot spot. Climate models show amplified warming high in the tropical troposphere due to greenhouse forcing. However data from satellites and weather balloons don’t show much amplification. What to make of this? Have the models been ‘falsified’ as critics say or are the errors in the data so large that we cannot conclude much at all? And does it matter if there is no hot spot?

The (missing) tropical hot spot is one of the long-standing controversies in climate science. In 2008 two papers were published, one by a few scientists critical of the IPCC view (Douglass, Christy, Pearson and Singer) and one by Ben Santer and sixteen other scientists. We have participants from both papers. John Christy is the ‘representative’ from the first paper and Steven Sherwood and Carl Mears are ‘representatives’ of the second paper.

What?   My argument has been refuted?  I'm telling you that taking temperatures at the surface is much preferred over doing it in the atmosphere for all sorts of various reasons.  One reason being that the spectral absorption is different and the effect is not consistent throughout the atmosphere.  There are many things to consider and I can at least appreciate the complexity of it.


It is absurd to think that temperatures up in the atmosphere should be preferred. I understand why you do it.  The data supports your view, but thats not how real and proper scientists go about things.

It is fascinating how you play stupid when what I have typed is not hard to understand.  You type up paragraph long responses where you can't even figure out the basics of formatting codes.  The result is a complete mess of multiple posts running together.

One thing you are always good at is ducking questions and coming up with strawmen.

edit - I never said anything about ice receding and measuring temperatures.  I just realized that the temperature conversation isn't going anywhere because you can't actually reply to what people say, so I was curious how you respond to empirical evidence. 

Basically you just fall back on the 'it makes no sense to me', then you just choose whatever fits your mentally ill based world model. Usually while going into more detail over things that have no bearing as if that proves anything.

This is another fundamental chart.  Over which "deniers" and "Devout believers" can have a field day arguing one or another of the little arrows.

In my view both this and prior chart show exactly what I was trying to explain to DWMA.  That "global warming" to whatever extent it exists or does not exist, is an atmospheric, not a "surface" phenomena.

First, "transmitted" means "allowed to pass through the volume of air which is the atmosphere."

That is not a chart of the spectrum the sun emits.

Second, CO2 in the atmosphere will absorb first, because in the stratosphere and above, there is no water vapor or very little, but there is the partial pressure of CO2.  But the amount of CO2 is very small, and the amount of water vapor very large.  So it is correct to say that it would have been absorbed anyway, except for the one spike that CO2 has that water vapor does not have.

The fact that this is a chart of what occurs "in the volume of air" is the very point which refutes the argument by dwma:

rays hitting the earth and being absorbed at a constant rate per CO2 when in reality the radiation shifts in frequency and the "spectral lines" change. This added complexity explains why you want temperatures on the ground.

However, the chart is misleading by presenting "incoming" and "outgoing" on the same chart, the first one.  They are not discrete phenomena.



FOR THE ACTUAL SOLAR RADIATION

Halfway down this page is an excellent illustration.

http://www.naturalfrequency.com/wiki/solar-radiation

You misread the charts.  But stick around, they are useful and good charts.

FWIW, if you look at that chart...

You can plainly see, that the sun is barely even emitting light at the frequencies in the middle of the spectrum (top portion labelled spectral intensity)
Even where there is no spike to absorb the rays, they are non-existent because the sun is not producing photons of that frequency

The only absorption spike that CO2 has, which is not covered by the vastly more abundant water vapor... is in this range... where there is nothing to absorb because nothing is being emitted from the sun at those frequencies


This alone is enough to debunk the hypothesis that CO2 is causing global warming

You are welcome to try to do a better job of understanding what this guy is trying to say and commenting on it. 

In your previous argument your whole line of reasoning seemed to be based on the rays hitting the earth and being absorbed at a constant rate per CO2 when in reality the radiation shifts in frequency and the "spectral lines" change. This added complexity explains why you want temperatures on the ground.

No, CO2 doesn't absorb the sun light since most of the sun's radiation is visible light and near IR, not thermal IR.
Ozone and water vapor are absorbing a little bit.

I'm not sure if you are serious about not understanding what I said. You are better at describing these things, and you have obviously studied the subject more. I said nothing wrong, just somewhat different terminology which I have to make up on the spot. Further explaining what I said is not really doing anything I couldn't have also done, but holy moly don't kill yourself with your own back-patting.

In your previous argument your whole line of reasoning seemed to be based on the rays hitting the earth and being absorbed at a constant rate per CO2 when in reality the radiation shifts in frequency and the "spectral lines" change. This added complexity explains why you want temperatures on the ground. Now in order to correct me, you seem to understand it far better. Whatever. Your goal seems to be win the argument via being moronically and selectively pedantic.

There is no argument why satellite based temperatures are preferred except that they remove individual biases of stations and should allow a finer granularity of data. Having it come from one source is not inherently different than coming from thousands of sources. The issue obviously doesn't have a clear solution, yet you go with satellite temperatures because the data agrees with you. As much as you appeal to science, your own seems quite lacking. You do give a good place to look into criticisms.

There are large areas of ice that seem to be receding at a higher than normal rate. Enough that it seems quite exceptional to not believe global warming has and is ongoing. Perhaps there are biases here in play, but whats your answer for that ? 

[/quote]Yes, I am guessing at what you mean.  So clearly I could get your intent wrong.  However, you don't understand the physics.  See bolded above.

"rays hit the earth"

No, first they hit the atmosphere.  Various spectral lines are absorbed by water vapor, co2, and other molecules.  Probably zero of the energy in those spectral lines ever touches the actual ground, because they are used up pretty high up in the air.  Maybe the exception is at the Poles when conditions are such that there is no water vapor in the air.

Thus, the effect of "global warming" should be seen easily in the air, and that has been a prediction of global warming theory.  Essentially the air heats up and the ground heats up from that, not the ground heats and then the air.

2nd bolded.   Yes, it is different as I explained in my first post on this subject.  No need to repeat or revise that.



There are large areas of ice that seem to be receding at a higher than normal rate. Enough that it seems quite exceptional to not believe global warming has and is ongoing. Perhaps there are biases here in play, but whats your answer for that ? 

First, you can't say "Ice is exceeding and that means the ground temperature network is better."  That's ridiculous.  A discussion about sensors, accuracy and resolution stands alone.  One might say "Hmm...that's curious.  Ice is receding but the more accurate temperature sensors does not show a drop in temperature...)  That's a valid point for discussion.

What I would likely do to investigate that would be to first take the satellite data for the polar region and examine it.  I don't know offhand if it shows local and regional changes in temperature, could be that it does.  (Example - not saying this is accurate, just for discussion.  N Pole +2C, S Pole -2C.  Net change, 0)

I'm not sure if you are serious about not understanding what I said. You are better at describing these things, and you have obviously studied the subject more. I said nothing wrong, just somewhat different terminology which I have to make up on the spot. Further explaining what I said is not really doing anything I couldn't have also done, but holy moly don't kill yourself with your own back-patting.

In your previous argument your whole line of reasoning seemed to be based on the rays hitting the earth and being absorbed at a constant rate per CO2 when in reality the radiation shifts in frequency and the "spectral lines" change. This added complexity explains why you want temperatures on the ground. Now in order to correct me, you seem to understand it far better. Whatever. Your goal seems to be win the argument via being moronically and selectively pedantic.

There is no argument why satellite based temperatures are preferred except that they remove individual biases of stations and should allow a finer granularity of data. Having it come from one source is not inherently different than coming from thousands of sources. The issue obviously doesn't have a clear solution, yet you go with satellite temperatures because the data agrees with you. As much as you appeal to science, your own seems quite lacking. You do give a good place to look into criticisms.

There are large areas of ice that seem to be receding at a higher than normal rate. Enough that it seems quite exceptional to not believe global warming has and is ongoing. Perhaps there are biases here in play, but whats your answer for that ?