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Stephen
Your lawyer's tactics should not fool anyone who has a brain. Instead of engaging in a discussion, to defend statements that you have made in your own article, which I have shown, cannot be correct, you try to switch the subject by linking to a graph that is irrelevant to the discussion.
The central thesis of your article "The Flaw in the Anthropogenic Warming Theory" is twaddle. You claim that a mm thin layer cannot possibly absorb IR radiation from the atmosphere.

In post 24, above, I point out that if this thin layer were insulated from the ocean below, as you claim, and was not absorbing radiation from above, this skin, which emits an energy flux of 390W/M2, would freeze, while the air above and the ocean below were still warm.

In addition,detailed measurements, show a difference in temperature, between the thin skin absorbing the IR radiation, from the atmosphere and emitting radiation from the top surface of the ocean and the ocean layer 5 cm below the surface. This temperature difference reduced when the down welling radiation was enhanced by clouds. This temperature difference drives heat conduction between the ocean below and the mm skin on the surface that absorbs and emits the long wave radiation.

In addition, if what you say is true, the ocean could not lose heat by evaporation because this happens in a skin on the ocean 1 molecule thick. If heat loss occurred from this layer, and this heat could not be resupplied by the bulk of the ocean, this layer would also freeze.

This argument is originally due to Fred Singer, and has been laughed at by climate scientists and yet you repeat it here long after it has been shown ridiculous.

Some graphs of the last 7 years looking at a short term trend line, that have a declining best fit straight line do not show anything regarding the ridiculous argument you have given. They are thrown up as a diversion, because you are embarrassed at not being able to answer my argument.

Regardless of what you may believe, Physicists do not believe that the Stefan Boltzmann law of radiation has been repealed as proposed by US Senator James Inhofe, during the Republican Party's control of the US congress.

After you attempt to defend your thesis that the millimeter of ocean cannot absorb down-welling radiation, I would like to get on with a discussion of some of the other false ideas that you put forward. There are so many, but we should do this one point at a time, without distractions.


Comment edited by eadler2 on Friday August 08, 2008 at 1:27 PM BST

You claim that a mm thin layer cannot possibly absorb IR radiation from the atmosphere.

No I didn't. I said it would either be mixed with the body of the ocean so that there would be no significant obstructing effect on the upward heat flow or the extra warmth added to it would increase the ocean atmosphere differential and increase the rate of heat loss to the level it would have been anyway and even if there were still extra warmth in the lower atmosphere or the ocean skin then it could be adequately dealt with by the negative feedback processes involved in the evaporation/condensation process combined with global weather systems.

I gave five seperate problems for the Realclimate theory.

I have no knowledge of the Singer idea and had not heard of it until your post referred to it.

In addition, if what you say is true, the ocean could not lose heat by evaporation because this happens in a skin on the ocean 1 molecule thick. If heat loss occurred from this layer, and this heat could not be resupplied by the bulk of the ocean, this layer would also freeze.

Since I did not say it this assertion by you is not applicable. My article clearly states that evaporation does cool the ocean surface and that is another reason why the Realclimate theory probably does not work. Evaporation will increase as a result of any human caused extra downwelling long wave radiation and may well cancel any increased warming of the ocean skin by cooling it and so encouraging more heat to come up from below to replace the heat lost to the atmosphere, just as you say.

I am undecided as to whether your failure to understand is genuine or a strategy to confuse readers.

It does not help your case that you move so readily to abuse.

Comment edited by Stephen Wilde on Friday August 08, 2008 at 2:59 PM BST

Stephen,
You said,
"I said it would either be mixed with the body of the ocean so that there would be no significant obstructing effect on the upward heat flow or the extra warmth added to it would increase the ocean atmosphere differential and increase the rate of heat loss to the level it would have been anyway and even if there were still extra warmth in the lower atmosphere or the ocean skin then it could be adequately dealt with by the negative feedback processes involved in the evaporation/condensation process combined with global weather systems."

This statement is nonsense.
If the IR absorbed in the skin layer is "mixed with the body of the ocean" than the heat absorbed by the skin layer is indeed absorbed by the body of the ocean, as the climate scientists say.

The second half of your statement is also nonsense.
The extra warmth added to the skin layer will suppress the upward flow of heat added by the suns light to the lower depths. Heat flows from higher to lower temperatures. This traps more heat in the ocean than otherwise would be the case if there were no down-welling.

The heat flow back and forth from the atmosphere to the ocean is a continous process. The Stefan Boltzmann equations govern the radiation process. The difference between the upward and downward process determines the net flow of heat from the surface to the atmosphere. If the ocean is in equilibrium, it loses the heat it gains from the down-welling radiation of the atmosphere and the light from the sun by radiating IR upward from its skin, and evaporation from the skin layer. Since the all the heat is steadily being lost from the skin and some of the heat must come from the lower depths of the ocean heated by the sun, the skin temperature must be lower than the layer below the skin so that heat can be supplied by conduction and convection. Heat flows from higher to lower temperatures (unless the second law of thermodynamics was repealed by the action of James Inhofe's committee during the Republican control of the US congress).
The temperature measurements made by scientists in response to the nonsense uttered by Fred Singer show the fundamental laws of
Physics have not been repealed.

The flow of heat does not follow the wishes of Fred Singer and the other GW deniers it follows the equations of physics. The heat added by the atmosphere and the sun to the oceans can be and has been measured by instruments. Despite these measurements and the laws of physics you claim that the heat absorbed by the skin layer from the atmosphere makes no difference and must be eventually lost anyway. This makes no sense.

The motion of the top surface of the ocean does not stop the process of radiation and absorption. The emissions come from the motion of the atoms in the water and air, and the radiation travels at light speed. This is mentioned just to stir up the waters and create turbulence which distracts from examination of the fundamental processes of radiation and absorption that are governing the flow of heat.

I have no knowledge of the Singer idea and had not heard of it until your post referred to it.

Singer is credited with the idea in the RealClimate web page that you must have read and were attempting to refute.

Comment edited by eadler2 on Friday August 08, 2008 at 5:09 PM BST

What I said was that your claim that the thin skin layer cannot effectively exchange heat with the bulk of the ocean and cannot absorb heat from the atmosphere would result in freezing of the ocean's surface as a result of evaporation. I apparently misinterpreted the claim you were making about why such a thin skin could not be exchanging heat with the atmosphere and bulk of the ocean.

The Climate models do include evaporation from the oceans as part of the heat transmitted upward to the environment. You use the words "may well cancel". So you don't really have any data that it actually does cancel. You would need that to say that in order to claim that the climate scientists who claim AGW are wrong.
[url]http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/radiationbalance.htm[url]

In making that argument you neglect to mention that a 1 Deg C rise in the temperature means there is 6.5% more water vapor in the atmosphere to increase the greenhouse effect which helps to warm the earth's surface. The measured water vapor in the atmosphere and the concentration predicted by the models agree.

I will concede that the models underestimate rainfall, and this indicates, they may underestimate the heat transmitted to the atmosphere out of the oceans by evaporation. I am surprised that the following presentation which points this out doesn't mention this possibility.
[url]http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR/meetings2007/wentz_pversuse.pdf[/url]

It is reasonable to say that the models could be overpredicting global warming because of this, but the modelers give an uncertainty to their projections because they know that the models have some problems.


Comment edited by eadler2 on Friday August 08, 2008 at 9:17 PM BST

It is reasonable to say that the models could be overpredicting global warming because of this, but the modelers give an uncertainty to their projections because they know that the models have some problems

Thank you for that. A very sensible comment.

I'd go a little further and say that the entire evaporation/condensation, cloudiness. windiness and precipitation aspects are inadequately quantified in all the models and all the idealised schematics.

Additionally there is no quantified multi decadal variability for the oceans in the models and the sun has incorrectly been discounted for reasons which I have criticised many times.

You can thrash about with your confused narratives and misunderstandings as to what I say all you like, I really cannot be bothered.

The real world is not doing what the models expect. It is doing what my scenario suggests it should do. If it stops doing what my scenario predicts then of course you will have been shown to be right in broad terms if not in detail.

One should start with observations and create a hypothesis that fits. I have done so. It then needs to be tested against real world events. That will happen over time.

You and your 'friends' have started with a computer model which is grossly incomplete and now seem desperate as it swings daily further from reality.

All the stuff in your posts which you regard as 'science' is merely speculation which is becoming less likely to be true day by day.

And if Singer's stuff is referred to by Realclimate I didn't spot it and didn't read it.My points are entirely different to his anyway,in fact I'm not sure what his point is or was. In any event I would not trust Realclimate to assess Singer's work impartially.

You do realise Realclimate is essentially a 'fast rebuttal' site don't you ?

Readers who support it's opinion seem to be given instruction on what to say and 'the line to take' for every situation.Just like helping politicians to skate over inconvenient truths. Science does not seem to be it's main concern in my opinion You don't need any knowledge of your own and you can go to sites like this to criticise and confuse based on half understood unproven top of the head theories which you then present as the truth.

If the IR absorbed in the skin layer is "mixed with the body of the ocean" than the heat absorbed by the skin layer is indeed absorbed by the body of the ocean, as the climate scientists say

The heat, if any, absorbed by the skin layer and thereafter mixed with the body of the ocean will then increase the temperature differential between the ocean and atmosphere so that the heat loss process accelerates to maintain equilibrium.It cannot slow down overall heat loss. To do so the numbers would be so large that life on Earth would be dead from the heat well before the oceans lost a significant part of their cooling capacity.

Does the air in a sauna heat up the pool ? Of course not. As the pool takes heat from the hot air it hardly gets warmer at all and one has to keep putting more heat into the air to keep it hot. AGW is never going to be a strong enough effect to overcome that problem.The atmosphere doesn't even have walls to keep the heat in. It just flows out to space as necessary. AGW truly is a miniscule phenomenon easily dealt with by the planet's normal negative feedback processes such as evaporation.

If you hold a hot hair dryer and blow it onto water it will not heat the water significantly because the flow of hot air will speed up the evaporation process which keeps the water from heating up.

I've already told you that more water vapour in the air is not a temperature driver because the weather processes accelerate as a negative feedback process to shift the heat stored in the vapour to the higher levels then out to space as radiative energy. The system is dominated by negative feedbacks and not by positive feedbacks hence the impossibility of AGW theory.

And if you disagree it's no good quoting a failing theory, you have to show that the normal laws of physics can be overcome.You have to do the science if you want to be believed. I do not have to disprove every dozy speculation that you present.


You really are making it all up as you go along.

Comment edited by Stephen Wilde on Friday August 08, 2008 at 7:11 PM BST

Comment edited by Stephen Wilde on Friday August 08, 2008 at 7:15 PM BST

There is a point I should clarify.

I have said that more water vapour in the air is not a temperature driver because weather processes operating via evaporation and condensation quickly remove any extra heat.

I have also said previously that natural warming and cooling of the Earth has resulted in increases and decreases in the strength of the greenhouse effect because of the subsequent naturally induced changes in water vapour content.

I do not see those statements as inconsistent because the weather processes and the evaporation/condensation cycle would appear to be a strong and fast enough negative feedback to neutralise increased heating from the atmospheric greenhouse effect whether it be caused by human CO2 or water vapour.

Consider also that the oceans support those processes in tending towards an equilibrium because water will cool warm air and warm cool air thereby operating as an additional negative feedback in both situations.

The evidence for that is that historically (in the absence of ice age size changes) the Earth has always been relatively stable in terms of temperature. Even large disruption from substantial volcanic outbreaks settles down after a while.

So, weather systems plus evaporation/condensation will neutralise all atmospheric greenhouse changes we could ever realistically expect and even in the event of failure the oceans would adjust global temperatures for millennia afterwards.

That is why AGW theory can only work if somehow the extra CO2 from human sources can on it's own and despite all the weather related negative feedbacks raise the temperature of the main body of the ocean significantly so as to disrupt both the weather related and ocean related negative feedbacks.

Now if someone could concentrate on that perhaps we could start a new forum thread on the point as previously suggested by our moderator.

I see that issue as the only one that could conceivably cause me to review my article.

Stephen,

And if Singer's stuff is referred to by Realclimate I didn't spot it and didn't read it.My points are entirely different to his anyway,in fact I'm not sure what his point is or was. In any event I would not trust Realclimate to assess Singer's work impartially.

You do realise Realclimate is essentially a 'fast rebuttal' site don't you ?

Readers who support it's opinion seem to be given instruction on what to say and 'the line to take' for every situation.Just like helping politicians to skate over inconvenient truths. Science does not seem to be it's main concern in my opinion You don't need any knowledge of your own and you can go to sites like this to criticise and confuse based on half understood unproven top of the head theories which you then present as the truth.

Singer is merely a GW denier. He doesn't do any research at all.
The people at Real Climate are working scientists, who provide interpretation and explanation of their work as a public service.
It is well referenced, scientifically based, and many of the participants in the comments are climate scientists.
The GW denier web sites put up a lot of red herrings and need to be responded to with solid information.

You are the person with unproven top of your head theories. I provide references and have a good understanding of the physics of climate as a result of my educational background.

If you had read the site, you would know that scientists who participate in realclimate arranged an experimental test which proved his theory was wrong. It is indeed the same twaddle about the surface skin not being able to accept the energy from the radiational down welling, which is total nonsense. Whether you know it or not, he is the orginator of this nonsense. I am sure that you didn't think of it yourself.

Stephen,

eadler2:

---

If the IR absorbed in the skin layer is "mixed with the body of the ocean" than the heat absorbed by the skin layer is indeed absorbed by the body of the ocean, as the climate scientists say.

Stephen Wilde:

---

The heat, if any, absorbed by the skin layer and thereafter mixed with the body of the ocean will then increase the temperature differential between the ocean and atmosphere so that the heat loss process accelerates to maintain equilibrium.It cannot slow down overall heat loss. To do so the numbers would be so large that life on Earth would be dead from the heat well before the oceans lost a significant part of their cooling capacity.

That is a laugh. The atmosphere is radiating toward the surface of the water, which is absorbing the heat, and all of this has been calculated and measured by physicists. Please explain by some calculation or link to some scientific paper, how you come up with your assertion that life on earth would be dead from the heat etc.? It is bizarre that you have the temerity to claim that I am making things up as I go along.

Does the air in a sauna heat up the pool ? Of course not. As the pool takes heat from the hot air it hardly gets warmer at all and one has to keep putting more heat into the air to keep it hot. AGW is never going to be a strong enough effect to overcome that problem.The atmosphere doesn't even have walls to keep the heat in. It just flows out to space as necessary. AGW truly is a miniscule phenomenon easily dealt with by the planet's normal negative feedback processes such as evaporation.

You are the one who is making up this last narrative. It is a joke. The air does not heat a sauna. A boiler is used to heat the water. This takes place over a relatively short period of time, because of the amount of fuel and boiler size are sufficient to heat the small amount of water. The sauna is a red herring that has no bearing on the physics of what heats the oceans.

Using this analogy makes it clear that you have no idea about the
physics of the transfer of long wave radiation through the atmosphere. It takes Kilometers of atmospheric height to absorb and re-emit the radiation that travels through it. The absorbed radiation is re-emitted equally in all directions. 1/2 of the emission is directed upward toward space, 1/2 downward toward the earth. No solid walls are needed to redirect this energy back towards the earths surface. The radiation doesn't simply go directly into space as you claim. All of this has been explained to you and I recall that you have even parroted the information back in one of your articles.
But when you are pressed to support your statements with science you simply make it up as you go along.

If you hold a hot hair dryer and blow it onto water it will not heat the water significantly because the flow of hot air will speed up the evaporation process which keeps the water from heating up.

Another red herring. It will heat the water some. The hair dryer is heating the water by contact, and the air blowing over it is very hot and dry, so will tend to pick up moisture. It is not the
same as radiational heating by a huge column of atmosphere. This is a slower process and the temperature differential between the atmosphere and the water is less.

You are making a huge logical error with all of these arguments.
You are putting up analogies to climate using everyday situations and claiming they are proof of something about the ocean and atmosphere. Analogies can only been used after calculations have shown that the phenomena in both cases have the same basic primary mechanisms that are working. You have no support for these analogies, and they are twaddle.

I've already told you that more water vapour in the air is not a temperature driver because the weather processes accelerate as a negative feedback process to shift the heat stored in the vapour to the higher levels then out to space as radiative energy. The system is dominated by negative feedbacks and not by positive feedbacks hence the impossibility of AGW theory.

And yet scientists beginning with Tyndall in 1859 have said that the earth owes its warm temperature to the trace greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - H2O vapor, CO2 and CH4. The temperature increase due to these is 33C after the cooling effect of clouds is accounterd for. So these trace gases are stronger heating elements than cloud are as cooling elements. Of course all these scientists beginning with Tyndall were just making it up as they went along. (Sarcasm intended here.)

And if you disagree it's no good quoting a failing theory, you have to show that the normal laws of physics can be overcome.You have to do the science if you want to be believed. I do not have to disprove every dozy speculation that you present.

You really are making it all up as you go along.

I don't usually do this but I will simply say

LOL .

Comment edited by eadler2 on Friday August 08, 2008 at 10:14 PM BST

There is a point I should clarify.

Only one point???

I have said that more water vapour in the air is not a temperature driver because weather processes operating via evaporation and condensation quickly remove any extra heat.

This is a mistake. While the water vapor is in the air as vapor it has a warming effect as a greenhouse gas component. If evaporation takes place it will remove some heat. If you have some real data that shows that evaporation removes more energy on average than the 325-350W/M2 that are radiated downward by the atmosphere, much of it due to water vapor, please cite some scientific reference. The reference I have cited above shows the average energy loss from the earth's surface via evaporation is 78W/M2. In my number system 78 is less than 325.

I have also said previously that natural warming and cooling of the Earth has resulted in increases and decreases in the strength of the greenhouse effect because of the subsequent naturally induced changes in water vapour content.

The temperature has also fluctuated due to changes in CO2 content.

I do not see those statements as inconsistent because the weather processes and the evaporation/condensation cycle would appear to be a strong and fast enough negative feedback to neutralise increased heating from the atmospheric greenhouse effect whether it be caused by human CO2 or water vapour.

Never mind, I have shown that one of your statements has to be wrong. The greenhouse effect has overcome the evaporation and condensation cycle sufficiently to heat the earth by 33C above what it would be if it were not operating.

Consider also that the oceans support those processes in tending towards an equilibrium because water will cool warm air and warm cool air thereby operating as an additional negative feedback in both situations.

The evidence for that is that historically (in the absence of ice age size changes) the Earth has always been relatively stable in terms of temperature. Even large disruption from substantial volcanic outbreaks settles down after a while.

So, weather systems plus evaporation/condensation will neutralise all atmospheric greenhouse changes we could ever realistically expect and even in the event of failure the oceans would adjust global temperatures for millennia afterwards.

That is why AGW theory can only work if somehow the extra CO2 from human sources can on it's own and despite all the weather related negative feedbacks raise the temperature of the main body of the ocean significantly so as to disrupt both the weather related and ocean related negative feedbacks.
I see that issue as the only one that could conceivably cause me to review my article.

You are making all this up as you go along, and have no scientific references calculations or graphs to back you.

Now if someone could concentrate on that perhaps we could start a new forum thread on the point as previously suggested by our moderator.

If you look on the forum, and if you had read my initial comment in this comments section, you will see that I initiated such a thread but no one bothered to use it.





Comment edited by eadler2 on Friday August 08, 2008 at 10:38 PM BST

Eadler2:
There is a fatal flaw in all your posts, i.e. that of unpleasantness. As a result, whilst I read all of Stephen's thought-provoking theory, to which he is fully entitled to propose and adhere to, I read very little of what you wrote, owing to the degree of invective contained therein. Thankfully, that's a common fault of most pro-AGW writers and turns off most readers. No surprise that no one bothered to use your thread.

However, I did notice something in one of your posts, in which you stated as follows:

"You are the one who is making up this last narrative. It is a joke. The air does not heat a sauna. A boiler is used to heat the water. This takes place over a relatively short period of time, because of the amount of fuel and boiler size are sufficient to heat the small amount of water. The sauna is a red herring that has no bearing on the physics of what heats the oceans."

If you've ever been in an genuine Finnish sauna (and I have), you would know that the boiler is used to heat air, not water. Small amounts of water (usually dispensed from ladles) are then poured on to the hot metal of the boiler. The water then quickly evaporates and the increased humidity causes the occupants' bodies to sweat, thus providing the perceived health benefits. The point that Stephen was making, as I understand it, is that if there is a plunge pool within the sauna, the increased air temperature of the sauna would not significantly increase the temperature of the pool. By contrast, if the plunge pool had a refrigeration plant attached and the water was just above freezing, the boiler would have to work darned hard to make the sauna "work" as the cold water would have a significant cooling effect on the sauna's ambient air temperature.

Your statement was the joke. The basic physics of air temperature and water apply equally to a sauna and the atmosphere, albeit on vastly differing scales.

nickbat,
I obviously was not familiar with the sort of sauna Stephen was referring to, and thought he was talking about some kind of hot tub.

From your description, the sauna has a heating element in it.
This heating element is hot enough to flash evaporate water that is poured on it. So there is a heating element in the room heating the room and the people by long wave radiation. This is the same manner in which the atmosphere heats the ocean and the human body in the outdoors.

The water poured on the heating element is not the primary thing that causes the human body to sweat in this situation. The heat radiated by the boiler does that. The humidity in air causes the sweat to remain on the surface of the body, preventing the evaporation of the sweat which would otherwise cool the body. This will enhance the amount of sweat which is secreted. This is all irrelevant to the analogy.

The plunge pool will not be heated significantly as a result of contact with the air by thermal conduction. There is not sufficient water vapor and CO2 in the small amount of air in the room to produce a significant amount of thermal radiation from the air. One requires a huge column of air, which has sufficient water vapor and CO2 in the outside atmosphere to do that.

The radiation from the ceiling will heat the plunge pool water, and the walls somewhat, and the heating element will also but only if its surfaces are placed facing in direct line of sight of the water in the pool. The rate of heating will be dependent on the wall temperature, emissivity, the pool temperature etc. One can do a calculation using the Stefan Boltzmann equation.

The problem with heating a pool this way is that the surface of the water will get hotter than the bulk. The transmission of heat to the bulk is limited by heat conduction because convection is not available to carry the heated surface water into the bulk.
If you stirred the surface of the water with a fan you might get a slightly better result. Since this is a quantitative question, the only way to determine the result, and whether what Stephen says is correct is a quantitative experiment. Let the water in the pool be heated by the room and measure the temperature change and temperature profile at the surface. You also have to allow that the walls of the pool could heat the water by conduction.

In the real situation of interest, the ocean and air, the surface skin on the ocean is actually cooler than the bulk immediately below it. This makes a significant difference in the effect of the down-welling radiation from the atmosphere above on the heat flowing from the warmer ocean below.
The atmospheric radiation down-welling radiation flux is generally smaller than the upward radiation coming from the water itself, and in addition the surface can be cooled by evaporation if conditions are right. In this way the down-welling radiation is effective at reducing the rate of cooling by radiation allowing the bulk of the ocean to hold its heat a longer time by heating the surface skin. Convection currents near the surface of the ocean can bring warmer water up to the surface, and this could raise the skin temperature instantaneously, but the skin is so thin that radiational cooling will quickly lower the temperature. The measurements reported by the RealClimate web site showed how the the amount of skin temperature lowering was dependent on the net upward radiation from the skin.

So the idea of the plunge pool not being heated by the air in the room, if that is what Stephen's idea is, is not an appropriate analogy for 2 reasons.

1) The height of the air above the water is insufficient to provide any radiational heating from the air. The heat is supplied by the ceiling and other solid objects in the room.

2)In the sauna the pool skin temperature is higher than the bulk
because the ceiling is actually heating the pool. In the ocean,
the radiation from the atmosphere is reducing the outflow of energy from the ocean rather than directly raising its temperature. The ocean is being heated from below in the daytime, by the sun's visual band radiation.

Analogies are not a good way to learn science. Appeal to simple analogies can be misused to promote a mental laziness and give one a false sense of security, thinking that one understands something when one does not really understand it.

If I appear impolite, it is out of frustration with the lack of clarity, quantitative analysis and absence of references that I expect of scientific writing, and the failure to stay on the point of the discussion.

If you prefer Wilde's style, and if you don't read or follow what I have to say, I am sorry that I have lost your attention. You are losing an opportunity to gain insight into these questions probably because I have taken you out of your comfort zone.

Comment edited by eadler2 on Saturday August 09, 2008 at 6:49 AM BST

ALL COMMENTS by IKRNDU have been removed on this article, your welcome to use your OWN comments,

Thank you co2sceptic, I can only say I reposted part of what lkrndu wrote because I heartily agree with the points therein. For anyone lately reading this thread, it will seem absurd now that lkrndu's posts are gone, for a newbie to read some of the posts by Wilde that refer to statements from lkrndu, in fact makes Wilde appear the fool. Perhpas you can adjust in some way to avoid that.

I responded to Wilde's remarks as quoted here because to me that's at the heart of his non-credibility.

All that amounts to is a demand that I provide proof of everything I say.
I am not accountable to you and you have no right to demand anything of me.

I've posted at length responding to this on the Hockey Stick forum thread. It just seems to me that anyone who publishes a theory or hypothesis also has an obligation to respond to critique, and to realize his responsibility for providing all supporting data, and a clear explanation of his analytic method.

For my money, Wilde's articles fail in all three: the hypothesis he holds is not clearly stated; no data is provided; and the explanation of how he reaches his conclusions is so confusing that I for one can't follow it.

Of course I'm not a real doctor, I only have a Masters Degree, so there!

I'm going to make a second post which, although I shall quote closely from one by lkrndu, nevertheless speaks very much from my own heart on this matter.

I can see that Wilde really wants to assemble a personal theory of how the complex atmospheric system works, and how it is influenced or influences global warming. His articles are filled with inconsistencies, inclusions of partial concepts taken from their limiting contexts, and his striving to undermine the positions of others.

For all of that, he does not clearly state his own hypothesis.

I'm all for challenging and questioning any theory. Wilde says at one point that 'it's only a theory', but that's not nearly enough! Where are his data, his observations? How do they connect to the theory he's so keen to disavow? His articles 'stay schtumm' on these points. So is Darwin's hypothesis on evolution 'only a theory' but there are good reasons for its acceptance and value as jumping-off point for further inquiry. We find many shortcomings to the climate models we have, but there IS consensus about many elements and above all about the big picture. Just as with evolution the 'theory' IS accepted in biology, we are finding in climate science both inconsistencies we hadn't previously recognized - and new pieces of the puzzle confirming nicely how we climatologists - and Darwin - have been on the right track.

If Wilde is sincere that he welcomes criticism and seeks to improve his exposition of these things, perhaps this can be useful. He doesn't have to agree with me or his other critics on the conclusion, but when he rejects these inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and so on as they are brought to his attention, he's not much help to his own cause.

For those who are curious about the sea surface skin layer, here is a more detailed description of the its interaction with the ocean and dynamics.


Eader2 Link for GSFC.NASA

Comment edited by Co2sceptic on Saturday August 09, 2008 at 2:28 PM BST