CO2 Science - Why We Can Be Sure.

This post is an interesting sort of one way collaborative effort and I've posted it before, but its worth repeating. You see, over the years I've communicated with a number of scientists and grads.  Asking straight forward questions and often receiving informative replies.  I try not to over do my welcome, after all these are very busy people with more important things to do. Still, for this post I sent a grand shout out to a number of my correspondence pals and received more responses than I expected including some informative surprises for me. I have taken great liberty slicing and dicing their responses. Rewriting some, leaving other quotes untouched and giving all of it some order.

I mention this because I want to be clear the following List of "CO2 science dependent" modern marvels is not my own cleverness and I want to send out a big Thank You! to my informed anonymous heroes!  

Also see

Archive, Hanscom AFB Atmospheric Studies, 
Cambridge Research Lab

http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2016/02/archive-usaf-atmospheric-studies-afcrl.html

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EJOO3xAjTk

You've probably heard that carbon dioxide is warming the Earth. But how exactly is it doing it? Lieven Scheire uses a rainbow, a light bulb and a bit of quantum physics to describe the science behind global warming. 

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The increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 since preindustrial times is a given. Understand that the radiative physics of greenhouse gases are very well-understood.

Consider heat seeking missiles flying through different altitudes searching for a heat source who's signature is changing with altitude.  In order to program the computer, the programmer must know how to accurately compensate for the changing signature.  It requires a complete knowledge of the radiative properties of all the gases in the atmosphere, or all that hardware is for naught.

{Incidentally, there is not one contrarian "theory" or challenge to the physics that hasn't been looked at by informed individuals.  You'll find that contrarian errors, omissions, and falsifications have been clearly explained.  Don't believe me, check it out for yourself: 
 http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy

Continue for the list of CO2 dependent modern marvels:

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* Weather satellites that can image heat and moisture and wind's effects into comprehensible images.

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* Precipitable water. Contrast brightness temperatures measured via oxygen emissions and via H2O emissions to back calculate how much water is present.

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* Heat seeking air to air missiles, they would not function if those guidence computers didn't have a complete description of how heat moves through the atmosphere.

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*  Lasers wouldn't work if we had radiative physics wrong.
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* Early-Warning satellites.  How are they going to distinguish between a missile launch from lightning, over Siberia?  Better look at IR in DETAIL!   (There's much more)

The Non-Expert Problem - Why We Can Be Sure of CO2 Science.

A List of CO2 Science Dependent Modern Marvels proving climate scientists know what they are talking about.

Recently I got sucked back into my real passion, defending serious climate science against the cynical malicious lie dependent attacks it's been under for decades, by an odd exposition by Dilbert's Scott Adams aptly titled, "The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science."  Adams launches into a truly delusional attack on the validity of serious scientists and their work.  It wasn't a great surprise to find that Adams seems to be a Trump supporter, thus it explains his easy disconnect from objective evidence and facts when they doesn't suit his paranoid outlook. (repair edit 1219/16)

Besides writing my own review, "Profiles in Self-delusion - Dilbert's Scott Adams," I also participated in the discussion over there and was again amazed at how many people can in total seriousness claim that there's no valid evidence that CO2 causes our current global warming.

As one of the climate science non-experts, (although with pretty near 50 years of interest and active learning under my belt, I like to think I understand it better than your average bear), still how do I know that I haven't been lied to for the past fifty years?  How do I, a man who is incapable of comprehending their formulas or the details of their climate models, be so certain that what they are telling me is true?

Well it comes down to acknowledging reality.  On two levels, for one, having listened to easily over a hundred scientists giving talks about their work, I know that they are full-spectrum skeptics.  They put themselves under as sharp a microscope as they do others.  It is a huge active community of intelligent competing individuals always checking and cross checking each other's work.  It is the best humans are capable of, sure beats basing one's beliefs on personal Faith and then bending all facts to fit those personal beliefs.

The second level is the physical reality of being able to master one's numbers and understanding to practical purposes.  I believe it is tragic how many citizens don't have the first clue that our precise CO2 science was acquired by Air Force scientists, working independently from many countries, foremost USA, Australia, Russia and others.  Everyone came up with the same results - that ought to tell a skeptic something!

Of course, there is also the physical reality of what we are observing throughout our planet.

Even more telling is that fundamental understanding out of which all other Climate Science flows, has been transformed into an incredible number of modern marvels that would be utterly impossible if the scientists were bluffing it.  Here, let me show you with a reprint of something I put together a while back.

This post is an interesting sort of one way collaborative effort.  
You see, over the years I've communicated with a number of scientists and grads.  
Asking straight forward questions and often receiving informative replies.  I try not to over do my welcome, after all these are very busy people with more important things to do.

But for this post I sent out a grand shout to a number of my correspondence pals and received more responses than I expected including some informative surprises for me. 

I have taken great liberty slicing and dicing their responses. Rewriting some, leaving other quotes untouched and giving all of it some order.

I mention this because I want to be clear the following List of "CO2 science dependent" modern marvels is not my own cleverness and I want to send out a big Thank You! to my informed anonymous heroes!  

Also see: February 21, 2016

Archive, Hanscom AFB Atmospheric Studies, 
Cambridge Research Lab

http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2016/02/archive-usaf-atmospheric-studies-afcrl.html

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 since preindustrial times is a given. Understand that the radiative physics of greenhouse gases are very well-understood.

Consider heat seeking missiles flying through different altitudes searching for a heat source who's signature is changing with altitude.  In order to program the computer, the programmer must know how to accurately compensate for the changing signature.  It requires a complete knowledge of the radiative properties of all the gases in the atmosphere, or all that hardware is for naught.

{Incidentally, there is not one contrarian "theory" or challenge to the physics that hasn't been looked at by informed individuals.  You just have to poke around, you'll find that contrarian errors, omissions, and falsifications have been clearly explained.      
 http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy

The list:

Profiles in Self-delusion - Dilbert’s Scott Adams

The cartoonist responsible for the “Dilbert” strip has decided to expand his reach into writing on climate science.  His first endeavor is such an excellent example of the self delusional mind doing it’s best to rationalize and embrace an avoidance of fundamental reality that I’ve decide to make a case study of it.

Victor Venema at VariableVariablity.blogspot.com has already written an interesting fairly detailed rebuttal at “Scott Adams: The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science” and I recommend it because Victor, in keeping with his serious scientific sensibilities, offers Scott Adams’ the benefit of the doubt and takes the time to explain why Adams’ claims are misleading.

However, Scott Adams’ words convince me that his is nothing more than another cynical con game utilizing well worn tactics of strategic denial.  His exercise had nothing to do with an honest person trying to constructively explain his misgivings in an effort at better understanding. 

In this review I intent to focus on examining his disingenuous contrivances. 

First off please notice, rather than focusing on reviewing climate science fundamentals and known facts, Adams distracts with ‘slight of phrasing’ to draw the discussion away from where it needs to go, all the while striving to surreptitiously inoculate his audience with distrust and confusion at every turn.

The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science, by Scott Adams

December 5th, 2016 - tagged: #trump, #climate science

It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this

1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.