The Greenhouse and Beyond - Part 3: Summary of Sabine's Story


Posted On: Tuesday - March 14th 2023 10:17PM MST
In Topics: 
  Global Climate Stupidity  Science

(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)

Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, from article about "the beauty of math":



(As Mr. Kief has informed us (twice), her contention is that modern physicists - the last 40 years worth - want the math to be nice and complete, making the physics "beautiful", holding up new physics theories.)


In that very long Part 2 post, I don't think I summarized my views on the story of the real Greenhouse Effect per Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder and her take on the Climate Calamity™ very well. Here goes:

I don't pretend to know about the details of radiation heat transfer within, from, and to, the layers of Earth's atmosphere. I don't pretend to know EVERYTHING that would be involved in a model of the climate of the Earth. However, I know enough about radiation heat transfer to know that Dr. Hossenfeld did not include a number of details needed to explain her point to me. These one could have been explained simply, as, yes, she did say at the end that things are much more complicated than what she explained in the 5 minutes of "the PdD version" of the explanation of the real Greenhouse Effect.

In my post, I probably went too much into "shape factors", with not much obvious reason. My point was to note that everything is radiating to and/or absorbing radiation from, everything it "sees". That means these layer of the atmosphere, though, granted, they are nice clean hollow spheres, radiate to each other and through each other. There's a LOT to it, and I am doubtful Dr. Hossenfelder knows that complicated picture.

Even so, let me assume that this science popularizer is absolutely right about everything in the video*. It's a heat balance of the Earth, right? Ein - Eout + Egen = Eacc. Oops, what's the "gen" one? Oh, yeah, the Earth still has stuff going on in the core. Radioactive decay goes on there, and then that big molten ball has a lot of energy to release. If the latter is not counted as "generated", it's yet another part of the model, or should be.

There's that whole Troposphere at the bottom, the very bottom portion being where we live. Weather and climate happen there. "Sure, OK", one might say, "but that doesn't effect this large scale radiative heat balance." Yes, though, there are plenty of effects of the climate down here on this heat balance. Clouds have a different albedo (reflectivity) than land surfaces, for example, and what is their effect on outbound radiation transferred from the surface?

The biggest point against Dr. Hossenfelder's or anyone's alarmism is their assumption the this Greenhouse Effect alone is all that is changing or can change the climate of the Earth. In the Troposphere, all kinds of convection and transfer heat involving freezing/melting, evaporating/condensing water is going on. Nobody can predict the next El Nino or La Nina, and not the biggest Climate Calamity™ we'll ever see, barring the sun going Supernova, which is the Ice Ages. The interglacial periods are shorter than each Ice Age. Yikes! Shouldn't we first learn the causes of them to know all about those effects before we even start worrying if we should stop "emitting" CO2 or perhaps burn down the forests to help stave off the next one?

To summarize the video and what I now think of Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder:

1) She's not very good at explaining things, at least as taken from what I viewed here.

2) That she just now learned and tried to explain the REAL Greenhouse Effect theory and did a poor job of it doesn't give me confidence that she is worth listening to on subjects other than her field of Astrophysics.

3) She has an agenda on the Climate Calamity™ with the usual oversight of the bigger picture.


* That'd be the theory at least, because that data on Stratospheric cooling did not really show what she said it did.

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[UPDATED 03/16:]
Added picture and caption.
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Comments:
Moderator
Friday - March 17th 2023 5:59AM MST
PS: Thanks for the comment and further info., Dieter.

I suppose if Dr. Hossenfelder discussed all the caveats first:

1) The video would be long, and she'd lose her intended audience, the ones who like all that suspense "and what if I told you...?"

2) No, she would not have as good a case for even the more exacting and correct explanations being something "we should care about, for the sake of our very lives." (Not her wording, just saying, that seems to be what they intend."

It's obvious to me, even without being any kind of Climatologist (only taken one grad-level Climatology class and a Weather class, if I remember right), that there's much more than the Greenhouse effect going into a model of changes in the climate. It's even worse if these Greenhouse effect models are lacking ...
Dieter Kief
Friday - March 17th 2023 12:53AM MST
PS
PS
Thx. Mod. for head-first diving into this stuff so thoroughly and courageously!

Yep, she sees that the matter is complex, but she fails to give the whole picture. Maybe that is her main mistake here: To try to achieve the full picture with too little caveats. She would have had the chance to make a much clearer video, if she had worked through the caveats first and then just said what - humbly enough - can be saqid with confidence at this point in time.


II
There's a quite knowledgeable Russian gas-expert (he has written a dozen or so books on this subject, which are internationally well received).
This man says that the processes within the atmosphere and clouds just don't work the way climate science assumes (= that they are wrong with regard to CO2 as the main driving factor behind climate change). His name is Boris M. Smirnov - half a dozen or so of his books about gases etc. are sold on Amazon, not least and appear in the best publishing houses. Adam Smith has made a nice list once for the PS Book club, and I hope these lists are all not forlorn, once you'd rework the software of your blog, but easier to be found- under an own knob, even, maybe: PS Bookish!?

Here is Smirnov's paper google:
Collision and radiative processes in emission of atmospheric carbon dioxide (casf.me)

Then there is Steve Koonin, a physicist born in NYC, who worked for the Obama administration and BP etc.. His book: Unsettled. Main thesis: The CO-2 hypothesis is not settled scientifically as of now.

Last but not least:another Swiss outsider,chemist Thomas Allmendinger, who argues a lot like Boris Smirnov does:

‘Greenhouse Gas Effect Does Not Exist,’ a Swiss Physicist Challenges Global Warming Climate Orthodoxy | Climate Depot
The Alarmist
Thursday - March 16th 2023 7:32AM MST
PS

Big Foam We’re #1 Finger for the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea !

Moderator
Thursday - March 16th 2023 5:58AM MST
PS: Right you are, M! I guess, by "People", they don't mean the same people that people usually mean by saying "people".
M
Thursday - March 16th 2023 5:49AM MST
PS
If a country's name has "People's", "Popular", "Democratic" or "Republic" in it, you may be sure that it is not democratic, it is not a republic and it certainly is not good for the people.

Bonus points for more than one in the name.
Moderator
Thursday - March 16th 2023 5:44AM MST
PS: SafeNow, I had not idea that Roger Ebert had been reviewing movies for that long. (And, trying to review music, as you say.) I don't know how someone could not like the great tunes, at least "Mrs. Robinson" anyway.

They got the guy driving across the Bay Bridge backwards (wrong deck for the direction). My favorite scene was the future Mr. Roper, still landlord in that tenement hall in Berzerkely, telling Dustin Hoffman that "I don't want any of those agitators." Fuckin' A!
Moderator
Thursday - March 16th 2023 5:40AM MST
PS: Mercader, I remember the name GDR for East Germany. It gets confusing. Taiwan was (still is?) the "Republic of China" while the mainland is the "People's Republic of China". This country sure was in better shape back when the little toys had "Made in R.O.C." written on the bottom, but there was nothing out of the mainland.

"Power and control is always the issue whether it is feminism/suffrage, civil rights, climate, you name it." Agreed. Thanks for the comment.

Mr. Alert, I remember when that occurred. It was a pretty humorous story at the time. That's a good one, Alarmist!
SafeNow
Thursday - March 16th 2023 3:41AM MST
PS

“doesn't give me confidence that she is worth listening to on subjects other than her field of Astrophysics”

Agreed. Roger Ebert, in his original review of “The Graduate,” referred to “the forgettable music of Simon and Garfunkel.” (He later cheerfully admitted “I was wrong.”) Ebert had tried to be a music critic. I suppose we could call this phenomenon the “Roger Ebert‘ as music critic” principle.”
Now, all of us here are free to give our two cents worth on anything, and it’s fun. But when one iis a prominent authority, with a gigantic following, there is a special responsibility to stick to your specialty.

The Alarmist
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 2:19PM MST
PS

A number of us in the USAF at that time jokingly referred to the Cessna 172 as the only proven Soviet air defense penetrator.
Off Topic Alert
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 1:31PM MST
PS Just read about Mathias Rust who boldly piloted a single engine prop plane right into Red Square in 1987 shortly before the egalitarian workers utopia collapsed.
Is that why CCP/PRC/PLA sent the low cost balloons?
Internal quisling traitor global soviet fellow travelers must be loving the humiliation of the Afghanistan premature evacuation, Jo Jo Brandon Circus Circus, stymied Wunderwaffens in the 404, planned bank and dollar wipeouts, disunity not seen since 1860.
How they hate the former USA and will never rest until it is a smoking crater of socialist ruin.
Viva Ramon Mercader
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 12:38PM MST
PS She needs a sporty NKVD Lite youth outfit like that B&W photo comradette Merkel from the former East Germany which called itself the German Democratic Republic. (honk!)
Power and control is always the issue whether it is feminism/suffrage, civil rights, climate, you name it.
Comrade lefty is like that peaceful religion who considers it a right to lie and deceive until the final end is achieved.
MBlanc46
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 11:02AM MST
PS I don’t know that it’s required that a physics popularizer jump on the climate alarmism bandwagon. I’m not even sure that she gets extra points for doing so. Therefore, I’d make a small wager that she has bought into it. But, one thing is certain, if she opposed climate alarmism, she’d be defenestrated. And she knows it.
Moderator
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 5:21AM MST
PS: I believe that too, Alarmist. This lady has to know some math and science, but I can see that what she knows does not make her an expert in this field. Her agenda pushes her, though. Or is it more that she knows going along with this alarmism is a must-do if one is to become a modern science popularizer?
The Alarmist
Wednesday - March 15th 2023 1:13AM MST
PS

I’m sticking with my assessment that CO2 worry-warts are talking out of their posteriors.
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