No Plan B for Planet A by Paul Driessen

Replacing fossil fuels with “renewable” energy would devastate the only planet we’ve got

Environmentalists and Green New Deal [GND] proponents like to say we must take care of the Earth, because “There is no Planet B.” Above all, they insist, we must eliminate fossil fuels, which they say are causing climate change worse than the all-natural ice ages, Medieval Warm Period or anything else in history.

Their Plan A is simple: No fossil fuels. Keep them in the ground. More than a few Democrat presidential aspirants have said they would begin implementing that diktat their very first day in the White House.

Their Plan B is more complex: Replace fossil fuels with wind, solar, biofuel and battery power – their supposedly renewable, sustainable alternatives to oil, gas and coal. Apparently by waving a magic wand.

We don’t have a Planet B. And they don’t really have a Plan B. They just assume and expect that this monumental transformation will simply happen. Wind, solar, battery and biofuel technologies represent the natural evolution toward previously unimaginable energy sources – and they will become more efficient over time. Trust us, they say.

Ask them for details, and their responses range from evasive to delusional, disingenuous – and outrage that you would dare ask. The truth is, they don’t have a clue. They’ve never really thought about it. It’s never occurred to them that these technologies require raw materials that have to be dug out of the ground, which means mining, which they vigorously oppose (except by dictators in faraway countries).

They’re lawyers, lawmakers, enforcers. But most have never been in a mine, oilfield or factory, probably not even on a farm. They think dinner comes from a grocery store, electricity from a wall socket, and they can just pass laws requiring that the new energy materialize as needed. And it will happen Presto!

It’s similar to the way they handle climate change. Their models, reports and headlines bear little or no resemblance to the real world outside our windows – on temperatures, hurricanes, tornadoes, sea levels, crops or polar bears. But the crisis is real, the science is settled, and anyone who disagrees is a denier.

So for the moment, Let’s not challenge their climate or fossil fuel ideologies. Let’s just ask: How exactly are you going to make this happen? How will you ensure that your Plan A won’t destroy our economy, jobs and living standards? And your Plan B won’t devastate the only planet we’ve got? I’ll say it again:

(1) Abundant, reliable, affordable, mostly fossil fuel energy is the lifeblood of our modern, prosperous, functioning, safe, healthy, fully employed America. Upend that, and you upend people’s lives, destroy their jobs, send their living standards on a downward spiral.

(2) Wind and sunshine may be renewable, sustainable and eco-friendly. But the lands, habitats, wildlife, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, transmission lines, raw materials, mines and laborers required or impacted to harness this intermittent, weather-dependent energy to benefit humanity absolutely are not.

(3) The supposed cure they say we must adopt is far worse than the climate disease they claim we have.

Using wind power to replace the 3.9 billion megawatt-hours that Americans consumed in 2018, coal and gas-fired backup power plants, natural gas for home heating, coal and gas for factories, and gasoline for vehicles – while generating enough extra electricity every windy day to charge batteries for just seven straight windless days – would require some 14 million 1.8-MW wind turbines.

Those turbines would sprawl across three-fourths of the Lower 48 US states – and require 15 billion tons of steel, concrete and other raw materials. They would wipe out eagles, hawks, bats and other species.

Go offshore instead, and we’d need a couple million truly monstrous 10-MW turbines, standing in water 20-100 feet deep or on huge platforms in deeper water, up and down our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Not as many of the beasts, but each one a lot bigger – requiring vastly more materials per turbine.

A Category 4 hurricane going up the Atlantic seaboard would wipe out a lot of them – leaving much of the country without power for months or years, until wrecks got removed and new turbines installed.

Using solar to generate just the 3.9 billion MWh would require completely blanketing an area the size of New Jersey with sunbeam-tracking Nellis Air Force Base panels – if the Sun were shining at high-noon summertime Arizona intensity 24/7/365. (That doesn’t include the extra power demands listed for wind.)

Solar uses toxic chemicals during manufacturing and in the panels: lead, cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide, cadmium gallium (di)selenide and many others. They could leach out into soils and waters during thunderstorms, hail storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and when panels are dismantled and hauled off to landfills or recycling centers. Recycling panels and wind turbines presents major challenges.

Using batteries to back up sufficient power to supply U.S. electricity needs for just seven straight windless days would require more than 1 billion half-ton Tesla-style batteries. That means still more raw materials, hazardous chemicals and toxic metals.

Bringing electricity from those facilities, and connecting a nationwide GND grid, would require thousands of miles of new transmission lines – onshore and underwater – and even more raw materials.

Providing those materials would result in the biggest expansion in mining the United States and world have ever seen: removing hundreds of billions of tons of overburden, and processing tens of billions of tons of ore – mostly using fossil fuels. Where we get those materials is also a major problem.

If we continue to ban mining under modern laws and regulations here in America, those materials will continue to be extracted in places like Inner Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, largely under Chinese control – under labor, wage, health, safety, environmental and reclamation standards that no Western nation tolerates today. There’ll be serious pollution, toxics, habitat losses and dead wildlife.

Even worse, just to mine cobalt for today’s cell phone, computer, Tesla and other battery requirements, over 40,000 Congolese children and their parents work at slave wages, risk cave-ins, and get covered constantly in toxic and radioactive mud , dust, water and air. Many die. The mine sites in Congo and Mongolia have become vast toxic wastelands. The ore processing facilities are just as horrific.

Meeting GND demands would multiply these horrors many times over. Will Green New Dealers require that all these metals and minerals be responsibly and sustainably sourced, at fair wages, with no child labor – as they do for T-shirts and coffee? Will they now permit exploration and mining in the USA?

Meeting basic ecological and human rights standards would send GND energy prices soaring. It would multiply cell phone, laptop, Tesla and GND costs five times over. But how long can Green New Dealers remain clueless and indifferent about these abuses?

Up to now, this has all been out of sight, out of mind, in someone else’s backyard, in some squalid far-off country, with other people and their kids doing the dirty, dangerous work of providing essential raw materials. That lets AOC, Senator Warren, Al Gore, Michael Mann, Greenpeace and other “climate crisis-renewable energy” profiteers preen about climate justice, sustainability and saving Planet Earth.

They refuse to discuss the bogus hockey stick temperature graph; the ways Mann & Co. manipulated and hid data, and deleted incriminating emails; their inability to separate human influences from the powerful natural forces that have caused climate changes throughout history; or the absurd notion that the 0.01% of Earth’s atmosphere that is carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use over the past 50 years is somehow responsible for every extreme weather event today. But they won’t be able to ignore this fraud forever.

Meanwhile, we sure are going to be discussing the massive resource demands, ecological harm and human rights abuses that the climate alarm industry would impose in the name of protecting the Earth and stabilizing its perpetually unstable climate. We won’t let them dodge those issues in 2020.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate, environmental and human rights issues.

My Comments:

I cannot fathom the degree to which the proponents of catastrophic man-made global warming are willing to ignore the many and colossal failures of the predictions of their hypothesis and its clear violations of basic physics.  Ignoring reality is itself immoral, but in the name of their failed theory, they are overtly prepared to cause irreparable damage to the welfare of mankind and the welfare of the Earth's many other animals.

They want the power to pursue the GND or similar harmful policies so badly they are willing to absolutely contradict the motives they have often claimed make their environmental and economic policies moral.  The harm to humans will fall most heavily on those who have lower incomes.  They will be most likely to lose their jobs in the extraction, transportation, power, manufacturing, and construction industries.  The harm of the GND will cause an increase in economic inequality.

I do not believe that income equality is a moral goal, but I do believe that it is immoral for government to pursue policies that are particularly harmful to any of its citizens, most certainly including those with lower incomes.  Everyone deserves the exercise of their right to pursue the earning of a living.  Governments should not be constantly erecting barriers to the efforts of the people to be productive.

Those who are willing to ignore the reality of physics and the scientific method are also willing to ignore every rational moral principle.  We see that very clearly in the policies of those who insist upon using force justified by a demonstrated false hypothesis to do horrible damage to the people and other animals of this Earth.

Why I Don't "Believe" in "Science" by Robert Tracinski

I recommend this excellent article by Robert Tracinski.  Here is a brief quote from it, but please read his entire article:

Some people may use “I believe in science” as vague shorthand for confidence in the ability of the scientific method to achieve valid results, or maybe for the view that the universe is governed by natural laws which are discoverable through observation and reasoning.

But the way most people use it today—especially in a political context—is pretty much the opposite. They use it as a way of declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand.

And Robert also says:

The problem is the word “belief.” Science isn’t about “belief.” It’s about facts, evidence, theories, experiments. You don’t say, “I believe in thermodynamics.” You understand its laws and the evidence for them, or you don’t. “Belief” doesn’t really enter into it.

So as a proper formulation, saying “I understand science” would be a start. “I understand the science on this issue” would be better. That implies that you have engaged in a first-hand study of the specific scientific questions involved in, say, global warming, which would give you the basis to support a conclusion. If you don’t understand the basis for your conclusion and instead have to accept it as a “belief,” then you don’t really know it, and you certainly are in no position to lecture others about how they must believe it, too.

I have long maintained that most of the people who claim they believe in catastrophic man-made global warming and a scientific consensus that it is a proven theory, do not have a coherent understanding of the science or the economics to rationally support their beliefs.

For instance, those scientists said to constitute the consensus cannot even agree on the scientific basis for the claims themselves.  Those who create the climate computer models produce results which are highly divergent from one another and also highly divergent from reality.

There is a very good reason for this.  They do not understand the physics of the atmosphere and thermal radiation.  Their ideas are commonly in error and the very principles of physics they say they believe in are not consistently applied.  The resultant theories produced by those scientists who even try to put forth a theory have an incredible number of combinations of errors.

Given the bias toward catastrophic man-made global warming, any output that concludes there is significant warming due to carbon dioxide or other man-made infrared-active gases is said to support the consensus.  Garbage in -- dogma out.  There is no scientific consensus at all.

Is There a Climate Science Consensus?

Is there any level on which a climate consensus can be said to exist?  Only at the most obvious level, which is that everyone agrees that the climate changes.  The realists know that the climate has always changed, drastically over millions of years of alternating Ice Ages and Warm Periods and within a narrower range over the warm last 12,000 years, with such periods as the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warming, the Medieval Warm Period, and the present warm period.  The catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists claim that the climate was very stable prior to the Industrial Age, which just happens to have had its start at the end of the Little Ice Age according to the Climate Realists.  But, since man became powerful and plentiful as a result of the Industrial Age, the alarmists say that climate change now occurs mostly due to man, specifically due to his emissions of some infra-red active gases, primarily carbon dioxide.

Obama and legions of those who argue that mankind faces its greatest challenge in trying to prevent the catastrophe of man-made or anthropogenic global warming, like to claim that 97% of scientists agree with them.  This claim is based on a completely bogus survey of published papers, with papers simply stating that there may be some human influence on climate being counted as part of a scientific consensus.

It is not noted that almost all climate research or other research with any implications about the climate at all is funded by governments, almost all of which will not fund research that is unfavorable to the thesis that man has warmed the planet badly since the start of the Industrial Age.  If you are a scientist and you want further government funding for your research, you are likely to be rewarded if you find some way in which your results support the government-favored thesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.  If your results are contrary to that thesis, it will be fatal to further funding support to take note of that.  You had best put another interpretation on your results.

One of the most interesting observations is that retirement brings on a major change of viewpoint for many scientists.  Those who supported the alarmist claims before retirement often oppose it afterwards. Those who were silent on the subject often come out against the alarmist thesis after retirement.  This applies to many scientists who are not climate scientists, but are experts in radiation such as infra-red, visible light, and ultra-violet light radiation.  Just like climate scientists, it is harmful to their careers if they speak out against the so-called consensus the governments have tried so hard to create.  NASA, Navy, Air Force, Army, EPA, NOAA, Department of Energy with its 17 energy research laboratories, Department of the Interior, Agriculture Department, and university researchers in the sciences in the USA are all given good reason to be fearful about their careers if they speak up against the alarmist crusade.  The government has worked ruthlessly hard to try to produce a "scientific consensus", but has massively violated both foundational epistemologic principles and the scientific method in the process.  Both depend critically on a commitment to reason, independent thinking, and on freedom of speech and press.  The tendency of all but the most legitimate and principled of governments to wish to limit independent thinking and the free trade in ideas is one of the great dangers of putting the government in charge of basic research funding.

Most of the scientists said to be supporters of the catastrophic man-made global warming thesis can not provide a decent explanation of the physics which is supposed to cause the emission of the so-called greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to cause a catastrophic level of warming.  They should most definitely not be counted as scientists who are the basis for a scientific consensus, despite that fact that some of them may have an unscientific belief in that alarmist thesis. What would a true scientific consensus be?  It would consist of those scientists who had a coherent, carefully laid out and reasonably complete single theory of how man's emissions of infra-red active molecules such as carbon dioxide and methane caused such a large warming of the globe that a catastrophe for mankind must certainly occur.  Those holding the scientific viewpoint could all articulate this theory and explain how it agreed with observations of reality and how it could make predictions of the climate's characteristics of the future.  They would agree on all of these things.  This is what a scientific consensus would be.

Most of those who attempt an explanation today will initially try it by using an argument similar to that used in the IPCC reports from 2001 through 2014. This explanation of the science is based on a viewpoint provided in the following Earth energy budget:

Fig. 1. Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget for the Earth of 1997.  This represents a common viewpoint of the physics that is used to justify the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis.  It is apparently the settled science. It will be demonstrated to be very wrongheaded.  I have added the percentage power flux values with 342 W/m² equal to 100% and approximately equal to one-quarter of the solar power incident upon the Earth most directly facing the Sun.  More recent energy budgets have slightly different numbers, but the viewpoint is the same and the claim of a scientific consensus has not changed.

The IPCC reports claim that solar radiation absorbed at the surface of the Earth causes the Earth's surface to emit about 2.3 times as much energy in the form of infra-red radiation as it absorbed from the sun.  This seems plausible to them because they believe that a body will emit infra-red radiation at the bottom of the atmosphere and with water all over the surface just as the body would if it were isolated in space.  This is not the case.  Infra-red radiation is emitted from oscillating dipoles and they cannot emit all of their energy in the form of radiation when those same oscillating dipoles are dumping energy into the evaporation of water and losing energy via collisions with air molecules.

But having started off by neglecting the conservation of energy, the IPCC has to balance out the flow of energies, so they posit a huge back-radiation flow of energy from the so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  Let us take note of what the 324 W/m² of back-radiation implies.  A black body radiator emitting this power would be at a temperature T, such that

P = 324 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) T⁴,

implying that T = 274.95K.  This is the temperature of the air in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere of just barely more than 2000 meters.  The altitude would be higher in the tropics.  A back-radiation of this magnitude implies a long mean free path at the bottom of the atmosphere where there is usually much water vapor.

However, we can also examine the implied mean free path of the infra-red radiation emitted from the surface and absorbed by the atmosphere.  The power difference between the surface emission and the atmospheric absorption (390 - 350) W/m² = 40 W/m² has the property that 

P = 40 W/m² = σ [ (288K)⁴ -  T⁴ ] = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) [ (288K)⁴ - T⁴ ],

where T is the effective temperature of the atmosphere where the surface radiation emission is absorbed by the atmosphere.  This temperature is 280.3K, which is not equal to the 274.95K temperature of the atmosphere that radiates back to the surface as back-radiation according to the UN IPCC report physics.  The implied effective altitude of the surface radiation absorption in the atmosphere is much shorter in this case than that for the 2000 meters altitude from which the atmosphere radiates the surface in the UN IPCC energy budget.  The energy spectrum from the higher temperature Earth surface has more higher energy infra-red radiation in it than does that emitted by the cooler atmosphere, so the mean free path of surface radiation should be greater, not less.

This inconsistency in the infra-red absorption lengths implies that the numbers in the UN IPCC Earth energy budget are simply made up to balance the flow of energy in and out of the Earth's surface, without concern even for a consistent physical theory.  This is exactly what would happen if the 390 W/m² of surface emitted infra-red radiation were too large, as it is due to conservation of energy.

Examining Fig.1., one sees that 40 W/m² of radiation from the surface is emitted through the atmospheric window directly into space without absorption in the atmosphere.  Thus, of the total of about 235 W/m² of infra-red radiation that the Earth emits into space, about 195 W/m² is emitted from the atmosphere.  This is also the sum of the emission from the clouds and the atmosphere in the diagram.  We can calculate the effective temperature of this emission and from that find the effective altitude from which the emission from the atmosphere into space occurs.  We have

P = 195 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) (T)<sup>4

and we find that T = 242K.  In the U.S. Standard Atmosphere Tables of 1976, this temperature is at an altitude just above 7000 meters.  It is a higher altitude in the tropics.

Now if the mean free path for water emitted and absorbed radiation where water is very prevalent in the bottom 2000 meters of the atmosphere is as great as is implied by Fig. 1, then one should expect that the emission of atmospheric radiation into space would occur from about the same altitude that water freezes into ice. There is much less water vapor above that altitude than below it.  Everyone agrees that the vast majority of infra-red radiation into space is from water vapor.  In the U.S. Standard atmosphere tables, the altitude at which water freezes is a bit below 3000 meters, which is much lower than 7000 meters.  There is a contradiction here in this IPCC theory of how the so-called greenhouse gases work.</sup>

The very large back-radiation does not happen for several reasons.

1)  It violates electric field theory by claiming that photons flow from a weaker field region up the electric field strength gradient.

2)  The infra-red active molecules are not black-body radiators or absorbers.  They are only able to absorb and emit radiation at wavelengths representing only a minority portion of the wavelength range of a black-body radiator.

3)  It fails because the mean free paths of the infra-red radiation that can be absorbed or emitted by water vapor and carbon dioxide are very short.  That means that these molecules absorb the infra-red energy they can absorb and emit over a very short distance.  While the mean free path length for wavelengths that water can absorb depends upon the humidity, this length is commonly less than 200 meters.  For carbon dioxide in a water vapor-free atmosphere at present concentrations, this distance in the lower atmosphere is only a few times greater than that for water vapor.  When water vapor is present, because most of the wavelengths at which carbon dioxide is active are also absorbed by water vapor, the effective mean free path length for carbon dioxide emitted infra-red radiation is much shorter than that due to only having the same concentration of carbon dioxide in a water vapor free atmosphere. In the lower half of the troposphere, the likelihood that the absorbed radiation in a greenhouse gas molecule will be re-emitted before it is transferred to non-radiating molecules in the infra-red range is very small.  There is just too high a collision rate between molecules, so that radiation energy absorbed in a so-called greenhouse gas is almost immediately changed into molecular kinetic energy in non-radiating molecules.  That energy is then very predominantly transported by the relatively slow mechanism of convection.

Thus, there is no way that the atmosphere as a whole can radiate a large quantity of infra-red radiation back to the Earth's surface in accordance with the IPCC viewpoint.  The supposed back-radiation in the energy budget above is 1.93 times the solar radiation energy absorbed by the surface! This back-radiation under the equilibrium conditions with a linearly decreasing temperature gradient with altitude cannot occur.  There are conditions when the atmosphere is warmer than the surface and then there is some radiation from the atmosphere to the surface, but the amount of such radiation is still severely restricted by the short mean free path of radiation from the main so-called greenhouse gas, water vapor and that of the very secondary carbon dioxide.

In reality, the Earth's surface is a very dense array of oscillating electric dipoles which create a comparatively strong electric field.  Upon entering the atmosphere, only a small fraction of the molecules are sufficiently strong oscillating electric dipoles to absorb or emit infra-red radiation. These are water vapor and carbon dioxide for the most part.  Consequently, the electric field in the lowest atmosphere virtually in contact with the surface has a rapidly decreasing strength and it then further slowly decreases as the density of water vapor and carbon dioxide decreases with altitude in the lower troposphere.  The strength of the electric field then decreases more rapidly as water vapor freezes at altitudes above its freezing temperature.   Above that altitude it continues to decrease at a slower rate as carbon dioxide continues to become less dense along with the main atmospheric gases of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon.  The actual emission of infra-red radiation follows the electric field from its stronger regions to its weaker regions, which means that infra-red photon emission is strongly biased in the upward direction.

The basic problem that greenhouse gas theory is trying to address is the fact that the surface temperature of the Earth is about 288K, while the effective radiative temperature with respect to space of the entire Earth including both surface and atmosphere is about 255K.  Much of the radiation of infra-red into space is from altitudes in the atmosphere which are considerably cooler than the surface temperature, though some of the radiation is from the surface through the atmospheric window.  Note that the temperature difference between 255K and 288K is 33K, which is attributed by the greenhouse gas hypothesis to warming of the Earth by greenhouse gases.  The viewpoint is one which is entirely dominated by a belief that by far the only significant transport of energy in the entire atmosphere is by means of radiation.


In fact, the transport of energy away from the surface of the Earth is dominated by the sum of the energy transport by water evaporation and condensation at altitude and by convection currents. As noted above, the transport by radiation in the lower troposphere is small, except for that transmitted through the atmospheric window and not absorbed by the atmosphere.  Transport by radiation that can be absorbed by infra-red active gases is so small due to the short mean free path for the absorption of radiation from water vapor molecules predominantly and very secondarily from carbon dioxide combined with the very high collision rate of air molecules. Infra-red active molecules radiate energy which is very quickly converted into kinetic energy in non-radiating nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and in argon atoms. Most of the air molecules can only transport heat energy by convection.

According to Fig. 1. above, the sun provides the Earth's surface with 168 W/m² of absorbed energy power. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the relationship between the power density of the emitting surface and the temperature of the surface, one can calculate the highest temperature the Earth's surface can attain from such solar radiative warming, when ignoring non-radiative cooling mechanisms:

P = 168 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) T⁴, 

solving which we find that T = 233.3 K, which is nearly 55K cooler than our actual 288K surface temperature.  

The fact that this maximum solar radiative surface heating temperature is so low informs us that the surface temperature is not entirely due to the absorbed radiation from the sun.  168 W/m² cannot produce a surface with a temperature of 288K. There has to be another major contributor to that high temperature. Of course, the greenhouse gas hypothesis advocates say this is due to a large back radiation of energy from the atmosphere, which is not so because photons do not flow up the electric field gradient and because their mean free path lengths are too short.

Now if we had no infra-red active gases in our atmosphere, we would have no water vapor and hence no clouds.  So 77 W/m² would not be reflected from the clouds back into space, as seen in Fig.1.  In addition, most of the 67 W/m² of incident solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere would not be absorbed if there were no water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so being conservative, let us estimate that about 35 W/m² additional solar radiation would be absorbed by the Earth's surface due to having a much less absorbing atmosphere.  The total solar power absorbed by the Earth's surface is then about 280 W/m² .   In this case, the maximum surface temperature can be calculated from: 

P = 280 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) (T)⁴

^{and T = 265.1K, which is a 31.8K higher temperature than the maximum temperature of 233.3K with infra-red active gases absent another warming mechanism than the present solar insolation at the surface.  Thus, one concludes that the presence of the so-called greenhouse gases in our atmosphere causes the Earth's surface temperature to be almost 32K cooler than it otherwise would be.  Using such a radiation dominant model used, the Earth's surface temperature without greenhouse gases is only about 23K cooler than the Earth's radiative temperature as seen from space. Instead of searching for a means to warm the surface by 33K as in the quest of the IPCC, one only needs another warming mechanism to raise the surface temperature by 23K.  Removing the greenhouse gases has proved a 10K warming effect from this viewpoint.}

^{This proposed greenhouse gas-free atmosphere and the above calculation ignore the air convection that results from non-infra-red active molecules striking the surface, but because radiated surface energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere in the infra-red active gas free hypothetical atmosphere, surface radiation is not quickly transformed into more convection transport of energy.  Also, there is no formation of water vapor, hence no evaporation of water.  Consequently, this calculation is much closer to reality than is the usual UN IPCC radiation-dominated calculation with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  So, it is by no means clear that there is any kind of greenhouse gas warming of the Earth.  One can make at least as good a case for a cooling effect if one has a radiation dominance mindset.}

Interestingly enough, when the problems with the usual greenhouse gas viewpoint of man-made global warming featured in the IPCC reports and vaguely taught in the schools are pointed out, many of the scientists who hold that viewpoint will then begin arguing a second and very different theory of man-made global warming based on the effects of infra-red active gases.  It seems not to register on them that one cannot claim a scientific consensus if there is no general agreement on the actual mechanism upon which an infra-red active molecule can catastrophically warm the Earth.  They have turned to a second and incompatible mechanism, yet they do not stop making the claim that they have a scientific consensus.  Some of those who argue from the start for this second greenhouse gas theory are lukewarmers, who maintain that the warming effect is less than would be catastrophic, but still significant.

Let us recall that the atmosphere emits infra-red radiation into space at a temperature of about 242K and that this corresponds in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere tables to an altitude of a bit less than 7000 meters.The catastrophic man-made global warmers like to examine the case of a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Imaging such a doubling.  The added carbon dioxide would absorb somewhat more of the radiation now emitted by water vapor into space, though water vapor emission would still be the main source of radiation into space.  Water vapor absorbs and emits infra-red radiation over a greater range of wavelengths and its half-life in the excited state is much less than that for carbon dioxide.  This makes water vapor a more efficient transporter of energy.  Water vapor concentration is actually very low at altitudes of 7000 m and above because the temperature there is way below the freezing point of water at 273.15K or 0C. Despite this, water vapor radiation emission will be greater than that from a doubled carbon dioxide concentration.

The warming argument goes that radiation from lower altitude water vapor will be absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules and emitted by them into space at cooler temperatures since they are at higher altitudes.  The cooler temperature of emission will mean that less energy is radiated into space, which results in warming the entire atmosphere.  This ignores the fact that at these altitudes, some re-emission of absorbed radiation will occur without being distributed to non-radiating molecules since the gas molecule collision rate is now much lower than in the lower troposphere.  More of the absorbing molecules are not in equilibrium with the surrounding air molecules.  The argument makes a much greater mistake, as we will see.

^{Let us suppose for an estimate of the maximum carbon dioxide effect that all of the emission from altitudes near 7000 m and all of the emission from water vapor molecules is captured by higher altitude carbon dioxide molecules. In fact, it is not and would not be with a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but we want to establish an upper limit on the effect claimed.  Let us suppose that instead of an emission temperature of about 242K, the carbon dioxide emission occurs at the lowest emission temperature from the tropopause beginning at about 11000 m in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere of 1976 or a higher altitude in the tropics.  The tropopause temperature is about 217K.  The stratosphere is above the tropopause and the temperature increases with altitude in the stratosphere.  Again we are maximizing the size of the supposed effect in favor of the warming claim.  Let us calculate the power of emission possible by twice as many carbon dioxide molecules at the temperature of 217K:}

P = 2σ T⁴ = 2 (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴)(217)⁴ = 251  W/m² 

It is clear that twice as many emitters at the lowest available temperature of 217K can emit more power than they can absorb despite the lower temperature.  In fact, these cooler carbon dioxide emitters are not going to emit more power than is transmitted to them by the predominantly warmer and lower altitude water vapor molecules, but they are not going to have any problem transmitting the 195 W/m² into space that is presently transmitted.  Therefore, they will not cause the lower atmosphere to warm up.

One of the keys to understanding the basic physics of the lower atmosphere and its effects on the temperature at the Earth's surface where we live is that surface cooling mechanisms transporting energy in the lower troposphere are very much dominated not by rapid radiation, but by the slow mechanisms of water evaporation and condensation at altitude and by convection.  Any argument that minimizes this fact is in serious error. Another critical understanding is that the temperature gradient in the troposphere is mostly due to gravity, which causes molecules which are at lower altitudes to have a higher kinetic energy and a lower potential energy than do those at higher altitude.  The increased kinetic energy at lower altitude is directly proportional to temperature, with the proportionality constant being the inverse of the heat capacity of the air molecule.  The fact that most of the radiant energy into space is from the upper troposphere means that the surface temperature will of course be much higher due to the action of gravity on air molecules.  Yes, the radiant heating of the Earth's surface also matters, but in fact it raises the surface temperature less than does the effect of gravity acting on air molecules.

Let us make a ballpark estimate of the amount of power that the surface radiates into the atmosphere and which is absorbed by the atmosphere.  I will use values for the solar absorption, thermal or convection cooling, and water evaporation cooling from Fig. 1.  These values may not be highly accurate, but the idea here is get a sense of the scale of the greenhouse gas effect.  Recall from above that the atmosphere, due to water vapor and carbon dioxide mostly, radiates infra-red radiation into space from an altitude of about 7000 meters according to the temperatures provided in the US Standard Atmosphere.  A simple calculation I provided here estimates the temperature gradient in the dry atmosphere based on an approximation of atmospheric molecular mass, general rules for the heat capacity of an ideal gas molecule, the ideal gas law, and the variation of kinetic energy with altitude provided by the gravitational field.  This yields a static atmosphere temperature gradient of 5.93K/1000m.  This is not in perfect agreement with the US Standard Atmosphere temperature gradient of 6.49K/1000m, but I know the details of my calculation and do not know all the details of theirs.  Consequently, I will use my temperature gradient in this ballpark approximation, since I know it to only be based on the temperature gradient due to gravity.  The US Standard Atmosphere of 1976 was also primarily based on the effect of gravity, but may have some other minor adjustments that I do not know about.

Fig. 1. says the solar radiation absorbed by the surface is 168 W/m² .  The surface loses radiant infra-red energy at the rate of 40 W/m² through the atmospheric window straight into space.  This energy is at wavelengths not absorbed by the so-called greenhouse gases.  The surface loses energy at the rate of 78 W/m² due to water evaporation and it loses it at a rate of 24 W/m² due to thermals or convection. The effective altitude from which infra-red active gases radiate their energy into space is about 7000m in the US Standard Atmosphere, where the temperature is 242.7K in the US Standard Atmosphere.  With a temperature gradient of 5.93K/1000m due to gravity, the surface temperature is then 284.2K,  This is less than 4K less than the 288K surface temperature, greatly reducing the possible warming effect of greenhouse gases by virtue of absorbing radiative emissions from the Earth's surface.

Let us calculate the additional net power from solar heating required to increase the surface temperature from 284.2K to 288K.  This is

P  = σ [(288K)⁴  - (284.2K)⁴] = 20 W/m² 

But P is also equal to

P = [ 168 - 40 -78 - 24 - R] W/m² =  20 W/m² 

where R is the infra-red radiation from the surface which is absorbed by the atmosphere and the power fluxes due to absorbed solar insolation, infra-red emitted through the atmospheric window, water evaporation, and rising thermals are taken from Fig. 1.  I am assuming for reasons discussed above that there is no significant back-radiation from the atmosphere. Solving this, we find that

R = 6 W/m² .

Now this value of the atmospheric absorption of surface emitted infra-red radiation bears a much more reasonable relation to the 40 W/m² transmitted through the atmosphere than does the 350 W/m² atmospheric absorption shown in Fig. 1. We know this from many an infra-red sensor application.  Infra-red sensors, such as in military applications, would be much more limited if the atmospheric window were only barely more than 10% of the normal total Earth infra-red emission. Because the 6 W/m² is based on several powers which are approximate, it is only a ballpark value. Continuing in this spirit, we can calculate an effective altitude for this surface radiation absorption. We will calculate the temperature of the atmospheric layer absorbing the infra-red emission from the surface that can be absorbed by the so-called greenhouse gases, chiefly water vapor:

P  = 6 W/m²  = σ [(288K)⁴  - (T)⁴]  

T = 286.9K, which according to the US Standard Atmosphere temperature gradient is an altitude of about 170 meters, or about 12 times less than the 2000m implied by the IPCC Fig.1! This will be a surprise to those who believe the IPCC story, but in fact we know that the mean free path for the absorption of infra-red by water vapor near the surface is commonly only a few meters.  The absorption of the wavelengths that carbon dioxide can absorb has a longer mean free path, but that is still only a few tens of meters and water vapor absorption dominates near the surface.

This calculation shows that radiation from the surface absorbed by infra-red active gases is actually in total a small effect and that small effect is dominated by water vapor.  The IPCC hypothesis that water vapor and carbon dioxide and a smattering of other greenhouse gases contribute a warming effect causing a surface warming of about 33K is absolutely a huge exaggeration.  Gravity causes the surface to be at about 284K or a bit higher and solar radiation only has to supply another total temperature increase of about 4K.  It is not clear that there is any warming caused by greenhouse gases at all.  At most, it is a small fraction of 4K! Given that most of whatever small fraction that is is caused by water vapor, any effect by carbon dioxide is minuscule.  What is more, the carbon dioxide absorption effects are already largely saturated.  It is clear that there is simply no need for a large back-radiation warming of the surface to explain the 288K surface temperature. Indeed, if there were a large back-radiation of 324 W/m²  , the surface temperature would be much, much hotter than it is.

It is hardly a wonder that the size of any warming effect by CO2 has not been measured.  In fact, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, causes a very small increase in the heat capacity of the atmosphere and that causes the temperature gradient due to gravity to decrease very slightly, causing a cooling of the surface.  There is also a very small transport of energy to higher altitudes aided by rapid infra-red transport of energy from one layer of the atmosphere to the next which will increase very slightly.  Carbon dioxide also has a small effect in absorbing solar insolation in the upper atmosphere, thereby cooling the surface as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere.  The net very small effect of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should therefore be an infinitesimal decrease in the surface temperature. What is certain is that carbon dioxide is not threatening a catastrophe and will never likely even have a measurable effect on temperatures.

It is my hope that this relatively short and simple description of aspects of the physics of the atmosphere will give the reader much to think about and open new avenues for the evaluation of the usual arguments made for catastrophic man-made warming.  Few of the scientists who might claim that this science is well-understood and agreed upon by most scientists actually understand the science.  There are many who cannot at all reasonably describe the science of the theory they claim is universally understood and agreed upon.  There are many vague and poorly examined versions of the above hypotheses for the cause of man-made warming.  To my knowledge, there is no theory that stands up to a critical examination of the physics and there is certainly none that is proven by evidence.

It is a terrible thing that many scientists have been so careless or so corrupted by government incentives and intimidation that there is no massive scientific rebellion against the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmism.  Their hypotheses are such flimsy houses of cards that they will fall apart in time. Opposition by many scientists has been growing, though most of that opposition is of the sort that the warming effects are less than catastrophic.  In the meantime, the damage has been horrible to the People in the form of less freedom and a lower standard of living due to an increased cost of energy and a loss of energy reliability.  They will also suffer from the waste of many tens of billions of their taxes on wasteful government spending in support of non-viable renewable energy projects and companies.

Those scientists who are fighting this scientific fraud are serving mankind and science. Those scientists who are perpetrating the fraud should be remembered for their infamy.  The reputation of science will suffer, but ultimately, science will prevail and the fraud will be known as such.  Many so-called scientists will be found to have failed in the practice of rational thinking and the use of the scientific method.  This will be a massive human failure, but not an actual failure of science.  After all, reality is what it is, whether fallible or corruptible humans are willing to acknowledge that reality or not.

Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the presidency, most governorships, and most state legislatures and they are not nearly as convinced about catastrophic man-made global warming as are the Democrats.  This will give the pretense of a scientific consensus about this climate alarmist theory more time to continue its collapse.  However, the Republicans will come under great fire for their reluctance to treat catastrophic man-made global warming as a real threat.  It is important that scientists who have feared to come forward and argue the truth should do so now.  We all know that politicians rarely have strong backbones.  Good scientists need to take some of the pressure off of them by putting forth good science and wrecking any appearance of a scientific consensus in favor of the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis.

Updated on 29 November 2016
Updated on 3 December 2016
Updated on 4 December 2016 with a calculations based on the gravity temperature gradient to estimate properties of the surface IR radiation absorption by the atmosphere
Updated on 12 December 2016
Updated on 13 December 2016
Updated on 15 December 2016

Supporting the Open Evaluation of NOAA Scientists' Scientific Claims of Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming

I am one of the scientists who has signed the following letter to Representative Lamar Smith, Chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee of Congress.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency of the federal government, has refused to share the scientific data which NOAA scientists have used to adjust the surface temperature records of the Earth.  This is a clear violation of federal law and it is a clear thumbing of the noise by NOAA of representative government.  Rep. Lamar Smith is simply trying to perform due diligence in evaluating data and scientific methods being used to justify drastic governmental regulations.  There is very substantial evidence that much of the surface temperature record has been fudged to support the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis.  NOAA is unwilling to submit its scientific claims to critical and rational scientific evaluation.

The letter in support of exposing this NOAA data and scientific methodology to open examination was signed by 300 scientists and follows:

January 8, 2016

Chairman Lamar Smith

Committee on Science, Space and Technology

House of Representatives

Congress of the United States

Dear Chairman Smith,

We, the undersigned, scientists, engineers, economists and others, who have looked carefully into the effects of carbon dioxide released by human activities, wish to record our support for the efforts of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology to ensure that OMB and NOAA guidelines for Peer Review for Influential Scientific Information and Highly Influential Scientific Assessment are followed by federal agencies.

We remind you that controversy previously arose over EPA’s apparent failure to comply with these guidelines in connection with its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which was the subject of a report by the EPA Office of the Inspector General in 2011, see http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/20110926-11-p-0702.pdf and contemporary discussion http://climateaudit.org/2011/10/04/epa-the-endangerment-finding-was-not-a-highly-influential-scientific-assessment/.  In that case, EPA had not complied with peer review requirements for a “highly influential scientific assessment” and argued that the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding was not a “highly influential” scientific assessment.  If it wasn’t, then it’s hard to imagine what would be.

In our opinion, NOAA ought to have observed the OMB (and its own) guidelines for peer review of “influential scientific information” and “highly influential scientific assessments” in respect to  Karl et al 2015 and its associated data.  But NOAA seems not to have done this.

We urge you to focus on these important compliance issues. For your consideration we attach a draft letter which directly connects these issues to your committee’s prior request for documents.

Sincerely,

List of signatories 

More context for this letter is provided in this Daily Caller article.