Global Average Temperature Debate - Much Ado About Nothing

The global warming priests have presented no evidence that the process they claim causes "global warming" exists.   They just illogically claim that any increase in what they call the "global average temperature"  can only result from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.   
     
Paul  Homewood has recently reported on questionable manipulation of temperature data used to calculate this global average temperature.   Anthony Watts has documented problems with temperature data for several years on his blog.   

The controversy over the accuracy of the data can be viewed as much ado about nothing because the so-called global average temperature  "is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility, says Bjarne Andresen, a professor at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, who has analyzed this topic in collaboration with professors Christopher Essex from University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick from University of Guelph, Canada." 

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth", Bjarne Andresen says,  an expert of thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

"While it is possible to treat temperature statistically locally, it is meaningless to talk about a a global temperature for Earth. The Globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average."

Even if the concept of a global average temperature was meaningful, the method of determining it is too primitive to produce a valid average.  Instead of using hourly temperatures, they just use the high and low temperature which may not be representative of temperatures during the day.   For example, the arrival of a strong  cold front late in the day can make the low temperature significantly lower than temperatures during the rest of the day.  

Even social scientists have moved away from using broad averages because such averages cover up too much information.   For example, social scientists look at the number of people in various age groups instead of the average age.   The number of homes with children or with one adult or two adults is used rather than the average household size which always ends up with a fraction of a person.   In the last presidential election people talked about the 3% in one income group and the percentage that didn't pay any income tax instead of the per capita income. 

 A third problem with the climate shaman's obsession with temperatures is that although a temperature decrease would disprove the claim of global warming, a temperature increase would not prove that CO2 was responsible.   The global warming preachers routinely commit the logical fallacy   "post hoc ergo proper hoc".    I learned that basic logic concept in high school English class. The global warming fanatics either didn't learn about the fallacy or don't understand that the fact that A follows B doesn't necessarily mean A causes B.

With their simple minded view of the situation they blithely assume that any temperature increase could only be a result of an increase in CO2.   They seemingly cannot understand that they must provide evidence that an increase in CO2 would cause any temperature increase.  They ignore the fact that other factors are known to be able to increase air temperature.

The teracalories of heat human activity generates each day would be the most likely cause of any temperature increase that wasn't caused by an increase in the sun's output.    Each teracalorie is capable of  raising the temperature of a trillion grams of water by 1 Celsius.   A teracalorie would raise the temperature of about 4-5 trillion grams of air 1 C.

Except in desert and tropical areas, most of the time the human body has a higher temperature than the air.   Automobile engines and other human technology generate sufficient heat to boil water.   Many types of air conditioning systems remove heat from the interior of buildings and transfer it outside where it heats the outside air.   Some of the heat used to warm the interiors of buildings in cold weather leaks out and heats the outside air.

Global Warming and the Great Pumpkin

After  watching last Halloween's broadcast of  "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", I realized that Linus van Pelt is like those who preach global warming.    Linus doesn't let the failure of the Great Pumpkin to appear destroy his belief that the Great Pumpkin exists.   Similarly,  the climate shaman who preach  global warming won't let colder than normal winter weather in recent years destroy their belief that someday their "Great Pumpkin" will rise from the pumpkin patch and distribute warming throughout the world.

When I started examining the claims about global warming I was surprised by the total lack of any scientific basis for the claim that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide could raise the temperature of the air.    The idea that a gas that is only 0.04% of the atmosphere could determine atmospheric temperature  sounds more like magic than science.   The false belief that heat in greenhouses and the atmosphere involved the trapping of low energy infrared radiation developed at a time when scientists falsely believed atoms were the smallest particles of matter.   Many believed Benjamin Franklin's theory that heat involved some mysterious "fluid". they called "caloric"

For those not familiar with the "Great Pumpkin..."  program, Linus van Pelt is a little boy in the "Peanuts" comic strip which is available at  Gocomics.com.  A recurring story line is his long standing belief that on Halloween the Great Pumpkin will rise from a sincere pumpkin patch and distribute toys.   On this particular Halloween he convinces Sally Brown, who considers him her "sweet babboo", to sit in the pumpkin patch with him.   She is mad when the Great Pumpkin doesn't appear.  However, Linus is undeterred in his belief that the Great Pumpkin will eventually appear.   In the comic strip Linus is occasionally shown waiting in the pumpkin patch on Halloween.   Sometimes he will persuade someone else to wait with him

I decided to wait until winter to write about the subject so everyone but global warming shaman would recognize that global warming. is as much a myth as the Great Pumpkin.   Near and subfreezing  weather  
occurred frequently in the continental U.S. except for  Florida, California, and small parts of Texas, Arizona and the coasts of Oregon and Washington. For example, on the morning of January 8 subfreezing temperatures extended south into the atmosphere over the  northern Gulf  of Mexico and west from the Atlantic to California and parts of Oregon and Washington.   The 20 F line  reached through Georgia just north of the border with Florida.  

Those who preach the global warning religion act more like religious fanatics  than scientists.   Real scientists respond to critics by trying to fi  nd more facts to support their theories.    The global warming preachers respond to criticism with name calling and threats.    They use terms such as "denier" and "contrarian" like religious fanatics use the term "heretic",    Religious fanatics rely on consensus about beliefs rather than facts.

The claims of empirical science are considered more valid than other claims when the science claims are based upon verification through observation and experimentation.    Physicist R.W. Wood tested the claim  that trapping infrared radiation helped greenhouses retain heat in 1909 in an experiment that used greenhouses that were identical except that one greenhouse used glass that reflected IR and the other used glass that was transparent to IR .   His experiment disproved the theory that "trapping" IR caused the heat in greenhouses  or the atmosphere.

Neils  Bohr subsequently demonstrated that the process of absorbing and re-emitting specific wavelengths of light by molecules  had nothing to do with heating.  Instead, the process involved changes in the energy state of the electrons.   His calculations indicated that the very small amount of energy involved was what he called a "quantum".    The quantum of energy released by CO2 molecules wouldn't be enough to heat anything.  The process of absorbing and re-emitting radiation breaks  up the radiation instead of trapping it.

Real scientists know that conduction by heated surfaces heats the atmosphere and the air in greenhouses.  At any one instant heated objects convert only a  fraction of their heat energy to radiation so heat transfer by radiation to other objects is limited.  However a heated object in what physicists call "thermal contact" with another object or gases will attempt to heat the other substance to its temperature.   The walls and ceiling of a greenhouse hold the heated air inside. Outside the greenhouse  gravity holds heated air  close to the ground. 

Global warming shaman have yet to provide any  proof that carbon dioxide or any other gas can cause heating by interacting with electromagnetic radiation.   They just demonstrate their ignorance of science and  math by claiming a nonsense number they call "average global temperature"  proves global warming.     More on the average temperature nonsense in my next post.