"Hilarious. My Ph.D. is in statistical thermodynamics. The Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is not in error. Nor does it disprove the greenhouse effect or any other well known result in radiative transfer physics."
Hey, that's great! I also have a degree in Thermodynamics, a Ph.D. in Quantum Dynamics, and in addition to that I'm also a supermodel who is regularly fucking Robert Downey, Jr.
Show us or shut up. Your bald claims mean nothing. Show that Latour is wrong. Or go away.
"When (to cut through the misunderstandings) Spencer offers him a simple observational experiment he can do himself to prove the theory, he dodges it and accuses Spencer of shifting the goalposts. It's no wonder Spencer (a practicing climatologist with better things to do) didn't bother to engage further."
Quite an astounding analysis.
But everyone here seems to keep forgetting: Latour isn't relying on his own analysis. He's using long-known and oft-proven principles. Among them (which I have found it necessary in this discussion to raise several times) the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law.
I notice that EVERYONE on the AGW "side" of the argument has ignored that the models violate this specific law... and none of them have offered an explanation of this.
So... as I have asked several times here on Slashdot... please show me how your pet theory gets around this law. Then I might be motivated to actually accept it. But you must do that first.
And please pardon me. The articles I mentioned appear to be on a different sub-thread of the discussion, so I retract any comments that may have seemed derogatory. Please see some of my other comments to find the links to those articles.
"Um, yes. You've already uncritically dismissed critiques of Latour as "unsuccessful", as well as uncritically dismissing Spencer himself, while uncritically eating up anything Latour has to say."
Um, no. Latour's math is sound, Spencer's is not. Latour's physics are sound (which he clearly shows), Spencer instead relies on "common knowledge" and intuition.
It's pretty easy to see who -- scientifically -- is the winner here. And it sure as Hell isn't Spencer.
"The fact that you think the greenhouse effect or backradiation requires the Stefan-Boltzmann law to be in error only reinforces your stupidity."
Jesus Christ. Did you actually just make a statement that ignorant? That's what the whole fucking articles are about.
"What the heck? What is this nonsense? If it can't exist, why is it possible to measure it?"
What the heck? Did you even bother to read the articles being discussed, before deciding to comment about them? (The answer is obviously no.)
The issue isn't that "back radiation" does not exist at all. It's that the AGW version of it doesn't exist. Of course it actually exists... everything radiates. You would have to be a fool to deny it.
No, the real issue is whether the earth can absorb that back radiation. And the answer is no. Please go back and read those articles, which this discussion is about, before presuming to have a valid opinion on the matter.
"'Back-radiation'? Are you saying that Earth doesn't radiate heat? Or that Earth's atmosphere doesn't radiate downward?"
No, "back radiation" is the concept that clouds (or just water vapor, or CO2), for example, can radiate heat back downward to the earth, even though those gases are cooler than the earth. It seems intuitively obvious that this occurs but the actual mechanism is quite different.
The problem with this idea, which is relied upon by almost all Anthropogenic Global Warming models, is that it can't happen. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law, unless the substance in question is an ideal "black body", which is a perfect absorber (and radiator) of energy, and which frankly does not exist, it's just impossible. Warmer objects cannot, and do not absorb lower-energy radiation from cooler objects. Please go back up this thread and read the articles to which I linked: "Yes, Virginia" and "No, Virginia". Those explain in more rigorous terms.
"No, you're "just trolling". If you were "just asking" you would listen to (or at least respond to) the answers you have been given in the past. But that's not what you do, you keep repeating the same discredited claims over and over again like a broken record."
Absolute bollocks. I haven't been given any "answers".
Explain to me how and why Latour is wrong. If I have actually been given "answers" in the past this should not be difficult, yes? So show us all.
But the FACT is, he has not been refuted. If you think he has, let's see it. I don't want your word for it, I want to see who disproved Stefan-Boltzmann (and when, and how).
You've been very big on bluster, not so much on fact.
"It's amusing to realize that if Latour was arguing for the greenhouse effect, you would treat his utter failure to defend his arguments with the utmost skepticism, but all your "skepticism" goes out the window when it's a guy on 'your side'."
Um, just no.
As I mentioned to the other... well, let's call him critic... please explain to us all where the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is in error. If you can do that, I will give your criticism credence. But I rather doubt you can.
And unless and until you can, YOUR argument is just so much hot air.
"Heh. If you only had the brains to apply that logic to Latour's 'refutation' of Spencer."
Apparently unlike you, sir, I have a basic understanding of math and physics. Please explain to us all where the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is in error. I am sure we would all love to know.
"In the beginning affirmative action actually made sense."
No, it didn't. Saying "Well, your father punched my father in the nose, so now I'm going to punch YOU in the nose" is not justice. Nothing is made better that way.
"You may want to recheck your usage of "Dr Roy Spencer" as any kind of legitimate argument, before you further humiliate yourself."
Pardon me? I referred to the original article which Dr. Latour was REBUTTING. And I did not add the "dr" to Spencer's title, that's from the name of the website, which Slashdot adds to links and over which I have no control.
So please explain again how I am humiliating myself. Because I made no argument whatever on Spencer's behalf. On the contrary; it looks to me as though your own lack of reading comprehension is making a rather glaring spectacle.
"You mean like Richard Muller who quite famously denounced anthropogenic global warming only to come to the same conclusion by his own means? Yeah, that opinion piece by him opens with 'Call me a converted skeptic.'"
You mean the same Muller whose co-researcher, immediately after his "revelation", accused him of fudging his research?
"I think the United States experience has proven that adequately."
That's because when people like this say "embracing diversity", what they really mean is forcing it on everybody.
You cannot eliminate discrimination by legislating discrimination. Which is exactly what "affirmative action" has always been... legislated discrimination.
"They have every right to refuse to let the transaction pass through their electronic network."
Do they? Really?
So, then, I have the right to hire or fire anyone I want, for any reason? Including skin color? Or allow (or disallow) them into the college I administrate? Well, the latter is not (usually) a private business so let's let that one aside. Still, you're saying that in my TV sales business (let's say) I can hire only the hot guys who are willing to eat ME for lunch? Or refuse to sell something to someone from Puerto Rico?
"They are conditioned to believe this shit at early ages... "If you want to be rich some day, you have to think this way and support Free Market Capitalism. Anything else is just bad, and you don't need to know any more about it. Let's just call it all Socialism. It kind of rhymes with Satan, well, it starts with the same letter, at least.""
The issue raised by GP has absolutely nothing to do with "free market capitalism". You are echoing precisely the kind of delusion to which he referred, just in the other direction.
"Capitalism" is a means of financing production. And from its very inception (you have obviously not read your Adam Smith, which you really should do before expounding on this issue), it has acknowledged that some regulation would be necessary to keep markets free. In the form of anti-trust, which is a term Smith did not use himself, but which he very clearly described. In essence, it was regulation of large businesses to keep them from becoming, or exercising power as, monopolies.
Technically speaking, anti-trust is a slightly different issue, but anti-competition law and anti-trust law became lumped under the same name in the U.S. after the Sherman Act of 1890.
"I am not even sure we could break up a transnational like Visa or Mastercard. Who has authority over them? The best a country can do is say 'if you want to do business in our borders, you must follow XYZ rules'."
Easy. Designate them as banks. Then they can be regulated.
That should have been done to PayPal long ago, and already has been done in Europe.
"Though it might not be the be-all-end-all at least it does solve the abuses of power that can come from governments trying to stop the flow of money between people who actually do want to send money from one person to another."
This is precisely why cash must be preserved at all costs. If money transfer ever becomes exclusively electronic, you will be owned.
Been there, done that. We already know there's clay. That's what water-formed sediment IS. Well, for the most part anyway. And Curiosity is right in the middle of a large section of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you completely off your own nut? Since when I have I endorsed either lobbyists or religious whackos? Are you sure you have the right person?
"Hilarious. My Ph.D. is in statistical thermodynamics. The Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is not in error. Nor does it disprove the greenhouse effect or any other well known result in radiative transfer physics."
Hey, that's great! I also have a degree in Thermodynamics, a Ph.D. in Quantum Dynamics, and in addition to that I'm also a supermodel who is regularly fucking Robert Downey, Jr.
Show us or shut up. Your bald claims mean nothing. Show that Latour is wrong. Or go away.
By the way: Latour is a process engineer with particular expertise in thermodynamic control systems.
If I were in a room in which you challenged him over thermodynamics, I'd probably want to go outside to avoid the bloodbath.
Good luck with that whole argument. To say it's weak is just... well... weak.
"When (to cut through the misunderstandings) Spencer offers him a simple observational experiment he can do himself to prove the theory, he dodges it and accuses Spencer of shifting the goalposts. It's no wonder Spencer (a practicing climatologist with better things to do) didn't bother to engage further."
Quite an astounding analysis.
But everyone here seems to keep forgetting: Latour isn't relying on his own analysis. He's using long-known and oft-proven principles. Among them (which I have found it necessary in this discussion to raise several times) the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law.
I notice that EVERYONE on the AGW "side" of the argument has ignored that the models violate this specific law... and none of them have offered an explanation of this.
So... as I have asked several times here on Slashdot... please show me how your pet theory gets around this law. Then I might be motivated to actually accept it. But you must do that first.
And please pardon me. The articles I mentioned appear to be on a different sub-thread of the discussion, so I retract any comments that may have seemed derogatory. Please see some of my other comments to find the links to those articles.
"Um, yes. You've already uncritically dismissed critiques of Latour as "unsuccessful", as well as uncritically dismissing Spencer himself, while uncritically eating up anything Latour has to say."
Um, no. Latour's math is sound, Spencer's is not. Latour's physics are sound (which he clearly shows), Spencer instead relies on "common knowledge" and intuition.
It's pretty easy to see who -- scientifically -- is the winner here. And it sure as Hell isn't Spencer.
"The fact that you think the greenhouse effect or backradiation requires the Stefan-Boltzmann law to be in error only reinforces your stupidity."
Jesus Christ. Did you actually just make a statement that ignorant? That's what the whole fucking articles are about.
Holy shit.
"What the heck? What is this nonsense? If it can't exist, why is it possible to measure it?"
What the heck? Did you even bother to read the articles being discussed, before deciding to comment about them? (The answer is obviously no.)
The issue isn't that "back radiation" does not exist at all. It's that the AGW version of it doesn't exist. Of course it actually exists... everything radiates. You would have to be a fool to deny it.
No, the real issue is whether the earth can absorb that back radiation. And the answer is no. Please go back and read those articles, which this discussion is about, before presuming to have a valid opinion on the matter.
Thanks and have a nice day.
"'Back-radiation'? Are you saying that Earth doesn't radiate heat? Or that Earth's atmosphere doesn't radiate downward?"
No, "back radiation" is the concept that clouds (or just water vapor, or CO2), for example, can radiate heat back downward to the earth, even though those gases are cooler than the earth. It seems intuitively obvious that this occurs but the actual mechanism is quite different.
The problem with this idea, which is relied upon by almost all Anthropogenic Global Warming models, is that it can't happen. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law, unless the substance in question is an ideal "black body", which is a perfect absorber (and radiator) of energy, and which frankly does not exist, it's just impossible. Warmer objects cannot, and do not absorb lower-energy radiation from cooler objects. Please go back up this thread and read the articles to which I linked: "Yes, Virginia" and "No, Virginia". Those explain in more rigorous terms.
"No, you're "just trolling". If you were "just asking" you would listen to (or at least respond to) the answers you have been given in the past. But that's not what you do, you keep repeating the same discredited claims over and over again like a broken record."
Absolute bollocks. I haven't been given any "answers".
Explain to me how and why Latour is wrong. If I have actually been given "answers" in the past this should not be difficult, yes? So show us all.
But the FACT is, he has not been refuted. If you think he has, let's see it. I don't want your word for it, I want to see who disproved Stefan-Boltzmann (and when, and how).
You've been very big on bluster, not so much on fact.
"It's amusing to realize that if Latour was arguing for the greenhouse effect, you would treat his utter failure to defend his arguments with the utmost skepticism, but all your "skepticism" goes out the window when it's a guy on 'your side'."
Um, just no.
As I mentioned to the other... well, let's call him critic... please explain to us all where the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is in error. If you can do that, I will give your criticism credence. But I rather doubt you can.
And unless and until you can, YOUR argument is just so much hot air.
Hey, that's actually kind of funny.
"Heh. If you only had the brains to apply that logic to Latour's 'refutation' of Spencer."
Apparently unlike you, sir, I have a basic understanding of math and physics. Please explain to us all where the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is in error. I am sure we would all love to know.
Completely irrelevant. Back-radiation does not -- cannot -- exist.
But I do disagree with one of yours:
"In the beginning affirmative action actually made sense."
No, it didn't. Saying "Well, your father punched my father in the nose, so now I'm going to punch YOU in the nose" is not justice. Nothing is made better that way.
"I found a refutation within the comments on the same page you cited, and of course the denialist response was to merely goal shift away."
I wrote "successfully refuted". The mere presence of a denial does not make it valid.
"You may want to recheck your usage of "Dr Roy Spencer" as any kind of legitimate argument, before you further humiliate yourself."
Pardon me? I referred to the original article which Dr. Latour was REBUTTING. And I did not add the "dr" to Spencer's title, that's from the name of the website, which Slashdot adds to links and over which I have no control.
So please explain again how I am humiliating myself. Because I made no argument whatever on Spencer's behalf. On the contrary; it looks to me as though your own lack of reading comprehension is making a rather glaring spectacle.
"I'm actually not seeing shit."
Well, then, try this article about why most AGW models are in violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
You might actually want to start, though, with the article by Roy Spencer to which the above article is a response. Just for reference.
To the best of my knowledge (which I admit is incomplete), Dr. Latour's rebuttal has so far not been successfully refuted.
"Everyone who has taken the time and effort to build a model has come to the same conclusion."
You mean all those models that rely on the concept of back-radiation, which is a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Those models?
Just asking.
"You mean like Richard Muller who quite famously denounced anthropogenic global warming only to come to the same conclusion by his own means? Yeah, that opinion piece by him opens with 'Call me a converted skeptic.'"
You mean the same Muller whose co-researcher, immediately after his "revelation", accused him of fudging his research?
That Muller?
"I think the United States experience has proven that adequately."
That's because when people like this say "embracing diversity", what they really mean is forcing it on everybody.
You cannot eliminate discrimination by legislating discrimination. Which is exactly what "affirmative action" has always been... legislated discrimination.
"They have every right to refuse to let the transaction pass through their electronic network."
Do they? Really?
So, then, I have the right to hire or fire anyone I want, for any reason? Including skin color? Or allow (or disallow) them into the college I administrate? Well, the latter is not (usually) a private business so let's let that one aside. Still, you're saying that in my TV sales business (let's say) I can hire only the hot guys who are willing to eat ME for lunch? Or refuse to sell something to someone from Puerto Rico?
Just asking.
Man, I seriously tripped over an 802.11a signal the other day and almost broke my face.
"They are conditioned to believe this shit at early ages... "If you want to be rich some day, you have to think this way and support Free Market Capitalism. Anything else is just bad, and you don't need to know any more about it. Let's just call it all Socialism. It kind of rhymes with Satan, well, it starts with the same letter, at least.""
The issue raised by GP has absolutely nothing to do with "free market capitalism". You are echoing precisely the kind of delusion to which he referred, just in the other direction.
"Capitalism" is a means of financing production. And from its very inception (you have obviously not read your Adam Smith, which you really should do before expounding on this issue), it has acknowledged that some regulation would be necessary to keep markets free. In the form of anti-trust, which is a term Smith did not use himself, but which he very clearly described. In essence, it was regulation of large businesses to keep them from becoming, or exercising power as, monopolies.
Technically speaking, anti-trust is a slightly different issue, but anti-competition law and anti-trust law became lumped under the same name in the U.S. after the Sherman Act of 1890.
"I am not even sure we could break up a transnational like Visa or Mastercard. Who has authority over them? The best a country can do is say 'if you want to do business in our borders, you must follow XYZ rules'."
Easy. Designate them as banks. Then they can be regulated.
That should have been done to PayPal long ago, and already has been done in Europe.
"Though it might not be the be-all-end-all at least it does solve the abuses of power that can come from governments trying to stop the flow of money between people who actually do want to send money from one person to another."
This is precisely why cash must be preserved at all costs. If money transfer ever becomes exclusively electronic, you will be owned.
Been there, done that. We already know there's clay. That's what water-formed sediment IS. Well, for the most part anyway. And Curiosity is right in the middle of a large section of it.