CO2 Fraud

Mr. Robert Ashworth sent this to me via email as a Word document. I have included his submission here, unfortunately, I could not get his figures to reproduce.


Submission:

From: ROBERT A. ASHWORTH
                                Sr. Vice President – Technology
                                ClearStack Power LLC   

EPA Rebuttal - No Such Thing as Greenhouse Gases,

Global Warming from CO₂ is a Fraud!

CFC Destruction of Stratospheric Ozone was Cause of Abnormal Warming!

Introduction

Here is an excerpt¹ from a paper written by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist; "Climate models used for estimating effects of increases in greenhouse gases show substantial increases in water vapor as the globe warms and this increased moisture would further increase the warming."  However, this meteorologist along with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) crowd got it completely backwards about water vapor and CO₂ -- they cool the earth like all other gases and dust in our atmosphere!

Although moisture in the atmosphere does increase with warming, this is because the higher temperature causes more water to evaporate.  With every pound of water evaporated 1,000 Btu is absorbed and that causes cooling.  Further, increased water in the atmosphere causes further cooling (not warming) by reflecting more of the radiant energy from the Sun that is hitting the water vapor molecules back to outer space, e.g. cooler on a cloudy day than a clear day.

Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" Documentary -- Cause and Effect Reversed

Al Gore presented the climate change fraud in his "Inconvenient Truth", actually a "Convenient Lie" presentation of the Vostok Ice Core data, see below.  In this documentary, Gore fudged the Vostok Ice core temperature and CO₂ line graphs so it would show a CO₂ spike coming first in time, but the real graph showed just the opposite.  See the data in a shorter time frame (250,000 Years rather than 420,000 Years Before Present showed by Gore).  This makes it easier to see which came first, Figure 1. 

Figure 1.  Vostok, Antarctica Ice Core Data ².

It is clearly seen that a global warming spike (blue line) always comes first.  The spike warms the oceans, which slowly reduces the solubility of CO₂ in water that results in the liberation of CO₂ from the oceans around 800 years later (see Figure 2).  Gore gave no explanation what would cause a CO₂ spike to occur in the first place, but then again he is a politician with an agenda to make him wealthy.  See the most recent time of warming between the 500 year long medievel warming period and the start of an increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere.  One can see that CO₂ started increasing during a cooling period showing it was not controlled by recent warming that started some 80 years later and it is about 800 years from the end of the medievel warming period.  This is historically what happens.  Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State, eliminated the Medievel Warming period with his hockey stick graph, - clearly a fabricated one by “cherry picking” the temperature data.

Figure 2. Medievel Warming Period, Little Ice Age and Carbon Dioxide ³.

Man-made Emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

CO₂ emissions created by man, i.e. combustion of fuels, (called anthropogenic emissions) is miniscule compared to the emissions of CO₂ from nature?  Table 1 was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who promote the global warming lie.  This is their data. It shows annual CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere from both nature and man and how much of the CO₂ emitted is re-absorbed by nature.  You cannot find this table anymore, like Lois Lerner IRS emails it has been deleted.  Using the table in combination with a total concentration of 401 ppmv of CO₂ seen in the atmosphere in May 2014, one sees that the CO₂ caused by man's activities amounts to only 11.6 ppmv of the CO₂ in the atmosphere.

TABLE 1. GLOBAL SOURCES AND ABSORPTION OF CO2

Carbon Dioxide:                       Natural             Human Made                Total                Absorption

Annual Million Metric Tons      770,000                23,100                       793,100               781,400

% of Total                                   97.1%                  2.9%                          100%                  98.5%

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis

(Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 188.

The amount of CO₂ from man is a mouse-milk quantity compared to nature's emissions.  If we eliminated worldwide, all man-made CO₂ emissions tomorrow, we would go back to the level we had in 2008.  Since 1998 there has been no warming and yet CO₂ in the atmosphere increased some 31 ppmv, almost triple the global man-made quantity.

Nature absorbs 98.5% of the CO₂ that is emitted by nature and man.  As CO₂ increases in the atmosphere, nature causes plant growth to increase via photosynthesis which is an endothermic (cooling) reaction.  For every pound of biomass formed some 8,000 Btu are removed from the atmosphere.  CO₂ is absorbed, and oxygen is liberated.  Further, a doubling of CO₂ will increase the photosynthesis rate by some 300+ %, depending on temperature and available moisture⁴, see Figure 3.

Figure 3.  Increased plant growth with increased CO2 concentration.

More CO₂ is absorbed by the plants due to the increased concentration of CO₂ for conversion to carbohydrates.  Nature therefore has in place a built-in mechanism to regulate the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere that will always completely dwarf man's feeble attempts to regulate it.  Further, no regulation is necessary because CO₂ is not a pollutant; it is part of the animal-plant life cycle and without it, life would not exist on earth!

A Common Sense Scientific Truth

Any mass between you and a radiant energy source will provide cooling.  Stand near a fireplace that is burning and feel the warmth of the radiant energy; then have two people drape a blanket between you and the fireplace -- you will feel cooler!  Another example, stand outside on a sun shiny day.  When a cloud goes over and shades you from the direct rays of the sun, most people feel cooler, but perhaps not the IPCC pseudo-scientists.  Nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and any dust that is in the atmosphere all provide cooling.

More radiation hits our atmosphere from the sun (342 Watts/m^2) than is reflected back from the earth (164 Watts/m^2) to the atmosphere see Figure 4.  The overall effect will always be cooling – not warming! 

Figure 4.  Radiation from the sun and refection back from the earth.

The IPCC scientists must not realize we get our energy from the sun; they look at only one-half of the mass and energy balance.  It is like saying you don’t need a furnace in your house in the winter, insulation alone will keep you warm.  If common sense isn't good enough for you there is also scientific proof.

Proofs -- Water Vapor Cools the Earth

Water vapor is considered by the IPCC pseudo-scientists to have the greatest greenhouse gas effect.  If this so-called greenhouse gas actually cools the earth, so must all of the other gases cool that are put in that greenhouse gas category (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, etc.).

1^st Proof

Following the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited commercial aviation over the United States for three days following the attacks.  This presented a unique opportunity to study the temperature of earth with and without jet airplane contrails.

Dr. David Travis, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, along with two others, looked at temperatures for those three days (2001) and compared them to other days when planes were flying.  They analyzed data from about 4,000 weather stations throughout the lower 48 states (U.S.) for the period 1971-2000, and compared the three-day grounding period with three days before and after the grounding period.  They found that the average daily temperature range between highs and lows was 1.1°C higher during September 11-14 (see Figure 5) compared to September 8-11 and September 11-14 for other years with normal air traffic.

Figure 5.  Average diurnal (daily) temperature range (DTR) ⁵.

2^nd Proof

An experiment was performed by Carl Brehmer to study the effect of rising and falling levels of humidity on soil temperature and discovered that the addition of moisture to the atmosphere exerts a significant negative feedback (cooling effect).

The experiment showed the same result as the analysis of the 9-11 data; on an overall basis increased humidity reduces the temperature on earth; it doesn't warm it.   The data were[RA1]  taken over 38 days so the first thing done was to find the 38 day mean dew point and divide the days up between those that fell above the mean -- the "humid" days -- and those that fell below the mean -- the "arid" days.  Then the data was averaged as shown on the curves on the graph below.  One can readily see the hotter day time temperatures for the arid days (red line), Figure 6.

The Climate Change Agenda is a Complete Fraud

There is a lot of supporting evidence that indicates that the Climate Change agenda is and always has been a fraud.  Why is it called a fraud?  An event now referred to as "Climategate" publicly began on November 19, 2009, when a whistle-blower leaked thousands of emails and documents central to a Freedom of Information request placed with the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.  This institution had played a central role in the "climate change" debate: its scientists, together with their international colleagues, quite literally put the "warming" into Global Warming: they were responsible for analyzing and collating the measurements of temperature from around the globe from the present to the distant past.

Figure 6. Effect of Humidity on Soil Temperature ⁶.

Dr. John Costella⁷ relays, "Climategate has shattered that myth (the myth of global warming).  It gives us a peephole into the work of the scientists investigating possibly the most important issue ever to face mankind.  Instead of seeing large collaborations of meticulous, careful, critical scientists, we instead see a small team of incompetent cowboys, abusing almost every aspect of the framework of science to build a fortress around their “old boys club”', to prevent real scientists from seeing the shambles of their research.

Back in time, the IPCC relayed there was a greenhouse signature in the atmosphere and the temperature 8-12 km above the tropics was warmer than the ground temperature⁸.  Actual temperature measurements refuted this.  They also violated the second law of thermodynamics by saying a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer earth.  They don't have a clue, or they think people are stupid -- two bogus explanations that are easy to show are completely false.

Around 1990, NOAA began weeding out more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world.  It can be shown that systematically and purposefully, country by country, they removed higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.  The thermometers kept were near the tropics, the sea, and airports near bigger cities.  These data were then used to determine the global average temperature and to initialize climate models.  From 1960 through 1980, there were more than 6000 stations providing temperature information.  The NOAA reduced these to fewer than 1500.  Calculating the average temperatures this way ensured that the mean global surface temperature for each month and year would show a false-positive temperature anomaly, a bogus warming trend.  Interestingly (although absent scientific credibility), the very same stations that were deleted from the world climate network were retained for computing the average-temperature base periods, further falsely increasing the bias towards earth warming.

An internal study by the U.S. EPA⁹ completed by Dr. Alan Carlin and John Davidson concluded the IPCC was wrong about global warming.  Dr. Carlin is an Environmental Protection Agency veteran who wrote a damaging report to Lisa Jackson's EPA agenda, warning that the science behind climate change was questionable at best, and that we shouldn't pass laws that will hurt American families and hobble the nation's economy based on incomplete information.

One statement in his executive summary found that the crucial assumption in the Greenhouse Climate Models (GCM) used by the IPCC concerning a strong positive feedback from water vapor is not supported by empirical evidence and that the feedback is actually negative.  This is exactly what is shown here, water vapor in the atmosphere causes a cooling (negative feedback), not a positive warming feedback.

EPA tried to bury Dr. Carlin's report.  An email from Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Dr. Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbade him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues.  In a March 17 email from McGartland to Carlin, stated that he will not forward Carlin's study.  "The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round.  The administrator (Lisa Jackson) and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.  I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."  A second email from McGartland stated "I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change."

McGartland's emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Dr. Carlin's study because his conclusions ran counter to the EPA/IPCC position.  Yet this study had its basis in three prior reports by Carlin (two in 2007 and one in 2008) that were accepted. Another “government cover-up”, just what the United States does not need.

Most of the U.S. House of Representatives agree with the fraud assessment.¹⁰   On February 19, 2011 they voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With a vote of 244-179, they said that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments.  The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), said; "The IPCC scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda".  The organization responsible for managing a global cap-and-trade system worth billions of dollars for carbon emissions projects around the world is trying to get sweeping legal immunities for its actions, even as it planned to expand its activities in the wake of the 2012 United Nations' Rio + 20 summit on sustainable development.¹¹  Yes, global warming from CO₂ is a complete fraud - that is why they are seeking shelter from prosecution.

Why Was It Done?

It is all about the money.  For example, Al Gore's Generation Investment Management LLP was started in 2004 and in 2008 this announcement was made, "It will be closed to new investors, having risen close to its $5 billion target!"¹².  It rose to five billion dollars in 4 years!  This shows that a lot of investment firms were in on the scam big time.  They also hooked in nefarious pseudo-scientists who were awarded grants for their work in promoting this fraud.  Sadly, much of the world runs on the tenet, "Show Me the Money!"  They don’t care seem to care one whit about our children or the jobs of the people who work in conventional fuels, such as coal, petroleum of natural gas!

CFC Destruction of Stratospheric Ozone did cause the Earth to Warm?

A greater than normal warming did occur from 1966 until 1998 but no measurements confirm an increase in CO₂ emissions, whether anthropogenic or natural, had any effect on global temperatures.  As a matter of fact, all atmospheric gases and dust in our atmosphere cools our planet, they don’t warm it ¹³ as explained above.   However, there is very strong evidence that anthropogenic emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the cause of the near recent abnormal warming.  It is not a radiation effect, it is because of the reaction of CFCs with stratospheric ozone.  CFCs were used primarily in air conditioning units.  Acting in accordance with an International Treaty called the Montreal Protocol (1987); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated the phase-out of CFCs (R-22) through the Clean Air Act.

CFCs and other halides created both unnatural atmospheric cooling and earth warming based on these facts.  CFCs destroyed ozone in the lower stratosphere-upper troposphere causing these zones in the atmosphere to cool 1.37^o C from 1966 to 1998, see Figure 7.

Figure 7.  Lower Stratosphere-Upper Troposphere Cooling

The ozone loss allowed more UV-B light to pass through the stratosphere at a sufficient rate to warm the lower troposphere plus 2" of the earth by 0.5^o C (1966 to 1998).  The effect of banning CFC production started having its effect around 1998.  Since 1998 there has been no warming, see Figure 8.

Most of the temperature change from ozone loss is in UV-B light, that is 2% of the 8% of the UV light (based on total light) that hits our atmosphere. UV-B light provides 25% of the energy that hits the earth.  E = hf and high frequency UV-B photons carry much more energy than visible light photons.

Figure 8.  Global Mean Temperature, 1880 to 2012.

Stratospheric ozone was diminished by CFCs and other refrigerants-propellants released into the atmosphere.  These compounds are broken down by the sun's UV-B rays and release chlorine and bromine molecules that destroy the ozone.  

Scientists estimate that one chlorine atom can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules over its life in the stratosphere.  With less ozone in the stratosphere, more UV-B rays hit earth, warming it up and increasing the risk of skin cancer.

The ozone layer extends from 8 km (upper troposphere) up throughout the stratosphere.  It is well known that the warming of the stratosphere is caused by the reaction of ultraviolet light with ozone. Energy is absorbed and ozone (O₃) converts to diatomic (O₂) and (O) nascent oxygen. Conversely, ozone loss decreases the amount of UV-B light absorbed and thus causes the stratosphere to cool and the earth to warm. 

Figure 9 shows the lowest value of ozone measured by TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) each year, a satellite instrument used to determine ozone levels.  One can see how CFCs destroyed the ozone in the late 1960’s until the late 1990’s. 

CFCs, chlorinated solvents, halons, methyl bromide, methyl chloride and halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in the stratosphere have begun to show a slow decline after reaching a peak in the mid-1990s.

Figure 9. Antarctic ozone over time ¹⁴.

Large solar heating-cooling cycle variations also occur every 80,000 to 110,000 years, but the sun's thermostat also changes in shorter term cooling-warming cycles of approximately 11 years, see Figure 10. The period chosen for analysis to negate this effect was from 1966 to 1998. At these two points in time, the solar irradiance hitting the earth was approximately the same (1365.8 W/m²). Table 1 and Table 2 show mass and energy balances around the earth and stratosphere from 1966 to 1998.

Figure 10.  Solar irradiance cycle effect on earth ¹⁵

The start of the reduction of ozone in the stratosphere is the result of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and later amendments.  CFC production ceased in developed countries in 1998 and was stopped in underdeveloped countries in 2010¹⁶.  The decline is now about 1% per year and the ozone is also now increasing slightly in the stratosphere as shown above in Figure 8.

By around 2100 the ozone should be back to the levels seen in 1960.  Ozone in the year 2002 was higher in the ozone hole because of unusually high temperatures in the Antarctic stratosphere (probably due to more interaction with air outside of the Antarctic region).

The global average ozone is about 300 Dobson units. Before 1980 ozone less than 200 Dobson units was rarely seen.  In recent years ozone near 100 Dobson units has become normal in the ozone hole. The Dobson unit is the most common unit for measuring ozone concentration.  One Dobson unit is the number of molecules of ozone that would be required to create a layer of pure ozone 0.01 millimeters thick at the surface of the earth at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 1 atmosphere.

The legendary hypotheses of Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina, and Sherwood Rowland, and led to CFCs being banned because they were destroying stratospheric ozone.  Total stratospheric organic chlorine is currently over 2.5 ppbv, in 1970 it was just over 1 ppbv, see Figure 11.

One can see how the reduction in stratospheric chlorine has affected global temperature.  As it stopped its rise in 1998 and started decreasing the temperature also started decreasing slightly (refer back to Figure 7). 

Figure 11.  Stratospheric Chlorine ¹⁷.

Conclusions

Since 1966 it is apparent that CFC destruction of stratospheric ozone was the only mechanism that caused the earth to warm.  Since 1998 when CFC production was stopped in developed countries and CFC concentration in the stratosphere stopped increasing, the earth temperature has not increased.  Fairly recently¹⁸, Qing-Bin Lu of the University of Waterloo stated, "a new theoretical calculation on the greenhouse effect of halogenated gases shows that they (mainly CFCs) could alone result in the global surface temperature rise of ~0.6°C from 1970-1998. These results provide solid evidence that recent global warming was indeed caused by the greenhouse effect of anthropogenic halogenated gases".  Although there is no such thing as greenhouse gases, the author is pleased that someone else has determined that CFCs not CO₂ and has caused the earth to warm.  The author discovered the CFC effect back in 2009, Dr. Lu has been touting this for years as well but most scientists haven't accepted it.  

So, based on real data evaluation, CO₂ causing global warming is completely contrived.  The lesson to the world here is, when it comes to science; never blindly accept an explanation from a politician or scientists who have turned political for their own private gain.  Many scientists, including the author, see global warming from CO₂ as a cruel global swindle to eliminate conventional fuels, so that a few, at the expense of the many, can reap huge profits from either carbon taxes and/or alternative “non-green” energy sources such as windmills, solar power, and hydroelectric power.

Science is a search for truth -- nothing else; when scientific truth is trashed (the US EPA is complicit in this) for personal gain by a few influential greedy charlatans, the world and the average people in it, are in very deep trouble!

References:

1.     Ross, R. J., and Elliott, W.P., "Radiosonde-Based Northern Hemisphere Tropospheric Water Vapor Trends", Journal of

              Climate, Vol.  14, 1602-1612, July 7, 2000.

2.     Petit, J.R., et. al., "Climate and Atmospheric History of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica", Nature

              399: 429-436, June 3, 1999.

3.     Loehle, C. and McCulloch, J.H. 2008. Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring proxies. Energy & Environment 19: 93-100.

4.     Pearch, R.W. and Bjorkman, O., "Physiological effects", in Lemon, E.R. (ed.), CO₂ and Plants: The Response of Plants to Rising Levels of Atmospheric CO₂, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983), pp 65-1055.

5.     Travis, D., A. Carleton, and R. Lauritsen, 2002: Contrails reduce daily temperature range. Nature, 418, 601.

6.     Brehmer, Carl, "The Greenhouse Effect Explored", February 21, 2012, http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/143-the-greenhouse-effect-explored

7.     Costella, J.P., "Climategate Analysis", http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/

8.     David Evans, "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming", November 28, 2007, http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Evans-CO₂DoesNotCauseGW.pdf.

9.     Carlin, A. and Davidson, J, "Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act", March 9, 2009. Deleted can’t find, copy attached from my files.

10.     http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/02/19/house-votes-244-179-to-kill-u-s-funding-of-ipcc/

11.     Washington Times - "Global Climate Change Group Seeks Immunity for Actions, June 12, 2012, http://times247.com/articles/global-climate-group-seeks-legal-immunity-for-actions#ixzz1ySY2gR5D

12.     New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/business/worldbusiness/11iht-gore.4.10942634.html?_r=1

13.     “CFC Destruction Major Cause of Recent Global Warming!”, Hydrocarbon Processing articles, October and

        November publications, 2009.  http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=2152  

14.   http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/ozone/index_2012.htmlGlobal Surface Temperatures Anomalies, National Oceanic and        Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center, Sept. 17, 2012.  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php

       15.   Lean, J. 2000, Evolution of the Sun's Spectral Irradiance Since the Maunder minimum. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 27,

                No. 16, pp.2425-2428, Aug. 15, 2000

16.     Nobel Prize in Chemistry, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, October 11, 1995.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/press.html

17.     Australian Government Department of Environment, http://www.environment.gov.au/node/22144

18.   Qing.-Bin Lu, International Journal of Modern Physics B, “Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse  

        Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change”,
        DOI: 10.1142/S0217979213500732, May 30, 2013.

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 [RA1]

Response:

This was a very long submission. Sit back and relax, this is going to take a while.

Introduction:

"However, this meteorologist along with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) crowd got it completely backwards about water vapor and CO₂ -- they cool the earth like all other gases and dust in our atmosphere!"

Although moisture in the atmosphere does increase with warming, this is because the higher temperature causes more water to evaporate.  With every pound of water evaporated 1,000 Btu is absorbed and that causes cooling.  Further, increased water in the atmosphere causes further cooling (not warming) by reflecting more of the radiant energy from the Sun that is hitting the water vapor molecules back to outer space, e.g. cooler on a cloudy day than a clear day.

Let's begin with how illogical this statement is. He states that moisture in the air increases with higher temperature causing more evaporation which cools the air and causes the air to be cooler. Huh? Let's try that again.

The air is warmer? Check. Why is it warmer? He doesn't say. We'll let that one slide.

What happens with the warmer air? It causes evaporation. Check. We all know water evaporates faster on a hot day than a cool one.

Every pound of evaporation water results in 1000 Btu being absorbed. Other than using an antiquated measuring system, I'm OK with this statement. Another check for him.

But, this evaporation causes cooling? Cooling of what, Bob? And, where did that 1000 Btu per pound go to? You cannot just take 1000 Btu per pound of evaporated water and have it disappear. That is a violation of conservation of energy, so no check here. The evaporation helps cool the water surface (which is being heated by the sunlight, not the air), but evaporation is not the only cooling mechanism of water, it also emits IR radiation. The increased water vapor traps the IR radiation being emitted by the surface and reemits it in a random direction. Major no check on this point.

Increased water in the atmosphere causes further cooling. Huh? Wait a minute. He just said there was more water vapor because of higher temperatures! Again, which is it? Another major no check.

Then, water vapor causes cooling by reflecting more of the radiant energy from the Sun back into space when it hits the water molecule. No! Water droplets in the form of clouds will reflect light. As such, clouds act as a negative feedback during the daytime (make it cooler) when the Sun is up. But, water molecules absorb IR radiation and then reemit it in random directions. Given enough water molecules in the air, you will get a net result of IR radiation coming from one direction and then being remitted in all directions. IR coming from the Sun gets absorbed high in the atmosphere. But, the surface gets heated by the sunlight and then emits IR, which is absorbed by greenhouse gases such as CO2, water vapor and methane (to name just a few).  So, those clouds, while reflecting sunlight, also absorb IR radiation and reemit it, making them positive feedback mechanisms at night (cause it to stay warmer). One more major no check.

So, we see right from the start that there is very serious issues in this submission. But, there is a long way to go.



Al Gore

Ah! The contrarians favorite fall-to argument. The guy they hate more than anyone except Obama. To tell the truth, I don't care for either of them myself. But, what does that have to do with science? Nothing! Neither of them is a climate scientist and the argument there is no global warming because you don't like Al Gore is not scientifically compelling. So, beating up on either one of them is not a scientifically valid argument. It is just good for rallying the troops and nothing else.

But, let's go through this anyway. He states,

 Gore gave no explanation what would cause a CO₂ spike to occur in the first place,

Maybe not, but climate scientists do.  Take a look here and here. But, in case you aren't interested in reading these postings made by active climate scientists, I will give a summary. Just for convenience, let's start with an ice age (we could start at any point in the cycle and the result is the same). What we have is a cold planet with lots of ice. Later, those continent size glaciers will all be melted. So, where did the heat come from? One of the things we know is Earth's orbital parameters change. This is called the Milankovitch cycle. As the cycle changes it will cause an increase in solar radiation reaching the planet surface, and this results in warming. This amount of energy is enough to cause some warming, but it is not enough to melt the ice. There has to be more heat. That extra heat comes from increased efficiency in the greenhouse effect. As the initial warming takes place, it causes CO2 to be released and an increase in water vapor, which both act as greenhouse gases and trap heat, leading to more temperature rise, leading to more CO2 and water vapor, and so on. Eventually, there will be enough heat trapped in the atmosphere to melt the ice. But, the Milankovitch cycle keeps right on going and the day will come when it results in a reduction of solar energy reaching the surface and the temperature will be begin to fall. The greenhouse effect will slow this process down, but as the air temperature begins to drop, that water vapor will begin to condense and precipitate out, washing out CO2 with it. This will lead to a reduction in air temperature, more precipitation, less CO2, lower temperature, and so on until a new ice age begins.

To the utter dismay of the contrarians, the hockey stick is not only accurate, but it has been verified by several independent lines of research. Here is the temperature trend for the last 2000 years as we now know it:

The 'hockey stick' appearance is very prevalent. It is also very obvious that the Medieval Warm Period (the bump around the year 1000) was cooler than today (on the right). Here are some other plots from the National Climatic Data Center. All of these plots show the same pattern. Notice that the Little Ice Age followed the Medieval Warm Period and the surface temperature began increasing between 1600 and 1650.

Here is the CO2, methane and nitrous oxide levels for the same time period:

Source: CDIAC

Very clearly, there is no appreciable increase in the greenhouse gases until after 1750, more than a hundred yeas after the increase of global average temperature that began around 1650. All of this occurred via natural events and was not due to man made emissions. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that we had changed the environment enough to start overriding the effects of the natural effects.

What is interesting is that Mr. Ashworth says today's warming is just a natural cycle because of the 800-year lag. I wish you could see his graphic because it show he measured 800 years from the end of the Medieval Warm Period and that takes him to today. 800 year lag, right? No! The 800-year lag he refers to starts at the BEGINNING of the warming trend and is the difference between when warming started and CO2 levels started rising. So, by his logic, the current warming trend should have started 800 years after the MWP warming trend began in about year 500. So, 500 + 800 would give us the year 1300 and, if his claim is valid, we would see a rise in CO2 start sometime around 1300. But, the plot above clearly shows there was no rise in CO2 level anytime around 1300.

So, this claim is also scientifically invalid.


Man made CO2

I felt challenged by his statement about the table not being available any more and how it was 'deleted'. Nothing is deleted once it gets on the web. So, I did a quick search for the document and it came up on the first hit - the IPCC Third Assessment Report: The Scientific Basis.  The data for CO2 sources and absorption is all there.

Well, what about this particular table? Let's take a closer look at this table and Mr. Ashworth's claims.

Using the table in combination with a total concentration of 401 ppmv of CO₂ seen in the atmosphere in May 2014, one sees that the CO₂ caused by man's activities amounts to only 11.6 ppmv of the CO₂ in the atmosphere.

TABLE 1. GLOBAL SOURCES AND ABSORPTION OF CO2

Carbon Dioxide:                       Natural             Human Made                Total                Absorption

Annual Million Metric Tons      770,000                23,100                       793,100               781,400

% of Total                                   97.1%                  2.9%                          100%                  98.5%

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis

(Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 188.

The amount of CO₂ from man is a mouse-milk quantity compared to nature's emissions.  If we eliminated worldwide, all man-made CO₂ emissions tomorrow, we would go back to the level we had in 2008.  Since 1998 there has been no warming and yet CO₂ in the atmosphere increased some 31 ppmv, almost triple the global man-made quantity.

Nature absorbs 98.5% of the CO₂ that is emitted by nature and man.

Look at this figure below. It shows man made emissions to be 29 gigatons and natural emissions to be 771 gigatons. Both figures are consistent with the table above. (This graphic is somewhat out of date. Manmade emissions now top 35 gigatons per year.) The absorption in this figure is given as 788 gigatons per year. That is a bit lower than the table above, but we'll call it consistent. That gives a net of 12 gigatons of CO2 added to the atmosphere every year. So, his figure of 98.5% absorption is correct. What he doesn't say is that only about 50% of man made emissions are absorbed. So, although man made emissions are much smaller than naturally occurring emissions, it is our contribution that is increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We are emitting enough to overwhelm the natural sinks. Note, this is from the more recent 4th  IPCC Assessment which was made in 2005. I'll give Mr. Ashworth a check on this one for having the numbers correct, but he gets a minus for the lie of omission. It is still a lie.

Source: IPCC AR4 via Skeptical Science

But, he couldn't leave well enough alone when he then states:

As CO₂ increases in the atmosphere, nature causes plant growth to increase via photosynthesis which is an endothermic (cooling) reaction.  For every pound of biomass formed some 8,000 Btu are removed from the atmosphere.  CO₂ is absorbed, and oxygen is liberated.  Further, a doubling of CO₂ will increase the photosynthesis rate by some 300+ %, depending on temperature and available moisture⁴, see Figure 3.

Sorry, Bob, that isn't correct. Scientific experiments show, under conditions with CO2 concentrations of 475 - 600 ppm,  the increase in plant growth is actually around 40%. They also show the water usage of the plants goes down about 20%, so atmospheric water vapor would not be expected to go down with increased plant growth. This does not support claims doubling CO2 concentrations will increase plant growth by 300%. Its important to note that the nutritional value of plants goes down with rising CO2 levels, meaning humans and animals will need to consume more plants to get the same nutritional value as before. This one is not a check for him.

His value of 8000 Btu per pound of biomass is an acceptable average. It is a little higher for wood, and a little lower for grains and grasses. So, we'll say this is a check.

Unfortunately, his math fails him at this point when he says,

Nature therefore has in place a built-in mechanism to regulate the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere that will always completely dwarf man's feeble attempts to regulate it.

Here is a plot of the CO2 level since 1958:

Source: SIO Keeling Curve

No, Bob. This is where that previous lie of omission came back to bite you. Nature will remove about one-half of what we emit, but the other half keeps building up. As we can see in the graph above, the level has gone up considerably since 1958. In fact, it has gone up about 43% since the start of the industrial revolution and that is all due to us. Mr. Ashworth failed on this one - no check.


Common Sense Scientific Truth

I always cringe when I hear someone say something like this and this is one bizarre example of why. First, some real scientific truths. Heat is not absorbed by mass, it is absorbed by molecules that absorb IR radiation. If some molecule doesn't absorb IR radiation you can have as much mass of that molecule as you want and it still will not absorb IR radiation. In particular, oxygen and nitrogen do not absorb IR radiation and are not greenhouse gases. No check here.

Then, he just has to stick his foot in it by saying:

Nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and any dust that is in the atmosphere all provide cooling.

More radiation hits our atmosphere from the sun (342 Watts/m^2) than is reflected back from the earth (164 Watts/m^2) to the atmosphere see Figure 4.  The overall effect will always be cooling – not warming! 

I just have to wonder if he reads this stuff before he sends it out. He states that there are 342 Watts/m^2 coming in and only 164 Watts/m^2 going out. That is a net increase of 178 Watts/m^2. Somehow, he figures the planet is experiencing a net increase in energy and this results in a net cooling. Not only is his logic wrong, but so are his numbers, starting with the influx which has an accepted value of about 1360 W/m^2. Work the math and see for yourself. This is a HUGE lack of a check for him.


Then, he says,

The IPCC scientists must not realize we get our energy from the sun; they look at only one-half of the mass and energy balance.  It is like saying you don’t need a furnace in your house in the winter, insulation alone will keep you warm.

No. The sunlight heats the planet, not the greenhouse gases. The planet then emits the heat in the form of IR radiation in a cooling process. The greenhouse gases act as insulation to keep the IR radiation from escaping into space as quickly, thus raising the global average temperature. To use his analogy, what he is saying is the amount insulation in your house doesn't matter. If you have a furnace it will keep it at the same temperature, no matter what.

As you can see above, there is a lot more. I'm going to go through the rest more quickly.

1st and 2nd Proofs.

Once again, water vapor absorbs infrared radiation and works to insulate the planet. The science on this is both massive and conclusive. If you refuse to accept the science there is nothing I can do for you. Condensed water in the form of clouds works as a negative feedback during the daytime as it reflects sunlight but as a positive feedback at night as it traps heat. Two no checks in a row.

ClimateGate was certainly a fraud, but the fraud is what the denier organizations perpetrated on the public. The emails were selectively quoted out of context and even rewritten in order to portray the scientists in the manner the deniers wanted. The scientists were investigated by no fewer than eight committees and cleared of any wrong doing. Unfortunately, the criminals that hacked into the servers and committed this fraud will get away with it. If they were so correct in their actions, why have they always remained anonymous? Why are they hiding? Further, anyone that cites ClimateGate as any kind of evidence is demonstrating they simply refuse to do any kind of investigation into the facts and are acting with an agenda. This is a big no check for Mr. Ashworth.

They also violated the second law of thermodynamics by saying a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer earth.  They don't have a clue, or they think people are stupid -- two bogus explanations that are easy to show are completely false.

Based on Mr. Ashworth's logic it would be impossible to keep warm with a coat or a blanket on the bed. Again, there is a complete rejection of science and, again, a huge no check for him.

Around 1990, NOAA began weeding out more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world.  It can be shown that systematically and purposefully, country by country, they removed higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.  The thermometers kept were near the tropics, the sea, and airports near bigger cities.  These data were then used to determine the global average temperature and to initialize climate models.  From 1960 through 1980, there were more than 6000 stations providing temperature information.  The NOAA reduced these to fewer than 1500. Calculating the average temperatures this way ensured that the mean global surface temperature for each month and year would show a false-positive temperature anomaly, a bogus warming trend.  Interestingly (although absent scientific credibility), the very same stations that were deleted from the world climate network were retained for computing the average-temperature base periods, further falsely increasing the bias towards earth warming.  

There is some truth in what he is saying. It is true the number of stations went from 6000 to 1500, but not for the reasons he claims. Besides, NOAA is only one agency involved in measuring the global temperature, there are agencies all over the world involved in this process. In fact, Berkeley Earth uses 39,000 temperature sources completely different from the four main climate research institutions and obtains essentially the same results.He was correct with his numbers, but his interpretation was incorrect and incomplete. So, no check mark here.

Then, his submission became a claim of a government conspiracy. Fortunately, I made the stipulation that all proofs had to be scientific, so I don't need to get involved with government conspiracies. No check mark for him here. If you want to argue conspiracies, let's talk about what the coal industry has been doing. But, sadly, that is not proof, one way or the other.

He makes the same old claim that there has been no warming since 1998. This is so well-refuted I am truly surprised when someone pulls this one out any more. Here is a very good article (one of many resources available on the subject) to help you on your way. And, of course, any time someone makes this claim I have to ask what is their motive in ignoring 93% of the global warming that is taking place - the heating of the oceans. Take a look at the global heat content including the heating of the oceans and tell me there has been no warming. Big fat no check mark here.

In summary, I can very safely say this submission did not prove man made global warming is not real.