Showing posts with label water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. Show all posts

Monday, 9 February 2009

Bob Breck

Chief Meteorologist Bob Breck of WVUE-TV

No link for this one, the list cites a letter to the list creators.
But I found a blogspot blog (join the family) of his:
http://bobbreck.blogspot.com/

Seems to contain more arguments than the letter, so most of the below are from the blog:

Arguments condensed

There's probably more..

Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Dr. Martin Hertzberg

Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry

Cites this media article this media article

However the article doesn't directly quote Hertzberg much and even contradicts him in one case.

The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide -The Innocent Source of Life by Dr. Martin Hertzbergment (PDF) is a better source of arguments directly from him

Arguments Condensed:

Notes:

  • Seems to suffer from a focus on co2 emissions rather than co2 concentrations, ie to think emissions should correlate with warming rather than concentration.
  • Confuses atmospheric average lifetime of a co2 molecule with the residence time for a pulse of co2 added:
    "The global warming advocates including the IPCC argue that the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere lasts for centuries....The most authoritative study of the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere was done by a Norwegian, Professor Tom Segalstad of the University of Oslo. The measured lifetime, based on the studies of some 50 independent researchers is at most about 5 years"

An original argument..

1. human co2 emissions fell 30% from 1929 (1.17 Gt) to 1932 (0.88 Gt).

2. But co2 concentration rose about 1.5ppm in that time.

3. Given 1+2, therefore human co2 emissions aren't causing the rise in co2.

This brilliant argument is described as:

"One of the more dramatic contradictions to the Gore-IPCC hypothesis is one that I came up with myself, and which appealed to Cockburn and to an Australian group of fellow skeptics."

Friday, 2 January 2009

Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh

Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, a Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Ohio State University, who has published over 45 peer reviewed studies

List cites a freerepublic post that still has a copy of an original news article that is no longer available:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1422147/posts

It starts off badly with "man’s addition to the carbon-dioxide flux in the atmosphere, by fossil-fuel combustion, is essentially irrelevant"

Arguments Condensed:

Notes:

  • uses the phrase "so-called greenhouse gas". I see this phrase a lot. What does it mean? Are they casting their luck whether co2 is a greenhouse gas? Perhaps they are suggesting the possibility that "greenhouse gases" don't even exist. What is up with this frequently used phrase?
  • This author actually puts forward their own explaination for the warming: "And behind that again is the alternative warming concept, most generally known as the Arctic Ocean Model, which is considered by many to be the real driver for the temperature oscillations and has been for the last million years or so.".

Friday, 19 December 2008

Frank Britton

Chemist Frank Britton rejected man-made climate fears in 2007.

list cites a news article, but the article seems to be gone:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_6489861

unable to find other references so far.

Arguments condensed
  • co2 concentration is small
  • Most co2 comes from ants and termites
  • co2 is not a "particularly effective" greenhouse gas
  • political conspiracy
  • scientific conspiracy
  • Humans have no measurable control over global temperatures

Notes

  • Think he's thinking of methane with the termites and ants argument.
  • The conspiracy arguments are that politicians and scientists know it's wrong but either for financial or ideological gain they push it nevertheless.

Quotes:

"Out of the wide spectrum of radiation received from the sun, CO2 only absorbs energy from
three very narrow levels"

Monday, 15 December 2008

Art Horn

Meteorologist Art Horn, currently operating The ‘Art' Of the Weather business

The list cites nothing, and that's the shortest introduction so far. Horn has actually written to the EPW according to the list.

But here's some more info:
http://www.theartofweather.com/arthorn.htm
and he has a website:
http://www.theartofweather.com/index.htm

On his FAQ page he has a topic "Is Global Warming For Real? Click here for the answer"
http://www.theartofweather.com/PageQ4.htm

There's also a news article interviewing him here where he talks about global warming:
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=2114

Arguments condensed

Notes:

When I found the news article and started reading it I wondered why The List hadn't cited it, as it cites many news articles for other names. My guess is because at the end of the article Horn's arguments are firmly tackled by climate scientists Dr Bill Chameides and Dr Brenda Ekwurzel:

"Ekwurzel or Chameides both discounted Horn's claim that only three percent of carbon emmisions are man-made.
"The claims are common if you haven't been trained in climate science," said Ekwurzel. "He's looking at the composition of the atmosphere and drawing conclusions without understanding all the various properties of water vapor versus carbon dioxide and so on."

Quotes:

"A self-described political moderate, Horn said he first conceived of the global warming presentation to engage with the popular topic of climate change, and he started from the premise that global warming didn't exist."

"Horn said that he wasn't alone in his beliefs about global warming, citing Web sites such as icecap.us and climatescience.org"

"In addition, Horn says, only about three percent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is man-made. The amount of man-made carbon in the atmosphere, Horn says, composes less than a tenth of the total atmosphere. According to Horn, such a small percentage couldn't possibly have an effect on global climate."

Qualifications:

  • From the article we learn that Horn has a BSc in meteorology.

Sunday, 14 December 2008

Dr. Cal Evans

Oxford-educated Geochemist Dr. Cal Evans, a prominent researcher who has advised the Alberta Research Council, the Natural Sciences, and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and who is affiliated with the Calgary-based group Friends of Science

This is the article the list cites:

http://www.dobmagazine.nickles.com/article.asp?article=magazine/070709/MAG2007_L90001.html

Arguments condensed:

Notes:

  • Accepts many glaciers are melting
  • Accepts the co2 rise since the industrial revolution, although preindustrial figure slightly wrong, and says ocean warming is the cause "at least in part" of the co2 rise.
  • Accepts that sunspot activity on its own cannot account for the full swings in global temperature (although confusingly the article cites Habibullo Abdussamatov as claiming evidence that "current global warming on both Mars and Earth is being caused by a long-term increase in solar irradiation")

Quotes:

"The slight increase in ground temperature has no parallel in the troposphere. If atmospheric CO2 concentration was actually a significant factor in global warming, it stands to reason that atmospheric temperatures would rise but that hasn't happened."

"To date, no one has been able to identify a link between higher CO2 concentrations and greater volumes of atmospheric water vapour"

BIO info:

(this is from the article, unfortunately I can find no other references at this time)

-former head of Esso's research arm
-appointed executive vice-president of Canada's largest upstream petroleum producer in 1980
-worked for Pemoco Ltd, "Oil And Gas Field Services"