Global Warming: Greenhouse Effect a Mirage

Note the phrase in the comment ‘The atmosphere in turn radiates longwave energy back to earth as well as out to space’. Notice also that only 168 of the 342 units of incoming solar radiation are absorbed by the earth’s surface whereas there are 390 units of outward radiation from the earth’s surface. Then there is another mysterious figure of 324 units of back radiation that is absorbed by the earth’s surface. This is considerably more than the 168 units of solar radiation that is absorbed by the earth’s surface in the first instance. Where does this additional energy come from? Working from left to right at the bottom of the figure, 168 units are coming in but 492 units going out, of which 324 come back again in the form of back radiation!

Somebody has cooked the books. I am sure that my high school science master would be most upset if I produced this figure all those years ago.

This memo is my serious contribution to the whole climate change issue. The atmospheric greenhouse effect lies at the heart of climate change science. Its very existence is now being challenged. I would have preferred to discuss my views with my professional colleagues in the climatological and environmental sciences. But they will have none of it. Why have these scientists and the South African authorities deliberately excluded those of us in the engineering professions from participating in the discussions? Is it because they have something to hide? All agree that this climate change issue is the most important scientific issue facing mankind. Unfortunately it has developed into an unhealthy slanging match instead of a serious international, multidisciplinary effort.

This memo was precipitated by vigorous but healthy exchanges between senior and experienced scientists on the Internet last week.

This whole climate change issue is rapidly collapsing. There is no way that international agreement will be reached on meaningful reductions of undesirable global greenhouse gas emissions. But the morning newspapers of 22 July 2008 quoted our Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism presenting his views to participants at a conference on climate change at Kirstenbosch. It was the same oldstory.

What the minister did not tell his audience is that this temperature increase is less than that between breakfast and morning tea on a sunny day. Nor did he suggest to his audience that they visit the Kruger Park on a hot day and notice how the animals adapt to this heat by resting in the shade of trees. Nor did he tell his audience why he recently issued an authority to start culling our elephants because of their overpopulation.

He continues making these claims without fear of contradiction from the scientificcommunity. Why is this? Would he dare present the same message to the nearby informal settlements that are now under water?

He said that South Africa had to take very difficult and important decisions relating to its own efforts to reduce and avoid these emissions. Among these was building a low carbon economy; establishing a climate resistant society; and adapting to the unavoidable climate changes. Again he did not mention how this would be achieved and at what costs. Does he really believe that he will be able to persuade the majority of our population to move towards a climate resistant society?

Where does all this nonsense come from? The public believes it because they have faith in scientists. The whole scientist community, by its silence, must bear responsibility for the incredible damage that these unsubstantiated claims will cause to the prosperity of our country, including those living within kilometres of the venue of the conference. In these turbulent (clue) times our minister should be spreading messages of hope, not messages of doom.

One newspaper had another headline in its business section. It stated that increasing numbers of South Africans are selling their houses and "packing for Perth". Last week, one of our foremost climatologists packed his bags and headed northwards. It is terribly sad for our country. These high level alarm and despondency messages can only make the situation worse.

What is the foundation of these nonsensical claims?

In its Climate Change 2007 Synthesis Report issued at the Bali Conference last December, the IPCC was dishonest when it tried to persuade decision-makers that there was a connection between the increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and increasing global temperatures. This was the foundation of their claim. Had they produced a graph showing this relationship it would have demonstrated the fallacies in their argument. Then we could all go home and get on with our lives. So they deliberately omitted it.

During the past week there was a vigorous behind-the-scenes debate on the Internet. The issue was the causes and consequences of the greenhouse effect. The climate alarmists maintain that the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause the so-called greenhouse effect. This results in increases in global temperatures with a whole array of serious consequences.

All those participating in the Internet debate agreed that this carbon dioxide/global warming linkage is invalid, but they had differences on the nature of the energy transfer mechanisms between the earth's surface and the upper atmosphere. I soon got lost. Physics was never one of my strong points, although my high school teacher did his best. But he did get one message across -- energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

We have been told that the IPCC is alive and well, and proposes producing its next series of assessment reports in 2013/14. This time it will not succeed in brushingaside those contrary reviews. At the very least it will be forced to address them.

These are my views on the debate. Feel free to demonstrate that I am wrong. I am not a physicist, but I do have knowledge of the energy transfer processes in hydrological applications. Radiant energy does not feature in the hydrological cycle. Our interest starts with the evaporation of water from the oceans and ceases when the rivers return the water back to the oceans.

There are several aspects that should be noted in this simple figure. First and most importantly, we are dealing with a self-regulatory process, (a) and (g) must balance. If not, the energy redistribution system will automatically restore the balance. This must be so, otherwise the whole system would have become unstable thousands of years ago.

Consequently, if the incoming solar radiation (a) increases, then the outgoing longwave radiation (g) must also increase. As neither (a) nor (g) can be measured accurately on a global scale, the place to search for changes caused by changes inincoming solar radiation are (e) and (f), not (a) and (g).

Greenhouse gasses cannot change (g) as this has to be in balance with (a). If part of (g) is returned to earth then the total energy input to the earth increases while the output from the earth decreases. The system becomes unstable and unpredictable.

This cannot happen.

Taking this further, if part of (g) is radiated back to the earth’s surface via the intervening atmosphere, how does this incoming longwave radiation react with the atmosphere in its path and eventually the land and ocean surfaces? In what way does it contribute to the water cycle? This question must be answered because it is claimed that the greenhouse effect will result in ‘an intensification of the hydrological cycle’.

I cannot find any answers in the IPCC’s 2007 assessment report of Working Group 1.

Did they address it at all?

Nor can I find it in my applied hydrology handbooks. Nor have I come across it in the hydrological publications. Nor was it ever discussed in any conferences and symposia that I attended. When I asked attendees at a recent conference on water issues held in Japan, the unanimous response was that this whole climate change issue was nothing more than an assembly of unverified hypotheses.

Now our Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism expects hydrologists to ‘adapt’ to something that does not exist.

Those of us involved in applied hydrology are familiar with the energy cycle that drives the hydrological cycle. Energy transfer mechanisms are critical for an understanding of river behaviour. Once again, the lack of interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge has led to a serious misunderstanding of the so-called greenhouse effect. That is now coming under scrutiny.

Consider a drop of rainwater on the top of a mountain. It possesses potential energy. The potential energy is relative to baseline that is conventionally seawater level. After the drop of water enters the headwaters of the river it starts moving in a downstream direction. Potential energy is converted to momentum energy. This maintains river flow, conveys sediment and erodes river banks. Through these processes, momentum energy is converted to heat energy, which is transferred back to the local atmosphere, and eventually back into space.

The quantification of these energy transfer mechanisms is very difficult because of unpredictable turbulence that is present on all scales where three-dimensional movement of a fluid is involved. For this reason, it is impossible to trace the path of a drop of water along its route to the ocean. While water is an incompressible fluid and can only move in a downstream direction, the oceanic water is unconstrained laterally and vertically. The atmospheric gasses are compressible and can move in all three directions as they are not constrained laterally, or vertically. Three dimensional movement of a fluid cannot be smooth on any time scale due to unpredictable turbulence that is present in all time and space movement. Einstein once described  turbulence as being too difficult for him.

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