The Philosophy and logic of global warming

Science isn't what it used to be. This concern is the starting point of an organization called Principia Scientific. The people there attempt to correct global warming science but get buried in the usual quagmire of endless details which displace relevance and perspective.

Relevance and perspective are not easy to sustain in the area of global warming. Books cannot do it, because they get immersed in too much one-sided detail. Flaws get carried too far, and corrections and responses are not possible. These problems we see in the book "Slaying the Sky Dragon," where critics of global warming claim to correct the science.

Another problem visible in that book and elsewhere is that the more important basics are not differentiated from superficial trivia. In fact, there tends to be an absence of basics throughout global warming science. When the basics are wrong, the problem is going to persist, even when the rest of the subject is corrected.

The basics are the starting points which create the foundation for the rest of a subject. One of the most basic errors in global warming "science" is a fudge factor for determining how much heat carbon dioxide produces in the atmosphere. If that fudge factor is correct, then carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and what it does is unquestionable. It's all wrapped up in the fudge factor. The fudge factor has to be wrong before there can be anything wrong about the concept of global warming or how much heat will be produced by CO2 (before other "forcings").

Yet the fudge factor is nowhere to be seen in criticism of global warming (or its promotion). It first showed up in a publication by James Hansen et al in 1988. Its origins cannot be determined. Norm Kalmanovitch took a look at it and said it appears to be an extension of past assumptions into the future. Supposedly, a temperature increase of 0.6°C occurred in the past with an increase of 100 parts per million CO2. So the fudge factor says increases in CO2 will always hold those proportions. It won't happen, and it is not happening with a recent cool-down, because temperatures contantly change for any number of reasons which have nothing to do with carbon dioxide.

The fudge factor is fed into models, with the only question being how much secondary effect will be created by other factors (called forcing) such as increased water vapor causing more warming, since water vapor is a so-called greenhouse gas even stronger than CO2. The absurd thing about secondary effects is that they are miniscule compared to natural effects. The implication is that there are no natural effects upon global average temperature. Yet measurements show anything but constant temperatures in the past.

In other words, CO2 supposedly created a temperature increase of 0.2°C, which caused more water to evaporate, and then the water vapor caused another 0.4°C temperature increase. The CO2 effect is being multiplied by 3 to get the total effect. Nature causes water vapor to increase in large amounts, as ocean surface temperatures increase, as with El Ninos. Why doesn't the planet fry due to natural effects, which have to be hundreds of times larger than the secondary effects of CO2?

Fudge factors are not valid science, because they do not account for the complexities involved, and verification is not possible. In fact, the whole concept of valid science has totally been abandoned in global warming "science." The validity of science is self-described in the purpose, and it evolved through 500 years of application.

The purpose of science is to replace false concepts with truth and increase knowledge in the area of basic principles of nature. This is what science has attempted to do and what society has expected it to do. Even now, with overwhelming corruptions of science, the pretense is that science is replacing false assumptions with unquestionable truth. Why is the science settled for global warming according to alarmists? Because the truth is supposedly unquestionable.

What makes truth unquestionable in science? Verifiability is the most basic requirement. Scientists have developed procedures which produce verifiability. This means testing the validity of methodology to show that it represents nature consistent with an evolving knowledge. Controls and references are needed to align measurements upon objective quantities. Reproducibility then allows any scientists to check the results and build upon them to add more information.

The usual definition of science is absurd in claiming scientists create a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis. Engineering is closer to that concept than science is. Science has been too complex to test hypotheses for a century or more. What modern scientists do is find new methods of measurement and allow the results to speak for themselves. The results are always surprising, because humans cannot imagine the complexities that nature produced.

What is highly visible in global warming "science" is a motive being rationalize with inappropriate procedures. Meaningless measurements are made and obtuse conclusions are based on the results. Any number of alternative explanations could be produced for the results, even if the results are reliable, which is usually not the case, as with ice cores for CO2, fake temperature measurements and hockey stick graphs.

For example, the effects of CO2 acidifying the oceans is often tested with hydrochloric acid in aquariums. CO2 is a buffer in equilibrium with metabolizeable carbon. It's chemistry and biology is nothing resembling that of hydrochloric acid. Acidification improves the ability of phytoplankton to incorporate CO2 into cell mass through photosynthesis, because the utilized form of CO2 is more acidic than the unused forms in equilibrium with it.

Another absurdity which is pushed with the vehemence of an absolute is that if the oceans get more acidic than pH 8.1 ocean life will be destroyed, because calcium carbon precipitates above that pH and dissolves below it. There is no precipitation reaction anywhere in biology. All biological effects are under control, usually with enzymes which do not produce precipitation. The reason why the oceans are pH 8.1 (Scientists have never found any other pH in the oceans outside sheltered estuaries or related effluent.) is because calcium carbonate acts as a buffer holding the oceans at that pH. Fake scientists have been projecting future pH of the oceans to be more acidic and then proclaiming the guess to be a fact of science. They also estimate the past pH of the oceans to have been more alkaline than now, even though no measurements were made at that time, and then they proclaim the contrivance to be a fact of science.

All biology controls pH in extreme ways and has very wide tolerance for pH in environments--wide meaning several pH units, not the tenths being argued. For example, respiration generates ATP by creating a hydrogen ion dam and allowing the escaping protons to turn proteins. Creating the hydrogen ion dam uses the common hydrogen ion pump which transports hydrogen ions (protons) across membranes including external membranes which allow extremes in pH in the environment to be tolerated. (pH is hydrogen ion concentration.)

The absurdities in global warming "science" are not possible in real science. Measurements are supposed to be made in a manner which speaks for itself with verifiability. Large leaps in conclusions are not possible in complex areas. To really study these questions in a valid manner would require numerous laboratories many years with dozens or hundreds of studies. Instead, single studies are used to draw monumental conclusions. The validity of the measurements is never determined.

Models are not valid in science, yet they are given as fact by climatologists. If someone wants to apply developed knowledge to models, it lies outside the realm of the science which produces a source of knowledge. Climatology is so complex that the projections are not even reliable. The models produce a myriad of varying results and fail to predict variations such as the recent down-turn in temperatures.

It was only because of deteriorating standards in science that global warming became a concern. One of the main reasons why real scientists were not concerned about global warming in the past is because so-called greenhouse gases saturate at about one tenth their present concentrations. Saturation means the gases absorb all radiation available to them. This means, more of such gases does nothing more, because the radiation is already used up.

Climatologists are aware of saturation, but they rationalize it by looking for effects on the edge of the absorption curves, where radiation is not all used up. About 5% of the absorption curves are argued. Heinz Hug did measurements and a mathematical study and showed that only 0.1% of the curve is unsaturated. There is a logic to this effect. At the center of the primary absorption peak, all available radiation gets used up in about 10 meters for CO2. On the sides of the peak, where there are one tenth as many CO2 molecules, the distance increases to 100 meters. At 5% of the peak, the distance is 200 meters. In other words, saturation occurs in 200 meters instead of the usual 10 meters. What this means is that the heat moves from the first 10 meters to 200 meters. Changing this distance by such a small amount does nothing to change temperatures near the surface of the earth. At 0.1% of the peak, the distance is 10 kilometers. Moving the heat up 10 kilometers would be slightly relevant, if the amount of heat were relevant. But spreading miniscule amounts of heat over 10 kilometers of vertical distance in the atmosphere is a non-effect.

Another reason why scientists were unconcerned about global warming is because oceans regulate the amount of CO2 in the air. Water absorbs CO2, and alkaline solutions more so. The oceans are alkaline at pH 8.1. That means there is 1/11 as many hydrogen ions in sea water as in neutral water. CO2 is strongly absorbed at that pH.

The oceans are constantly absorbing and releasing CO2. Temperature change on the surface of oceans is the primary factor, as warm water holds less CO2. The exchange rate for CO2 in the oceans is 90 giga tons per year. Humans add 8.6 GT/Y CO2 to the atmosphere. This means oceans absorb and release CO2 at tens times the rate that humans produce it. Therefore, oceans determine how much CO2 is in the air.

CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere due to oceans warming, not because of human additions. Oceans constant warm between ice ages.

Of course, this argument was made early on, when alarmists began to claim humans are creating global warming. So someone did a fake analysis and said the CO2 which humans add to the atmosphere is staying near the surface of the oceans and saturating, which supposedly means oceans are not removing the CO2 which humans add to the atmosphere. How come the surface temperatures of oceans keep changing, if the surface doesn't mix? How much acid can the oceans be acquiring, if they are not absorbing the CO2 which humans add to the atmosphere? Later, rationalizers said the oceans are absorbing half of the human-sourced CO2. Maybe then oceans are regulating CO2 in the atmosphere; but the claim of half is nothing but more fakery for rationalizing.

Global warming alarmists produce a fake analysis for every question, which often is not even a measurement. When satellite measurements showed temperatures cooling in the center of Antarctica, alarmists did a re-analysis of previously acquired temperature data and said the temperatures at Antarctica were warming. They get any result they want when rationalizing their fake science.

Gary Novak