Why a bit more CO2 won't make any measurable* difference to anything

From the motherlode:

The greenhouse effect works like this: Energy arrives from the sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation. The Earth then emits some of this energy as infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere 'capture' some of this heat, then re-emit it in all directions - including back to the Earth's surface. Through this process, CO2 and other greenhouse gases keep the Earth’s surface 33°Celsius (59.4°F) warmer than it would be without them.

(This also means that the upper layers will be cooler than they would have been, they only mention that as an aside).

Proper physics is beyond them, but they don't even have a grasp of the weather forecasters' concept of Potential Temperature. That article is recommended reading. They show it diagrammatically as follows:



Remember - if the lapse rate is 6.6 C/km, then air which 1 km up and has an actual temperature of 25C has a potential temperature of 31.6C. If air at ground level has an actual temperature of 31.6C, then the two layers are in a neutral situation.

Neutral

If the air has the following pressure-altitude profile, where the absolute temperature falls by 6.6C for each km of altitude (the observed lapse rate), it is in a neutral situation. Each layer of air is the 'right' temperature for that altitude, and no layer particular wants to move up or down:



Stable

If the air higher up is warmer and the air lower down is cooler (relative to the neutral situation), this is a stable situation. The warmer air is quite happy where it is, the cooler air is quite happy where it is. But this situation does not hold for long, because the lower layers will warm up and the higher layers will cool down (see article), re-establishing the neutral situation:



Unstable

If the air higher up is cooler and the air lower down is warmer (relative to the neutral situation), this is an unstable situation. The cooler air will sink and the warmer air will rise until it is all mixed and the neutral position is re-established:



Why we can pretty much ignore CO2

We know that CO2 in an enclosed glass container in sunlight will warm up a bit more than normal air. This is because CO2 absorbs slightly more of the infra red, and more importantly, because it has a lower specific heat capacity, i.e. it takes less energy to warm CO2 by 1C.

The Alarmists say that having 'trapped' the warmth near the surface, the air lower down will be warmer and the air higher up will be cooler than it otherwise would be (loft insulation makes your home warmer and the loft space cooler).

OK, that's superficially plausible. But to believe that, you must also believe that air is locked in position, and that the warmer air near the surface (and the cooler air higher up) will just stay where it is.

You have to believe that infra red energy can bounce around in a certain volume of space and influence temperature regardless of how the medium which 'trapped' it behaves. This is supposed to be about Global Warming, i.e. temperature changes, so why don't we look at actual temperatures of actual things and see where they go, what they do?

Well of course the warmer air won't stay just hovering above the surface and the colder air higher up won't stay higher up. We now have an unstable situation. The warmer air will rise and the cooler air will fall, it all gets mixed until we are back in the neutral situation again. This will happen at the same time and at the same rate as any 'surface warming' and the two processes constantly cancel each other out, with no overall effect on surface temperatures.

* Clearly, if there is more CO2 in the air, the lapse rate will increase slightly (lapse rate = gravity ÷ specific heat capacity), warming the air at the surface and cooling the air higher up. But bearing in mind we are talking about an increases in CO2 levels of about 0.01% per century, the increase in the weighted average lapse rate is going to be immeasurably small. And we know that water and water vapour will moderate that even further.

"Couple injured after being attacked by cow in the Yorkshire Dales"

Via @AmbushPredator, from The Yorkshire* Post:

The man and woman, aged in their 50s, were walking near Starbotton in Upper Wharfedale when the incident happened at 3pm on Wednesday. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance landed but was not needed and the couple were taken to hospital by road ambulance with cuts and bruises...

In May, an 82-year-old man from Lancashire was killed by cows when he and his wife, 78, were attacked by the herd while they were walking their dogs near Ribblehead Viaduct in the Dales. The woman was not seriously injured. The cattle had calves with them.

On July 19, a couple were 'trampled' by cows while walking through a field near Huggate in the Yorkshire Wolds. One had to be airlifted to hospital.

* Southerners please note, it is not pronounced York-sheer or York-shire, it is pronounced York-shuh, the emphasis in on the first syllable.

Coronavirus - daily new cases v daily new deaths

From worldometers.info:



There are lots of ways you can interpret that. I'm quite sure that some countries under-report and others over-report, but let's assume it cancels out and charts are a good guide to actual trends. There's a pessimistic and and optimistic way of interpreting anything, even something as grim as this.

1. Is the number of new cases really rising, as you would expect if R is greater than 1, or is the number of infections fairly stable, and the apparent increase is because they are testing more people?

2. Is this the start of the 'second wave' of deaths, or just the inevitable result of lockdowns being eased?

My slightly rosier view is to observe that the number of deaths in any week, while fairly stable, is falling as a fraction of new cases reported three weeks previously*. This might be because the virus is becoming less virulent, which is what such viruses tend to do (some faster than others); or it might be because hospitals are getting better at treating people; or it might be a bit of both. Whichever way, that's got to be A Good Thing.

* Assuming three weeks to be a typical lag between diagnosis and death. For example:

New cases March 28 - 51,000; deaths April 18 - 7,000; death rate = 13.7%

New cases June 20 - 180,000; deaths July 27 - 5,600; death rate = 3.1%

Weekly deaths - all causes - E&W - up to week 29

Data from the ONS.



I assume/hope that this will be pretty much the picture for the rest of the year i.e. a slight undershoot.

Eunice Foote - 19th century Climatologist

From Wikipedia

Foote conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated the interactions of the sun's rays on different gases. She used an air pump, four mercury thermometers, and two glass cylinders...

Her own two-page write is up here.

1. She pumped air out of one container into the other and left them in the sun for a while. Result:

Decompressed air - 88 F
Compressed air - 110 F.

"This circumstance must affect the power of the sun's rays in different places, and contribute to produce their feeble action on the summits of lofty mountains."

Yes, that is a large part of the actual explanation for sea-level temperatures, which is the gravity-induced lapse rate. Also, common sense tells us, it is pretty hard to heat up a vacuum (there is nothing to heat up), so decompressed air must heat up less.

2. She filled one container with moist air and one with dried air and left them in the sun for a while. Result:

Dry air - 108 F
Moist air - 120 F

I'm not sure what to make of this, but in itself. The specific heat capacity of moist air is higher than for dry air, so this doesn't follow the pattern observed in 3. below. But this is pretty irrelevant in climate terms. What makes a big difference in real life is the latent heat of evaporation (which cools the surface) and the corresponding latent heat of condensation (which warms the air) and thus reduces the lapse rate and overall Greenhouse Effect (by about one-third). It would have been more realistic to have a container filled half with water and half with dry air.

3. She filled the containers with different gases and left them in the sun for a while. Result:

Hydrogen - 104 F
Common air - 106 F
Oxygen - 108 F
CO2 - 125 F

Well, yes, of course. What are the specific heat capacities of those gases (in the 275 - 300 K range)?

Hydrogen - 14,025 J/kg/K
Common Air - 1,006 J/kg/K (or possibly 1,014 J/kg/K)
Oxygen - 916 J/kg/K
CO2 - 832 J/kg/K

Rather unsurprisingly, her experiment shows that things which require less energy to warm up, warm up the most. As ever, 'back radiation' has nothing to do with it. We'd have to adjust this for the mass of the gas compared to the mass of the glass containers and the specific heat capacity of glass (assuming they warmed to the same temperature), but the overall picture is clear enough.

She goes off on a bit of a tangent: "An atmosphere of [CO2] would give to our earth a high temperature; and if as some suppose, at one period of its history the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its own action as well as from increased weight must necessarily have resulted"

She is correct, but has the logic and magnitude wrong.

A lower specific heat capacity means a higher lapse rate. If our atmosphere were 100% CO2, the lapse rate would be approx. 2K/km higher (assuming relative humidity stays the same). The average temperature of the atmosphere can't increase as it is dictated by solar radiation. The average temperature is found half way up (approx. 5 km), so sea level temperatures would increase by approx. 10 K, and the temperature at the top of "lofty mountains" above 5 km altitude would fall.

But we would all have suffocated long before then.

In real life, we know that CO2 concentrations are likely to rise from pre-industrial 280 ppm to over 500 ppm this century, and quite possibly to over 600 ppm in the next.

If anybody can be bothered to work out the new average specific heat capacity of air will be when CO2 is 0.05% or 0.06% instead 0.028%, and then work out the new lapse rate (making some heroic assumptions as to whether and how much relative humidity would increase and moderate this) and the resulting impact on sea-level temperatures, then knock yourself out. Most calculators won't have enough decimal places to give a meaningful answer, and even if it does, the additional sea-level temperature will be within the margin of error of even the most accurate thermometers.

Finally:

From this experiment, she stated “The receiver containing [CO2] became itself much heated — very sensibly more so than the other — and on being removed [from the Sun], it was many times as long in cooling.”

As a general rule, gases with a lower specific heat capacity are better insulators and cool down more slowly, so that's hardly surprising either.

"Runaway cow causes moo-hem"

From Birmingham Live:

A free-spirited cow brought trains on the busy Birmingham line to a sh-udder-ing [halt] during Friday morning's rush hour when it was spotted wandering along the tracks.

"Moo-hem" is one of the most appalling cow-related word plays I have seen for a long time. There's no shame in sticking to the safe ones like "moo-ve over".

I would have given them a bonus point for "sh-udder-ing halt", but they omitted the word "halt" from the opening paragraph.

Pointless publicity stunt of the week

From the BBC:

An Australian student has filed a lawsuit against her government for failing to make clear climate change-related risks to investors in government bonds. It is thought to be the first such case in the world...

What does the lawsuit say?

"Australia is materially exposed and susceptible" to climate change risks, according to the statement filed with the Federal Court of Australia in Victoria state.

It alleges that the country's economy and the national reputation in international financial markets will be significantly affected by the Australian government's response to climate change.

You can only bring a civil case like this if:

a) you have suffered a loss (which she hasn't shown), and

b) the counter-party completely misrepresented what you were investing in, or at least, deliberately withheld certain important facts and you wouldn't have invested if you had been told those facts.

She knew perfectly well what she was investing in.

And I see no reason why the Australian government has to state the blindingly obvious like "the weather is unpredictable" and "Australia always has been - and always will be - susceptible to heat waves, floods, droughts and wild fires".

But I suppose the lawyers will make a shed load of money from this.

Friday afternoon gear change

Forty-two years later, and I've finally noticed this one in "Rhodesia" by Japan (parental advisory - offensive word at 4 mins 24 seconds), up a semi-tone at 4 mins 5 seconds:

More fun with statues

People just end up over-thinking this. One chap appears to find the Jen Reid statue almost as offensive as the Edward Colson one it (briefly) replaced.

From GQ (via Daily Mail):

So you don’t feel Quinn’s sculpture celebrated the protestor’s moment, nor supported the Black Lives Matter movement?

"Marc Quinn saw Jen Reid, actually a photograph of Jen [Reid] standing on Colston's plinth, on social media, I believe. And that's when he thought that it would make a great sculpture. He told the Guardian, “When I saw the picture of Jen on Instagram, I immediately thought it would be great to immortalise that moment. The image is a silhouette: she looked like a sculpture already.” It was the thinking and actions of some old-school documentary maker, or a trophy hunter. Quinn decided that he could control that image of Jen Reid. For her, that moment was one that felt right, that felt powerful, but it’s as if Quinn, by casting her in resin, and controlling her, is stealing that genuine moment away, claiming it as his own."

A statue means pretty much whatever you want it to mean. I prefer to just look at the skill, artistry and techniques. The Jen Reid statue is (was?) a masterpiece by any definition, and it has somehow managed to piss off a load of people as well. If I were in the sculpting game and looking for a quick win, I would cast a statue of two bestockinged legs sticking in the air and dump it a shallow part of Bristol Harbour (making sure it is not a hazard to boats, of course, always do your risk assessment!).

While I am on the topic, the Edward Colson statue was just as excellent on an artistic or technical level. The fact that nobody's really sure why it was put up 170 years after his death adds to the mystique. (Yes, he was a bastard, but we can't change facts or re-write history; whoever put the statue up was busily re-writing history as well). The Jen Reid statue is somehow very similar in overall look-and-feel:

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (480)

Here's the draft of a lead article I have written for the LVTC website (which is being totally revamped).
-----------------------------------------
The transition

We live in the real world and accept that it would take a decade or more to phase in LVT and phase out most other taxes. This is not all-or-nothing and can be done in stages. Every small step in the right direction is a step in the right direction, even if we never “get there”.

We have explained the main stages and running order for the transition under the heading “How much will I pay?”

Replacing existing taxes on land and buildings, occupation and wealth generally (Business Rates, Council Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax, Inheritance Tax, TV licence fee etc) with an annual LVT could be done fairly quickly (one or two years to get the basic valuations and administration in place and give people time to plan). These taxes are a mixture of the very regressive and very progressive so for most households at either end of the scale, the total tax payable over a lifetime would not change much, all that would change is the timing of payments. At the lower end, LVT would be much the same as the Council Tax (less Council Tax discounts) and the TV licence fee that they are currently paying; at the upper end there would be smaller annual LVT payments instead of large irregular payments of SDLT or Inheritance Tax at more or less random intervals. So this should not be too controversial.

Replacing the two most damaging taxes which raise significant revenues (VAT and National Insurance) would mean the LVT on a median value home increasing by about £5,000 per year. Households with two earners on average full-time salaries currently pay (or bear) over £15,000 in NIC and VAT per year and pay £1,000 Council Tax/TV licence fee, so they would see their net salaries and disposable income increase significantly.

But this need not be an all-or-nothing, Big Bang shift. We know that there are some (with only one main earner; on lower incomes; and/or in more valuable housing) who would be hit financially by an immediate shift.

We don’t know how quickly businesses will expand or how quickly employment rates and salaries will increase as a result of the shift (the Swedish experience with VAT cuts in 2009 suggest it can happen surprisingly quickly, within months rather than years).

Those who are hit (or think they will be hit) financially need time to trade down; to take in a lodger; and/or find better paying jobs. So VAT and National Insurance would be reduced by a few per cent each year for five to ten years until they are completely phased out, and in tandem, the median LVT bill would increase by £500 to £1,000 each year (or by £40 to £80 each month) for a transition period of five to ten years. Most of the households who think they will end up with significantly less disposable income at the end of this transition should be able to cope with this timetable.