Climate & Climate Change

IN recent years, a major advance in our understanding of the physical dynamics of the climate process has come from the work of Ferenc Miskolczi. For the present note I am calling his discovery the ‘climatically saturated greenhouse effect’. I use these words to mean that the ‘saturation’ of which I speak is not the classical static saturation of an isolated system, but is ‘saturation’ in a specially extended sense for an open system in a thermodynamically-non-equilibrium dynamic steady state.

Dr Miskolczi’s discovery arose from his regular work for NASA, examining the data measured by radiosonde balloons. Studied and analyzed under the microscope of the radiative transfer computer program that he had written, the large data set turned out to be a previously only partly tapped reservoir of a wealth of physical facts. From the reservoir of numerical data, Dr Miskolczi abstracted mathematical formulae that expressed new physical understanding.

Dr Miskolczi showed that the true physical dynamics of the climate process is that the present rate of change of amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is dynamically determined, amongst other factors, largely by the present amount of greenhouse gas. A second dynamical factor is the fluctuating temperature of the atmosphere. There are also other dynamical factors that are mostly ignored in this present note.

On the other hand, for its doctrine that man-made CO2-emissions cause harmful global warming, the IPCC speaks in terms of its mathematical formalism of “radiative forcing” and “positive feedback by water vapour”. But, sad to say, this formalism is fatally flawed and cannot describe the true dynamical structure of the climate response to CO2.

[Read more…] about The Climatically Saturated Greenhouse Effect: A Note from Christopher Game

Where the output of computer software is held in higher regard than observational data, where marketing spin is more important than fact and evidence, and where a trenchant defence of the notion of man-made global warming is seen as paramount…  Read more here.

During a town hall meeting prior to his primetime press conference Wednesday, President Obama offered a dire global weather forecast to mark his 100th day in office.  Read more here.

OUR understanding of the natural world does not progress through the straight forward accumulation of facts because most scientists tend to gravitate to the established popular consensus also known as the established paradigm.  Thomas Kuhn describes the development of scientific paradigms as comprising three stages: prescience, normal science and revolutionary science when there is a crisis in the current consensus.  When it comes to the science of climate change, we are probably already in the revolution state.  In particular there is growing concern that some of the physics underpinning the IPCC climate models may be flawed.  The work of Ferenc Miskolczi is a case in point.

Some years ago this Hungarian physicist, then working for NASA, discovered a flaw in an equation used in the current climate models  discovered a flaw in how those constructing the IPCC climate models deal with the issue of the atmosphere’s boundary conditions.  In order to progress this research Dr Miskolczi eventually resigned from NASA claiming his supervisors at NASA tried to suppress discussion and publication of his findings which have since been published in IDŐJÁRÁS, The Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service.

In essence Dr Miskolczi showed that the solution to a differential equation for the greenhouse effect developed in 1922 by Arthur Milne, and central to the current paradigm, wrongly assumed an infinitely thick atmosphere.  In re-solving this equation a new term and also a new law of physics have been proposed setting an upper limit to the greenhouse effect.   Dr Miskolczi’s theory indicates that any warming from elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide will eventually be offset by a change in atmospheric moisture content. 

The idea that water vapour is a negative rather than positive feedback is consistent with the findings of other climate scientists undertaking independent research that is also challenging the current paradigm, for example the work of Dr Roy Spencer.

The importance of the hydrological cycle including water vapour and cloud cover, and how their impacts on the global energy budget should be modelled, have been issues for other climate scientists critical of the current paradigm including Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Henrik Svensmark  from the Danish National Space Centre.
[Read more…] about The Work of Ferenc Miskolczi (Part 1)