Unbelievable new levels of idiocy.

Pontiuth Pilate

Republican Jesus!
Joined
Jun 11, 2003
Messages
7,980
Location
Taking stock in the Lord
A "scientist" who does not "believe" in global warming has published the following essay which states that TEMPERATURE DOES NOT EXIST :crazyeye:

I'll leave the debunking as an exercise. ;) You may want to reference the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Storm Front

By Paul Georgia Published 03/28/2003

Does the greenhouse effect really work like a greenhouse? Does the average global temperature provide any meaningful climatic information? Is there even a theory of climate? These are some of the questions asked and answered in a new book, Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming, written by Christopher Essex, a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, and Ross McKitrick, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph.

As the title notes, the book addresses both science and politics. As we shall see, the science underlying global warming alarmism is flimsier than most people, even many scientists, suspect. How we have reached a point where the world is on the verge of putting into force a treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, that would stifle economic growth in the developed countries and preclude it in the third world, in the absence of scientific evidence, demands an answer. The answer lies in the perverse incentives that arise from the subjugation of science to politics.

No Physical Meaning

Essex, who studies the underlying mathematics, physics and computation of complex dynamic processes, raises some very fundamental scientific issues with regard to global warming. Take, for instance, the "average global temperature," which is the primary statistic offered as evidence of global warming. The problem with this statistic is that it has no physical meaning. Temperature is not a thermodynamic variable that lends itself to statistical analysis, nor does it measure a physical quantity.

Thermodynamic variables are of two types, says Essex, extensive and intensive. Extensive variables, like energy or mass, occur in amounts. Intensive variables, such as temperature, refer to conditions of a system. A cup of hot coffee, for example, contains an amount of energy and has a temperature. If you add an equal amount of coffee with the same amount of energy and the same temperature to the cup, the amount of energy doubles, but not the temperature. The temperature remains the same. Thus, while you can add up the energy from two separate systems and get total energy, it is physically meaningless to add up the two systems' temperatures. And dividing that number by two doesn't give you the average temperature either. Such an exercise results in a statistic that has no physical meaning. Yet that is exactly what occurs when the average global temperature is computed.

Moreover, temperature and energy aren't the same thing. The internal energy of a system can change without changing the temperature and the temperature can change while the internal energy of the system remains the same. In fact, this occurs all the time in the climate because the two variables are fundamentally different classes of thermodynamic variables and there is no physical law that requires that they move together. The next time somebody informs you that the planet's "average temperature" has increased, you can rest assured that they have told you exactly nothing.

 
The average internal kinetic energy IS the temperature!
 
I have to show this to my physics teacher. He'll go nuts....
 
I can only conclude that this is either a parody or an attempt to reassure stupid people that they don't have to worry about screwing with the planet. There exist several ways to scientifically challenge the existence of significant global warming, and this is certainly not one of them.
 
Thus, while you can add up the energy from two separate systems and get total energy, it is physically meaningless to add up the two systems' temperatures.
That's quite correct.
And dividing that number by two doesn't give you the average temperature either. Such an exercise results in a statistic that has no physical meaning.
I believe that's where he's wrong. Adding two temperatures and diving by two gives you the average, obviously. How can that average have no meaning? It has plenty of meaning. This conclusion of his is rediculous.

Edit: It's like age. If you have the total age of the people of a classroom that number will be almost completely insignificant to you, just like if you have a total of temperatures. But if you find the average age of the people, that number is quite significant. And it's the same with temperature. If you think otherwise, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot.
 
Just some student weanie. The anti-climate change people have such a flimsy argument that they will use any old shlub as a scientist.
 
Zeroth law of thermodynamics: If body A is in thermal equilibrium with body B, and body B is in thermal equilibrium with body C, then we can state that bodies A & C are also in thermal equilibrium, and have the same temperature.

Temperature is NOT a state function. It is a measure of energy.

I think that what this person may be getting at is that we should be considering the changes in energy of the environment, not just the temperature. He's not quite as idiotic as you might think ;)
 
WillJ said:
That's quite correct.I believe that's where he's wrong. Adding two temperatures and diving by two gives you the average, obviously. How can that average have no meaning? It has plenty of meaning. This conclusion of his is rediculous.
If you take a cubic meter of air in singapore at 30°C, and another cubic meter of air from New York at 0°C and mix them together, the resultant temperature will not be 15°C.
 
All I wonder is who is paying for these two 'scientists' to do their research - would be interesting to know.....

As for their 'conclusions' agruing sematics and definitions goes nowhere, temperature is well defined measure agreed within the scientific community and ratifed as a standard, and average temperatures on a global scale are not just a case of adding and dividing numbers. The average is based on actual measured temperatures over a long period of time.

I'm also baffled by the coffee example - if I add two equal amounts at the same temperature then the new temperature will be an average of the two (eg add two amounts at 50' - 50'+50'/2=50') or am I missing something here? As long as the amounts are exactly equal and at exactly the same temperature then the logic holds, and if the temperatures are different if the amounts are identical then the new temperature will be the average at least thats what I remember being taught.
 
:lol: Temperature doesn't exist? What's next, are they gonna say there is no Santa? ;)
 
How about this approach:

A: prove that higher concentration of carbon dioxide gives greenhouse effects,
B: prove that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the athmosphere increases.

No need to involve temperature readings.

Now, if A and B are both true, then we better hope Earth is also having "one if its warm periods" (as some prefer to explain the fact that average global temperature have been breaking records several times the latest decades). What if earth actually is in a cold period actually neutralizing the greenhouse effect and a warm period is about to start?
 
Let's see to continue with the coffee example, the earth has an average temperature ranging from 0 to 40 degrees celcius while the sun has an average temperature of several million degrees celcius. If you mix the two together, the result would be an average temperature of several million degrees celcius. So technically he's right, the average temperature between the sun and the Earth doesn't change. The main problem is that average temperature of this system is vastly higher than the temperature of the Earth and the main cause of global warming is excess mixing of the temperatures between the Earth and the sun.
 
The lengths people will go to avoid being blamed for greenhouse gases is absurd!

Surely we live in an age of morons!
 
I agree with Ainwood- for some reason, this strikes me as simply being misunderstood by the majority of posters here, and that hes not sayign tha tmeperature (as in engy/heat fluxuations in the earths atmosphere) dont exist, but perhaps the established definition is misleading, or wrong. dont know why, just strikes me as having somthing behind, but being misunderstood. after all, none of have read his book have we? until somone dose, no one can really give a comment on his work.
 
CurtSibling said:
The lengths people will go to avoid being blamed for greenhouse gases is absurd!

Surely we live in an age of morons!

More accurately, an era, which I think covers two-plus millenia. ;)
 
Xen said:
I agree with Ainwood- for some reason, this strikes me as simply being misunderstood by the majority of posters here, and that hes not sayign tha tmeperature (as in engy/heat fluxuations in the earths atmosphere) dont exist, but perhaps the established definition is misleading, or wrong. dont know why, just strikes me as having somthing behind, but being misunderstood. after all, none of have read his book have we? until somone dose, no one can really give a comment on his work.

I concur. And be mindful that what was posted here was an editorial review of the book, not an excerpt of the book itself.

It doesn't exactly "debunk" the theory of global warming on the face of it, but noting that average atmospheric temperature does not include energies stored in other forms and thus really doesn't represent a total increase in energy isn't entirely stupid. Of course, if CO2 is simply disrupting some massive energy transfer mechanism that we still haven't grasped and the earth's energy remains constant while we still go into a warm period or ice age, the difference will probably be of little comfort to humanity. :(
 
Worst part is, some people are going to believe this scientist and use it as an excuse for not changing to safer and economical ways.

This scientist is a threat to national security.
 
I had no idea we had so many experts here!

Debunk it, Pontiuth.
 
Back
Top Bottom