Is Physicist Stephen Hawking Overrated?

Professor Stephen Hawking's support for the global warming myth raises doubts about his knowledge of physics.

Professor Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is one of the books I would like to reread if I could find the time. However, after learning that he supports the global warming myth I would read the book a little more critically than I did the first time.

Hawking says he's concerned about earth becoming as hot as Venus, but the alleged "greenhouse effect" cannot explain temperatures on Venus as I noted in my previous post.

I hope that Hawking is simply repeating something he's been told, but hasn't taken time to examine. If Hawking took the time to examine both sides of the debate over global warming he would realize that global warming is based on a long discredited 19th Century theory that is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics. The so called greenhouse effect represents a form of perpetual motion machine that is inconsistent with accepted thermodynamic theories

Jean Baptist Joseph Fourier claimed in 1827 that greenhouses worked by allowing in sunlight and then trapping the infrared radiation produced inside to heat the greenhouse. R. W. Wood disproved this theory in a 1909 experiment that indicated no significant difference in temperature between a greenhouse that "trapped" IR and one that was transparent to IR. In fact in the initial run of the experiment the transparent greenhouse heated faster because the one that reflected IR reflected incoming solar IR back into space.

The greenhouse in R.W. Wood's experiment trapped a much broader spectrum of IR than CO2 interacts with. If that greenhouse didn't heat up more than a greenhouse that didn't "trap" IR, then how can anyone believe that CO2 could cause heating by interacting with IR.

The whole idea that a gas comprising less than 0.04% of the atmosphere can determine its temperature by interacting with a small range of infrared radiation (IR) sounds more like magic than science.

The data that those who claim global warming say supports warming temperatures in the 20th Century is inadequate for that purpose. They claim only a 0.25% increase which could easily result from changes in equipment or inaccuracies in the thermometers used in 1900 which were not as accurate as those used today. Changes in the thermal characteristics of the thermometer sites could explain the increase, particularly considering that many of today's sites are at airports with heat producing asphalt that did not exist in 1900.

A change of only 0.25% might be significant in the controlled conditions of a laboratory with precision equipment, but not in the open air with equipment that may not always be in good operating condition.

Mathematicians Bjarne Andresen, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick have pointed out that the idea of a global average temperature is absurd. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

Most real scientists, including social scientists, gave up using broad averages decades ago because such averages cover up too much information. For example, in climate the amount of time the temperature is above or below freezing is more important than the average temperature of the region because long periods of below freezing temperatures favors snow/ice cover and long periods of above freezing temperatures favors melting. Snow melts depend upon heat distribution not any global average. Significant melting could occur even if global temperatures were cooler because melting snow absorbs heat and cools the air. In order to melt, a single gram of snow must absorb enough heat to cool 80 grams of water 1 C.

Temperatures went up and down in the 20th Century while the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere gradually increased. The heat generated by human activity also increased and would be the more likely cause of any human caused heating. Replacement of plant covered areas by pavement also directly causes heating of the air.

Hawking has apparently failed to read the essay by Dr. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner - (Falsification of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effects Within the Framework of Physics�) which points out the claim of greenhouse gases and a greenhouse effect conflict with established physics theories.

Hawking may also be unaware that NASA scientist Ferenc Miskolczi has revealed that the equation used to calculate catastrophic warming contains a major flaw. The equation falsely assumed an atmosphere of infinite thickness. Such a condition might be consistent with a black hole, but not the planet earth.

The claim that CO2 has some ability to control air temperature is a cancer growing on science. Many astrophysicists believe that the earth is about to enter a period of colder temperature associated with the sun entering a portion of a centuries long cycle in which it is less active. If the astrophysicists are correct, all of science may be discredited if the claim that global warming is based on science has not been abandoned.

A major difference between science and religion is that science relies on verification through repeated observation and experimentation while religion relies on acceptance of beliefs. The experiment that examined heating in a greenhouse demonstrated that trapping IR didn't cause higher temperatures. Unfortunately, those who believe that humans can control the environment through changes in a minor atmospheric gas aren't interested in scientific proof.

If Professor Hawking wants to protect science he needs to talk to those scientists who question global warming and then change his opinion.

Suppressed Study Contradicts Bush

President George W. Bush has once again claimed the existence of a threatened calamity that is contradicted by a government study.

Does the claim involve WMD in Iraq? No, if it did the Main Stream Media would have put the story on page one and it would have led the evening network news programs.

Those people who believe in the threat claim that it could involve mass destruction, but it doesn't involve a military weapon.

Several years ago NASA whistleblower Ferenc Miskolczi discovered a major flaw in the equations that have been used to predict catastrophic global warming. When Arthur Milne developed the equations 80 years ago he mistakenly assumed an infinitely thick atmosphere as a boundary condition. Assuming boundary conditions is a common practice when solving differential equations, but boundary conditions involving any amount in any way related to infinitely makes no sense for any situations other than black holes.

In fairness to Milne his field was stellar atmospheres rather than planetary atmospheres.

Miskolczi eventually resigned from NASA because the agency chose to suppress the study that discussed the error. Miskolczi has revised the equations and they no longer indicate the type of catastrophe suggested by NASA bureaucrats.

Prior to reading about Miskolczi's work I had thought those who talked about the idea of a very minor atmospheric gas controlling atmospheric temperature were liars or intellectually challenged. Now that I know they were using an equation containing [from my perspective] such a blatant flaw, I can understand how they would make such a mistake. However I cannot understand how real scientists could continue to make that mistake. Of course government bureaucrats masquerading as scientists don't care about scientific accuracy.

There is more evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction than there is for catastrophic "global warming". Hussein had previously used WMD against his enemies and still possessed plans for a nuclear program and unloaded nerve gas shells when the U.S. invaded. C02 levels went up throughout the 20th Century but the temperature went up and down which indicates there is no connection.

Greenhouse Gas Equation Wrong

Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskolczi has discovered the greenhouse gas equation Arthur Milne developed in 1922 contains a serious flaw. Milne mistakenly solved the differential equation involved by assuming an infinitely thick atmosphere. Miskolczi was working for NASA at the time and NASA suppressed his report which contradicted NASA's claims.

Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, "Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results."

Miskolczi rewrote the equations and the modified equations don't indicate a runaway greenhouse effect. His equations indicate a limit to any greenhouse effect. Thus even if there is a greenhouse effect it cannot do what the Rev. Al Gore claims it will do.

Research by Stephen Schwartz also challenges claims of a runaway greenhouse effect.

I haven't studied differential equations for a few decades, but I do remember that guessing at values for variables is sometimes used to solve differential equations because of their complexity. However, there are two values that should never be used, infinity and zero. These two numbers have special mathematical properties that make them unsuitable for this purpose. For example, you may remember learning that division by zero is impossible. However, there is one special case in which division by zero is possible, zero divided by zero. The test to determine if division is correct is multiplication. Zero multiplied by any other number is zero so zero divided by zero can be any number.

In the real world it might be possible to a zero amount of any commodity, but not an infinite amount. An infinitely thick atmosphere would also be infinitely massive, i.e. a super black hole. In an infinitely thick atmosphere it wouldn't make any difference what the gases were because the gravitational attraction would be so high that radiation could not escape.