This is unbelievable. Usually, when some “science” show on TV tries to show some oversimplified experiment that “you can do at home™”, it’s at least some facsimile of what they claim. Some of the details may get muddled up, but gist is basically correct.
Nobel Laureate and all-around smart guy Richard Feynman referred to “almost right” science as cargo cult science. The idea is that some people (I won’t drop any names) treat science like the cargo cultists on the Pacific Islands in WWII, and think that if they can go through the motions of science and technology, that everything will work. Thus, when they saw US military personnel setting up landing fields, and attracting airplanes, they thought all they had to do was set up landing fields, and faux facilities, and the gods would send gifts via the silver birds. Please read the link if you have time; it’s a classic that should be required reading everywhere.
So, not to be outdone by the Islanders, the Beeb puts together a cargo-cult demonstration of the greenhouse effect that would make the Islanders cringe. The video is here (since it’s BBC, and not youtube, I can’t embed the video).
So what’s wrong with this picture? A lot of things. A complete thrashing of all of the experimental issues can be found here. But there’s an elephant in the parlor: this isn’t even remotely like what’s going on in the earth’s atmosphere! Let me explain.
The sun’s surface is approximately 6000 degrees Kelvin. There’s a basic law of physics that says that when an object has a certain temperature, it emits radiation at a certain range of wavelengths according to a series of curves, where the curve depends on the temperature. When you have an object as hot as the sun, very little of the radiation is of the long wavelengths that are absorbed by CO2 or other greenhouse gasses; it’s all very short, and much of it visible (which is why it makes light, and why hot objects glow red).
The greenhouse effect has nothing to do with this short-wavelength radiation coming into the the earth from the sun; it happens after the sun’s rays hit the surface of the earth and warm the surface up. Then the surface of the earth, which is approximately 300 K, re-emits it as the much longer wavelengths that can be absorbed by greenhouse gasses.
Now look at their experiment. What are they using for a radiation source? A 300K surface? No. They’re using an incandescent light bulb, that’s approximately the same temperature as the sun! In other words, they’re shooting radiation at this experimental apparatus that, according to the greenhouse theory, shouldn’t be absorbed by CO2!
These are the geniuses who are teaching “science” to kids. For all you homeschoolers out there, don’t do this at home. You might get a temperature differential, but it won’t be because of the greenhouse effect. It’ll be because of politically correct cargo cult science that leaves so many loose ends dangling, that you get it for other unrelated reasons.
In the words of climatologist Kevin Trenberth (one of the CRUtape letters™ “team”), “this is a travesty”. Yeesh. This is really, really, bad, Boob Beeb.
Tags: BBC, cargo cult science, Richard Feynman
