What was the last textbook on climate science, atmospheric science or meteorology that you looked at?
I'm especially excited to see answers from "skeptics" in the crowd. I'll give my own most recent--"Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation" by Bohren and Clothiaux.
2017-05-16T23:39:22Z
I'm specifically asking about TEXTBOOKS. I'll be surprised if any of the people that deny AGW can name a single one.
2017-05-17T16:38:13Z
There are some interesting answers. Raisin Caine has looked an NAS treatise on the attribution of extreme weather events. An anonymous person that blocks me came up with a journal (I don't think they understood that it wasn't a textbok). Sagebrush thinks textbooks are communist plots. MIKE L read a weather book in high school. Mike read a denial propaganda book, and Kano says they're too expensive.
2017-05-17T16:41:20Z
In other words, so far not one person has read anything to help them actually understand the basic science behind AGW. Since I'm not convinced that there is a single "skeptic" here that understands the greenhouse effect, perhaps it might make sense to study some basics before rejecting the science.
2017-05-17T23:16:23Z
Thanks for the Bohren quotes JimZ. I'm a great admirer of his and agree with most (but not all) of what he says. His books are wildly entertaining for textbooks. He is definitely an iconoclast. You might enjoy his non-textbooks, "Clouds in a Glass of Beer: Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics" and "What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks: More Experiments in Atmospheric Physics."
JimZ2017-05-17T22:36:33Z
Favorite Answer
I have read dozens of books recently and not all are fiction but none are text books. I have zero interest in reading any text books. I read a couple on anthropology not too long ago, one on Neanderthals and one on Kenniwick man but I don't think those count. A person with two narrow a focus, has very limited knowledge.
From Bohren <<<“First off, let me say I consider the concept of a global mean temperature [upon which global warming statistics are based] to be somewhat dubious, and I say so in my recent book (with Eugene Clothiaux) Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation. A single number cannot adequately capture climate change. This number, as I see it, is aimed mostly at politicians and journalists.”
The issue of global warming is extremely complicated, and it transcends science. Views on global warming are as much determined by political and religious biases as by science. No one comes to the table about this issue without biases. So I'll state some of mine. https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2006-08-07-global-warming-truth_x.htm
I have lived long enough to have seen many doomsday scenarios painted by people who profited by doing so, but which never came to pass. This has made me a skeptic. Perhaps global warming is an example of the old fable about the boy who cried wolf, but this time the doomsayers are, alas, right. Maybe, but I can't help noting that some of the prominent global warmers of today were global coolers of not so long ago. >>>
Yet you presumably interpret his text book differently.
The only one I ever looked at was one by Murry Salby. I did not read it all. However, you did not approve of that one - and I have to admit, Salby is mainly approved of by Salby. Many people take issue with him.
However, I have studied thermodynamics for a couple of years as part of my engineering course so things like pressure, volume, temperature, entropy, enthalpy, work, isentropic, isobaric, isothermal and adiabatic are not new to me.
As for understanding the greenhouse effect, I still think you have some gaps.
(Request: Could we continue our previous "conversation" using Yahoo mail?)
Another point is that meteorology and climate tend to be quite simplistic when it comes to feedback. They seem quite happy to assign a number to it and sometimes, they even know the sign. An engineer will usually have a plot of feedback amplitude and phase against frequency and if the transfer function is known analytically then a three dimensional plot of the transfer function against a complex variable can be used for investigating stability.
Quite why they seem to ignore the possibility of cloud feedbacks, for instance, being positive at one frequency but negative at another I do not know. To me it just suggests that the underlying theory of cloud feedbacks is not well understood.
I think it is great that you admit that you only read Communist trash. This was a textbook promoted by Bezerkly! Were you part of those violent demonstrations?
I don't read books that go against science. If the authors were truly scientific, they would gladly freely give their information. These authors write for profits. And they will sing any song as long as the money is there. Too bad you put so much stock in those kind of books. Just look at what modern day academia has done to the youths. They are so educated that they don't even know which bathroom to use.
In fact, after reading that book, you don't even know when water boils. And you even smugly admitted it. Some scientist you are! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
The Hockey Stick Illusion, when taking a global warming class we were given no textbooks, but lots of different reading materials. This was with at least one of these guys teaching: