In “The Theory of Gravitation” in his textbook Lectures on Physics, Richard Feynman provides an outstanding example of the development of the scientific method, a process for correcting errors and advancing knowledge of the physical world. The ancients observed the movement of the visible planets and the stars and deduced that the planets went around the sun, a concept rediscovered by mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the early sixteenth century. Discovering how and why took more work.

In the late sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe made a remarkable step towards solving the great controversy over the movement of the planets by asserting that the controversy could be resolved by accurate measurements of the planets in the sky. To determine something about the physical world it is better to make careful observations and experiments than to engage in deep philosophical discussions. For years, Brahe studied the positions of the planets recording them in voluminous tables.

After Brahe died, between 1609 and 1619, mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler used Brahe’s observations to develop three laws of planetary motion: planets move in elliptical paths around the sun; they sweep out equal areas in equal times, and the squares of the periods are directly proportional to the third power of the semi-major axes.

Independently, Galileo used careful experiments to formulate the concept of inertia – if something is moving and completely undisturbed, it will continue moving in the same direction at a uniform speed. Further, Galileo used the telescope for more accurate measurement of the positions of the planets, and to discover four moons of Jupiter (which confirm Kepler’s laws, though not recognized by Galileo).

Isaac Newton used the concepts of Kepler and Galileo to develop his law of universal gravitation and his laws of motion.

Careful observations from both experiments and nature were needed to develop the laws of gravity and planetary motion.

With the space age, over the past 40 years, the US and others have developed powerful tools for accurately observing and measuring what is occurring in the atmosphere. These data are widely available, and numerous research groups have participated in the analysis of them.

Certain US centers for climate research, such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA-GISS) participate in that analysis effort and run large GCMs (General Circulation Models) to project the climate of the future. However, most of those large models do not utilize the measurements of the atmosphere to compare and “validate” their models using physical evidence.

Those computational models predict large temperature increases in the distant future, caused by increasing carbon dioxide (CO2). That argument assumes that an increase in water vapor (the dominant greenhouse gas) will significantly amplify the warming caused by CO2. However, actual measurements show very little warming and contradict the speculation that increasing (CO2) will cause dangerous global warming.

Also, unfortunately, once respected scientific journals are refusing to publish competent papers using measurements of what is actually occurring in the atmosphere because they contradict earlier speculations that is politically popular. Such entities have abandoned the scientific method for a political fad.

In 2020 W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer submitted a paper on the “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases” to the journal Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics. The paper has been ignored.

Those physicists are experts on Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physics (AMO) and spectroscopy, the study of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation and matter (including atoms and molecules). Spectroscopy is applicable to many fields of physics, chemistry, and biology. Chemist John Tyndall started using it in 1859 to study radiative heat transfer from the Earth to find why the Earth was warm enough to support life. Tyndall coined the term “greenhouse gases”, the dominant one being water vapor. Tyndall realized that the greenhouse effect is critical for human existence, without it the landmasses would be far too cold every night for plant life to grow. (Also, without carbon dioxide no plant life would exist.)

The van Wijngaarden and Happer paper relies on a comprehensive set of observations and calculations known as HITRAN, an acronym for high-resolution transmission molecular absorption, compiled under Air Force contract by the Atomic and Molecular Physics Division, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is a compilation of spectroscopic parameters (defining characteristics) that can be used to predict and simulate the transmission and emission of light (electromagnetic energy) in the atmosphere.

Using these data, which apply to cloudless skies, van Wijngaarden and Happer calculate the influence that increasing water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrous oxide, and methane have on temperatures. The observations and calculations confirm major conclusions by Tyndall and decades of laboratory experiments. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, but it is not increasing significantly with a warming planet. Further, the influence of additional carbon dioxide diminishes greatly with concentrations above one hundred parts per million in volume (ppm), which is far less than that which naturally occurs. However, carbon dioxide provides roughly twenty to twenty-five percent of the total greenhouse effect. And given the existing influence of water vapor, the influences of the other gases on global temperatures are insignificant.

At the Heartland Conference, physicist Tom Sheahen reported why the paper was an outstanding example of using the scientific method to get the physics right. The authors calculated the cumulative radiation leaving the earth, calculated what is delayed in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, and found that that the remainder matched satellite measurements of radiation leaving the atmosphere (going into space). Further, no one has done such thorough calculations before and showed they matched observations.

Sheahen emphasized that the agreement of calculations with observations is the key factor that certifies that their computational model is correct. That’s the proper use of the scientific method. Van Wijngaarden & Happer calculated the intensity of electromagnetic radiation (infrared radiation) leaving the atmosphere above the Sahara desert (low humidity); the Mediterranean (normal humidity) representative of the temperate regions of the earth; and wintertime Antarctica. Antarctica is remarkable since the relatively warm greenhouse gases in the troposphere, [mostly CO2, O3 and H2O] radiate more to space than the thermal radiation from the cold ice surface would be through a transparent atmosphere. One can add that this is an example of the importance of convection transporting heat from the tropics to the polar regions where it is lost to space. [The temperature used in the calculations is 190 K (minus 83 C, minus 118 F)].

Sheahen underlined that agreement between theory and experiment (and observations) is THE HALLMARK of good science. The method used by van Wijngaarden and Happer (W & H) meets that criterion. Therefore, it can be trusted to make predictions about hypothetical states where the concentrations of the various gases are changed.

The model of van Wijngaarden and Happer, validated by physical evidence, was used to forecast the effects of increasing greenhouse gases on escaping radiation, which in turn affects temperatures. At current concentrations, increasing water vapor and carbon dioxide have a very small effect on temperatures; the effects are termed “saturated.” The effects of increasing the other greenhouse gases are tiny.

Consequently, their method is far superior to that used in the global climate models featured in IPCC reports (and findings by NCAR and NASA-GISS). Those models begin with totally different (and highly questionable) initial assumptions, and greatly exaggerate atmospheric temperature increases compared with actual observations.

In their paper, “Methane and Climate” discussed in last week’s TWTW, van Wijngaarden and Happer conclude: The net forcing increase from CH4, and CO2 is about 0.05 watts per meter squared per year.

“Other things being equal, this will cause a temperature increase of about 0.012 C [per] year. Proposals to place harsh restrictions on methane emissions because of warming fears are not justified by facts.”

The same applies to restrictions on CO2 emissions. The increase calculated by W & H is about the same as reported by Roy Spencer (at University of Alabama – Huntsville): assuming a linear trend, atmospheric temperature observations over oceans have been increasing by 0.12 C per decade, derived from 42 years of satellite measurements.

The W & H paper demonstrates the folly of “climate science” ignoring critical physical evidence. As long as government “climate science” ignores physical evidence and continues to be mired in the politics of “global warming” it will stagnate just as science stagnated with philosophical discussions on the movement of planets. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

This piece was originally published at The Science and Environmental Policy Project on November 13th, 2021. It has been republished with permission.