Swiss Meteorologist Exposes Shocking Lack Of Fundamental Science Knowledge By Climate Scientists

Before people jump into a debate about weather with veteran Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann, they’d first better make sure that they really paid close attention at school and did their science homework.

In an debate at Twitter, the high-profile, seasoned meteorologist inadvertently exposed a shocking lack of comprehension of fundamental physics by some of Germany’s top climate officials, among them renewable energy expert Prof Volker Quaschning.

Hat-tip: Axel Bojanowski

High temperatures do not cause droughts

The Twitter exchange was unleashed by Kachelmann blasting the recent junk-science-driven media hype over another year of potential drought over Central Europe, and especially the false claim made by Prof. Quaschning that higher temperatures lead to more drought and forest fires. Kachelmann called this claim: false and “complete nonsense.” Kachelmann recently explained in a t-online article he penned:

Heat does not cause forest fires and is completely irrelevant. Forest fires are caused by the fact that it is dry longer, and then some fools – intentionally or not – throw something burning into the area, or park a very hot car over dry high grass and then drive away. The temperature on the day of the outbreak of forest fires does not matter.”

It’s the moisture, stupid

In other words, Kachelmann, dumps cold water on Quaschning’s claim that higher temperature is the factor behind drought and thus forest fires and Biblical-scale misery of the sort prophesized by Green fanatics. Kachelmann explains that temperature has nothing to do with the risk level of fire, and that the factor behind it is air moisture.

Shockingly, this fundamental physics law seemed to be unknown to “top scientists” such as Quaschning and others.

The FridaysFor Future activist and “renewable energy expert” Prof. Volker Quaschning kept insisting that temperature determined how dry soil would become, tweeting to Kachelmann: “Physics: More heat = more evaporation = drier ground = high forest fire risk = more forest fires. To shore this up he dragged Stefan Rahmstorf in to his side.

Confused about water vapor

Next, scientist Stefanie here tweeted a chart showing how much water a kg of air could hold versus temperature with the aim of showing Kachelmann he was wrong and that it was all about temperature:

Water vapor in grams per kilogram of air versus air temperature. Source here.

But this backfired on Stefanie when Kachelmann correctly demonstrated she did not understand the chart at all and that she had no idea what she was talking about.

That these climate experts would not know that water vapor in the air is the driving factor behind drought makes one wonder what faulty physics may have gotten applied to the climate models.

Throughout the entire thread there are attempts by the climate “experts” to assert their “academic authority”.

Other readers noted, for example, that despite extremely high temperatures in jungles, raging forest fires don’t break out in them. It’s not because of the temperature, but because of the moisture.

Climate alarmism becoming a sect

If any trend is emerging, it is that Kachelmann, a believer in man-made warming, is tiring of the fanaticism on both sides. He recently tweeted:

But unfortunately you can only stay in the sect if you join in the chattering of all the nonsense and depart from the grounds of science because of the purpose of saving the world allows all nonsense. Green and browns are outbidding each other in terms of lack of seriousness. It is getting very wretched.”

18 responses to “Swiss Meteorologist Exposes Shocking Lack Of Fundamental Science Knowledge By Climate Scientists”

  1. CO2isLife

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  2. Bruce of Newcastle

    Anyone who understands water knows immediately it is a negative feedback.

    When you have a rise in temperature you get a rise in maximum absolute humidity, as per the graph. Entropy then causes an increase in water evaporation, where liquid water is available – as it is across more than three quarters of the planet.

    Vaporization of liquid water converts heat into latent heat. The water vapour then rises by diffusion (again under influence of entropy) or convection and deposits its latent heat in the lower troposphere when it condenses back to water.

    That latent heat is converted to infrared radiation, which is radiated to space (because any radiated downwards is immediately reabsorbed, then eventually reradiated upwards).

    CO2 does not see this energy because it is physically carried from the surface to the troposphere. Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere is completely bypassed.

    Thus an increase in surface temperature causes an increase in energy radiated to space: a classic negative feedback loop.

    1. Yonason

      Yup.

      Focusing on just one aspect of your post… As I’ve previously commented, this excellent video gives thorough support for water vapor providing negative feedback.
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2K1uHvfaek

  3. RickWill

    The water mass of the entire saturated water column over a given surface temperature is a more important consideration than just the saturated water vapour per unit mass of air shown the chart above.

    The amount of water vapour over the ocean surface rises dramatically above 25C:
    https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgzHH3_zoyapHehla
    There are two factors at play with regard to the water column. It is the combination of partial pressure of the water (as seen in the above chart) and the increased height of the column still holding water.

    When tropical ocean surface gets above 25C, the mass of water into the atmosphere rises steeply. This water vapour inevitably forms dense clouds and precipitation as the air mass moves to higher latitudes. These clouds reflect SWR thereby reducing the heat input to the oceans.

    At the poles, water adjacent to sea ice will be at the minimum sea surface temperature of -1.7C.

    This ocean surface temperature has a constrained temperature range. Tropical oceans, that have connection to sea ice, cannot get much warmer than 30C and will never be colder than -1.7C. The area averaged global SST is 16C. This is constrained by very powerful negative feedbacks at the upper limit by the water column and lower limit by the presence of sea ice. Water taken into the atmosphere in the tropics must precipitate at higher latitudes to reach the negligible water vapour mass above the -1.7C water near the poles.

  4. John F. Hultquist

    and then some fools – intentionally or not –

    In the western USA, over 80 % of wildland fires result from the active or passive presence of people. Fires need fuel, Oxygen, and a spark. Poor wire insulation in a building, a camp fire, a celebratory fire-cracker. or discarded cigarette have all caused fires.
    Our woods, grasslands, and shrub lands have an abundance of fuel. We expect mega-fires, regardless of what the temperature does.

  5. I_am_not_a_robot

    “… tiring of the fanaticism on both sides …”.
    There are extremists on both sides, for instance there are true ‘deniers’ who will argue until the cows come home that there is no greenhouse effect but they are considered perhaps ‘eccentric’ by most realists, while on the other side extremism seems to be the strictly enforced rule i.e. ‘you are either with us or against us’.

    1. John Brown

      Tell me if I am wrong, the discussion usually is:
      1. What the effect is?
      2. if it is a real effect?
      3. what causes the effect?
      4. and it has to be strongly denied, that whatever we are talking about,it is not to do with anything how a greenhouse works. So one could say the name is wrong.

      So who of those using any of above arguments are the eccentrics for you?

  6. Ric Werme

    Also, in the western USA, many fires are due to a wetter than average winter rainy season. Those allow a lot of growth of grass and shrubs. Then when the dry season rolls around, it all becomes tinder for the fire season.

  7. Ric Werme

    [Duplicate comment? It wasn’t that much of a duplicate, it wasn’t even mine, unless I accidentally double clicked the Post Comment button.]

    Also, in the western USA, many fires are due to a wetter than average winter rainy season. Those allow a lot of growth of grass and shrubs. Then when the dry season rolls around, it all becomes tinder for the fire season.

  8. Swiss Meteo Exposes How Climatologists Have A Shocking Lack Of Basic Physics – Menopausal Mother Nature

    […] Read more at No Tricks Zone […]

  9. Yonason

    ”…shocking lack of fundamental science knowledge…”

    And even if they weren’t ignorant boors, many would still fear telling the truth because of the slanders they would have to endure.
    https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/06/10/extreme-politics-the-roger-pielke-jr-story/

    Warmists are NOT good people!

  10. John McLean

    It’s simple hydrology. Droughts mean that there is very little moisture that can be evaporated. Evaporation uses energy from the sun, so less evaporation means that more of the sun’s energy can heat the ground surface. A warmer ground surface means higher temperatures. Ergo, drought CAUSES higher temperature, higher temperatures DO NOT cause droughts.

  11. Yonason

    @John McLean

    👍👍👍👍👍

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