{"id":113532,"date":"2009-12-27T12:01:38","date_gmt":"2009-12-27T17:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2009\/12\/27\/bbc-botches-grade-school-co2-science-experiment-on-live-tv-%e2%80%93-with-indepedent-lab-results-to-prove-it.html"},"modified":"2009-12-27T12:01:38","modified_gmt":"2009-12-27T17:01:38","slug":"bbc-botches-grade-school-co2-science-experiment-on-live-tv-%e2%80%93-with-indepedent-lab-results-to-prove-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/113532","title":{"rendered":"BBC botches grade school CO2 science experiment on live TV \u2013 with indepedent lab results to prove it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WUWT readers may recall this story from November 3rd NOAA deletes an \u201cinconvenient\u201d kids science web page<\/a><\/strong> where NOAA took down a web page called \u201cIt\u2019s a gas, man\u201d<\/em>
\nthat talked about a tabletop science demonstration that kids could do
\nthemselves to \u201cprove\u201d that CO2 retains more heat. Problem
\nwas, the experiment as presented then<\/a>
\nwas flawed, and when it received some attention from skeptical
\nwebsites, NOAA recognized the flaw and took it down, replacing it later
\nwith an updated page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fast forward past Climategate to this past Thursday Dec 17th, and we
\nfind that the BBC decides to try essentially the same experiment on
\nlive TV for an impressed and non questioning audience.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a> Click to play the video at the BBC website <\/div>\n

Only one problem, the BBC presenters botched the experiment.
\nFortunately we can show why, because WUWT reader  Professor Kevin
\nKilty of the University of Wyoming, who took an interest in recreating
\nthis experiment with students in his physics class well before the BBC
\ndid their experiment, has conclusively demonstrated its scientific
\nshortcomings in an experiment log he sent me on December 20th showing
\nresults of a November 23rd experiment run.<\/p>\n

What got me connecting what Professor Kilty had done to the BBC live TV experiment was a comment<\/a> from WUWT reader Bryan C of the UK. Here\u2019s an excerpt: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dear Anthony<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something I found shocking and that you don\u2019t
\nsee every day: the British government\u2019s former chief scientific
\nadviser Professor Sir David King flagrantly lying on national
\ntelevision to boost the dubious idea that some foreign agency (the
\nRussian secret service?) was behind Climategate.<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/programmes\/newsnight\/8418356.stm<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This was in the context of BBC 2\u2019s Newsnight staging a
\npeculiar experiment, with a politically-correct black female
\n\u201cspace scientist\u201d heating two bottles \u2013 one
\ncontaining \u201cair\u201d (last time I looked, that included carbon
\ndioxide anyway) and one containing \u201catmospheric air with a
\ngreater concentration of carbon dioxide\u201d (they didn\u2019t say
\nhow much they were adding, of course, but I\u2019d bet it was
\nsubstantially more than 0.000388%!). Surprise, surprise \u2014 the
\nlatter bottle grew hotter\u2026 Of course it did. A greater amount of
\ncarbon dioxide will be warmer when heat is applied. This is not a
\nsurprise! The proportions are key, of course, as you know.<\/em><\/p>\n

Newsnight itself characterised the effort right at the start as
\na \u201cvery unscientific experiment\u201d \u2014 so why do it at
\nall?! In fact the \u201cscience\u201d as presented was misleading and
\nselective to the point of deception. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed when you watch the BBC video, it is clear that there\u2019s
\nno sort of control of any kind, the thermocouples were placed
\nhaphazardly at different angles into the bottles, and there\u2019s
\nlikely alignment differences between the lights illuminating the
\nbottles. It seems so from my viewing of the video.<\/p>\n

Professor Kilty also viewed the BBC video and writes:<\/p>\n

\n

You can see that the two bottles start at
\ntemperatures of 32+ C. Perhaps the house is this warm, we don\u2019t
\nkeep ours this warm, but more likely they have run the experiment and
\nknow pretty well in advance how it will turn out. I tried to see from
\nthe size of the spot on the bottle if one or other is obviously closer
\nto the lamp\u2013I can\u2019t\u2013 but what really matters is the
\nthermocouple, of course. The NOAA description in \u201cits a gas,
\nman\u201d looks like the epitome of careful research in comparison.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is just kid science. The BBC did their best. Not as good as
\nthe ten-year old of a couple of weeks ago, though. It is funny that the
\njournalist sells this as \u201cproof\u201d of global warming early in
\nthe sequence.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here is what a properly conducted experiment looks like, as
\nperformed under professor Kilty\u2019s supervision by students at his
\nlab at the University of Wyoming.<\/p>\n

A SILLY EXPERIMENT ABOUT CO2<\/strong>
\nKEVIN KILTY<\/p>\n

Date: December 20, 2009.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a>
\nFigure 1. Two separate set-ups running at the same time. While it looks
\nlike our lab is bathed in mood- lighting this is an illusion. The
\nextremely bright filaments fooled my automatic camera. The room was
\nbrightly lit. The nearest set-up uses Moll-type thermopiles, while the
\ndistant setup is more like the NOAA description, except with
\nthermocouples replacing lab thermometers. <\/div>\n

Are there endless silly or meaningless experiments and
\ndemonstrations that one can do with carbon dioxide (CO2)? We\u2019ve
\nseen a few on WUWT recently.1 On Tuesday November 3, 2009,WUWT exposed
\none endorsed by a major scientific organization under the headline NOAA
\ndeletes an inconvenient kids science web page.<\/p>\n

Indeed, all reference to this page appears now gone at NOAA. But,
\nthanks to the efforts of WUWT, and the help of the way-back machine,2
\nselected physics students in three of my courses at LCCC got to try the
\nexperiment as someone at NOAA designed it. As it turns out, this
\nexperiment is silly for what it attempted to show, but it provides
\ndarned good lessons about scientific experiments.<\/p>\n

The first group of physics students to get a crack at greenhouse
\nwarming in a two liter bottle were from my Physics 1050 course \u2013
\nphysics without math. They set the experiment up as closely to the NOAA
\nspecifications as possible and made Runs 1 and 2 as I describe below.
\nThe algebra based physics course got a stab at it next, then the
\ncalculus-based physics class had their try. These classes modified the
\nexperiment to get a better picture of what was going on. They performed
\nRuns 3 and 4, respectively.<\/p>\n


\n1. Procedure<\/strong><\/p>\n

The NOAA web-page suggested doing the experiment according to the following recipe.
\n(1) Partially fill both bottles with water. In fact, we filled each
\nwith the same amount of water \u2013 about two inches worth.
\n(2) Add the seltzer tablets to one of the bottles. We delayed this step until we had the apparatus assembled.
\n(3) Suspend the thermometers inside the bottles in such a way that you
\ncan measure the temperature of the air and seal the tops with molding
\nclay. We thought there was little reason for sealing the top
\ncompletely, so we used a cork stopper with hole large enough to allow
\ngas generated in the bottle to pass out around the thermometer.
\n(4) Place the lamp at equal distance between each bottle. This is the tricky step in this seemingly simple experiment.
\n(5) After an hour, measure the temperature of the water in each bottle.
\nWe thought the word \u201cwater\u201d was a mistake here because
\nthere was no instruction to make the amount of water in each bottle
\nequal, nor any reason the water would be of interest when the
\nthermometers were suspended in air. Accordingly we monitored the
\ntemperature of the air to equilibrium at least, which was less than an
\nhour.
\nDespite the simplicity of the procedures, we encountered plenty of experiment design issues. These included:<\/p>\n

1) the typical lab thermometers have fiducial marks at one-degree
\ninterval and so temperature can be read to a resolution of about 0.5\u25e6C
\nat best,3<\/p>\n

2) the marks are actually not of uniform size,<\/p>\n

3) it is really difficult to get a label completely off a two-liter soda bottle, and so there is a readily available shield or
\nreflector to confound one\u2019s results. Finally, there is that deceptively simple step 4; Place the lamp at equal distance between each bottle.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a>
\nFigure 2. Thermocouple in a two-liter bottle. Note that the
\nthermocouples are not perfectly vertical, nor are they likely to be
\nperfectly centered. The near thermocouple points away from the lamp and
\nresidue from the label shields the thermocouple. <\/div>\n

Although a person can purchase clear light bulbs that allow one to
\nsee precisely where the filament is, and what geometry it has, there is
\nalmost no way to decide what is the exact center of radiation. After
\nall 95% of the radiation leaving the lamp is infrared and invisible.
\nFrom outside the lamp does radiation appear to come from the filament?
\nOr does the bulb envelope appear as the source? Moreover, even if a
\nperson can decide where is the center of radiation, there are a host of
\nother ways to get the set-up wrong. Figures 2 and 3 show some. Students
\nrarely noticed if the thermometer was centered and vertical or if it
\nstayed that way during the course of the experiment \u2013 and as one
\nmight expect to happen sometimes, thermometers in the CO2-filled bottle
\ntipped toward the lamp, as Figure 3 shows, while those in the control
\nbottle tipped away like Figure 2.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a>
\nFigure 3. A thermocouple in a two-liter bottle. Note that this
\nthermocouple points toward the lamp, and has a reflector from the
\nresidue of the label torn from the bottle. <\/div>\n

2. Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

The table below summarizes our research of November 23, 2009. The
\nfirst experimental run, using ordinary lab thermometers, appeared to
\ndetect an increased temperature rise in the CO2-filled bottle. However,
\nstudents failed to appreciate at this point that repeating this
\nexperiment, no matter how exactly, could arrive at a different outcome.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Run 2, using six thermocouples read to a temperature
\nresolution of only 1\u25e6C indicated no average difference in temperature
\nrise, but showed greatest temperature change in some bottles without
\nCO2.<\/p>\n

Run 3, using thermocouples read to better resolution of 0.1\u25e6C,
\nshowed the greater average temperature rise to occur in the non-CO2
\nbottles. In this case students swapped thermocouples among bottles to
\nmake certain no variation was the result of mis-manufacturing of these
\nsensors. We concluded from these results that sufficient replications
\nof properly randomized runs would likely show no detectable difference
\nat temperature resolution typical of equipment in K-14 science labs.<\/p>\n

Run 4 made use of Moll-type thermopiles. These devices capture a
\nvery broad spectrum of radiation, from far IR through visible, and
\nconveys it to a highly absorptive collector at the base of a conical
\nreflector. A series connection of 17 type-K thermocouples indicates the
\ntemperature rise of the absorber. These thermopiles have a sensitivity
\nof 0.28mV\/\u03bcW; a voltage that good quality bench multimeters can read
\neasily. Figure 4 shows one of these devices.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a> Figure 4. A Moll-type thermopile. Picture from Cenco on-line catalog. <\/div>\n

In these runs we organized a moll-type thermopile to look at the
\nlamp through our plastic bottles. When the potential of the thermopile
\nbecame stable we then dropped two selzer tablets in the bottle and
\nmonitored the decline in potential until it became stable again. In
\nthis manner we managed to avoid all confounding influences except
\nvariations in one plastic bottle to another, and possibly extremely
\nsmall variations in aim of the thermopile. The average decline was
\n0.095mV .
\nThis translates into a typical decline of 0.34 \u03bcW of radiation power entering the conical collector.<\/p>\n

3. Discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The presence of CO2 in a plastic bottle reduced radiation collected
\nby a thermopile looking through that bottle. But what radiation is
\nreduced, and what causes the reduction? We are pretty sure that visible
\nlight isn\u2019t reduced as there is no visible difference between
\nbottles with CO2 and those without. Thus, the difference is likely in
\nthe infrared (IR) part of the spectrum. CO2, as we have heard
\ninterminably for the past 25 years, absorbs certain bands of IR
\nradiation, most notably in the IR near 2, 3 and 4 micrometers
\nwavelength, and in longwave bands between 13 to 17 micrometers
\nwavelength. At thermal equilibrium CO2 will radiate in these same
\nwavelength bands as much power as it absorbs. The radiated radiation
\ndoes not travel in the same direction as the absorbed radiation was
\ntraveling, however. It is radiated uniformly in all directions. In the
\ncase of our experiment this leads to a small decrease in power reaching
\nthe Moll-type thermopile.<\/p>\n

Applying this to the case of a simple Earth atmosphere, containing
\nnothing but CO2 and having no weather, leads one to conclude that
\nlongwave radiation leaving the top of Earth\u2019s atmosphere will
\ndecline in magnitude slightly. This decrease in longwave power
\ntraveling away from the surface forces the Earth\u2019s surface
\ntemperature to rise slightly in order to maintain its thermal
\nequilibrium. This is the \u201cgreenhouse effect\u201d in its pure
\nform.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a>
\nTable 1. Various runs of our experiment. Thermometers run showed the
\nexpected enhanced \u0394T of the CO2- filled bottle. First run with
\nthermocouples, though, showed no average difference, but was fraught
\nwith con- founding influences. Temperatures were displayed at the whole
\nnumber resolution because of the digital readout. Run 3 thermocouples
\nread with a digital display having 0.1\u25e6C resolution and showed the
\nlargest effect in bottle with no CO2. Thermopiles were read with a
\nbench DMM having 10 \u03bcV resolution. <\/div>\n

4. Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

When this experiment is set-up according to the prescription on the
\nNOAA webpage it is quite possible to get a difference of temperature of
\n1 \u25e6C between or among thermometers even if none of them contain any
\nCO2. A properly randomized experiment will likely result in no
\ndiscernible difference among thermometer readings irrespective of CO2
\nin bottle or not. The issue is one of not enough magnitude of effect to
\nresolve on typical lab thermometers.<\/p>\n

An instrument as sensitive as a Moll-type thermopile can detect a
\nsmall difference in radiation passing through bottles filled with CO2
\nas compared to an identical bottle not filled. The amount of IR power
\nre- directed by a two-liter, CO2-filled bottle appears to be about
\n100\u03bcW\/m2.<\/p>\n

The most important result of this experiment is how it shows
\nstudents so many issues of experiment design. First, there is the issue
\nof how difficult temperature measurements are to make accurately.
\nStudents are quite surprised at this. They are equally surprised that
\nseemingly identical temperature sensors will not measure identically.
\nSecond, there is also the difficulty of proving conclusively that A
\ncauses B when the experiment includes confounding factors. This is an
\nimportant lesson about the value of skepticism in climate change
\nresearch, observations, and publicity. If X, Y, and Z cause B just as
\nreadily as does A, then what allows one to claim A causes B?<\/p>\n

NOTES<\/strong>
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

1See for example: http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com, 2009\/11\/18\/, Climate Craziness of the week.<\/p>\n

2The way-back machine still has a copy of this web-page at:
\nhttp:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060129154229\/http:\/\/www.srh.noaa.gov\/srh\/jetstream\/atmos\/ll gas.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

3Actually it is possible to tell that the liquid in the thermometer is above half
\nway, but below the next fiducial mark. Thus, I suggested students could resolve
\nthe least significant digit as .0, .2, .5, .8, respectively.<\/p>\n

A complete report on this experiment from Professor Kilty in PDF<\/strong> form is available here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Back to the BBC video, Bryan C points out some problems with
\nstatements by Professor King, who joined the group after the CO2 bottle
\nexperiment was performed. Here is his comment<\/a>, continued.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2026
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Professor King adroitly avoided key questions. Anyone there with
\nany knowledge of the science could have taken him apart. The BBC
\nclearly wasn\u2019t interested in finding anyone equipped with the
\nfacts who could have countered the orthodoxy. In contrast, we had an
\nignoramus who expressed scepticism at the beginning saying he was now
\ncompletely convinced. Others taking part who maintained their
\nscepticism unfortunately didn\u2019t have the facts at their
\nfingertips to back up their positions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Professor King\u2019s assertions about Climategate (from 6:20)
\nwere particularly shocking. He conceded that the behaviour shown was
\nunacceptable, but no conclusions were then drawn by him \u2014 the
\nprogram simply moved on! But I was most stunned by his obfuscatory
\nintroduction of the conspiracy theory about \u201cagencies\u201d
\nwhich went unchallenged, and involved a direct fabrication about mobile
\nphone conversations.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cRemember that these emails go back to 1998 and
\nthey\u2019ve been accumulating them and just released them in the week
\nbefore Copenhagen\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLet me also make this allegation for the first time in
\npublic. It\u2019s an extraordinarily sophisticated piece of work to
\nhack into all of these emails and mobile phone conversations, right?
\nWhat agencies have got the sophistication to manage that? I leave you
\nto think about that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, the most likely scenario is not of an outside hacker
\nbut a whistleblower inside the CRU who pulled them together and
\nreleased them. The suggestion of \u201can extraordinarily
\nsophisticated piece of work\u201d doesn\u2019t really hold up if
\nyou\u2019re just referring to emails, but introducing the idea of
\nmonitoring mobile phone conversations (a complete lie as far as
\nI\u2019m aware) serves to boost the conspiracy theory and muddy the
\nwaters. And this man was Britain\u2019s most senior scientist?<\/em><\/p>\n

I hope you can draw people\u2019s attention to this deception!<\/em><\/p>\n

Regards <\/em>Bryan C<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Clearly there has never been any mention of \u201cmobile phone conversations\u201d <\/em>in
\nany known discussion about the Climategate incident. This appears to be
\na complete fabrication by Professor King. It is troubling that the BBC
\nhas not corrected this.<\/p>\n

All in all, this was not a well thought out or well researched video
\npresentation by the BBC, and in my opinion it does a disservice to the
\ncitizens that pay taxes through television licenses to support the BBC.<\/p>\n

UK readers are encouraged to make the issues and independent experimental results known to the BBC and to media monitors there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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