Gregory's book is the best seller in Environmental Science on Amazon.
After the introduction, the next chapter is 'The greenhouse gas effect', GHGE. GW's book explanation is the alarmist, 'consensus' explanation of GHGE. It is similar to Patrick Moore's view.
GW assumes that the GHGE is a real thing in science. In reality, there is possibly some GHGE, but we don't know what that may be! Because no empirical investigations into this GHGE have ever been properly done. The basic physics of the universe may also be explained in terms of string theory, or not. No empirical validation of a string theory has been done. So we can either accept speculation in science, or we can reject all speculation. Unfortunately - a lot of scientists don't understand that once we accept speculation (such as GHGE) we open the doors to any crackpot idea.
I take the skeptic point-of-view on speculation and hypotheses in science. I will provisionally accept speculation as possible, when that speculation comes with a set of tests. These tests will be experiments or observations which can validate or falsify the idea. But GHGE never came with any tests; therefore science skeptics should just reject it. The existence of a GHGE has always been entirely premised on models. Which are speculation.
No empirical validation of a GHGE has ever been done. Many assumptions and predictions of the basic GHGE model are refuted by real world measurements. So the sensible scientist comes to the conclusion that there is no GHGE. Because science is just an explanation of the world in terms of what we can see and measure in the world. The GHGE claims earth's surface is an average of 33K warmer than it'd be with no GHG in the atmosphere. That 33K is an old calculation which is no longer valid. We now have new data. The new data is ignored because the alarmists already fitted their current models to the old model of how they once thought the GHGE worked. Because they claim their ideas are 'The Consensus', they are locked in, and cannot revise their GHGE to fit new data!
I have actually seen a couple of low-level attempted validation experiments for the GHGE, but the experimentalists confused their GHGE with an effect due to heat capacity. Each gas has it's own heat capacity. This is the ability of the gas to store heat. Kinetic energy is an aspect of heat capacity all gases have. As molecules become more complex they gain more features (called degrees of freedom) such that the kinetic energy aspect eventually falls to 50% or less of total heat capacity
Heat Capacity: C(p,m), Unit = J/mol/K
Argon : 20.8
Air (dry) : 29.07
Nitrogen : 28.8
Carbon dioxide : 37.1
All the inert gases have the same heat capacity as argon. Inert gases owe ALL their heat capacity to a kinetic energy effect.
The experimentalists compared air with CO2 and discovered that CO2 got warmer than air when heated and kept its heat for longer. I believe this is exactly what heat capacity predicts. The experimentalists claimed their measured effects were due to the GHGE. But they should've compared air and CO2 with argon too. According to the experimentalists, air and argon should behave in the same way because neither is a GHG. Only CO2 should differ - it is a GHG. They never looked at how argon behaves; how convenient for their self-fulfilling GHGE prophecy!
Geoffrey Wrightstone's book has much to recommend for it. He writes well, and the book reads well. But his acceptance of a GHGE - despite no scientific evidence for such - means I can only give him 4/5. Because he accepts this GHGE he won't be able to criticise how it's used to make nonsense up and present it as 'settled science'. This book is recommended, but not perfect.
I realize my review is deeply flawed. I seem to be ignoring most of the book, and I'm zooming in on something GW didn't really talk about. Because the GHGE is the fulcrum on which the climate scam rests.
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