'...during 2011 as a result of being awarded funding from the Beacons Programme (an engagement fund supported by Cardiff University, University of Glamorgan, BBC Wales and Techniquest).'
Here is the front cover of their materials:
Notice the central pictures, enlarged below:
What were they thinking? 'This should get their attention'? 'This should scare them witless'? 'This should help get us even more funding'?
The above document can be downloaded from here.
I want to find time to go through this document in detail. In the meantime, I note this nonsense from page 7:
“Greenhouse Effect”
The sun shines down on the surface
of the earth. About half the heat
naturally reflects back out into space.
When greenhouse gases such as
carbon dioxide and methane are
released into our atmosphere, they
trap heat and stop it reflecting back
out into space. This causes additional
warming of the earth surface,
ocean and atmosphere… just like a
greenhouse!
Now of course it has long been established that this not how a greenhouse works - so the grand conclusion is nonsense.
Furthermore, the gases do not 'trap' heat and stop it getting back to space, nor is the infra-red radiation involved reflected from the Earth so much as generated by it - so the third sentence is also wrong. The second sentence is also wrong, if by 'heat' they mean the solar input - the Earth's albedo is more like 0.3 and of course all the energy received from the sun and absorbed by the earth is in fact re-emitted. Only the first sentence survives:
'The sun shines down on the surface of the earth.'
Even that is a bit of an over-simplification since at any time half of the earth does not have the sun shining down on it.
My preliminary study of this document is not at all encouraging. It does seem intended to produce alarm. Alarm that is not, in my view, justified. If this initital impression is confirmed further, then I will be sure to accuse the authors of gross irresponsibility, of dereliction of their basic duty as adults to protect the young from scaremongering.
Note added 26 October 2011. Mostlharmless has more criticisms of the Cardiff Concoction here: http://mostlyharmless-room-101.blogspot.com/2011/09/education-or-muddled-disinformation-and.html#more
I am still hoping to find time to work through the materials, but so much else is going on just now.
I've just posted my initial reaction of this "high quality educational resource." The quality of the graphics is abysmal, and text in them cannot be read, even when zoomed. The illegible ""Greenhouse Effect” diagram just below the text you quoted has an original, larger version. The link below is to the website, not the page containing the graphic, which is tricky to find, as it's not in the sidebar. That graphic IS legible, and here's what it says:
ReplyDeleteSolar radiation powers the climate system. Some solar radiation is reflected by the Earth and the atmosphere. About half of the solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface and warms it. Infrared radiation is emitted by the Earth's surface. Some of the infrared radiation passes through the atmosphere, but most is absorbed and re-emitted in all directions by greenhouse gas molecules and clouds. The effect of this is to warm the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere.
How much better would it have been if they'd just used that, instead of the piece of total rubbish "developed by academics from the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences"?
Thank you for your comment, MostlyHarmless. Here is a link for my readers to your piece on these materials: http://mostlyharmless-room-101.blogspot.com/2011/09/education-or-muddled-disinformation-and.html#more
ReplyDeleteI hope to get working on my own review today.