Over the years I have gone along with the crowd and derided the term “greenhouse effect” as a poor analogy between the atmosphere’s ability to keep the Earth’s surfce warmer than it would be without IR-absorbing (and thus IR-emitting) gases, versus a greenhouse in which plants are grown.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that “greenhouse effect” is a pretty accurate term.
The main objection has been that the warmth within a real greenhouse is primarily due to the roof’s ability to keep warm air from escaping, thus inhibiting convective heat loss. While that is true, it is also true of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Remember,
1) the roof of the greenhouse is also an IR absorber and emitter, like water vapor and CO2 do in the free atmosphere, and
2) the atmospheric greenhouse effect is only fully realized in the absence of convective heat loss.
Let’s start with that second point. As originally calculated by Manabe and Strickler (1964, see slide #10 here), the greenhouse effect does not explain the average surface temperature being 288 K (observed) rather than 255K (the effective radiating temperature of the Earth absent an atmosphere). Instead it is actually much more powerful than that, and would raise the temperature to an estimated 343 K (close to 160 deg. F.) It is convective heat loss generated by an unstable lapse rate caused by the greenhouse effect that reduces the temperature to the observed value.
This is the actual “greenhouse effect” on Earth’s average surface temperature: not the oft-quoted 33 deg. C, but more like 88 deg. C of warming. (We can quibble about the calculations of surface temperature with and without greenhouse gases because they make unrealistic assumptions about clouds and water vapor.)
The point is, the atmospheric greenouse effect is radiative only, and does not include the cooling effects of convective heat transport away from the Earth’s surface.
Kind of like in a real greenhouse.
So, this actually is what happens in a real greenhouse:
1) sunlight warms the interior
2) infrared radiation absorbed and emitted by the roof reduces radiative energy loss by the air and surfaces within the greenhouse
3) convective heat loss is minimized (although it is generated on the outside surface of the roof, thus keeping the interior cooler than if there was no convective heat loss at all)
So, all things considered, I think we need to embrace the “greenhouse effect” concept. Plants like it so much, we artificially enhance Nature’s greenhouse effect (which existed before greenhouses were invented) for their benefit.
Next, let’s pump some extra CO2 in there to help the plants even more.
Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Convective Adjustment
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469%281964%29021%3C0361%3ATEOTAW%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zt_sh.gif
“A series of thermal equilibriums is computed for the distributions of absorbers typical of different latitudes. According to these results, the latitudinal variation of the distributions of ozone and water vapor may be partly responsible for the latitudinal variation of the thickness of the isothermal part of the stratosphere.”
The heat in a greenhouse is not strongly dependent upon the emissivity of the panes of glass. If is from the inhibition of convection in a constant volume structure. Convection of the Earth’s atmosphere is not inhibited by “greenhouse” gases, and the volume is not constant. These are big differences.
Where there is a lot of ozone in the tropopause, convection is less inhibited.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_200_NA_f00.png
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_hgt_trop_NA_f00.png
…interstellar travel (without religion)… religious demented are burning the forest in the entire World, and the miserable occult power Rome-saint, terror against reason how it did to Galileo Galilei, recent threat: “the III World War has already begun”, protects to other credos and silences to the Global Media for the innocent people do not know it a fact already evident: IS TRUTH THAT RELIGION IS LIE
I can’t tell if this is a profound thought, or the result of a random word generator.
The result of a random thought generator at least. 🙂
Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. It gets better if you read it again a few times.
roy…”I cant tell if this is a profound thought, or the result of a random word generator”.
Just another climate alarmist gone off the deep end.
The post’s author was obviously attracted to the thread by the discussion of a “greenhouse effect.”
Must’ve stopped along the way to one of those marijuana “grow” forums…
For sure the latter.
Roy, I agree on the use of this term. But what is important is the overall understanding of the complex systems involved.
I am a Pharmacist so I work in the medical/health area. As a critical thinker, I have learned that so much of medical “science” is really just personal hunches backed up by poorly control ed/non controlled studies.
The thing I find interesting is that in both fields feedback mechanisms are largely ignored. So, yes, Co2 may reflect back a certain percentage of earths heat radiation. The assumption by the global warming alarmists is that the system (earth) can not respond via feedback to this perturbation.
This is akin to the calorie in-calorie out equation. People will state that the laws of thermodynamics dictate that this equation holds true. It does in a simple sense. But for example, in the human system, decreasing calories in, is met with a decrease in basal metabolic rate. In other words,a feedback mechanism inside the human body responds to decreased calories (a perturbation) by decreasing caloric expenditure. So the idea that calories out is INDEPENDENT of calories in, is not correct. This I believe is the fundamental error that that CAGW proponents make. They assume the perturbation of increased greenhouse effect is not countered by any feedback mechanisms withing the earths system.
swampgator says:
So, yes, Co2 may reflect back a certain percentage of earths heat radiation. The assumption by the global warming alarmists is that the system (earth) can not respond via feedback to this perturbation.
Umm… No.
Just wrong.
PS: And it’s not reflection, it’s re-emission.
My blog has apparently become the go-to place for posting off-topic comments.
It also has become one of the worst trolling sites, on par with the YouTube comment section. You really need to clean it up because it deters normal people from posting.
Just look at the names of the people in this thread. Most of the trolls have stayed away, so people who don’t usually comment have come out of the woodwork and are making sane comments.
Honestly, please look at Mike Flynn’s comments in the recent monthly temperature threads, and decide if that is really the type of person you want arguing on your side of the debate.
“Most of the trolls have stayed away”
At the time I posted this comment, this was correct.
B,
I presume you have a point, but on the face of it, you are just making irrelevant and meaningless posts for no good reason.
I am sure Dr Spencer can read. He may not even need or welcome your unsolicited advice. What do you think?
Cheers.
Dr Spencer may even need and welcome a lot of
unsolicited silly drivel.Face it, buffoons and fools are even called for and are just making “relevant and meaningful posts for very good reasons”.
bond…”It also has become one of the worst trolling sites….”
I have only noticed alarmist trolls. I have been called a troll, a liar, and a fabricator for posting the work of Clausius, Boltzmann, Planck, Bohr, and Schrodinger. I often post it verbatim and I still get called a liar/troll.
Bond…people like you need to become more secure in your science and learn how to rebut an argument using good science. Recently I posted three times the explanation of carrier modulation, even explaining it using a circuit model. You replied three times with nary a word about my explaination, apparently trying to win the debate using input totally out of context.
Roy…in case you think carrier modulation is off-topic, I have used it previously to demonstrate that electromagnetic energy can carry information from an antenna via modulation. It’s exactly the same EM that electrons in atoms convert from heat, which results in cooling of a body when EM is emitted.
bond…”Honestly, please look at Mike Flynns comments in the recent monthly temperature threads, and decide if that is really the type of person you want arguing on your side of the debate”.
I find Mike’s comments amusing. It’s even more amusing how you alarmists feel compelled to reply.
Mike makes some good points and he does it generally with humour. It’s sad that you are so intense you have to take it to heart.
It has likely been Mike’s persistence in asking for a testable hypothesis for the GHE that prompted Roy to write this article.
Roy has a conundrum, however. His data is not showing the kind of warming one would expect from an ever-increasing supply of CO2. Roy has remained wisely non-commital as to how much CO2 should warm the atmosphere. He thinks it’s a factor but he has never specified how much.
Gordo has a conundrum. Mike demands a testable hypothesis, while ignoring the data from spectroscopic IR radiation measurements both within and outside the atmosphere. Evidence has been presented that “back radiation” from a cooler body can warm one with a higher temperature, in accordance with theory, yet, Gordo insists on ignoring that experimental result.
The trend in the UAH LT data is less than that found by the three other groups which analyze the same data. Gordo should consider possibility that maybe the UAH data is wrong, as has been shown for previous versions. That is, if Gordo is really interested in seeking the truth, something he has avoided repeatedly so far.
+1
UAH has the best match with the CO2 rate of change proxy, and the other sets have been continuously “adjusted” with confirmation of the assumed outcome in mind. It is clear that the others are the ones with thumbs on the scale.
Speaking of off-topic comments, I have one for you Dr. Spencer. I am the weatherman with a Tesla. And I am at “war” against some of my fellow Tesla owners (mainly Californians) over climate and policy. The authoritarian Tesla owners want to force Tesla and other battery electric vehicles (BEV) onto the general public with strict government policy against the internal combustion engine, and the implementation of a punitive carbon tax. I tell them to let Tesla and other BEVs grow by free-market choice, and leave the government out of it (government is already involved enough).
And because of my libertarian stance on BEVs, I get labeled a DENIER! I’m sure you’ve been called that more than a few times in your lifetime! These California Tesla owners have an Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) zealotry way beyond any sense of rationality. They keep telling me I need to pay attention to “the science.” They think that ridiculous “skeptical science” site is the gold standard of climate science. Whenever I point to scientists with alternative views on “climate change,” they immediately attack the scientist with blatant lies. As an example, they attack you over ontology. And they claim you are a young-earth creationist, and nobody should believe you. I’ll never forget that Senator (Sheldon Whitehouse) trying to make an issue out of that while you were testifying before Congress.
I tell these AGW zealots to tell you that on your site. They won’t dare because they are chicken-sh*ts. So, is there anything you want me to tell these Tesla AGW zealots about the “6000 year old earth?” I can’t help but notice that atheists have a religion. And that religion is AGW!
If you don’t answer, I more than understand!
I wish posting on topic was a bit easier. Everytime I hit the submit button my post gets lost in cyberspace.
leitwolf…”I wish posting on topic was a bit easier. Everytime I hit the submit button my post gets lost in cyberspace”.
There are certain rules you need to know.
1)certain words won’t post due to WordPress filters.
eg. absorp-tion requires a hyphen or dot between p and t.
refrig-e-ration needs hyphens as indicated.
a ‘d’ and a ‘c’ need a hyphen as in NCD-C, even in a URL. Had-crut is another example.
2)always save your post with a copy before posting. If it disappears, paste your copy into a text editor, then post it in sections to see where the error is occurring.
Post the first section and see if it goes through. If not, troubleshoot it using hints above or go through words using hyphens or dots and retesting.
It doesn’t happen often, just be patient when it does. Over several years posting here I have never seen a post that won’t go through provided the error is found.
Thanks a lot! That should be very helpful.
roy…”My blog has apparently become the go-to place for posting off-topic comments”.
Comments generally get more off topic as the blog length increases but I’ve found the initial comments tend to be on topic.
Personally, I thoroughly enjoy that later comments as well and I appreciate your patience in allowing it to proceed. The name calling is pretty mild compared to trolled sites where instigators focus on disrupting the discussions. I have been on some pretty rude sites and yours is mild.
All the same, the off-topic stuff is generally in the range of physics and thermodynamics related to climate. Even though you and I disagree on certain topics, I support you and UAH. However, I am now regarded a troll by alarmists frequenting your site. I am trying to contribute to a discussion on science whereas trolls do what they can to disrupt it, like some alarmists here.
The problem is you rarely add to the discussion, you just repeat things you’ve written before (and before, and before…) that have already been refuted many times.
DA…”The problem is you rarely add to the discussion,”
There’s a perfectly good explanation for that, you alarmists are generally talking nonsense.
You haven’t shown it to be nonsense. You just want to believe that, for some reason.
I would say a very large greenhouse is similar to Earth atmosphere. But very large greenhouse is dissimilar typical greenhouse or parked car with windows rolled up.
Dr. Spencer,
Most would agree that the analogy is very accurate. The questions have to do with how much the change in C02 affects the radiation. Or does it just change the lapse time? Or both.
Beyond that, the history of the globe shows much warming and cooling previous to mankind’s advent as a possible influence.
This being true, that raises the questions of what caused those changes, even though the atmosphere was already here.
In all, I appreciate and enjoy what you provide here, even some of the off topic rants.
Best wishes, and keep up the good work.
Lewis says:
Beyond that, the history of the globe shows much warming and cooling previous to mankinds advent as a possible influence.
This being true, that raises the questions of what caused those changes, even though the atmosphere was already here.
An entire subfield of climate science is devoted to such questions. A lot of scientists work in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology
Yes,
And to date,
Milankovitch is my favorite.
And you?
You think Milankovitch factors are the only reason climate changes?
I could not agree more…well said.
When you pump CO2 into a green house the inside temperature rises (all other things being equal)…case closed.
I assume sarcasm is intended.
I don’t think that is what Dr. Spencer wrote. I disagree with you. CO2 doesn’t retain absorbed radiation long enough to accumulate enough energy to come to higher temperature than a CO2 free atmosphere with a sufficient amount of water vapor.
If the control greenhouse had no water or CO2, then the air in the CO2 greenhouse might warm faster, but eventually both should come to the same temperature, having similar input and ability to cool.
adding CO2 into a greenhouse would have almost no radiative effect on temperature.. certainly not a measurable one. You could model it and compute one, but I suspect the value would be on the order of 0.001 deg. C.
roy…”adding CO2 into a greenhouse would have almost no radiative effect on temperature.. certainly not a measurable one. You could model it and compute one, but I suspect the value would be on the order of 0.001 deg. C.”
Ironically, my ballpark calculations using the Ideal Gas Law and Dalton’s law of partial pressures reveal a similarly low heating effect from CO2 in the atmosphere.
Even Lindzen has placed an upper limit of 0.4C for a doubling of CO2. In his paper on the GHE, he has claimed radiation is not the primary method of surface cooling.
Gordon Robertson says:
In his paper on the GHE, he has claimed radiation is not the primary method of surface cooling.
What paper was that?
I suspect you’re referring to his “adaptive Iris effect” idea, which certainly did NOT say radiation was not the primary method or surface cooling — it hypothesized that fewer cirrus clouds due to warming would lead to even more surface cooling by radiation and cancel out the positive feedbacks from global warming.
“Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?”, Richard S. Lindzen et al, BAMS 2001
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(2001)0822.3.CO;2
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/adinfriris.pdf
Several subsequent papers found problems with Lindzen et al’s work, as discussed here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/04/the-return-of-the-iris-effect/
There’s a problem with reality as well. The satellite record has more than 0.4 C for less than a doubling of CO2.
Yeah, because the other 1,000+ variables have remained constant (eye roll)
Which then (facepalm)?
I did not say it would rise much, as the density is low and path length short.(nor did I mean it is a good way to heat a green house)
But if the CO2 density were increased greatly the inside temperature would also increase accordingly (as less radiation would escaped at the original temperature), which is exactly the “green house” effect…not true?
@ m d mill …that would be a simple test then. Two greenhouses side by side, one with unadulterated air, and the other with CO2 pumped up to 1500 ppm. Which would be warmer?
It would be nice to see the difference over 24 hours too. Would one stay warmer at night.
i was thinking more like 50% CO2!
If we look at the heat gained and lost for a specific area such as The UK then more heat is lost then gained during winter days which have more hours of darkness so that high pressure and clear skies increases the radiation losses more but cloudy skies decrease the amount of radiation lost but when we have more daylight hours the increased solar radiation heats up the surface more with high pressure and clear skies then we lose from the fewer hours of darkness and cloudy skies and low pressure does not allow the surface to heat up so much during the longer daylight hours even though there is less radiation loss during the shorter nights. This is my hypothesis of how surface temperatures change through the year.
Now if you could just come up with a hypothesis of how to write a proper sentence, then you might be on to something.
Dr. Spencer,
I really appreciate your views on low sensitivity and research into how the climate ticks. However, the greenhouse analogy does more harm than good, IMO. I leads immediately to the warmist’s conclusion’s that more CO2 will cause more warming. There is no definitive evidence of that. If so, can you tell me where the data is?
Without an atmosphere, there is no water, no clouds, no snow. So 240 goes to 342 W/m2 or so. Why do you et alia continually refer to 255 deg C as the no atmosphere temperature?
The unstable lapse rate is caused by the earth’s daily rotation. If the sun surrounded the earth 24/7, the lapse rate would be steady and determined by the gravitational compacting of atmospheric gases.
We can quibble about the calculations, but we should realize they are meaningless when used to calculate unverifiable imaginary situations.
The claim that the greenhouse effect provides 33 degrees of warming is indeed wrong. Ice, clouds, aerosols, etc. would reduce the average global temperature from 255K if there was no greenhouse effect, but the greenhouse effect supplies MORE than 33 degrees of warming, resulting in a net increase of more than 33 degrees.
The statement should be “the net result of positive forcings from the greenhouse effect and negative forcings due to albedo etc, is 33 degrees of warming above the simple model”.
Oops – somehow I started inserting “you” before my name. Must be a misplaced beginning to a comment.
By all means quibble at will.
Not sure what part of my response you see as “quibbling”.
B,
I’m sure you don’t. That is why I presume many could find your comment irrelevant and pointless, not to mention stupid and ignorant.
Oh well, you could always ask a direct question, if you really wanted to increase your knowledge.
Cheers.
B,
Apologies. I meant to say that I was sure that you were’t sure. Please forgive my lapse – laughter does have some adverse effects, at times.
Cheers.
I agree th 255K calculation involves assumptions which are likely wrong. I agree, no atmosphere, no clouds, so absorbed sunlight would go up. But even without clouds, it is doubtful global average surface albedo would be over 0.9. That gives a global average temperature of just below freezing…and the more ice there is, the lower the temperature as the albedo goes up even more.
Regarding your compression-causing-warming hypothesis, I completely disagree, and have written on that ad nauseum. The adiabatic lapse rate is the RESULT of convective overturning, and convection can only occur if there is a greenhouse effect destabilizing the atmosphere. Without the atmosphere absorbing and emitting IR, surface heating by the sun would gradually warm the entire troposphere to the same temperature through conduction, since the upper layers would have no way to cool.
You make two assumptions for which there is no verifiable data. One is that an inert atmosphere is isothermal and the other is that an inert atmosphere has no way to cool. There are many theoretical derivations supporting the existence of a lapse rate in any atmosphere with sufficient pressure.
A planet with an inert atmosphere, regardlesss of whether inherantly isothermal or not, will be heated by the sun and its surface air will convect and advect. How would it not? The atmosphere would continue to warm until the sun was well past its apex and the atmosphere would begin cooling as soon as the surface cooled to a lower temperature. Everything the same as happens on an IR-active atmosphere except not as fast, so the days would be hotter and the nights cooler.
The Master Designer added water and CO2 to make Earth tolerable.
C,
Given that the Earth’s core is 5500 K or more, that outer space is 4 ‘K or so, any matter between the two will find itself situated between the two, on the appropriate thermal gradient (in the absence of complicating factors like sunlight).
It seems reasonable to me that the atmosphere cannot be isothermal, being much “hotter” at the bottom than the top. Convection will not necessarily occur, if the hotter air is denser than the cooler aloft, and this is observed. Another example is the solar pond, where convection does not occur even though the lower water is above 80 C, and the surface 30 C. Adjusting salinity ensures the hotter denser water remains under the cooler, less dense water.
Others may not be aware that sayings such as “hot air rises” or “the lapse rate is due to gravity” may not be the complete story.
Cheers.
Mike,
Interesting. And I don’t think for a minute atmospheres can be isothermal.
“Convection will not necessarily occur, …and this is observed.”
May I trouble you for a reference?
C,
No offense intended, but step outside on a calm day. The air near the surface should be warmer than the air aloft, and this will usually be confirmed by radiosonde data. The warmer air at the surface is remaing on the surface – if it is denser, and it usually is, because density generally decreases with altitude.
A heat high, or a blocking high, has higher temperatures and pressures than the surrounding atmosphere. Of course, under certain conditions, convection occurs, and warm air rises. Just not all the time.
Density, not temperature. Same with a fluid like water. I assume you know about anabatic and katabatic winds, which can give rise to situation where the normal order of things is reversed. Just when you think you have it all under control, some inconvenient fact emerges.
I nearly forgot that the inhabitants of LA (amongst other places) regularly observe smoggy conditions, when a capping inversion occurs, suppressing convection. Hot, muggy, and generally uncomfortable.
Enough – sorry for being so verbose.
Cheers.
No offense taken. I just thought you were generalizing an exception to the usual warmer air rises because it becomes less dense than cooler denser air above. My point was that IR-active gases aren’t needed to initiate convection.
“But even without clouds, it is doubtful global average surface albedo (sic!) would be over 0.9”
I assume you meant to say absorp-tivity rather than albedo, or that albedo would hardly be <0.1 respectively.
We have these beautiful pictures from the DSCOVR satellite which show both Moon and Earth in one frame.
http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/3-earth/2015/20150805_DSCOVR_Earth_Moon_Aligned_f840.png
What is the albedo of the Moon again? Like 0.12 or 0.13? We can see how the clear sky albedo compares to that, and it is fair to say Earth is much darker.
Land is darker than the moon if there is vegitation, and similar or brighter than the moon if the land is arid. Ocean water however is definitely much darker. So Earth's albedo should be well below 0.1 indeed.
However, we must consider that even in the absence of clouds, we are still looking through the atmosphere and aerosols. For that reason clear sky albedo should be even lower.
Finally there is snow and ice, which we can hardly see in this picture. But both of which have a natural tendency to "hide" from the sun.
Hi Roy. You have said,
The adiabatic lapse rate is the RESULT of convective overturning, and convection can only occur if there is a greenhouse effect destabilizing the atmosphere. Without the atmosphere absorbing and emitting IR, surface heating by the sun would gradually warm the entire troposphere to the same temperature through conduction, since the upper layers would have no way to cool.
End of quote,
But the adiabatic lapse rate is by definition the result of no energy gained or lost, so stating that adiabatic requires energy input to destabilise it does not make sense. You have multiple competing mechanisms that add together to produce a vertical thermal gradient exactly the same as if they all just answered to gravity. This is grossly over complicating the issue that the troposphere is extremely adiabatic irrespective of heat transfer processes that act in a manner to reduce it, by popular acceptance.
Secondly, a non radiative atmosphere would be heated to surface Tmax not Tave by conduction as without the ability to radiate or convect down stratification would stop the atmosphere losing its heat to the surface at all other times.
The greenhouse analogy is a “catchy” simplification as to the thermodynamic engine of our atmosphere, something that the lay public can relate to. On the other hand, in a normally functioning greenhouse one does not have clouds, aerosols are not a significant factor, we don’t have the most powerful “greenhouse” molecule acting in three different phases, and the scale of a greenhouse does not lead to the chaotic behavior of an atmosphere on a rotating and revolving planet. Some climate “experts” are too clueless to realize how an actual greenhouse functions but pretend to know the effects of CO2 on our planetary atmosphere. For example, rabid environmentalist David Suzuki stated in a May 12, 1999 article in the London Free Press,
Can anyone find that actual quote? I cant. Sounds like one of those internet legends…
It was quoted a few times at WUWT, but the original link at canada.com is not found.
N,
Here’s one that seems real (if the voice really belongs to Dr Laurie Johnson) –
“Im telling you your car heats up because there are greenhouse gases in your car.”
I don’t believe that a car full of non-greenhouse gases doesn’t get hot in the Sun. Oxygen and nitrogen cylinders in the Sun get just as hot as carbon dioxide cylinders.
The testable GHE hypothesis would no doubt explain this phenomenon, if it existed. Have you found a copy yet?
Cheers.
GHE theory explained quite well in the link Roy posted above from 1964.
Section 2.7. Have at it. Tell us which parts are wrong and why.
Dr Laurie Johnson, might be her, who knows.
But she is an economist, not a climate scientist.
Nate,
A couple of things.
There is no GHE theory. There is not even a testable GHE hypothesis. Sly appeals to authority are typical of stupid and ignorant avoiders and deniers. Try harder – you might even consider addressing the question.
Second, Gavin Schmidt is an undistinguished mathematician.
Are you trying to make a point?
Cheers.
You are an expert at posting irrelevancies. I said nothing about G Schmidt. But his CV is fine.
“There is no GHE theory.”
Did you look at the GHE THEORY in the link? Obviously not.
Nate, MF asks for things, then when you give the evidence he either ignores it or whines about “gotchas.” And around and around it goes. He’s hopeless.
Imagine a grown man who comes here every day only to taunt and bully and insult people. Ignore him.
Nate,
http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/pastedgraphic-1.pdf
OK, weird.
Apparently there is carbon in glass. But still he’s nuts.
Looks like David Suzuki was, to put it politely, confused. Not politely, embarrassingly wrong.
The main objection has been that the warmth within a real greenhouse is primarily due to the roofs ability to keep warm air from escaping, thus inhibiting convective heat loss. While that is true, it is also true of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
How does the presence of GH gases in atmospheric GH inhibit convective heat loss ?
Quite the reverse is true, it triggers or at least enhances it and so it reduces the real observed temperature enhancement to the famous 33 K. Hence convection here subtracts from radiative effect.
If one defines the atmospheric GHE as radiative only (the 88 K) then convection reduces it. Yet for the sake of consistency, one must then define the real GHE as (essentially) convective only, the radiative part being small or negligible and if ever sizable it actually adds to the convective effect and thus enhances the real GHE effect.
The real greenhouse inhibits convection because of a scale effect. Interior air cannot participate in convective motion at a few kilometers scale as in free atmosphere. Scale is reduced to L = a few meters and Rayleigh number scales as L^3. Heat loss in a real greenhouse is thus dominated by thermal conduction through the solid material the greenhouse is made of.
That said I have no objections at all to the “atmospheric, respectively real GHE” concepts. Both work by inhibiting, heat loss, that is radiative respectively convective heat loss.
Changes in ozone in long periods caused by UV and GCR changes in the lower stratosphere induce changes in convection. The temperature of the tropopause is decisive, and in periods of low solar activity increases locally. Through these holes, heat escapes into the stratosphere.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/gome/solar/mgii_composite_2.png
sorry, ambiguous wording on my part. My point, which was further elaborated, was that the atmospheric greenhouse effect does not include the cooling effect of convection. The radiative greenhouse effect makes the surface very hot, and does not include convective cooling…similar to a real greenhouse.
This is really troubling to me and why I object to using greenhouse terminology. You may know what the difference between an atmospheric and a radiative greenhouse effect is, but I have to go back and reread the ambiguous wording again to figure it out. Just my pet peave.
As long as the sun hits the surface, it will get hot. CO2 and water vapor cool it.
If they cool it, why does the temperature keep getting warmer, why is ice melting, and why is sea level rising?
Cooling is relative, but warm is warm. Ice melts above freezing whatever the cause.
Global warming is mainly about the oceans warming, imo. When the oceans start to shed their heat load, then that will signal the switch to cooling.I see two levels of that, a long term cyclical pattern, and a shorter pattern. The shorter pattern has set in now from what I can see.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Cooling is relative, but warm is warm. Ice melts above freezing whatever the cause.
So since ever more ice is melting, and not refreezing, the world must be getting ever warmer.
Nice try. Ice will continue to melt even if temps continue to linger. Stick to the natural vs. AGW debate.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Nice try. Ice will continue to melt even if temps continue to linger.
Yes. So more melting ice means temperatures have increased, right?
Why is the melting of sea ice accelerating?
Why is sea level rise accelerating?
No, because cooling, warming, and melting are relative to what the temperatures are at a given time and place.
Melting accelerates when the temperature difference between the air or water at the surface of the ice increases. This is more likely to happen at noon in the summer in the northern hemisphere.
Last I heard, sea level rise has been constant for a least a century. Probably has a lot to do with tectonic plates and volcanoes.
Thanks, I guess I see what you meant now.
I have been a psychologist for over 40 years, so I am quite familiar with this type of expression. It appears in some of my clients when they stop taking their medication.
Sorry. I was attempting to respond to the post by tonyon.
I concur. We see this a lot here when a couple of our trolls also fail to take their meds.
that was invent catastrophes of course…….
Here’s a random thought Dave,
Could it be to some ( large?) extent, that the mass media’s infatuation with Global warming ( oops climate change) stories spelling endless doom for mankind could have a psychological component?
By that I mean so many seem to relish reading – Internet “click bait” is a prime example – tales of rogue asteroids,society collapse, pandemics, pending nuclear holocausts etc etc.
Could it be we just love tales of doom, presumably affecting just about everyone except our goodselves to the point of having to invest catastrophes even when there isn’t one?
I christian it ” The Omega Man ” complex…
Or do I just need to book a appointment with you…. LOL
Kind regards
Brad
Perhaps — there are a lot of apocalyptic sci-fi movies, but most of them involve viruses or zombies.
On the other hand, books by global warming “skeptics” seem to sell much better than books by the opposite. Perhaps “skeptics” need more reassurance.
Some people think we are doomed by the ‘Mongol horde’ of a few refugee families from central america trying to cross the border and seek asylum.
–The main objection has been that the warmth within a real greenhouse is primarily due to the roofs ability to keep warm air from escaping, thus inhibiting convective heat loss. While that is true, it is also true of the atmospheric greenhouse effect.–
I would say it is true of an atmosphere and it doesn’t need greenhouse gases for the atmospheric effect.
As one increases elevation in atmosphere, the less dense air inhibts convection, which is occurring from tropopause to the stratosphere, though if flying stratosphere in commercial airliner, you can hit turbulence due cloud activity below it or within the clouds. Also one has the jet streams at higher the elevations.
If greenhouse is taller, if greenhouse is larger (and if got streams and ponds in it) it going to be earth like, even if on planet Mercury. For Mercury put in polar region, if at say 85 latitude, the sunlight striking the floor of greenhouse at the low angle will not cause much warming. And only small portion of the surface a large dome would get much heating from the intense sunlight.
In times past I have made the following argument:
“The sun’s surface temperature is 5777 K and its radius is 696000 Km. The radius of the earths orbit is 149.6e6 km. Thus the solar intensity at the earth orbit is 1368 W/m**2. The earths albedo is roughly 0.3. Thus its surface (four times the area of its disk) receives an average of 240 W/m**2. Ignoring the effect of the fourth power character of S-B on averaging, some part of the earth would have to average -18 degree C to radiate that much power intensity back out to space. What part of the earth? Well as another crude estimate, pick the atmosphere center of mass at 500 millibar or 5.5 km up. The lapse rate of the troposphere averages -6.5 K/km. so the surface has to be 35 degree C hotter than 5.5 km up, or 17 degree C.
“The actual answer is more like 15 degree C. Pretty darn close for a bunch of estimates.
“How does the surface of the earth get hotter than the -18 degree C required to cool the earth/atmosphere system? Well, you guessed it, back radiation from the atmosphere.’
One of my justifications: When I point my IR thermometer in the sky 5 minutes ago (on a 30 degree C day), I get a reading of -18 degree C, not the -4K of outer space. The atmosphere is the radiator that counts.
That suggests to me that you are measuring radiation from the point in the atmosphere where Earth radiates omnidirectionally. Am I right?
Where DOESN’T the Earth radiate omnidirectionally?
I mean, where isn’t the net outgoing radiation in a radial direction?
Sorry, my answer won’t post.
My suggested that the effective center of radiation (if such a thing can be defined) for outgoing IR radiation is 5.5km up is an admission of defeat.
The analysis of IR radiation in the atmosphere is too complex for me.
If it were purely transparent, then the earths surface would the center of radiation. If it were purely opaque, then it would be the top of the atmosphere (as with Venus). The fact that I see -18 degree C looking up is, I assume, a coincidence.
That’s the best I can do.
I think the IR sensor is looking at a lower layer of the atm, in combo with the atm window which goes all the way to space. A multi layer model is required. Still, your idea is a good first approximation.
Can anyone find anything wrong with Ed Berry’s analysis and conclusions with regards to C02’s effect on climate? http://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/human-co2-not-change-climate/ Or Prof. Murry Salby’s explanation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM I find both to be much more logical than believing our emissions of a trace gas can cause measurable warming, and I have yet to read a convincing critique of either one.
Berrys error is a very simplistic, and wrong, model of the carbon cycle. He doesnt consider the physics and chemistry of how carbon cycles from the atmosphere to the ocean, or from land to the atmosphere, etc. The cycle time period is on the order of 100,000 years – silicate weathering is slow – and far more complicated than Berrys fluid analogy and equations. He makes the same mistakes as the Harde paper that somehow did get published recently, and refuted. RealClimate had a good discussion recently of the Harde paper thats worth reading.
Here’s that RealClimate post on Hermann Harde’s CO2 paper:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/04/harde-times/
It takes about 5 minutes to trace the Real Climate scolding of the Harde paper back to a self described “preliminary analysis” in dire need of a longer period data set to a 1992 paper by Keeling and Shertz. So the “opinion” of Real Climate is that the paper is trash. However, RC could not offer anything in the way of a science argument except a proposed means of estimating ocean uptake of CO2 that the authors of which vividly warned was in need of a much extended dataset in order to arrive at any conclusions. Gotta love political science where somebody can take two years of data and reconstruct the entire history of the planet. Real Climate claims to have “refuted” Harde’s paper but its more akin to whipping it with a wet noodle.
RealClimate cited a paper written in response to Harde, published in the same journal earlier this year:
P. Khler, J. Hauck, C. Vlker, D.A. Wolf-Gladrow, M. Butzin, J.B. Halpern, K. Rice, and R.E. Zeebe, “Comment on Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO 2 residence time in the atmosphere by H. Harde”, Global and Planetary Change, vol. 164, pp. 67-71, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2017.09.015
bill…”RC could not offer anything in the way of a science …”
That’s true, and they never could. Gavin Schmidt, now head of NASA GISS, fumbled an explanation of positive feedback.
Gordon, its not true – I just gave the paper they cited.
David, you are too easily convinced when a study agrees with your preconceptions. The paper you quote as refutation falls apart completely with the acknowledgement that “Although models still disagree
on the contribution of individual processes, the common consensus is. . . .”
Science is not a popularity contest.
So the climate has been warmer in the past and cooler just a few centuries ago with out human C02. When you look at all the proxy data with all the uncertainty bars there is no evidence that the small amount of warming over the last 150 years is unusual or catastrophic. You can come up with all kinds of arguments that these warm periods and cold periods weren’t global but you have no more evidence that is wasn’t global than those who are willing to consider that it may have been global. Or that the current warming is more rapid than previous warming periods. Again there is no evidence accurate enough to substantiate that claim. Anyone who believes the global climate would not have changed in the last 150 years if humans were absent has nothing to back it up. So the big question is how much of the recent change is natural? Graphs that show the sun, volcanoes, orbital changes etc have little effect on climate, but C02 does, mean nothing. Something had to have caused previous climate change naturally without human C02. So why would anyone believe that nothing natural could be causing the current (small) warming? Why do some people think it is logical that C02 causes more warming than natural climate variation? The ocean is by far the largest reservoir of C02. A cooling ocean absorbs more C02. A warming ocean releases more C02. This known fact backs up the theory and proxy data that shows C02 levels follow temperaure change. Believing that a small human perturbation (5% using IPCC data) is driving climate change and C02 rise is IMO illogical! Claiming rising C02 and rising temperatures are catastrophic is ridiculous. What catastrophes came about when the Vikings were farming Greenland? What caused that warming? The odds of future cooling is just as likely as future warming. Cooling is more dangerous than warming despite the claims to the contrary. Polar bears and the great barrier reef survived warmer periods before. The time and money wasted on AGW is shameful as is the belief that our emissions will change significantly in the next 50 years. All the well laid plans to reduce C02 are unraveling as government debts rise and consumer’s prices rise. The AGW believing governments will be replaced with AGW denying governments and the whole issue will go away. All accept for the debt it created. Some will claim that we are transitioning to greener energy at an impressive rate and the future is even brighter. Let’s see what happens as the green subsidies dry up, not to mention hair brained ideas like shipping wood pellets from the US to Britain to be burned in place of coal and adding that to the “renewable energy” column. What could be greener than that!? Looking forward to seeing the satellite temperatures move downward. Not looking forward to a cooler climate.
Coolist says:
You can come up with all kinds of arguments that these warm periods and cold periods werent global but you have no more evidence that is wasnt global than those who are willing to consider that it may have been global.
“All kinds of arguments?” How about looking at the data? Like this huge study of proxy data conducted by 60 or 70 scientists? They divided their data into 30-year bins and concluded:
“There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age.”
— “Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia,” PAGES 2k Consortium, Nature Geosciences, April 21, 2013
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html
Here’s a very good table that summarizes their results:
https://andthentheresphysics.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/pages-2k-temperature-grid.jpeg
DA,
A testable GHE hypothesis would be more convincing than all your delusionary folderol, but you cannot produce one, can you?
Time for another gotcha, do you think?
Cheers.
Not sure if this is the same Salby video I’ve watched. If it is, you’ve gotta love his circular logic as he “proves” there is no greenhouse effect by first assuming there is no greenhouse effect. But he is clever in hiding the fact that he has made that assumption from people who simply nod and agree with any challenge to climate science without having any idea what the person is actually saying.
Has anyone calculated the impact of all the heat released from the burning of fossil fuels?
Outside of the Heat Island Effect, all those engines radiate a tremendous amount of heat.
FDJ,
Title of a paper – AGU –
“From urban to national heat island: The effect of anthropogenic heat output on climate change in high population industrial countries.
There are others. Given that the worlds population has risen substantially over the last century, and per capita energy consumption has measurably increased, one might go looking to if ones speculation was borne out by measurements. It would seem so.
There are other papers – one identifies the national heat island effect down to about a population density of 100 per sq. km.
Still a possibility or two. The research seems valid.
Cheers.
Human civilization consumes about 20 TW of power. Assuming all machines were 0% efficient, that much would be released. But it’s only 0.04 W/m2, compared to total GHG forcing which is now 2.0 W/m2 and the Earth’s energy imbalance with is 0.7 W/m2. So it’s only a small effect.
DA,
Ice can emit 300 W/m2.
Sees your 0.7 W/m2 and raises.
You fold. Boo hoo.
Cheers.
David,
Do you have error limits associated with the forcing and energy imbalance numbers? Maybe a citation would help.
Chic, here are data on GHG RFs:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html
although my number was calculated relative to 1850 assuming CO2e(1850)=280 ppm CO2.
For Earth’s energy imbalance:
“Improving estimates of Earths energy imbalance,”
Johnson, G.C., J.M. Lyman, and N.G. Loeb
Nature Clim. Change, 6, 639640, doi: 10.1038/nclimate3043 (2016).
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate3043.html
It’s pay-walled. I’ll trust you to provide the error estimates.
Back in 2012, Stephens et al. reported:
“For the decade considered, the average imbalance is 0.6 = 340.2 − 239.7 − 99.9 Wm2 when these TOA fluxes are constrained to the best estimate ocean heat content (OHC) observations since 2005.”
“The combined uncertainty on the net TOA flux determined from CERES is 4 Wm2(95% confidence) due largely to instrument calibration errors.”
“The average annual excess of net TOA radiation constrained by OHC is 0.60.4 Wm2.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260208782_An_update_on_Earth's_energy_balance_in_light_of_the_latest_global_observations
My question for Stephens and you, David, would be how can the imbalance error be only 0.4 when the source data can be as much as 4 Wm2?
That should be +/- 4 W/m2 in the second quote and 0.6 +/- 0.4 W/m2 in the third quote.
You can find a PDF of the paper online probably, or write to the author to request one.
Chic Bowdrie says:
That should be +/- 4 W/m2 in the second quote and 0.6 +/- 0.4 W/m2 in the third quote.
Huh?
No idea if you’ve quoted anything correctly, but the uncertainties are what they are. Good scientists report them faithfully and honestly.
David,
They reported a net energy imbalance of 0.6 with an associated error of 0.4 W/m2. The 0.6 is calculated from the TOA solar insolation, reflected solar, and outgoing LWIR. The error in TOA source data is 4 W/m2. Error propagation is usually additive. How can the error in calculating the net energy imbalance be only 0.4 W/m2?
I’m not saying Stephens et al. aren’t faithful and honest. Good scientists just want to know.
“The error in TOA source data is 4 W/m2.”
Yes, initially from CERES radiometers. The CERES team admit the data calibration task is “daunting” (CERES Team term) but are able to use Argo ocean data to constrain the net imbalance down to the range & CI you quote. There are later earth energy imbalance (EEI) papers with ~similar imbalance & reduced CI from Stephens 2012.
Do you really understand how Argo ocean data can constrain the net imbalance error by a factor of 10 or are you forcing me to look into it?
To really understand how the CERES Science Team uses Argo ocean thermometer field data to calibrate earth energy imbalance as reported in e.g. Stephens 2012, Chic will need to read the instrument calibration specialist papers. Start with Loeb 2018, 2016 and 2012 all of which ref. even earlier papers on the subject.
This is also a good starting ref.:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/products.php?product=EBAF-TOA
Must be really complicated if you can’t explain it. Thanks for the leads.
Yes, just discussing the specialist lingo would take more than a sound byte on a blog.
Hmm, I think my 2.0 W/m2 should be about 3.0 W/m2. That NO.AA page gives CO2e(2016) = 489 ppm CO2. Taking CO2e(1850)=280 ppm CO2 (i.e. now contribution also from CH4, N2O, etc at that time), as per their graph of CO2e just above the data table, then today’s RF compared to 1850 is
RF(2016 cp 1850) = (5.35 W/m2)*ln(489/280) = 3.0 W/m2
This paper is about “waste heat” from power plants, and it says:
“The immediate effects of waste heat release from power production and radiative forcing by CO2 are shown to be similar. However, the long-term (hundred years) global warming by CO2-caused radiative forcing is about twenty-five times stronger than the immediate effects, being responsible for around 92% of the heat-up caused by electricity production.”
“The relative contribution of waste heat from power plants to global warming,”
R.Zevenhovena, A.Beyeneb,
Energy
Volume 36, Issue 6, June 2011, Pages 3754-3762
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2010.10.010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544210005694
Well, the only problem with Dr. Spencer’s explanation is that man made Agricultural Greenhouses have been made with “IR Transparent” and “IR Opaque” roofs for many years and there is no discernible temperature difference between the two.
That is an empirical measured result, replicated many times.
And is simply explained; the “IR Opaque” roof absorbs the IR and warms slightly and then emits half of the energy off of the “outside”. So the “IR Opaque” material is not “Opaque” at all when the temperature of the material is nearly the same as the “color temperature” of the radiation.
The long wave radiation emitted by the surface is merely delayed as it travels to the energy free void of space.
Cheers, KevinK
KevinK,
With ambient temperature of 30 C, shipping containers can reach 60 C. I do not know the highest temperature ever recorded.
No glass, no allowing some wavelengths in, but trapping others. It is just a steel box.
Methyl bromide was used for fumigation, and is supposedly a greenhouse gas. When flooding a shipping container with methyl bromide, and maintaining the concentration, instruments are used to measure concentration routinely, and temperature occasionally.
I have never noticed any temperature increase due to the addition of 100% GHG within a steel greenhouse (shipping container). Others may have noticed a GHE temperature increase, but I doubt it.
I believe ordinary physics supports your view.
Cheers.
there is probably some truth to what you say. I’m sure the convective loss effect dominates the IR effect. The reason why there is little difference between, say, glass (essentiall opaque to IR) and, say, polyethylene (about 85% transparent to IR) is because the atmosphere is already pretty opaque in the IR, so it doesn’t matter too much if you add another absorber.
The difference between glass and plastic would be greater in a dry air mass, very little in a humid air mass. In either case, I doubt anyone has done a controlled experiment keeping everything else the same except the IR absorption of the roof. The materials have different thermal conductivities, different sunlight transmission, etc.
Dr, Spencer, with respect, so the empirical results of Dr. Woods experiment are to be dismissed since his “greenhouse” was already inside the “Earth’s GHG effect” ???
Build a greenhouse inside a greenhouse and see what happens ???
Seems Dr. Wood already tested that in his experiments…
And in fact the students at Penn State (a locus of climate science activity) did indeed build two greenhouses side by side (one with IR Opaque roofs and one with IR Transparent roofs) and measured how big their peppers grew in each case…. There was no significant statistical difference…
I suppose there might be some merit to the argument that the atmosphere of the Earth already does all the “greenhouse effect” that is possible so we can never ever observe the GHE at the surface of the Earth. But observations of the surface temperature of the Moon also disagree with the postulated temperatures that should result from the radiative greenhouse effect.
Seems more and more as time goes by that the “radiative greenhouse effect” caused by “Greenhouse Gases” cannot be directly observed except in computer models….
And I for one, having done lots of computer modelling that predicted my engineering designs would perform in a flawless manner have acquired a hard earned preference for actual measured data versus “model predictions”.
Cheers, KevinK
Seems more and more as time goes by that the radiative greenhouse effect caused by Greenhouse Gases cannot be directly observed except in computer models.
Bullshit.
It “seems” that you don’t have the slighted clue.
The proof of atmospheric GHE is right there in this IRIS satellite measurements.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran_iris.jpg
Of course the proof cannot be grasped by physics illiterate people. But who cares ?
It doesn’t take an expert in physics to realize the falacy of your logic. A spectrum taken from one point in time at one location superimposed with model output is not proof of a greenhouse effect whatever that is. Energy fluxes cannot be measured at one point in time.
The presence of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the average surface temperature by facilitating surface cooling during the day and keeping the surface warmer at night compared to an inert atmosphere. Average surface temperatures are going to be greater because temperature to the fourth power gives more weight to warmer temperatures. Therefore, moderate temperature variations in an IR-active atmosphere result in greater average temperature compared to what would occur in an inert atmosphere with more extreme temperatures.
I don’t that a greenhouse effect because a greenhouse doesn’t work like that. Can we all agree it’s nonsense to rationalize otherwise?
Correction: Energy fluxes can be measured in systems at equilibrium, but that doesn’t happen in real atmospheres.
Chic Bowdrie says:
A spectrum taken from one point in time at one location superimposed with model output is not proof of a greenhouse effect whatever that is. Energy fluxes cannot be measured at one point in time.
Of course not, but you can repeatedly measure energy fluxes each over small periods and combine them analytically. Or you can measure energy fluxes at one point of time, then at one much later, and compare the two while trying to to control for changes other than GHGs. That’s what Harries et al did in 2001:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
There has been lots of papers written about OLR — this site has a collection:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/
David,
Exactly what do spectra measure? Not fluxes. That is not what Harries et al. measured. All they did was confirm that the greater concentration of CO2 is taking a greater bite out of the overall spectrum as would be expected. What is not clear from that data is whether it results in any actual difference in OLR measured over the time interval and to what degree it’s due to CO2. From Goody et al.:
“Harries et al. [38] showed that the expected bands could be detected in the observed IRIS/IMG difference spectra, confirming the capabilities of the two observing systems. But the important problem for modern climate science is to predict and to measure the response of other atmospheric variables (temperature, humidity and cloud) to a climate forcing. These changes also leave characteristic imprints on the outgoing thermal spectrum. The requirement is to separate forcing and response, and to compare the response to theoretical predictions.”
Wow, I am now a “physics illiterate people” who “cannot grasp a Modtran plot”….
Ok, if you say so, but in the 100 years since the “greenhouse gas effect” has been postulated no, I repeat NO unambiguous empirical observations of it have been documented…
For cripes sake the folks that were certain that Man could “never” fly because of “physics” shut the heck up after the Wright Brothers pulled it off at Kitty Hawk….
CO2 UP, temperatures flat or DOWN….
Man made greenhouse built with “IR Opaque” versus “IR Transparent” roofs — same size peppers…
You are chasing a Ghost…. N-rays… CAGW…. Bigfoot… The Creature from the Black Lagoon…. all imaginary…. (Although there might be some merit to the bigfoot meme).
And it will probably annoy the heck out of you, but that whole Modtran software was developed to figure out how to detect enemy missile launches headed “incoming” towards the USA during the COLD WAR… It had NOTHING to do with the climate…
Cheers, KevinK.
There is not even any need to detect the change in GHE due to anthropic CO2.
The point is that the shape of any single IRIS spectrum as the one I linked to pretty much demonstrates the existence a strong GHE on planet Earth.
The reason is simply the presence of conspicuous notches at CO2, O3 and H2O absorp-tion bands. In a steady state the reduced IR emission at these frequencies implies enhanced IR emission elsewhere in spectrum in order to conserve energy and TOA balance. In particular emission in atmospheric window must be larger than without any GHG’s and relevant notches.
And there is no way out, enhanced IR emission in atmospheric window implies a warmer surface temperature with GHG’s, i. e. a phenomenon called GHE.
IT,
When you say “strong GHE,” what do you mean? Please define.
If you mean a warmer surface, then compared to what? If you mean compared to a black body, then who disagrees? The important question is why and how IR-active gases make the planet warmer, if they do at all.
IR spectra tell us nothing about TOA balance. You say “In a steady state the reduced IR emission at these frequencies implies enhanced IR emission elsewhere in spectrum in order to conserve energy and TOA balance.” But there never is a steady state and emission elsewhere at a later time may be conserving energy without requirement of any net surface warming due to changes in CO2, O3, or H2O.
The spectrum is fairly similar everywhere every time with the specific “notches” except over small polar regions such as Antarctica.
In what I call “steady state” there are of course fluctuations around a mean but over a year or so and over whole surface, here again there is no way out, energy cannot accumulate or be removed from system indefinitely, energy must conserved and TOA balance ensured on average.
By “strong GHE” I mean one that permits you, me and other humans to merely exit and thrive on this planet.
Unlike a greenhouse, IR-active gases transport warmed air to higher latitudes where a greater proportion of energy is radiated to space. Do you have any evidence those polar regions aren’t compensating for the notches elsewhere and thereby ensuring energy does not accumulate?
Of course there is all the evidence.
On Antarctic plateau the CO2 GHE is rather locally reversed during part of the year but this cannot and does not (and by far) compensate for the standard GHE everywhere else.
You could have got a serious hint just by yourself and calculate the ratio of Antarctic surface area to total Earth surface area, namely less than 14 M KM^2/510 M km^2 or 3 %And this an upper very conservative limit.
As to this:
Unlike a greenhouse, IR-active gases transport warmed air to higher latitudes where a greater proportion of energy is radiated to space.
Even a non IR-active atmosphere would transport warm air to higher latitudes. That’s just a matter of meridional temperature gradient and non uniformly lit surface.
And with GHG’s, in spite of this meridional transport, pretty much less heat is radiated to space per square meter in polar caps than elsewhere at lower latitudes because hot radiates (much, T^4 law) more than cold.
Antarctic negative GHE
Did you even read the paper you cited? It makes my case. Additional CO2 cooling at the poles might be compensating for any reduction in cooling occurring in the lower latitudes.
“We investigated [a negative GHE] in detail and show that for central Antarctica an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system. These findings for central Antarctica are in contrast to the general warming effect of increasing CO2.”
Did you even read the paper you cited? It makes my case. Additional CO2 cooling at the poles might be compensating for any reduction in cooling occurring in the lower latitudes.
Bullshit and laughable wishful thinking !
Did you even read what I said and where does the paper state such a ridiculous nonsense ?
It “might compensate” for at most 3% of the warming effect elsewhere, that is peanuts .
You are a plain idiot.
Idiot tracker,
After more careful reading of your comments, I am still not sure you understand the negative GHE paper you cited above.
Unfortunately, I did not properly explain why radiation from polar regions can compensate for differences in the notches in outgoing IR spectra elsewhere, thus insuring that energy doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere. It follows from this that one cannot assume that changes in the spectra due to increases in CO2 will have any effect on global temperature.
You are correct that “even a non IR-active atmosphere would transport warm air to higher latitudes.” However, absorp-tion of IR and thermalization amplifies this effect.
You write “less heat is radiated to space per square meter in polar caps than elsewhere at lower latitudes.” That does seem obvious due to average temperature differences.
The paper you cited explained that increasing CO2 in the antarctic is not warming by blocking outgoing radiation as warmists assume. In contrast, “an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system.” Why would this be the case? Maybe because the meridional temperature gradient moves more warmer air over the antarctic than would otherwise be there.
So I will rephrase my earlier assertion. Unlike a greenhouse, IR-active gases transport warmed air to higher latitudes where more energy is radiated to space than would other occur. Furthermore, the massive daily energy transfers are more than enough to compensate for the small effect of any average notch “fluctuations around a mean.”
If you doubt there is a greater than proportional share of energy flux per degree of surface temperature at the poles, then I suggest you read this post: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/05/symmetry-and-balance/
Chic Bowdrie says:
All they did was confirm that the greater concentration of CO2 is taking a greater bite out of the overall spectrum as would be expected.
“All they did?” That’s an increase in the GHE!
What is not clear from that data is whether it results in any actual difference in OLR measured over the time interval and to what degree its due to CO2. From Goody et al.:
They measured flux changes as a function of wavelength, so they can attribute them to not only CO2, but to other GHGs as well.
“That’s an increase in the GHE!”
No it’s a figment of your imagination until you have definitive evidence that differences in spectra obtained in 1970 and 1997 caused any increase in global temperature.
Those are not measured fluxes! If they measured the differences in fluxes, where is the data?
kevink…”Well, the only problem with Dr. Spencers explanation is that man made Agricultural Greenhouses have been made with IR Transparent and IR Opaque roofs for many years and there is no discernible temperature difference between the two”.
That was corroborated by an experiment in 1909 by R.W. Wood, an expert on IR. Wood had an unquenchable enthusiasm for experimentation, dismissing theory till it could be proved by experimentation. He saw the greenhouse theory described and thought it was wrong so he set up an experiment to measure the difference in IR throughput between real glass and halite, which freely transmits IR.
Wood found that in both cases that boxes supporting the glass/halite warmed equally and concluded that real greenhouse do not warm by the blockage of radiation.
We know that from insulation in homes. Very few homes have barriers for IR, the insulation serving to slow down heat loss by conduction. Radiation has an imperceptible effect on cooling in homes.
GR,
As a matter of interest, I recollect that people trying to reproduce Wood’s experiments generally neglect to follow his procedures in one important respect. Whether this is intentional, or due to sloppiness or ignorance, I don’t know.
After Wood’s initial run of greenhouse experiments, he was puzzled by the results, and gave the matter a little more thought, as a scientific experimenter often should.
He then interposed a sheet of glass between the sunlight and the sheets of halite and glass, respectively, used as his greenhouse roofs. This, of course, alters the results significantly, but is usually neglected by others, who do not have Wood’s powers of scientific reasoning.
Anyone interested can chase up Wood’s reasoning. Tyndall also used the same reasoning much earlier, to overcome a similar puzzling result.
Maybe a little irrelevant, but there seem to be many sloppy and slapdash experimenters calling themselves professionals, as opposed to competent, thoughtful, meticulous experimenters of the Wood and Tyndall variety.
All part of the rich tapestry of life and science, I guess.
Cheers.
And R. W. Wood also disproved the existence of “N-Rays” by moving part of an experimental setup that “proved the existence of N-Rays”. R.W. Wood removed the “part” that created “N-Rays” and the rays were still detected….
The person that “discovered” N-Rays never forgave R.W. Wood for experimentally disproving the existence of N-Rays….
The person that “Discovered” N-Rays went to his deathbed insisting that “N-Rays” existed….
Science advances one funeral at a time.
Cheers, KevinK
Earth absorbs on average 240 watts, and emits 240 watts.
If Earth rotated 1/2 of the speed- 48 hour day rather than 24 hours, how much would Earth absorb on average.
And would change in terms of how much Earth absorbs it rotated 1/10th or 1/100th of the speed?
So the entire earth absorbs and emits 240 Watts? Interesting.
B,
Does it really? Is it true, and is it relevant? Interesting.
Cheers,
gbaikie, your calculation and the numbers you used have been declared irrelevant.
Making it clear that it is Mike Flynn who has declared your numbers and calculations irrelevant. I am challenging only your units.
B,
You wrote –
“gbaikie, your calculation and the numbers you used have been declared irrelevant.”
Is that not really what you meant to say? Why not say what you mean, in that case?
How hard can it be?
Cheers.
“I replied to your comment”
VS
“Your comment has been replied to”
Simple English comprehension. For most.
B,
I’m sure if you thrash around hard enough, you will eventually reach your destination – nowhere at all.
Keep at it. You’ll get nowhere if you try hard enough.
Cheers.
bond….”gbaikie, your calculation and the numbers you used have been declared irrelevant”.
If the declaration of irrelevance comes from someone who is himself irrelevant, don’t the two sort of cancel?
g,
Bond has declared your calculations and the numbers you used irrelevant.
Henceforth, no one may use the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, or 0. They have been declared irrelevant.
Give yourself a good whipping, you naughty boy!
Cheers.
Average, per square meter.
Thanks for a non-troll response.
gbaikie,
As I suspected. Unwhip yourself. Your omission is forgiven. I have spoken.
All joking aside, I don’t think it would make any practical difference at all. I’m sure some will disagree, and I may be wrong, but the number of photons interacting with electrons shouldnt change.
The temperature variations of an object would not be as great – a sphere rotating at infinite speed would have an isothermal surface. On the other hand, a stationary sphere would have a maximum temperature at point of the surface normal to the Sun, and a minimum diametrically opposite. Obviously all the above becomes irrelevant if the body was initially isothermal, with perfect conductivity!
An object exposed to a fixed heat source will not continue to heat indefinitely. It can never exceed the temperature of the heat source, and if not in intimate contact with it, will only intercept sufficient photons to raise it to a lower temperature.
One example might be the Earths poles, where 6 months exposure to the Sun at approximately 5800 K, does not result in temperatures approaching those attainable in 3 hours in the tropics, from the same heat source.
Oh well, them’s my thoughts.
Cheers.
‘I may be wrong’
Finally, a fact from Mike!
N,
Thanks for agreeing with an obvious fact. And your point is?
If you are indulging in a puerile attempt at giving gratuitous offense, you have wasted your time.
Just another pointless, irrelevant, stupid and ignorant comment, trying to divert attention away from the fact you can’t even provide a testable GHE hypothesis in lieu of the pseudoscientific nonsense you cling to.
Try harder.
Cheers.
Mike,
Lets take a poll of who among us posts the most ‘pointless, irrelevant, stupid and ignorant comments’?
I think you would be crowned champion.
Mike,
‘puerile attempt at giving gratuitous offense, you have wasted your time.’
I don’t see the puerile.
But the nature of your posts invites, practically screams:
Please ridicule me!
N,
Thank you for the encomium.
You may think your attempts at being gratuitously offence are not puerile. As you admit, you cannot see it. Your ignorance and stupidity obviously blind you to reality in more ways than one.
I decline to be offended, upset or annoyed as a general rule, and certainly see no good reason to make an exception in your case. Why should I?
Carry on. You are free to waste your time anyway you see fit, as am I.
Cheers.
gbaikie…”Earth absorbs on average 240 watts, and emits 240 watts”.
What do you think of the notion that the atmosphere expands during the day in response to solar heating and contracts at night?
Through expansion and contraction it should mediate heat internally. It’s not like new solar heating every morning must be dissipated to space, it could simply cause the atmosphere to expand to absorb it. Then after sunset, the temperature decreases with a decrease in volume.
Don’t know, just a thought.
Charles’ Law: V1/T1 = V2/T2, at constant pressure. Maybe gravity can keep the pressure fairly constant.
I liken it to a cylinder with a piston pressing down vertically on a gas. If you heat the gas, it does work against the piston to raise it. Remove the heat and the weight of the cylinder compresses the gas.
With gravity working as the piston, heating the gas causes it to expand against gravity, so the pressure should remain fairly constant while the volume increases with temperature. Remove the heat and gravity should drag the gas molecules closer together, reducing the volume and the temperature.
What is the volume of the atmosphere?
In cubic kilometers….
DA…”What is the volume of the atmosphere?
In cubic kilometers.”
Before expansion or after expansion?
Unfortunately, adding CO2 to a greenhouse can make it too hot, but possibly not due to any supposed greenhouse effect –
“The CO2 generators can also provide too much heat in the greenhouse necessitating venting which will dilute the CO2 present in the greenhouse and defeat the purpose of the CO2 generator in the first place. Therefore there are certain advantages and disadvantages to fuel burning CO2 generators.”
The recommended Canadian Government method –
“The safest method of CO2 supplementation is the use of compressed CO2 from cylinders. This CO2 is pure and free of contaminants and is easily regulated.”
Of course, this avoids the problem of inadvertent extra heating.
Generating CO2 by burning stuff can generate too much heat. The way to avoid this is to add CO2 from a CO2 cylinder. No additional heat – information courtesy of the Canadian Government.
Cheers.
Actually, releasing any compressed gas from a cylinder contained within a “closed” space (assuming that the cylinder is at the same temperature) will reduce the temperature (that’s about grade 9 physics). What happens after that will depend on the other conditions obtaining – e.g. the nature of the structure, and the comparative temperatures within it and outside it (approximately!).
I don’t care what the government says.
Tony..
AR,
I assume you are responding to my comment. Are you disagreeing with something I wrote? If so, quoting what I said might allow me to correct any errors. Up to you, course.
Cheers.
A supplement (= additional refinement), not a disagreement.
Tony.
AR,
Thanks. You may have noticed some people take violent exception to my comments. Rarely can they actually disagree specifically within anything I write.
To address your point, I agree. I will amplify a little then, if I may.
The gas needs to be released slowly if you are particularly concerned about reduction in temperature – not a lot of CO2 is required to adjust the level from say, 400 ppm to 1200 ppm or so. Depending on the time of day, and the method of release, it will be impossible to determine any change in temperature whether the internal concentration is one or the other.
Alternatively, one may heat the released CO2 by any suitable means. As you point out, letting the Sun do this, is a reasonable strategy.
I’m not criticising you, but other commenters will accuse me of being unaware of the (generally) adiabatic process resulting in the lowering of temperature seen when compressed gas is allowed to expand rapidly. Yes, I know, not an adequate or comprehensive explanation, but I am sure you get my drift.
Cheers.
tony…”Actually, releasing any compressed gas from a cylinder contained within a closed space (assuming that the cylinder is at the same temperature) will reduce the temperature….”
Lot of presumptions here. For one, whenever I have released a lot of compressed gas, the tank has formed frost on the outside and feels cold to the touch. Also, how long would you wait before taking the temperature? Maybe the immediate effect would be a reduction in temperature but the overall effect of increasing the pressure in a confined space is to raise the temperature.
Some gases could heat up with decreasing pressure, it is called joule-thompson effect, google it. The effect is supposedly smaller than the adiabatic expansion cooling, so is probably masked by it unless you irreversibly throttle gas into relative vacuum or something like that. In the case of co2, at ambient conditions the effect works to cool it even further.
When we talk of the Earth being a greenhouse or the Earth being a heat engine we are using analogies. The earth does not heat up or cool down as a single unit it is too big to do that, the individual temperatures which make up the global temperature are not causally connected unlike in a laboratory experiment. The polar regions are not regions where the heat from the equator goes to be radiated to space, heat loss or gain in the polar regions is determined by atmospheric conditions in the same way as it is at the equator.
However, in winter it is different because the stratospheric polar vortex interferes with the troposphere. This is shown in the chart below. Without UV access, the temperature above the pole in the stratosphere is still falling .
hthttp://images.tinypic.pl/i/00964/bvq1dxbjao3e.giftp://images.tinypic.pl/i/00964/xffc5bhd5mou.gif
Sorry.
http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00964/xffc5bhd5mou.gif
http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00964/bvq1dxbjao3e.gif
Due to the stratospheric winter polar vortex, the temperature in the polar regions may drop drastically in winter. The jet stream cuts these regions off the troposphere.
Past Weather in Concordia Station Graph
http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00964/h3qkwji0bl1p.png
Sure, and think of all those morons who naively believe instead that the temperature in the polar regions might drops drastically in winter due to absence of sun radiation.
Hilarious.
idiot…”Sure, and think of all those morons who naively believe instead that the temperature in the polar regions might drops drastically in winter due to absence of sun radiation”.
Is that meant to be sarcasm or do you think the poles cool due to CO2 warming?
Gordon: What do you think?????
ren…”However, in winter it is different because the stratospheric polar vortex interferes with the troposphere”.
According to Piers Corbyn, the jet stream is also running across lower latitudes than it should normally. Also, it’s pretty erratic and wild.
Why might the jet stream be doing that?
DA…”Why might the jet stream be doing that?”
According to Corbyn, it’s related to solar activity.
donald…”The polar regions are not regions where the heat from the equator goes to be radiated to space….”
Oddly enough, that’s Lindzen’s theory, that heat in the Tropics rises into thunderclouds and such and is transported poleward and high into the atmosphere where it is radiated.
Sorry to ramble on but seems a greenhouse would be hotter if a second layer of glass surrounded the greenhouse because convection would be reduced… like a double pained window has better insulation i guess.
But in nature does GH have a negative feedback because of cloud formation associated with convection increases albedo?
That’s a very painful comment.
Ouch. Tony.
AR,
I feel your pane.
Groan!
Cheers.
Why? I am not sure if you are dragons that dont buy into ghg or if I am inconsistent with Roy’s post.
AS,
No offense intended. You made a little spelling mistake – using “pained” instead of “paned”.
I was making a very bad pun, as I assumed AR was.
I don’t believe in the existence of a testable GHE hypothesis, that’s true, but I wasn’t trying to offend you – just esssaying a little light humour. I didn’t succeed, apparently. Thanks for letting me know I missed the mark.
Cheers.
Yea. Haha. I am not a speller. I let auto check make the final call because i am in china and no google available. I appreciate the pun…. now that i get it.
I would imagine it would be hotter, yes. But, as discussed above, the convection inhibiting effect of a greenhouse is likely much larger than its radiative effect on temperature. As I tried to explain in the OP, the REAL atmospheric GHE also excludes convection.
I have had thoughts about a few simple experiments to highlight the GHE. One of those experiments was more or less a multi-paned greenhouse. I’ll have to play around this summer when 1) the sun is strong and 2) I have more free time. I am pretty sure I could get temperatures up over 100C.
Tim,
Good luck. If you can achieve temperatures of over 100 C utilising the unconcentrated rays of the Sun, you can power a steam boiler and run an electric power plant.
I am sure you can’t. Let me know how you get on. Actually, you wont need to – the world will beat a path to your door. Low tech free electricity – just a steam engine and an alternator. Good luck.
Cheers.
“I am sure you cant.”
I just have to chuckle at the things you are “sure” about.
I.T. just remarked that commercial flat panel solar collectors already can get WAY above 100C, so such technology already exists. My goal was actually to push the temperatures even higher.
Furthermore, this is hardly ‘free electricity’. Low temperature, low pressure steam is very inefficient. You would still be paying for the turbine and generator but getting very little from it. And it would only work close to midday when it was sunny. But you can be ‘sure’ about free electricity, too, if you like.
Tim
I have a hunch that the size of a multi-paned greenhouse will make a big difference in temperature. Bigger should be hotter.
This is based on what I know about down insulation. If one ounce can “fluff up” to 900 cubic inches (compared to the more typical 600 cubic inches) it has a very high warmth rating.
I think it has to do with air being a poor conductor of heat.
Flat plate solar collectors for domestic hot water routinely reach stagnation temperatures that exceed 150 C. Stagnation means that the fluid that removes the heat from collector is not circulated.
aaron…”seems a greenhouse would be hotter if a second layer of glass surrounded the greenhouse because convection would be reduced”
The convection heating the greenhouse is inside the glass. Greenhouse owners trying to mediate the heat have openings in the glass, like automated/manual doors, to allow a certain amount of convection to the outside.
I know a guy with a small greenhouse who has an automated system with a thermostat. It not only opens doors in the glass, it turns on fans to blow the air out.
Dr Spencer, you appear to have mis-spelled “Greenhouse” in the title, and again once in the text, which may make this article less easy to locate in search engines.
i don’t think so, google nowdays is smarter than that. Instead, one should just tell the search engine not to index, afaik at least google obeys those instructions.
Excellent opportunity to illustrate why the “Greenhouse Effect” is an unphysical mistake as applied to the free atmosphere. Inside the greenhouse, nice and warm. Open the vents, the outside air rushes in. Inside, the radiation balance is crucial, the greenhouse rules because convection is defeated. Outside, forget about it, because the greenhouse is gone, convection is in control, heated air rushes skyward, and no more greenhouse effect. To experience the greenhouse effect, you need a greenhouse. But don’t think the greenhouse effect controls climate.
As far as I can tell, there are two main variables that determine accumulation of something into a system: “rate of entry” and “average length of stay”.
CO2 has little affect on the rate energy enters the earth system, but causes that energy to stay longer……meaning more accumulates.
Same idea with a greenhouse.
Effect, not affect.
S,
And as far as I can tell, it doesnt matter how long you expose an object to sunlight at a distance of a 150 000 000 km. It just doesnt get very hot.
If you put something like an atmosphere between the object and the Sun, it wont even get as hot as on the Moons airless surface.
Insulators work both ways. Even a vacuum flask, an excellent insulator, wont raise the temperature of its contents.
No heat accumulation. The surface still cools at night. Talking about the atmosphere blocking infrared is bizarre. Put a thermometer on the ground in bright sunlight, and it gets hot. Wait for a solar eclipse, it cools down. As Dr Spencer pointed out, some black plastic bags are IR transparent, while blocking visible light. Wrap your thermometer in that plastic, it gets very nearly as hot. Enough IR comes from the sun to make the water in a solar pond very, very, hot, and to keep your solar hot water system operating nicely.
The Earth does not accumulate or store energy. If it did, it couldnt have cooled, could it? And the surface is no longer molten, as you have noticed!
Learn physics, or concoct more pointless, stupid, and irrelevant analogies – the choice is yours.
Cheers.
Mike , whatever happened to your poor brain? A bad fall? Too many drugs? Dementia?
Sometimes your comments are rational, but usually, like here, just a mish mash of facts and gibberish:
“And as far as I can tell, it doesnt matter how long you expose an object to sunlight at a distance of a 150 000 000 km. It just doesnt get very hot.”
And later:
“Enough IR comes from the sun to make the water in a solar pond very, very, hot, and to keep your solar hot water system operating nicely.”
*********
Then there’s this beauty:
“The Earth does not accumulate or store energy. If it did, it couldnt have cooled, could it?”
Why do you think an object has a temperature?
Snape, see how MF avoids questions? He asks them, but won’t answer them.
I don’t know why you keep responding to replies like this.
S,
I assume you are disagreeing with something I wrote.
What is it, and why are you disagreeing?
Posing a stupid, ignorant and irrelevant gotcha isn’t achieving much, is it?
Over to you. You cannot seem to be able to figure out what you are disputing, if anything. You certainly provide no facts, in any case.
Keep at it. It is not not my fault if you seem confused, as well as demonstrating ignorance and stupidity.
Cheers.
pochas…”Inside the greenhouse, nice and warm. Open the vents, the outside air rushes in”.
As Joe Postma claims, we build greenhouses to do what the atmosphere cannot do.
Perfect.
Sorry.
Warning of phreatic explosions
However, the volcano observatory now warns that as the magma column in the summit reservoir connecting to the lava lake continues to drain and drop, the risk of potentially large explosions increases. This will be especially true if the surface of the magma column drops beneath the ground water table under the caldera floor, which would allow water to seep into the hot conduit, and likely trigger violent steam-driven (phreatic) explosions, perhaps similar to those observed in 1924, when violent phreatic activity destroyed the pre-1924 lava lake and excavated the Halema’uma’u crater as it was known after 1924.
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/kilauea/news/68868/Kilauea-volcano-update-Summit-lava-lake-continues-to-drop-risk-of-explosions-increases.html
ren…”However, the volcano observatory now warns that as the magma column in the summit reservoir connecting to the lava lake continues to drain and drop….”
Let’s hope the volcano does not blow a hole in its side near ocean level. That volume of water getting into a magma chamber could cause another Krakatoa and blow the top off the island.
Why would people build homes on an active volcano?
Roy wrote:
“Next, lets pump some extra CO2 in there to help the plants even more.”
That works in a real greenhouse because you can control temperature and water.
But in the real world plants have to deal with warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation.
In the real world yields often decline due to higher temperatures, all else being equal, and nutritional content decreases with higher CO2.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3115.html
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2183.html
Corn Yields Under Higher Temperatures,
Figure 18.3, p 421
U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2014 National Climate Assessment
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report
DA,
Would you rather have 100 tonnes of something with 75% useable carbohydrate, or 50 tonnes of something with 80%? In other words would you prefer more food or less food?
The yield may have decreased. The quantity has increased.
What was your point again?
Cheers.
I wonder, how do people grow, nay, how do people live in tropics where it is +29C mat at +35C every day at noon.
.. it must be a horrible barren desert there, woth no food and everyone dead… oh wait, the island of java the island the size of louisiana hosts 141 million people – a whopping 43% of the USA population… hmmm, i wonder how they got that
Cot: The plants that grow in the tropics have evolved to live there. Same as the plants in the mid-latitudes. The question is whether they can adapt fast enough as their respective ecosystems change.
I thought we were talking about farming yields? It takes just 1 second to change one mind and order corn seeds in place of wheat, or plant sweet potato in place of the regular one. And even the wild plants don’t have to change, just move north – a no brainer for annuals, a bit of a strain for oak forests but otherwise doable on the decadal timescales.
But the world needs so much of certain crops — corn or soybeans or wheat, etc.
Does it matter to farmers with farms that the ecosystem for their crop is moving north? When will it be out of their region? What do they do then? A massive soybean operations just switches to something else on the spot?
And it’s by no means clear that plants and animals can keep up with climate change by moving towards the pole or up in altitude. You call it a “no brainer,” but almost no ecologist would agree. Are the soil there workable for the plants? Will they face new predators? Will precipitation there be suitable?
Temperatures are moving poleward at about 0.5 km/yr:
https://www.nature.com/articles/7276956a
Can plants and animals move poleward that fast? Can they do it in an environment that is now full of highways and housing developments and shopping malls? Why have plants and animals gone extinct during past times of rapid climate change?
These things aren’t simple, and calling them a “no brainer” doesn’t indicate much thought about them.
I thought we were talking about farming yields? It takes just 1 second to change one mind and order corn seeds in place of wheat, or plant sweet potato in place of the regular one. And even the wild plants dont have to change, just move north a no brainer for annuals, a bit of a strain for oak forests but otherwise doable on the decadal timescales.
Sorry, my last paragraph is yours; I pasted it into my reply box to address it, but forgot to then delete it.
c,
You are right! It’s terrible!
I am even forced to put insulation in the roof of my house to keep cool. Mind you, I don’t need a fireplace or a heater, so there are some advantages.
At the moment it’s about 29 C, 44% RH. how terrible is that? Mind you, it is a bit humid, but the dry season is pretty much here.
Cheers.
that gives dew point of 16C at sea level… by my standard that’s should be at the upper end of comfortably tolerable range of , but basically should still be ok as long as one stay in the shade
Was Greenouse Effect a Freudian slip ?
The fact is that atmospheric CO2 does not cause global warming:
1. There is no statistically significant correlation between satellite lower troposphere temperature ( generously provided by Dr Roy Spencers web site ) and atmospheric CO2 concentration;
2. There is a statistically significant correlation between the temperature and the rate of change of CO2 concentration;
3. Temperature change precedes CO2 change so it cannot possibly be caused by the latter;
4. The temperature and the rate of change of CO2 concentration have practically identical autocorrelation coefficients with a prominent maximum at about 42 months;
5. This is confirmed by having practically identical Fourier amplitude spectra with the most prominent peak at a period of 42 months, other maxima reflect the changes in configuration of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the measuring location on the Earths surface, that is, the climate change is caused by the changes in the configuration of the Solar System;
6. The so-called greenhouse effect is simply the old fashioned Universal Gas Laws in operation.
For detail see:
https://www.climateauditor.com
Relax !
I greet a real math! A great article.
Bevan Dockery, The relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature is logarithmic, not linear. In the first graph of this post, comparing the smoothed curve for CO2 with the UAH LT v6 unsmoothed data gives an improper visualization. There’s a strong annual cycle in the Mauna Loa CO2 data and the article presents no description of the method used for “removal of the seasonal variation”. The use of a moving average to smooth the series, as often is the choice, induces spurious frequencies into the result, which would then appear as a signal in a spectral analysis.
The balance between ocean and atmospheric CO2 is a function of temperature and warm periods would result in increased transfer of CO2 from the ocean reservoir into the atmosphere. There’s much more CO2 in the oceans than in the atmosphere.
E. Swanson, there is no perceptible difference between using the CO2 concentration data in Figure 1 as presented by the Scripts Institution of Oceanography or using a transformation to logarithmic values. Both appear to be almost straight lines with none of the variation seen in the satellite lower troposphere temperature time series. The CO2 values are those taken from source reference [2], column 10 being the measurements after a seasonal adjustment to remove the quasi-regular seasonal cycle. The adjustment involves subtracting from the data a 4-harmonic fit with a linear gain factor.
As for Figure 2, the Climate Auditor web site gives the correlation coefficient for both the Tropics-Land and the Tropics-Ocean temperature relative to the rate of change of CO2 concentration. There is no significant difference between the two results.
Bevan Dockery:
Do you honestly think you have found some simple errors that millions of scientists have someone overlooked in the last 100 years?
Really??
DA…”Do you honestly think you have found some simple errors that millions of scientists have someone overlooked in the last 100 years?”
Millions of scientists???
It does happen and it is happening. The so-called scientists promoting catastrophic warming have erred egregiously. Not only that, some of them are ego-driven, arrogant SOBs who have not the slightest clue how wrong they are.
Gordon Robertson says:
The so-called scientists promoting catastrophic warming have erred egregiously.
You can’t honestly think you’ve found some simple errors that 100 years worth of scientists somehow missed???
Do you?
Gordon Robertson says:
“DADo you honestly think you have found some simple errors that millions of scientists have someone overlooked in the last 100 years?
It does happen and it is happening.
When? Where?
David Appell, my aim is to create a mathematical synthesis of empirical data recorded over the past 40 to 60 years to expose what has actually happened as distinct from the media presentations that are often derived from computer models. Pre-1950 scientists did not have this data available for study so could not know what is now revealed.
Outgoing longwave energy like this is strong evidence there is a greenhouse effect:
Taking the measure of the greenhouse effect
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/
There is a Greenhouse Effect on Venus, Michael Hammer, 10/9/11
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/there-is-a-greenhouse-effect-on-venus/
David Appell, I am only concerned with empirical data, not complex calculations based on computer models which may include assumptions that are later supposedly proved by the model calculations. The Gavin Schmidt article commences with a misleading diagram, the Earth is definitely not a black body so comparing an average output measured from a satellite vehicle with the theoretical output from a black body, which does not have an atmosphere, proves nothing about the effect of atmospheric CO2 at the Earths surface.
My web page shows that temperature controls the rate of change in CO2 concentration. Consequently the atmospheric CO2 concentration at a given time is the result of the integral of the prior time series. The CO2 concentration has been increasing in a near linear fashion because the temperature: CO2 rate has remained positive. The effect is clearly illustrated by the temperature and CO2 behaviour through past ice ages. The CO2 concentration lags well behind the temperature because it does not start to decrease until the fall in temperature reaches the critical level at which the CO2 rate is zero. I speculate that this is 0 C ground temperature at which time water freezes and is no longer available to the multitude of life forms that generate CO2.
The presence of CO2 in the atmosphere leading up to an ice age has apparently had no effect in stopping the temperature falling so low that large areas of the globe became covered in ice kilometres thick!
bevan…”6. The so-called greenhouse effect is simply the old fashioned Universal Gas Laws in operation”.
Ditto to that. I have asked the question as to why climate modelers did not simply use the gas laws that have been proved over centuries rather than invent dumb theories based on radiation. A quick look at the Ideal Gas Equation and Dalton’s law of partial pressures reveals immediately that 0.04% CO2 is not warming much of anything.
I think the gas laws (Charles) might explain heat dissipation from solar energy by daily atmospheric expansion/contraction.
Gordon Robertson says:
I have asked the question as to why climate modelers did not simply use the gas laws that have been proved over centuries rather than invent dumb theories based on radiation.
“dumb?”
“invent?”
Gordon, do GHGs absorb and emit IR, or not?
Gordon, if there are three targets painted randomly on a wall, what’s the probability of hitting one with a thrown ball?
DA,
Do bananas absorb and emit IR radiation, or not?
Are you stupid and ignorant, or not>
The world wonders!
The world no longer wonders whether a testable GHE hypothesis exists, because evidence for its existence is not evident.
Cheers.
From Dr Spencer –
“As originally calculated by Manabe and Strickler (1964, see slide #10 here), the greenhouse effect does not explain the average surface temperature being 288 K (observed) rather than 255K (the effective radiating temperature of the Earth absent an atmosphere).”
Disregarding the observed temperature in favour of a calculated one, brings this Feynman quote to mind –
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
What if your calculation is in error? It isn’t borne out by observation, obviously. Maybe it is wrong. The whole GHE seems to predicated on the assumption that the “temperature” of the “surface” “should be” 255 K.
How one “calculates” the surface temperature of a ball of molten roock which has cooled from a molten state, to cool enough for the first liquid water to form, to its present range of -90 C to +90 C, is quite beyond me. One might as “calculate” the temperature of a white hot billet of steel placed in the Sun!
If the “calculation” doesn’t agree with the measured temperature, your calculation is suspect. Calculating the surface temperature of the Earth is about as easy as calculating the temperature of the steel billet surface. It can’t be done in any useful way. Trying to wriggle out by talking about averages is pointless. You have no numbers to “average”, unless your calaculation generates a series, which of course is nonsensical.
Just a thought.
Cheers.
“Just a thought.”
And a very poor one at that. Your “cooling ball of rock” analogy is totally irrelevant since we all know that the GHE is 5000 times more powerful.
M,
Oooooh! Scary! Very scary!
5000 times more powerful? Only 5000? Why not a million, or a zillion?
A squillion times zip is still zip! Zero, nothing, nought.
Still no testable GHE hypothesis, is there?
Cheers.
something to ponder by R.W. Wood:
First, a bio to show he’s not a lightweight:
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/wood-robert-1.pdf
Second, a brief article by him on IR radiation and the GHE:
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
Please note, R.W. Wood was a highly regarded scientist who lived by the experiment. He was a member of the National Academy of Science and an expert on infrared radiation. I think it would be a serious mistake to disrespect the man and take him lightly. For me, his explanation for the GHE makes far more sense than any I have encountered.
You might also note that the article is posted by William Connolley, a computer programmer who hangs out at realclimate expressing his uber-alarmist thoughts. He asks what is wrong with the theory of Wood? There is nothing wrong with it but there’s a whole lot wrong with the alarmists theories of Connolley and his ilk.
Gordon,
Even highly regarded scientists can make errors, especially when WOOD specifically said “I do not pretent to have gone very deeply into the matter”
GR says: “William Connolley, a computer programmer who hangs out at realclimate … alarmists theories of Connolley and his ilk”
Pure ad hom! Stick to facts.
WOOD: “remaining there on account the very low radiating power of a gas”
CO2 has an emissivity of ~ 0.2 Water has a higher emissivity. Clouds are much higher yet. The atmosphere overall radiates on the order of 50% as well as a blackbody. Gordon, do you consider 50% as “very low”?
Tim,
What part of Wood’s results are you challenging? No part at all?
That would seem about right.
Cheers.
Mike, what part of my reply did you not understand? Perhaps the messed up formatting threw you. Let me repeat & highlight.
WOOD: [thermal energy in the atmosphere] remaining there on account the very low radiating power of a gas
ME: “The atmosphere overall radiates on the order of 50% as well as a blackbody.”
Tim,
Nope. Im still not sure what part of Woods results you are disputing.
If you are disputing a comment he made leading up to his recorded results, I think you are on shaky ground.
I misleading statement such as “The atmosphere overall radiates on the order of 50% as well as a blackbody. does not dispute his findings. 50% of what? Is it relevant to anything? 50% of almost nothing is almost nothing. 5% of something a million times bigger is much more. Numbers may be meaningless, unless you define your context quite precisely.
There is no testable GHE hypothesis, and trying to avoid this fact might not draw the respect you may be seeking.
But back to Woods results – do you dispute his results? Why do you think they are wrong?
Because they dont agree with the imaginary results of your fantasy thought experiments? I will believe measurements, until someone shows me they are wrong. You dont have any, do you?
Cheers.
Woods claims
* P implies Q
* (“the very low radiating power of a gas”) implies (“The heat received is thus stored up in the atmosphere”).
But the radiating power of the atmosphere is NOT very low! Thus there is conclusion to draw.
As for “50% of what?”, that is literally the very next words in the sentence! “50% as well as a blackbody”.
Tim,
You said there is a conclusion to draw. There is. It is that you cannot or will not say that you are challenging Wood’s results.
I also draw the conclusion that you are obfuscating because you can’t produce facts to contradict his methodology or his results.
As to your statement that you are referring to 50% of something else, it is completely irrelevant. 100% of a small black body may be quantitatively less than 1% of another. Would you not agree that a cubic meter of gas contains less total energy than a cubic meter of water at the same temperature?
But this is all nonsensical diversion, isn’t it?
You are not disagreeing with one recorded result of Wood’s experiment. Your nonsense about implications and unsupported assertions is not worth a cracker.
Press on. I believe measurements, not your irrelevant fantasies. Draw any conclusion from that, that you wish.
Cheers.
Tim, don’t waste your time.
The old man is deliberately obtuse.
Oh the irony!
The stupid and ignorant ordering the stupid and ignorant not to be stupid and ignorant!
How stupid and ignorant is that?
Cheers.
“But this is all nonsensical diversion, isnt it?”
Yes, indeed! Everything you have been saying is nonsensical diversion!
tim…”(The heat received is thus stored up in the atmosphere).
But the radiating power of the atmosphere is NOT very low! Thus there is conclusion to draw”.
********
Radiation in the atmosphere amounts to about 0.3% of the atmosphere that is GHGs, most of it WV. Wood is claiming the other 99.8% which is N2, O2, and Ar, does not radiate, but retains the heat, I suppose till it rises and expands, when it cools naturally.
I ad hommed Connolley for his job on Wikipedia where he is an editor. He regularly went after skeptics like Fred Singer, insulting and demeaning them till wiki fired him. After appropriate groveling they seem to have taken him back.
Here…read what Wood has to say about gases formally:
https://archive.org/stream/physicaloptic00wood#page/n9/mode/2up
If that link doesn’t work, try this one, press the enlarge button, and you’ll get a download option:
https://archive.org/details/physicaloptic00wood
For Mike:
https://www3.nd.edu/~powers/ame.20231/clausius1879.pdf
or
https://archive.org/details/cu31924101120883
Gordon says:
Radiation in the atmosphere amounts to about 0.3% of the atmosphere that is GHGs, most of it WV.
This is the number density of GHG constituents, not of radiation.
DA…”This is the number density of GHG constituents, not of radiation”.
0.3% is an overall average of GHGs in the entire atmosphere including the troposphere, stratosphere, etc. There is virtually no WV in the stratosphere.
Thanks Dr. Spencer for discussing the matter! In an odd way that is very hard to at all on the internet.
Yet I think that the GHE is an illusion and of course there are a lot of reasons to it.
a) The basic theory of the GHE is based on three assumptions which are all logically impossible and contradicting in themselves.
1. Earth is a perfect black body (emissivity) AND Earth is not a perfect black body (absorp-tivity).
2. Clouds are counted to the surface (absorp-tivity) WHILE they are not counted to the surface (emissivity).
3. Clouds have a negative forcing of 50W/m2, a positive forcing of 30W/m2 and thus a net negative forcing of 20W/m2 (AR5 IPCC) WHILE they have a negative forcing of 110W/m2 (NOAA, no figures for positive or net forcing given, link below)
https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/energy
I think a theory based on these assumptions will not need to be falsified any further. But I would like to outline the “GHE” with corrected assumptions. Surface emissivity is indeed about 0.92, which brings surface emissions down to 360W/m2 (rather than 390 or 398?!). Clouds may have a negative forcing of 110W/m2 indeed and if we link that to a negative net forcing of 20W/m2, their positive forcing logically needs to be 90W/m2.
These 90W/m2 would then fill most of the gap between 240W/m2 (solar input) and 360W/m2 (surface emissions), leaving a meagre GHE of only 30W/m2.
However analyzing weather data shows that clouds are correlated rather with warmer than colder surface temperatures. That suggests rather a positive than negative net forcing by clouds, putting the remaining 30W/m2 at jeopardy. Of course that is a complex story to be explained hereafter..
https://de.scribd.com/document/370673949/The-Net-Effect-of-Clouds-on-the-Radiation-Balance-of-Earth-3
b) From a) we need to conclude that there is no GHE at all and the ~33K are only originating from ill fated assumptions. While on the other side, “back radiation” not just confirms the GHE as such, but even puts it to a staggering 88K (or even 110K). How can that be?
Well first we need to question in which way a GHE of ~100K is confirming a theory that suggests a GHE of 33K?! Indeed this “confirmation” is farther off target than putting the GHE to zero. The difference between 0 and 33 is 33, while the difference between 88 (for instance) and 33 is 55. By any rational reasoning, that is not a confirmation but a huge confusion.
Let us do a thought experiment. Let us assume there were no GHGs, no clouds, just a perfectly transparent atmosphere. Now you add to this some GHGs which only emit some “back radiation”, how would that effect temperatures? They would go up for that reason, obviously.
Now let us consider the opposite, where some GHGs would only emit some radiation into space, but not downward. How would that effect surface temperatures? Because of there additional emissions, temperatures would be lower, logically.
And now think of a real world scenario where GHGs emit radiation both upward and downward. What you think will be the combined effect of that heating and cooling? Right, it will be zero, nada, niente.
That seems to be the mental jaw breaker which everyone fails to understand. The GHE could work perfectly if GHGs reflected(!!!) terrestrial IR, but it will not work based on emissions. The process of emission and absorp-tion is ubiquitous and takes place within every material, even in our own body, and it does not heat anything, anywhere. Clouds however will reflect terrestrial IR, which is why they could provide a “GHE”.
One could even discuss pyrgeometers at this point, and how they are rather measuring horizontal than vertical IR. I’ll skip that.
c) There are GHEs almost everywhere. We have a GHE on our moon, there is one on Ceres and there is definitely one on Enceladus. We always yield a GHE if we apply the ill fated assumptions named in a) 1., even on moons and planets where there is no atmosphere and henceforth no possible GHE.
Btw.. there is this little short video taken at surface temperatures of 5-10C, which is quite indicative on the question where (relevant) “back radiation” actually comes from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5LovP3WN4M&
If we do not compare the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere with the temperatures of other planets with dense atmospheres (at the same pressure and taking into account the distance from the Sun), none of this will be. On all these planets, the temperature drops linearly in the troposphere and grows in the stratosphere. The earth is not unique in this respect.
Why?
DA,
Why not?
Cheers.
The high speed solar wind causes the tropical storm to move along the equator towards Hawaii.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/tpac/flash-rb.html
“There were signs early this year of a potential shift to El Nio with the arrival of an extraordinarily strong Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in the western Pacific. It led into a downwelling Kelvin wave, a slow-moving pulse of warmer-than-average water that translated from west to east just below the surface of the equatorial Pacific. Sometimes an MJO and Kelvin wave can weaken trade winds and realign atmospheric and oceanic circulations enough to kick off an El Nio event. This MJO didnt do the trick, possibly because it occurred a bit too early in the seasonal cycle, but it did hasten the demise of the 2017-18 La Nia event.”
Warming? What warming?
“Denvers daily record high crushed as temperature hits 90, 4th earliest 90 on record”
http://kdvr.com/2018/05/10/denvers-daily-record-high-crushed-as-temperatures-near-90/
M,
It’s called weather. It seems it has been hotter, earlier at least 3 times before.
This time it is later and colder.
What warming? Colder is hotter? Learn English Learn physics – if you can.
Cheers.
All these records being broken.
It seems that the GHE predictions are indeed being verified on a continual basis.
Did somebody ask about a “testable hypothesis” ?
M,
You dont have a testable GHE hypothesis, do you?
If you did, you could state it. But you cant. So sad, too bad.
Cheers.
myki…”Denvers daily record high crushed as temperature hits 90, 4th earliest 90 on record”
It’s all perfectly scientific. Mother Nature is feeling badly for having forced record cold temperatures on us the past winter and now she is making up for it with some kindness.
Seasons aren’t climate — 30+ year averages are.
myki…”Seasons arent climate 30+ year averages are”.
Talking to me or myki?
Alarmist? Me?
“Scientists Say Record Heat In The Gulf Of Mexico Supercharged Hurricane Harvey In 2017”
A new study revealed that Hurricane Harvey was fueled by record heat in the Gulf of Mexico. The 2017 storm was the wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/227426/20180510/scientists-say-record-heat-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-supercharged-hurricane-harvey-in-2017.htm
M,
Are you really sure you want to depend on Kevin Trenberth? The confused pseudo scientist who believes that the Sun shines everywhere at once, and said that it was a travesty that he could not find missing heat that didn’t exist? He also decided the scientific concept of the null hypothesis needed to be changed, because he was smarter than every scientist in the world!.
Not terribly persuasive, Myki, not at all.
Maybe you would do better pretending that Gavin Schmidt is a world renowned climate scientist. Even more laughable, wouldn’t you say?
Go for it.
Cheers.
As usual, nothing to add but ad hominems.
M,
As usual, no facts.
Still no GHE hypothesis. Just more assertions, couched in pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo.
Well done. Are you still sure you want to depend on the likes of Trenberth? You seem content to rely on him as an authority, without any facts to back you up.
That looks like an appeal to authority to me. When I point out your authority is flawed, you become unhappy. Why is that, do you think?
Because I am right, and you are wrong, that’s why!
Carry on. Appeal to Hansen, or . . . ? Nominate a world famous first class recognised climate scientist, if you choose. How hard can it be?
Cheers.
Trenberth, Schmidt, Hansen, Mann are the ones who get smeared most often by deniers. I wonder why?
Maybe its because their pioneering work in climate science has been the most impactful. They have been very effective scientists.
Makes sense.
myki…”A new study revealed….”
Is that the same Kevin Trenberth who whined in the Climategate emails that the warming has stopped and that it’s a travesty no one knows why. When called on his comment, he replied in a Monty Pythoneque manner, “Oh, oh…the heat is hiding in the oceans…look, look”. When the reporters looked, he disappeared.
Or the same Kevin Trenberth who has made snarky remarks about a paper by Roy Spencer and who hit on a journal editor so hard for posting a skeptic’s paper, the wimpy editor resigned.
Or the same Kevin Trenberth who admitted his energy budget is based on guesses?
His buddies in the Climategate emails have been implicated in scientific misconduct.
Great source.
Gordon Robertson says:
Is that the same Kevin Trenberth who whined in the Climategate emails that the warming has stopped and that its a travesty no one knows why.
Gordon lies again.
Even when corrected, he still lies.
Gordon has no interest whatsoever in the facts.
He’ll ignore replying to this too.
Kevin Trenberth:
“In my case, one cherry-picked email quote has gone viral and at last check it was featured in over 107,000 items (in Google). Here is the quote: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/emails/
DA…”The fact is that we cant account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we cant.”
That’s Trenberth trying to cover his butt. Many people who read that statement interpreted otherwise, that he was admitting he could find no warming, ergo, the warming has stopped.
Later, he created that monstrous fabrication that the missing heat is in the oceans. He admits he cannot find the heat but claims at the same time that it’s there.
ps. The IPCC confirmed in 2013 that no warming had taken place and Trenberth had to know that. He was a Coordinating Lead Author, one of the highest and most influential positions with the IPCC.
Gordon, so you know better what Trenberth than he did, huh?
I don’t think so.
You are clearly lying about what Trenberth said. And even though he corrected you, you lied yet again.
Later, he created that monstrous fabrication that the missing heat is in the oceans. He admits he cannot find the heat but claims at the same time that its there.
Where did he say this?
Gordon Robertson says:
ps. The IPCC confirmed in 2013 that no warming had taken place and Trenberth had to know that.
As you well know, but lie about, new and better data came in after the AR4 — especially Karl et al 2015 — that showed there actually was not pause.
Gordon, why do you lie by omission?
DA…”Gordon, so you know better what Trenberth than he did, huh?”
Apparently.
DA…”especially Karl et al 2015 that showed there actually was not pause”.
Do you mean Karl the fudger?
“Thats Trenberth trying to cover his butt. Many people who read that statement interpreted otherwise, that he was admitting he could find no warming, ergo, the warming has stopped.”
Good Gordon. Im sure you’re own, out of context, interpretation of what he meant, that feeds your conspiratorial mind, is more accurate than his own statement in proper context.
Gordon Robertson says:
Or the same Kevin Trenberth who admitted his energy budget is based on guesses?
Where did he do that?
I suspect Gordon is lying again. Because he always does. And has no shame doing it.
DA,
And I suspect you are suffering from delusional psychosis. Or are your suspicions of a higher reliability than mine?
I suspect not. What do you suspect, and why?
Cheers.
Dr. Roy,
“As originally calculated by Manabe and Strickler (1964, see slide #10 here), the greenhouse effect does not explain the average surface temperature being 288 K (observed) rather than 255K (the effective radiating temperature of the Earth absent an atmosphere). Instead it is actually much more powerful than that, and would raise the temperature to an estimated 343 K (close to 160 deg. F.)”
Manabe and Strickler calculated that value of 343K for a simplified atmospheric model with a lot of assumptions. AFAIK nobody has demonstrated that this model (atmosphere with 2 layers completely opaque to longwave radiation) is anywhere close to Earth’s atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere is NOT completely opaque to longwave radiation, to begin with, regardless of layers.
atmosphere with 2 layers completely opaque to long wave radiation
That’s not even true, so why should one not simply ignore your drivel ?
Manabe and Stickler certainly made simplifying assumptions ( there are no calculations on any real system without any approximations in physics ) but for sure not these ones.
Maybe reading (and better understanding) their paper might help.
I did read the presentation that Dr Spencer linked to when talking about it. And I cite: “Now we assume that atmosphere is transparent to shortwave radiation and the atmospheric layers 1 and 2 are completely opaque to longwave radiation […] for 2 layers the temperature is 335K…”
This 2 layer model in slide has just educational purpose and is a simple back of envelope calculation that can be done analytically.
It is not of course what Manabe et al. did in their paper where a more realistic state of the art radiative transfer model and a computer are used that resolve frequency bands and calculate a continuous vertical profile of temperatures as shown in figure on slide.
http://www.phy.pku.edu.cn/climate/class/cm2010/Manabe-1964.pdf
Quick, shift those blasted goalposts!
Claim its only educational and we want to educate people with untruths first.
Later on, well say –
“more realistic state of the art radiative transfer model and a computer are used that resolve frequency bands and calculate a continuous vertical profile of temperatures as shown in figure on slide.”, which will hopefully confuse people into forgetting we treated them like idiots in the first instance, by intentionally feeding them falsehoods.
Dont let anybody know that we dont have a testable GHE hypothesis – because we are pseudoscientists, and dont believe in things like the scientific method.
Do you think that sums up climatological pseudoscientific thinking in this instance?
Cheers.
Do you think that sums up climatological pseudoscientific thinking in this instance?
Yes, indeed !
Your drivel readily sums up all of your amusing climatological pseudoscientific “thinking” and your blabber in general funnily parades your idiocy.
Keep it up !
IT,
Thank you. I will.
As long as you complain that asking for a testable GHE hypothesis is pseudoscientific, of course.
You can’t produce a testable GHE hypothesis. You can’t even figure out how to describe the miraculous GHE, can you?
You might think this makes you knowledgeable and smart. I’d characterise it as stupid and ignorant.
Time will tell who is right, eh?
Cheers.
A greenhouse is warm because it loses less heat to atmosphere.
The warmed air is inhibited from transferring energy to atmosphere via convection. A greenhouse is not inhibited from radiating energy to space.
An atmosphere does not transfer energy to space via convection, and an atmosphere loses little energy to space via radiant energy.
Energy from the surface radiated thru a atmosphere into space and energy from surface of a greenhouse radiates thru atmosphere to space.
A greenhouse and an atmosphere do not have much convectional heat loss, so they are similar.
In a proper analogy do greenhouse gases in atmosphere act like the glass of a greenhouse?
Greenhouse gas don’t inhibit convection heat loss of atmosphere, vacuum does.
But I would say any type of atmosphere (say one with pure nitrogen) acts like a greenhouse and basically an atmosphere is like very large greenhouse.
Convection is inhibited by the low temperature in the tropopause. If the temperature in the lower stratosphere rises, the temperature in the troposphere will drop. The temperature in the lower stratosphere can only change as a result of changes in ozone.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_EQ_2018.png
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/TLS/plots/RSS_TS_channel_TLS_Tropics_Land_And_Sea_v03_3.short.png
“Convection is inhibited by the low temperature in the tropopause. If the temperature in the lower stratosphere rises, the temperature in the troposphere will drop. The temperature in the lower stratosphere can only change as a result of changes in ozone.”
I would say it is vacuum of tropopause, which is inhibiting convection.
And it is low density (or vacuum) of tropopause which is or results in the low temperature of the air.
I agree ozone has warming effect, but though ozone is called a greenhouse gas, IR is not heating ozone.
The tropopause isn’t a vacuum.
Ozone is a GHG.
I would say it is vacuum of tropopause, which is inhibiting convection.
Unfortunately Nature stubborly refuses to cooperate since even a Mars troposphere with “more vacuum” or a lower density than at tropopause on Earth exhibits strong convection.
So I would say you post a lot of nonsense.
There are high velocity wind on Mars and in the Earth tropopause.
Wind will cause convection heat loss, and convection can create wind.
A vacuum will not inhibit movement of air, and convection heat loss does not require the movement of air, within Earth troposhere, heat rising is the transport of kinetic energy rather air molecules moving up.
Mars does not have strong convection, when windy it would have more convection heat loss, but it would have less than still day on Earth.
Every night on Mars reaches about -100 C, and in the day the ground surface can warm to about 20 C.
You would not have that happen on Earth, and reason it can happen, is due to lack of convection heat loss of a surface warmed by sunlight.
This might illustrate any added to atmospheric mass to Mars is not a good idea.
There are other reasons (such the enormous costs) but add atmospheric mass, would make Mars a colder and more uninhabitable world (for humans). Or at the moment, Mars is not very cold for humans using modern technology and adding enough atmosphere in order to not need a spacesuit, would make Mars cold. Or if night is warmed by 50 K by added atmosphere, it would increase the convectional heat loss, making the warm night, colder and making the day colder, in terms keeping humans warm enough to live.
Whereas instead if add water, in terms making lakes in tropics, one provides enough pressure to breath and have cheap living areas, and one can live outside in “natural” environment. And this would also increase the average temperature of Mars (but such warming is not needed nor makes much difference, or as I said, the temperature of Mars is not a problem).
gbaikie says:
May 11, 2018 at 10:36 AM
But I would say any type of atmosphere (say one with pure nitrogen) acts like a greenhouse and basically an atmosphere is like very large greenhouse.
No.
An atmosphere with GHGs (H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O, …) prevents tiny parts of the IR radiation emitted by Earth from direct, entire exit to space.
An atmosphere consisting of solely N2, O2, H2 or the like lets all Earth’s IR radiation thru.
Tiny but indispensable difference as far as Mankind is concerned.
binny…”An atmosphere consisting of solely N2, O2, H2 or the like lets all Earths IR radiation thru”.
So why does our atmosphere warm? Don’t try to tell me it warms due to an overall GHGs average of 0.3%.
N2/O2 gather heat at the surface via direct conduction. The same thing would happen with any atmosphere above a warmer surface.
Gordon Robertson says:
So why does our atmosphere warm? Dont try to tell me it warms due to an overall GHGs average of 0.3%.
So?
How big is each of the targets that make up the 0.3%?
—
If the side of a barn 100 m2 in size has three targets painted on it, what’s the probability of hitting one with a random toss of a ball?
What are the probabilities of plants succesfully doing the photosynthesis? Isn’t it the same? Maybe 0.3% of the atmosphere is still a LOT of individual molecules. Did you calculate the probabilities of NOT hitting one when you fire a just 1-molecule-narrow laser to the air? And to be clear, with 1-molecule-narrow I mean the average space ocupied by a single molecule in our atmosphere.
B,
You wrote –
“An atmosphere with GHGs (H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O, ) prevents tiny parts of the IR radiation emitted by Earth from direct, entire exit to space.
Complete nonsense, of course. You cannot specify any wavelength of light (including infrared light) which is prevented from moving from a warmer body (the Earths surface, say), to a colder one (outer space, nominally 4K or so).
You will no doubt take refuge behind direct”. It doesn’t matter does it? At night, the surface cools. For four and a half billion years, even the average surface temperature has dropped.
Accept reality. Learn physics. Keep the pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo machine going. It gives rational people the opportunity to assess for themselves if people like you are as ignorant and stupid as I suggest.
Keep cranking away.
Cheers.
As usual, no reference to any science text.
You are a very pretentious person.
–gbaikie says:
May 11, 2018 at 10:36 AM
But I would say any type of atmosphere (say one with pure nitrogen) acts like a greenhouse and basically an atmosphere is like very large greenhouse.
No.–
If put greenhouse with only N2 gas, does N2 gas become hot.
Or parked car with windows sealed with only nitrogen gas.
Or a tin can with only nitrogen gas in it.
Does the gas become hot, or if on moon, what temperature would gas get on lunar surface when sun is at zenith?
Why would pure N2 have a greenhouse effect?
(Other than the quite small one due to collisional broadening?)
gbaikie,
I have never met anyone who claimed that charged gas cylinders allowed to reach equilibrium with the environment could be distinguished on the basis of temperature.
A gas cylinder charged with N2 cannot be distinguished from an empty one (or a full one), of say, CO2, on the basis of temperature. Knowing the colour code for the cylinder, or reading the label tells you what sort of gas it is designed for.
Weighing the cylinder (if the tare weight is known) will tell you how much gas it contains. Temperature not so much – nothing actually. A pressure reading will give a rough indication, which is usually good enough for Government work.
CO2 is not immune to the laws which govern other gases.
Cheers.
–Mike Flynn says:
May 11, 2018 at 6:39 PM
gbaikie,
I have never met anyone who claimed that charged gas cylinders allowed to reach equilibrium with the environment could be distinguished on the basis of temperature.–
In shade or in a room, the charged gas cylinders, will be at the air temperature. In sunlight they can warm up higher than air temperature, but not warmer than other surface which warm to higher temperature of the air temperature.
A sidewalk could warm to 70 C, and gas in charged gas cylinders will not get above 70 C, whereas the outside air temperature might not exceed 40 C.
If put scuba tank on the moon, the pressurized air will heat to about 120 C, and during the night the air in tank might liquidify. At 1 atm pressure (and scuba tank could be hundreds of atm pressure) N2 is a liquid at 77 K:
“When appropriately insulated from ambient heat, liquid nitrogen can be stored and transported, for example in vacuum flasks. The temperature is held constant at 77 K by slow boiling of the liquid, resulting in the evolution of nitrogen gas. Depending on the size and design, the holding time of vacuum flasks ranges from a few hours to a few weeks.” Wiki
At 1 atm N2 can not become a liquid (nor can 02).
But at say 33 atm (487 psi) it become liquid at 126 K. And at lunar night temperature can become about 100 K.
So if tank was 50 atm at 0 C (and was as small as scuba tank, it might begin to liquify (latent heat from gas to liquid would add heat, keeping it at around 126 K, while rest surface cooler to lower temperature- and larger and more massive charged gas cylinders would not cool quick enough to begin make liquid nitrogen).
If instead of had 55 gallon steel tank of water, it would get to about 120 C, and to remain a liquid, tank would need to withstand 30 psi, and it would stay a lot warmer than scuba tank during the lunar night.
gbaikie…”A greenhouse is not inhibited from radiating energy to space”.
Same as in a house with insulation, the effect of radiation from a greenhouse is so miniscule it makes hardly any difference to heat loss, even though it can radiate freely from glass heated by air molecules on the inside.
Gordon, are you ready to back this up with actual calculations? Or or we just to accept your intuition as sufficient proof?
Good question. Gordon?
DA…”Good question. Gordon?”
It’s only a good question if it is relative. There is nothing relevant about radiation at terrestrial temperatures.
Tim is challenging me to produce the math but he cannot produce it himself. Nor can you.
Where are your calculations, Gordon?
Plainly, you don’t have any.
You never do. Not once, that I’ve seen. Until then you’re not doing science, you’re mouthing opinions.
DA,
Only a stupid and ignorant follower of climatological pseudoscience would profess belief in something he cannot even clearly describe – the GHE – and thus cannot even provide a testable GHE hypothesis.
No wonder all you can do is issue a seemingly endless torrent of gotchas and demands.
Stupid or ignorant, or both?
Truly, the world wonders!
Cheers.
Gordon says …
Same as in a house with insulation …
There is nothing relevant about radiation at terrestrial temperatures …
No one worries about radiative heat loss with a home …
But Gordon, surely you realize this is not really relevant. We are not talking about homes. We are not talking about situation where conduction is the primary form of heat transfer. For earth, conduction is a distant third to radiation and convection.
“ask any engineer who specifies insulation for a home …”
No — ask any engineer who specifies insulation for *spacecraft*. Earth is a giant spacecraft. And for spacecraft, radiation is the critical factor,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-layer_insulation
Tim,
Who cares? If you cant produce a testable GHE hypothesis, gibbering about greenhouses is not going to make much difference is it?
Maybe you dont really intend to deny, divert, and confuse, but you certainly give that impression.
Why cant you produce testable GHE hypothesis? Is it because you would have to say something really ridiculous, such as claiming that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere between the Sun and a thermometer would raise the temperature of the thermometer?
How stupid would that sound?
It would make a mockery of anyone who claimed that CO2 was a thermostat that controlled the Earths temperature, wouldnt it?
Cheers.
tim…”Gordon, are you ready to back this up with actual calculations? Or or we just to accept your intuition as sufficient proof?”
Don’t need to Tim, ask any engineer who specifies insulation for a home, like R-tated.
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/weatherize/insulation
“Most common insulation materials work by slowing conductive heat flow and–to a lesser extent–convective heat flow. Radiant barriers and reflective insulation systems work by reducing radiant heat gain. To be effective, the reflective surface must face an air space”.
No one worries about radiative heat loss with a home well-insulated with a good R-type insulation, complete with vapour barrier, but if that interests you, feel free to do the calculations.
ps. how would you do that anyway?
GR: How does heat loss from a house vary as the thickness of its insulation?
You can assume whatever properties of the insulation you want.
DA,
Another stupid gotcha? Why do you persist in asking pointless questions when you obviously believe you know the answer?
Is this some arcane demonstration of the pseudoscientific climatologist’s craft?
But in case you are truly stupid and ignorant, radiant barriers’ insulating properties are completely independent of thickness. Asking trick questions is pretty stupid, isn’t it?
They might fool the average GHE believer, I suppose.
Think up some better gotchas. – if you can,of course
Cheers
DA…”GR: How does heat loss from a house vary as the thickness of its insulation?
You can assume whatever properties of the insulation you want”.
******
No need to assume, the R value tells you exactly how much heat it will transfer given the temperature on each side of the insulation.
Good example in this article:
https://www.brainstuffshow.com/blogs/how-insulation-works-what-r-value-means-and-how-to-calculate-heat-lossgain-for-your-house.htm
Tim Folkerts says:
May 10, 2018 at 7:12 PM & ff
Tim, it makes not so much sense to stay on Wood’s non-paper.
It is so incredibly superficial that, if it had had the inverse direction, thousands of pseudoskeptics would have shouted:
” Look! Look! One more of these bloody alarmists tries to debunk 40 pages long papers full of sound skepticism with a ridiculous 1 1/2 page long pamphlet! ”
Instead of insisting on Wood’s lack of experience in the domain (as opposed to what the troll de service pretends, he has never been an IR specialist; his real experience was in UV and visible), we should concentrate on reactions to his paper, e.g.:
– Abbot, C. G.(1909) ‘V. Note on the theory of the greenhouse’, Philosophical Magazine Series 6, 18: 103,
32 35
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14786440708636670
– Vaughan R. Pratt, Stanford University (2009) ‘Failure to duplicate Woods 1909 greenhouse experiment’
– Idem ‘Woods 1909 greenhouse experiment, performed more carefully’
http://clim8.stanford.edu/WoodExpt/
and, last not least
– Science of Doom (fully accepted by Judith Curry) ‘Absorp-tion of Radiation from Different Temperature Sources’
https://tinyurl.com/y7gy4eaf
Thanks Bindidon. I was not familiar with those critiques. They point out EVEN MORE problems than the ones I mentioned.
You can expect Gordon to ignore them all. Of course.
DA…”You can expect Gordon to ignore them all. Of course”.
Too funny. The work of a great scientist is overturned by a computer scientist.
Just the other day you lauded the view of a geophysicist, who was not a climate scientist. Hypocrite.
Gordon Robertson says:
May 9, 2018 at 5:53 PM
“The eminent geophysicist, Syun Akasofu, has estimated the planet should rewarm from the LIA at 0.5C/century. Since it is claimed to have ended in 1850, it should have taken till 1950 to warmed 1C.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2018-0-21-deg-c/#comment-301509
DA,
Curiously, some people apparently think that the undistinguished mathematician Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist.
He isnt, is he? Nor is Michael Mann, it appears. Not even a Nobel Prize winner, by all accounts.
Maybe you could name a climate scientist? Climate is only the average of weather, as you have pointed out from time to time. Is the process of averaging considered a science in the US, for example?
Off you go now, and demand some more citations,if you have time.
Cheers.
Gordon, you missed that Wood was not being critiqued by computer scientists, he was being critiqued by OTHER scientists — both contemporaries and more recent scientists.
You also seem a fan of “appeal to authority”, one of the common logical fallacies. Just because someone famous or smart said something does not make it correct. The actual objections are well-presented and worth considering.
One simple example — efforts to repeat the experiment show that temperature variations WITHIN a box are at least as large as the temperature variations BETWEEN the two boxes. So it would be easy to draw a false conclusion.
Tim,
Which part of Woods experimental results are you disputing?
Just tossing in irrelevancies to divert attention away from the fact that you cant find anything to dispute, is more the mark of the pseudoscientist faced with an inconvenient fact.
Making an assertion that it would be easy to draw a false conclusion is fairly pointless, don’t you think? Are you presenting yourself as an authority on false conclusions?
Why should anyone give particular weight to your opinion?
Proposing a testable GHE hypothesis might be more persuasive – but first you would have to describe the observable natural phenomenon where the effect is observed. Just saying you think something should be bigger or smaller than observed is stupid, unless you have very good reason.
And you do not have a very good reason, do you?
Cheers.
DA…”Just the other day you lauded the view of a geophysicist, who was not a climate scientist. Hypocrite”.
Akasofu is more of a climate scientist than Gavin Schmidt. He has a degree in an applicable discipline and he works with real phenomena as opposed to the virtual, sci-fi world of climate models.
tim…”Gordon, you missed that Wood was not being critiqued by computer scientists, he was being critiqued by OTHER scientists both contemporaries and more recent scientists”.
I did not see any scientists listed in binny’s link, just clowns at scienceofdoom. The title of their site should say it all. He name-dropped Judith Curry’s name without proof that she agreed with the SoD article.
Besides, I have no interest in what lightweights think. Wood was an eminent science who was acknowledged universally. I am not appealing to authority, the guy was a master experimenter and it’s highly unlikely, given his understanding of experiments and his expertise with IR, that he messed up.
None of the links provided by binny came close to disproving him and the one from SoD was irrelevant due to it’s plain stupidity.
Gordon Robertson says:
Akasofu is more of a climate scientist than Gavin Schmidt.
Mann has a PhD in geophysics, too.
Gavin Schmidt is a very good scientist — as any Director of GISS would be. Climate science is interdisciplinary, and anyone smart enough to get a PhD in mathematics is smart enough to learn climate science and contribute to it, especially on the models.
Besides, Gordon, how would you know what it takes to do climate science? You don’t even understand high school physics. You are utterly unqualified to judge professional scientists.
tim…”Thanks Bindidon. I was not familiar with those critiques”.
And you would not understand them if you had been aware. Do you seriously think that an eminent scientist like Wood would mess up an experiment like that?
Pratt has already been debunked by Nahle. Pratt did not do the Wood experiment as Wood performed it, he added plastics and acrylic. Furthermore, Pratt was a computer scientist, not a physicist.
I won’t comment of SoD, they are known idiots.
https://principia-scientific.org/the-famous-wood-s-experiment-fully-explained/
see…”The importance of moist air inside the boxes”.
Reminds me of an experiment done by Moertell to reputedly debunk Pauling’s claim that 10 grams of vitamin C was beneficial to terminal cancer patients. Moertell claimed it was false.
A perplexed Pauling approached Moertell and asked him how he had done the experiment. Moertell advised he had used only 250 mg of C and kept the terminal patients on chemotherapy. When an astounded Pauling asked why, Moertell claimed keeping them on chemotherapy gave the impression that something was being done.
Wood was an esteemed scientist and researcher with whom experimentation was a way of life. Vaughn Pratt was a pioneer in COMPUTER SCIENCE.
Gordon Robertson wrote:
Wood was an esteemed scientist and researcher with whom experimentation was a way of life.
Esteemed?
Wood lived before quantum mechanics. So he didn’t understand much about how radiation and matter interact that we know today.
Remember, he wrote:
“I do not pretent to have gone very deeply into the matter….”
R. W. Wood, Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse, Philosophical magazine, 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
DA…”Wood lived before quantum mechanics”.
Bohr consulted with him re quantum theory and Wood died in 1955, well after quantum theory had been established. Everything we know about quantum theory had been developed by 1930.
You don’t need to know anything about quantum theory to work with electromagnetic radiation as light. Quantum theory applies only to theoretical studies at the atomic level. However, Wood was into the theory as well in relation to spectral lines given off by sodium.
People in my field, electronics, are applying quantum theory and so are people in organic chemistry working with molecules. Basic quantum theory is represented by the Bohr model although it can get hairy when you apply the math to the Bohr orbitals.
In the book example at this link Wood is credited with identifying 50 spectral lines from sodium.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=4aNEBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=r.+w.+wood+quantum&source=bl&ots=4nZGtMw_m_&sig=0qpRNYlUJ7AgaCaDg19ZOTHsmY8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiit_-Yh4HbAhVR6WMKHbn9C_MQ6AEIZjAJ#v=onepage&q=r.%20w.%20wood%20quantum&f=false
In his book on optics, he goes deeply into EM theory as applied to light and in his studies of IR photography he must have known everything about IR.
The results of some experiments that confirm strongly held beliefs will be accepted no matter how poorly the experiment was carried out. A classic example of this is the 1909 Wood experiment. Its extremely poorly documented and the results were rejected by no less than Charles Greeley Abbot in the same journal a few months later. Wood wrote a more detailed theoretical paper the same year, but it had a fundamental flaw which invalidated the result, as was pointed out in a rebuttal published shortly thereafter. And yet you find people quoting Wood as if he actually proved something about radiative transfer physics. One could only obtain the results he did if his boxes werent equally well insulated. That was actually inadvertently demonstrated by one of the Sky Dragon crowd recently.
DeWitt Payne, Science of Doom comment
https://scienceofdoom.com/roadmap/confusion-over-the-basics/#comment-24361
DA,
And? Which of Woods recorded results are you disputing? None at all?
I thought so.
Cheers.
Gordon: “Do you seriously think that an eminent scientist like Wood would mess up an experiment like that?”
He didn’t, Prof. Wood proved the increase in T occurred due to the glass plate like a normal greenhouse vs. the rock salt plate. Pratt replicated Prof. Wood experiment with the same results.
Nahle was debunked in pictures Nahle supplied showing added box insulation Nahle did not disclose. Pay better attention Gordon.
DA…”The results of some experiments that confirm strongly held beliefs ….” and scienceofdoom.
I repeat, the people at SoD are a load of friggin’ idiots. Norman accuses me of making up science and he needs to go there to see how science is really fabricated.
And you are coming across as an idiot by quoting their pseudo-science, especially when you use that trash against someone like R. W. Wood. He was a real scientist who was acknowledged internationally for his work. SoD are a load of ingrates who sit around conjuring up propaganda to support AGW. They are on the same level as skepticalscience, which is run by a cartoonist.
Gordo, You are again relying on an appeal to authority. Wood’s text to which you linked is the second edition from 1911, the first of which appeared in 1905. He speaks of the transmission of EM via an unknown “ether”, which was one of the explanations which was common at the time. He has a chapter on the “Laws of Radiation” and writes of Kirchhoff’s Law, “At a given temperature the ratio between the emissive and absorp_tive power for a given wave-length is the same for all bodies”. Wood continues, briefly describing experimental results of the emissions of CO2 gas.
While Wood is presenting experimental results, he clearly accepts that absorp_tion and emission from a gas are equal at specific wavelengths.
Tim….re the SoD link supplied by binny. I took a look and once again SoD has completely messed up basic science.
They infer heat can be transferred from a cooler atmosphere to the surface and the basis of their argument is from Kircheoff’s law. Kircheoff’s law applies ONLY TO BODIES IN THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM!!!!!
That’s twice the idiots at SoD have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of heat transfer and the 2nd law.
I don’t think binny even saw that, he was googling frantically looking for anything to rebut one of the premier scientists of our time.
And where is binny’s evidence that the SoD trash is accepted by Judith Curry?
Gordon Robertson says:
They infer heat can be transferred from a cooler atmosphere to the surface and the basis of their argument is from Kircheoffs law.
False. Wrong. Ill-informed.
Some of us understand the 2LOT. You don’t, and refuse to learn.
DA,
You wrote –
“Some of us understand the 2LOT.
Have you looked up the definition of “us” recently?
You might be declared guilty of language abuse, if you are not careful!
Cheers.
Bordon: “(SOD) infer heat can be transferred from a cooler atmosphere to the surface..”
They do not infer that Gordon, this is just another of Gordon’s egregious mistakes. SOD shows energy can be transferred from a cooler atm. to the surface which is proven by Dr. Spencer’s experiments on the atm. and E. Swanson’s experiments in the lab, and many others like those of Prof. Wood and Prof. Pratt.
Ha, Gordon…
binny…”Instead of insisting on Woods lack of experience in the domain….”
This is why I started calling you an idiot. Wood was a foremost expert on infrared radiation. He understood IR at a level climate scientists today could only dream about.
Wood was a member of the National Academy of science, was consulted by Neils Bohr for his expertise on IR, was elected a Foreign Member to the Royal Society, and you won’t find Gavin Schmidt in there, even though he is English.
He received three honorary degrees in the UK, from Birmingham, Oxford, and Edinburgh. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, the Academia dei Lincei in Rome, the Russian Academy of Science in Leningrad, the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm, and the Indian Association for Science in Calcutta, among many others.
The University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctor’s degree in 1934, and Johns Hopkins University honored him in the same way when in 1951 he had finished his fiftieth year as professor at that institution.
Seems your fellow Germans thought a great deal more of Wood than you.
It’s telling that an expert on IR could take one look at the GHE theory and claim IR could not do that, while offering an explanation that makes eminent sense.
Gordon Robertson says:
Wood was a foremost expert on infrared radiation. He understood IR at a level climate scientists today could only dream about.
You’re deluded. Woods lived before quantum mechanics. His knowledge was nothing like what’s understood today.
—
I do not pretent to have gone very deeply into the matter….
R. W. Wood, Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse, Philosophical magazine, 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
DA…”Some of us understand the 2LOT. You dont, and refuse to learn”.
Some of you are deluded into thinking you understand it, I got my information straight from the man who wrote the law and who took great pains to describe it subjectively.
I have nothing to learn about it after reading Clausius, he explained it very well in simple terms even a five year old could understand. Heat can NEVER be transferred, by its own means, from a colder body to a hotter body.
What is it about NEVER that escapes you, or ‘by it’s own means’? The latter is understood clearly when you study a contraption, like an air conditioner, that transfer heat from a colder body to a warmer body. Unplug it from the wall socket to see how much heat it transfers from cold to hot.
Maybe I missed it, is there an extension cord going into the atmosphere to power a compressor, that pumps a refrig-e-rant through a condenser and an evaporator?
“Heat can NEVER be transferred, by its own means, from a colder body to a hotter body.”
No Gordon, this is another of your egregious mistakes by not fundamentally understanding Clausius’ 2LOT. Here Gordon continues to ignore the later work by Maxwell & Boltzmann that proved what Gordon writes is entirely possible and routinely occurs.
Gordo, As usual, you cherry picked the quote from Clausius. As written in 1854, it is
Note that this statement applies to closed systems, not the open atmosphere. And the qualification, “without some other change”, would apply to the situation in which there is a constant input of energy into the system. Furthermore, the statement applies only for a system of 2 bodies, such as a hot body transferring energy to the surroundings by conduction or convection or radiation. When a third body is introduced into the system, such as in my Green Plate demonstration or in the case of the semi-transparent atmosphere in which the surroundings are the cold of deep space and the energy flows in from the Sun, the basic statement of the Second Law no longer applies.
“..the basic statement of the Second Law no longer applies.”
E. Swanson, the 2LOT is universal. Open or closed system, 1 object to N objects, Sir Arthur Eddington had a good point.
DA,
And yet, you cannot or will not address Wood’s results.
Nor produce a testable GHE hypothesis – an essential part of the scientific process, but not of the climatological pseudoscientific process, obviously.
Keep demanding answers to stupid and ignorant gotchas. It suits you.
Cheers.
Gee.
The practitioners of pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo cannot produce anything faintly scientific, such as an actual testable GHE hypothesis.
Is it any wonder that they thrash around in aimless fashion, arguing about anything except fact?
Endless appeals to dubious authority, instead of having the intestinal fortitude to read Woods account of his experiments, and point out any factual errors in his work.
But no, that might require knowledge, and thought. Much easier to claim that the GHE exists, and therefore any actual experimentation from Tyndall to Nahle (or indeed, any bench experiments carried out in any decent physics course, demonstrating the basis of the radiative transfer equations), must, by pseudoscientific definition, be incorrect, stupid, and imaginary.
Papers such as “CO2: The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature based on computer models which Gavin Schmidt admits are having to be continuously rewritten as old bugs are fixed, new bugs discovered, and, most surprisingly, as new physics are incorporated, are taken as authoritative!
A triumph of fantasy over fact!
Stupidity and ignorance writ large! Oh well, onwards and upwards. Luckily, at least one proposed CO2 monitoring satellite program has been cancelled by the US. Hopefully, the funds intended for it can be applied to something useful.
Cheers.
“Luckily, at least one proposed CO2 monitoring satellite program has been cancelled by the US. ”
Indeed, we don’t want more data, particularly of this very useful type that will help test AGW hypotheses..
Hey..NASA..we don’t need to know.
response to ball4 from an earlier post…
ball4…”Of course I refrained, (kinetic or brightness) temperature is not heat Gordon, they even have different units”.
Kinetic energy is stated in terms of work and heat is equivalent to work. The net force on an object over a distance can be expressed as the change of kinetic energy. Heat is related to work, hence kinetic energy by the 1st law, Q = U + W. U can be broken down itself into internal work and heat and Clausius contributed the term U to the 1sy law.
Clausius pointed out that heat and work have different units but he pointed to a conversion equation that relates them.
Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms in motion and that motion can also be expressed in terms of work. Internally, in a solid, the atoms are vibrating due to the electron bonds. That vibration has both a work and heat equivalence.
Brightness temperature is something different. It is the equivalent temperature a glowing body would give off at that temperature. It’s not a real temperature but an equivalent or apparent temperature.
Gordon Robertson says:
Kinetic energy is stated in terms of work
It is??? Where?
DA,
It isn’t?????? Where not????????????
If you are so sure hes wrong, you could always provide facts to the contrary.
However, that would be a courteous and rational course – nothing courteous and rational about you, I’m sure!
If you run out of punctuation marks, I have plenty to spare.
Cheers.
“Internally, in a solid, the atoms are vibrating due to the electron bonds. That vibration has both a work and heat equivalence.”
Atoms aren’t held together by electron bonds, molecules are though. In a solid, the molecules vibrate around their cg, the molecules do no net work thus Gordon makes yet another egregious mistake.
And it is not Q = U + W, that’s just another egregious mistake by Gordon. 1LOT is conservation of energy in the form dU/dt = Q + W
Thermodynamic U may change with time (dU/dt) because of the interaction of any molecular system with its molecular surroundings. These thermodynamic interactions take two forms:
1) Those interactions for which the net force vanishes on average yet the energy of the system molecules changes because of random collisions with surrounding molecules having a different average energy
2) Those interactions for which the net force does not vanish on average
Here, 1) adequately explains dU/dt in the experimental results of Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson without possibility of misinterpretation since no use of the concept of a heat term.
“Clausius pointed out that heat and work have different units but he pointed to a conversion equation that relates them.”
No Gordon. Just no. That’s another of your egregious mistakes.
DA…”Kinetic energy is stated in terms of work
It is??? Where?”
************
simple stuff actually:
W = fd and a force over a distance can be measured as the change in kinetic energy over that distance. Therefore,
W = KE2 – KE1.
But f = ma and W = ma.d or (mad…bwuhahhahaha)
but wait…a is related to v by ad = (v^2 – vo^2)/2
therefore W = fd = mad = m(v^2 – vo^2)/2 = 1/2m(v^2 – vo^2)
=KE – KEo
or KE2 – KE1
i.e. W = KE2 – KE1
work is the change in kinetic energy of a body.
tada!!!!
http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/physics/work/node3.html
Gordon Robertson says:
W = fd and a force over a distance can be measured as the change in kinetic energy over that distance.
Poppycock.
Let’s say I do work by compressing a spring. Where’s the change in kinetic energy?
The change in KE is in the mass you used to depress the spring David, KE becoming = zero at max. spring deflection dmax.
The KE is zero when I start compressing the spring, and zero after it’s compressed.
There is no change in KE.
“The KE is zero when I start compressing the spring..”
That’s impossible David. If d increases (you are “compressing”) then the mass depressing the spring has a velocity.
Gordon Robertson wrote:
W = fd and a force over a distance can be measured as the change in kinetic energy over that distance. Therefore,
W = KE2 KE1.
…
i.e. W = KE2 KE1
You simply proved your assumption. Hilarious.
Gordon Robertson says:
Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms in motion and that motion can also be expressed in terms of work
How?
Gordon Robertson says:
Clausius pointed out that heat and work have different units but he pointed to a conversion equation that relates them.
He did??????
Where did he do that??????
What are their different units, heat and work?????
Huh??
DA,
Huh??
Huh???
Huh??????????????
Cheers.
DA…”What are their different units, heat and work?????”
Not different units, it’s a conversion factor developed by Joule circa 1840. He was laughed out of the Royal Society till Thompson came to his rescue.
http://pruffle.mit.edu/3.00/Lecture_04_web/node4.html
Clausius addressed the conversion in The Mechanical Theory of Heat, real page 25.
“Of all his results Joule considered those given by water as the most accurate; and as he thought that even this figure should be slightly reduced, to allow for the sound produced by the motion, he finally gave 772 foot-pounds as the most probable value for the number sought.
Transforming this to French measures we obtain the result that, To produce the quantity of heat required to raise 1 kilogramme of water through 1 degree Centigrade, work must be consumed to the amount 423.55 kilogrammetres. This appears to be the most trustworthy value among those hitherto determined, and accordingly we shall henceforward use it as the mechanical equivalent of heat, and write
E = 423.55 …………………… ..(1).
In most of our calculations it will be suf?ciently accurate to use the even number 424”.
to clarify E:
“If this numerical value is so chosen as to give the work corresponding to an unit of heat, it is called the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat; if on the contrary it gives the heat corresponding to an unit of work, it is called the Thermal Equivalent of Work. We shall denote the former by E, and the latter by 1/E”.
Gordon, this is gobbleygook.
You wrote:
“Clausius pointed out that heat and work have different units but he pointed to a conversion equation that relates them.”
That’s wrong, Clausius never said that, and you’re confused, as usual.
Heat and work have the same units: Joules (in the MKS system).
There is no “conversion equation” that relates them, because work and heat are different concepts. Work might produce heat, or it might not. There is no 1-1 relation.
Again you have butchered and bastardized the physics. Yet you’re an expert, right!
Gordon Robertson says:
Clausius pointed out that heat and work have different units but he pointed to a conversion equation that relates them.
What is this equation?
DA,
Why do you care? You do not appear to be seeking knowledge.
Another gotcha perhaps?
If you believe GR to be wrong, maybe you could provide contrary facts. If he doesn’t change his views, congratulate him for his steadfast faith. GHE believers are the same, surely. No testable GHE hypothesis, no useful description of the GHE, but they believe it anyway – just like you!
Carry on with stupid and ignorant gotchas. You will no doubt get your desired response from someone, sometime, somewhere.
Cheers.
A straight forward question is not a gotcha.
What is the ‘conversion equation’ you mentioned, that relates the units of heat and work?
Gordon doesn’t have one.
And heat and work have the same units: Energy
barry,
Are you asking me, or DA?
If you ask a question, and it seems obvious you are not asking it to advance your knowledge, and you have made no effort to find an answer elsewhere – it can be regard as a gotcha – a question asked in bad faith, endeavouring to make the answerer appear foolish or stupid.
I havent mentioned a conversion equation, as far as I know.
I think DA is quoting someone else, but I could be wrong.
Cheers.
I’m asking Gordon.
According to nasa.gov –
“A greenhouse is a house made of glass. It has glass walls and a glass roof. People grow tomatoes and flowers and other plants in them. A greenhouse stays warm inside, even during winter. Sunlight shines in and warms the plants and air inside. But the heat is trapped by the glass and can’t escape. So during the daylight hours, it gets warmer and warmer inside a greenhouse, and stays pretty warm at night too.”
So there you have it. Greenhouses stay warm, even in winter. Stay pretty warm at night, too.
Or maybe NASA is lying to the kiddies. They wouldn’t want to upset them with truth, would they?
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory carrying out its duties. I suppose.
Cheers.
Mike, NASA may just have this wrong or maybe a bit generalized. I worked in my friends Greenhouse as a kid during summer/winter breaks from school. They were plant wholesalers. In the summer, the greenhouse was a few degrees cooler on a sunny day than outside temp. On cloudy days, it may be cooler outside. In winter, without external heat source, plants would freeze (we were in NJ). Owner often complained of oil bills.
I never cared for the term Greenhouse Effect since it just did not seem the atmosphere was acting like a greenhouse. Different dynamics. But its just a term, it should be taken with a grain of salt. With a stretch of logic, you can say there are a few similarities. You do not hear much of mass heat exhaustion from Greenhouse workers, there is no run away GHE in this industry. I think adding Atmospheric to it helps, as it clarifies that this is not a land based greenhouse.
bilybob…”In the summer, the greenhouse was a few degrees cooler on a sunny day than outside temp”.
Did they leave the doors open? My friend has a small greenhouse and he leaves the door open in summer to cool the place. Plants don’t always thrive in really warm environments.
It feels close to outside temps in his greenhouse but if you walk in you feel the distinct environment of a greenhouse. Leave the door closed an it’s very hot in there.
Gordon Robertson says:
Plants dont always thrive in really warm environments
Doesn’t bode well for our AGW future, does it?
They had a concrete building on the north side that served as a receiving/shipping area. Huge black walnut trees kept it in the shade. Box fans pushed air into the 3 30 x 150 greenhouses that were perpendicular to the concrete building. Not sure if all commercial greenhouses operate this way, but it did keep the greenhouse cooler than without ventilation. They also applied what the owner called “whitewash” on the glass, that also helped in reducing peak summer temperature.
Mike…”Sunlight shines in and warms the plants and air inside. But the heat is trapped by the glass and cant escape”.
***********
NASA specifically states the glass traps heat, not IR. Heat is a property of gas molecules not of EM.
Again, NASA is a big place and some of them do real science. NASA GISS are pretenders who work on climate models in a non-reality yet they pass themselves off as real scientists.
Gordon Robertson says:
Heat is a property of gas molecules not of EM.
Ever get a sunburn?
Ever been burned by a hot utensil?
Explain the difference.
Mike, Glad to see you’re choosing ‘just right’ reading materials, that are at your intellectual level. Keep it up, maybe you’ll learn something.
And Mike, they have a GHE hypothesis, that even you might be able to understand:
“How is Earth a greenhouse?
Earth’s atmosphere does the same thing as the greenhouse. Gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide do what the roof of a greenhouse does. During the day, the Sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth’s surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth’s surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That’s what keeps our Earth a warm and cozy 59 degrees Fahrenheit, on average.”
“?If you thought the 32-degree day in Perth felt a little odd for this time of year, you would be right.
The city recorded a maximum of 32.7 degrees Celsius at 1:04pm making it the latest 30-degree or above day in autumn on record.
The previous record for Perth was set on May 9, 1962, when the city recorded exactly 30C.
It was also Perth’s second hottest May day on record, behind the 34.3C recorded on May 1, 2002.”
Hello! Any denialstis still out there?
Here. April was near record cold month in Midwest and NE US. World average for April was about the same as after 1997-8 El Nino. Check Dr. S’ last post.
UAH’s April anomaly is in the top 20% of all anomalies since 1979. Cold isn’t what it used to be.
Not the point I tried to make. Myki reports warm in her neighborhood, I report cold in mine. Together you get normal weather.
Hilarious.
That’s not how you calculate a global average. You know that.
Chic Bowdrie says:
May 12, 2018 at 12:59 PM
World average for April was about the same as after 1997-8 El Nino. Check Dr. S’ last post.
Here is an ascending sort of all UAH 6.0 April anomalies since 1979:
1993 | 4 | -0.34
1982 | 4 | -0.32
1985 | 4 | -0.31
1979 | 4 | -0.28
1992 | 4 | -0.27
1997 | 4 | -0.26
1984 | 4 | -0.25
1989 | 4 | -0.20
1986 | 4 | -0.16
1994 | 4 | -0.15
1981 | 4 | -0.13
2008 | 4 | -0.13
1990 | 4 | -0.08
1996 | 4 | -0.08
2011 | 4 | -0.03
1991 | 4 | -0.01
2009 | 4 | -0.01
1999 | 4 | 0.01
1980 | 4 | 0.03
1988 | 4 | 0.03
2000 | 4 | 0.05
2013 | 4 | 0.05
2006 | 4 | 0.07
1983 | 4 | 0.08
1987 | 4 | 0.08
2015 | 4 | 0.08
2012 | 4 | 0.11
2014 | 4 | 0.11
1995 | 4 | 0.14
2004 | 4 | 0.14
2007 | 4 | 0.14
2003 | 4 | 0.15
2001 | 4 | 0.20
2018 | 4 | 0.21
2002 | 4 | 0.23
2017 | 4 | 0.27
2005 | 4 | 0.33
2010 | 4 | 0.33
2016 | 4 | 0.71
1998 | 4 | 0.74
This is, as you can see, by far not the coldest one in the series.
Working with exact numbers is better than eye-balling.
What is true is that in Northern America, people experienced a very cold April, even if it was not the coldest one since 1900.
You can see that both at the surface:
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/2018/04/map.png
and in the LT:
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2018/april2018/APRIL%202018%20map.png
Well I certainly wasn’t clear enough for nit-picking and I doubt this will help, but here goes. As of the last global anomaly posted by Dr. S, we are at about the same temperature as after the 1907/8 El Nino. From 2002 until 2006, global anomalies fluctuated around 0.2, same as last month.
Let’s take your April figures from 1998 through 2007: 0.74, 0.01, 0.05, 0.20, 0.23, 0.15, 0.14, 0.33. 0.07, 0.14. Those ten April anomalies average to 2.06. Pretty close to this past April.
To repeat, I wasn’t claiming last April a globally cold month. On the contrary, that a cold April here was balanced by a warm April somewhere else.
I do not understand your logic. You are suddenly speaking about a 10 year average reference, considering above all only one month.
UAH’s 10 year jan-dec averages for
2008-2017: 0.187 C
1998-2007: 0.152 C
1988-1997: -0.063 C
1979-1987: -0.163 C
I repeat: I’m not interested in getting anything warmer. I simply do not understand what you exactly mean.
Good night, it’s UTC+2 here…
La,
Sweet dreams. If you read this in the morning, just realize that the average global temperature 12 to 16 years ago was about the same as today.
More cherry picking, as you admitted to below.
You realize cherry picking disqualifies any conclusions you make from it, right?
La P, Pretty clear on the map that the US was the lone island of cold in April. Of course people here will think here is all that counts.
myki…”If you thought the 32-degree day in Perth felt a little odd for this time of year, you would be right”.
The real Perth is in Scotland. Your Perth is in Australia, not far from the equator.
The BOM, Australia’s answer to NOAA and GISS, are data fudgers, just like their role models at NOAA.
Since des disappeared and myki showed up, can I assume you are Des posing under a woman’s name, just like binny is trying to pull off?
“The real Perth is in Scotland. Your Perth is in Australia, not far from the equator.”
So what’s your point?
It is, in fact, 32 degrees south. Far enough?
“The BOM, Australias answer to NOAA and GISS, are data fudgers, just like their role models at NOAA.”
Conspiracy theories are the last refuge of the scoundrel.
“Since des disappeared and myki showed up, can I assume you are Des posing under a womans name, just like binny is trying to pull off?”
Wrong again.
BTW, do you have a problem with women?
I have a question about how CO2 keeps the earth warmer. I would especially appreciate it if someone like Dr. Spencer or Dr. Appell could address it.
I would like to follow just one photon at a wavelength where CO2 can absorb it. I estimate there is only a 15% chance that the earth will emit IR in this wavelength. The exact amount is not important, but most IR light emitted from the earth will not interact with CO2.
Once this photon is emitted it travels some distance and hits a CO2 molecule. It is absorbed raising the energy level of that CO2 molecule. The CO2 molecule then reemits that photon in some random direction some will go up and some will go down. The photon will rattle around until it makes it back to the ground or out to space. Are there any estimates on how long this process takes? I would guess fractions of a second, or a few seconds at most. Light is fast and the relative distances are very short.
If the photon makes it back to the earth then it is absorbed and adds energy back to the surface. This is the so called GHE energy is added back to the earth keeping it warmer than it would be without the CO2. I think this is almost undeniability true, but, probably irrelevant. The energy in the photon is transferred to the ground, but the ground will reemit it again per its grey-body spectrum.
On this second iteration that energy is likely to change frequency. Again, there is only a 15% chance that the energy of this first photon will be emitted in a wavelength that will interact with CO2. If it emits it at some other wavelength then it quickly escapes to space and is gone.
As I see it, yes CO2 does absorb some IR light. Yes, it returns some of it to the ground and adding energy back to the surface. But it does not trap heat. It only delays its exit by some short amount of time, which I guesstimate this to be in seconds. Adding more CO2 will slow this process by some amount, but if it goes from 2 seconds to 3 seconds then so what?
To me, CO2 is like sweater with huge wholes in it (85% missing) how can it keep you any warmer than nothing at all? If CO2 traps energy, then it only trapped it for a few seconds, and then the earth is in exactly the same energy and temperature state if there were no CO2 at all.
Where is any of this wrong?
NP – Hard: “Adding more CO2 will slow this process by some amount, but if it goes from 2 seconds to 3 seconds then so what?”
That relates to something I wrote upthread:
“As far as I can tell, there are two main variables that determine accumulation of something into a system: rate of entry and average length of stay.”
*******
If cars enter a parking garage at a rate of one/second, and, on average, each car stays for two hours, how many cars will be in the garage when an equilibrium is reached?
Now calculate how many there will be if each car stays for three hours instead of two.
Snape,
Thank you for the nice analogy, which I understand completely. To further expand upon it, what if the parking lot closes at sundown?
How many cars are in the parking lot at sun up? In both of your examples the the parking lot will be empty (assuming length of stay variance is small). For this reason, unless IR energy is trapped in the atmosphere for days (which I consider most unlikely), when night arrives the darkness will allow all of the energy trapped by CO2 to exit the system. If this is true, then CO2 does not retain any heat in the earth system.
What are your thoughts on this?
TL
A software engineer working on physics based problems in the NP-Hard domain.
I’m glad you get the analogy, and you’re right about the garage being empty come morning.
As long as the Earth surface (including oceans) has a temperature greater than absolute zero, it contributes energy to the atmosphere, so unlike a parking garage it never closes. Also, the sun is always shining on one side of the planet, and some of that energy circulates to the nighttime side (wind).
The situation you brought up is similar to a moon night, which are very long. With no wind or oceans (oceans are a massive heat sink), temps can dip to – 173 C.
Yes, of course, the earth, atmosphere and oceans are always trying to shed energy to space.
Do you, or anyone else, have any idea or estimate of how long CO2 delays the exit of this specific band of IR light?
I believe this time is very important to the radiative insulating effect of CO2. Good insulators restrict heat flow for a long time, but it appears to me that CO2 is probably very poor since light is so fast. Yes, CO2 blocks a lot of watts, and returns some of it to the surface, then that energy is absorbed and converted back to heat, but then it is free to change frequency and then exit the earth without restriction. It seems to me that CO2 only warms for a few seconds. After those couple of seconds then the earth is in exactly the same energy state as it would be if there was no CO2.
NP-Hard says:
Do you, or anyone else, have any idea or estimate of how long CO2 delays the exit of this specific band of IR light?
Again, this isn’t how AGW works.
There isn’t one photon that is delayed from escaping to space.
There are many photons that are ab.sorb.ed, and many that are emitted. The net result, as I explained elsewhere on this post, is warming in the troposphere, and cooling in the stratosphere.
TL,
I love that analogy. It doesn’t matter how fast or how many cars go in as long as the garage is big enough to park them all. The garage doesn’t have to close. The question is can they leave fast enough before dawn so that any net remaining doesn’t accumulate day after day.
What we have now is CO2 increasing steadily if not exponentially. Yet temperatures have been oscillating around the same level for about 20 years. There’s some thermostatic mechanism in play, but it isn’t CO2.
Chic Bowdrie says:
What we have now is CO2 increasing steadily if not exponentially. Yet temperatures have been oscillating around the same level for about 20 years.
False.
20-yr trend of UAH LT v6.0 = +0.10 C/dec
20-yr trend of RSS LT v4 = +0.17 C/dec
How many knives will it finally take to stab this claim to death?
Maybe poison will work.
What was the UAH temperature exactly 20 years ago? Warmer than today right? So is the 20-year trend going to make this month’s temperature any warmer than it is? No it won’t. The temperature is what it is.
You are hoping that temperature rise will accelerate so that it will confirm your faith in AGW. It won’t bother me if temperatures rise a bit, continue to linger, or trend down. I hope not the latter.
Chic Bowdrie says:
May 12, 2018 at 4:29 PM
Theres some thermostatic mechanism in play, but it isnt CO2.
Over such a short time period, I com pletely agree with you.
Yet temperatures have been oscillating around the same level for about 20 years.
Maybe you will try to view me as an alarmist, as do some rather dumb persons all the time, but… the UAH 6.0 trend for the last 20 years is, according to Excel’s linear estimate function:
<0.136 ± 0.020 °C / decade
Feel free to check using any appropriate tool.
*
I don’t want the World around us getting exceedingly warmer.
Because the consequence of such a warming could be that it subsequently becomes quite a bit colder, much colder than we could stand.
No thanks.
La Pangolina,
Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want an exceedingly warmer world either. From where I sit, we’ll be OK.
About temperature trends. Do you invest in the stock market? If a correction in the market wipes out all your gains, can you get that money back by claiming the trend was up? Same with the temperature. We don’t know what next year’s temperature will be. But right now the temperature is less than what it was 20 years ago.
Chic Bowdrie says:
What was the UAH temperature exactly 20 years ago? Warmer than today right? So is the 20-year trend going to make this months temperature any warmer than it is? No it wont. The temperature is what it is.
You’re about noise, not the signal.
You are hoping that temperature rise will accelerate so that it will confirm your faith in AGW.
I’m not “hoping” anything, I’m simply stating what the science says.
Scientists said 50 years ago that it would get warmer, and it has. Apparently that counts for nothing. And the climate will keep warming, because physics says it must.
Chic Bowdrie says:
About temperature trends. Do you invest in the stock market? If a correction in the market wipes out all your gains, can you get that money back by claiming the trend was up? Same with the temperature. We dont know what next years temperature will be.
The stock market isn’t subject to physical laws. The climate is.
But right now the temperature is less than what it was 20 years ago.
You’re just cherry picking. The long-term trend of UAH LT is positive, and shows no signs of slowing down. Temperatures will fluctuate, as always, but their long-term average — climate — is getting warmer all the time.
“Scientists said 50 years ago that it would get warmer, and it has. Apparently that counts for nothing.”
Correlation is not causation. Scientists need to provide definitive evidence of causation. Good scientists know that.
“And the climate will keep warming, because physics says it must.”
That’s about as religious a statement that one can make.
“Youre just cherry picking.”
Yes I am. But I’m citing real data, whereas your climate religious views prevent you getting my point about trends. What would you have said about them in 1950, or during the medieval warm period, or at the end of the previous interglacial?
Chic Bowdrie says:
Correlation is not causation. Scientists need to provide definitive evidence of causation.
They have — CO2 and other anthropogenic GHGs.
You simply try to reject any evidence you don’t like.
And the climate will keep warming, because physics says it must.
Thats about as religious a statement that one can make.
No, it’s actually a scientific statement, if you understand the science.
Youre just cherry picking.
Yes I am
You admit it. That makes critiques easy.
DA…”20-yr trend of UAH LT v6.0 = +0.10 C/dec
20-yr trend of RSS LT v4 = +0.17 C/dec
How many knives will it finally take to stab this claim to death?”
********
Better question is what it will take to stop alarmists trolls from spreading their propaganda?
The IPCC, your god, admitted in 2013 that no global warming occurred between 1998 and 2012. The same UAH you misleadingly quote above has extended that flat trend to 15 years.
The only evidence you can provide is fudged data from NOAA who showed the same flat trend in 2011. Recently they have retroactively shown a trend by fudging the SST, contradicting their 2011 data.
Gordon, I quoted UAH’s trend and RSS’s trend, not NO.AA’s.
About the fudging, you’re a damn liar who has no evidence of anything untoward. Not a single piece. But you’re the type of man who lies whenever it suits him. You should have gone into politics.
Gordon Robertson says:
The IPCC, your god, admitted in 2013 that no global warming occurred between 1998 and 2012.
You keep lying by emission — you know new & improved data has come in since the 5AR.
The same UAH you misleadingly quote above has extended that flat trend to 15 years.
False. (Snicker) The 15-yr trend of UAH LT v6.0 is a whopping +0.18 C/decade.
-Where is any of this wrong?-
It might be mostly right. Another idea is the excited C02 molecule somehow adds to the average velocity of gas molecules. But this would occur due to the density of atmosphere, or the shortness of time between collision of molecules could be less time than it takes to re-emit the photon.
Or if the radiant energy of IR wavelength that excited the CO2 molecule increases the kinetic energy of atmospheric gases (and it is the kinetic energy of gas molecules which is the temperature of gas) then it warms the air rather than the surface.
And another way to look at it is that a warmed gas acts like insulation, or more radiation will be emitted to the “cold” 2 K universe.
I think Roy prefers this last “way” of “explaining it”.
I happen to favor idea that effects of greenhouse gas occur at low elevation, which is not according to the “settled science” of climate pseudoscience.
It is assumed that photons, emitted from a surface, will go in a random direction. Or travel any vector within spherical volume. Which is different than simply up and down, but half will go down, and will not transfer radiant energy away from the surface. And in terms of what is radiate from a surface, it would be hemisphere.
On Earth the sphere has about 40% of surface area in the tropics which is about 23 1/2 degrees North and South latitude. In terms of half of sphere, say northern, 40% of the hemisphere is between equator and 23 1/2 degrees north.
In terms of emitted IR, about 40% of energy will be emitted at or below 23 1/2 degree above horizon. And amount going nearly straight up will be about 10%.
In terms of shortest pathway to space, roughly speaking it is at angle of about 45 degrees of degree or higher.
At 45 degrees in goes thru about 1.1 times as much atmosphere, and higher than 45 degree is less atmosphere to travel thru.
And at 30 degrees one goes thru about 2 times as much atmosphere and go thru more atmosphere below 30 degrees. And at 30 degree and lower it is near 1/2 energy emitted from the surface. And from 30 to 90 degrees, a bit more than 1/2 energy from the surface is going to space.
gbaikie says:
It is assumed that photons, emitted from a surface, will go in a random direction.
By symmetry, the net energy flux is upward only.
It is possible.
NP-Hard,
I’ll be interested to see if and how the Drs you summoned will respond.
Meanwhile, I think you have posed some good questions. I’d like to know what you think about my take.
At the top of the atmosphere, the only major contributing IR-active gas left is CO2 with water vapor condensing below. So at that altitude, most photons emitted from CO2 will be emitted directly to space. There isn’t enough density to block those emissions. Essentially no photons will reach the surface from the top of the atmosphere.
The time between when a CO2 absorbs and emits is much less than a second. Less than 10 microseconds. However, near the surface the air density is much greater and the mean time between molecular collisions is less than 1 nanosecond. So it is roughly 10,000 times more likely that a CO2 molecule absorbing radiation from the surface or any nearby photons will transfer that energy to surrounding air molecules. The term for this is thermalization. Once the bulk air is thermalized, not just from CO2 but water vapor also, it expands and rises. During the day this process cools the surface, but during the night sort of the reverse happens as convection subsides and the surface is kept warmer than it would be without IR downward component.
The important point you make is that CO2 does not trap heat. But, along with water vapor, it does contribute to moderating the extreme diurnal temperatures that would occur in their absence. The only question is whether further increases in CO2 will cause any net increase in the average global temperatures. No one that I ask has any definitive evidence of that.
I described the no CO2 at all case above, which includes the no water vapor situation and leads to a somewhat colder planet with more extreme temperatures.
The important point you make is that CO2 does not trap heat.
Here is clear evidence that CO2 (and the other GHGs) trap heat:
Taking the measure of the greenhouse effect
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/
There is a Greenhouse Effect on Venus, Michael Hammer, 10/9/11
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/there-is-a-greenhouse-effect-on-venus/
Is your definition of the greenhouse effect that CO2 traps heat? Or is it Gavin’s “[It] keeps the planet much warmer than it would be otherwise, and similarly we may have heard that increasing amounts of greenhouse gases are enhancing the natural greenhouse effect.”
So it’s difficult to know what greenhouse effect you think he’s measuring. Moving on, I found no place where Gavin writes about trap, trapping, or traps. Maybe you read that elsewhere.
I do find this “But few of us appreciate what exactly it is in the atmosphere that makes the effect work and why small changes in trace gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) might make a difference.” However, nowhere in the article did I find any evidence that small changes in CO2 make any difference. Can you point out anything? Computer models don’t count.
JoNova writes “Michael Hammer has some 20 patents in spectroscopy, and he explains why the Greenhouse Effect where CO2 and other gases absorb and emit infra red is very real, and backed by empirical evidence.”
So now the Greenhouse Effect is where CO2 and other gases absorb and emit infra red. Will the real greenhouse effect please stand up?
Chic
I’m not sure if you understood the garage analogy, so here’s something different:
Close the drain on your bathroom sink so only a little water escapes. Now turn on the faucet and adjust it until you have a steady level of accumulated water.
Is the water trapped? Yes, in that now there is a “pond” where before there was none. No, in that water is constantly entering and leaving.
Climate scientists use the term “trapped” to mean there is constantly more energy in the system than there would be without GHG’s. This does not mean that the energy in question no longer circulates from surface to space.
DA…”Here is clear evidence that CO2 (and the other GHGs) trap heat:”
If Schmidt thinks heat can be trapped by other molecules then he has confirmed my suspicion that he has no idea what it is, just like he has no idea what positive feedback is.
Heat is a property of atoms and without atoms there can be no heat.
Gordon
The term “heat” has several different definitions, and is used in differing ways even by the same person, even among physicists. You should know this by now.
chic…”So now the Greenhouse Effect is where CO2 and other gases absorb and emit infra red”.
We have established laws describing the behavior of gases and they are wrapped up in the Ideal Gas Law. Part of the IGL is Dalton’s Law of partial pressures. If the atmosphere can be regarded as a relatively constant volume, both laws tell us fairly precisely that CO2 at 0.04% cannot warm the atmosphere more than a few hundredths C for a 1C rise in temperature.
The alarmist POV is based on presumed calculations involving the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which deals with only radiation and was never designed for our atmosphere. Models presume radiation is a major factor in the atmosphere whereas it is a minor player.
I don’t follow.
David Appell refuted my claim that CO2 does not trap heat. He keeps defending a greenhouse effect without defining what he means by that.
You introduce the ideal gas laws, but don’t explain how they “tell us fairly precisely that CO2 at 0.04% cannot warm the atmosphere more than a few hundredths C for a 1C rise in temperature.”
Was there some error in my thinking you wanted to clear up? I am interested in learning how to demonstrate how much or how little CO2 affects global temperatures.
Snape,
Glad you want to clear up the trap analogies. See my new thread.
chic…”You introduce the ideal gas laws, but dont explain how they tell us fairly precisely that CO2 at 0.04% cannot warm the atmosphere more than a few hundredths C for a 1C rise in temperature”.
I have explained it a few times, did not want to be redundant.
I presumed a fairly constant volume for the atmosphere.
PV = nRT becomes P = (nR/V)T with constant V therefore P is essentially directly proportional to T.
Dalton states the total pressure of a mixed gas is the sum of the partial pressures. I have read a claim that in certain situations the partial gas can even be treated as an individual gas.
If temperature must respond proportionately to pressure, then the partial pressures should have a related partial temperature contribution. In other words, each gas in a mix contributes heat to the mix based on that gas’s partial pressure or percent mass.
With N2/O2 at 99% of the air mix, both gases should account for roughly 99% of the heat. At 0.04%, CO2 should contribute a few hundredths of a percent.
It has been pointed out that the temperature of a gas is based on its average kinetic energy and I’m fine with that. However, the average KE should take into account the number of molecules of each gas. Ergo, CO2 is not contributing much heat.
Another argument is that CO2 and WV are the main GHG radiation absorbers. I am claiming N2/O2 pick up most of the heat from the surface by direct conduction and that the heat absorbed by GHGs via radiation does not amount to a hill of beans.
That argument was put formed circa 1909 by R. W. Wood, an expert in IR radiation.
snape…”Climate scientists use the term trapped to mean there is constantly more energy in the system than there would be without GHGs”.
Not generic energy, they claim heat is trapped. Not possible.
Rather than dreaming up thought experiments how about critiquing my claim that the atmosphere is already covered by gas laws that have stood the test of time. I realize the atmosphere is a dynamic system but overall, the heat contributed by each gas is related to it’s percent mass.
Gordon,
I’ll try replying in a new thread.
Now I’ll try your suggestion of posting sections at a time to see why my full comment isnt posting.
Your analysis May 12 at 9:45 pm completely ignores thermalization the process where atmospheric gases capable of absorbing radiation from the surface will transfer the absorbed energy to the bulk air. So the part that CO2 plays in affecting Earth’s energy balance and surface temperature is not simply related to heat content proportional to its atmospheric composition.
The convective overturning that results from IR absorp-tion followed by thermalization contributes significantly more than a hill of beans. But thats not to say an increase in CO2 will have any further affect on global temperatures.
Amazing! Absorp-tion is the key. Without a hyphen, no go.
Last but not least, Wood’s experiment has nothing to do with accounting for the contributions of convection, advection, and evaporation to Earth’s energy balance.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Is your definition of the greenhouse effect that CO2 traps heat? Or is it Gavins [It] keeps the planet much warmer than it would be otherwise, and similarly we may have heard that increasing amounts of greenhouse gases are enhancing the natural greenhouse effect.
A rhetorical difference only. Same thing, different words. More heat = higher temperatures.
If by “more heat = higher temperatures” you mean more CO2 causes higher temperatures, I disagree. Where is the definitive evidence of that?
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Gordon Robertson says:
I realize the atmosphere is a dynamic system but overall, the heat contributed by each gas is related to its percent mass.
Gordon, why are you ignoring radiative transfer? Do you think it doesn’t exist?
Chic Bowdrie says:
David Appell refuted my claim that CO2 does not trap heat. He keeps defending a greenhouse effect without defining what he means by that.
Oh please — we all know what the greenhouse effect means.
Look it up on Wikipedia if you really don’t know.
Gordon Robertson says:
Models presume radiation is a major factor in the atmosphere whereas it is a minor player.
What evidence says radiation is a “minor player” in the atmosphere?
–
PS: Models don’t presume radiation’s role, they calculate it. (Something you have never done.) And it’s not based on the SB Law, but on energy conservation and the Planck equation. Look up “Schwarzschild equations”.
Gordon Robertson says:
PV = nRT becomes P = (nR/V)T with constant V therefore P is essentially directly proportional to T.
But pressure decreases exponentially with altitude while temperature decreases linearly. Care to explain?
And the stratosphere — pressure decreases there, but temperature increases. Care to explain?
Have these objections never occurred to you?
David,
On your citations allegedly providing definitive evidence of more CO2 causing higher temperatures, please see my final comment in a new thread posted today.
chic…”At the top of the atmosphere, the only major contributing IR-active gas left is CO2 with water vapor condensing below….”
You are claiming that heat dissipation from the surface and atmosphere is dependent on a gas making up 0.04% of the atmosphere.
Few problems.
1)The percent CO2 in the atmosphere has been a few hundredths of a percent for a long time, long before the pre Industrial era. Why has the atmosphere not heated up?
2)Why have you focused only on radiation as a means of heat dissipation? Gases will cool on their own as they rise into the atmosphere and become rarefied. There should be a steady-state equilibrium between solar heat input during the day and cooling at night by said method.
You can’t think of heat as an energy that must be maintained. It is a property of the molecules in air and changes with pressure and volume. It’s going to keep rising till its pressure is equal to the pressure of the molecules around it, and it will lose heat naturally as the molecules slow down at a higher temperature. As it rises, it will offload heat to adjacent molecules by collision.
For me, that’s a good explanation for the GHE right there.
3)Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist, claims the surface does not cool primarily by radiation. He has a conduction/convection model where heat is transported into the upper atmosphere.
He does not specify whether the radiation is by WV and CO2 or by the entire gas. However, if you expose any gases to low temperatures they will lose their heat.
Nitrogen at sea level will warm by direct contact with the surface. Then it rises. As it rises, it’s pressure reduces and that will cool the gas naturally.
Gordon, “You are claiming that heat dissipation from the surface and atmosphere is dependent on a gas making up 0.04% of the atmosphere.”
No, you misinterpret what I wrote. CO2 is the major contributing component to outgoing IR radiation in the tropopause. That doesn’t mean that outgoing IR depends only on the CO2 contribution, because H2O contributes plenty at lower elevation along with radiation directly from the surface.
1) Why should the atmosphere heat up? I never say it should and continually ask for evidence that it would due to an increase in CO2 above contemporary levels.
2) It is often said that without radiation from IR-active gases, the atmosphere has no way to cool. I may have erroneously parroted that view myself. Assuming I understand what you mean by ‘Gases will cool on their own as they rise into the atmosphere and become rarefied,” how is heat conducted through upper layers of the atmosphere when the temperature gradients reverse sign several times? Are there any measurements of the magnitude of this mode of atmospheric cooling?
“For me, thats a good explanation for the GHE right there.”
I agree with that, but how is it in any way similar to a greenhouse?
“However, if you expose any gases to low temperatures they will lose their heat.” What is the context and where is the data for this?
“Nitrogen at sea level will warm by direct contact with the surface. Then it rises. As it rises, its pressure reduces and that will cool the gas naturally.”
And cooling naturally means collisions with IR-active gases capable of off-loading the heat energy by radiation as the probability of another collision decreases relative to the probability of emission.
Gordon Robertson says:
Few problems.
1)The percent CO2 in the atmosphere has been a few hundredths of a percent for a long time, long before the pre Industrial era. Why has the atmosphere not heated up?
Gordon, do you see the graph Roy puts up every month when he presents the latest anomalies?
You’re denying reality. In this case I’m sure you know that.
Chic Bowdrie says:
1) Why should the atmosphere heat up? I never say it should and continually ask for evidence that it would due to an increase in CO2 above contemporary levels.
It was predicted 50, 100, 120 years ago that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would cause it to warm. And that the stratosphere would cool.
Both have happened and are still happening.
That’s evidence.
And here’s evidence that CO2 and other GHGs are doing the warming:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Gordon Robertson wrote:
3)Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist, claims the surface does not cool primarily by radiation. He has a conduction/convection model where heat is transported into the upper atmosphere.
No, he does not.
And you can’t prove it. Lindzen is certainly not an idiot.
Despite all the forcing Feldman, et al. found between 2000 and 2010, by 2012 global temperature was at the same point as in 2000. Maybe the models need tweaking.
Why are you using 2012 and not 2010, the period of the research?
Because in 2010, the global temperature was up during an El Nino. In 2012 temperatures returned to same as in 2000 both at low points after El Ninos. If you are trying to say that Feldman, et alia are showing CO2 increases global temperatures, then major fail.
Chic 7:53am, consider Feldman et. al. are focused on researching the surface temperature increase over a ~decade due 1 atm. forcing out of 9+ simultaneous independent forcings.
David,
Please see my new thread posted today.
Ball4,
Huh?
chic….”The time between when a CO2 absorbs and emits is much less than a second”.
CO2 absorp-tion/emission is far more complex than that. For one, there is no way to measure the absorp-tion/emission of one electron in the atoms that make up CO2.
Here’s the diagram for CO2:
O====C====O
The dashed lines represent the electrons that bond the oxygen atoms to the carbon atom. There are 4 shared electrons between them. Any one of those electrons can absorb/emit photons and the vibration related to heat is produced by the interaction of the electrons orbiting the C and O +ve nucleii.
The inter-molecular collisions are a different problem than the electron transitions that absorb/emit photons. With collisions, the kinetic energy in each colliding molecule is transferred directly without emission/absorp-tion.
It’s a very complex problem that is seriously tough to work out at the atomic level. That’s why I prefer a macro solution involving the overall gas pressure, volume, and temperature, using the Ideal Gas Equation.
Although I do it myself, it’s actually daft to consider a single photon/electron action. It’s even dafter to speak of absorp-tion/emission by a molecule, treating it as a black box with mysterious powers of emission/absorp-tion. A molecule is actually atoms bonded together by electrons and the electrons are the only absorbers/emitters.
The relative energy state transitions for GHGs are its rotational and vibrational modes, which pertain to the three molecules involved, not electron transitions.
A molecule is actually atoms bonded together by electrons and the electrons are the only absorbers/emitters.
False. Please study quantum mechanics.
Chic,
I haven’t given much thought to thermalization of the energy absorbed by CO2. I’m sure as a warmed CO2 molecule bangs into some other molecule the energy could be transferred to it, but I also expect things could go the other way — a warmer N2 or O2 molecule could bang into the CO2, which then emits IR off to space or the ground. As for 10,000:1 transfer rates, I suppose that could be accurate at lower altitudes and less likely at higher altitudes. If the heat was thermalized into the atmosphere, I would suspect that we would easily see it in the RAOB soundings since the thermal capacity of air is so low.
NP
NP,
“Im sure as a warmed CO2 molecule bangs into some other molecule the energy could be transferred to it, but I also expect things could go the other way a warmer N2 or O2 molecule could bang into the CO2, which then emits IR off to space or the ground.”
Read Dan Pangburn’s description of thermalization and its implications for energy fluxes. His analysis is exactly the way I see it. Absorp-tion and thermalization occurs at low altitude. Convection/wind moves air higher up where it thins. There, reverse thermalization and emission take precedence.
I don’t know anything about RAOB soundings. Looks like a gold mine of data.
http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com/
Chic,
I took a quick look at Dan Pangburns website, and he seems to be bringing up the same point I am trying to make, namely that time is important. However, I am not sure I agree with his thermalization process on why deserts cool farther and faster than humid areas. I think cooling slows and ultimately stops in humid areas because of the latent heat of water vapor. Once relative humidity reaches 100% the air cannot cool anymore because water vapor will release an enormous amount of heat when changing phase from vapor to liquid. The latent heat released in the phase change what keeps the air warm. I live in Atlanta, GA, and travel a lot to Phoenix, AZ, so I have a lot of first-hand experience with very moist air and very dry air.
NP
NP,
At the risk of putting the wrong words in Dan’s mouth, deserts cool fast precisely because of the lack of humidity. Humidity and clouds go together to prevent radiation from the surface going directly to space. While evaporation cools during the day, water vapor emits downward IR through reverse thermalization to keep the surface cooler than otherwise during the night. It’s the climate’s built in thermostat at work.
Dan’s thesis is basically that water vapor is doing most of the work, not CO2. I’m basically agnostic on how much, if anything, CO2 contributes to any further warming. It may cause a net cooling.
“I think cooling slows and ultimately stops in humid areas because of the latent heat of water vapor.”
NP, yes. And it means the air contained more ‘heat’ to begin with, compared to the desert.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302769
gbaikie says:
I happen to favor idea that effects of greenhouse gas occur at low elevation, which is not according to the settled science of climate pseudoscience.
Does that idea predict the correct spectrum of outgoing flux at the TOA?
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
DA…”Does that idea predict the correct spectrum of outgoing flux at the TOA?”
That graph is sci-fi. Note that the flux is in milliwatts, indicating there is hardly any at all.
You have to read the fine print.
gbaikie,
CO2 molecules can be affected by photons of all energies. People get confused about excitation and various forms of resonance, and the specific wavelengths corresponding to the energies involved.
When a CO2 molecule interacts with a suitably energetic photon, if the photon is not energetic enough to cause an electron to change “shells”, the molecule may absorb part or all of the photons energy, resulting in a change of direction, speed, or both.
The net result may be what we perceive as increased temperature or pressure.
If allowed to do so, the molecules will spontaneously emit photons of steadily decreasing energies, resulting in decreasing temperature or pressure. All the way to absolute zero, where no molecule has any spare energy to emit.
No magic. Just physics. No GHE that creates hotter thermometers by reducing the amount of energy they receive. That is why no one can formulate a testable GHE hypothesis – the laughter would be deafening!
If anyone wants to point out where I may have misled by being too concise, please feel free. I have obviously condensed things a wee bit.
Cheers.
“If allowed to do so, the molecules will spontaneously emit photons of steadily decreasing energies, resulting in decreasing temperature or pressure. All the way to absolute zero, where no molecule has any spare energy to emit. ”
The concept of symmetry does suggest this, and is a problem with the idea.
Molecules will only emit energy in the frequencies determined by transitions of energy levels, and then only if it is in an excited state.
“only emit energy in the frequencies determined by transitions of energy levels”
Not according to ideal Planck curve David, object molecules emit radiant energy at all frequencies at all temperatures all the time.
To show otherwise from any specific object, find any object T and any light frequency to plug into ideal Planck formula and compute zero irradiance on another object from that specific object.
You won’t be able to do so.
Ball4,
David is not terribly bright. He is not alone, and many people believe as he does.
You are correct – it appears that we agree on something, at least.
Cheers.
“the molecule may absorb part…of the photon’s energy”
Mike will want to study quantum mechanics a little deeper to understand why they call the field “quantum”.
Ball4,
You refuse to say what you disagree with, as usual. I assume that is because you know you will be shown to be stupid and ignorant.
Give it a try, if you wish. Quote my words, and tell me what part of quantum mechanics I dont understand, but you do, and why.
Cheers.
I obviously did quote Flynn’s words. It is also obvious to the critical, informed reader (not Flynn) that Flynn’s statement about a molecule absorbing only “part” of a photon’s energy means a full quantum of the photon’s energy was not absorbed by Flynn’s molecule. Per Flynn’s quoted statement therefore the field of study should not be named quantum mechanics. Since it is thus named, Flynn needs deeper study of quantum mechanics.
Ball4 says:
only emit energy in the frequencies determined by transitions of energy levels
Not according to ideal Planck curve David, object molecules emit radiant energy at all frequencies at all temperatures all the time.
A molecule isn’t a blackbody. The Planck curve is for BBs.
“A molecule isn’t a blackbody.”
Right but you didn’t write “A molecule” at first David, you wrote “molecules”. An ideal BB or real object would be composed of “molecules” which is the term you used. The real object also has to have a diameter much larger than the wavelength of light of interest to apply Planck formula which is never zero, which is my point.
Ball4,
If you can actually bring yourself to quote me directly, you will find you are talking nonsense.
If you are castigating me for characterising a photon being partially absorbed by an electron, I apologise. I have abbreviated the procedure into one action, rather than an electron absorbing a photon, and subsequently emitting a photon.
However, you may choose to answer the following basic problem to see if you know as much as you think (taken from a university physics course) –
“Show that a photon cannot transfer all of its energy to [an] electron. (Hint: Energy and momentum must be conserved.)”
As a matter of interest, the fact that a cooling object, by itself, emits photons of progressively longer wavelengths, and hence lesser energy per photon, should assure you that an electron which absorbs a photon of a particular energy, does not necessarily emit a photon of the same energy.
Others may have already noticed that some sources (including Wikipedia) either omit critical information, or in some cases, state incorrect factual information.
Off you go then, Ball4, tell me precisely what you are complaining about.
Cheers.
ball4….”Not according to ideal Planck curve David, object molecules emit radiant energy at all frequencies at all temperatures all the time”.
The Planck curve is a statistically-doctored curve of radiation from a blackbody in thermal equilibrium at a temperature T. It is aimed at overcoming the UV catastrophe predicted by Rayleigh-Jeans. The radiation from all atoms/molecules is governed by E = hf and as frequency increases the energy should increase without bounds. Planck reasoned it can’t because higher energy levels (and lower) won’t be as available as those in the mid-range of a spectrum at temperature T.
Planck’s curve shows the EM distribution at a specific temperature and the temperature is proportional to the frequency, as is the intensity. That means a spectrum at a temperature in the IR band will be lower and narrower than a spectrum with visible frequencies as a centre-point.
Although you could claim that EM from a very hot body (3000C) radiates a broad spectrum of frequencies, that is not true for radiation at terrestrial temperatures.
Molecules do not radiate at all frequencies they exist at very specific narrow ranges of temperatures. Molecules at temperatures that radiate IR at terrestrial temperatures do not radiate UV frequencies, although they can absorb the much higher intensity UV. On the other hand, high temperature sources with molecules radiating UV do not radiate significant IR. And, they won’t absorb IR.
That’s why heat cannot be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body. The transfer is one way, from hot to cold.
ball4…”The real object also has to have a diameter much larger than the wavelength of light of interest to apply Planck formula which is never zero, which is my point”.
Don’t forget that Planck applies to theoretical blackbodies and that the Earth’s surface can in no way be regarded as a blackbody. Neither can the Earth’s surface be regarded as a constant temperature source.
I think it is foolish to apply Planck or Stefan-Boltzmann to the Earth’s surface or atmosphere.
The surface poses a complex target to solar energy. Not all atoms/molecules in the surface heat evenly when exposed to solar energy.
“The Planck curve is a statistically-doctored curve of radiation from a blackbody in thermal equilibrium at a temperature T.”
statistically-doctored? Only in Gordon speak.
Planck radiation law was developed experimentally Gordon, before the theory so is not from a BB in thermal equilibrium as BB’s do not exist to experiment upon. The experiments were on radiation from a physical cavity at various temperatures dry ice to superheated steam. The cavity emitted what is known as BB radiation which therefore does exist.
EMR from a very hot body (3000C) radiates a broad spectrum of frequencies; this is also true for radiation at terrestrial temperatures – plug in T=288K or lower and at any frequency to Planck law, find a non-zero irradiance on your instrumentation from the real body at that temperature and frequency.
Molecular radiation is in the realm of micro quantum mechanics, Planck formula is macro radiation in equilibrium with matter composed of those molecules.
“That’s why heat cannot be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body. The transfer is one way, from hot to cold.”
Maxwell and Boltzmann proved Gordon wrong about that by building on Clausius’ earlier work. These guys showed how Gordon’s heat can be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body without compensation.
“If you are castigating me for characterising a photon being partially absorbed by an electron, I apologise.”
Thank you. Actually atomic and molecular structure makes the photon absorbing process possible.
np…”I have a question about how CO2 keeps the earth warmer. I would especially appreciate it if someone like Dr. Spencer or Dr. Appell could address it”.
Come off it norman, or is that a David Appell family member writing in?
Dr. Appell????? Doesn’t he have an undergraduate degree in Home Economics?
Gordon Robertson
No the person posting as NP-Hard is not me. It is just more to the point you make up stuff and think it is real.
You do it with references to scientists you admire, you do it with physics. You just like to make things up. I guess it is your hobby.
Maybe you are proud of your creative ability to make up stuff. I think is is very poorly made up stuff and illogical as well. I think it would be the same a complimenting an adult artist when he makes the same kind of stick figures a young child might draw. To the child you want to encourage them. With the adult you tell them that their work is very poor. Your science is lame. Mostly bad.
norman…”You do it with references to scientists you admire…”
You expect me to reference scientists with whom I don’t agree, ergo alarmists climatologists?
Gordon Robertson
No, I expect you to represent what they are saying correctly. You do not do this. You distort and manipulate what they claim and twist it to fit your own incorrect and misguided view of reality.
I saw in a previous thread where you made up claims about what Clausius was saying. barry was posting direct quotes and links and you said Clausius was talking about (r*e*f*r*i*g*e*r*a*t*i*o*n) and he was not. You just made it up and tried to pass it off as true. I start to distrust anything you post about anyone because you are a fanatic. As bad or worse than the “alarmists” you oppose.
Fanatics should not pretend they are scientists. It is an opposing mind state. Scientists are truth seekers regardless of what that “truth” is.
Fanatics for climate change (twisting and distorting reality to support a position) are wrong and fanatics against climate change (like you) are equally wrong. Neither are scientific and it is unwise to trust anything they claim.
“You expect me to reference scientists with whom I dont agree, ergo alarmists climatologists?”
Fascinating how you see your self as the perfect arbiter of scientists! Anyone with whom you disagree is *by* *definition* an alarmist and wrong.
You expect me to reference scientists with whom I dont agree, ergo alarmists climatologists?
You should at a minimum read them.
But be careful, or you might learn something.
norman…”No, I expect you to represent what they are saying correctly”.
Why should I when alarmist scientists make up physics as you claim me of doing?
tim…”Fascinating how you see your self as the perfect arbiter of scientists! Anyone with whom you disagree is *by* *definition* an alarmist and wrong”.
I don’t make my stuff up as norman claims. I get it from the original, undoctored sources like Clausius, Planck, Bohr, Schrodinger, etc.
When alarmists disagree with those sources, and get their fudged theories wrong, I call their science wrong.
How can I talk you into coming back to real science and abandoning this sci-fi being put out by alarmist scientists? You seem like a good type, Tim. Even Norman seems alright but he also seems beyond redemption.
DA…”You should at a minimum read them”.
I have. I read through most of a book by Pierrehumbert. I’d like to get some of that stuff he’s smoking.
I have read Gavin Schmidt and I have posted an article by engineer Jeffrey Glassman that undresses him based on his theories, especially in feedback theory. I have read Trenberth carefully re his energy budget with Keile. I have also read widely on the IPCC dogma.
Here’s that link again to Glassman doing a job on Schmidt.
http://rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/11/gavin_schmidt_on_the_acquittal.html
Here’s Motl doing the same to Rahmstorf, one of your favourites and a mentor of Schmidt.
https://motls.blogspot.ca/2008/03/lindzen-vs-rahmstorf-exchange.html
The science of Schmidt and Rahmstorf is basically flawed.
“I don’t make my stuff up as norman claims. I get it from the original, undoctored sources like Clausius, Planck, Bohr, Schrodinger, etc.”
There is no evidence of that Gordon. You doctor (fracture actually) their words and substitute your own faulty wording.
No, I’m not impersonating anyone. Dr. Spencer has my real email address when I post, so he could confirm I’m not impersonating anyone.
I thought David Appell has a PhD in physics. Is this not true?
TL
NP…”I thought David Appell has a PhD in physics. Is this not true?”
I was kidding by claiming you are Norman. There are a few posters here who sporadically post under different nyms.
There are rumours that DA has a PhD but after debating him extensively I claim his degree is in Home Economics. If that does not translate to your milieu, Home Economics in Canada is a study of cooking and home management.
It strikes me as odd that David has a PhD in physics and work as a self-employed journalist. The head of skepticalscience claimed at one time to have a degree in solar physics but has since admitted he has an undergrad degree and works as a cartoonist.
Roy definitely has a degree in meteorology and deserves his title. I call him Roy but not out of a lack of respect. I am not comfortable with titles. I call my physician doctor only because he has my life in his hands.
If I had a doctorate I would respond well to, “Hey you”. Of course, if someone calls me an idiot I insist on them addressing me as Mr. Idiot.
NP-Hard says:
If CO2 traps energy, then it only trapped it for a few seconds, and then the earth is in exactly the same energy and temperature state if there were no CO2 at all.
Where is any of this wrong?
Well, it’s not the same photon ‘bouncing’ around, that gets trapped in the atmosphere for a few seconds. Photons are destroyed when they are absorbed by an atom or molecule, and a new one is created when that atom or molecule emits a photon.
Thus more CO2 in the atmosphere means more downward radiation (“back radiation”). Radiation carries energy, so more energy is striking the surface. So the surface warms. That energy can be “thermalized,” transferred to the air by conduction or convection, making it warmer, and also by radiation, which warms you when it strikes you or, building on the process, is again absorbed and re-emitted, or escapes to space. The end result is there is extra heat in the surface and lower atmosphere, i.e. they’re warmer.
DA…”Photons are destroyed when they are absorbed by an atom or molecule, and a new one is created when that atom or molecule emits a photon”.
If the energy quantum was destroyed at absorp-tion the absorbing electron would lack the energy to jump to a higher orbital as required. The EM is converted to kinetic energy by the electron, which is realized as increased heat at the higher energy level.
**********
“Radiation carries energy, so more energy is striking the surface. So the surface warms…”
So alarmist claim but they have forgotten the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Heat cannot be transferred from a cooler atmosphere, or even one in thermal equilibrium with the surface. That’s a basic law of thermodynamics that is being blatantly misrepresented by alarmists.
Some are claiming that a net balance of electromagnetic energy satisfies the 2nd law, which is not true. The 2nd law is about heat and EM is not heat. EM fluxes cannot be summed and claimed to represent a transfer of heat.
I agree with Dr. Spencer: “But the more I think about it, the more I realize that greenhouse effect is a pretty accurate term.”
It’s a metaphor for RADIATIVE heat transfer, so the confounding, obscuring influences of conduction and convection need to be removed……… imagine the greenhouse is on the MOON!
What would happen to the moon’s surface temperature if it were surrounded by a pane of glass?
snape…”What would happen to the moons surface temperature if it were surrounded by a pane of glass?”
Probably nothing. There is no atmosphere to warm by conduction from the surface.
Also, it wouldn’t last long, there is no atmosphere to burn up meteorites and it would be bombarded by them.
With all due respect, “probably nothing” is the wrong answer. You imagine that I can’t do the basic calculations, but when I do (and it is a trivial calculation), you can’t even understand the physics.
Conduction has nothing to do with this example! Lack of air actually makes it much SIMPLER! Until you know where the 2^(1/4) comes from, you really are not up to speed enough to add an opinion.
tim…”Conduction has nothing to do with this example! Lack of air actually makes it much SIMPLER!”
Agreed, and there is nothing to heat but the surface. Explain how that heats anything within the glass cover when temps outside the cover are close to 0K. There is nothing inside the glass to heat.
I would guess that the glass would transfer the cold to it’s inner surface and that the glass would likely warm from the solar energy. Nothing would happen between the glass and the Moon’s surface. That is, no greenhouse effect, as you call it.
Well stated. I especially like the reference to putting it on the moon.
Thanks.
I think a “moon greenhouse” would also demonstrate something Tim Folkerts has been saying. If the greenhouse were 10 meters high, then the elevation where ASR equals OLR would now be 10 meters above the surface.
snape…”If the greenhouse were 10 meters high, then the elevation where ASR equals OLR would now be 10 meters above the surface”.
The OLR would do nothing to warm the space between the glass and the surface. OLR is not heat and it has no effect till it is absorbed by atoms.
It seems snape and tim are still confusing thermally generated IR with heat. It’s not heat, it has no warming ability of its own and it cannot heat a space on the Moon that is empty.
This is a more complex problem than it seems. When we use an electric space heater it is rated in electrical watts, the wattage of the electrical power it consumes. That tells you nothing about the IR radiated and the heat you feel from the heater is largely due to air heated directly by the heater.
Once again, R.W.Wood was an authority on IR and here’s what he had to say:
“THERE appears to be a widespread belief that the comparatively high temperature produced within a closed space covered with glass, and exposed to solar radiation, results from a transformation of wave-length, that is, that the heat waves from the sun, which are able to penetrate the glass, fall upon the walls of the enclosure and raise its temperature: the heat energy is re-emitted by the walls in the form of much longer waves, which are unable to penetrate the glass, the greenhouse acting as a radiation trap.
I have always felt some doubt as to whether this action played any very large part in the elevation of temperature. It appeared much more probable that the part played by the glass was the prevention of the escape of the warm air heated by the ground within the enclosure. If we open the doors of a greenhouse on a cold and windy day, the trapping of radiation appears to lose much of its efficacy. As a matter of fact I am of the opinion that a greenhouse made of a glass transparent to waves of every possible length would show a temperature nearly, if not quite, as high as that observed in a glass house. The transparent screen allows the solar radiation to warm the ground, and the ground in turn warms the air, but only the limited amount within the enclosure. In the “open,” the ground is continually brought into contact with cold air by convection currents”.
**************
A problem I have had is thinking the IR in question is part of the solar spectrum, but it’s not. The IR spectrum related to a thermal source is off the end of that spectrum and cannot be considered as light.
Why would Wood doubt that the IR radiated by the surfaces in a real greenhouse could warm the interior of the greenhouse if it is blocked by the glass? The guy was an authority on IR and he performed an experiment to prove it is air molecules being trapped that causes the heating and not the IR.
The moon’s surface temperature would go up on the order of ~ 2^0.25 = ~ 20%. (Details would of course depend on factors like rotation rate, thermal conductivity & heat capacity of the surface, the exact properties of the glass, etc).
tim…”The moons surface temperature would go up on the order of ~ 2^0.25 = ~ 20%”.
I was under the impression snape was creating a greenhouse effect on the Moon by covering it with a glass roof. What does the surface temperature have to do with it? I thought we were talking about the space between the surface and the glass in which we might try growing plants, or whatever.
Of course, if you build a glass house on the Moon the surface under it should warm provided the glass blocks thermally-generated IR. If you hang a thermometer on the wall of the glass house and shield it from IR, as we do with thermometers and solar radiation, what would the thermometer read?
However, the temperature of the glass should be around 0K and the IR would be absorbed by it. The surface itself would be well in excess of 100C and I don’t think the glass house would make much of a difference at all.
I am still not sold on the theory that glass blocks thermally generated IR. Microwaves, which are a lower frequency than TGIR, go straight through glass, plastic, or whatever. Maybe they are somewhat dissipated, but not blocked.
Maybe someone could take a radio into a greenhouse, close the door, and see if they get reception through the glass.
snape…”Its a metaphor for RADIATIVE heat transfer….”
The GHE is a metaphor and heat can be transferred only one way in our atmosphere, from hot to cold.
Gordon Robertson says:
The GHE is a metaphor and heat can be transferred only one way in our atmosphere, from hot to cold.
You simply refuse to learn. Silly boy.
@Myki, strange, just called up the BOM web site:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=122&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=1944&p_c=-16300449&p_stn_num=009021
Perth airport, 1944, the first year of records here, Dec 2n 1944 = 38.7C
October and November have temps higher than you report.
I wonder what station your are referring to?
The seasons are upside down.
Indeed they are but the highest temp is the highest temp…..
The problem is that Myki forgot to provide a link to the article.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-12/soaring-autumn-temperatures-set-new-record-in-perth/9754952
This is about Perth temps in AUTUMN and in MAY.
Myki:
I will put it down to naïvity and perhaps youthful idealism when you write:
“Hello! Any denialstis still out there? ”
Perhaps you should detail what these denialists are denying; it would be interesting otherwise you are leading with your chin.
I live in Perth now and it was a most glorious day that you describe. In fact most of Autumn is fantastic.
The Perth W.A. temp you mention is one particular site. It has been going since late 1993. So you don’t have a like for like comparison over a long period (including methodology changes). Now, had you picked the Perth airport (which is a major station) it hit 33.1C. It could not manage to beat the the 1972 max of 33.7C. Does that mean temperatures have dropped since then?
Now can you guarantee me that these are all like for like comparisons? Take UHI – is it accounted for? How? What about the newest trick of BOM’s modern instrumental records measuring to one or two seconds. Have they accounted for the difference in this measure? Show me the homework. You will find it went the way of Phils Jones’ data; the dog ate his homework. Just look at the time of your recording 1.04pm. Do you really believe past data were measured minute by minute and to a one second max readings?
Now had you told me that central Africa set a record in summer I may have noticed and I did notice. Then I found out there are no measuring stations there. Amazing this newfound methodology; the temperature you have when you don’t have a temperature. Clayton’s temperatures.
Perhaps had you told me that birds were dropping out of the sky in Perth it may have meant something. Sharks frozen alive on the US East coast waters was news-worthy some time back. I’d never heard of such a phenomenon. No, I did not interpret it as globull cooling!
You might also comment on T difference between Perth and Swanbourne stations at times of 7C to 11C for most of the day and into the night in summer. They are 8km apart!! I know why it can happen. So much for infilling, projections and homogenization nonsense.
Perhaps you might comment on:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/05/veteran-meteorologist-talks-of-culture-of-intimidation-skeptics-hide-at-national-weather-service-noaa/
Read all of it at CFACT — the meteorologist also describes problems with climate models, says the NWS and NOAA is a “well oiled propaganda machine.” He referred to a study that took ocean buoy data and recalibrated it with measurements taken in ship engine intakes, even though everyone knew that the ocean bouys were more accurate.”
To me this is further justification for Prof Lindzen calling for a complete defunding of this whole field which has become a religion. Then start again.
CFACT
http://www.cfact.org/2018/05/02/meteorologist-allegedly-assaulted-by-nws-director-uccellini/
BOM on their measurements:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/about-airtemp-data.shtml
(We can quibble about the calculations of surface temperature with and without greenhouse gases because they make unrealistic assumptions about clouds and water vapor.
Exactly. The no GHG case is unrealistic because clouds is not removed, and they is an important part of the albedo.
A climate model calculation that undertook the reverse process — removing all GHGs from the current environment (as of 2010), found that temperatures would drop about 33 K before reestablishing equilibrium:
Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earths Temperature, Lacis et al, Science (15 October 2010) Vol. 330 no. 6002 pp. 356-359
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html
A climate model calculation. How wrong could it be?
Chic Bowdrie says:
A climate model calculation. How wrong could it be?
So what’s wrong with it?
You’re just trying to claim it’s wrong without doing any of the scientific analysis to show what’s wrong.
The models have not be shown to be correct by anyone. Can you demonstrate their validity? Will you pay me to try to fix them?
What do you mean by “correct?”
DA,
What do you care?
Cheers.
DA…”So whats wrong with it?”
The models are unvalidated, hence expensive toys.
DA,
Yet another modelling exercise. No connection to reality. Just about as silly as claiming that removing CO2 from air will cause a temperature drop.
The paper to which you refer might not be the worst pseudoscientific paper ever published, but it is certainly hard to find one with more bizarre and incorrect assertions.
Nonsensical, but obviously still appeals to the gullible and mentally challenged Warmist true believers.
Still having trouble accepting reality and the scientific method? A testable GHE hypothesis would help to sort the real from the imaginary. It is a pity you cannot produce such a basic necessity.
Oh well, that’s the Warmist way, I suppose.
Cheers.
Dr Spencer,
“We can quibble about the calculations of surface temperature with and without greenhouse gases because they make unrealistic assumptions about clouds and water vapor.”
This is a little unclear to me. No GHGs would mean no water vapour and no clouds. What are the unrealistic assumptions?
barry…”No GHGs would mean no water vapour and no clouds”.
Clouds are not GHGs since they are not gases. They are modeled as bodies of water.
No, they are not modeled as bodies of water. See, for example
“Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 3.0),” NCAR Technical Note NCAR/TN464+STR, June 2004.
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/description.pdf
Clouds need water vapour to form. Water vapour is a GHG.
No GHGs, no water vapour, no clouds.
So I wonder what Dr Spencer meas by the comment I quoted.
barry,
Water vapour is H2O. It cannot, and does not, make thermometers hotter.
You are deluded if you believe it can.
You cannot even define the GHE, let alone find a testable GHE hypothesis, can you?
All you have is delusional fanaticism, based on gullibility and simple mindedness.
I wish you the best of luck. You’ll need it.
Cheers.
Here’s a graph NOAA must have forgotten to delete. It shows a nice flat trend from around 2000 – 2015, and it even shows a negative trend just before 2015.
The anomalies are relative to the 1901 – 2000 average.
NOTE…IT IS NECESSARY TO ALTER THE URL FIRST BY REMOVING THE HYPHEN IN NCD-C. That is, copy/paste URL to browser URL bar, remove hyphen, and hit enter.
https://www.ncd-c.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201101-201112.png
Note the date…2011…before the IPCC announced the warming hiatus and before NOAA began fudging the data retroactively.
Also note the steep positive trend in the positive anomaly region from 1975 onward till around 2000. That’s for binny and his fake graphs that compare NOAA favourably to UAH. UAH shows no such positive trend in the positive anomaly region from 1979 onward.
How many things can you get wrong in a single post?
It shows a nice flat trend from around 2000 2015, and it even shows a negative trend just before 2015
How can the graph go up to 2015 when, as you note yourself, the date is 2011?
The graph goes up to 2011.
There is no trend line at all. The line you see is a smooth based on averaging a fixed number of years either side of each year.
The profile of the smooth is flat or negative from 2004 to 2011 – not from 2000. The smooth is still rising in 2000.
The smooth starts rising in later graphs because the temperatures go up in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
This happens in all the surface records, including the Japanese version of the global surface record, and other, informal records not based on GHCN.
This profile is also seen in the RSS graph.
The 13 month smooth in Dr Spencer’s graph above likewise has temps warmer in the last couple of years than in 2000 (or 2004).
You think they’re all involved in a data fudging conspiracy trying to make temps look warmer in the last few years?
barry…”The graph goes up to 2011.
There is no trend line at all. The line you see is a smooth based on averaging a fixed number of years either side of each year”.
My mistake, I thought it was dated 2011 because of the numbers at the end of the URL. It obviously goes to 2015.
Barry, old son, you need to get off your myopic definition of a trend line. A regression is only one type of trend, I could draw a trend freehand through dots by eyeballing it and calculating the slope.
I am more interested in the average than the fluctuations. On the UAH graph I always reference the red running average, that’s where I eyeball the trend.
Trend means tendency. The average on the NOAA graph is relatively flat and tending toward a negative slope near 2015.
Of course, due to NOAA’s fudged data from 1970 onward they are showing a significant positive trend their satellites are not showing.
It obviously goes to 2015
No, it goes to 2011 only. It’s in the URL, and you can see it in the graph itself just by looking carefully.
You appear to have no idea what a trend line is, and what it is for.
I could scrawl a wavy line through data by hand. This is not a trend line.
I could draw a straight line between any two of the hundreds of monthly points on the UAH graph. This would not be a trend line either.
If you think otherwise, you have absolutely no business discussing trends at all.
A trend is a mathematically derived line (straight or curved) that provides a fit to the data given.
It is not arbitrary in any way.
The purpose is to see if there may be a pattern in the data.
Or if the data is essentially random.
The UAH data at short intervals is essentially random.
At the longest interval, it has a statistically significant trend – a linear one.
It has no other kind of statistically significant pattern or trend – like, for example, a quadratic or sine wave.
You seem to believe trend lines are arbitrary.
If so, I cannot caution you more strongly on how incredibly ignorant that is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trend_line
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-trend-line-in-math-definition-equation-analysis.html
http://techweb.bsu.edu/jcflowers1/rlo/trends.htm (To see different types of trend lines)
A true trend line has a mathematically derived trend value. Smooths do not. But you can use the averaged points on a smooth to derive a trend line.
On the UAH graph I always reference the red running average, thats where I eyeball the trend.
The UAH red running average is hotter for the past couple of years than it was in 2000 – which is the year you mentioned above.
Of course, due to NOAAs fudged data from 1970 onward they are showing a significant positive trend their satellites are not showing.
The UAH trend from 1979 to present is 0.13 C/decade
The NOAA trend from 1979 to present is 0.165 C/decade
Are you really excited by a difference of less than 4 hundredths of a degree per decade?
What happens when you come across a significant discrepancy instead of this bee’s dick?
Many celebrating Mothers Day across the United States will have to contend with record-challenging heat or unsettled weather on Sunday.
“Record-challenging!”
Go team alarmist!
Put another nail in their coffin!
M,
What are you on about? Climate is the average of weather – historical weather at that!
Can you have record “unsettled weather”?
What is significant about “record challenging” heat?
The physical laws of the universe, (whatever they might be), don’t care about teams, one way or the other.
Your pious exhortations might give you satisfaction, but are unlikely to change the outcome of a single physical process. No harm done, I suppose, but you would be wasting your time asking me to donate to your cause. What is your cause, by the way? Can you explain a little? It might help potential adherents to make up their minds.
Cheers.
“What is your cause, by the way? Can you explain a little?”
The cause is enhanced greenhouse gases – or EGG – in the atmosphere.
If not, then what else?
Simple enough for you?
M,
What is an enhanced greenhouse gas? Different from non-enhanced greenhouse gas?
Can you make thermometers even hotter with enhanced greenhouse gases?
You are joking, I suppose – I do hope you are not expecting anyone to take you seriously. That might be a serious error.
Cheers.
If not, then what else?
M,
Ooooh! Cryptic!
That’ll convince ’em, do you think?
Cheers.
myki…”Many celebrating Mothers Day across the United States will have to contend with record-challenging heat or unsettled weather on Sunday”.
Where were you a couple of months ago when the same mothers were contending with record cold?
You don’t seriously think that CO2 at 0.04% could cause such swings in weather, do you?
The Sun might, but alarmists have no interest in the prime driver of our climate. The Arctic climate is controlled by the Sun but alarmists think it’s CO2 at 0.04%.
I wish a bunch of them would have a conference out there on the Arctic ice and see what a polar bear thinks.
Snape,
To make the pond analogy similar to NP-Hard’s garage analogy, you have to have outflow proportional to pond level and intermittent inflow like the solar insolation. So with an average “daily dose” of inflow, the average pond level won’t change unless the outflow is constrained.
Let solar insolation and clouds control inflow and IR radiation from the surface and/or the TOA moderate outflow. Without clouds to minimize the inflow or IR-active gases to constrain the outflow, the pond will reach extreme levels when the input faucet is on, but drain to low levels when off. Add the IR gases and clouds, now you have manageable pond levels.
Will a small change in outflow restriction change the average level? Probably. But what if the outflow restriction fed back a throttling of the inflow?
As far as CO2 goes, there is no verification that it is affecting the outflow. If you know of definitive evidence (ie no model data) to the contrary, please let me know.
Chic
I understand what you’re asking and it’s a good question. Over my head, unfortunately. Several recent posts dealt with CO2 feedbacks, the main one being water vapor, but it gets pretty confusing. Here’s an example:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/02/warming-to-2100-a-lukewarmer-scenario/
(BTW, the garage analogy was mine too)
Here’s another one, good luck:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/03/lord-monckton-responds/
David Appell wrote –
“Work might produce heat, or it might not.”
I’m wondering if anyone can provide an instance where doing work does not produce heat. I can’t think of such an instance, but maybe I am overlooking the blindingly obvious!
Aren’t there always losses converting energy from one form to another?
What am I missing? Not arguing, just wondering.
Cheers.
Lifting a dumbbell off the ground.
Then dropping him on his head.
M,
Trying to lift yourself by your bootstraps up so you can drop yourself on your head won’t work.
That’s about as stupid as thinking that you can make a thermometer hotter by increasing the amount of CO2 between it and the Sun!
What a stupid and ignorant fellow!
Cheers.
I was wrong. My example generated a heated response from you as a by-product.
M,
You wrote –
“I was wrong.”
You were right!
Cheers.
mike…”Im wondering if anyone can provide an instance where doing work does not produce heat. I cant think of such an instance, but maybe I am overlooking the blindingly obvious!”
That’s a tough one technically.
1st law: Q = U + W as applied to a solid.
no work, Q = U
but wait, U = internal energy as defined by Clausius and he claimed U involves both heat and work in atomic vibrations. Therefore W in the 1st law seems to be external work. Then again, in order to change the work done via vibration, hence the temperature, you’d have to add heat externally or do work externally.
How about no heat: W = U
again, makes no sense as explained above.
Seems you cannot get away from the heat-work relationship, unless you specify only external heat or work.
In the experiment of Joule, he installed a small rotating paddle in water and noted the water temperature rose. He calculated the work done by the paddle per unit time and measured the temperature rise during the same period. That’s how he equated work to temperature.
Suppose you slowed the paddle down to the point where no temperature rise was noted, if that’s possible. Over an extended period you’d do the same work but would the temperature rise if the period was long enough?
Don’t know.
Gordon Robertson says:
May 12, 2018 at 5:48 PM
As usual, Robertson shows us how inexperienced and ignorant he is.
Let us recall the comparison between UAH6.0 and NOAA Globe land+ocean
– of course with all UAH and NOAA anomalies referencing the same baseline, here the mean of 1981-2010;
– with 36 month running means.
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1525532428941.jpg
Everybody able AND willing to use a spreadsheet tool can generate such a graph out of the following data sources:
1. UAH 6.0 (column 3 in the table)
https://tinyurl.com/y997zl7w
2. NOAA Globe land+ocean (column 3 in the table)
https://tinyurl.com/yakjhzon
Robertson can tell us about faking as long as he wants. That’s nothing else than one of his many lies.
He is certainly able BUT NOT WILLING to do the simple job I did.
Because doing the job would force him to face reality, and to accept that the graph above is NOT faked.
And ABOVE ALL he would no longer be able to claim that NOAA is publishing ‘fudged’ data.
He would then lose his favorite toy and major goal: to denigrate the work of others, and by the way to discredit them.
*
How is it possible for people to be dumb, ignorant and incompetent enough to compare
– temperature anomalies wrt e.g. 1901-2000 or 1951-1980
with
– temperature anomalies wrt e.g. 1981-2010 ?
*
Anyway, if you generate in Excel a graph for 1880-2011 similar to
https://tinyurl.com/j2xu9ml
you will see few differences when referencing NOAA’s actual Globe data linked above wrt their old baseline (1901-2000):
– the lowest actual anomaly is -0.44 C (compared to about -0.41 in the old graph);
– the highest actual anomaly is +0.70 C (compared to about +0.63 C in the old graph).
The differences are nearly as small as is the 2 sigma interval.
My life companion J.-P. would say: beaucoup de bruit pour rien!
LaP,
What is your point?
Do you really believe that arguing about whose interpretation of the past is better, achieves anything of value?
What has happened has happened – regardless of whether anybody agrees or not!
No amount of brightly coloured graphs will allow you to peer into the future. Not even the esoteric charts of the astrologers are capable of this.
As Kung Fu Panda might have said “The past is history, the future’s a mystery. All we have is now, and it’s a gift. That is why it is called the present.”
How you choose to waste your time is your affair. As is mine, similarly.
Cheers.
In wasting your time you are a genius indeed.
i second that!
LaP,
Thank you for your praise. I make no claim to genius, but I will defer to your self proclaimed expertise in this area.
Cheers.
For the sake of completeness: here is a faked graph
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526209639966.jpg
to be compared with
https://tinyurl.com/j2xu9ml
and showing, for the period 1880-2011 and wrt the mean of 1901-2000, NOAA’s 2018 land+ocean fudged annual data found in
https://tinyurl.com/ybea7zzl
I even took care of scaling the graph’s picture to exactly the same size as that of the old NOAA original :-))
LaP,
Graphs, faked graphs, and yet more irrelevant and pointless graphs.
A pseudoscientific barrage of deny, divert and confuse!
No testable GHE hypothesis – not even a brightly coloured fake one?
You’ll have to do a lot better keep up the spirits of the faithful, I think.
Cheers.
A pseudoscientific barrage of deny, divert and confuse.
That is exactly what you are one of the worldwide greatest specialists of.
LaP,
Thank you for your praise.
I take note of what you say, as it is obviously based on your wide and deep experience of the subject matter.
It cheers me immensely to think that someone credits me with being the greatest worldwide specialist – even someone as stupid and ignorant as yourself, who cannot even produce a testable GHE hypothesis.
Once again, many thanks for your approbation.
Cheers.
binny…”As usual, Robertson shows us how inexperienced and ignorant he is.
Let us recall the comparison between UAH6.0 and NOAA Globe land+ocean”
You don’t get it, do you?
I am questioning your ability to produce an accurate rendition of the UAH/NOAA data. They have produced their own renditions and they don’t match yours or even come close, therefore I’m inexperienced and ignorant for being the messenger.
Gordon Robertson says:
May 14, 2018 at 1:30 PM
I am questioning your ability to produce an accurate rendition of the UAH/NOAA data.
No you aren’t.
The only way for you to do that would be to download the two datasets, to enter them in Excel or in a similar tool and to produce the graphs as I did.
But for that you are not courageous enough, Robertson.
You would namely see that what you output is the same stuff as what I do.
I repeat: your primary goal here is to lie, to denigrate, to discredit. That’s all you are able to do.
I am really amused when reading stuff like ‘Heat can be transferred only one way in our atmosphere, from hot to cold’.
Simply because when you manage to process UAH’s climatology stored in
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltmonacg_6.0
you can then reconstruct absolute UAH temperatures by adding the corresponding monthly climatology value for any of the 9504 grid cells in each month from december 1978 in
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltmonamg.1978_6.0
till e.g. december 2017 in
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltmonamg.2017_6.0
Moreover, by computing the offset of the cell within the grid encompassing a GHCN station, you can generate an absolute UAH time series for the cell which you may then compare with that of the station, e.g. Verhoyansk in Siberia.
The graph looks like this:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526176506394.jpg
The troposphere there is warmer than the surface.
An amazing, funny detail…
B,
Nothing wrong with laughter.
But what is your point? Are you claiming that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter, or something to that effect?
As a result of your calculations, are you any closer to formulating a testable GHE hypothesis?
You can calculate the relationships of the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and relate them to the British Neolithic Ley lines, to achieve equally amazing and funny details, similar to yours.
All good for a laugh. Calculate on!
Cheers.
But what is your point?
J.-P.’s point simply is to animate you in writing one more of your pointless replies :-))
LaP,
I am pleased to be able to bring some enjoyment to your otherwise aimless lives. I understand that inability to find the testable GHE hypothesis that you so desire, makes you want to lash out in all directions.
Feel free to seek my advice on any matter you cannot understand. I am always glad to help those less fortunate than myself.
You dont need to thank me – it’s my pleasure.
Cheers
“A MYSTERIOUS void has been discovered in the Great Pyramid. Scientists hope it will unlock the ancient wonders secrets.”
and in news to hand:
“A MYSTERIOUS void has been discovered in the brain of Flynn. Scientists hope it will unlock the ancient man’s ignorance.”
M,
From National Geographic 6 May 2018 –
“Its Official: Tuts Tomb Has No Hidden Chambers After All”
In regard to fact, you are wrong as usual
With regard to fantasy, who cares? Your mind reading skills are non-existent.
Cheers.
binny…”I am really amused when reading stuff like Heat can be transferred only one way in our atmosphere, from hot to cold”.
If I said hot to cold, it was a type due to brain-lock. Everyone is allowed a typo, if I see one I make a note of it in my comment rather than try to ridicule the poster.
However, it’s really hilarious that you don’t understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
No matter how many times you resort to your fudged graphs, it does not affect the simple fact that heat cannot be transferred from cold to hot under conditions that exist in the atmosphere.
I don’t see why you have so much trouble with that.
May 17 will be an increase in volcanic activity.
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00964/7tqh18zpync9.png
You seem to have forgotten the most important point of a greenhouse. The glass is a radiative barrier, it limits heat transfer in the relevant wavelengths to only conduction, in contrast to the atmosphere where you have conduction, convection and radiation.
An atmosphere is nothing like a greenhouse, an atmosphere is free flowing non-resistance enhanced fluid cooling of a heat source.
Adding a heat absorbing cold fluid to a heat source is how you create cooling. Used in any combustion engine or AC.
Simple stuff, you should know this.
Atmosphere moderates heat flows.
That’s why it is cooler on the dayside surface of the earth than the dayside surface of the mon, and warmer on the night side surface of the Earth than the nightside surface of the moon.
If the atmosphere only acted to cool the surface, nights on Earth should be colder than nights on the moon.
barry,
You wrote –
“Thats why it is cooler on the dayside surface of the earth than the dayside surface of the mon, and warmer on the night side surface of the Earth than the nightside surface of the moon.”
You’ve got it! By George, I think you’ve got it!
Well done, barry.
Cheers.
I agree, but I think our exhortations are fruitless. Even good scientists like Dr. Spencer like using the greenhouse analogy.
life…”Adding a heat absorbing cold fluid to a heat source is how you create cooling. Used in any combustion engine or AC.
Simple stuff, you should know this”.
*****
And you should know that the heat transfer is from hot to cold in a combustion engine and cold to hot in an AC unit. So, how did they make the AC unit transfer heat from cold to hot?
They used a compressor, powered by external power, to compress a gas to a high pressure liquid. Of course, its temperature rises with the pressure, and that heat is vented to the atmosphere via a condenser. The the HP liquid is run through an atomizer and into an evapourater where it expands and cools. The cooled gas sucks heat out of a space and cools it.
So where is this contraption in the atmosphere that is required to cause a transfer from cold to hot? The atmosphere works like the combustion engine, it transfers heat from a warmer surface to a cooler atmosphere. The reverse process is not possible.
The greenhouse also works like that. Soil and components heated by solar energy transfer heat via conduction to ALL air molecules. The air rises as it would on the surface but the glass blocks it. The GH surface continues to heat and the air continues to rise but there is no cooler air to replace it as on a normal surface. Ergo, the GH heats.
You have to get it that GHGs in the overall atmosphere account for only 0.31% and CO2 only 0.04%. Never mind thought-experiments about how a drop of ink in a vial of water can block light, or a few drops of arsenic in a cup of coffee can kill you. The Ideal Gas Law tells us such a low percent of GHGs in the atmosphere cannot possibly heat the other gases more than a fraction of a degree C.
A greenhouse is not warmed by GHGs even if the WV content rises to 3%. The same greenhouse in an arid region with 0.1% WV would warm just the same. And it’s not due to CO2.
Today heavy thunderstorms in the central states of the US.
http://www.lightningwizard.com/maps/North_America/gfs_cape_usa18.png
Strong storms in these areas will attack for several days.
http://www.lightningwizard.com/maps/North_America/gfs_cape_usa42.png
Gordon Robertson
In your link from Woods
https://archive.org/stream/physicaloptic00wood#page/594/mode/2up
Go to page 595 of the book. On this page Woods talks about CO2 and how it emits IR. It acts almost like a black-body radiator at certain wavelengths.
Again supported by real world measured values of DWIR spectrum, view slide 3 and it shows the same thing found by these early researchers.
https://www.slideserve.com/faunus/from-grant-petty-s-book-a-first-course-in-atmospheric-radiation
Also read page 593 from the Woods book. If an object emits IR at a certain wavelength is will absorb IR it receives in the same wavelength. It is NOT exclusive that both objects need to be at the same temperature. That is your twisted, and distorted view of the actual science because of your fanatic drive to oppose any science that might indicate your reality is flawed and wrong.
Those slides from Petty’s text are a great presentation of the reality within the atmosphere. Too bad Gordo and the other denialist posting here apparently can’t figure it out.
That’s a reliable description of Gordon comments given that SOD website uses Petty’s work and given Gordon’s opinion here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-301881
Yes, Gordon thinks everyone’s an idiot except him, Woods, Clausius, Lindzen, g*, MF, and UAH.
DA,
Ooooooh! Impressive claim of mind reading ability! Can you back it up, or is it all a product of your imagination?
How about throwing another gotcha into the arena? You could always point out that bananas absorb and emit IR, and therefore we are all doomed!
Cheers.
DA…”Yes, Gordon thinks everyones an idiot except him…”
Not so, I call myself an idiot…and worse. Makes me feel better being among total idiots like the alarmists here.
ball4…”Thats a reliable description of Gordon comments given that SOD website uses Pettys work and given Gordons opinion here:”
That’s the MO of sites like S0D and SkS, to misrepresent science using faulty analysis. The Petty graph is in milliwatts. Back-radiation of 0.15 watts is supposed to super-heat the surface.
Rich!!!
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302061
That isn’t back radiation Gordon, it is outgoing flux TOA.
Graph avg. is around 120 mW/m^2/cm^-1 or 0.12W/m^2 per cm and there are 2000 cm’s shown so around 240W/m^2.
You have to read the fine print. It is Gordon’s misrepresentation of science using faulty analysis showing not SOD’s.
What reality? Surely you aren’t proposing there is any evidence there of increasing CO2 causing an increase in global temperature?
The graphs from Petty’s text are similar to many others which have been available for years. They show clearly that there is IR EM from the atmosphere toward the surface in both CO2 and water vapor bands with wavelengths corresponding to the temperature of the the atmosphere above. They also show that those bands also block some of the energy from the Sun at those same wavelengths. Those results also show that when the water vapor content of the atmosphere changes, the down welling IR EM in the water vapor bands also changes. Logically, changing the amount of CO2 will likewise result in corresponding changes at those wavelengths. So, yes, it’s clear to me that increasing CO2 can warm the surface.
ES,
You wrote –
“They also show that those bands also block some of the energy from the Sun at those same wavelengths.
True. As I have mentioned before, reducing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer does not increase its temperature.
Actually, some 30% – 40% of the suns radiation never reaches the surface, dur to the presence of the atmosphere.
Increasing the amount of CO2 between a thermometer and the Sun will not make the thermometer hotter, will it? Not logically, nor in reality.
Cheers.
Mike, that is like pondering whether putting insulation around a a radiator and a room will make the house warmer. And of course it won’t because that is not how insulation is used. Insulation is effective when it is interposed between the house and the surrounding cold winter air. Insulation is effective for keeping houses warm in the winter when the insulation is limiting the OUTFLOW of heat (not the INFLOW of heat).
Similarly, adding CO2 between the heat input (the sun) and the earth’s surface will not be a good way to warm the surface. (CO2 is pretty lousy at absorbing sunlight, so CO2 will hardly have any cooling effect, but it will have some tiny cooling effect.
However, adding CO2 between the earth’s surface and the surrounding cold of space WILL matter. The outflow will be reduced significantly (while the inflow is barely changed). The net result is a clear increase in temperature.
MF, Of course, under clear sky conditions, the local EM radiation at the surface can reach 1,000 watts/m^2, which compares with the TOA average value around 1360 w/m^2. And, the absorp_tivity of the oceans is quite high, both for visible and IR EM, thus the back radiation from water vapor and CO2 goes straight into the oceans. The absorp_tivity of ice is also high for IR EM, though ice tends to reflect much of the visible.
You again repeat your usual comment about CO2 and a thermometer, when it’s been pointed out that the increase occurs because of the energy flowing from the Earth back thru the atmosphere to deep space. So as usual, logically, you are completely off base.
Tim,
Not at all. At night, the temperature drops. Talking about average insuoation is just nonsense.
The surface heats during the day, and cools at night. Overall, the Earth has demonstrably cooled since its creation.
Your analogy is, as usual, pointless and misleading. The Sun is external to the Earth.
The outflow you speak of occurs regardless of your wishes. The surface cools at night. It even cools rapidly during a solar eclipse, when a cloud forms, or after the Sun reaches its zenith.
Step into a shadow, raise a parasol, or put on a hat – reducing the radiation reaching you has an obvious and immediate effect.
No GHE. Not even a testable GHE hypothesis. Semantic tricks, and pseudoscientific redefinitions cannot make real that which does not exist! Increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer does not make the thermometer hotter. End of story.
Cheers.
ES,
There is no “increase”. The surface heats in the sunlight, cools otherwise. Overall, after some four and a half billion years, the surface has cooled. Fact, to the best of my knowledge.
You can not describe the GHE, much less propose a testable GHE hypothesis. Pseudoscientific evasion tactics, cannot disguise the fact that you have nothing to offer except devout belief.
Keep believing.
Cheers.
“Similarly, adding CO2 between the heat input (the sun) and the earths surface will not be a good way to warm the surface. ”
Though many believe the CO2 between the sun and Venus rocky surface is very good way to warm the surface.
And a few people imagine Earth could become like Venus if CO2 levels of Earth were to rise.
swannie…”The graphs from Pettys text are similar to many others which have been available for years. They show clearly that there is IR EM from the atmosphere toward the surface…”
I have never argued otherwise. All I’ve claimed is that the radiation cannot be absorbed because it came from a cooler source. Besides, it’s far too weak at a few milliwatts to affect anything.
The graphs counter everything Trenberth et al have claimed, that back-radiation is several hundred watts.
No Gordon, ~120 mW not a few. And when integrated over all wavelengths about 240W/m^2. This is just Gordon’s faulty analysis yet again.
swannie…”Those slides from Pettys text are a great presentation of the reality within the atmosphere. Too bad Gordo and the other denialist posting here apparently cant figure it out”.
*********
Did you take the time to analyze the graphs? If so, the first thing you should have noticed is that the radiation intensity is measured in MILLIwatts. The graph for Barrow, Alaska peaks at 40 mw which is 0.04 watts. The hotter, 27C curve peaks at 150 mw = 0.15 watts.
The graph for Barrow shows an inversion where warmer air normally at the surface gets above the colder air.
Please explain, never minding the 2nd law for the time, how 0.15 watts of down-dwelling energy can warm a surface with a temperature that purportedly emits several hundred watts of power per sqware metre.
Remember, it has to warm the surface to a temperature GREATER than the surface is warmed by solar energy.
norman…”Go to page 595 of the book. On this page Woods talks about CO2 and how it emits IR. It acts almost like a black-body radiator at certain wavelengths”.
Norman, you have a bitterness about you that concerns me. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and I will get over it. However, you are so bent on proving me wrong that you are slinging mud. I’m waterproof, mud doesn’t bother me. Why not lighten up and engage in a scientific discussion?
I don’t see any reference to CO2 on either page 593-595 when I look at the actual page number or the Adobe Reader page number. I need more information, like the chapter number maybe.
“Also read page 593 from the Woods book. If an object emits IR at a certain wavelength is will absorb IR it receives in the same wavelength. It is NOT exclusive that both objects need to be at the same temperature”.
E = hf…f is the inverse of wavelength. The frequency is also related to the electron’s angular momentum and that depends on it’s energy orbital, which is related to its the temperature of the atom.
It’s the electrons that set the frequency. The absorbed EM has a frequency related to the electron that emitted it elsewhere.
Th energy orbitals are described by solutions to the wave equation. In order for an energy orbital to increase its radius about the nucleus, energy is required. One form of energy is EM absorp-tion, but the orbitals can also increase in size due to heat being added to the atoms in a body.
I have been trying to tell you that, it’s all about the interaction of the electrons and the nucleus. Even without EM absorp-tion, you can increase the heat in a body by adding heat externally. If you increase the temperature, the electrons adjust to new energy levels around the nucleus. If you increase the temperature enough, the electrons will break out of their orbital shells and the material will melt or disintegrate.
I would make the hypothesis that it is the intensity of solar radiation that causes convection to occur it also causes back radiation to increase as well, the increase in solar radiation is the primary cause of convection increasing and the increased greenhouse effect is just secondary. I would hypothesis that the amount of convection in the middle to high latitudes is very low or non existent in mid winter so saying that convection causes the greenhouse effect to be less than it would be annually is in my opinion just fun with numbers. The very warm December that we had recently where the maximum temperature rose to 15 or was 16 degrees centigrade, the warm air from the south that caused this turned day into night and we had to drive with headlights on even in the middle of the day, I don’t think there was any convection occurring then because there was not enough solar radiation.
If the point of an analogy is to make a complex idea accessible…
I challenge anyone to come up with an analogy better than the notion of ‘greenhouse’ to illuminate why Earth’s average surface temperature (day + night) is warmer than it would be without an atmosphere.
There are better analogies. The text book analogy is the N atm. slab analogy because it works for T(z) with real measured data. (Flynn – do not read this, your head asplode.)
Each slab of atm. 1,2,3.. N is transparent to incoming SW and black to LW except the bottom one (surface) which is black, opaque.
Radiative energy balance on each slab then shows downward radiation to the bottom slab increases without limit as N increases. This does break down at some point. However, within reason, it does show that downward radiation to the surface would increase with increasing concentration of IR active gases, accompanied by increasingly higher tropospheric temperatures.
For Earth & Mars, the text book analogy needs but one thin N=1 slab to calculate T(0) from 1LOT radiative energy balance with all measured natural observed data input. For Venus, it has N slabs approaching infinity limited by T profile converging to the measured Venus T(z) which takes computerized iterations.
Ball4,
More analogies! What is so hard about describing the GHE in normal scientific terms? Why is there no testable GHE hypothesis? The answer, of course, is that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer does not make the thermometer hotter!
Waffling and pseudoscientific semantics won’t make your fantasy become fact.
Learn physics. Learn English as well. Your post is not a great example of effective scientific communication, is it?
Cheers.
The answer, of course, is that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer does not make the thermometer hotter!”
Incorrect Mike, Prof. Tyndall proved you wrong experimentally using a very weak sun for the IR (boiling water). His data showed increasing the amount of CO2 between a weak IR sun and a thermometer does make the thermometer hotter.
But if you wish, you may continue posting such disproven comments for the entertainment of the blog readership. I simply don’t care.
Ball4,
Setting aside your inability to understand Tyndalls work, are you seriously saying that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter?
Cheers.
–Ball4 says:
May 13, 2018 at 6:04 PM
The answer, of course, is that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer does not make the thermometer hotter!
Incorrect Mike, Prof. Tyndall proved you wrong experimentally using a very weak sun for the IR (boiling water). His data showed increasing the amount of CO2 between a weak IR sun and a thermometer does make the thermometer hotter.–
Can you provide a description of experiment so that others could repeat it?
“are you seriously saying that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter?”
I see Mike’s head asplode, asked him not to read further for his own safety. Great blog entertainment though Mike.
As proven by Prof. Tyndall’s experiments – data shows increasing the amount of CO2 between an IR sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter. Experimental evidence since replicated and refined by many authors.
Disbelieve all you want as per your wishes Mike, I don’t care.
“Can you provide a description of experiment so that others could repeat it?”
Prof. Tyndall’s later research refined his initial work. The internet is a wonderful resource, start your study with google string: Tyndall 1861
gbaikie,
For you, and anyone else who may be interested, I suggest “Heat – A mode of motion.” John Tyndall, Sixth Edition, Appleton and Co 1905 – available for download on the internet. I dont have a link to hand.
Ball4 obviously does not possess the ability to comprehend Tyndalls results, nor to realise that Tyndall altered some of his original speculations based on his later experimental work.
The book is worth reading – parts more than once, if some things dont seem to make sense at first. A fairly deep understanding of his equipment setup, and why he used certain procedures, can show both the brilliance of Tyndall as an experimenter, and the reasons why some people manage to completely misunderstand his results.
Cheers.
“Ball4 obviously does not possess the ability to comprehend Tyndalls results, nor to realise..”
I know Flynn believes mind reading is possible from many of his previous comments but I can assure that mind reading is not possible, not of this earth nor reality.
Ball4,
No mind reading necessary. My assessment is based purely on the stupidity and ignorance you evince through your comments.
Cheers.
If you are not mind reading Mike, then you do not know what ability I possess nor what I realize. And I don’t care either.
Ball4,
Good for you! I share your sentiment.
Cheers.
Heat A mode of motion. John Tyndall, Sixth Edition
https://books.google.com/books?id=oq0-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
gbaikie,
That is the third edition. The sixth edition is better (I believe), and the one I have was downloaded as a PDF which is searchable.
Tyndall made extensive revisions and amendments, which is probably while Ball4 is so insistent on using old information. Otherwise, I have no idea why he wants to dismiss Tyndalls more up to date writings.
Cheers.
Flynn admits the obvious: “I have no idea why he wants to dismiss Tyndall’s more up to date writings.”
There is nothing to dismiss Mike. Prof. Tyndall’s later writings (and other authors) on the subject built on and refined his earlier work with additional testing and more accurate instrumentation. Mike may wish to disagree all he wants, I don’t care as reader’s can confirm on their own.
Ball4,
Just in case anybody missed it, you omitted the word “Otherwise.”
Makes a world of difference to the meaning, don’t you think?
Carry on.
Cheers.
barry,
Why are you trying to push stupid analogies, when you cannot even express this supposedly complex idea? Is it not written down somewhere?
What is so complex about the idea that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer will make the thermometer hotter?
It’s ridiculous, not complex. Talking about average temperature is just a pseudoscientific diversion. The Earth’s average temperature has dropped since its creation, deny as you may.
Stick to the science. Describe the supposed GHE. Propose a testable GHE hypothesis. How hard can it be?
Cheers.
OK … a simple statement of “The Greenhouse Effect”:
* An object’s ability to lose energy to its surroundings via thermal radiation affects its temperature.
* Materials between an object and its surroundings that affect thermal radiation will affect the object’s ability to lose energy to its surroundings via thermal radiation.
That is really all there is to it — IR-absorbing materials affect temperatures.
This can be applied almost trivially in simple cases (basically just use Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation).
As the situation gets more complex and/or more chaotic, the calculations get more challenging. The earth is, of course, extreme complex AND extremely chaotic, so only approximate calculations are ever possible. This does not change the basic physics in the two rules stated above, which should not be contested by anyone. GHGs affect out-going thermal IR from the surface, and hence affect surface temperatures.
Tim,
Nope. Not even close.
Try it – try saying The Greenhouse Effect is a phenomena which is observed . . . followed by your words. Nonsensical, isnt it?
You havent mentioned Global Warming, rising global temperatures,or any of the nonsense which is supposed to result from increased atmospheric CO2 levels!
Your supposed statement completely ignores any mention of absolute increased temperatures, supposed greenhouse gases, or anything of relevance to the concept that increasing atmospheric CO2 will cause thermometers to become hotter.
Just stating random physical effects, followed by a silly statement that IR absorbing materials affect temperatures (completely pointless and irrelevant – bananas absorb IR, dont they?), is just pseudoscientific bafflegab.
You appear to be trying to say that increased atmospheric CO2 levels result in hotter thermometers, without actually saying such a ridiculous thing, directly. I don’t blame you.
No GHE. No heating due to CO2. The Earth has cooled since the surface was molten. Sad, but true.
Cheers.
Ah! The “Secret Mike Rule” for describing phenomena. You need the magic words “is a phenomena which is observed”.
The Greenhouse effect is a phenomenon which is observed when “[m]aterials between an object and its [cooler] surroundings
thataffect thermal radiation,will affectaffecting the objects ability to lose energy to its surroundings via thermal radiation.” This in turn “affects its [the warm object’s] temperature.”So much better!
*******************************************
More seriously, I perhaps should have specifically added “between an object and its COOLER surroundings” the first time. I just assumed it, but it is worth a specific mention.
As to the rest of your objections, they basically just show that you didn’t read critically and/or don’t understand he implications of the underlying physics.
“You havent mentioned Global Warming …
Global warming is just one of many places the phenomenon occurs. I also don’t have to mention wings every time I mention the Bernoulli effect.
“completely ignores any mention of … supposed greenhouse gases”
Wrong. GHGs fall under “Materials between an object and its surroundings that affect thermal radiation”. GHGs are mentioned right there in black and white!
“bananas absorb IR, dont they?”
Yes, and if you put bananas between a warm object and the cool surrounding, then will affect the thermal IR and thereby affect the temperature of the warm object.
“Just stating random physical effects …
These are not random, they are very specifically chosen. They are a FIRST STEP in the path to understanding the warming effect of GHGs on the earth. Don’t expect to jump straight from here to fully describing earth’s greenhouse effect — just like you can’t jump straight from F=ma to describing fluid flow or getting a rocket to Mars or even something as seemingly simple as a double pendulum.
********************************************
You appear to be trying to say that putting a layer of glass around the moon doesn’t result in hotter thermometers, without actually saying such a ridiculous thing, directly. I dont blame you.
Tim,
Putting as much insulation as you like between a hotter object and a cooler environment will not cause the temperature of the hotter to increase. Just like the surface of the Earth at night.
It cools. Its temperature does not increase.
Play all the semantic tricks you like, reducing the rate of cooling does not raise the temperature of an object above the environment – unless, of course, you introduce a heat source that you did not mention in the first place.
You wrote –
“The Greenhouse effect is a phenomenon which is observed when “[m]aterials between an object and its [cooler] surroundings affect thermal radiation, affecting the objects ability to lose energy to its surroundings via thermal radiation. This in turn “affects its [the warm object’s] temperature.”
The temperature of the warmer object drops, according to your description. This is well known. No need to obfuscate by now claiming that objects which cool do so due to a greenhouse effect.
Still nonsensical, Tim. No raised temperature. You state this is the first step. Your first step appears to be yawning hole. You need to do better.
Once again, completely pointless.
Cheers.
MF repeated his usual disinformation:
As with all propaganda, the first part of this statement is true on it’s face. But, the conclusion is false, as you’ve ignored the fact that the temperature is an average which includes both day and night, with the energy input from the Sun during the day driving the flow of energy leaving the Earth over the full 24 hours. With an input of energy which is fixed mol, adding insulation will increase the average temperature.
So your concluding statement is thus obviously wrong and intentionally so.
“Play all the semantic tricks you like, reducing the rate of cooling does not raise the temperature of an object above the environment unless, of course, you introduce a heat source that you did not mention in the first place.”
The impact of an “IR shield” between a warm object and the cool surroundings exists whether there is heat source or not. Hence a heat source is not explicitly needed in the statement. With or without a heat source, the IR shield reduces the heat loss to the surroundings.
*Without* a heat source, the IR shield causes a slower cooling rate.
*With* a heat source, the IR shield allows a faster warming rate.
In both cases, the object with the IR shield will be warmer THAN AN OTHERWISE IDENTICAL OBJECT WITHOUT THE SHIELD. By extension, for an intermittently heated surface (like the earth), the shielded surface will be always warmer than an otherwise identical surface without the IR shield.
ES,
The energy input is not fixed. The more insulation you insert between the heat source and the heated object the less energy reaches the object.
As with the Earth. About 35% of the available energy from the Sun does not reach the surface. If it did, temperatures would of course be higher. As on the Moon.
The Earth has cooled since its inception.
No GHE – no waffling about unmeasurable averages will change the fact that you cannot describe the GHE, you do not have a testable GHE hypothesis,and that climate is just the process of averaging recorded numbers. No science there, is there?
CO2 makes nothing hotter. Putting more of it between the Sun and a thermometer does not make the thermometer hotter, does it?
Give it a try.
Cheers.
tim…”The impact of an IR shield between a warm object and the cool surroundings exists whether there is heat source or not”.
Tim…you’re being silly.
Let’s presume a vacuum to get conduction/convection out of it.
What is an IR shield? Metal, right? So you add a sheet of metal between an IR radiator and the surroundings,
Where in Stefan-Boltzmann is that addressed? There is only a temperature differential in S-B affecting IR radiation therefore the temperature of the shield would be the factor, not the shield itself.
If the shield was within the required proximity and cooler than the radiator, the IR radiation would warm it till it was the same temperature, then heat dissipation should stop at the radiator. If the shield was warmer, heat would be transferred from the shield to the radiator.
Heat transfer has nothing to do with the shield per se as far as blocking IR. It’s the temperature of the shield.
Now remove the vacuum as with the Earth’s surface. Conduction of heat to the atmosphere becomes an issue, and the air replaces the shield as the mitigating factor for IR. However, as in swannie’s experiment, the shield can act to foil convection, causing the radiator to warm.
CO2 in the atmosphere is nothing like a shield of metal. It cannot block convection, it cannot trap heat, and it cannot interfere with the rate of radiation.
Tim,
You wrote –
“The impact of an “IR shield” between a warm object and the cool surroundings exists whether there is heat source or not.”
More semantic nonsense. If you are trying to say that increasing the amount of CO2 between a heat source and and an object causes the temperature of the the object to increase, why not just say it?
What is an”impact”? What are the properties of this supposed “IR shield”? And so on.
You are sprouting pseudoscience – nothing testable, just indefinite vagueness.
Bad luck. So sad.
Cheers
You’re getting there, Gordon!
GR: Lets presume a vacuum to get conduction/convection out of it.
Good. Let’s make a few other simplifying assumptions.
1) Lets assume the shell is thin and close to the original object, so we can assume A = (area of object) ≈ (area of inside of shell) ≈ (area of outside of shell). The value of A does not matter.
2) And let’s assume a constant, uniformly distributed power input, P, to the inner object. Let’s give it a value of P/A = 240 W/m^2
3) Let’s assume all surfaces have an emissivity of 1.0
4) Let’s assume the surroundings are ≈ 3 K (deep space).
[NOTE: None of these assumptions are required. All could be adjusted. But our goal here is to understand the basic physics.]
GR: Where in Stefan-Boltzmann is that addressed?
Its ALL about SB! You apply SB (P/A = εσ(Ta^4 – Tb^4)) twice — once for the radiator/shell pair and once for the shell/environment pair.
GR>> therefore the temperature of the shield would be the factor, not the shield itself.
The shell’s temperature is determined by geometry and SB (since you conveniently assumed no conduction/convection)!
Now a few calculations.
Without the shield, the bare object would adjust its temperature until the power flows were balanced.
( (P/εσA + T(space)^4 )^1/4
= (240/5.67e-8) + 3^4) ^0.25
= 255 K (a familiar result)
If it started cooler than 255K, it would warm up; if it started warmer than 255K, it would cool down.
With the shield, the SHIELD would have to radiate 240 W/m^2 to space, so the shield would have to be 255 K.
But the inner object would have to be
( (P/εσA + T(shield)^4 )^1/4
= (240/5.67e-8) + 255^4) ^0.25
= 303 K.
Again, it doesn’t matter what temperature either of the objects was initially — they would head toward T(object) = 303K and T(shield) = 255K.
Heat transfer has EVERYTHING to do with the shield as far as blocking IR. The temperature of the shield is uniquely determined by the size/shape/emissivity/power that we assume.
GR: Now remove the vacuum as with the Earths surface….
Yes — that is where things get really interesting — and really complicated. We have the eternal conundrum that if we idealize the situation enough to make the calculations simple, then it has little to do with the real climate; but if we try to model the real climate, then the calculations rapidly become to complicated to apply exactly (or even approximately)!
GR: CO2 in the atmosphere is nothing like a shield of metal.
All the factors you mention make CO2 only SLIGHTLY like the shield of metal. Those factors limit how well CO2 can raise the temperature and make it a rather ineffective radiation shield. But they do not negate the physics above and they do not completely eliminate the warming of the (rather poor) radiation shield.
MF, As usual, you’ve got it wrong. Perhaps you realized that your previous statement actually was correct. The insulation goes between the heated body and the surroundings, which for the Earth would be deep space. The warming is the result of the retarding of the energy flow from the heated body, not the blockage of the energy directed toward the heated body.
Of course, the Earth cooled, but that was more than 4 billion years back. Since then, there have been periods when the Earth was warmer than now and other periods when it was colder. Beginning about 3.3 million years ago, the climate changed into a new normal of mostly Ice Ages. For the past 10k years, things have been warm, but only 20k years back, the average appears to have been about 5 K colder. No, the Earth hasn’t been steadily cooling since it was formed.
ES,
No, I got it right. The insulation is between the source of heat, (the Sun), and the surface, as well. As to the effect when the Sun is not heating the surface (at night), the surface cools, even thought the atmosphere is between the surface and deep space. The same thing happens during a total solar eclipse.
There is no heating due to CO2. A reduction in the rate of cooling (as occurs at night) does not raise temperatures – that is a matter of common observation.
The Earth had a molten surface – it is much colder now. Over the longest average there is, the result is cooling. Cherry pick as much as you want, the longest term average results in cooling.
No GHE. You cannot even describe it usefully, let alone propose a testable GHE hypothesis.
So sad. Too bad – Nature wins yet again.
Cheers.
Tim,
Unfortunately for you, the Earth has cooled. The surface is no longer molten. If you don’t want to accept it, you don’t have to.
You cannot raise the temperature of any externally heated body with insulation, any more than you can raise the temperature of your soup by insulating it within a vacuum flask.
Just silly. The atmosphere prevents around 35% of the Suns energy from reaching the surface. The result? Lower temperatures – less energy available for heating.
Keep beating the drum. Or keep flogging a dead horse, if you prefer.
Cheers.
MF, You wrote:
This comment (and the following reply to Tim) is just totally absurd. Typically, the daily heating from sunlight begins at a low temperature in the AM, reaches a maximum in the afternoon. Then, things cool overnight to a low temperature the next AM. Adding extra insulation in the form of CO2 slows the cooling overnight, thus the heating during the next day begins at a higher value and the temperature at the end is higher as a result, other influences being equal. The result is that the average temperature over the 24 hour cycle is higher.
There are many ways to demonstrate that your comments are completely wrong headed. Take a low wattage heater of some sort, such as an electric blanket, a waterbed heater or a device to heat an aquarium. Replace the thermostatic control with a electric power control such as a light dimmer of an appropriate capacity. Place the heater along with a thermocouple, or other temperature measure, on a bed and cover with a blanket or other insulator. Adjust the electric power to provide an appropriate temperature setting. Then, add another blanket (i.e., more insulation) and record the change in temperature. Needless to say, the temperature will increase.
Perhaps you have decided to use a non-standard position for your “common observation”, a place where “the Sun don’t shine”, to use a common vernacular.
E. Swanson,
“The result is that the average temperature over the 24 hour cycle is higher.”
That will happen one day, but not necessarily the next.
If what you say is correct, every day should get a little warmer. That’s not happening. CO2 is not in control of global temperature.
It is happening day to day, just that other forcings exist also day to day. Year to year. Decade to decade. Century to century. So forth.
“…just that other forcings exist also day to day.”
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to detect the CO2 effect on temperature distinct from the effects of all the other forcings. Good luck.
I accept. Witness the lab work of Prof. Tyndall and the field work of Dr. Feldman and the other relevant ref.s including Meteorologist Callendar.
Bowdrie, Temperatures are getting a little bit warmer. The data shows that the warming is mostly found in daily low temperatures. Daily high temperatures must contend with the greater thermal losses to space which scale with the fourth power of absolute temperature.
That’s a handwaving argument. I can do that too. In the last few months, the temperatures have been about the same as they were 15 years ago. Where is the evidence that CO2 is making any day to day difference?
“Where is the evidence that CO2 is making any day to day difference?”
There is no need for hand waving Chic, there are lab experiments and in the wild observations. My that was fast reading, you sure you are done checking out the magnitude of the 9+ forcings & natural cycles, all the relevant tests and observations?
Witness the lab work of Prof. Tyndall and the field work of Dr. Feldman and the other relevant ref.s including Meteorologist Callendar.
Show your experimental counter-evidence to those in detail, cherry picking temperatures is so….yesterday’s news.
Did Tyndall, Callendar, and Feldman show that increasing CO2 increases global temperatures? Where is that data?
“Did Tyndall, Callendar, and Feldman show that increasing CO2 increases global temperatures? Where is that data?”
In their reports.
Yup. Just as predicted, here you go again, Tim. What did I tell you last time around?
“(…) don’t [try to know the details of the radiative balance at a surface] PRETENDING that the thermal radiation itself is somehow what CAUSES an energy budget between two objects, or between an object and its surroundings, to be more or less positive/negative.
The radiation doesn’t itself control anything. It is itself controlled. By temperature. And by emissivity. Both bulk properties of physical matter.
Again, the radiation is only a courier, carrying a temperature (thermal) – and an emissivity – signal between thermodynamic systems. A necessary tool, indeed. But not itself the root cause of the differences driving energy transfers and changing energy contents.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2018-0-21-deg-c/#comment-301427
And yet here you are. PRETENDING all over again … Deliberately misrepresenting reality.
You say:
You try to make it seem as though the IR radiation and the radiative properties of matter specifically and independently CAUSE temperatures. Both of the material system itself and of its surrounding systems. Even when they’re clearly NOT.
Matter is NOT (!!!) dependent on being able to absorb IR in order to warm, Tim. All it needs is to be able to absorb and store up internally SOME kind of energy transferred to it as heat [Q] (or work [W]).
It is then the elevated TEMPERATURE of the matter, resulting from this absorp.tion and internal accumulation of energy, that will affect the temperature of OTHER thermodynamic systems in some kind of thermal contact with it.
IR radiation, after the initial thermodynamic connection has been established between surface (solar-heated) and atmosphere (surface-heated), is NECESSARY only as an atmospheric COOLANT.
Ball4,
The idea of an analogy is to make a complex idea accessible.
What you wrote is not that!
The text book analogy is not complex barry. Concept of a slab is accessible to the genpop. Opaque and transparent stuff is commonplace. More so than a greenhouse to the non-farmer.
b,
The idea that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter doesn’t appear all that complex. Ridiculous and physically impossible, sure, but complex? No.
Why would you need an analogy?
Cheers.
“Why would you need an analogy?”
Good point MF, no analogy needed. There are plenty of actual documented, replicable proper experiments showing increasing the amount of CO2 between an IR sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter.
Mike may continue to believe whatever he wishes, I don’t care.
Ball4,
Garbage. Not even an IR sun, let alone a real sun.
You cannot provide an example of such an experiment, can you?
All you can do is blather about your misunderstanding of Tyndall, and claim that removing the CO2 from air lowers the temperature by 33 C, or 88 C, or some other nonsensical figure.
The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years. So much for your fantasies.
Stupid and ignorant, or ignorant and stupid?
The world wonders!
Cheers.
“All you can do is blather about your misunderstanding of Tyndall, and claim that removing the CO2 from air lowers the temperature by 33 C”
Proves Mike hasn’t bothered to read or understand Tyndall 1861. Tyndall found upon removing the CO2 laden lab air lowered his thermometer temperature 5F not 33C. Mike knows not of what he blathers and I don’t even care.
For the experimental data google string: Tyndall 1861
So what if the Earth has cooled since inception, so has the universe.
Ball4,
At least you accept a little reality. The Earth has cooled. It didn’t get hotter.
Your GHE didnt work for four and a half billion years – not on the Earth, not anywhere else. It still doesn’t exist, except in your imagination.
Cheers.
“There are plenty of actual documented, replicable proper experiments showing increasing the amount of CO2 between an IR sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter.”
What does this mean? An IR Sun? The IR from the Sun is negligible. The GHE is supposed to be due to blocking IR from the heated object. If anything, I would expect CO2 blocking an IR source to make the thermometer colder.
“What does this mean?”
The documented replicable proper experiments conducted as reported in Tyndall 1861. Or any such follow-up.
“An IR Sun?”
Bart missed the small cap on sun. Tyndall’s source for an IR sun was boiling water. A weak intensity source that he had to make do with because his other trials of stronger intensity IR sources varied in temperature way too much during test runs.
“If anything, I would expect CO2 blocking an IR source to make the thermometer colder.”
Yes, of course, but not Tyndall’s thermometers due to their bulb placement inside the test chamber; his galvanometer needle was outside the test chamber and always moved toward the colder deflection as you expect.
Tyndall’s galvanometer needle was calibrated to show zero when balanced between his two IR sources of boiling water. When CO2 or any gas was introduced into his tube, if there were no effect on IR then the needle would not move. The needle did move & much more than he anticipated. Same as expected for Earth surface GHE effect on the stratosphere.
Tyndall then calibrated his needle deflection to the thermometer temperature readings.
bart…”The GHE is supposed to be due to blocking IR from the heated object”.
The Stefan-Boltzman equation that addresses IR emission from the surface says nothing about CO2 blocking radiation. It mentions only temperature differential as a factor.
It makes no sense that 0.04% of the atmosphere would block any more than 0.04% of the immense radiation flux from the surface, especially when it peters out after a few feet to a negligible intensity.
Gordon: “It makes no sense that 0.04% of the atmosphere would block any more than 0.04% of the immense radiation flux”
This was Prof. Tyndall’s going in thinking & assumption also. Until his needle pegged due effect on IR from CO2 and he had to re-calibrate the dial. Even at 0.04% in lab air. Prof. Tyndall was willing to learn from his experiments as should you when he wrote in 1861 to the Royal Society:
“Those who like myself have been taught to regard transparent gases as almost perfectly (transmitting IR), will probably share the astonishment with which I witnessed the foregoing effects. I was indeed slow to believe it possible that a body so constituted, and so transparent to (visible) light as olefiant gas, could be so densely (IR opaque) to any kind of calorific rays; and to secure myself against error, I made several hundred experiments with this single substance.”
Gordon –
“It mentions only temperature differential as a factor.”
It also mentions emissivity.
Ball4 –
I thought you had tripped over your words, and sought to help you up. It appears you had a meaning I did not apprehend.
If you want to have another futile argument with Gordon, be my guest. But, don’t lose sight of the fact that such experiments do not resolve the issue at hand one way or the other anyway. The first hurdle is scalability. Then, you have to deal with all the feedbacks. It is not settled.
bart…”An IR Sun? The IR from the Sun is negligible”.
52% of the solar spectrum is in the infrared. Terrestrial wavelength IR from the Sun is very low but is it negligible?
bart…”Gordon
It mentions only temperature differential as a factor.
It also mentions emissivity”.
******
It also mention surface area but the driver is the temperature gradient. Emissivity is a property of the emitting body, hence nothing to do with CO2.
“If you want to have another futile argument with Gordon, be my guest”.
The futility is due to your lack of scientific background. I’m just the messenger with much of what I have to say. If you find it futile dealing with me it’s because you don’t understand the science of the masters.
Not my fault.
“52% of the solar spectrum is in the infrared.”
You are correct. I must’ve been thinking of something else.
“Emissivity is a property of the emitting body, hence nothing to do with CO2.”
The Earth is the emitting body. CO2 blocks some of the emissions.
“It is not settled.”
Bart, thx, and you are not clear on what “it” is. Tyndall’s experiments are settled science. Sure, you can’t scale his tube up to the atm. however the IR opacity of the surface atm. is affected by the same basic physics as in Tyndall’s tube at 1bar plus the other pressures he tried.
—-
Gordon writes: “Emissivity is a property of the emitting body, hence nothing to do with CO2.”
An emitting body of CO2 has emissivity, transmissivity and reflectivity. All well measured and accounted for. Not nothing.
“I’m just the messenger with much of what I have to say.”
No Gordon, the normal messenger does not open the message and change it from the author’s words. You do so intolerably as to try to win any argument appealing to an authoritative name. You offer few quotes and with Clausius, you offer quotes that have since been improved upon.
You don’t understand the science of the masters and it is your fault.
barry…”If the point of an analogy is to make a complex idea accessible
I challenge anyone to come up with an analogy better than the notion of greenhouse to illuminate why Earths average surface temperature (day + night) is warmer than it would be without an atmosphere”.
*********
Lindzen has proposed one based on conduction/convection and so has R.W. Woods. An occasional poster here, Stephen Wilde, has proposed the ocean/hot water bottle effect. gbaikie may agree.
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-hot-water-bottle-effect/
In his paper on the GHE, Lindzen claimed the current GHE model is over-simplified and that radiation is not the primary mode of heat dissipation from the surface. Wood claimed the entire atmosphere gathers heat from the surface by conduction and due to the poor radiating abilities of N2/O2 at terrestrial temperatures they retain the heat.
Lindzen was perfectly content to acknowledge the greenhouse effect in his paper, while discussing other forms of heat flow in the atmosphere. These were not exclusive.
Lindzen didn’t come up with a better analogy than ‘greenhouse’ for the effect.
Neither does Wilde.
It seems some people here don’t understand what an analogy is. Hint: it should be able to be expressed in a single sentence or phrase.
“(an atm. analogy)should be able to be expressed in a single sentence or phrase.”
1) The atmosphere has a simplified radiative equilibrium analog in a calm weather farmer’s greenhouse with panes of glass ~transparent to SW radiation and absorbing of LW radiation.
2) The atmosphere has a simplified radiative equilibrium analog in an upper slab ~transparent to SW radiation & absorbing of LW radiation, and a black lower slab.
Neither analog can be pushed too far.
Still too complex for a lay person.
The atmosphere is like greenhouse, keeping the Earth’s surface warmer than it would otherwise be if there were no greenhouse gases.
That’s the analogy, nice and simple. The rest is details.
“The atmosphere is like greenhouse, keeping the Earths surface warmer than it would otherwise be if there were no greenhouse gases.”
Lay persons don’t technically know how a farmer’s greenhouse works either.
The atmosphere is like two slabs, with the upper one semitransparent letting in sunlight keeping the Earth’s surface warmer than it would otherwise be if there were no semitransparent gases.
The atmosphere is like your daytime picture window, with the window glass letting in sunlight keeping your living room warmer than it would otherwise be if there were no picture window.
So forth.
barry,
Suppose you replace all the gases that absorb and emit IR radiation with N2. No water, no ice, no grass, no climate scientists fiddling with calculators coming up with unverifiable estimates of how warm Earth’s surface would be.
How would that atmosphere cool off after it receives each daily dose of sunlight?
Ball,
Lay persons dont technically know how a farmers greenhouse works either.
You’re missing the point of what an analogy is. All laypersons need to know is that it’s warm in a greenhouse because heat is retained (is slow to dissipate) in them.
When you start discussing finer details, you’re moving away from analogy and into the actual mechanics.
My challenge remains open for anyone to enunciate a simple analogy for how the atmosphere keeps the surface warmer on average (day + night) than it would be with no atmosphere.
This should be no longer than a sentence, and in terms and concepts immediately accessible to lay people. That’s the point of having an analogy.
How would that atmosphere cool off after it receives each daily dose of sunlight?
Everything cools off radiatively. Even if there were no convection in the atmosphere the atmosphere would still have the best heat sink there is – space.
All laypersons need to know is that it’s warmer in a living room with sunlight coming in thru picture windows because heat is retained (is slow to dissipate) in them.
A living room with picture window is better casual experience than an analogy of a greenhouse, way more people have living room experience than greenhouse experience.
So is a translucent slab put in place, you know like a car sun roof or windshield. Like a tent. I’d guess even a swimming pool works as an analogy that people have experienced. MSM just likes to use greenhouse and from there greenhouse gases. Which I’d say occur in real greenhouses too – coming from cats with digestive issues.
“Even if there were no convection in the atmosphere..”
There is no convection as observed in ~9km of earth US Standard isothermal atm. midlatitude tropics.
Sure, the living room works as an analogy – and jumpers, blankets, home insulation and all that. But the greenhouse analogy seems most evocative to me. A greenhouse is purpose-built to provide warmth with no work done (no mechanical heating), so it’s analogical function is unmistakable. It is to do with a large-ish space, rather than a covering near your skin, so works to analogise the broad canopy of the atmosphere.
I still can’t think of a better analogy than the greenhouse though – remembering the purpose of analogies.
Concur.
As I have said, I think it is the warm ocean surface temperature (which has average temperature about 17 C) which related to Earth having an global average surface air temperature of about 15 C.
But it seems a concern of some people is when air temperature exceeds 30 C (86 F) and I don’t think the ocean surface temperature is causing air temperature higher than 30 C.
So, in the range of 30 to 50 C, what causes these higher surface air temperatures?
gbaikie,
The Sun?
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. The Devil made me do it.
Cheers
gbakie,
Those people need to learn not to conflate globally averaged temperature with locally fluctuating temperature.
I now this photo with the giant lilies, in this post.
It’s at the Jardin Des Plantes in Budapest.
I like Dr Roy’s articles but I am not sure whether to take this one as serious or one with strongly embedded sarcasm.
The formula given in the reference when substituted by multi layers just results in absurd T conclusions. Models do use multilayers not just two layers.
Let’s take it further. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere equates to less than three metres of pure CO2 at ground level. What the heck, let’s build a long tube maybe surrounding the Large Hadron Collider as this CO2 is hi tech stuff, perfectly insulated and with mirrored internal finish. We can even do it with a straight tube of a few hundred metres. Fill it with pure CO2 so there can be little complaint about the lack of layers. Close the tube and let’s worry about details as we go.
We only have to feed in either direct sunlight as we have on earth via thin enough clear film at one end and watch the heat build up due to the enhanced multilayer GHE. Maybe that film will melt so use pure NaCl crystal or just use special glass.
I think that is it. We can file for a patent on perpetual motion and transforming sunlight simply to 500C or so gases. Forget the 88C enhancement Dr Roy mentioned; we can do much, much better
Clearly with modification this can also be done in the Antarctica with minimal energy use even in winter. A 240 Watt /m2 radiator at one end going all day should do the trick to get super hot gases. Then loop a bit of this energy back in and we need no further external energy.
Wow the power of GHG’s! Won’t the Emperor penguins be pleased. Venus on earth; the power of love!
tony…”We can file for a patent on perpetual motion…”
Before Clausius and the 2nd law, perpetual motion was permitted by the 1st law in certain instances. The climate alarmists are still leaning heavily on the loopholes while blatantly ignoring the 2nd law.
Nasty, old Clausius, came along and plugged the loopholes with the 2nd law. When the alarmists heard about that they quickly dug a hole in the sand and inserted their heads. Refused to listen till one of them proposed that summing electromagnetic energy fluxes would satisfy the 2nd law, which is only about heat.
Gordon Robertson says:
The climate alarmists are still leaning heavily on the loopholes while blatantly ignoring the 2nd law.
GR, still ignorant of the 2nd law.
He simply does not want to learn. Dunning-Kruger in action.
For those having problems in finding out where to obtain the 6th edition of Tyndall’s work:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924012337741
The entire book is wonderful, I read it years ago from A to Z.
But as Lecture Notes XII are of somewhat greater interest in the discussion here, I upload them:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526289020234.pdf
This is of interest for both alarmists and denialists, as both use to read it very selectively and retain of it only what matches their egocentric narrative.
LaP,
I agree that anybody interested needs to read the book in its entirety.
I suggest readers pay particular attention to Tyndall’s setup, as many think that an increased galvanometer deflection automatically means an increase in temperature. Obviously not, if the setup is such that the reference heat source is providing the greater heat, and the polarity is reversed.
Thanks for providing a link.
Cheers.
CO2 does block or seems to destroy or as I would prefer, seems divert in some manner, sunlight or “ethereal waves” and/or longwave IR.
And I am not seeing the bit about:
–Incorrect Mike, Prof. Tyndall proved you wrong experimentally using a very weak sun for the IR (boiling water). His data showed increasing the amount of CO2 between a weak IR sun and a thermometer does make the thermometer hotter.–
But in terms of reading all of it, I would rather buy a book and read it, rather read it all via internet.
gbaikie…”I would rather buy a book and read it, rather read it all via internet”.
Activate the cross-hairs at upper right that zoom the book size. You should get a download option above the new page.
I wonder if GR has ever read a single textbook about climate science.
I don’t see any evidence he has….
binny…”This is of interest for both alarmists and denialists, as both use to read it very selectively and retain of it only what matches their egocentric narrative”.
**********
I admire the experiment Tyndall performed to prove gases like CO2 absorb IR but could not get past chapter two in the book. His experiment with the galvanometer in chapter 1 was unique and interesting. However, his idea of heat as a mode of motion rather than atomic motion is vague and based on consensus, not fact.
Nowhere in the book does Tyndall mention Clausius and his theory of heat. He did the same with Joule. Makes me wonder if Tyndall’s views on heat were not at odds with mainstream thinking. Boltzmann and Planck certainly adopted the views of Clausius on entropy and the 2nd law.
Having said that, I can now see why many alarmists regard heat as a mode of motion rather than an atomic phenomenon. They have regarded Tyndall as an authority on heat based on his experiment on gases.
Gordon Robertson says:
I admire the experiment Tyndall performed to prove gases like CO2 absorb IR but could not get past chapter two in the book. His experiment with the galvanometer in chapter 1 was unique and interesting. However, his idea of heat as a mode of motion rather than atomic motion is vague and based on consensus, not fact
Gordon, when are you going to start studying quantum mechanics, and learn about rotational and vibrational molecular modes of energy?
Snow in France (Massif Central, May 13, 2018)
https://youtu.be/0t_y_l279Uo
The Massif Central is up to nearly 2,000 metres high.
That is as if you would write ‘Snow in the Alps’.
Do not lie.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/France_Massif_central.jpg/800px-France_Massif_central.jpg
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masyw_Centralny#/media/File:France_Massif_central.jpg
Did you ever live there and find out if it’s any unusual to get snow there at 1000 elevation on a 13 th of May ?
As I did ?
Obviously not, so you don’t know what you talk about and spout here nothing but nonsense.
idiot…”Obviously not, so you dont know what you talk about and spout here nothing but nonsense”.
You’re not an idiot tracker you’re just an idiot. Ren provides useful information here as opposed to you and your pseudo-science.
Why don’t you take your own advice? Alarmists are fond of pointing to slight warming near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and inferring overall warming on the continent. Or regarding continually moving hot spots in the Arctic to overall Arctic warming.
Congratulations, GR !
You’re by far the easiest one to track.
So funny.
Gordon Robertson says:
Alarmists are fond of pointing to slight warming near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and inferring overall warming on the continent.
SoPol Land warming = +0.31 C according to UAH LT v6.0.
So you were saying?
ren, I’m serious here.
Would you pleas stop pretending I’m lying about the Massif Central?
That is, originating from you, manifestly living in Poland, absolutely incredible.
What do you know of France, ren? Did you spend during decades holidays in France with the French man who shares life with me during over 30 years?
Here is something for you to learn.
On the french news web site
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/meteo/neige/le-massif-central-sous-la-neige_2751629.html
you can read this:
À Châteauneuf-de-Randon, en Lozère, la statue de Bertrand du Guesclin a revêtu un manteau blanc. C'est l'un des villages où il a le plus neigé aujourd'hui en France, jusqu'à 50 cm de neige, ce qui n'empêche pas les habitants de vivre presque normalement : "Ce n’est pas la première fois qu'il neige comme ça. C'est rare, le mois de mai, qu'il ne neige pas".
In english for you
In Châteauneuf-de-Randon, in Lozère, the statue of Bertrand du Guesclin has put on a white coat. It is one of the villages where it has snowed most today in France, up to 50 cm of snow, which does not prevent the inhabitants from living almost normally: "This is not the first time it snows like that, it's rare, the month of May, that it does not snow ".
binny…”ren, Im serious here”.
Who cares if you’re serious, you’re still an idiot? Get off ren’s back with your Teutonic superiority complex. Poland is just up the road from France and Poland has an international contingent of high altitude climbers who travel to the Alps and Himalaya regularly.
“Would you pleas stop pretending Im lying about the Massif Central?”
Why? You create bogus comparisons between UAH data and NOAA data and lie about everything else. You even lie that a difference is there between Bindidon and La Pangolina.
Like I said, you left as Bindidon one day in a snit, saying goodbye to the blog. A few days later you show up as La Pangolina. Same old binny…same attitude, same arrogance, same memory for old insults.
Gordon Robertson says:
Who cares if youre serious, youre still an idiot?
An ad hominem attack, Gordon?
Do not lie.
Przynajmniej mógłbyś za to przeprosić.
Massif Central are not the Alps.
That is as if you would write Snow in the Alps.
Yes.
Alternatively it’s as if someone wrote “Idiots post on Dr. Spencer’s blog”
Ice Saints
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Saints
“Cold gardeners” moved from Poland to France.
David Appell,
You provided several citations claiming they DEFINITIVELY show that increasing CO2 causes global temperature rise. If that was not your intent, then you misinterpreted my position and I dont know what point you were trying to make.
Ill make this one last try to explain why your citations of evidence are not definitive and I will have to leave it at that. It would be foolish for me to continue to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
My first point is that definite evidence seems to me to be impossible to provide. You need a controlled experiment and how do you control for all the natural factors affecting global temperature to show how CO2 has any significant effect?
Second, if enough satellites were sufficiently deployed to measure every photon of energy in and out of the atmosphere over a sufficiently long time, it would explain why global temperatures increased, decreased, or stayed the same. But we dont have enough satellites do we? And if there were enough, how would the data prove that CO2 was involved? You still just have a correlation.
By citing data from only two places or only using clear sky data or using different equipment to make before and after measurements, you cant say your conclusions are definitive. If you believe those conclusions are incontrovertible, you are practicing religion not science.
David Appell, Chic Bowdrie
You have both fallen into a similar error, that science can be definitive.
Science nowadays is Kuhnian. A successful theory has five Cs.
Evidence from a large number of experiments and observations builds a description of reality which is coherent( makes sense), consistent( different lines of evidence agree) and consilient (agrees with evidence from other areas of science).
The evidence forms the basis of a paradigm. This is a description of reality good enough to be generally accepted by most workers in the field, a consensus.
Science is always conditional. There is always the possibility that new evidence will require the paradigm to be modified or extended (or even occasionally abandoned).
The CO2 Greenhouse effect paradigm meets the five Cs. It has coherence, consistence, consistence, conditionality and consensus.
That is as good as you get in reality.
Claims that any evidence is definitive go beyond what science can supply.
Refusal to accept anything less than definitive is a denialist tactic known as the “impossible standards argument”.
Excellent post.
Ideally, there would be a control planet where GHG’s had remained at pre-industrial levels, everything else the same. Each months global average would then be compared to the control planet’s global average.
No more arguing about the contributions of ENSO, PDO, solar fluctuations, clouds, etc.
Which CO2 Greenhouse effect paradigm were you referring to?
Just asking in case I have to run it by some other scientists for a consensus.
The CO2 greenhouse effect paradigm summarised in IPCC AR5 WG1.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
You know, the one that the vast majority of climate scientists agree on.
Entropic man,
“The CO2 greenhouse effect paradigm summarised in IPCC AR5 WG1.”
…is based on this statement :
“convection is what determines the temperature gradient of the atmosphere”
(Ramanathan et al. 1978)
However, this statement is
not coherent,
not consistent,
not consilient.
Thank you phi, but there must be more to the paradigm than that.
E-man, I’m not going to look for a needle in a haystack. State the paradigm in your own words or post an extract of the AR5 text you are alluding to.
Im not going to look for a needle in a haystack.
Good idea.
You might stumble on one and prick yourself on it.
Why did phi randomly assign some quote from AR5 to describe the GHE? Is there some game being played today that i’m not aware of?
Why did phi randomly assign some quote from AR5 to describe the GHE?
Maybe just because he has no clue and merely doesn’t know what he talks about. Actually he’s got a handful of much more gossipy playmates here suffering from a quite similar condition.
Is there some game being played today that im not aware of?
I suggest idiot tracking. A lot of fun and game is fairly abundant.
phi…”convection is what determines the temperature gradient of the atmosphere
(Ramanathan et al. 1978)”
This is what concerns me about climate science. Ramanathan is reputed to be an authority on the atmosphere yet he makes statements like this.
Convection rides on top of the temperature gradient created by gravity. I have used the example of Mt. Everest several times where the atmosphere at the peak is 1/3 the pressure it is at sea level.
Convection cannot do that.
The temperature at the peak of Everest is also a fraction of what it is at sea level, even in summer. That is not caused by convection. It does not matter whether winds are blowing or not, the air at the peak of Everest is barely breathable and it’s darned cold, especially when there is no solar radiation.
Exertion on Everest from base camp up requires breathing that involves panting. The body is starved for oxygen and climbers get sore throats from the ragged breathing. Convection cannot do that. With a relatively constant volume for the atmosphere, pressure is proportional to temperature.
Is Ramanathan not aware of this basic physics/chemistry?
The only factor that can create a pressure gradient that applies the planet over is gravity.
Gordon Robertson says:
This is what concerns me about climate science. Ramanathan is reputed to be an authority on the atmosphere yet he makes statements like this
At this point one can only laugh at you.
“Science is always conditional. There is always the possibility that new evidence will require the paradigm to be modified or extended (or even occasionally abandoned). ”
Agreed, so many theories have been modified and abandoned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories
“The evidence forms the basis of a paradigm. This is a description of reality good enough to be generally accepted by most workers in the field, a consensus.”
What defines most? and how is this surveyed? Are Roy’s view mainstream (part of the most)?
“Refusal to accept anything less than definitive is a denialist tactic known as the impossible standards argument.”
Interesting, who are these denialists?
That’s only 4 C’s. And, it lacks unique and compelling evidence. Whining about “impossible standards” is something you hear a lot from teenagers.
Bart
coherence, consistence, consistence, conditionality and consensus.
5Cs.
“unique and compelling evidence”
What were you saying about “impossible standards”?
Not my night!
coherence, consistence, consilience, conditionality and consensus.
Is there some accent on the second “consistence” that makes it different from the first?
Unique (i.e., unambiguous) and compelling evidence is not an impossible standard. If you want to cut corners on your product, I’m not buying.
Messages passed. OK.
Tell me, which of these 5 C’s is lacking in the theory of night gases causing malaria? Or, of rumblings in the Earth being due to the anger of the Volcano God?
This is not science. It is pre-Enlightenment rationalization.
Bart
Some light reading.
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/KuhnCycle.htm
I asked a simple question. Do you not see that your method of rationalization could have been used to justify all kinds of consensus views of the past that turned out to be completely wrong?
Bart
You look at this time series…..
https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hires/2017/listentothee.png
…and are CONVINCED recent warming is part of a 60 year cycle.
*******
Yes, quite a stickler for the scientific method.
Em,
Good luck with Kuhnism.
Of course, normal science doesnt seem to suit climatological pseudoscientists, depending as it does on the scientific method, including such basics as testable hypotheses, experimental support and so on.
A likely refuge for dilettantes who are unable to cope with the rigours of real science, and prefer the airy-fairy world of consensus, adulation, and mutual ego massaging.
Facts are facts. Opinion is opinion.
Still no GHE. CO2 heats nothing. Climate is the average of weather, and climate science is an oxymoron.
Keep praying. It won’t replace the scientific method, but you can always hope that a miracle will occur – like a testable GHE hypothesis appearing, graven on a stone tablet or two!
Only joking, of course. I wouldnt like to be at the mercy of every ignorant and stupid dimwit who claimed to be offended – the refuge of the born victim, whose main talent is blaming someone else for their inadequacies.
Take a teaspoon of cement, and harden up, I say!
Cheers.
Snape – not so much that one. That one has been “adjusted” to within an inch of its life. The original GISS had a clearly defined ~60 year periodicity. Then, it changed.
The vestiges are still there (peaks in about 1945, 2005) but the signal has been modified in every way they could think of to smooth the irregularities out, and rob it of any character save that which supports the AGW “cause”. In future years, it will become a case study in confirmation bias.
Bart says:
The original GISS had a clearly defined ~60 year periodicity.
Where can I confirm that?
The vestiges are still there (peaks in about 1945, 2005) but the signal has been modified in every way they could think of to smooth the irregularities out, and rob it of any character save that which supports the AGW cause. In future years, it will become a case study in confirmation bias.
Are you aware that adjustments REDUCE the long-term warming trend??
And do you know why they’re done?
“Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth about global temperature data: How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it *must* be done,” Scott K Johnson, Ars Technica 1/21/16.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/
“Understanding Adjustments to Temperature Data,” BEST
http://berkeleyearth.org/understanding-adjustments-temperature-data/
“Understanding Time of Observation Bias,” Zeke Hausfather, 2/22/15.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/
“Are you aware that adjustments REDUCE the long-term warming trend??”
Immaterial. Wouldn’t change the fact that the character of the series has been altered to mask natural variation.
That is an assertion that is never corroborated with more than innuendo and/or circular reasoning.
Nor do proponents read the large body of material explaining how and why adjustments are done.
So colour me unconvinced.
“Nor do proponents read the large body of material explaining how and why adjustments are done.”
One can always rationalize a change on spurious reasoning. More subtly, even with sound reasoning, there is a tendency to seek out reasons to change things that reinforce one’s predilections, and neglect others just as sound that don’t.
And, that is how confirmation bias can lead one astray, even when one thinks one is operating on the up-and-up. When the “adjustments” overwhelmingly tend to support the established narrative, that is a tip-off that people are fooling themselves.
Yep, just more innuendo and generalizing about what can happen.
Nothing about what did happen, because that would require you to read some actual reports.
The irony is pretty great, though. Bias and predilections and all that. Amply demonstrated by you trying to push the point with nothing substantive behind it.
“Science nowadays is Kuhnian.”
Who says? I imagine Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever, Richard Lindzen, and other prominent scientists would disagree. What would Feynman and Einstein say if they were still with us?
Kuhn’s ideas substitute subjectivity for objectivity allowing consensus to become most of us instead of all of us.
In Kuhn’s SSR, the first of your “C’s” should be “empirically adequate with experimentation and observation (wiki).” Your “paradigm” can’t even be defined consistently.
The “impossible standard argument” is not just a tactic. It goes to falsifiability. If definitive evidence isn’t possible then the theory isn’t falsifiable. If a theory isn’t falsifiable, then it isn’t a valid theory.
Chic Bowdrie
Falsifiability isn’t what it used to be.
Popper’s approach works beautifully for simple laboratory experiments.
Take the Law of the Pendulum, t=2π √l/g.
That is easy to test by controlled experiments.
Yo were asking for a clear formulation of the CO2 greenhouse effect theory. Try this.
All else being equal, a change in the atmospheric CO2 concentration will change the balance between incoming and outgoing longwave radiation and lead to a change in global average temperature. Increased CO2 leads to a temporary decrease in outgoing radiation below incoming shortwave radiation. The net accumulation of energy leads to an increase in temperature. Decreased CO2 leads to an increase in outgoing radiation above incoming radiation. The net loss of energy leads to a decrease in temperature.
Take the forcing equation for CO2, ∆f = 5.35ln(C/Co)
That describes the effect of changing CO2 on the flow of energy through the Earth’s climate system. It can be demonstrated on a laboratory scale using tubes of gas to simulate the atmosphere. It is not falsifiable in the classic sense because, as was pointed out, it is not practicable to carry out controlled experiments on a planetary scale.
How do you test it? You look for predictable effects such as the imbalance between incoming shortwave radiation and OLR. You examine the OLR spectrum and observe that it is low at the wavelengths absorbed by CO2. You observe the downwelling radiation and note that its spectrum is the inverse of the OLR. You observe the change in CO2 over time and check whether the predictable effects change with it.
Overall you observe that the Earth is behaving in a way consistent with the CO2 theory and inconsistent with the proposed alternatives.
Em,
Complete nonsense. Adding more CO2 between the Sun and the thermometer reduces the amount of energy reaching the thermometer, resulting in the temperature dropping.
Reducing the rate at which energy leaves an object lacking an internal heat source slows cooling. Nothing else. The Sun is external to the Earth.
Your witless attempt to define the GHE leads to the conclusion that removing CO2 from the atmosphere leads to a decrease in temperature. No so on the Moon, for example. Not if you consider H2O as a GHG, either.
The hottest places on Earth are the ones with the least obstruction of insolation caused by GHGs – the arid tropical deserts. Less GHG (H2O), the higher the temperature.
You are full of crap, to put it mildly. No clue – just religious fervour.
Ill go with Feynman –
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
If you are not even clever enough to devise an experiment to test your non-existent hypothesis, you are indulging in fantasy. Pseudoscience at its best (or worst)!
The Earth has managed to cool over the last four and a half billion years. Don’t like that inconvenient fact? Tough.
No GHE. No testable GHE hypothesis, either. Nothing.
Cheers.
“Adding more CO2 between the Sun and the thermometer reduces the amount of energy reaching the thermometer, resulting in the temperature dropping.”
Complete nonsense as demonstrated by experiment. The CO2 increases IR opacity making the energy reaching the thermometer increase
resulting in a temperature increase. To apply what someone else wrote:
Flynn is full of crap, to put it mildly. No clue – just religious fervor. I’ll go with Feynman “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with Tyndall’s experiment, it’s wrong.”
So Flynn is wrong per Prof. Feynman.
If Flynn is not even clever enough to devise an experiment to test his non-existent hypothesis, he is indulging in fantasy. Pseudoscience at its best (or worst)!
E man,
You get an A for effort on stating a coherent GHE description.
Here are your problems to sort out.
First the lab experiments. Are the tubes of gas closed? Doesn’t work because you’ve immediately eliminated convection.
So next you propose going to the atmosphere and make a few assumptions like what’s happening in some places is happening everywhere. Or you might ignore the clouds because they don’t do the same thing everyday, and so on. You have to rationalize that all the error introduced by these approximations are negligible and then the CO2 signal becomes clear. Not, because global temperatures are not responding to that signal.
Have you considered the possibility that atmospheric CO2 is sufficiently concentrated to absorb every W/m2 a day’s sun can deliver and it all gets thermalized in the dense bulk air near the surface? Then the air is distributed all around the globe. At high altitudes the bulk air is now giving up its energy to the IR-active gases to emit to space. A little more CO2 can’t do much to change the massive daily energy transfers.
Ball4,
It appears that Nature doesnt agree with you.
The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years.
Physics doesn’t agree with you either. Reducing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer does not result in an increase in temperature.
You will just have to keep a’hopin’, and a’wishin’ . . .
Good luck.
Cheers.
The CO2 increases IR opacity making the energy reaching the thermometer increase resulting in a temperature increase.
Complete and utter thermodynamic nonsense. Ever hear of the First Law of Thermodynamics?
“The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years.”
Mike continues to disappear interglacials. Increasing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer does result in an increase in temperature as shown by Prof. Tyndall.
—–
“Complete and utter thermodynamic nonsense. Ever hear of the First Law of Thermodynamics?”
Yes, you should put it to good use. See above and check Dr. Feynman’s notes about experiments. Increasing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer does result in an increase in temperature as shown by Prof. Tyndall.
Ball4,
The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years. The longest term average there is. Cherry pick all you like. It wont help you.
Off you go. Dream up something else – a testable GHE hypothesis might be a good place to start.
How hard can it be?
Cheers.
“How hard can it be?”
Not very hard, even Mike Flynn has listed several testable GHE hypotheses, all easily passed the Feynman test being based on experiment.
“The longest term average there is.”
Not really Mike, the universe has cooled for a lot longer. Cherry pick all you like, it won’t help you disappear interglacials. You may wish to disagree, I don’t care.
Chic Bowdrie
The laboratory experiment I had in mind uses long tubes containing gases to simulate the atmosphere.Pressure and composition can be varied as necessary. The tubes are usually horizontal to remove convection.
The tubes used have a reflective lining to stop the walls absorbing radiation and are sealed with rock salt plugs (transparant to IR).
At one end, call it the origin, a 15 micrometre IR source simulates longwave radiation from the surface. iR sensors at both ends detect transmitted radiation and returned radiation.
CO2 absorbs 15 micrometre radiation and reemits it in all directions.
With zero CO2 you get transmitted radiation but no returned radiation. This is because none of the radiation is absorbed.
Add a small amount of CO2. A small amount of radiation is absorbed and reradiated in both directions. Suppose 10% of the incoming radiation is absorbed. 5% will be returned to the origin, 5% will be reradiated onward and %90 will pass onward uninterrupted. The IR detetectors will see 95% of the radiation transmitted and 5% returned.
Increase the amount of CO2. You increase the amount of radiation absorbed and reradiated. The % of radiation coming out the other end decreases and the % of returning radiation increases.
Given enough CO2 the system saturates. All the incoming radiation is absorbed and reradiated in all directions. 50% of the radiation leaves the output end and 50% returns to the origin.
Scale this up to the atmosphere. The origin is the surface radiating IR. The other end is the top of the atmosphere radiating to space.
CO2 absorbs a proportion of the radiation from the surface and returns half of it to the surface. Less heat is lost to space and the surface is less cold than it would be without the CO2.
Because the real world is a lot more complex than the tube, there is a lot more detail to be considered, but that is the basic principle.
Entropic Man,
Apparently you have no idea about how thermalization and convection completely obscure any relevance your closed tube experiments contribute.
When you extend your tubes beyond 50 meters or so, CO2 will become saturated before reaching the top of the tube. Most of the absorbed radiation will be thermalized, so the magnitude of the 50% radiated up and down is a small fraction of the total absorbed. If the tube is not closed, the thermalized (warmed, expanded) air will rise. The saturated condition (50% up, 50% down) continues up through the troposphere until the air thins. Because of reverse thermalization, more CO2 means a greater absolute amount of radiation goes up even though the 50% up and down still applies. The 50% down never gets to the surface because it will be absorbed on the way down as the atmosphere thickens.
If you apply the same principles to water vapor, you might imagine that additional CO2 has little effect on affecting the global temperature.
“Apparently you have no idea about how thermalization and convection completely obscure any relevance your closed tube experiments contribute.”
Apparently you have no idea about the effects of convection. Put some forced convection in the tube (aka a fan). The results will be the same as at 4:53am once the work on the fluid from fan power is accounted for.
Alternatively, you could add some natural convection by warming the bottom of the tube. Once again, the results at 4:53am will hold once the power source is accounted.
Ball4,
Apparently, you don’t understand thermalization either.
If you actually do your experiment in a sufficiently long vertical tube, I assert that adding CO2 to an already saturated condition will not change the temperature profiles.
Chic, consider the CO2 thermalization effect is logarithmic with additional CO2 (O2 continually chemically changed to CO2 with hydrocarbons) and what effect that math has on the temperature profile.
Thermalization has nothing to do with a logarithmic effect. Neither does an O2/CO2 reaction. What straws are you grasping at?
Please read: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2016/12/solar-activity-oceans-cycles-water.html
HS: “Three factors explain essentially all..”
Essentially all but not all. That site even concludes there is more to the story! You can find the rest of the story in:
The lab work of Prof. Tyndall and the field work of Dr. Feldman and the other relevant ref.s including Meteorologist Callendar.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Please read: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2016/12/solar-activity-oceans-cycles-water.html
Sorry, no. If the sun or ocean cycles were causing warming, the stratosphere would be warming too. Instead it is cooling — a prediction of AGW theory.
And water vapor in the atmosphere can’t increase unless the temperature first increases.
Ball4,
Keep working on that explanation of what Tyndall, Callendar, and Feldman did.
David,
The sun doesn’t cause warming! No wonder water vapor doesn’t increase. I should have known.
Chic Bowdrie says:
David,
The sun doesnt cause warming! No wonder water vapor doesnt increase. I should have known.
Water vapor is increasing.
Why?
“Keep working on that explanation of what Tyndall, Callendar, and Feldman did.”
All in their published reports. I don’t need to add to their bulk of work, all experimental. Passes the Feynman test.
Chic Bowdrie
In my 4.53 post I said specifically that the tubes were sealed and horizontal.
Your focus on thermalization and convection is mistaken.
Increased CO2 leads to a cooler stratosphere. This is because CO2 is causing a net flow of energy from kinetic energy to radiation, not the net flow from radiation to kinetic energy that you envisage.
Look at Earth’s energy budget.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget
Earth’s surface loses an average of 398W/sq M by radiation, 86 W/sq M by evapotranspiration and 18W/sq M by convection.
Convection carried 4% of the surface heat loss. It is unlikely that this is the dominant heat carrier.
“Convection carried 4% of the surface heat loss.”
No net convective heat loss though. Downdrafts and surface inflow mixing carry that convective 4% right back to the surface in continuous steady state cycle.
E man,
“Your focus on thermalization and convection is mistaken.”
No it isn’t. Other than the IR radiating directly through the atmospheric “window,” all IR energy leaving the surface travels via thermalization and convection, wind, etc. It is not glued to CO2.
If your numbers were correct, 398 + 86 + 18 = 502 W/m2. How can that be? Where does the 502 – 240 = 262 W/m2 go?
Ball4,
You can’t be serious. No one thinks that.
Entropic man,
“Convection carried 4% of the surface heat loss.”
No, convection (including latent heat) is 61% of surface heat loss (98/161).
Singular, your error is precisely due to a misunderstanding of the notion of entropy.
11:53am: “You can’t be serious. No one thinks that.”
Yes, seriously Chic! Global updrafts balance downdrafts & lateral infilling, rain balances evapotranspiration over the 4-12 annual periods studied. The earth global energy balances (EB) all cycle LH & SH in ~steady state. No one that seriously reads the numerous EB papers detail miss this balance.
——
12:33pm: “No, convection (including latent heat) is 61% of surface heat loss (98/161).”
Surface LH + SH thermal energy loss in the link provided is 104.8 and surface LH + SH thermal energy gain is 104.8 for no effect on surface temperature since the thermal energy net is zero in steady state for these processes.
This should not be that hard to figure out if you read the details in the EB papers.
Ball4,
Think about it. How does rain happen? The only way water vapor gets into the atmosphere is by evaporation. There are no showers at the TOA.
Evaporation causes convection, because water molecules are lighter than the rest of the air. The ligher air rises.
When the water vapor condenses at a high altitude, it gives off energy. It doesn’t rain that energy back to the surface. The energy is radiated away to space.
“When the water vapor condenses at a high altitude, it gives off energy. It doesn’t rain that energy back to the surface.”
Almost correct, liquid water rain does transfer some small energy of the total 104.8 back – some EBs dont distinguish it & show like the one linked only that total 104.8 LH + SH is transferred back down to the surface in balance over the periods with the total 104.8 up.
Also, you are correct, in the 240 OLR there are energy components from the LH and SH that are lost to deep space. Consult the EB papers for a breakdown of the 240 though some cartoons do so for you in part (e.g. the link shows 29.9 emitted by liquid water colloid in clouds).
Mike,
“The hottest places on Earth are the ones with the least obstruction of insolation caused by GHGs the arid tropical deserts. Less GHG (H2O), the higher the temperature.”
Really, the hottest? Does that mean there is more trapped heat (thermal energy) in a desert than a moist tropical site?
Ball4,
104.8 / 163.3 = 64% if you want.
Try thermodynamics, it’s better when temperature is at stake.
“Does that mean there is more trapped heat (thermal energy) in a desert than a moist tropical site?”
Lets check Phoenix vs New Orleans in July. Which city contains more thermal energy on average?
Lets look at enthalpy (H) of air in the two cities, using this calculator:
http://www.remak.eu/en/calculation-moist-air-properties
City–ave Temp (F)–Ave Humidity(%)–H (kJ/kg)–hours of sun
Phoenix—–94———32—————63——-377
New Orleans-83———80—————79——-260
FYI, Enthalpy is a measure of thermal energy content.
Notice New Orleans has greater thermal energy, even though it receives much less sunlight.
“104.8 / 163.3 = 64% if you want.”
163.3 is only part of the object’s illumination in the graphic EB, phi. If you are looking to compute emissivity meaningfully you will need consider all of the illumination on an object vs. the total of that transmitted (transmissivity), reflected (reflectivity) and emitted (emissivity).
Ball4,
No. Heat loss is heat loss. A thermodynamic concept.
A pseudo-science of climate and 1 E9 comments because we put thermodynamics in the trash.
Phi,
I think Ball4 is making stuff up as he goes along. It’s one way to learn, but not the best.
Heat stays in a solid object phi, heat can’t transfer unless the molecules do. Heat doesn’t exist separate form the avg. KE of the object’s constituent molecules.
“Heat loss is heat loss.”
Heat loss is KE transfer from a solid, phi. So that solid can be translucent i.e. transmit some of the radiant energy straight through with no change, reflect some of that incident radiant energy with changed polarization, or absorb and emit the incident radiant energy.
Since phi doesn’t account for all these processes or all the illumination on the object, phi gets the wrong emissivity.
Always a good test simply to use an inexpensive fixed emissivity IR thermometer in view of the object of interest. If the brightness temperature readout is the same as thermometer temperature, then the object has emissivity 0.95.
So get one and point it at the dirt outside near a thermometer in equilibrium with the dirt. Point it at the grass so forth. Point it at some shiny aluminum, tell us what you find experimentally.
Ball4,
In thermodynamics, heat is a type of energy transfer in which energy flows from a warmer substance or object to a colder one.
[Wikipedia]
Simply apply the consensual definitions.
When the term temperature appears, we are in the universe of thermodynamics with its definitions and its laws.
That lagging behind climatology, some seek to change the definitions and laws leaves pensive.
More specifically as to which form of energy transfer some unnamed wiki author is discussing, phi:
In the hard won field of thermodynamics, heat doesn’t exist in any form by itself but is a type of molecular net kinetic energy transfer in which molecular kinetic energy transfers from a warmer substance or object to a colder one and vice versa due the Maxwell-Boltzmann statistical distribution of molecular velocities.
The M-B distribution appears whenever the word temperature is invoked as temperature always…ALWAYS involves averages. But phi knew that.
David Appell @ May 15, 2018 at 6:00 PM
“Instead it is cooling a prediction of AGW theory.”
But, not uniquely a prediction of AGW.
Depends upon high altitude ozone, which has been in decline.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Who says? I imagine Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever, Richard Lindzen, and other prominent scientists would disagree.
“[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but its rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.”
– Freeman Dyson, Yale Environment 360, June 4, 2009
http://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment
entropic…”Science nowadays is Kuhnian. A successful theory has five Cs”.
It’s exactly the same today as when Kuhn first pointed out the problem with paradigms. They are resistant to change even when the evidence against them is clear.
Gordon Robertson says:
Its exactly the same today as when Kuhn first pointed out the problem with paradigms. They are resistant to change even when the evidence against them is clear.
And the evidence against AGW is…?
entropic…”The CO2 Greenhouse effect paradigm meets the five Cs”.
You forgot the most important C…consensus. The GHE and AGW theories rely heavily on agreement and have no direct physical evidence to back them.
To the contrary, the evidence came first and the consensus followed.
Change the evidence and you change the consensus.
Sometimes one piece of evidence is enough. Remember the Astronomer Royal who said that “Space travel is utter bilge” just before Sputnik 1 launched.
The steady state and big bang paradigms coexisted until the cosmic microwave background was detected. This swung the consensus firmly behind the big bang.
Scientists are as conservative as the rest of us. There is a reluctance to change paradigm until the weight of evidence in favour of the change is considerable. Younger scientists tip over earlier than older ones.
A few never change. There is some truth in the old adage that science advances one funeral at a time.
entropic….”To the contrary, the evidence came first and the consensus followed”.
Several of us here keep asking the same question, where is the evidence? The IPCC has never stated once that anthropogenic CO2 is warming the atmosphere, only that it is likely.
Of course, they have supplied their own confidence levels which many people cannot understand. A CL would not be required if there was real, solid data to prove CO2 is warming the atmosphere.
With regard to their CLs, the IPCC stated in 2013 that the 15 year period from 1998 – 2012 was a ‘warming hiatus’, and in the same report they raised their CL from 90 to 95 that humans are causing the warming?
Double-speak, or what?
Gordon Robertson says:
Several of us here keep asking the same question, where is the evidence?
What efforts have you made yourself to answer your own question?
What textbooks, books and papers have you read? What lectures have you watched on YouTube? What scientists have you written to to ask?
If you want to learn, you have to learn to research and answer your own questions.
Gordon Robertson says:
With regard to their CLs, the IPCC stated in 2013 that the 15 year period from 1998 2012 was a warming hiatus, and in the same report they raised their CL from 90 to 95 that humans are causing the warming?
Double-speak, or what?
Not at all.
1) There is far more than 15 years of overall warming.
2) A “hiatus” of 15 years happened at least seven times in the 20th century.
3) There are too many other indicators of warming — ice melt, rising sea level, increase in ocean heat content — for anyone to think that AGW had stopped.
4) Better data has not shown that surface “hiatus” did not, in fact, happen.
For some reason, despite claiming to want to see the science, you ignore all of this, especially #4.
Why?
Gordon Robertson says:
The GHE and AGW theories rely heavily on agreement and have no direct physical evidence to back them.
Instead of making dumb statements like this, why don’t you crack a textbook open now and again?
DA…”Instead of making dumb statements like this, why dont you crack a textbook open now and again?”
And why don’t you show the direct proof instead of shooting off your mouth with ad homs and innuendo?
Why should I answer your questions when you’re too lazy to research them for yourself and lack the science and mathematical background to understand them anyway?
Why should I answer your questions when you ignore me and everyone here who tries to point out your errors and point you in the right direction?
Hmm?
I don’t think science can be perfectly definitive. But there comes a point where the evidence is so overwhelming that it’s silly to argue otherwise.
Is it definitive that atoms exist?
If not, let’s see you argue the other side, presenting the evidence for your claim.
chic…”…how would the data prove that CO2 was involved?”
That’s the point, isn’t it? Roy, who studies this stuff daily, thinks CO2 has some kind of effect but he cannot say what it is. No one can, except alarmists who are misrepresenting the truth.
Gordon Robertson says:
Roy, who studies this stuff daily, thinks CO2 has some kind of effect but he cannot say what it is.
It’s like you don’t even know how to read….
Evidence of CO2’s effect:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
These findings have been confirmed:
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004). http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1
Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen et al, (2007) http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
More papers on this subject are listed here:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/
More evidence:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Press release for the latter:
“First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxides Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earths Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Watch Gordon Robertson utterly ignore all this evidence. Because he has no other choice, since he wants to keep denying.
This is why I’ve said before, deniers are cowards at base. Their position relies on avoiding a great deal of evidence…. They simply won’t acknowledge it and won’t discuss it.
I explained why your evidence is not definitive. Do you believe the conclusions of your citations are incontrovertible or are you practicing religion not science?
I think if Earth was completely covered with a ocean, the global average air surface temperature would be higher.
Or Earth land surfaces causes cooling.
Land surfaces causes a cooler average air surface in various ways and land surfaces also causes high (or the highest) air surface temperature. And the higher land air surface temperatures is related to a cooling effect of the global average temperatures (or more energy being emitted into space).
A way to get highest average global temperature is to have the most uniform temperatures. The Moon with wide differences in surface temperature is example of low average global temperature, as is the scorching hot planet, Mercury.
Venus has very uniform temperature at the rocky surface- hundreds of days lacking sunlight and the air remains about the same temperature (perhaps about 5 K cooler).
And one has the model of the Ideal thermally conductive body being warm or if, the temperature wasn’t uniform or if was much hotter in sunlight, it would have lower global average temperature.
If use the model of ideal thermally conductive blackbody to a world that is covered with ocean, one assumes in some fashion the global surface water would have an uniform temperature.
And I think that NATURE, would tend to make world covered with ocean have a more uniform temperature as compared to the world having 30% covered with land.
First, world covered with ocean, can’t have polar ice caps.
Land or at least shallow ocean is needed to have polar ice caps. And one needs land to have glaciers.
At some distance from the Sun, one would far enough so that polar sea ice would form on planet completely covered with an ocean, but without land such ice wander about, and could last more year and would be a mechanism to cause a more uniform temperature, rather create larger difference.
A fundamental aspect of an Ocean is it absorbs nearly all of spectrum of Sunlight and absorbs indirect sunlight as well as direct sunlight. Or when sun at zenith and day is clear, one gets about 1050 watts of correct sunlight, but if one includes indirect sunlight, it is 1120 watts per square meter. Another aspect is that sunlight is not directly warming the surface, as most of Sunlight passes thru the surface.
At Earth distance, planet completely cover by an ocean, and it has mechanism allow one to have a more uniform temperature it will closely resemble an Ideal thermally conductive blackbody body AND have average ocean temperature of about 5 C.
Or Earth has average volume ocean temperature of about 3.5 and it should about 5 C (or more). And such world doesn’t have polar sea ice (in winter). Whereas Earth currently has lots of polar sea ice in both summer and winter.
Another aspect is with Earth, tropical ocean is pushed East, and is stopped by land masses, and one might assume if there was not land masses to stop it, it could continue. And if so, that would cause and more uniform global temperature.
Oh, forget point, higher global average temperature, but no temperature getting much above 3O C. And lacking large land regions which are warmed to 70 C, with the surface air even exceeding 50 C, which radiates more energy into space.
And roughly such a world would absorb and emit, more than 250 watts per square meter. And people (assuming they lived on the ocean) would not get our hot weather found on the land we live on.
Btw, I tend to think that in the future, more people will live on the ocean, not because of “global warming”, but due to space exploration and the results of that exploration being utilized.
First, world covered with ocean, cant have polar ice caps.
See: Earth, Arctic, sea
DA…”First, world covered with ocean, cant have polar ice caps.
See: Earth, Arctic, sea”
See: comprehension
GR: Read to see that gbalkie wrote:
“Land or at least shallow ocean is needed to have polar ice caps. And one needs land to have glaciers.”
This is not true on Earth.
By Eric Hunt
May 2, 2018
AER Corn Belt Report
The U.S. Corn Belt is on the move
Recent research has highlighted a spatial shift in the Corn Belt. While the spatial expansion to the northwest in the Corn Belt is evident, it was not clear if there has also been a corresponding shift in the highest yielding areas over time. During the 2012 flash drought that affected almost all of the traditional United States Corn Belt, there seemed to be media consensus that the highest yields will eventually be in states like Minnesota and South Dakota. Therefore, we extended previous work to determine whether such a hypothesis about the northward shift in the highest yielding districts has been concurrent with the spatial expansion of the Corn Belt. We found that northward shift in the highest yields is consistent with the overall shift in the Corn Belt, but what may have gone unnoticed is the equally significant westward shift in the highest yields. This short report quantifies some of the changes that have been observed over the Corn Belt since the early 1960s.
https://www.aer.com/news-events/blog/aer-corn-belt-report/
From the report:
“In the coming months we will be working with a team of inter-disciplinary scientists from multiple sectors to try and determine the contribution from these factors, starting first with climate change.”
Isn’t it funny how no one here is complaining that UAH only has the USA at -0.01 for April.
This figure was despite the fact that NOAA has the USA at -1.65 for April when compared to the same baseline, and when everyone knows how cold April was in the US.
It makes you wonder:
(1) How effective is the UAH method at measuring temperature
(2) Why it is that the band of so-called skeptics suddenly lose their skepticism when the situation is reversed.
Because we are not ADHD.
Unless you are whining about NOAA.
bond…”Unless you are whining about NOAA”.
You mean the data fudgers.
Does that mean you are saying that you believe that UAH got it right, and that April in the US was only average?
If so then yeah – it looks like NOAA must have fudged their data too LOW by 1.64 degrees.
Come on ye NOAA-haters and spin this – NOAA getting a lower value than UAH.
Shock to your paradigm? Whither did you flee?
It’s not just that NOAA was lower than UAH – that has happened before. It’s that it happened in the homeland of denial, and they all know that UAH absolutely MUST be wrong, yet refuse to acknowledge it.
This is really dumb…
Bart
Nice self-referential sentence.
Gordon Robertson says:
bondUnless you are whining about NOAA.
You mean the data fudgers.
Still no proof, huh Gordon?
B,
It makes me wonder if you are stupid and ignorant. Are your wonders more important than my wonders?
Does anyone really care about either collection of wonders?
I wonder.
Cheers.
I always go by UAH data which is not manipulated one way or the other unlike NOAA.
So April in the US was not cold then – merely right on the 1981-2010 average?
Pretty close in April, warmer than average in the winter months.
Or land temperature in US and most other lands has been increasing over last few decades (since 1979) but in April in US it returned to average.
So all the claims by the denier fraternity, including most who comment here, of April 2018 in the US being one of the coldest on record were fabricated BS?
April 2018 wasn’t one of the coldest recorded Aprils in USA48.
It was ranked 22nd highest, out of 124 months. In the top 20%.
So all the claims by the denier fraternity, including most who comment here, of April 2018 in the US being one of the coldest on record were fabricated BS?
Yes, it must be BS, because UAH for the US was average, not especially cold for the month.
And UAH, as the skeptics keep saying, is the absolute best data set out there.
So April in the US was not cold. Reckon the skeptics here who said it was will take it back because of the UAH result?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
I always go by UAH data which is not manipulated one way or the other unlike NOAA.
What proof do you have that NOAA’s results are “manipulated?”
Why do you ignore RSS’s results, which have a trend about 50% higher than UAH’s (for the LT)?
Gordon Robertson
In response to your post way up somewhere:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302370
The very link you posted on page 595 of the Woods book (it has a 595 number on the Upper right of the page. The last paragraph deals with the emission of CO2)
https://archive.org/stream/physicaloptic00wood#page/594/mode/2up
N,
What is your point? That CO2 can be heated and allowed to cool? That it absorbs and emits light of various wavelengths – progressively longer and longer – all the way to absolute zero?
You cant even describe the GHE in any sensible way can you? Blathering about the properties of this or that is irrelevant, if you cant even state concisely what it is you are attempting to claim.
Are you trying to claim that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter? It is obvious that CO2 does not prevent the temperature from falling at night, when a cloud passes between the Sun and the surface, during a solar eclipse, or when it is foggy, raining or snowing.
Go ahead – describe your wondrous and magical GHE – which only seems to result in increased temperatures when the sun is shining brightly! It doesn’t even seem to work when the Sun shines continuously for six months at the poles!
How hard can it be? Very, very, hard it seems. Impossible would be one description.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
I would say that if you had a dry planet or the Moon and you had only CO2 in the atmosphere, then such a thermometer on such a planet would get warmer as you added CO2.
The Solar energy has very little percentage of 15 micron IR in the mix of wavelengths. The CO2 would absorb very little incoming solar energy. The surface would absorb this energy and warm emitting IR. This IR would act to heat the CO2 atmosphere which would radiate energy back to the surface. This added energy would cause the surface to rise to higher temperatures.
Not sure what you are droning on about.
https://www.slideserve.com/faunus/from-grant-petty-s-book-a-first-course-in-atmospheric-radiation
Look at slide 3 of this link. It is a Downwelling IR Spectrum. It shows CO2 emits almost like a black-body in its strong emission bands. I really don’t know what you are asking for. I give you all the evidence you need. The failure is in your mental abilities. You can’t handle the Truth so you reject it.
I watch Westworld and you remind me of the robots that reject a reality that does not fit their programs. They are shown photos and claim “I don’t see anything” You remind me of this mental state. You can be given tons of evidence and you are not able to grasp it but then you keep asking for it. Why do you do this? You need to be reprogrammed, you have a bad logic loop in that cyber mind of yours.
Your point about the Sun is most childish and ignorant. It hurts to respond to such poor logic. Why must you act so dumb? Do you get credit for it?
The GHE does not magically warm the surface without an input of energy. It only sets the condition to reach higher equilibrium temperatures over another condition. People have explained this to you hundreds of times. Each time it goes over you head and you can’t understand it. Yet you keep asking over and over.
N,
You seem to have missed the point that the airless Moon reaches far higher temperatures due to the unconcentrated rays of the Sun, after the same exposure time. Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer colder. Fact.
As to the miraculous heating properties of CO2, they don’t work at night, during a solar eclipse, when it is cold, rainy . . .
Make sure that any attempt at describing the non-existent GHE takes all that into account.
Go your hardest. You will fail – it is all nonsense.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
I have asked this from you once and you ignored it. You will ignore it again. Not sure if you are human, you repeat constantly and cannot follow thoughts.
You need to answer this before you repeat your words.
How much solar energy does a pure CO2 atmosphere obstruct.
What percentage of Solar incoming flux is at the bands of IR Carbon Dioxide absorbs. Unless you are willing or able to give this information keep me out of your posts. They are worthless with no data. Don’t be lazy, do some research to find the answer or calculate it using known radiant energy formulas.
If you ask nice, Tim Folkerts may provide this information. Until then please bother some other poor poster.
“Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer colder.”
Not fact. Nonsense, doesn’t pass the Feynman test.
Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer warmer.
Fact. Does pass the Feynman test.
“Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer warmer.”
You’ve gone overboard. That is obviously not the case. A thermometer placed under the shade of an old oak tree will read less than one in an open field.
That’s true Bart since you interject a different scenario. This is also true confirmed by Prof. Tyndall’s 1861 experimental report to the Royal Society:
Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer warmer.
Tyndall’s thermometers went up 5F with lab air in the report as the obstruction such an atm. absorbing the weak IR from the boiling water source. The wording is playful only due to Mr. Flynn’s playful comments.
Bart, as an afterthought your scenario is applicable to Tyndall’s needle. The needle thermo pile is in the shade once the lab air is introduced making the thermometers warmer by 5F so Tyndall’s needle registered a cooling same as in your scenario.
Tyndall then calibrated the needle deflection in the cooler direction to the thermometer reading warmer direction inside his tube.
Bart says:
Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer warmer.
Youve gone overboard. That is obviously not the case. A thermometer placed under the shade of an old oak tree will read less than one in an open field.
You misrepresented the argument, and I think you know that.
The question is if the thermometer in the shade will read warmer with CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere, than without it.
Yes, it will.
“The question is if the thermometer in the shade will read warmer with CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere, than without it.”
That’s actually not the question. The question is the functional dependence, i.e., whether it is monotonic with concentration. Furthermore, we are interested in the aggregate response, not just “all things being equal”.
N,
“You seem to have missed the point that the airless Moon reaches far higher temperatures due to the unconcentrated rays of the Sun, after the same exposure time. Putting an obstruction such as an atmosphere of any type between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer colder. Fact.”
Mike’s swearing-in before his testimony:
‘I promise to tell the truth, half the truth, the half that works for me’
Fact: we have already demonstrated for Mike that putting glass between sun and thermometer makes it hotter! Your ‘fact’ is not factual.
norman…”The very link you posted on page 595 of the Woods book (it has a 595 number on the Upper right of the page. The last paragraph deals with the emission of CO2)”
I see what’s going on here. Your version is from 1911, and the one I have here is the third edition from 1934. It confused me when Wood claimed the method of emission/absorp-tion of EM was not known and that would be true in 1911.
Sorry if I mislead you, here’s the third edition. As usual, hit the full page applet and the download options should appear.
***********
PLACEHOLDER FOR URL…TESTING WORDPRESS. Will post URl following this post.
************
The chapter you quoted from has been re-written and applies to solids and liquids only. He claims gases are treated later. It’s still called Thermal Radiation.
It’s interesting to me to see his pre Bohr/Schrodinger analysis then his post Bohr/Schroddy analysis. I have only skimmed so far but your initial points from the 1911 version are still pertinent.
You need to be careful when you see Kircheoff’s laws of emission/absorp-tion offered. It applies at one temperature only. In the case of two bodies radiating/absor-b-ing, they must be in thermal equilibrium.
This is from Wood with regard to Kircheoff:
“At a given temperature the ratio between the emissive and absor-p-tive power for a given wave-length is the same for all bodies”.
I have no argument with that. Kircheoff seems to be claiming that if a body is a good emitter at one temperature it will be a good absor-b-er at the same temperature. Wood goes into it in the sense that E = emission and A = absorp-tion, and he compares E/A.
With regard to CO2 having equivalence to an ideal blackbody at a certain temperature, I have no issue with that either. However, Wood is talking about a significant amount of CO2.
Gerlich and Tscheuschner made reference to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. They claimed there is no way at that concentration that it can be regarded as a blackbody.
URl for Wood book:
Copy URl, paste to browser, remove hyphens from m-b-p, then enter.
https://archive.org/stream/physicaloptics031166m-b-p#page/n11/mode/2up
Wood published before quantum mechanics. So he couldn’t have understood much about radiative transfer in the atmosphere.
DA…”Wood published before quantum mechanics. So he couldnt have understood much about radiative transfer in the atmosphere”.
More obtuseness and obfuscation from David Appell the uber-alarmist.
Wood died in 1955 and his career was on both sides of the beginnings of the quantum theory. One of his books linked to on this blog is from 1911 and the revised 3rd edition is from 1934.
Wood did not need quantum theory in 1909 when he found a major fault with the GHE. I simply used the inverse square law to show radiation from the surface would not have much effect beyond a few feet, and being an expert on IR, he should have known that.
He also did an experiment to prove greenhouses did not warm by trapping IR. Essentially, Wood disproved the GHE and the AGW as we know them now.
ps. more brain-deadness from me.
“I simply used the inverse square law…”, is obviously, “He [Wood] simply used the inverse square law”.
“(Wood) also did an experiment to prove greenhouses did not warm by trapping IR. Essentially, Wood disproved the GHE and the AGW as we know them now.”
Do not understand where you get that from Gordon. Prof. Wood did an experiment to prove greenhouses do warm from sun lit IR in a covered container. Essentially, Wood proved the GHE and thus AGW as we know them now. Prof. Wood essentially replicated the same experiments as Fourier in the previous century.
Gordo, Your previous posting of the link to Wood (1911) is the source of the confusion. As he notes in the preface, much had changed between the two editions. And, also note that Wood’ Greenhouse experiment was presented in 1909, before he wrote the second edition in 1910.
In the third edition, he discusses Thermal Radiation in the next to the last chapter, beginning on page 772. His last chapter describes experiments designed to detect the invisible “ether” (also spelled aether) thru which the light waves were to propagate as required by the older wave theories based on Newton’s mechanics. He also mentions the competing “corpuscular” theory of light, aka. photons. But, only the last two pages of the book give reference to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and he notes that he omitted the chapter on that subject which appeared in the second edition.
Wood’s text can hardly be considered an up-to-date presentation of current scientific understanding.
swannie…”Woods text can hardly be considered an up-to-date presentation of current scientific understanding”.
The title of the book is ‘Physical Optics’, which was his specialty. He may have extended himself unnecessarily by going into matter beyond his discipline.
It was not so unusual, even in 1934, for scientists to think an aether existed. Dayton Miller did his work in that era and he gave compelling evidence that one exists even though Michelson-Morley claimed to have debunked that theory.
Recent discoveries have indicated Miller may have been right. It has been found that seemingly empty space is teeming with neutrinos. Maybe that’s the missing aether.
I have not yet read what Wood had to say about Einstein’s relativity theory but according to Eugene Gendlin, there may have been an egregious error in the reasoning of Einstein on relativity.
Could Einstein have been wrong? I don’t know but it seems he may have been wrong.
Gendlin is a psychologist who appears to have had an in-depth understanding of quantum theory and relativity. Of course, being a psychologist, he was also an expert on thinking and human observation. He suggests Einstein has superimposed human thought on relativity by imposing time on natural processes that do not rely on it.
In his theory of relativity, Einstein defined time as the position of the hands on a clock. Not very scientific but it’s better than what I have read about time in physics textbooks where they don’t even bother to define it. Based on that definition, Einstein, and Lorentz, proceeded to create formulae for relativity associating the length of a measure, and time itself, to the speed of light.
Einstein lived in a time when psychology was just beginning through Freud’s work. It was still very primitive but today we know the human mind splits it activity between full awareness of the world in which it exists to a total lack of awareness in a state of day-dreaming.
Jiddu Krishnamurti was beginning to study reality in Einstein’s time. He related time to human thought and he was later joined in his investigation by esteemed physicist, David Bohm, who was an authority on quantum theory. Bohm even stated in their dialogs that time was invented by humans.
Suppose scientists are not able to distinguish the two apparent modes of mind, or worse still, are not even aware there is a problem? Scientists could be operating mainly out of the day-dreaming state, imagining or presuming that things are real when they are not.
Time is such an example. I have debated with posters on this blog who think time exists when it clearly does not. Some have expressed the view that time can affect phenomena like force and mass, which is nonsense. Others have supported the notion that humans age based on chronological time when current science makes it clear we age due to problems in our cells.
One scientist, who is an authority on aging, thinks science is close to resetting cells and enabling humans to live for hundreds of years. I can just see the climate alarmists and eco-weenies flipping out over that notion and trying to prevent humans from extending their life spans.
What if Einstein thought time existed as an independent reality? In a paper, Gendlin has pointed out that Einstein has equated time to physical, real phenomena like force and mass, seemingly inferring that time affects them as the phenomena reach velocities near the speed of light.
Einstein admitted there is no evidence of that yet his equation contain the speed of light as a reference for relativity. I mean, using a bit of common sense, why should an object measured at one metre change it’s length because it is moving near the speed of light?
It’s ridiculous. It’s all based on a human observer standing still, or moving in a reference frame, measure the velocities of an object on another frame with a clock. Light comes into it because it is the reflection of light from an object that allows us to see the object and its motion.
This can all be done using Newtonian mechanics with the exception of observation at atomic levels. There is no need to bring the speed of light into the matter. When you do, as in relativity, then ridiculous presumptions can come from it such as bodies changing length with velocity, space-time theory, and time dilation, none of which has ever been proved by observation or experiment.
Einstein admitted there are very few ways to verify relativity. He admitted as well that Newtonian physics covers relativity theory adequately for the most part.
Based on relativity theory, people have claimed time can dilate, which is utter nonsense. Time does not even exist, it was invented by humans based on the period of the Earth’s rotation.
You are refuting Newton, his formulas include time.
Gordo, That’s a great rant, but what does it have to do with the emission and absorp_tion of IR EM by gases such as CO2? And, with all your great debating efforts, where is your detailed analysis of my Green Plate demonstrations? The IR
EM from the Green plate isn’t “ignored” by the Blue plate and the Green plate doesn’t “block” the IR EM from leaving the Blue plate. A body which emits at a frequency/wavelength will also absorb at that frequency/wavelength.
Gordon Robertson
If you make a post the chances are very good you are wrong. You have shown this to be the case.
YOU FALSELY STATE: “When you do, as in relativity, then ridiculous presumptions can come from it such as bodies changing length with velocity, space-time theory, and time dilation, none of which has ever been proved by observation or experiment.”
More nonsense from you. You have no credibility at all. You just make stuff up all the time. You are a fanatic full of false information. Yet you don’t seem to want to correct your false nature and give it up for reality. This is what fanatics do. They do not care about truth or reality. All that matters is their incorrect and false reality that they are not willing to drop.
Here. Watch this. It is good experimental proof of time dilation. You will not be able to understand it at all but it rejects your false claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=KZkTfCHKFJQ
SkepticsGoneWild
Maybe you could explain the First law of thermodynamics to this guy:
“Theoretically, theres little need for radiation to space since the work within the gas allows for heat intake for half the day and for dissipation WITHIN THE GAS the rest of the day, all of it taking place in the gas.”
– Gordon
Explaining would surely be useless. It always is with this guy.
snape…”Maybe you could explain the First law of thermodynamics to this guy:
Theoretically, theres little need for radiation to space since the work within the gas allows for heat intake for half the day and for dissipation WITHIN THE GAS the rest of the day, all of it taking place in the gas.
Gordon”
******
Maybe someone could explain the Ideal Gas Law to you, especially the part dealing with Charles’ Law.
If the Sun shone all day on one part of the planet, we could apply the 1st law. However, the planet rotates with a regular fast period and the Earth not receiving solar energy can cool half the day on average.
Does it have to radiate to space? Probably. However, there are other ways to dissipate heat in a gas by allowing its pressure and volume to change. That’s especially true when the heat input is periodic itself.
“That’s especially true when the heat input is periodic itself.”
Gordon! You write over and over…and OVER that EMR is not heat. Yet you now write the input day/night periodic solar EMR is in fact heat.
??
ball4…”Gordon! You write over and overand OVER that EMR is not heat. Yet you now write the input day/night periodic solar EMR is in fact heat”.
*******
You need to cut me some slack for semantics rather than waiting to pounce.
Heat input, for me, implies after the conversion of solar EM to heat. After all, I was talking about heat, not EM.
If I have an electrical transformer with the secondary feeding a circuit as its input, as with an inter-stage coupling transformer, I would refer to the input as the converted electrical signal that came from magnetic coupling in the transformer.
Same with an antenna. It receives EM and converts it to an electrical signal. When I reference the input power to the first RF amplifier I won’t reference it as EM but as the converted electrical signal power.
Just the way us weirdos in electronics think and speak.
“You need to cut me some slack for semantics rather than waiting to pounce.”
Gordon doesn’t seem to cut other commenters any slack for semantics when heat input, for them, implies after the conversion of solar EM to heat. Gordon quickly pounces. Dramatically. Repeatedly.
Gordon Robertson says:
Does it have to radiate to space? Probably. However, there are other ways to dissipate heat in a gas by allowing its pressure and volume to change.
What’s the evidence for such changes?
DA…”there are other ways to dissipate heat in a gas by allowing its pressure and volume to change.
Whats the evidence for such changes?”
********
Ideal Gas Law.
You can test it anytime in your lab or kitchen and it’s guaranteed to work. It is doesn’t, send me the details so I can publish a paper and collect a Nobel.
Gordon Robertson
This is why I have issues with you. I explain in detail why you don’t know what you are talking about. You reject the reality and post your nonsense. Over and over you do this. Why should I pat you on the back for doing such behavior?
YOU: “Norman, you have a bitterness about you that concerns me. If Im wrong, Im wrong, and I will get over it. However, you are so bent on proving me wrong that you are slinging mud. Im waterproof, mud doesnt bother me. Why not lighten up and engage in a scientific discussion?”
It is not that “if” you are wrong. You are completely wrong about most the science you post. You make up what you lack in knowledge. I give you very good links to read but you reject them. You are only waterproof because you don’t realize how wrong you are about everything scientific. I can’t even think of one major science idea you have gotten correct yet.
You always bring up the 0.04% CO2 could do nothing. That is really crackpot bogus and deserves nothing but criticism.
If you would be able to find page 595 of your own Woods link you would see that an experimenter found that 7 cm of CO2 were enough to emit like a blackbody at the temperature tested.
If this CO2 was 100% at atmosphere pressure (I could not get a link to the original article, just an abstract in German), you can use this to see how the 0.04% CO2 in the atmosphere would act.
0.0004 x 7 cm = 0.0028 gives a ratio of atmospheric CO2 concentration vs pure CO2 in the lab test.
100/7 = 14.285 equals how many of these 7 cm layers are in One meter.
14.285 layers x 0.0028 (ration of concentration of our atmosphere CO2 to the lab test) = 0.04. The equivalent amount of emission compared to the lab concentration. If you multiply the 0.04 by a column 25 meters high you get a equivalent unity to the lab test.
In a column of air 25 meters high, you have the same emission as you would have with a 100% CO2 environment 7 cm thick.
What you have zero understanding is that even though the concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere is small, it is 3D. You go up several layers and in those many layers you have the same number of CO2 molecules as you would in a solid surface a few microns thick.
I did this for you a while back but it had no impact on your fanatic and unsubstantiated belief. You are right, logic, reason, math, empirical data have no influence on your fanatic and distorted mental state.
norman…”You always bring up the 0.04% CO2 could do nothing. That is really crackpot bogus and deserves nothing but criticism”.
You keep inferring I am wrong based on an unknown source. I have demonstrated to you using the Ideal Gas Law that CO2 at 0.04% could not possibly heat the atmosphere more than a small fraction of 1%. On the other hand, you have supplied zero evidence that it can warm the atmosphere more than that.
As Mike keeps saying…no testable hypothesis. The Ideal Gas Law is testable. It has withstood the test of time as has the 2nd law.
“I have demonstrated to you using the Ideal Gas Law that CO2 at 0.04% could not possibly heat the atmosphere more than a small fraction of 1%.”
No demonstration from Gordon evah! Only mostly faulty assertions, Which are not demonstrations. Try some testing Gordon.
Then you will be as astonished as Prof. Tyndall to learn that invisible CO2 at 0.04% in lab air can heat the atmosphere more than a small fraction of 1%. 5 degrees F in his experiment.
ball4…”Then you will be as astonished as Prof. Tyndall to learn that invisible CO2 at 0.04% in lab air can heat the atmosphere more than a small fraction of 1%. 5 degrees F in his experiment”.
******
For one, you are misquoting Tyndall to spread your climate pseudo-science.
For another, if Tyndall did actually measure that much heating from air, I strongly suggest he had a lack of quality control and his IR source was heating the air directly via convection.
Gordon needs to actually read Tyndall 1861 report to the Royal Society rather than waiting to pounce.
Tyndall: “I subsequently had the tube perforated and thermometers screwed into it air-tight. On filling the tube the thermometric columns rose, on exhausting it they sank, the range between the maximum and minimum amounting in the case of air to 5 degrees FAHR.”
Quality control? Tyndall: “…to secure myself against error, I made several hundred experiments with this single substance”
Gordon Robertson says:
I have demonstrated to you using the Ideal Gas Law that CO2 at 0.04% could not possibly heat the atmosphere more than a small fraction of 1%
Why do you avoid the radiative transfer of energy?
DA…”Why do you avoid the radiative transfer of energy?”
It’s inferred via mathematical calculations that do not apply, and consensus. The Ideal Gas Law is far more reliable, having survived scrutiny since the 17th century.
Gordon Robertson
Another way to calculate it is using Chemistry. It comes out about the same using a much different approach.
Water absorbs all IR in the first few microns. I have seen the number 10 microns used. I will use that for now.
One cubic meter of water has a mass of 1000 Kg.
If you take a cubic portion of water 1 m^2 by 10 micron depth you get a volume of 0.00001 m^3. Multiply this by 1000 kg and you get 0.01 Kg water in that volume. How many H2O radiating molecules do you have in this mass of water?
0.01 Kg = 10 grams. H2O has a molecular mass of 18 g/mole. 10 grams of water will give you 0.556 moles. One mole equals 6.023 x 10^23 molecules. So 0.556 moles will give you 3.35 x 10^23 molecular radiators per square meter of water.
How many atoms of CO2 in one cubic meter of air?
https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/55fkre/request_if_atmospheric_co2_just_hit_440ppm_how/
They come up with 1.19 x 10^22 molecules of CO2/m^3. So to have an equivalent number of CO2 radiators as you have water molecule radiators, take (3.35 x 10^23)/(1.19 x 10^22) = 28.15 meters
That is to say in 28 meters of air you will have the same number of CO2 molecules as you have in 10 microns of water (water’s effective emission surface).
In the first post the number was around 25 meters of air will radiate similar to a black body in the Carbon Dioxide bands.
Not only do the calculations work but empirical evidence of DWIR spectrums shows clearly this is the case. You don’t accept it, but that is what the evidence shows.
N,
What heating of thermometers have you calculated? None at all.
No GHE – just more pointless and irrelevant blathering.
You don’t even know what you are trying to show, do you? Making thermometers hotter with the magic of CO2, or something else?
Tell us, Norman.
The world wonders.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
I was not attempting to calculate the heating of a thermometer.
As for pointless irrelevant blathering, that is because it goes so far above your head you don’t have the slightest clue on what I was calculating and are unable to even attempt to figure out what it means.
I know exactly what I was trying to show. Note it was for Gordon
Robertson and not you.
Why do you think a reply, not directed at one of your stupid posts that repeat the same words over and over, should answer your questions. Why does every post on this blog have to attempt to satisfy you?
Norman,
In point of fact, your calculations had nothing to do the GHE, did they?
Pseudoscientific deniers such as yourself realise that you cannot support your non-existent GHE, so attempt to obscure this fact by lurching off at a tangent, hoping to divert attention.
If you cannot even usefully describe the GHE which you claim exists, then any number of pointless calculations are completely irrelevant. I assume you had a reason for your comment, but if you are now claiming it had nothing to do with CO2 causing temperature increases, I believe you.
Keep calculating. I hope something comes of it.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
The calculations would certainly support GHE.
I have, many times in many ways, gave you very useful descriptions of GHE. You are not able to process them. Your programmer needs to up you comprehension programs a bit.
If you want a simple example of GHE go back to E. Swanson vacuum plate experiment. That is the GHE in real experimental fashion. The back-radiant energy of the green plate drives a powered blue plate to a higher temperature.
An atmosphere that can radiate energy back to the surface will result in a higher average surface temperature when the surface has an input energy of some type, compared to either no atmosphere or a non GHG atmosphere.
It is a relative state compared to another state. You don’t know what that means and don’t pretend you do. Get your program worked on. You would be a little bit more interesting.
Norman,
Rubbish.
You can’t even properly describe the mythical GHE, because there is no such thing. There is no testable GHE hypothesis, because there is no GHE.
Radiation form a cooler atmosphere will not result in heating of the surface, any more than 300 W/m2 from ice will heat warmer liquid water. It doesnt matter if you have billions of such watts, you cant heat even a teaspoon of water!
All fantasy, a product of your deluded imagination.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
Sorry, it seems you can’t grasp reality. Like I said, E. Swanson already did a valid experiment. You are not able to understand what his results show.
Dude, reality does not support your declarative unsupported statements.
YOU: “Radiation form a cooler atmosphere will not result in heating of the surface, any more than 300 W/m2 from ice will heat warmer liquid water. It doesnt matter if you have billions of such watts, you cant heat even a teaspoon of water!”
A pot of water that is being heated will reach higher temperature (if below boiling as that is a cutoff temperature, but rate of boiling then is what you would look at) with ice surrounding it as opposed to the much colder dry ice. Do the test yourself and you will see, no one on this blog will ever convince you. You are a fanatic and cannot see anything but your distorted and incorrect Point of View. The only option for you is to experiment. Can you get dry ice from somewhere? Get some and do an experiment with some heated object that is surrounded by material at different temperatures and see if it will change the equilibrium temperature of your heated object. Until then, don’t bother responding. You really don’t know anything about science and I hate to see you embarrass yourself.
Norman, you’re right. And it’s very simple.
Radiation from any object carries energy.
When absorbed by another object, that energy heats the object, just like all absorbed energy does.
Deniers are trying to claim that energy isn’t conserved.
N,
You still havent managed to describe how you are going to warm some liquid water with all the millions of Watts emitted by ice.
They are useless for heating anything warmer than themselves, arent they?
Just like the useless Watts from a cooler atmosphere – they cannot heat heat anything warmer than themselves, can they? Wait for night, if you dont believe me. It doesn’t matter how much back radiation you are measuring, the temperature is still falling.
Except in the fantasy world of the pseudoscientific climatologist, where the Sun shines brightly everywhere at once!
Try boiling water or cooking a turkey with the considerable IR emitted by lots of ice. How hard can it be? Maybe you could concentrate the IR with a big magnifying glass. Concentrated Watts must be far hotter, wouldnt you say? Just about as silly as the stupid and ignorant people who think that adding Watts to other Watts results in higher temperatures!
Delusional dimwits, eh?
Off you go Norman. Someone said there is one borne every minute, and you used your birth minute’s allocation. David Appell seems to have used his, so you should be a good match. I wish you both a happy and fruitful life together.
Cheers.
DA…”Radiation from any object carries energy”.
I keep telling you, radiation IS energy, almost exclusively electromagnetic energy. There is no independent phenomenon of radiation that carries energy.
Until you get this, you’ll never understand heat and heat transfer via radiation.
Gordon Robertson says:
I keep telling you, radiation IS energy, almost exclusively electromagnetic energy. There is no independent phenomenon of radiation that carries energy.
What’s the difference?
Flynn
I told you to do an experiment with ice and dry ice and some heated water. You are spouting garbage continuously and claiming people are wrong but you won’t do a very simple experiment.
I know exactly why you won’t do any actual experiments (as E. Swanson and Roy Spencer have done). You would quickly find that ice will surrounding heated water will cause the water to temperature to reach a higher temperature than if surrounded by dry ice. You will be proven to be wrong and you can’t accept the possibility that you really do not know anything so you will not perform any type of test.
All you do is spout nonsense and waste your time on this blog. You won’t even do simple research or try to learn when people give you links. You are not just a dumb person but quite lazy as well. Nothing will change you. I generally find it a complete waste of time to engage you in even one post. I just do it from time to time to see if you have even a little bit of logic. Then I read your posts and realize you are a grand waste of time. You are too lazy and dumb to even debate with for fun.
Do some experiments or shut up. I am not interested in your stupid posts.
Norman,
You can tell me what to do. I can take no notice.
You haven’t told me how you intend to heat water using ice. That’s because you can’t!
Denying and avoiding, by demanding that people dance to your tune wasting their time, won’t get any respect from any rational person.
How about it Norman – how would you warm up a teaspoon of water using 3000 W? From ice, that is. Dumb as a box of hair.
Keep dodging and weaving Norman. No testable GHE hypothesis, no science. Just delusion and fantasy.
Cheers.
Flynn
Sorry you are wrong. It does seem I do get respect from rational people. You are not one of them. You don’t know even basic physics but pretend to for some unknown reason.
I told you how to warm water using ice but you won’t do it.
Surround a pot of water with dry ice and add some energy. Put a thermometer in the water and wait for the temperature to reach a steady state. Without changing the energy you are adding to your water, remove the dry ice and put much warmer water ice around your heated water. Now check the temperature. It goes up. The ice caused the water temperature to increase. It is an easy experiment for you. Quit being so incredibly lazy and DO IT, or shut up until you do. You are wasting everyone’s time here. Most don’t know how incredibly unthinking and lazy you are until they engage with you. I hope to protect others from wasting their time on a lump of clay like you. You waste everyone’s time!
Heavy night thunderstorms in North America.
http://en.blitzortung.org/live_lightning_maps.php?map=30
Circulation in the lower stratosphere.
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00964/pzkxv7p4l029.png
USGS
The eruption seems to pick up in activity. Activity at the most recent fissures 17 and 18, located at the northeast end of the active fissure system (downrift), has been continuous during the night.
It is characterized by “lava fountaining, explosion of spatter bombs hundreds of feet into the air, and several advancing lava flow lobes moving generally northeast from fissure 17 at the downrift (northeast) end of the new fissure system.”, HVO reported a short time ago in the first morning update. “As of about 7 pm, one lobe was 2 yards thick and advancing roughly parallel to Highway 132. The flow front was just over a half mile southeast of the intersection of Highway 132 and Noni Farms Road.”
No other significant changes have occurred: earthquakes continue and the summit continues to deflate, increasing the risk of explosive eruptions if ground water enters into the drained conduit of where Halema’uma’s lava lake used to be.
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/kilauea/news.html
Warming? What warming?
Go Indianapolis!
“RECORD WARMTH
What a way to start the month of May. The warm weather statistics are impressive. For the second straight day the high temperature reached record levels. After tying Sunday’s record of 88-degrees we broke a 137 year old record Monday reaching 89-degrees. The average high is 71. Each of the first 14 days this month have averaged above normal.”
http://fox59.com/2018/05/14/dry-conditions-fuel-record-warmth-slim-rain-chances-continue/
The less water vapor in the air, the higher the summer temperature and more thunderstorms.
So thunder clouds form from dry air? Interesting.
B,
Very interesting indeed. Who is claiming clouds can form in the absence of water?
Maybe you are confused. The mechanisms behind summer thunderstorms can be interesting.
Leaping to incorrect conclusions is not so interesting, but common amongst pseudoscientific poseurs of the climatological variety. Do you not agree?
Cheers.
Oh I understand how thunderstorms form. They form when warm moist air is met by dry cool air. So a location which ren is describing as having a hot dry air mass just doesn’t quite fit the picture, does it. Especially when Indianapolis has had humidity of 93% and 87% for the past two days. ie. NOT dry.
B,
Oh, no you don’t. Your simplistic explanation is the usual sort of stuff served up by the stupid and ignorant trying to appear smart and knowledgeable.
Before attempting condescending and patronising snark (if that’s what it was), you might at least familiarise yourself with the subject matter.
Anybody interested can find for themselves that the atmospheres is complicated and chaotic. Cloud formation is complicated. The factors leading to thunderstorms (assuming lightning, and therefore thunder, is involved) are many and varied.
Carry on with attempts to weasel out by introducing irrelevancies – you have no real clue, have you? Just assumption piled on a grand foundation of handwaving!
Do you have any facts to present? A testable GHE hypothesis perhaps?
Cheers.
Your typical BS response lacking in detail.
B,
Really?
Cheers.
Ja, wirklich!
Prost
May 6, 1952 is the record for the 1st week of May at 92 degrees for Indianapolis. Guess they missed breaking it this year. Just 4 more degrees needed.
Whats the long-term trend?
Don’t have a trend line, but the changes in the warmest days from the 1901 – 1960 compared to 1986 -2016 are as follows.
NCA Region Change in Warmest Day of the Year
Northeast −0.92F
Southeast −1.49F
Midwest −2.22F
Great Plains North −1.08F
Great Plains South −1.07F
Southwest 0.50F
Northwest −0.17F
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/
What does that site say about the average of ALL temperatures over the course of a year, not just two days out of 365?
Bond,
Not sure of your request. Can you rephrase your question? That is a study of all temperatures, highs, lows and averages. Not just 2 days. Basically, the highs are lower, the lows are even higher, thus averages would be higher, unless the data was skewed. But, I did not get that impression.
Though average warm days are down, average cold days are up. The C-D-C did a report concluding about 1/3 of extreme temperature deaths are heat related and 2/3 are cold related. I wonder if the death rates are much lower now compared to the first part of the last century or if this ratio had changed? or both?
David,
Thank you for chiming in; as someone with a physics background and pro AGW position I value your perspective.
Yes, I understand that a huge number of photons are at play. I am interested in following a detailed path of just one photon because I think they all follow a similar pathway. Again, once the back radiation from CO2 hits the surface it is likely to change frequency, and then can easily escape the earth. I still do not see how this energy is trapped for any significant amount of time. I will look for your other post in this thread.
Thanks!
TL
What that photon does next does not change the fact that, at any instant in time, there are photons striking the earth’s surface that have come directly from the sun, and other photons that have been redirected back to the earth due to the greenhouse effect. By increasing either of those components, you have increased the total flux at the earth’s surface.
Keep it up TL. Understanding thermalization and the relative time between absorp-tion and either emission or collision at various altitudes is the key.
If it was easy, even climate scientists could do it.
Your picture of “what happens to an IR photon” is misleading and wrong.
A few essential points of physics:
– First, when a photon is absorbed by an IR-active gas such as a CO2 molecule the relevant energy is thermalized, that is transferred to the other molecules such as CO2, N2, H2O, O2 etc during collisions. So it ends up as kinetic and potential energy of these molecules, for instance the molecules now go faster, vibrate more etc. The reason is that at atmospheric pressure the mean time between successive collisions is typically about 1000 or 10000 times shorter than the lifetime of an excited CO2 molecule, that is, the mean time elapsed before re-emission of an IR photon by this same molecule does take place.
As a consequence the absor-bed IR energy systematically heats the gas and the frequent collisions ensure that the latter is characterized by a well defined local temperature T.
– Second, any gas, characterized by a well defined local temperature T as in atmosphere, emits IR photons if it contains IR-active gases such as CO2 at relevant frequency bands and the intensity at a given frequency f varies as a universal increasing function of T only, namely Planck’s function P ( f, T) . In other words IR emission of CO2 is only a matter of its temperature, nothing else. The reason is that the above mentioned microscopic process works in both directions namely collisions also excite vibrational states of CO2 that subsequently decay radiatively with a probability that is a function of T only.
-Third in a steady state that is when the temperature T is constant there is no energy trapped at all by the CO2 or any other molecules. Total energy that enters a given atmospheric layers ( be it IR absorp-tion, convection, latent heat, conduction) equals total energy that leaves that same layer.
So a more correct reasoning goes as follows:
Assume one starts with an atmosphere without GHG’s and one adds some IR-active CO2. 1/From now on part of IR emission from surface is suddenly intercepted and absor-bed and thus indeed trapped in the gas. As said this absor-ption heats the atmosphere and augments its temperature but note that this is only a temporary phenomenon, a transient regime, because temperature can only increase until IR emission that, as said, is an increasing function of T, balances IR absorp-tion that is independent of T and more precisely until total energy flowing in = total energy flowing out for the layer in question.
And since the atmosphere with GHG’s now emits itself IR, in particular towards the surface that absor-bs part of it, the surface must necessarily become warmer too. That’s the GHE.
2/ Yet as a consequence of 1/ the warmer surface now emits actually more IR than initially considered. Thus one has to correct that and go back to 1/ , get a still warmer atmosphere and warmer surface in turn, that is one has to iterate as many times as needed the loop until convergence which establishes the steady state.
In this way one ends up necessarily with both a warmer atmosphere and a warmer surface.
You say at one point “…there is no energy trapped at all by the CO2 or any other molecules.” and then go on to say “1/From now on part of IR emission from surface is suddenly intercepted and absor-bed and thus indeed trapped in the gas.”
So I’m already confused and further frustrated because your writing is unintelligible.
From what I think you were trying to say, you haven’t really explained how further increases in CO2 will make any difference to global temperatures. That is the point isn’t it?
Here we have someone who believes that when you lop off half a sentence, its meaning stays intact. Why did you do that, other than to misrepresent his comment?
Here is his COMPLETE sentence:
“[Third] in a steady state that is when the temperature T is constant there is no energy trapped at all by the CO2 or any other molecules.”
But as we are apparently permitted to alter someone’s quote at will, allow me to quote you:
“I’m confused.”
Maybe you can help.
What what he saying?
Watch the denier play little games to avoid confronting questions….
Watch denier David avoid admitting that there is no trace of a testable GHE hypothesis.
Watch him wriggle and twist, in his efforts to deny reality.
Deny, David, deny.
Wriggle , David, wriggle.
Cheers.
idiot…”Your picture of what happens to an IR photon is misleading and wrong”.
If you think you know what happens with an individual photon, especially when a photon is a theoretical entity, you are full of crap.
You have no proof that a single molecule of CO2 is capable of ‘thermalizing’ adjacent molecules, especially when they out-number CO2 by 2500 to 1. No one has ever studied a gas to that extent, at the atomic level, and you are spouting theory.
All we can do is study the atmosphere at a macro level, using laws like the Ideal Gas Law. That means working with averages. If you apply the IGL, even in a ballpark manner, it becomes apparent that CO2, with a mass percent close to 0.04%, could not possibly thermalize anything of note.
Either your theory is correct or the IGL is wrong. I know where my money is going.
Let’s put it this way, if you have a mix of 99% nitrogen and oxygen, at constant volume, with 0.8% Argon, and you added 0.04% CO2, you would not expect the temperature of the gas to increase significantly if you irradiated it with the same intensity of IR emitted by the surface. That’s especially true if the radiation source is more than a few feet from the gas.
On the other hand, if you heated the gas mix, with 0.04% CO2 added, you would expect the gas temperature to rise significantly, because all the molecules are involved, not just CO2. If you removed the heat and allowed the gas to cool, you might find the nitrogen, oxygen, and argon tended to retain the heat because they are poor radiators. Of course, they’d likely lose the heat via conduction to the container walls.
There’s your GHE, courtesy, R. W. Wood.
Gordon Robertson says:
If you think you know what happens with an individual photon, especially when a photon is a theoretical entity….
Have you ever studied the photoelectric effect?
Why did Einstein think he showed that photons (light quanta) exist, but you think they don’t?
You’re smarter than Einstein, Gordon?
DA…”Why did Einstein think he showed that photons (light quanta) exist, but you think they dont?”
You don’t seriously think that Einstein tracked an individual photon as it interacted with an electron, do you?
Of course not. Gordon, are you at all from now youre with Einsteins proof of light contact via the photoelectric effect? Is that something you have ever studied? Are you aware thats the work for which Einstein received his Nobel Prize?
So what do you know the Einstein didnt know, that the Nobel committee didnt know, or that physicists of the time didnt know, who found Einsteins work to be unique and enlightening?
DA…”are you at all from now youre with Einsteins proof of light contact via the photoelectric effect? Is that something you have ever studied? ”
Yeah, we study that early on as part of our education in electronics. It’s how photo-cells work.
I even studied it formally in an EE course in semiconductors.
What would you like to know?
idiot…”any gas, characterized by a well defined local temperature T as in atmosphere, emits IR photons if it contains IR-active gases such as CO2 at relevant frequency bands and the intensity at a given frequency f varies as a universal increasing function of T only, namely Plancks function P ( f, T)…”
How about PV = nRT?
Do you think that does not apply to gases in the atmosphere? How do you expect gases to respond only to temperature?
Besides, Planck does not apply to atmospheric warming. Planck is about a distribution of EM ‘radiation’ at a specific temperature. There are other factors in the atmosphere, like heat conduction and convection, that are more important than radiation.
The notion that the atmosphere warms only due to a rare gas like CO2 is pseudo-science peculiar to climate modelers. They have assigned CO2 a warming factor of 9% to 25% without providing an iota of evidence as to why that should be the case.
In a room in a real house during winter in Canada, warmed by an electric radiant heater, if we relied on WV and CO2 to warm us, we’d freeze to death. You could remove all CO2 and WV from the room, and it would still warm as usual.
Why??? When you learn that you might consider becoming a skeptic.
According to alarmists, our heating bills in our homes should be lower since CO2 has warmed the room by 1C over the past century and a bit.
IT:
“The reason is that the above mentioned microscopic process works in both directions namely collisions also excite vibrational states of CO2 that subsequently decay radiatively with a probability that is a function of T only.”
Indeed. And, in the reverse direction, these collisions carry heat away from the other components of the atmosphere and radiate it away, producing a cooling effect. The rate of thermalization, moreover, increases with increasing convective transport from the surface.
So, in the present state of the climate, the question before us is, does the heating or cooling effect dominate, or are they roughly balanced so that we are at a stationary point in terms of the aggregate impact of increasing concentration? I suspect, based upon other information, the latter, and the sensitivity of temperature to CO2 concentration is essentially nil.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Keep it up TL. Understanding thermalization and the relative time between absorp-tion and either emission or collision at various altitudes is the key.
So what have the world’s scientists been missing for a hundred years?
If you mean climate scientists, you have to cut them some slack. They haven’t been at it that long.
You avoided the question.
DA,
Why do people imagine the undistinguished mathematician Gavin Schmidt to be a renowned climate scientist?
Why are you so remorselessly stupid and ignorant?
Why do you refuse to answer?
What are you trying to hide?
Cheers.
chic…”If you mean climate scientists, you have to cut them some slack. They havent been at it that long”.
Some of them are honest about it, Like Roy and John of UAH. They admit the atmosphere is a complex place and they don’t go overboard with their projections for the influence of CO2.
Others are extremely dishonest, reducing the atmosphere to radiation in a climate model. Then there are those who support that nonsense by fudging data, like NOAA and GISS.
Gordon Robertson says:
Then there are those who support that nonsense by fudging data, like NOAA and GISS.
Gordon is the type of man who is perfectly willing to call hundreds of scientists frauds and liars, even though he doesn’t have an iota of evidence to back him up.
Talk about a severe character flaw.
Gordon Robertson says:
Some of them are honest about it, Like Roy and John of UAH. They admit the atmosphere is a complex place and they dont go overboard with their projections for the influence of CO2.
How do you know Roy & John are honest?
You claim that CO2 has almost no effect on temperatures. That certainly isn’t what Roy thinks.
Is it?
Of course you David are the perfect boy scout who wouldn’t call anyone names. When you grow up, you too can learn about thermalization.
DA…”How do you know Roy & John are honest?”
I have read their work. How could they not be honest and stand up in the fact of the status quo to claim their data does not show evidence of the catastrophic warming predicted by climate models and the IPCC?
From what I have read of Roy, he has claimed CO2 should warm the atmosphere but he has no idea how much. He has argued that whatever warming CO2 causes, it won’t be catastrophic.
DA…”So what have the worlds scientists been missing for a hundred years?”
Most of them…nothing…alarmist scientists/propagandists….everything.
A feeble nonresponse.
Very typical of rank deniers like you.
NP-Hard,
Thanks for the compliment.
You wrote:
Yes, I understand that a huge number of photons are at play. I am interested in following a detailed path of just one photon because I think they all follow a similar pathway.
One photon has a pretty simple life. It is emit.ted by a molecule of the surface, then, if in the right frequency range, ab.sorb.ed by CO2 or other GHG like water vapor. Then it exists no longer.
Some outside the ab.sorp.tion range do escape out the top of the atmosphere.
– continued below –
Again, once the back radiation from CO2 hits the surface it is likely to change frequency
No. If it’s ab.sorb.ed it ceases to exist — that energy is transferred to the atom or molecule that ab.sorb.ed it. Any photons that are then emit.ted are new photons, that, as I wrote above, might be ab.sorb.ed or might escape to space, depending on how if frequency matches with an ab.sorp.tion frequency of a greenhouse gas.
– continued from above –
I think Science of Doom (a very good site; anything written there is well worth reading) says that something like 95% of photons emit.ted by the surface, and at one of CO2’s ab.sorp.tion freq.uencies, are ab.sorb.ed in the lowest meter of the at.mosphere.
np…”once the back radiation from CO2 hits the surface it is likely to change frequency, and then can easily escape the earth”
Why would the radiation change frequency? I thought you studied physics.
The radiation frequency is determined by the electrons in the CO2 molecule and that is related to the temperature. Since the temperature above the surface has to be lower than or equal to surface temperature it means the surface won’t absorb the radiation when CO2 is colder therefore there is no heat transfer.
2nd law and Bohr/Schrodinger.
Gordon Robertson says:
The radiation frequency is determined by the electrons in the CO2 molecule and that is related to the temperature.
False. I thought you studied physics.
DA…”The radiation frequency is determined by the electrons in the CO2 molecule and that is related to the temperature.
False. I thought you studied physics”.
I did, you obviously did not. Either that or you learned from a paradigm that is wrong.
Gordon Robertson says:
Since the temperature above the surface has to be lower than or equal to surface temperature it means the surface wont absorb the radiation when CO2 is colder therefore there is no heat transfer.
So where does that radiation’s energy go instead?
(Show your evidence.)
DA,
Stand in front of an ice wall. How hot are you getting? Where is all that 300 W/m2 going? How much is your body absorbing? Where has the energy gone?
Lie on a block of ice. Run naked in the desert at night, when the back radiation of 333 W/m2 is pouring down on you. Who cares if the air temperature is below zero? You are just getting hotter and hotter – well, in your imagination, anyway.
Your complete lack of understanding is demonstrated by your silly gotchas. If you believe you know what you are talking about, show your evidence!
Off you go, David. Find somebody more stupid and ignorant than yourself – take your time.
Cheers.
DA…”So where does that radiations energy go instead?”
Who cares? That’s like asking where the holes go in a semiconductor.
Like, a capacitor stores electrons and their charges but what stores holes? How many holes are their in a mole? I mean the measure, not the animal.
Do holes repel each other?
WHO CARES WHERE THE RADUATION GOES????
Everyone who is interested in understanding the science. Clearly that doesnt include you.
mike…”Stand in front of an ice wall. How hot are you getting?”
I know how cold you’re getting if you stand there long enough with inadequate clothing and sustenance.
Hypothermia city.
So youre saying clothing keeps you warm. How can that be, since its not a heat source?
David,
The pseudo scientific gotcha.
Firemen and desert Berbers (amongst others) wear thick clothing to keep cool. What is the relevance to the non-existent GHE? None at all?
Quelle surprise! What a surprise!
Back to stupid and ignorant gotcha school for you, David. Try harder.
Cheers.
Gordon Robertson
Once again you are making up physics and trying to spread your nonsense.
YOU: “The radiation frequency is determined by the electrons in the CO2 molecule and that is related to the temperature.”
NO on both counts. The radiation frequency is determined by the vibrational modes of Carbon Dioxide molecule. There are a couple possible vibrational modes with this molecule.
The radiation frequency has nothing to do with the temperature. The temperature determines only the intensity of the radiation. The frequency is a result of vibrational modes and is not dependent upon temperature. Hot or cold CO2 gas will still only emit in the bands based upon possible vibrational modes. Hotter CO2 will emit more radiant energy but the frequency is not related to the temperature. I am talking about IR. Visible radiation frequency would require enough energy to cause electron transitions in the CO2 molecule so at the lower temperatures of Earth system the visible radiation frequencies will not be present.
norman…”YOU: The radiation frequency is determined by the electrons in the CO2 molecule and that is related to the temperature.
NO on both counts. The radiation frequency is determined by the vibrational modes of Carbon Dioxide molecule. There are a couple possible vibrational modes with this molecule.
The radiation frequency has nothing to do with the temperature. The temperature determines only the intensity of the radiation”.
********
Radiation intensity of EM from an electron = E = hf.
Frequency is derived from the angular momentum of the electron in a particular energy orbital. The energy orbital as an excited state depends on the temperature.
Why else should atoms as a mass heat up? You need to apply heat in some way to raise the energy in the atomic orbitals.
If we heated a steel rod with an acetylene flame, the rod would heat but at first no EM could be seen. We could measure IR but not see it. As the rod was heated more, a red spot would appear by the flame. The EM corresponding to that is the colour red. As we heat it more, the red becomes orange, then yellow, and so on.
The intensity of the rod’s emission is increasing with temperature as the frequency of the emitted light increases.
That fits E = hf but Planck incorporates hf/kT in an exponential to achieve the bell-shaped curve that represents his equation. The exponential serves to show the probability distribution of EM frequency intensities at a temperature T.
You have to understand that as you raise the temperature the Planck curve changes shape and width.
“Radiation intensity of EM from an electron = E = hf.”
Gordon, intensity is a base SI quantity like temperature, length, time. Properly intensity is radiant power per steridian or W/sr.
What you write is wrong in more ways than just that. E is not the energy in an electron but in light (photon quanta) at that f. Geez, come on man get out the text books before commenting, this earns you no credibility.
For you, Tim Folkerts:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302490
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Bond and Idiot Tracker,
The fairy tale you are telling sounds very sciency.
Unfortunately it is nonsense. Photons are not necessarily absorbed by a body. For example, ice can emit more than 300 W/m2.
No one except a pseudoscientist of the climatological variety would claim that the 300 w/m2 radiation from ice is capable of increasing the temperature of liquid water. Hold your block of ice above the ground. Photons pour forth from the ice towards the surface. Does the surface heat up, or even care? Not if is above the temperature of the ice, it doesn’t!
It doesnt matter how many billions or trillions of these watts you have. You may try to concentrate them, or trap them – or even apply the climatological miracles of feedback or multiplication. Still no heating.
Maybe you claim that the photons emitted as “back radiation” or some other pointless fantasy term are different. Supposedly they account for 335 W/m2 – what temperature do you think that represents? You cannot say, because there is no specific correlation, is there?
To cap it off, this nonsense only seems to apply in bright sunlight, and hasn’t raised its mythical head for four and a half billion years!
What a pack of fumbling bumblers! 10 m2 of ice can emit more than 3000 W. When you have managed to boil a kettle using this power, I will become a believer. Until then, you give no reason to believe you’re other than stupid and ignorant, or possibly deluded and gullible.
Off you go now. Time for more calculations, appeals to authority, or childish tantrums.
And still no testable GHE hypothesis? Just redesign the scientific method. That should help.
Cheers.
Flynn
You really really need to study View Factor. You’re arguments are lame and not even worth consideration. It is like taking to a grade school student about quantum physics. You are hopeless at this time since you don’t have even a little physics background.
Here is a link to help you. Please read it for you own good before you make a fool of yourself.
http://www.ibpsa.org/proceedings/BS2007/p757_final.pdf
Here is a start for you.
norman…”It is like taking to a grade school student about quantum physics. You are hopeless at this time since you dont have even a little physics background”.
It’s always humours me to hear you go on about science. If you knew a fraction as much as you have deluded yourself into thinking you know, you’d be dangerous.
Norman clearly spends a lot of time studying and has learned rapidly since I first learned of him. He is dedicated to understanding and communicating the science. Very impressive. Norman thinks hard, which not everyone here does.
Gordon
As far as you are concerned, he IS dangerous. He absolutely destroys all of your arguments.
bond….”Gordon
As far as you are concerned, he IS dangerous. He absolutely destroys all of your arguments”.
Only in the eyes of a neophyte like you who is as confused about basic physics as is norman. DA only notices improvements in norman since he began to think more like DA.
I suggest GR tells us again how the tiny electrons in CO2 manage to jiggle that slowly and absorb the 667 cm^-1 IR radiation.
He is so funny when he does it and Norman’s patience is so admirable when he tries to correct him.
It always humours one to hear GR go on about science. Even if he knew only a small fraction as much as he has deluded himself into thinking he knows, he could no longer be laughed at.
idiot…”I suggest GR tells us again how the tiny electrons in CO2 manage to jiggle that slowly and absorb the 667 cm^-1 IR radiation”.
Once you learn some basic chemistry, as to how electrons are essential for bonding atoms into molecules like CO2, it might make more sense. Those tiny electrons, as you call them, may be tiny compared to the protons on the nucleus but they pack an equal and opposite charge.
The charges on the electrons is essential to holding not only atoms together but to holding molecules together as well. Vibration in CO2 and other atomic bonds is due solely to the interaction of the +vely charged protons and the -vely charged electrons.
The protons naturally repel each other and the electrons pull the protons together by orbiting them. That’s equivalent to an under-damped mass/spring system that vibrates due to equal and opposite forces.
If the electrons absorb energy, forcing them to higher energy orbitals, the entire atom vibrates harder. There is no other particle in an atom can do that other than the highly mobile electron. By the same token, there is nothing else in the 3 atom molecule that can cause vibration.
idiot…”He is so funny when he does it and Normans patience is so admirable when he tries to correct him”.
You’re nym is apt, without the tracker. The fact that you think norman is correct reveals to me that you are not only an idiot but an utter ignoramus when it comes to physics and chemistry.
Idiot,
I suggest you produce a testable GHE hypothesis before lurching off into irrelevancies in all directions.
No testable GHE hypothesis, nothing to test, not science.
Just more pseudoscience of the climatological hand waving variety.
Away you go now. Do something really stupid, ignorant and pointless. Maybe you coukd track something?
Cheers.
Norman,
Maybe if you could find a testable GHE hypothesis, I might take some notice.
But you can’t, so I won’t.
Carry on with blathering your nonsense. If you managed to throw in a fact or two, it would be amazing! Opinions are worth what you pay for them – generally nothing.
Cheers.
Norm,
The sun is the only energy source that heats the earth. The earth is completely passive. There is NOTHING that you can place between the sun and the earth that would increase the energy striking the earth. That would be a clear violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Anything that comes between the earth and the sun, including CO2, will reduce the energy striking the earth and provide more cooling.
Spare me the pseudo physics lecture. I’ve already taken university physics and thermo courses. Your brand of physics is creating energy out of nothing.
skeptic…”Norm,
The sun is the only energy source that heats the earth”.
Norm and his fellow alarmists have yet to get it that the Arctic freezes each year when solar energy does not reach it during the Arctic winter. Last January and the January before, there was 10 feet of ice at the North Pole and all the way to the Canadian north shores.
SGW: Prof. Tyndall showed there IS something that you can place between the sun and the earth that would increase the energy striking the earth namely atm. CO2 and water vapor and many other gases. All compliant with 1LOT and 2LOT as his results are based on actual thermometer readings in relevant experiments. Theory for that was developed later based on those experiments.
Ball4,
Complete nonsense. You are just making stuff up, which is why you cannot provide a quote showing Tyndall said those things.
You do not understand Tyndalls methods, and cannot grasp the fact that a needle deflection may indicate an increase or decrease in a quantity. You also do not understand that energy absorbed within a medium can never increase in quantity when emitted, by virtue of the type of medium.
Keep at it. You may accidentally stumble upon something worthwhile, who knows?
I’ll bet against if, if you wish.
Cheers.
Mike stumbles badly: “You are just making stuff up, which is why you cannot provide a quote showing Tyndall said those things.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302696
“a needle deflection may indicate an increase or decrease in a quantity.”
Yes, however Prof. Tyndall reported his needle deflected in one direction only always indicating a warming of the gases placed between his IR sun (the boiling water) and the thermometers.
It might be helpful to actually read his report Mike.
“You also do not understand that energy absorbed within a medium can never increase in quantity when emitted, by virtue of the type of medium.”
Mind reading is not possible Mike, nice try though. You may be as upset as you wish over your failures, I don’t really care.
Ball4,
Linking to an irrelevant comment is not nearly as convincing as providing a relevant quote.
Rubbish. Anyone who chooses can read Tyndall’s latest published words themselves.
I’ll just point out the blindingly obvious – heat absorbed by the gas does not reach the thermometer.
No mind reading required. The nonsense you espouse demonstrates your lack of understanding.
You also do not understand that a testable hypothesis is an essential part of the scientific method.
If you did, you would provide one, rather than just claiming it has been explained many times. You can explain the mating habits of unicorns as many times as you like – the unicorns remain non-existent, regardless.
Still no GHE.
Cheers.
“I’ll just point out the blindingly obvious – heat absorbed by the gas does not reach the thermometer.”
No need to get so upset Mike that you are blindingly obviously wrong as Prof. Tyndall’s thermometers showed an increase in temperature proving the heat absorbed by the gas did reach the thermometers no matter how Mike wishes that circumstance away. Fact. Not wish. Feynman had it right.
“If you did, you would provide one, rather than just claiming it has been explained many times.”
Prof. Tyndall already did so I don’t need to improve on his work and Mike Flynn has already written out many testable GHE hypotheses based on Tyndall’s experimental work no need for me to do so. Check out your own comments if you wish, or not I won’t care.
Still a GHE. Mike can discuss unicorns all he wants, doesn’t mean they exist. Fact. Not wish.
SkepticGoneWild
Sorry to disagree. Yes you can increase the energy that strikes the Earth’s surface if you have GHG that are transparent to Downwelling Solar (as CO2 is). It does not in any way violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. CO2 does not reduce energy solar energy striking the Earth. The Sun has such little energy in this range it is not significant.
You may have taken University courses at some time but your thought process at this time is not correct. My brand does not in any way create energy out of nothing.
I try to explain this to you (in other posts) but you are not wanting to understand it. The Earth system is receiving energy input all the time from the Sun. You are adding joules of energy to the Earth’s surface continuously. Even at night the other side of the Earth is gaining energy.
All your points are totally valid when you do not have an energy input. With an energy input you have to revise your understanding of the 1st Law.
E Swanson’s experiment clearly shows the mechanism for GHE. I am glad he did it.
The Solar energy goes through CO2 with almost none being absorbed. The Earth’s surface warms. This in turn starts to heat the atmosphere. The CO2 emits based upon the gas temperature. Measured DWIR is absorbed by the Earth and added to the total energy the surface absorbs. This process adds energy to the surface. Other processes (convection, evaporation) remove energy. The balance is what the debate is all about. The debate is not about the GHE. GHE is established science based upon sound physics.
SkepticGoneWild
The nice thing about science it is not an opinion arena like Politics. That is what makes me sad reading these comments. The world of science has become as tribal as politics. You have your sides and both think they are right. This is not science, it is tribal convictions.
I like data and real world. Not unfounded statements, appeals to authority, or made up science like some use.
Here is real world measured data. If you remove the DWIR your total Net radiation is very small positive during the day.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5afcfc665c525.png
I like science. It is not based upon opinions. You have people like Roy Spencer and E. Swanson still willing to experiment.
Data and information are what win the day in science. Get back to your science roots and get away from the tribal convictions. Unless you are as fanatic as Gordon Robertson, real evidence and empirical data should convince you. It is what convinced me of my flawed thoughts. Hope it does the same for you.
Norm,
Swanson does not prove anything. He did not follow the scientific method, nor did he publish his experiment.
Your declarative statements are meaningless. The GHE is an unproven hypothesis.
One can concentrate the sun’s energy with a magnifying glass. But otherwise, anything that you place between the sun and the earth will reduce the temperature of the earth. THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF ENERGY! You are promoting what is known in physics as a “Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind”. When you can harness this so-called DWIR to perform real thermodynamic work, let me know.
“Swanson does not prove anything.”
Swanson proved SGW is wrong. By experiment!
Just like Prof. Tyndall proves SGW & Flynn wrong causing them both to get blindingly obviously upset: it is very possible and testable that placing something between the sun and the earth such as CO2 gas and wv can increase the temperature of the earth. Blindingly obvious per Flynn. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine despite SGW claims nor Flynn’s mind reading or his unicorns.
“When you can harness this so-called DWIR to perform real thermodynamic work, let me know.”
E. Swanson already did let SGW know, a temperature increased from added DWIR. That takes real thermodynamic work just like Dr. Spencer’s tests on the real atm. showed real thermodynamic work with actual increase in DWIR. SGW & Flynn can choose to be upset and disbelieve real experiments, I don’t care as Dr. Feynman had it right.
SkepticGoneWild says, May 17, 2018 at 12:09 AM:
Yup, that’s how they do “science” these days. Not in any way like real science, but science the way THEY think it works. Or should work, rather.
So when people like Swanson “set up an experiment”, they don’t do it to TEST an hypothesis. They do it to present an effect that we can observe and to which they can then APPLY their very own particular hypothesis as an explanation. IOW, they turn the scientific method completely on its head.
This is how they view and use the global temperature series as well. They see them as somehow a TEST of their hypothesis, when in fact they’re simply displaying the specific effect that we’re trying to find the cause of in the first place: ‘global warming’.
But since they’re convinced they already know the cause, based simply on their very own theoretical considerations, they don’t really feel the need to test it at all. Rather, in their collective mind, the observed effect directly verifies their hypothesized explanation – their hypothesis predicted warming, THEREFORE observed warming somehow proves their hypothesis right …!
They are completely and utterly incapable of seeing the folly in this approach to reality.
Same with Swanson’s “experiment”. What he actually OBSERVED was simply a rise in the temperature of the already constantly heated plate as he put up the second plate right next to it, partially shielding it, and thus effectively serving as an INSULATING layer. There is nothing novel or unexpected about this result. At all. The question is only: How do you physically EXPLAIN it?
Swanson believed he already had the correct explanation, and so, when observing the effect, which was really all about the temperatures of the two plates, a thermal/thermodynamic effect, he felt all he needed to do was apply HIS specific hypothetical mechanism to it.
He claims to have observed the mechanism behind the effect that he wanted to explain, when all he did observe was of course the effect itself. The rest was just him applying HIS preconceived theoretical explanation to it.
And no one, absolutely NO ONE, seems to notice, or care! No one calls him out on this. No one challenges his alleged ‘findings’. Which are ultimately arrived at through fully circular reasoning and nothing else – the preconceived conclusion being allowed to verify itself.
Because they ALL think the same way …! No one sees the problem, because they don’t even know what to look for. They think this is the way it’s supposed to be done …
And this is a HUGE problem of our postmodern society.
Kristian
You don’t appear to know as much thermodynamics as you think you do. It would seem you have the wrong conclusions and are unwilling to accept the actual situation.
Some quick additions to E. Swanson test would show that your opinon is not based upon anything but your own opinion. Since I am not going to perform countless experiments to validate current heat transfer, I am going to accept the theories of science until you can come up with valid experiments that prove them wrong. All you do is bellow out hot air and act like some authority. So far I have not seen the slightest bit that you actually know what you are talking about. For supporting evidence you link to your own site so we can read your opinions.
YOU: “Same with Swansons experiment. What he actually OBSERVED was simply a rise in the temperature of the already constantly heated plate as he put up the second plate right next to it, partially shielding it, and thus effectively serving as an INSULATING layer. There is nothing novel or unexpected about this result. At all. The question is only: How do you physically EXPLAIN it?”
What is the green plate shielding? How is it acting like an insulating layer? If you believe it alters the emission from the blue plate you must be prepared to back it up with experimental evidence. I have already done tests that prove you opinions are not valid. The current science understanding is validated by experiments. You seem unwilling to do any but you are really full of your own misguided opinions.
I have taken FLIR camera. Point it at a hot pipe and it gives a high temperature. Point it at a handrail close by that is heated by the hot pipe so it is hotter than ambient and it also shows a temperature. IR is being emitted by the hand rail and making it to the camera.
There are two macroscopic flows of energy at the surface of an objects and so far not one actual physics book or material on heat transfer has ever stated anything other than that.
One is the energy emitted away from a surface and the other is the energy reaching a surface that is absorbed. That you don’t want to accept this is you flaw and no one else’s, it is established physics verified by actual measuring instruments.
On the plates, If you blindly accept the green plate is blocking and acting like an insulator, its own temperature would HAVE no effect on the temperature of the blue plate. It would block the radiation based upon its size and position not its temperature.
You could cool the green plate or warm it. As a block and insulator it would have no effect. If the valid science is correct and the green plate is emitting its own IR and sending it to the blue plate to be absorbed, then the temperature of the green plate is what will affect the blue plate. If you did the tests you would see this to be the case. You will never perform the tests but keep acting like you are some expert in the field. I don’t think you are anything. I think Tim Folkerts has considerable knowledge in the field and his posts support all the actual heat transfer concepts from real textbooks. Yours are just loud opinions, not verified by anything but you think you are the Authority on the subject, you aren’t. If you did actual tests you would prove yourself wrong.
SkepticGoneWild
Don’t be in denial. Look at the empirical information. The DWIR is real energy. It is detectable, varies and is quite real.
SkepticGoneWild
YOU: “THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF ENERGY! You are promoting what is known in physics as a Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind. When you can harness this so-called DWIR to perform real thermodynamic work, let me know.”
There is a continuous supply of energy from the Sun entering the system. The DWIR energy is absorbed by the surface, added with the Solar energy the temperature rises to a new equilibrium. No new energy is created, it is always being added.
Simple to see. Add 100 apples/minute to a bin. If you remove none you have more and more apples. In this case you have apples removed at a rate based upon how many are in the bin. At a certain level you will remove 100 apples/minute as 100 are being added. Now you have an equilibrium condition
So what happens if you have a catch for some removed apples that return them to the bin? Say of the 100 removed you have 20 returned. Now you have to go to a higher level in the bin to remove 120 apples a minute. 100 added from one source now 20 added from another. The catch is not creating new apples, it is returning some that would have been permanently removed. It is not much more complex than that. GHE is really an easy idea. Sound physics. No violation of the 1st or 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. No perpetual motion machine. All your complaints are based upon some incorrect physics. Time for you to open up a textbook again and reread what you have forgotten. You are much smarted than Gordon Robertson. Don’t act like him.
Norman says, May 17, 2018 at 5:12 AM:
Hahahahahaha!
Watch The Great Pretender Norman going off …
Norman says, May 17, 2018 at 5:12 AM:
Nope. There’s ONE, of course. Pointing your instrument in two directions doesn’t make two fluxes, Norman. We’ve been through this a hundred times …
Kristian
Sorry you are the “pretender” on this blog. You pretend to be some kind of Authority on all things dealing with radiant heat transfer but you are not right about anything. You are just a much more intelligent version of Gordon Robertson. You are able to manipulate language and concepts to create muddled and pointless opinions.
Non of your opinions exist in real science textbooks. They exist solely on your own blog and in your own mind.
Because you can’t accept a two-way flux (even though you can see one in the visible spectrum) you will continue to manipulate and confuse those who have little physics knowledge.
Again, I pretend nothing at all. I read textbook material and accept this as valid and true until an experiment can prove them wrong. You bluster and puff like a mighty puffer fish pretending you are this giant expert in the field. I think you are just a clever phony acting like some expert but you really have not much knowledge at all.
Kristian
You silly old man. Don’t use an IR camera just use a light in your room. Sit in a chair facing the light and turn it on. You see a flux of radiant energy from the light reaching your eyes, activating neurons. Now turn opposite the light and look at objects in the room. They are reflecting light from your source that is not absorbed. They are moving in opposite direction from you light source and back into your eyes (back radiation). Two distinct separate macroscopic fluxes of radiant energy that you can easily verify in the privacy of your own home. Your ridiculous opinions are in reality just garbage you make up. Nothing real about them. No physics book acknowledges your confused made up POV. You never support your nonsense which verifies it is indeed just garbage, no better than the made up garbage from Gordon Robertson.
I do think you are several levels higher in intellect but your physics is still as wrong as his.
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Heattransfer.html
This material rejects your one-way energy flow. You can try to convince people you are correct in your POV. It is made up, not established. The material I present, you call me a pretender, clearly shows you are not right. I am. I know the science, you make up your own. Big difference. All you Skeptics seem to have to change physics to prove no GHE exists. Each of you has your own crackpot ideas.
One thing from all of you. NOT ONE OF YOU SKEPTICS SUPPORTS ANY OF YOUR MADE UP PHYSICS. YOU DECLARE IT BUT DO NOT SUPPORT IT. If the Skeptics would use real physics it would help the science considerably. I think your motive is just to cloud the issue and confuse people who have no science background.
I think of the skeptics on this blog, only Bart seems to add some links now and then. All others just make up their physics with no support.
You are no better than the rest of them.
Norm,
What’s next? DWIR “solar” panels that operate at night??
Between the TOA and the surface of the earth, there is only ONE energy source, the sun. According to the pseudo scientists, sun heats earth, earth emits energy which is reflected back to heat earth some more. Hello! McFly! First Law violation. This is like saying I can place a parabolic mirror in front of my 1500 Watt radiant floor heater to increase its heat output. Fake science.
Trenberth and his energy balance diagram is pure horse manure. According to him, CO2 is more powerful than the sun. Go figure.
SGW, with your mirror, the 1500 W heater will get warmer. Its net heat output will still be 1500W. Yes/No?
SGW 4:17am: “Between the TOA and the surface of the earth, there is only ONE energy source, the sun.”
The sun is not between the TOA and the surface of the earth.
“According to the pseudo scientists, sun heats earth, earth emits energy which is reflected back to heat earth some more.”
Experiment shows little terrestrial surface radiation is reflected back to surface, most terrestrial energy coming down to surface from atm. constituents is emitted while some terrestrial surface radiation is transmitted to deep space sink through Earth atm. open window. No 1LOT or 2LOT violation.
“CO2 is more powerful than the sun”
Your use of the word “powerful” does not convey the correct science meaning.
The atm. constituent emitted terrestrial radiation is less intense (W/sr) but radiates from a hemisphere of directions totaling larger power/m^2 of surface than the sun’s radiation which is more intense (W/sr) totaling lesser power/m^2 of surface since sun radiates from only a few degrees of directions.
SkepticGoneWild says, May 19, 2018 at 4:17 AM:
This is a point that really hits home, and one that therefore always seems to confound the warmists.
Indeed, there’s a very simple way for everyone to find out for themselves whether the cooler atmosphere does in fact ADD ENERGY to the warmer surface to make it warmer or not. Or if that is something that only the hot Sun is able to do.
Of course, those of us with even a slight understanding of basic thermodynamics already know the answer, but here goes:
During the day, when both the atmosphere and the Sun are present, the surface temperature RISES. In other words, (internal) energy [U] is GAINED BY (added to) the surface to make it warm.
During the night, however, when only the atmosphere is present, the surface temperature DROPS. In other words, (internal) energy [U] is LOST BY the surface to make it cool.
Conclusion: The surface GAINS energy from the SUN, and it LOSES energy to the atmosphere (and to space).
Things that cool do not gain energy while they do so. Just as things that warm don’t lose energy while doing so.
They might gain or lose energy at a faster or slower RATE. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is still only an energy gain or only an energy loss going on.
All true, and yet no contradiction with either a GHE, or AGW.
Kristian says, May 19, 2018 at 4:03 PM:
This language is, I came to realise, fairly imprecise and ambiguous.
It’s not ‘wrong’ per se, but, i fear, too easy to misinterpret.
There is indeed only a gain or only a loss in U during a warming or a cooling process, respectively. However, there IS simultaneous gain and loss of energy in the form of heat [Q] and/or work [W] going on during those same warming/cooling processes.
A warm place, like the surface, can never thermally gain energy (have energy added to it) from a cooler place, like the atmosphere, though. The thermal direction of energy transfers is always, in nature, from warmer to cooler only …
“During the night, however, when only the atmosphere is present, the surface temperature DROPS.”
Mot according to inspection of weather records. On clear sky, calm nights, maybe yes. On cloudy sky, calm nights maybe no. The added DWIR from low clouds makes a difference.
Also a breeze may warm temperatures over night. Kristian just needs to check daily record records and daily NOAA ESRL records for plots of DWIR showing passing clouds increasing night time surface thermometer temperatures.
“A warm place, like the surface, can never thermally gain energy (have energy added to it) from a cooler place”
Both Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson and many others have experimentally proven Kristian wrong about that.
SGW,
“Anything that comes between the earth and the sun, including CO2, will reduce the energy striking the earth and provide more cooling.”
Just like MF, you are stating the problem in overly simplified way that leaves out a key ingredient. The CO2 is also between the Earth and space @ 3K.
Energy coming in from the sun is reduced. Energy going out to space is also reduced, but by a larger %
Its like saying wearing a coat in winter is pointless. Anything coming between you and the sun will reduce solar energy striking you.
Ignore the winter coat, also not a perfect analogy.
LOL!
N,
And yet the surface cools at night, and the surface has cooled over the last four and a half billion years.
Maybe a larger percentage of something smaller is not as big as a smaller percentage of something larger.
There isnt a testable GHE hypothesis, so all this diversion into pseudoscientific nonsense is pointless, isnt it?
Cheers.
Mike, Fail to see any relevance.
You always bring up the moon. Why? Its albedo is lower than Earth. Its surface absorbs way more sunlight than Earth. It has no atmosphere or GHG. And yet its average temp is way lower@ 225 K.
So, it disproves your arguments of no GHE.
Nate,
The alleged energy imbalance cannot even be measured properly:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_SSF1deg_Ed4A_DQS.pdf
See paragraph at the bottom of page 6.
SGW. Not the only data. Also OHC.
SkepticGoneWild
Above you state: “Trenberth and his energy balance diagram is pure horse manure. According to him, CO2 is more powerful than the sun. Go figure.”
This is not correct.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/TFK_bams09.pdf
Trenberth has the entire DWIR at 344. Carbon dioxide will contribute from 10 to 20% of this value depending upon the air moisture content and cloud cover which would only be 34 to 68 W/m^2. The Solar energy reaching the surface is 161 W/m^2. So your statement is not at all correct.
DWIR is empirically shown to contribute more energy to the surface than solar energy.
I will give you three samples to look at. Two summer one winter.
All three (if you do the math) show that in a 24 hour period, DWIR adds more energy to the surface than solar does. Unless you come up with the made up claim that a hot object is unable to absorb energy from a colder one (hopefully they did not teach you that at your higher education classes).
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b007520b2cee.png
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b0075abdab37.png
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b007672c2fe2.png
Just go with the evidence. It is what changed my view. I will follow the evidence. The rest is made up nonsense. You are a smart person. Get back to your science roots and examine the facts.
Off you go now
Not really, I keep track of you .
Keep it up !
It,
I am so glad you have nothing better to do. Am I supposed to care if you keep track of me (whatever that means)?
Do you have awesome hidden powers that should make me tremble in fear? Or are you just another stupid and ignorant pseudoscientific GHE believer, having an obsession with creating brightly coloured, but completely pointless graphs?
I wish you every success with your tracking activities. Maybe you coukd track down Trenberth’s missing heat, or Mann’s Nobel Prize. How would you go tracking the location of a testable GHE hypothesis? I’d like to see that!
Cheers.
IT
This person doesn’t seem to realize how obvious it is that it is HE who has nothing better to do with his time.
When someone posts all day every day without pause, one’s first inclination is to believe that he has no job. But we know better – this IS his paid job.
Bond,
Indeed, this kind of buffoon leaves so much droppings, he is easy to track.
And look at the pride he takes in
Hilarious.
Idiot,
Your mind reading abilities fail, yet again.
Is there a point to your tracking, or is it yet another example of the stupid and ignorant GHE believer trying to appear important? Should I be concerned?
I dont believe so – so track away to your hearts content. You think it is important, and you should be guided by your obsession. It won’t harm anybody.
Cheers.
B,
I admire your obsession with the fantasy that you can read minds. It is a characteristic of the stupid and ignorant, who are unable to accept reality.
Rather like the pseudoscientific climatologists that have to use tricks to make it appear that Nature is complying with their pointless and irrelevant models.
Carry on. How is the search for a testable GHE hypothesis going? Maybe you can fantasise that climate science doesn’t need to follow the scientific method, because it is so superior as to be beyond the understanding of mere mortals! Latter day gods, such as that undistinguished mathematician Gavin Schmidt, or the almost Nobel Prize winner – Michael Mann.
Nature doesnt seem to be in awe of such bumbling fumblers, and neither am I.
Cheers.
Flynn
Above you stated: “Complete nonsense. Adding more CO2 between the Sun and the thermometer reduces the amount of energy reaching the thermometer, resulting in the temperature dropping.”
That might be the only thing you ever said correctly. It is complete nonsense that adding more CO2 will reduce the amount of energy reaching the thermometer. You finally have some understanding.
I am not sure why you won’t click no this link and look at page 3.
https://www.slideserve.com/faunus/from-grant-petty-s-book-a-first-course-in-atmospheric-radiation
You will see a super sharp drop in measured energy after CO2 emission bands and almost no energy at all until you get to Water emission bands. If the Solar energy had any significant energy at the Mid-IR range you would see it clearly in this spectrum. The detector pointing up is not discriminating from IR from the Sun or atmosphere.
When no atmospheric gases are able to emit at some bands the DWIR is near zero. How dumb are you really? You make up as much stuff as the next moronic skeptic that posts on this blog. No science, no facts, just made up false statements that you skeptics never tire of repeating, wrong as they are!
N,
Why should I waste my time looking at irrelevant links? Just provide some facts.
You cant describe the GHE in any useful scientific way, so it would be pointless looking at anything you say relates to a non-existent entity.
Talk of spectra is irrelevant if you claim they relate to something you can’t describe.
Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere (or indeed any mixture of gases) has precisely no effect on temperature, in and of itself. No magic.
Any energy used to heat the gases is obviously unavailable to heat an object on the far side of the gas. As happens on Earth, the atmosphere prevents about 35% of the Suns energy from being available at the surface. Cooler than the airless Moon. No magic.
Do your calculations. Examine your spectra. Analyse past temperature records , and adjust any which do not support the mad idea that reducing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer makes it get hotter!
No wonder nobody can come up with a testable GHE hypothesis!
Cheers
Mike Flynn
The link I provided to you is fact and empirical data. You waste tons of time posting nonsense on this blog, why not use just a wee bit of that time and actually learn something?
The GHE has been totally explained to you by many people. That you choose to ignore the information is your choice.
The thermometers on the Earth’s surface are much hotter because of GHG present. The spectra link demonstrates to you that you make up your junk science and are absolutely not interested in any facts.
Norman,
You still cannot find anything faintly scientific, such as a testable GHE hypothesis, can you?
You still cannot make a thermometer hotter by surrounding it with CO2, either, can you?
What a pity – time to post more irrelevant links, or do more spectral calculations!
That should warm you up a bit.
Cheers.
Norman,
Do you really believe that putting more CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter?
Doesn’t seem to work at night, or for the last four and a half billion years!
How much hotter than molten do you think the Earth’s surface should be, owing to GHGs?
Or is it a pseudoscientific fact that cooling is really heating in disguise?
Dear oh dear. Delusion keeps you and the likes of Schmidt, Mann and Trenberth going, doesn’t it?
How are you going with that testable GHE hypothesis? Not necessary for pseudoscientists?
I thought so.
Cheers.
Flynn
And you still refuse to learn science and just repeat yourself.
Norm,
I don’t understand this fascination with the GHE.
James Hansen, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, the kidz at Skeptical Science, the IPCC, are all GHE believers. The GHE IS the sole basis for climate alarmism.
I will not associate myself with any of the above based on an unproven hypothesis.
norman…”I am not sure why you wont click no this link and look at page 3.”
*********
I have already looked at it and reported back that the radiation is measures in MILLIwatts. That in thousandths of a watt.
So? The numbers are per wave number. What did you expect?
DA,
A testable GHE hypothesis, perhaps?
Fat chance. Just more denial and evasion.
Cheers.
Gordon is not good at reading the fine print.
DA…”So? The numbers are per wave number. What did you expect?”
1)of you look at the top of the graph the horizontal axis is also expressed in wavelength, which is the reciprocal of frequency, using the speed of light as a conversion factor.
One might ask how it is possible to use wavelength across the top and wavenumbers across the bottom.
2)Wavenumbers are the number of wavelengths at a particular frequency that can fit into a centimetre distance. Whether the frequency/wavelength is measured as frequency, wavelength, or wavenumber, has no relationship to the vertical axis. All it will do is rearrange the order of the data horizontally.
Normally for light, frequency is related to wavelength through f.lambda = c or …f/l = c
Or l = c/f
The wavenumber is the reciprocal of the wavelength therefore
wn = 1/l = f/c
Example for green light:
Energy (eV) = 2.38 – 2.19
Wavelength (nanometers) = 520 – 565
Wavenumber (cm^-1) = 19200 – 17700
Frequency (terahertz) = 577 – 531
Note that wavelength min = 520 nanometres = 520 x 10^-9m
So you’re asking how many of these wavelengths would fit in a centimetre.
1m/(520 x 10^-9m) would take 0.001923076 x 10^9 = 1923076 into a metre and 19230 into a centimetre.
They claim 19200 so they have rounded off something somewhere.
Whoever uses this anachronism outside of atomic theory should be kicked squarely in the butt.
Therefore, the radiation spectrum being revealed in milliwatts has nothing to do with the wavenumber.
Another idiotic observation by David Appell.
more brain damage:
f.lambda = c or f/l = c
should read: f.lambda = c or fl = c
“Therefore, the radiation spectrum being revealed in milliwatts has nothing to do with the wavenumber.”
Incorrect Gordon, see here and find David is correct, the mW are per wavenumber as shown:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302386
Not only per wavenumber, but also per steradian.
ball4…”Incorrect Gordon, see here and find David is correct, the mW are per wavenumber as shown:”
For cripes sake, can’t any of you alarmists read graphs? The curve is a one to one POINT (differential) relationship between the number of MILLIwatts at EACH cm, not right across the range. I made a specific reference to the PEAK of the curve, remarking that it represented no more than 0.15 watts. I don’t give a hoot what the integral of differentials may be.
The point is obvious. The TOA is rated in Watts of power, over 100 w/m^2, if I remember correctly. What possible difference could IR blocking of a few milliwatts make to the overall radiation?
bond…”Not only per wavenumber, but also per steradian.”
We are still talking instantaneous values per frequency or wavelength. How can you compare a curve with peak amplitude measured in milliwatts to one measured in watts?
Presuming the solar input to the surface is 200+ w/m^2, one would expect a similar output at TOA. This stuff is of no interest to me so don’t look for exactness.
If the TOA radiation is in the range of 200 w/m^2, why are you even concerned about IR blocking of a few milliwatts.
This is the same argument that 0.04% CO2 can catastrophically heat the atmosphere. None of you will supply evidence in hard numbers to prove that effect and here you are comparing milliwatt IR blockage to 200 watts.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Bond, that particular curve is for radiance on y axis and is not shown as intensity (radiant (or luminous) W per steridian, W/sr). Using intensity to mean radiance is akin to using length to mean what to the rest of the world is area.
The Optical Society of America tries to rule & standardize terminology in this field but careless and sloppy authors continue to misuse intensity term in any manner which seems to suit their mood of the day (not unlike the heat term; hint: Gordon). There are some humorous articles on the subject just like there are on the heat term.
Typically intensity term can be avoided in this field with radiance and irradiance favored. Trouble is at a lecture on optics you better be pretty sober to clearly hear and determine which one the speaker annunciated. Unlike radiance, irradiance is not solely a property of the radiation field but depends, in general, on the orientation of the detector.
“None of you will supply evidence in hard numbers to prove that effect and here you are comparing milliwatt IR blockage to 200 watts.”
Trouble is, Gordon, that radiance curve totals to 240 W/m^2, the OLR at TOA as I (impatiently) explained previously. Apparently Gordon doesn’t understand what possible difference IR of a few milliwatts/m^2/cm could make to the overall radiation field.
Ball4,
Let me quote James Hansen from one of his papers on the earth’s energy imbalance:
“The notion that a single satellite at this point could measure Earth’s energy imbalance to 0.1 W/m2 is prima facie preposterous. Earth emits and scatters radiation in all directions, i.e., into 4π steradians. How can measurement of radiation in a single direction provide a proxy for radiation in all directions? Climate change alters the angular distribution of scattered and emitted radiation. It is implausible that changes in the angular distribution of radiation could be modeled to the needed accuracy, and the objective is to measure the imbalance, not guess at it. There is also the difficulty of maintaining sensor calibrations to accuracy 0.1 W/m 2, i.e., 0.04 percent. That accuracy is beyond the state-of-the art, even for short periods, and that accuracy would need to be maintained for decades. There are many useful measurements that could be made from a mission to the Lagrange L1 point, but Earth’s radiation balance in not one of them.”[http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110415_EnergyImbalancePaper.pdf]
The CERES satellites CANNOT measure the alleged energy imbalance. That is clear from reading any of the CERES data quality summaries. The basis for climate alarmism cannot be measured.
“The CERES satellites CANNOT measure the alleged energy imbalance.”
SGW, you deserve credit for actually reading & citing some of the details.
The citations you comment are now way out of date.
Hansen 2011 is based on Loeb 2009 CERES brightness temperature calibration to early Argo network ocean thermometer data “to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the Earth-atmosphere system” (your paragraph p. 6 last sentence). Loeb 2012, 2016, and 2018 have now updated the 95% confidence interval and TOA imbalance signal with much more Argo ocean thermometer data reducing those earlier confidence intervals (CIs).
The CERES imbalance CI in Loeb 2018 has been reduced using added Argo thermometer data now available to order of +/- 0.2 W/m^2 reasonably close to Hansen’s earlier target on a signal of 0.35 W/m^2 SW net of LW all-sky still showing a slight system warming trend March 2000 to Sept. 2016 (Table 7) with 95% confidence the measured signal shows nature’s actual signal in the period lies on the warming side.
The paper states this is a “daunting” task:
“the absolute accuracy requirement necessary to quantify Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) is daunting. The EEI is a small residual of TOA flux terms on the order of 340 W/m^2. EEI ranges between 0.5 and 1 W/m^2 (von Schuckmann et al. 2016), roughly 0.15% of the total incoming and outgoing radiation at the TOA.”
Ball4,
You obviously cannot read, or do not read carefully. You got it wrong. This is what it states:
“With the most recent CERES Edition4 instrument calibration improvements, the SSF1deg_Edition4A net imbalance is ~+5 W m-2 (see Table 5-2), which is much larger than the expected observed
ocean heating rate of ~0.71 W m-2 (Johnson et al. 2016)”
5 W/m-2 is not even close.
The 2014 CERES Data Quality Summary explained the problem much more clearly:
“Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine SW and LW outgoing top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes, a sizeable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With the most recent CERES Edition3 Instrument calibration improvements, the SYN1deg_Edition3 net imbalance is ~3.4 W m-2 , much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate ~0.58 Wm-2 (Loeb et al. 2012a). This imbalance is problematic in applications that use Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data for climate model evaluation, estimations of the Earth’s annual global mean energy budget, and studies that infer meridional heat transports.”
The measurements are way off. The expected imbalance should be 0.58 Wm-2 (if you believe the pseudo-science). Bottom line: the alleged enhanced GHE cannot be measured.
“Bottom line: the alleged enhanced GHE cannot be measured.”
Not the bottom line SGW.
Again you are out of date referring to 2012 and 2014 published reports by CERES Team. By Loeb 2018, CERES brightness data calibrated with Argo ocean thermometer data demonstrate the TOA imbalance can be meaningfully measured with 95% confidence over the period I noted as shown in Table 7.
B4,
The CERES report is 3/13/2018. You lose again. And you are wrong. The net imbalance measured is 5 W/m-2.
“The CERES report is 3/13/2018.”
A cryptic sentence won’t save you SGW. And try to carefully read what I clipped from Loeb 2018 published 1/11/2018: “EEI ranges between 0.5 and 1 W/m^2”
The 3/13/18 CERES report is the definitive document.
You did not even post a link. Post a link to your study.
Another cryptic sentence about 2018 won’t save you SGW. The CERES clip date YOU provided earlier from 2014.
Loeb 2018:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303168
B4,
Always a step behind.
The Hansen 2011 paper actually explain it quite well:
“The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m 2 (Loeb et al., 2009)”
So the REAL measured energy imbalance was 6.5 W/m-2. But this measurement was obviously wrong so they introduced calibration factors to reduce it to 0.85 W/m-2, the value suggested by the climate models. The adjusted data is referred to as the EBAF dataset.
The above CERES data referred to in the Hansen study can be found here:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_EBAF_Ed2.5_DQS.pdf
In the above it states:
“This imbalance is problematic in applications that use Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data for climate model evaluation, estimate the Earth’s annual global mean energy budget, and in studies that infer meridional heat transports.
So what do they do? They introduce calibration factors:
To address these problems, we have created the CERES Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) dataset, which uses an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their range of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the Earth>atmosphere system.”
The latest data quality summaries can be found here:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/dqs.php
But the concept is the same. The latest actual measured net energy imbalance is 4.3 W/m-2. This was explained in the Loeb paper, but you failed to read and understand it.
The bottom line is STILL the same. The alleged energy imbalance cannot be accurately measured.
B4,
The 3/13/2018 CERES data quality summary I referred to earlier can be found here:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_SSF1deg_Ed4A_DQS.pdf
This dataset showed an net imbalance of 5 W/m-2 because the methodology to calculate the value is different from the EBAF Ed 4.0 data quality summary.
“But this measurement was obviously wrong so they introduced calibration factors to reduce it to 0.85 W/m-2, the value suggested by the climate models.”
Again, SGW, you fail to use the latest CERES Team information available but at least you are digging into this.
Loeb 2018 doesn’t calibrate to Hansen 2011’s 0.85 imbalance suggested by climate models any longer so you are behind in your reading.
Loeb 2018 uses “CERES-derived clear-sky TOA fluxes in SSF Edition 4A” mentioned in your now provided source of 3/13/2018 (a document date not a dataset date which is 5/11/2017).
In Loeb 2018, CERES is now calibrated to measured ocean thermometer data from i) Argo depths to 1800m, ii) depths below 2000m Lyman & Johnson, iii) ice/melt/atm./lithosphere warming data reporting “mean net TOA flux is 0.71 +/- 0.10 W/m^2” for the “uptake of heat by Earth & NOT from climate models.
The Loeb 2018 bottom line is STILL the same. CERES brightness temperature data is calibrated by thermometer data to provide Table 7 global mean TOA flux 2000 to 2016 and Fig. 9 at 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.
B4,
Wrong again. I said the adjustment was similar.
The CEREE EBAF Edition 4.0 data quality set SPECIFICALLY states:
“Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine SW and LW outgoing top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes, a sizeable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With the most recent CERES Edition4 Instrument calibration improvements, the SYN1deg_Edition4 net imbalance is ~4.3 W m-2 , much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate ~0.71 W m-2 (Johnson et al. 2016). This imbalance is problematic in applications that use Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data for climate model evaluation, estimations of the Earth’s annual global mean energy budget, and studies that infer meridional heat transports. The CERES Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) dataset uses an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the Earth-atmosphere system”
This is what the Loeb paper states as well. The EBAF data is ADJUSTED, Einstein! The net imbalance prior to adjustment is 4.3 W/m-2. Not even close to what it is supposed to be.
Still the same bottom line, McFly.
“The net imbalance prior to adjustment is 4.3 W/m-2.”
You need to learn the difference between accuracy and precision. CERES radiometers are very precise but they need to be trued up for accuracy using Argo thermometer data.
Read your word “prior” several times and look up its definition.
Prior is before calibration, AFTER calibration CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.
Every…EVERY precision instrument needs to be trued up by calibration for accuracy and the precision radiometers aboard all the CERES satellite payloads are no exception.
SGW, Agree that TOA imbalance is not measured well by CERES. It is Kristian, who draws several conclusions from this data, that you need to be arguing with
Nate says, May 20, 2018 at 8:02 AM:
I’m not drawing any conclusions whatsoever on the ToA imbalance data, Nate. “Climate Science” is. They’re the ones claiming certainty about the magnitude of the imbalance. Not me.
What I’m discussing is rather the OLR and ASR anomalies over time. Strange how you still appear to be utterly confused on this point.
Might it be because you just don’t WANT to understand it …?
Kristian, you have tried to draw conclusions from 33 y of data that youve stiched together by making various choices about offsets between the sets.
But as I showed you, and you ignored, others have made different choices to produce a continuous set. And do not draw your conclusions.
Here is a paper.
https://tinyurl.com/y8vk795j
This makes clear that drawing conclusions about trends in the long records should be done with extreme caution.
B4,
Nope.
You are looking at EBAF data that has ALREADY been adjusted.
Once again the CERES data quality paper states:
Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine SW and LW outgoing top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes, a sizeable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With the most recent CERES Edition3 Instrument calibration improvements, the SYN1deg_Edition3 net imbalance is ~3.4 W m-2 , much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate ~0.58 Wm-2 (Loeb et al. 2012a).
The satellites have ALREADY been calibrated, and despite these improvements, the measured imbalance is sizeable and does not agree with what the value should theoretically be.
last paragraph should not be in italics.
“The satellites have ALREADY been calibrated..”
No confusion SGW, as your clip says “With the most recent CERES Edition3..” as I’ve been writing you are not quoting the latest truing up of CERES with Argo data in Loeb 2018 using Edition4a in your own cite to 3/13/2018 report. It is SGW that is confused, use your own cite!
Then find AFTER calibration CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.
B4,
OK, I accidentally quoted from the Edition 3 data series paper immediately above, because I have all of them up on my computer (It does not matter so much since Edition 3 had the same issues). But the post before that , I quoted from the Edition 4 data quality paper, which I will quote again:
Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine SW and LW outgoing top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes, a sizeable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With the most recent CERES Edition4 Instrument calibration improvements, the SYN1deg_Edition4 net imbalance is ~4.3 W m-2, much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate ~0.71 W m-2 (Johnson et al. 2016).”
The measured net imbalance is 4.3 W/m-2. That is what the satellites measure, despite all the latest calibration. The EBAF data set is ADJUSTED post calibration. Please refer to Figure 1 in the Loeb study. The EBAF data set is confusing you.
refer to Figure 1: Loeb 2018 3) TOA Flux Adjustments p.904: “we use the objective constrainment algorithm described in Loeb et al. (2009) to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earthatmosphere system, as determined primarily from ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) data.”
This is shown as the bottom dotted gray box in Fig. 1. Gray box since only has to be done once not routinely. This box trues up the EBAF TOA Fluxes very bottom box such that the “net imbalance for July 2005-June 2015 is approximately 4.3 W/m^2” is hugely reduced by using i,ii,iii measured data to hugely improve accuracy as I wrote:
“CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.”
B4,
The 4.3 W/m-2 measured net imbalance is NOT accurate! You are not making any sense. It does not magically become accurate by making fake adjustments on the data to match OHCA data.
Did you see the uncertainty figures for the fluxes in the CERES data quality summary? They range from 2.5 W/m2 to 3 W/m2! And this is somehow accurate? Mow can they measure something to 0.71 W/m2 with those uncertainties?
You are dreaming.
Again, patiently, SGW it is you cannot understand the truing up of the CERES radiometer results with Argo ocean thermometer data as shown in Fig. 1 lower dotted gray box.
That effort is what the 3/18/2018 DQ report and Loeb 2018 are all about in reporting their results (see the title of Loeb 2018).
The result from adding in Argo data is SW, LW and their net global accuracy 95% sure the actual number lies within CIs order of +/- 0.20 in Table 7 and Fig. 9. No dreaming, consult the report.
B4,
Patiently? LMAO. You are looking at the WRONG report. The correct report that the Loeb study is referring to is the CERES_EBAF_Ed4.0 report dated January 12, 2018.
And you are ignoring the uncertainty data. And you are ignoring the fact that the the measured imbalance after the latest and greatest calibrations is 4.3 W/m2.
You are ignoring the fact the the EBAF product makes arbitrary adjustments because they assume the OHCA data which pegs the imbalance at 0.71 W/m2 to be correct. (See Table 5 of the Loeb study). It appears you don’t really understand the purpose of the EBAF data set.
You are also ignoring the important criticisms that Hansen brought up in his 2011 paper:
“Earth emits and scatters radiation in all directions, i.e.,
into 4π steradians. How can measurement of radiation in a single direction provide a proxy for radiation in all directions? Climate change alters the angular distribution of scattered and emitted radiation. It is implausible that changes in the angular distribution of radiation could be modeled to the needed accuracy, and the objective is to measure the imbalance, not guess at it.“[http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110415_EnergyImbalancePaper.pdf]
The improvements since 2011 have been marginal. The imbalance measured in 2011 was 6.5 W/m2. Now it’s 4.3.
The 2009 Gerhlich and Tscheuschner paper offered the same criticism of energy balance diagrams, that they are wrong mathematically and physically, that they do not correctly represent radiation intensities.
If you want to ignore the harsh realities, be my guest, if it makes you feel better. Sweet dreams.
B4,
Money quote from the Loeb paper:
“Uncertainties in absolute calibration and the algorithms used to determine Earths radiation budget from satellite measurements are too large to enable Earths energy imbalance to be quantified in an absolute sense“
“The correct report that the Loeb study is referring to is the CERES_EBAF_Ed4.0 report dated January 12, 2018.”
1:28am SGW said it was:
“The 3/13/2018 CERES data quality summary I referred to earlier”
ROFLMAO, make up your mind SGW – which one?
—-
“And you are ignoring the uncertainty data.”
LOL again, no not after the Fig. 1 gray dotted box process, perhaps you don’t read far enough, I’ll bold it for you:
“CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.”
—
“You are ignoring the fact the EBAF product makes arbitrary adjustments”
No, you are mistaken, Loeb 2018 uses thermometer measured Argo data, those are SGW words not CERES Team words.
—-
“It is implausible that changes in the angular distribution of radiation could be modeled to the needed accuracy, and the objective is to measure the imbalance, not guess at it.”
Again, patiently, that is from 2011. Yes, so Loeb 2018 objective was to measure the imbalance which has now been done AFTER Hansen 2011 as Loeb 2018 explains in i,ii,iii page 904.
—-
The 2009 Gerlich and Tscheuschner paper offered nothing new. EEI papers afterwards took no note of it as there was nothing in it that was new, useful or worthy.
—-
If SGW wants to ignore the harsh realities in Loeb 2018, be my guest, if it makes SGW feel better. Sweet dreams – money quote from the Loeb paper:
CERES/Argo results in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.
Dear Dufus,
YOU are the one who brought up the Loeb paper, and you can’t even get the right CERES data quality paper! LMAO.
The uncertainties do not go away. You ignore the uncertainty data as explained in Section 4 of the Loeb paper, and also the last paragraph of the Summary.
And you have yet to explain the following:
Uncertainties in absolute calibration and the algorithms used to determine Earths radiation budget from satellite measurements are too large to enable Earths energy imbalance to be quantified in an absolute sense
You are obviously out of your league here.
Strike 3, instead of ball 4.
SGW gets it wrong: “YOU are the one who brought up the Loeb paper”
Actually Kristian brought Loeb 2018 up around here, I was unaware until he did so.
“The uncertainties do not go away.”
That’s so obvious hardly needs to be stated. Truing up final CIs with Argo thermometer data as shown in Fig. 1 greatly reduces uncertainties to order of +/- 0.20 out of 340. Doesn’t make them “go away”.
Sec. 4 is discussing the Fig. 1 top boxes 1×1 degree “grid avg. inst. fluxes” which is before all of the truing up processing steps to arrive at the final box: EBAF report TOA fluxes.
“And you have yet to explain the following:
Uncertainties in absolute calibration and the algorithms used to determine Earths radiation budget from satellite measurements are too large to enable Earths energy imbalance to be quantified in an absolute sense.”
I’ve already done so, patiently repeating the explanation, the Argo ocean thermometer data i as well as measured data ii, iii shown in the process Fig. 1 gray dotted box “energy balance constraint” is used to true up the satellite measurements to reduce satellite radiometer measurement uncertainties to order of +/-0.20 out of 340.
The Loeb 2018 money result is Table 7 and Fig. 9, the result remains unchanged due SGW commenting:
CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.
B4,
It’s hard to keep track of your horse manure (HM):
“Thats so obvious hardly needs to be stated. Truing up final CIs with Argo thermometer data as shown in Fig. 1 greatly reduces uncertainties to order of +/- 0.20 out of 340. Doesnt make them go away.
“Truing up” is not even mentioned in the Loeb paper. The rest is just made-up garbage. TOA flux uncertainties are not reduced anywhere. They remain as they are shown in Table 8.
“Sec. 4 is discussing the Fig. 1 top boxes 11 degree grid avg. inst. fluxes which is before all of the truing up processing steps to arrive at the final box: EBAF report TOA fluxes.”
WRONG. More HM from you. Are you using some random word generator? Because NOTHING you say makes sense. Section 4 discusses the TOA flux uncertainties, which are listed in Table 8.
“CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task.”
The way you make stuff up is hilarious. Table 7 is comparing trends between Edition 2.8 and Edition 4.0. Your “daunting” comment is horse manure, because it has nothing to do with Table 7, or Figure 9. The “340” number refers to a Study performed by von Schuckmann. The task is daunting because it cannot be accomplished with the current CERES satellite technology. You make grandiose assumptions to come to that conclusion. The “absolute accuracy requirement” cannot be obtained. This is clear from the 4th paragraph of the Introduction of the Loeb paper, as well as from the Conclusion of the Loeb paper:
The Loeb Summary makes it absolutely clear concerning the procedure for obtaining EBAF data product:
“To produce a globally complete representation of ERB while at the same time providing representative absolute values, the EBAF data product uses an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their range of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and EEI as inferred from in situ data.”
The constrainment adjustments are give in Table 5. All Sky LW is adjusted up from 238.6 to 240.1, or 1.5 W/m2, which is within its range of uncertainty. All Sky SW is adjust from 97.1 to 99.1, or 2 W/m2, which is also within its range of uncertainty. (The TOA flux uncertainties are listed in Table 8). These TOA flux uncertainties do not change, otherwise the above paragraph would make no sense.
And finally, the following paragraph in the Conclusion of the Loeb paper makes it CLEAR what I’ve been saying all along:
“Uncertainties in absolute calibration and the algorithms used to determine Earths radiation budget from satellite measurements are too large to enable Earths energy imbalance to be quantified in an absolute sense.”
Further discussion is pointless, since you just make stuff up to suit your preconceived ideas.
SGW claims: “since you just make stuff up to suit your preconceived ideas.”
No, I use quotes, Fig.s and Tables from Loeb 2018, nothing made up by me, all from the authors. I observe SGW needs yet more hand holding on this paper.
“TOA flux uncertainties are not reduced anywhere.”
No. Read closer p. 901. “After applying D_CRs (diurnal correction ratios) to SSF1deg-Terra, the differences are significantly reduced (Fig. 5c). The root-mean-square (RMS) error between 60degreeS and 60degreesN is reduced from 4.5 to 2.7W/m^2 after applying the D_CRs… After applying the diurnal corrections, the mean bias of a few tenths of a watt per meter squared is removed and the standard deviation in the bias is reduced by a factor of approximately 4 for Terra only and Aqua only and by 55% for Terra and Aqua combined.”
The authors then tell you (as I have patiently explained several times now) how they constrain EEI to the expected (Argo trued up) ocean et. al. thermometer values p. 904 mainly using data from Argo to depths of 1800m, other means below 2000m, and ice, atm. & lithosphere papers: “CERES EBAF addresses this issue by applying an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earthatmosphere system (Loeb et al. 2009).”
This is detailed in sec. 3 “TOA FLUX ADJUSTMENTS” mainly under i,ii,iii: “Importantly, the SW and LW TOA flux adjustment is a one-time adjustment to the entire record.” Again, again, again, this is the gray dotted box process in Fig. 1.
The authors tell you: “Table 7 provides global mean trends in TOA fluxes for March 2000-September 2016 and July 2002-September 2016. In the SW, both all-sky and clear-sky TOA flux trends are negative and either exceed or are close to the 95% significance level. In contrast, all-sky LW TOA flux trends are less than 0.2 W/m^2/decade.”
If you look close at Table 7, between Ed2.8 and Ed4.0 the trend signal has become larger than the uncertainty thus Signal/Noise ratio is greatly improved in Ed4.0 by inspection:
For example, all-sky net in Ed2.8 is shown .09 +/- 0.23 meaning nature’s real trend could be down trend, no trend, or up trend with equal significance (95%). For Ed. 4.0 the trend is 95% significant level positive +0.35 +/- 0.24. So forth.
“The “340” number refers to a Study performed by von Schuckmann.”
No, you make that up, von Schuckmann discusses EEI: “EEI ranges between 0.5 and 1W/m^2 (von Schuckmann et al. 2016)” not “incoming solar 340” TSI Table 5 Ed4.0 which is from SORCE radiometers; the authors list multiple TSI sources in Table 2.
“The “absolute accuracy requirement” cannot be obtained.”
While true, absolute accuracy is not of this earth, those are not the authors’ words, you make them up.
“The TOA flux uncertainties are listed in Table 8”
You make that up. The authors tell you (bold added): “Table 8 summarizes the regional uncertainties separately for the Terra-only (March 2000-June 2002) and TerraAqua (July 2002 onward) periods…uncertainty in 1×1 degree regional monthly TOA flux”.
Further discussion truly is pointless, since SGW demonstrably just makes stuff up to suit whatever point he wants to make. Not necessarily the point the authors are making:
CERES/Argo in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 become accurate at the 95% significance level with CIs on order of +/- 0.20 W/m^2 out of 340, a daunting task (bold added):
P. 896: “..the absolute accuracy requirement necessary to quantify Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) is daunting.”
SGW needs to better understand the difference between precision and accuracy in measurement.
Keep on dreaming.
No dreaming, SGW makes that up too.
Dr. Roy Spencer strong thunderstorms in Oklahoma.
http://files.tinypic.pl/i/00964/009kr20tughb.png
David Appell
“April 2018 wasnt one of the coldest recorded Aprils in USA48. It was ranked 22nd highest, out of 124 months. In the top 20%.
It was ranked 13th COLDEST at -2.15C.
The nine climate regions of the US for April:
Upper Midwest: Coldest April on record (-8.6F)
Ohio Valley: 2nd coldest (-5.5F)
South: 5th coldest (-3.7F)
Northeast: 9th coldest (-3.2F)
Southeast: 20th coldest (-1.7F)
Northwest: 48th warmest (+1.0F)
West: 17th warmest (+3.3F)
Southwest: 12th warmest (+3.7F)
bond…”Northwest: 48th warmest (+1.0F)
West: 17th warmest (+3.3F)
Southwest: 12th warmest (+3.7F)”
********
To put that in context, the west coast of the US and Canada receives warming currents from the Pacific (Japanese Current). California is always warm, with temperatures slowly getting lower the further north you go.
The Pacific NW, where I live, is always moderate compared to the rest of the continent. That +1.0F is cold.
I don’t know what is meant by ‘West’ since we are all in the west. If they mean California, 3.3F is cool for them. The Southwest is just as ambiguous since it could mean Southern California or Arizona. Those areas are affected by the Gulf of Mexico, which is always warm.
“West” is California and Nevada.
And do you really think I was giving an absolute temperature?
I was giving an ANOMALY. I would have thought you would have learned the concept of an anomaly by now.
The average max for all of California was 70.1F, and the average min was 44.3. For California’s 7 climate divisions, the average max ranged from 56.3 in the Northwest to 80.4F in the southwest.
How you could possibly believe that +3.3 was an actual temperature is beyond me.
Bond
Moreover, you show in your Google Drive view a time series based on anomalies wrt 1901-2000. I show an ascending sort of those absolute values present in the original V4 data.
And USA48 should be -2.15F, not C.
And I forgot Northern Rockies and Plains: 10th coldest (-4.5F)
Bond / Appell
April 2018 wasnt one of the coldest recorded Aprils in USA48. It was ranked 22nd highest, out of 124 months. In the top 20.
And USA48 should be -2.15F, not C.
No idea where you two obtained these infos from.
If you extract all US48 stations in GHCN V4 daily’s station inventory, and then select the temperature data out of the US48 station data files, you obtain – out of an ascending sort of the absolute values for the April months starting with 1866 – the following top 20 list:
1874 6.97
1887 7.68
1997 7.91
1882 8.31
2018 8.46
1995 8.51
1907 8.53
1875 8.60
1920 8.66
1975 8.84
1869 8.89
1983 8.92
2013 9.00
1873 9.04
1888 9.09
1871 9.15
2008 9.27
1996 9.34
1890 9.35
1928 9.36
Of course: as a person born in France and living in Germany, I mean Celsius degrees here, and not Fahrenheit.
binny…”If you extract all US48 stations in GHCN V4 dailys station inventory…”
How many times do you have to be made aware that GHCN/NOAA are temperature data set fudgers? They have already erased the record US temperatures in 1934 and apparently ignored the recent record cold in the US.
Robertson
Are you really so dumb that you even don’t manage to see that NOAA very well has registered a record cold in the US?
I don’t run for NOAA, Robertson. I run against lying like you do all the time.
Your hatred to these people makes you so completely paranoid that you don’t see simplest evidence.
In the GHCN V4 evaluation I present here, April 2018 is for the entire CONUS the 5th coldest April in 153 years since 1866!
binny…”I dont run for NOAA, Robertson. I run against lying like you do all the time.
Your hatred to these people makes you so completely paranoid that you dont see simplest evidence”.
*********
I’m not the only one who hates them, they are currently under investigation by a US senate commission. Although NOAA is a US government agency it has refused to cooperate with the investigation request for documents.
Gee, I wonder why?
“… and apparently ignored the recent record cold in the US.”
NOAA
8.2% of US … record coldest April
35.4% of US … in coldest 5% of Aprils
57.0% of US … in coldest 25% of Aprils
Entire US48 … 13th coldest April in 124 years, 4th coldest since 1979
So no, they haven’t wiped out the April cold in the US.
But SOMEONE has:
UAH … US 0.01 degrees below average, 16th coldest April since 1979.
Why aren’t you whining to Roy about his obliteration of the April cold?
bond…”Why arent you whining to Roy about his obliteration of the April cold?”
No reason to, Roy is honest. I’m sure he’d have an explanation if asked.
My entire point has been that North America experienced record cold weather during a proclaimed global warming era. NOAA has shown a continuous warming trend since 1970 by slashing colder stations and data fudging.
The UAH sats belong to NOAA. Why is NOAA not concerned that their surface data is so much warmer than UAH, except on binny’s graphs?
Why has NOAA shown no concern about the difference and approached UAH in an attempt to understand why. The truth is, they don’t care, they side with eco-alarmists and have fudged the data to enable them.
“Im sure hed have an explanation if asked.
So you are saying that getting the temperature wrong is OK if you can explain it?
NOAA’s aggregated US record goes back to 1895.
Their “Climate at a Glance” page is where I got the data.
I don’t understand how you got a ranking out of looking at station data without knowing how NOAA combines them to form an average based on distributions of stations.
Here is the graph of all April temperatures on NOAA’s “Climate at a Glance”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rd1gYsnXsd0nmMTcmT425rAiCfl2LxEL/view?usp=sharing
Any attempt by me to link to Climate At A Glance is blocked. So you will have to Google it yourself.
Bond,
And your point is?
Graphs, no matter how brightly coloured, relating to past weather events, prove nothing and predict nothing.
Just stupid and ignorant people implying that they are knowledgeable and smart.
Link away, laddie! Still no testable GHE hypothesis, is there? That is a problem A big, unsurmountable one.
Cheers.
So you don’t agree with my point that April was a particularly cold month in the US? I guess a denier just has a fixation on denying absolutely everything, even if it supports their cause.
Bond,
What Is your point?
Examining temperature records does nothing, wouldn’t you say?
Who cares that the temperatures were what they were?
Maybe some pseudoscientific fanatic, who thinks that intense examination of the past has some mystical significance.
Maybe you can throw in maximum and minimum wind speeds, or variations of wind direction, if you like. Still irrelevant, unless you state what your point is.
And you don’t actually have a point, do you? Sounding sciency might make you feel wonderful, but is unlikely to be of benefit to anyone else,
Finding a testable GHE hypothesis would be beneficial.
Cheers.
Bond
I simply wanted to show with the GHCN V4 daily record that April 2018 can’t be for NOAA where Appell (22 highest) and you (-2.15 F !!!) both have placed it. Especially your strange number I did not understand.
The graph you present in Google Grive tells something quite different, with April 2018 as 11th coldest since 1895. No ‘-2.15 F’ there.
My evaluation is, to make things clear, ‘raw raw raw’. It is evident to me that NOAA has a much more elaborated evaluation taking for example into account the error metadata assiociated to each daily reading, which I deliberately ignore.
No, the graph shows that April was the 13th coldest. The 12 colder Aprils were:
1907, 1917, 1920, 1928, 1950, 1953, 1961, 1973, 1975, 1982, 1983, 1997
My -2.15F is an ANOMALY – the difference from the 1901-2000 average.
The numbers on the graph are actual average TEMPERATURES, not anomalies.
Every NOAA link I post gets blocked so you’ll have to search for this yourself – try googling “national climate report april 2018”.
From this report:
“During April, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 48.9F, 2.2F below the 20th century average, making it the 13th coldest April on record and the coldest since 1997.”
Bond
No, the graph shows that April was the 13th coldest.
Eye-balling is dangerous, I mostly try to avoid it. But with ’11th’ I hope I wasn’t too far away.
The numbers on the graph are actual average TEMPERATURES, not anomalies.
Sorry, you are evidently right, I’m still not quite awake as it seems.
Every NOAA link I post gets blocked so you’ll have to search for this yourself try googling ‘national climate report april 2018’.
You certainly are at least the 100th commenter I see worrying about that.
This is due to the ‘d’ ‘c’ sequence: the initials of Do-ug Cot-ton’s name, a person having caused major trouble on Roy Spencer’s site.
To avoid this in links is very simple: use TinyURL
https://tinyurl.com/
and enter the problematic link, you then obtain something like:
https://tinyurl.com/ycespq5l
*
We must consider the difference between my raw V4 data and NOAA’s output primarily as a consequence of their Pairwise Harmonisation Algorithm.
I use tinyurl regularly, so not sure why I didn’t think of using it here.
I’ve never figured out how to easily download the NOAA station data. Do you have any tips for that? Does it require special software? And can the files be downloaded in bulk? I’ve only been able to request individual files, which I have to wait for before it is emailed to me.
I’ve encountered Do-ug Cot-ton on YouTube. He certainly is an idiot, like all members of the Guy McPherson fraternity. McPherson is now predicting that everyone on the planet will be dead within 15 months, and perhaps as little as 5 months. And people actually believe that crap … a flat earth would be more believable.
And a correction … it is “pairwise HOMOGENIZATION”, not harmonisation.
Bond
Ive never figured out how to easily download the NOAA station data.
Until GHCN V3 it was not that complicated. Look at
https://tinyurl.com/y98yy8fp
you see there zipped files containing, for unadjusted and unadjusted data and for tavg, tmin, tmax each, the data file and the station file. They belong together, as each dataset potentially relies on a different station file.
But you have to write your own software unless you want to rely on their PHA.
My interest was not to be the 1,001th guy processing GHCN station data, but rather to obtain a common area where I can mix UAH6.0 grid data and station or radiosonde (IGRA, RATPAC-B) data, e.g. to generate a UAH time series for all LT grid cells above a set of stations or a set of radiosondes a a given atmospheric pressure.
With GHCN V4
https://tinyurl.com/mlsy22x
you move from a station file with about 7,000 stations to one with 100,000. And from 300 MB unzipped up to… 29 GB.
it is ‘pairwise HOMOGENIZATION’, not harmonisation.
Thank you / merci.
bond…”Every NOAA link I post gets blocked so youll have to search for this yourself try googling national climate report april 2018.”
Did you look for NCD-C in the URL? If it’s there, add a hyphen as shown here and advise the reader to remove it and enter the edited URL in a browser.
binny and bondo…”No, the graph shows that April was the 13th coldest”.
It may have been the 13th coldest but that’s irrelevant when the fact is considered that record cold ‘days’ were recorded the past winter. Please don’t tell me the anthropogenic theory predicted that.
NO.AA found that GMST for April 2018 was the third WARMEST in their records.
David Appell says:
May 18, 2018 at 5:07 PM
NOAA found that GMST for April 2018 was the third WARMEST in their records.
1. I was speaking about GHCN V4 daily records
2. Bond was speaking about CONUS.
Appell
Ooops, good grief I chosed the wrong browser with Rose’s Spencer site cookies!
That’s good, it helps Robertson in believing we are one and the same person. We like it.
Above all, you speak about GMST; NOAA and GHCN you can compare only with NOAA’s land-only record.
I’ll come back here as I’m finished with the Globe’s evaluation of GHCN V4. So we see the global difference between the two.
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:45:27 UTC 17 minutes ago 4km SSW of Volcano, Hawaii 3.3
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:35:47 UTC 27 minutes ago 4km SW of Volcano, Hawaii 3.4
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:34:11 UTC 28 minutes ago 5km SW of Volcano, Hawaii 3.2
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:30:47 UTC 32 minutes ago 5km E of Volcano, Hawaii 4.2
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:30:45 UTC 32 minutes ago 4km WSW of Volcano, Hawaii 4.4
Wednesday May 16 2018, 18:30:45 UTC 32 minutes ago 5km WSW of Volcano, Hawaii 4.2
On Mars and within a crater about 500 km in diameter and somewhere within 25 degrees North and South latitude (The tropical zone of Mars), suppose a lake was made in the middle
of crater which was about 100 km in diameter and had average depth of 10 meters. Or in terms of the amount of water it is
50,000 meter squared times pi times 10 meters of average water
Depth in terms cubic meter or tonnes of water.
Wiki:
“Impact craters on Mars larger than 1 km exist by the hundreds of thousands, but only about one thousand of them have names.” And
Huygens 13.96S 55.58E 467.25 km diameter
So it is less than 500 km diameter and within tropics.
It has about 171,000 square km which is about the area of
The State of Florida or about 70% greater area than Iceland.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_(crater)
And land which was 100 km in diameter would have area of 7850 square km. Which is about 85% of land area of the island of Puerto Rico.
Now, idea of doing this, is to have cities within the lake.
In making the lake, one going have most of the water at least 2 meters deep, and one would have areas of lake deeper than 10 meters. And one would have town/cities in the deeper parts of the lake and you have farms in shallower water.
And farms could have greenhouses which have their roof sticking up above the water or have them near the surface of the water. Or it is assumed plants don’t need as much air pressure, as humans or mammals.
Now point of post, is how much water would evaporate if the water isn’t warm enough to boil in the Mars atmosphere.
Or if water at the surface was, say 20 C, it boils (and the boiling would rapidly cool the surface, until surface was cold enough not to boil). And it should be noted that it if add impurities to the water, such as salt, one can have heat gradient that allows the surface to be colder than the water below it. Ie, solar ponds.
It should also be noted that Mars has about 1/3 of Earth gravity. On Earth 10 meter of water depth equals 14.7 psi of pressure, and on Mars 10 meters water depth is about 1/3 of this pressure. This also means the force of buoyancy is about 1/3 of Earth. A piece of wood floats same on Earth as Mars, but the force needed to push wood under water is a 1/3 of force needed on Earth.
So, assume surface water temperature of lake is 5 C, and kept constant temperature of 5 C, and this below the boiling point, how much water evaporates per day?
It should also be noted there are a number of ways to lower the evaporation rate, but other than keeping it from boiling
and keeping at 5 C (or lower) but we not going include using them.
Now, aspect of this evaporation issue, is related regional and global effects.
Say you are 100 km away from the site of the lake, before any water is added. And you are measuring the amount of water vapor in Mars atmosphere.
Mars has about 210 ppm of water vapor. So one could measure around 210 ppm of water vapor. Now start adding the water to fill the lake, and once filled, how water vapor would measure 100 km away from the lake (and still within the crater).
And say you also measuring it 500 km away from the lake (outside the crater) could you the notice the difference (and how much would it be?)
It seems there would more water vapor 10 I’m from lake, as compared to 100 and 500 km from lake. And finally, if in a polar region during winter, would it snow more, due to having a lake of water in the tropics?
Mars has about 25 trillion tons of atmosphere and 5-6 billion tons H20 in atmosphere.
And lake in total has .0117 billions tons of water and when
limited to top cm of surface 1/1000th of that.
But if reduce scale to 250 km radius (500 diameter) hemisphere and assume it not evaporating into space (chop off hemisphere above 100 km elevation). I assume every 10 km distance away from lake one would measure less increase in the ppm of H2O.
And 250 radius is circle area of about 200,000 square km of total surface of Mars of 144.8 million square km.
So I would say not measurable in terms of more snow at poles, but a quite noticeable increase ppm of water vapor (and of frost) within the crater.
A Google search: snow on Mars:
https://www.space.com/37901-nighttime-snowstorms-swirl-across-mars.html
Nighttime Snowstorms May Swirl Across Mars
“Mars may experience snowstorms at night, a new study finds, suggesting that the Martian atmosphere is far more active than previously thought.”
This happens a lot if you are exploring stuff. They made a model:
“To explain these findings, the researchers developed an atmospheric model to simulate the weather on Mars. “It took something like three to four years to come up with a model sophisticated enough to reproduce Mars’ clouds,” Spiga said.”
Stuff takes a long time to do. And requires insane obsession.
GHE exists and is essentially all due to water vapor.
CO2 is IR active (aka a ghg) but has no significant effect on temperature. (Same for all ghg which do not condense in the atmosphere).
Thermalization and Quantum Mechanics demonstrate why at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com.
Excellent, Dan.
Should be required reading for anyone trying to understand climate change.
chic…”Should be required reading for anyone trying to understand climate change”.
Reading what, that WV, on average, making up 0.31% of the atmosphere, can control its temperature?
The Ideal Gas Law has something to say about that.
People trying to learn about climate have already gotten their share of propaganda and pseudo-science.
Thermalization, Gordon. And it’s partner the reverse.
That’s the ticket. Dan has it right. Energy gets absorbed at low altitudes and is moved around by the wind. It gets radiated away in thinner air above.
CB,
One definition of thermalisation –
“In physics, thermalisation (in American English thermalization) is the process of physical bodies reaching thermal equilibrium through mutual interaction. In general the natural tendency of a system is towards a state of equipartition of energy or uniform temperature, maximising the system’s entropy.”
Are you using this, or are you talking about something else?
I’m not sure what natural reverse of thermalisation would be. What am I missing?
Cheers.
chic…”Thermalization, Gordon. And its partner the reverse”.
I’m into the scientific method, not conjecture. There is no proof anywhere that CO2 can spread heat due to absorp-tion to 2500 adjacent molecules to raise their average temperature. The same applies to WV. A partial gas pressure can add heat based only on its percent mass.
There is proof over the past century and a half that the Ideal Gas Law must apply to all gases. Apply it and see what happens.
Either PV = nRT is wrong or thermalization is wrong. I’m going with the tried and trued IGL.
Thermalization of any kind must take into account the pressure of each gas in a mix. In the atmosphere, CO2 has a partial pressure of a small fraction of 1 percent which nitrogen and oxygen make up 99% of the gas. With Argon, it’s 99.8%.
It makes no sense to me that a gas with a partial pressure of 0.04% could do anything significant with regard to warming the entire gas.
Mike and Gordon,
I’m not sure why you find the concept of thermalization so hard to embrace. It doesn’t violate any GHE definitions. It’s difficult to find two people with the same definition as you discover reading this blog.
Thermalization of radiation by CO2 and wp is exactly as your definition states. Energy absorbed by CO2 can either be emitted or transferred to a nearby bulk air molecule, usually N2 or O2, by collision. The likelihood of a collision happening is much greater than emission at air densities such as they are near the Earth’s surfaces. The absorbed energy by CO2 or wv is distributed in this way to what I call the bulk air. I don’t know of any more technical term. In the bulk air, mutual interaction will tend toward a uniform temperature. Meanwhile, unless no more radiation is absorbed by the IR-active gases in the bulk air, the temperature of the bulk air will continue to rise. When the net radiation entering or leaving the bulk air is zero, the bulk air temperature will remain constant. No convection, conduction in equals conduction out. Thermal equilibrium.
Now if the bulk air comes in contact with the surface at a lower temperature, reverse thermalization is possible. Radiation from the bulk air to the surface will reduce the temperature difference and the bulk air will cool as net IR radiation goes to the surface.
Reverse thermalization happens more readily when the air density is less, like at the TOA. I think that’s basically how the atmosphere cools.
Is IR radiation absorbed by CO2 or is all the experimental evidence of it figments of everyone’s imagination? If it is absorbed what else can happen to it, but thermalization or emission?
chic…”Im not sure why you find the concept of thermalization so hard to embrace. It doesnt violate any GHE definitions. Its difficult to find two people with the same definition as you discover reading this blog”.
Thermalization seems to presume that a trace gas like CO2 in a mixed gas like our atmosphere can heat the entire gas through random collisions. I claim that premise is false and that the trace gas will only contribute heat based on its mass percent.
I had never heard the term till recently and a search on Google does not reveal much. I am receiving that input in the same way I received a ‘net balance of energy’, which essentially means nothing. Both are presumptions that have no basis in fact.
We have long standing rules that govern gases like the Ideal Gas Law and the kinetic theory of gases. The kinetic theory tries to establish an average temperature for a gas based on a statistical analysis but as far as I know it does not address individual gases and their contribution to temperature.
The Ideal Gas Law does address individual gases but at a macro level. It considers cases at constant volume, constant temperature, and constant pressure. In the case of constant volume, which I have suggested is a ballpark condition for the atmosphere, the IGL tells us pressure is equal to temperature, given the relative constant terms in nR and V.
Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures tells us the total gas pressure is the sum of the partial pressures of individual gases in a mix. It stands to reason, if there are partial pressures, and pressure is equal to temperature, there must be partial temperatures representing heat contributed by each gas.
I am not in any way suggesting that the temperature in a mixed gas is broken into regions of different temperatures. I am talking only of the contribution by each constituent gas.
In other words, a gas in a mix can only contribute heat based on its mass percent.
Statistical analysis, the basis of the kinetic theory, does not suggest that a trace gas can raise the temperature of a mixed gas significantly. Thermalization suggests a trace gas can increase the temperature beyond its mass capabilities. If you analyzed a trace gas statistically, what are the chances that the molecules making up 0.04% of the gas could transfer it’s energy to the entire mass?
I’m sure it will be argued that once a CO2 molecule transfers its heat to an adjacent molecule, that molecule will spread the heat to other molecules. There is no proof of the extent to which that happens.
Gordon,
I don’t claim to be an expert on thermalization. I believe my first contact was reading discussions about it at Ed Berry’s website. To me it bridges the gap between theoretical lab physics and the “observational science,” as David Appell want to call it, of the climate pseudoscientists.
I don’t see any conflict between thermalization and ideal gas laws.
There is probably good evidence of thermalization if we look for it.
Thanks for the feedback. These mental exercises keep us sane, huh?
Chic Bowdrie says:
There is probably good evidence of thermalization if we look for it.
Not THAT’S how you do science: the evidence is there if we look it, so there’s no need to look and we can just take our assumptions as true.
Brilliant. And this from someone who asks me for evidence at every turn (which I always give him).
Gordon Robertson says:
Thermalization seems to presume that a trace gas like CO2 in a mixed gas like our atmosphere can heat the entire gas through random collisions. I claim that premise is false and that the trace gas will only contribute heat based on its mass percent.
I’d like to see your calculations on that.
And your evidence. Thanks.
Gordon Robertson says:
Statistical analysis, the basis of the kinetic theory, does not suggest that a trace gas can raise the temperature of a mixed gas significantly.
Why are you ignoring radiative transfer?
“… the evidence is there if we look it, so theres no need to look and we can just take our assumptions as true.”
Did I say I wasn’t going to look for it? Jumping to conclusions seems to be your MO.
Gordon Robertson says:
Reading what, that WV, on average, making up 0.31% of the atmosphere, can control its temperature?
The Ideal Gas Law has something to say about that.
Why are you ignoring radiative transfer?
Dan,
The link says –
“Ghg in the warmed air can emit photons only at a limited number of wavelengths (or wavenumbers) characteristic for each molecule species.”
This is demonstrably not true. For example a sample of CO2 emits wavelengths dependent on its temperature. There will be a mixture of wavelengths, peaking in accordance with Wiens displacement law.
At absolute zero, it emits nothing. Slightly above, say 0.001 K, peaks at 2897768.5 microns – very long compared with even supposed LWIR. At 5000 K, in the visible range.
The assumption that particular molecules can only emit specific frequencies is complete nonsense, in general. At normal temperatures, excitation does not take place – referring to excited emission due to electrons dropping to a lower energy level is just not relevant.
For example, neon gas glows at its specific colour only when excited. Otherwise, it just emits wavelengths identical to any other gas at the same temperature. You cannot see it.
Very brief, and I’m talking about the macro scale. For example, compressing CO2 can be used to raise its temperature. This begs the question – if CO2 can only absorb certain wavelengths, how does compression create only these wavelengths, and not the wavelengths required to heat say oxygen or methane?
If there was a testable GHE hypothesis, its claims could be tested. But there isn’t. This is science?
Mike,, ,,Ghg in the warmed air can emit photons only at a limited number of wavelengths (or wavenumbers) characteristic for each molecule species,, is accepted to be true by essentially everyone. (This blog wont do quotes for me so I use double commas) Multiple graphs, many by actual measurements, demonstrate this. (search, ghg emission spectrum , and look at images).
What you are saying (full spectrum, Wiens law, etc.) is true for radiant emission from so-called black bodies but it doesnt work that way for gases. For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns (with spreading of a micron or so as measured and also as calculated using QM). The effect of higher temperature is to increase the rate at which photons are emitted (proportional to the forth power of absolute temperature) at the characteristic wavelength. An early Air Force report here http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/477312.pdf (takes a minute or so to load) is worth a read to help get a feel for this stuff.
A brush up on ideal gas laws and possibly the kinetic theory of gases might provide some insight on why gases warm when compressed. Radiant emission is not involved.
Dan,
I believe you are wrong, and I am right – if Richard Feynman is to be believed.
His predictions have been borne out by experiment, to extremely high levels of accuracy.
He said that, all physical processes in the universe (with the exception of nuclear processes and gravity) can be explained with three statements (slightly simplified) –
(1) a photon goes from place to place;
(2) an electron goes from place to place; and
(3) an electron emits or absorbs a photon.
I understand what you are saying. I think you may be misunderstanding the content of the document in its entirety. No offence intended,
From your link –
“Experimentally, it is found that electronic excitation energies are usually of the order of several electron volts or more, while the rotation and vibration energies are considerably smaller.
As the infrared spectrum, beyond approximately one micron, corresponds to a quantum energy of the order of one electron volt or less (1 ev corresponds to 1.239 microns),
we see that infrared radiation is associated primarily with the rotation and vibration
of molecules.
Immediately you will note that the specific infrared frequencies referred to are the rotation and vibration frequencies, and it is pointed out that that the energies involved are considerably smaller than the electronic excitation energies.
Anyone who chooses to read the paper, and knows a little about quantum electrodynamics may well agree with me.
As to the kinetic theory of gases, and the ideal gas laws, the following quote form Wikipedia might assist –
“The necessary assumptions are the absence of quantum effects, molecular chaos and small gradients in bulk properties.”
Unfortunately, quantum effects do exist, molecular chaos seems to exist, and so on. Ignoring such things does not make them go away. The kinetic theory of gases is handy for visualisation, but it is dependent on assumptions that have been shown to be incorrect.
If you try to describe the heating of gases when compressed, on a kinetic theory basis, I am sure your explanation will be logical, soundly based, rational and seductive. It will also be wrong. Give it a try if you wish – have a good look at the assumptions involved first, and decide if you want to proceed.
Cheers.
Dan: “For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns (with spreading of a micron or so as measured and also as calculated using QM).”
Dan, I googled your suggested string and found this:
http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/forcing/images/image7.gif
This graph, traced to its experimental source, should convince you that what you write is not strictly correct. CO2 emits and absorbs at other than 15 micron wavelengths in Earth’s atm. as shown.
Mike,, Do you realize that you are claiming that nearly everyone other than yourself is wrong and all those graphs that Google shows are wrong? If you persist on asserting that characteristic absorb/emit wavelengths of ghg molecules vary with temperature, no one with engineering/science skill will agree with you.
In this context, the kinetic theory of gases is useful for visualizing that the atmosphere is mostly empty space with molecules bumping into each other. The perception that the bumping is actually just electromagnetic fields does not seem to matter to the cause of climate change.
Link to the explanation of why CO2 has no significant effect on climate was given here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302678
Note that QM is used.
I don’t know of anything significant to climate change that is ignored.
Dan
If almost everyone else happens to be wrong, that is nothing to do with me. Facts are facts. People are free to believe anything they like – alchemy, phlogiston, caloric, the luminiferous ether, and all the rest.
The fact that nobody can propose a testable GHE hypothesis, indicates to me that the pseudoscientific types can’t even find anything remotely scientific to weave into their narrative.
If someone claims that increasing the amount of insulation between a heat source and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter, then the logical conclusion might be that the thermometer would be at its hottest when the insulation was perfect, allowing no energy at all through.
Or just cut out the middle man, and remove the heat source – instantaneous maximum thermometer temperature! It sounds silly because it is silly.
Oh well, if somebody manages to provide a testable GHE hypothesis, it can be tested. They will have to define the GHE first, and that seems to too hard.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
You do seem to be a program. GIGO. A daily basis of nonsense from you.
I think you might be the Straw man from the Wizard of OZ. All your points are strawman arguments. You make a point no one disagrees with and go about showing how bad that point is. Not sure what your obsession with this behavior is.
YOU: “If someone claims that increasing the amount of insulation between a heat source and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter, then the logical conclusion might be that the thermometer would be at its hottest when the insulation was perfect, allowing no energy at all through.”
That is a strawman argument. CO2 does not act as a solar insulator. Quite the opposite. CO2 is virtually transparent to solar energy. CO2 is opaque to surface generated IR. You are a true lunatic. Incapable of learning and endless strawman arguments. Quit being such an idiot. It is not even remotely amusing and you just make a complete fool of yourself.
If you want to be a Skeptic you are a disgrace to that POV. You and Gordon Robertson make Skeptics look like scientifically illiterate people and discredit the actual people who want to raise valid concerns over the Global Warming. There are good skeptics like Roy Spencer. They know actual science. You don’t and it appears you never will. Why are you so lazy?
Bal,, Nearly all of terrestrial radiation is below wavenumber 1600 = wavelength greater than 6.25 microns. Only the 15 micron absorp-tion band for CO2 is in the range of significant terrestrial radiation.
But that’s not what you wrote Dan:
“For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns.”
As I like to point out, terminology in the field of optics has been discussed in many enjoyably humorous articles over past years. I sort of like to collect them. Another habit is to collect text book passings down of simple untruths by looking up original articles written by past Jedi masters in the stacks to learn how their actual words have been misrepresented (like for example Gordon’s habits). For example, text books would like you to think Newton annunciated Newton’s law of cooling but that Jedi master never did so.
Doing that for blog writers is more than a full time job not just a hobby.
Ball4,
“Newton published his law of cooling in a journal called “Philosophical Transactions” which is now called Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. He published the article anonymously in Latin – it was entitled “Scala Graduum Caloris. Calorum Descriptiones & Figna” and appears in Volume 22, pages 824-829 in the year 1701.
Do you claim that Newton plagiarised Newtons Law of Cooling, or that he didn’t annunciate it?
I’m happy enough to change my view if Im wrong.
Cheers.
Oh please Mike, treat us to Newton’s words verbatim.
Dan Pangburn says:
“Only the 15 micron absorp-tion band for CO2 is in the range of significant terrestrial radiation.”
Not at all:
http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/Energy/GHGAbsoprtionSpectrum-690×776.jpg
I looked on HITRAN once — CO2 has 1,406 spectra lines between 666.0/cm and 668.0/cm alone.
DP wrote:
Link to the explanation of why CO2 has no significant effect on climate was given here
Sure. So why does ever scientist on the planet disagree with that claim?
It’s never occurred to you to figure out why YOU’RE the one who is wrong?
DP wrote:
Link to the explanation of why CO2 has no significant effect on climate was given here
So why don’t you get this published in a scientific journal and win a Nobel Prize?
A PDF to RP’s textbook:
http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/rocky-planets-class09/ClimateVol1.pdf
Ball4,
Why should I? Can you not read Latin yourself?
You demand. I refuse.
Seems fair to me.
Cheers.
“Why should I?”
You know, to prove what you wrote is right “Newton published his law of cooling”. No proof? I thought so. Mike won’t find it either and he’ll be just as upset as always, but as usual I do not care.
Ball4,
I do as I choose. You do as you choose.
I will just point out that others refer to Newtons observations and writings as Newton’s Law of Cooling. I suppose you might complain that Einstein did not refer to “Einstein’s theory of special relativity” using those precise terms.
Complain away.
You still cannot provide a testable GHE hypothesis, can you?
Cheers.
Mike, you suppose wrong since Einstein annunciated his theory of relativity. Try to up your game, you are not even a challenge to prove wrong anymore, not that I care. You may be as upset as you wish not being able to prove you are right about Newton since you are not. Fact.
Mike Flynn has provided all the testable GHE hypotheses needed and all were supported by Tyndall’s experiments as per Prof. Feynman.
Mike…”if Richard Feynman is to be believed”.
Any link to the Feynman paper. I have read him on other matters related to photons. Just curious.
Bal,, Im not grasping what you are taking issue with. I qualified the 15 micron statement by saying ,, terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation,, which limits the range to longer than 6.25 microns and also followed with the weasel words ,, (with spreading of a micron or so as measured and also as calculated using QM),, Did you miss the weasel words? How could I be more explicit?
DA,, Do you really not know what an absorp-tion band is? That graphic is kind of crude.
Apparently one visit to Hitran was not enough. It calculates all possible transitions whether there are actually any photons emitted there or not. You must impose a minimum intensity, such as I did in Fig 2 at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com, to block lines of insignificant intensity. Line count, without attending to the height of the lines, is meaningless.
Dan, photons are present at all wavelengths.
So all transitions come into play.
That’s why measurements show the greenhouse effect is increasing.
DP wrote:
You must impose a minimum intensity, such as I did in Fig 2 at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com,
From what I can tell that shows how CO2 warms the lower atmosphere, just as water vapor does.
When do you expect your Nobel Prize — this fall, or maybe next?
DA,, Assuming by ,that claim, you mean ,, GHE exists and is essentially all due to water vapor.,, There is no credible assessment that GHE does not exist. The list is growing of knowledgeable people who have concluded that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. It includes the owner of this blog and many other luminaries. WV fills the space vacated by CO2 even better than CO2 did and forecasts and hind-casts rationally.
DA,, I have no plans to try to get published. It is a big hassle, only about 10% of papers submitted to the main journals get published, stuff on climate has become highly political, papers that do not corroborate the peer reviewers beliefs get rejected outright and their decision is final, if a paper gets published and then I discover an error, I can not just correct it, I could go on. Besides, IMO Mother Nature will demonstrate that my findings are at least close to the truth before a paper would get published if I decided to write one.
As to a Nobel, get real.
Dan 4:12pm: “Did you miss the weasel words? How could I be more explicit?”
Did not miss the broadening terms you used. You could be more explicit by noting CO2 absorbs terrestrial radiation in a broad range of frequencies besides just the peak at 15 micron. There are two other opaque regions shown in this particular chart from your google string.
Dan 5:20pm: “GHE exists and is essentially all due to water vapor.,,”
Your own google string shows that is not true. Look at the long known chart again – obviously there are other absorbers running around in the atm. than just wv. Note CO2 is way more opaque at your choice of 15 micron than wv:
http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/forcing/images/image7.gif
“It is a big hassle, only about 10% of papers submitted to the main journals get published”
Not if you have discovered something important to report like: “why CO2 has no significant effect on climate”
Of course the reviewers will point out “significant” is not very specific new finding and, like me, show you the same chart.
Bal,, IMO anything containing ,,CO2 has no significant effect on climate,, would get the paper immediately rejected by editors along with the statement that rejection is final. It would never even get to peer review. If Dr Roy cant get stuff published in the main journals, what chance does an unknown engineer like me have?
The temperature increase resulting from increasing WV will eventually end if it hasnt already (the uptrend might be faltering but too soon to be sure). Mother Nature will eventually resolve the issue.
The assertion that there are multiple CO2 absorbing frequencies is missing the point. The point is that all of the absorbed energy is thermalized. At low altitude, emission from the warmed gas is essentially all from WV molecules which have been reverse-thermalized. The overwhelming preference of WV molecules, as calculated by Hitran, is shown in Fig 2 of http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com
ball4….”Oh please Mike, treat us to Newtons words verbatim”.
It’s in Latin, you can’t even understand English. You need Mike to interpret it for you.
ball4…”Not if you have discovered something important to report like: why CO2 has no significant effect on climate”
Not in a climate journal, you won’t. They are all run by scumbag alarmists. Roy has a hard time publishing for that very reason, it’s not because his papers lack merit.
They publish garbage from Dessler while rejecting papers from Spencer, Christy, and Lindzen. Dessler was a Wall Street financier before returning and studying chemistry as a grad student.
It’s frightening how much Dessler, Mann, and Schmidt resemble each other physically. Same intellectually. Dessler snuck in the back door via special grad courses, Schmidt did the same have earned a degree in Math, and Mann is a geologist. Between the three of them there is barely any solid physics.
“IMO anything containing ,,CO2 has no significant effect on climate,, would get the paper immediately rejected by editors along with the statement that rejection is final.”
Because that statement depends on what is meant by significant. There would be no new news to publish.
“The assertion that there are multiple CO2 absorbing frequencies is missing the point.”
That assertion IS my point countering your assertion “For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns.” Which you later modified.
“At low altitude, emission from the warmed gas is essentially all from WV molecules which have been reverse-thermalized.”
Dan, the chart found from your own google string shows wv has only about half the absorp_tivity of CO2 at 15 microns where the atm. is opaque essentially due CO2. Your assertion is unsupported by absorp_tion spectra of various optical absorbers in Earth atm. in IR range of interest for thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy thermalization.
http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/forcing/images/image7.gif
Gordon: “Between the three of them there is barely any solid physics.”
Throwing in comments from an electronics tech. such as Gordon, especially since Gordon doesn’t cite climate thermodynamics and quantum physics source material verbatim, obviously doesn’t improve THAT opinion.
Gordon, you’re not capable to judge Roy’s papers or Dessler’s.
Stop pretending.
Dan Pangburn says:
For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns…
Nope.
From Pierrehumbert textbook, Figure 4.12 (horizontal axis):
CO2 spectral regions that are optically thick:
18.2 to 12.5 μm (microns)
11.1 to 10.0 μm
9.5 to 9.1 μm
DA,, Closest thing by Pierrehumbert I could find on line is Fig 4.12 here http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/rocky-planets-class09/ClimateVol1.pdf The log scale and the trace showing significance at 1000 kb/m^2 CO2 (earth has about 6.28 kg/m^2 CO2) show that only the 15 micron band is significant.
Besides, note the last paragraph here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303051
Of course the 15 micron band is significant.
But you claimed it was the ONLY ONE that was significant. That’s just not true.
There are significant bands at 2.5 microns and 4 microns as well:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/atmospheric_spectral_absorp%5BREMOVE%5Dtion.png
DA,, But, as you probably well know, the 2.5 and 4 micron CO2 absorp-tion bands are not in the wavelength range of significant TERRESTRIAL (i.e. radiation emitted at earth temperatures) radiation which is essentially all at wavelengths greater than about 6 microns.
Dan, for sure at 2 microns, but at 4 microns and T=288 K, the Planck function is 5% of its maximum value.
From SoD:
“Many people write about the strong ab.sorp.tion of CO2 at 667 cm-1 / 15μm without commenting on the ab.sorp.tion at 600 cm-1 or 750 cm-1.”
“Over 248,000 lines for CO2 are above 800 cm-1 , i.e., between 0-12.5 μm.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2011/03/07/understanding-atmospheric-radiation-and-the-%E2%80%9Cgreenhouse%E2%80%9D-effect-%E2%80%93-part-eight/
dan…”Thermalization and Quantum Mechanics demonstrate why at…”
Please note the graph shows outgoing fluxes measured in milliwatts, with a peak at 0.4 watts.
Below the graph it is claimed:
“If there was no CO2, the average height of the black curve between 600 and 740/cm would be approximately 330 mW/m2 which results in an area of about 46 W/m2…”
Would someone care to explain how a flux field of 0.33 milliwatts/m^2 becomes a flux field of 46 w/m^2?
I claim the graph is fiction, created in someone’s mind from what they think is going on at TOA.
“Would someone care to explain how a flux field of 0.33 milliwatts/m^2 becomes a flux field of 46 w/m^2?”
Someone already has. Let’s see if Gordon can apply what he should have already learned.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302386
Gor,, Apparently you misread something. The symbol for milliwatts is mW and the top of the 18 W/m^2 block is at about 330 mW/m^2/cm^-1 = 0.33W/m^2/cm^-1. The block is 740-600 = 140 cm^-1 wide. Multiply 0.33 * 140 ≈ 46 W/m^2.
And about 1/2 of 46 W/m^2 is “removed” or appears missing?
First law of thermo says it can not just disappear. The 18 W/m^2 got redirected to WV (allowed by thermalization and mandated by QM) and is emitted from WV at wavenumbers less than 600.
“First law of thermo says it can not just disappear. The 18 W/m^2 got redirected to WV (allowed by thermalization and mandated by QM) and is emitted from WV at wavenumbers less than 600. ”
Energy doesn’t disappear (even in a ocean☺).
But there no law that energy must go straight up.
But just trying get what you are saying, so less 600 wavenumber is 599, 598, etc wavenumber (or towards a more energetic wavelength).
Your:
http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com
Says, blackbody emission (Ts= 294 K)
Is that blackbody curve of 294 K (21 C)?
And spectrum of light seems to be fall short of matching the curve by quite lot. So from say 300 to 600 December are slashing up and down, but more important the peak amount falls about less than 100 but it is +300 vs 140 of the dip purported by all to be due to greenhouse gases.
300 to 600 December is intended to be 300 to 600 wavenumbers
Just specifying “wavenumbers” is ambiguous; you have to specify if you’re referring to /cm, /m, to /mm, or what.
DA…”Just specifying wavenumbers is ambiguous; you have to specify if youre referring to /cm, /m, to /mm, or what”.
It’s just plain ambiguous no matter what the reference and there’s no need to use it, unless of course, you’re trying to mislead someone.
Wavenumbers have application in atomic structure where the wavelength can be related to energy levels. Outside of that, it’s just plain dumb to use them when wavelength and frequency are far more apparent.
Gordon Robertson says:
Wavenumbers have application in atomic structure where the wavelength can be related to energy levels. Outside of that, its just plain dumb to use them when wavelength and frequency are far more apparent.
Wave numbers have long been the preferred measure by spectroscopists.
Anyone who’s remotely competent should be able to quickly translate from one to the other, and think in both metrics.
DA…”Anyone whos remotely competent should be able to quickly translate from one to the other, and think in both metrics.
It has nothing to do with conversion it has to do with readability. A wavenumber is the reciprocal of the wavelength, why would anyone use that obfuscation unless that was the intention, to hide something?
In the diagram in question, they gave the wavelength as well. Why do you need both especially with the wavenumber prominently displayed along the normal x-axis and the wavelength hidden above.
Gordon Robertson says:
A wavenumber is the reciprocal of the wavelength, why would anyone use that obfuscation unless that was the intention, to hide something?
Because spectroscopists prefer it. Instead of whining, why don’t you go figure out why they prefer it, and become fluent in both units?
dan…”Gor,, Apparently you misread something.”
I read it right, Dan. Read the statement that I cited. It’s comparing m^2 to m^2.
Besides, my statement initially was about the curve peaking at 0.15 watts. I want to know how a curve peaking at that value has any significance to TOA radiation measured in the 100s of Watts.
It’s as I suspected, the radiation blocked by CO2 is dwarfed by the overall surface emission and is absolutely insignificant.
“I want to know how a curve peaking at that value has any significance to TOA radiation measured in the 100s of Watts.”
Gordon, the curve does show 100s of Watts/m^2 over the spectrum (~240 W/m^2), an absolutely significant total amount of TOA radiation.
Gordon Robertson says:
Its as I suspected, the radiation blocked by CO2 is dwarfed by the overall surface emission and is absolutely insignificant.
This shows you’re wrong:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Gor,, Fig 1 is typical of what to expect over a temperate ocean. They have been actually measured by satellite and can be generated for various conditions using Modtran. http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/. The graphs vary substantially with latitude.
dan…”Gor,, Fig 1 is typical of what to expect over a temperate ocean”.
Dan, my point is this. If you have a curve peaking at 0.15 watts, the intensity can be calculated for the entire curve by integrating to find the area under the curve.
If you have a typical TOA curve measured at 240 W/m^2, or whatever it is, you would do the same, but this time with a peak in the hundreds of watts.
One would dwarf the other and that’s exactly what I have claimed is going on in the atmosphere. Surface radiation is dwarfing the absorp-tion of CO2, meaning the amount absorbed by CO2 is entirely insignificant.
It also suggests that AGW as a theory is a total waste of time. It’s dealing in trivialities while the main transport of heat from the surface is done by nitrogen and oxygen through direct contact/conduction.
That brings another point forward. It is presumed in AGW that heat must be dissipated to space in order to maintain an energy balance. I am not arguing that no energy is radiated to space, I am arguing that heat can be dissipated naturally when a gas at a surface pressure warms and rises to a lower pressure area.
Heat as temperature is not something that has to be radiated away it can be dissipated by altering the volume and pressure.
If you had a long cylinder partitioned with a valve, that is insulated against heat and radiation loss, with gas under pressure at a higher temperature in a smaller partition, and you opened the valve, allowing the gas to spread into the larger empty compartment, the volume would increase and the pressure and temperature would decrease.
As the gas is released into the larger space, it spreads out, reducing the pressure. As the pressure decreases, so does the temperature due to the lowered number of collisions.
Why can’t that happen in our atmosphere to dissipate surface heat?
ps. the point to get is that heat is not a substance, it is energy related to atoms in motion. As a form of energy, you have to call atomic motion something and we have used names like electrical, mechanical, gravitational, chemical, etc., to describe other forms of energy.
Calling it kinetic energy is too vague because kinetic applies to any energy in motion.
The amount of heat related to atoms depends on how fast they are moving and how much they collide. That is turn is related to the gas pressure and volume, the former being related to the number of molecules of a gas per unit volume.
Therefore, we are not trying to dissipate heat by radiation only, we can dissipate it by changing pressure, volume, and the number of molecules of gas per volume. Why are we not looking at such means of heat dissipation and focused only on radiation?
One reason is obvious, climate modelers had handy equations like Navier-Stokes that could be plugged straight into a model algorithm. Another reason may have been the initial modelers’ lack of understanding of gases.
Chic Bowdrie says:
May 16, 2018 at 11:53 AM
E man,
Your focus on thermalization and convection is mistaken.
No it isnt. Other than the IR radiating directly through the atmospheric window, all IR energy leaving the surface travels via thermalization and convection, wind, etc. It is not glued to CO2.
If your numbers were correct, 398 + 86 + 18 = 502 W/m2. How can that be? Where does the 502 240 = 262 W/m2
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget
I am answering your May 16th, 1153 AM down here to make it easier to find.
The 262W/M2 is returned to the surface.
In slightly more detai :-
502W/M2 leaves the surface.
40W/M2 radiates directly to space.
462W/M2 is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Ultimately, of that 462W/M2, 200W/M2 radiates to space and 262W/M2 is returned to the surface.
In my world view that 262W/M2 is radiated downwards by GHGs and thermalised when it is absorbed by the surface.
In your world view that 262W/M2 is thermalised in the atmosphere and then transferred to the surface by convection.
The energy budget is the same for both of us. We differ regarding the mechanisms by which the energy is moved around.
E man,
#1 I hate these energy budget games almost as much as guessing what the AGT would be without IR-active gases. But this is all good. It will help clear up misconceptions.
In your EB diagram, 398 W/m2 was IR returned to the surface, not just 262. The descrepancy is accounted for if you add up all the energy “stored” in the atmosphere. I put stored in quotes to emphasize that should not be considered trapped except for what is in the clouds. Despite the static nature of the numbers, these energies ebb and flow throughout the day.
So the atmosphere accounts for 200 W/m2 in: 77 in from the sun, 18.4 from thermals, 86.4 from evaporation, and 18.2 as the difference between 398 and 40 + 340 to space and back radiation, respectively. That is balanced by 200 out from emissions (170 + 30).
#2 I agree with the math of the energy budget, but not necessarily the relative magnitudes of the numbers, and certainly not its interpretation. I totally disagree with your world view and you do not understand mine. Obviously we disagree on mechanisms.
“In my world view that 262W/M2 is radiated downwards by GHGs and thermalised when it is absorbed by the surface.”
How did the 262 W/m2 get in the atmosphere in the first place? How far do you think a unit of radiation can get before being absorbed and what happens after that? No radiation goes up 5 km and comes back down. Think about it. If the temperature at every level of the atmosphere is a little cooler than the one below, how can the net energy flow ever be down, not up?
My view is that nearly all radiation from the surface is absorbed in the dense air near the surface unless it goes through the window where no IR absorp-tion occurs. Most of the absorbed radiation is thermalized. See Dan Pangborn’s link for more on that. The thermalized radiation expands the bulk air and it rises. Evaporation also creates convection. This is how most of the energy flows through the atmosphere on its way out: Radiation, thermalization, convection, condensation in clouds, reverse-thermalization, and radiation to space.
Chic Bowdrie says:
In your EB diagram, 398 W/m2 was IR returned to the surface, not just 262. The descrepancy is accounted for if you add up all the energy stored in the atmosphere
Nope. Energy “stored” would be measured in Joules. Whereas energy flux is measured in watts.
You’re confusing apples and oranges.
Yes, thanks for the correction and for underscoring my point. The fluxes are estimates of average energy transfer rates/m2. There is no energy flux from clouds on clear days at a given location.
I didn’t “underscore your point,” I showed that you have no idea what you’re writing about.
Very bad physics.
My point was “these energies ebb and flow throughout the day.”
You underscored it.
Your move: Explain why my physics is very bad.
chic…”I didnt underscore your point, I showed that you have no idea what youre writing about.
Very bad physics”.
Coming from DA that means you’re onto something.
Chic Bowdrie says:
My point was these energies ebb and flow throughout the day.
You underscored it.
I said nothing at all about energies ebbing and flowing. I said you don’t understand basic physics, such as the difference between energy and energy flux.
I admitted my mistake: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302939
Thanks again for underscoring my point.
E,
Ice can radiate more than 300 W/m2.
That radiation is not absorbed by anything warmer than the ice. Why should your 262 W/m2 be absorbed by the warmer surface? How do you figure that the temperature of the body emitting 262 W/m2 is higher that a body emitting more than 300 W/m2?
I am not aware of any particular relationship between W/m2 and Kelvins, but you appear to be even more confused.
What is the temperature of the body emitting the 262 W/m2? Or don’t you know?
Cheers.
“That radiation is not absorbed by anything warmer than the ice.”
What happens to that radiation then if not absorbed? Is the radiation totally reflected or scattered? Totally transmitted? What?
How can I see the ice cubes clinking in my HH scotch at the moment if their irradiation incident on my warmer eyes is totally reflected or totally transmitted thru my head? And NOT absorbed as Mike writes.
The world wonders.
Ball4,
Reasonable questions.
It may be any of the reasons you propose. For example, radio and TV frequency photons pass through many types of matter with little attenuation – your body, for example. Walls, furniture and so on.
Reflection, refraction, dispersion, diffusion, can all occur. Light is light, to a physicist.
As to your ice cubes, a small experiment might be in order. Remove external visible light sources (if at night, just draw the curtains and turn out the lights). Your ice cubes vanish. The light emitted by the ice cubes does not interact with the sensors in you eyes. Nor does the more intense light emitted by the walls, the furniture, or the water in your Scotch (which of course is warmer than the ice).
So there you go. Visible light interacts with the ice, which reflects, refracts, diffuses and disperses it. In the presence of these interactions, you perceive the ice texture, colour, specular and diffuse reflections etc.
You are right that the radiation from the ice goes through your head without appreciable attenuation – just like the radiation from radios, cellular phones, power cables and so on.
Maybe you agree the world needs to wonder no longer. Maybe not.
Cheers.
“Your ice cubes vanish.”
Mike admits he was wrong, my warmer eyes did absorb the radiation from the cooler ice cubes before vanishing after turning out the lights just like any other warmer object. Feel free to be upset about being wrong yet again Mike, and having to change your tune upon being called out, this won’t change the facts.
“The light emitted by the ice cubes does not interact with the sensors in you eyes.”
By turning out the lights? No, Mike, the light emitted by the ice cubes does still interact with the sensors in my eyes. Just the light radiation intensity has dropped below a certain threshold.
Nice try, no cigar for Mike. Feel free to be as upset about that as Mike wishes, I do not happen to care.
Is Mike paging thru his ref. looking for Newton’s words annunciating Newton’s law of cooling? Or not, I don’t care, I already know Mike won’t find them.
Ball4,
You are quite deluded. If you believe you can perceive the radiation from ice with your eyes, you may also claim to see the radiation form your cellular phone, the radiation from power lines, radios, radars, WIFi, Bluetooth and all the rest.
I do not believe you, and I would guess you don’t even believe yourself.
Do you see dead people as well?
Cheers.
Mike, I claim I can see ice cubes in my scotch. I also claim to see my cellular phone, power lines, radios, radar dishes, my WiFi modem, Bluetooth devices and all the rest even though they may be cooler than my eyes at room temperature. Your delusions I can also see with my eyes on my computer screen.
Feel free to be as upset as you wish being proved wrong yet again, I don’t really care. And thanks for all the past testable GHE hypotheses, you know the ones supported by Tyndall, saves me the trouble of annunciating them.
Ball4,
Either you are being obtuse on purpose, or you really are as silly as you seem.
So how much radiation are you seeing on the WiFi and Bluetooth frequencies?
How do see the other things in the absence of visible light?
How many radio waves can you see?
None? Finished with playing senantics?
Cheers.
Mike, your claim that eyes can see any frequency emitted from those things you list besides visible light is just plain wrong.
You should know that, but it seems you are too uninformed. Try not to get as upset as usual. Ask for help when you don’t understand the science.
Especially the experiments of Prof. Tyndall proving your own GHE testable hypotheses are sound – you know where his eyes couldn’t see the frequencies of interest either only saw visible range. He had to use instrumentation and expressed astonishment at the results. Fact.
Ball4,
Do you still claim you can see the radiation from your blocks of ice, absent visible light? If you do, you have awesome hiddenn powers.
You claimed –
“No, Mike, the light emitted by the ice cubes does still interact with the sensors in my eyes.”
Time for more semantic games, perhaps?
You asked how you could see the ice blocks in your drink. You added the comment “The world wonders.” I told you, but you do not want to believe the answer, lurching off into semantic paroxysms.
Why ask a question, when you are obviously not going to believe the answer? What do you gain?
Carry on. Maybe you think someone will take notice of your pseudoscientific nonsense. Good luck.
Cheers.
“Why ask a question, when you are obviously not going to believe the answer? What do you gain?”
Yet Mike stumbles around upset, repeatedly asking questions while gaining nothing: “Do you still claim you can see the radiation from your blocks of ice, absent visible light?…You still cannot provide a testable GHE hypothesis, can you?”
Entertaining semantic gaming spectacle in Flynn asking questions gaining nothing all of the time.
ball4….”What happens to that radiation then if not absorbed? Is the radiation totally reflected or scattered? Totally transmitted? What?
What happens to the radiation from visible light when it strikes a surface? Some is absorbed and some is not. We see the rejected EM as colour but where does it go other than into our eyes?
Everywhere. Some even escapes Earth.
So atmospheres are like greenhouses, but greenhouses don’t increase the temperature of the as compared to planet lacking atmosphere. Moon lacks atmosphere, lunar surface is heated by sun to about 120 C, and a greenhouse or atmosphere does cause air or the surface of moon to warm to higher temperature than 120 C, but they can increase the average temperature of the Moon. And one factor of how it increases average temperature will lower the highest temperature the surface will become in sunlight. So, an atmosphere or greenhouse can make it cooler but increase the global average temperature.
Now Venus surface temperature is hotter, than a Venus which had no atmosphere.
So I am going to explain how an atmosphere can get hotter than compared to vacuum.
The way an atmosphere can cause higher temperatures, is related to lapse rate.
At sea level if air is 50 C, say ground temperature is 70 C, if one goes to higher elevation, climb a mountain, each 1000 meters higher in elevation will decrease air temperature, on average on Earth by 6.5 C. So if climb 2000 meter instead of air being 50 C, the air temperature will be 50 – 13 K or it will be 37 C.
Now the Mediterranean sea at it deepest is 5267 meters:
“The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m (17,280 ft) in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea.” Wiki
And Mediterranean sea has dry. So when it is dry and if air temperature at sea level was 50 C, and you walked down to -5000 meters elevation, it would be about 6.5 times 5 K hotter
So 50 C + 32.5 is 82.5 C, and ground temperature would about 70 C or a bit warmer. But that would be about 25 K hotter than air temperature has ever been at sea level.
So, this gives a clue, how a large atmosphere can be warmed by sunlight. Have surface at 1 atm pressure, and heated air at 1 atm, will be much hotter, 50 km lower in elevation.
And if air is dry, it will be about 8 K per 1000 meters of gravity is about 1 gee.
gbaikie…”Now Venus surface temperature is hotter, than a Venus which had no atmosphere”.
Much, much hotter but not due to the atmosphere according to astronomer Andrew Ingersoll.
Sorry, just the abstract.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/JA085iA13p08219
Hmm, a paper that’s almost 40 years old.
What has the research said since then? Has it confirmed or rejected Ingersoll’s ideas?
Gbaikie
I build a greenhouse on the moon and leave it in vacuum.
I have eliminated convection, but not radiation.
How will the temperature of the surface inside the greenhouse differ from the surface outside the greenhouse over a day/night cycle? Why?
The Apollo sites will have thermal signature, and will be a bit warmer at night.
Lunar surface is completely covered with lunar regolith which is highly insulative and it require thousands of years for the lunar environment to return to this state.
So likewise with any type of greenhouse you would like to put on the Moon.
entropic…”How will the temperature of the surface inside the greenhouse differ from the surface outside the greenhouse over a day/night cycle? Why?”
There should be no difference provided the glass is not somehow interfering with surface dissipation. Or unless you have mistaken IR for heat, which it’s not.
Without molecules of a gas inside the greenhouse, there is no way for the interior of the greenhouse to warm. The outside of the glass would still be at nearly 0K, and that could cause the glass to act as a colder surface with which the surface would interact.
There’s really no way of answering your question without being on the Moon and trying it.
A much more interesting question to me is this. If you were wearing no protective clothing that was internally heated, and you could block solar radiation from burning you, how long would you last before freezing to death? That’s inside a greenhouse or not.
To anyone convinced that surface temperature decreases with altitude, meteorologists know that the reverse is true.
Anabatic winds may result during the day –
“A hill or mountain top will be radiatively warmed by the Sun which in turn heats the air just above it. Air at a similar altitude over an adjacent valley or plain does not get warmed so much because of the greater distance to the ground below it. ”
Tyndall recorded the increase of surface temperature with altitude, being a keen mountaineer.
No GHE. Just insolation, and normal physics.
Cheers.
“Air at a SIMILAR ALTITUDE over an adjacent valley or plain does not get warmed so much…….”
*******
Current temp. on Mt. Tyndall (California): 16 F.
Groan…
Mike discovers a weather effect and posits it as the general state of the atmosphere.
No, genius, temperature diminishes with altitude. Sometimes the wind blows up a mountainside and under certain conditions it’s warmer higher up the mount, and sometimes there is a local temperature inversion, but generally – it gets colder the higher up you go.
Meteorologists know this very well indeed. Surely you’re just stirring with all this posturing and nonsense. But why would anyone do it day in and day out?
Mike’s burrow is probably much cooler than the higher elevation surface air. Maybe that explains his confusion?
Congratulations Mikey, you’ve “proved” that the top of Mt Kilimanjaro in the heart of the tropics at a latitude of 3 degrees South is no colder than sea level. If only the ice cover obeyed your laws of physics.
Posted in wrong place. Excuse the double post Barry.
barry,
Thank you for referring to me as a genius, but you must be comparing me to such as yourself.
From the esteemed John Tyndall –
“From a multitude of desultory observations I conclude that, at 7,400 feet, 125-7, or 67 above the temperature of the air, is the average effect of the sun’s rays on a black bulb thermometer.
. . .. Tyndall goes on to explain why this is so, and provides other examples.
An obvious example of the temperature increase without an atmosphere is found on the surface of the Moon. Fairly obvious, even to. non-genius, is the fact that increased energy reaching the surface allows thermometers to attain higher temperatures.
Maybe you dont like inconvenient facts, such as the complete absence of a testable GHE hypothesis, but that wont make them go away.
Bad luck barry. Why you choose to disagree with a person you regard as a genius in such matters is beyond me.
Cheers.
Tyndall did not write those words.
Poor scholarship from you, Flynn. Par for the course.
Jesus can this endless ‘No GHE’ syndrome be boring.
What, do you think, do meteorologists think about the lapse rate of 6.5 C / km?
Is that not ‘normal physics’?
Are all these poor radiosondes confirming its existence all wrong?
Here’s a bit of trivia that demonstrates lapse rate:
Mt Tyndall (14,025 ft.) is only 84 miles to the west of Badwater Basin
(- 282 ft.)
9:00 am temperature
Mt. Tyndall: 25 F.
Badwater Basin: 82 F.
B,
Learn to read.
Surface – not air temperature.
As to the lapse rate, it is just another name for the inevitable thermal gradient from the centre of the Earth at around 5500 K, to the 3 K or so of outer space.
Once again, surface temperature, not air temperature.
Do you suffer from aphasia?
Cheers.
Congrats Mikey, you’ve “proved” that the top of Mt Kilimanjaro in the heart of the tropics at a latitude of 3 degrees South is no colder than sea level. If only the ice cover obeyed your laws of physics.
B,
Not at all. I have just stated a demonstrable fact.
I assumed that people would realise was referring to sunlit conditions. A shielded thermometer is implied of course.
Otherwise somebody is likely to say that if you cover the thermometer with snow, it will get colder! Or something equally stupid.
In regard to Kilimanjaro –
“Will the effects of the sun be stronger on the mountain?
Absolutely, so precautions are required. About 55% of the earth’s protective atmosphere is below an altitude of 5000m. Far less ultraviolet light is being filtered out, making the sun’s rays much more powerful, which could result in severe sun burning of the skin.
The increased energy in sunlight at altitude are well known to Kilimanjaro trekking companies.
Go on, blather about LWIR, DWSWIR, and all the rest. It is all about light interacting with matter.
It won’t help you finding a testable GHE hypothesis will it? Rather the opposite.
Cheers.
What is this fake quoting of a question I never asked?
We are talking about the actual AIR TEMPERATURE at the top of the mountain, not whether you get sunburn.
Bond,
Learn to read.
Surface, not air temperature.
Are you just ordinarily stupid and ignorant, or exceptionally so?
Cheers.
Mike,
What temperature is the thermometer in the sun measuring? Not the air temp, not the ground temp. Just the temp of a tiny solar collector.
N,
What is your point? When I say thermometer, I mean thermometer.
Thermometers, as the name implies, are designed to measure temperature. You can play semantics all you like, but you do no appear to be disputing my comments.
If you are, you might specify what you are disputing, and why. Your choice, of course.
Cheers.
mike…”To anyone convinced that surface temperature decreases with altitude, meteorologists know that the reverse is true”.
What you say is true provided the top of the mountain/hill is not under several feet of snow/ice. I question, however, the notion by some that gravity decreases at the top of a small hill (few thousand feet).
Climbers on Everest and other high mountains report being warmed by direct solar radiation but you don’t see them climbing or lounging in tee shirts and shorts.
I doubt whether Tyndall climbed higher than a few thousand feet. It’s entirely different at 30,000 feet, at the summit of Everest. No one can survive up there more than a night because the oxygen is 1/3 the concentration it is at sea level and it’s so cold people freeze to death, even in summer.
In ’64 or so, Hornbein and Unsoeld climbed up the West Ridge, over the top, and down to 28,000 feet where they were forced into a bivouac with climbers who came up from the South Col to meet them. Unsoeld lost most of his toes from the cold and the rest were train wrecks. That was in May or June.
On K2, Jim Wickwire was caught around 28,000′ and nearly froze to death. He was so shot from the experience it took him a year to recover. Messner, a highly experienced mountaineer, who had acclimatized at the base of Everest for two months prior to his successful solo effort, returned to the base a mumbling, emotional wreck after the experience. There’s no way to escape the debilitating effect of lower pressure and temperature about 8000 metres.
There is no doubt that temperature and pressure decrease linearly with altitude and there is a significant difference in both between the South Col of Everest at nearly 8000 metres and the peak at 8848 metres.
I think the prevalent notion that the lapse rate is due to convection is wrong. It is obviously driven by gravity.
What do people think of this article on the media hiding the truth about global temps?
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-global-warming-earth-cooling-media-bias/
Accurate?
Which people do you mean, Nate?
Anybody here.
“Don’t Tell Anyone, But We Just Had Two Years Of Record-Breaking Global Cooling”
What is the record for two year warming? Was it deemed newsworthy and reported by the media or NASA? If not, then the author of the above headline is the one showing bias.
A 0.56 C drop between selected months. No mention of monster ENSO effect. Fine science journalism!
“That’s not to say that a two-year stretch of cooling means that global warming is a hoax. Two years out of hundreds or thousands doesn’t necessarily mean anything. And there could be a reasonable explanation. But the drop in temperatures at least merits a “Hey, what’s going on here?” story. ”
That is true. These guys follow and report the stock market and understand trends fairly well.
They would have reported the rapid rise in dow jones, and the
crash/correction and know that recently, last couple years, the U.S. stock market is rising and also know that in terms of decades or century US stock market is “warming”, it is Earth becoming Venus (and it is very obvious).
This is also a good point:
“Reporters no doubt worry that covering such findings will only embolden “deniers” and undermine support for immediate, drastic action.
But if fears of catastrophic climate change are warranted which we seriously doubt ignoring things like the rapid cooling in the past two years carries an even bigger risk. ”
Yes it is huge risk. And undermines science. But generally having confident in reported news, is more important or greater risk.
And these guys understand risk.
So damage has been done and continues to be done by the hacks
who are very uneducated and stupid.
gbaikie says:
This is also a good point:
Reporters no doubt worry that covering such findings will only embolden deniers and undermine support for immediate, drastic action.
Reporters cover what’s news. It’s not news that the climate naturally fluctuates.
If it going to rain tomorrow, it is news.
Weather has always been part of the news.
but standing in hurricane for a live report, is circus stuff.
Science reporters don’t write about the the day-to-day fluctuations of weather, unless there’s a big storm coming.
Natural fluctuations do not constitute a big storm.
Are natural fluctuations news of significance?
Between August and January the temp of the US dropped 40 F. And nobody noticed! There was no coverage of this trend in the MSM!
I’ve never understood why outlets like investors.com or the WSJ, who are supposedly informing investors of trends and future possibilities, would so mislead their readers by claiming AGW doesn’t exist or the sea isn’t rising.
It’s literally the worse investment advice they could give.
What do people think of this article on the media hiding the truth about global temps?
Junk.
barry…”What do people think of this article on the media hiding the truth about global temps?
Junk.”
Yet barry thinks similar NOAA junk is legit.
nate…”What do people think of this article on the media hiding the truth about global temps?”
I don’t think it’s a matter of hiding, it’s more a matter of ignorance of the truth and an inability to do real investigative journalism.
The cooling from February 2016 till present is not what I’d call cooling anymore than I’d call the UAH warming from 1979 – 1997 warming. Both are reciveries from warming/cooling respectively.
I do have a question as to why it took both so long to recover. What processes intervened to slow the rebounds?
Pfft – like saying Winter is a ‘recovery’ from Summer, or that Summer is a ‘recovery’ from Winter.
Meaningless rhetoric. These changes have causes, and have nothing to do with the climate on a piece of elastic, rebounding from one seasonal term to another.
“Recovery” – yeah, that really nails what’s going on.
USA48 aka CONUS in the GHCN V4 daily record
Last year already I wanted to evaluate this bigger 29 GB data set but an opportunity for a 6 month stay on the Canary Islands changed everything. Now I’m thru with a first revision.
As there is this non-ending discussion about ‘record cold’ in the CONUS, let us have a look at it!
Sure, April was bitter cold in many places in the North American region!
In the GHCN V4 record, April 2018 appears as the fifth coldest April since 1866 (over 150 years).
But December January / February mostly are quite a bit colder.
So nobody should wonder if, in the entire monthly time series of absolute CONUS temperatures, April 2018 appears with 8.46 C at position… 694 of about 1,650.
The top 20 of the coldest absolute temperatures in C looks like this:
1888 1 -6.96
1890 12 -5.23
1979 1 -4.83
1977 1 -4.79
1918 1 -4.51
1899 2 -4.43
1887 1 -4.4
1912 1 -4.39
1893 1 -4.38
1940 1 -4.06
1886 1 -3.99
1895 2 -3.84
1936 2 -3.60
1885 2 -3.55
1930 1 -3.54
1963 1 -3.21
1905 2 -3.19
1895 1 -3.17
1982 1 -3.11
1983 12 -3.08
Here is a chart showing the anomalies wrt 1981-2010:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/15265637510.jpg
CONUS shows no warming – at least in the raw data.
A chart showing the stations active in every year:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526572100808.jpg
And last no least an anomaly comparison with the UAH6.0 record during the satellite era:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526572020127.jpg
UAH’s CONUS trend is with 0.18 C / decade higher than that of the raw station data (surprising 0.05 C).
Of course, between raw data and published version much work has to be invested, for surface as well as for tropospheric measurements.
Lawsy me! UAH trend for the US is much warmer than GHCN.
Please, skeptics, explain this discrepancy, with UAH running much hotter than GHCN.
Gordon, your take would be fascinating. If you can actually stick to the question.
barry…”UAH trend for the US is much warmer than GHCN”.
Maybe, just maybe, the Trump government has managed to straighten NOAA out. Wouldn’t that be something?
So NOAA’s data is sound and UAH’s isn’t?
That’s quite a turnaround from you. Is it because the NOAA data has a cooler trend than UAH?
gba,, ,,less 600 wavenumber is 599, 598, etc wavenumber (or towards a more energetic wavelength).,, is wrong. Wave number means the number of wavelengths in a cm so a lower wave no. means fewer, longer waves and therefore LESS energetic.
I mean UV wavelength is more energetic than say Near infrared light. X-Ray more than UV, etc.
Or in Planck curve, spectrum at the left is more powerful, or matter which emits blackbody has to be hotter if emitting UV as compared to Near infrared as highest (or shortest wavelength).
But with wavenumber it is using different metric.
Ah:
“Fig. 3 shows plots of Lσ and LσP for various temperatures. Note again the important difference between the spectral radiance and spectral photon radiance.”
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody/units_of_wavenumber.html
Or I guess “spectral photon radiance” what I mean by planck curve and has different way display values compared to wavenumber.
gbaikie…”But with wavenumber it is using different metric”.
A metric that does not make a whole lot of sense in normal EM distributions.
Given that wavelength = lambda = L
wavenumber = 1/L
If wavelength is expressed in centimetres, wavenumber is expressed in cm^-1, or 1/cm.
What does that tell you, really? It’s inverting the scale of wavelengths, turning it from right to left horizontally. BTW, that’s how frequency is shown.
It also means it is converting wavelength to frequency since frequency is also the reciprocal of wavelength. The difference is in the medium. At velocities around the speed of sound, the speed of sound has to be included and with light speed, the speed of light.
Therefore Lf = c for light and L = c/f
wavenumber = wn = 1/L = f/c
With f/c, if light = c is in m/s and f is in cycles/sec
you have (c/s)/(m/s) = cycles/metre
Normally it’s written as cycles/cm since the metre is unwieldy for the short wavelengths used in EM.
There is an error in the following article which refers to Hertz (Hz) as sec^-1. Hertz is the name given to the number of changes in frequency per second which used to be denoted cycles/per second.
https://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/harrison/cem483/wavenumbers.pdf
https://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/harrison/cem483/wavenumbers.pdf
correction: “Hertz is the name given to the number of changes in frequency per second….”
Should read…”Hertz is the name given to the number of changes (in direction) per second…”
eg. the 60 hertz voltage in a North American household changes direction 60 times per second. We used to call that cycles per second which had a greater clarity.
A late answer to David Appell on Richard Muller’s global warming attribution to CO2:
David Appell says:
“I don’t see where in that graph he says that, or it’s implied.”
http://tinyurl.com/yck2o849
Thats right, the graph just shows the fit.
The results paper shows warming consistent with log(CO2) as an antropogenic proxy, with natural variability at +/-0.17C.
https://tinyurl.com/y7lb6zpn
“The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.”
https://tinyurl.com/y8fk8x97
Finally:
In fact, we can rule out every other scientific theory except the GHG theory
https://tinyurl.com/yaly5wjb
“…an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.”
That is a fallacy. Any fit within the range of uncertainty is a viable alternative. We do not expect a perfect fit with anything, given all the complicating factors. In fact, too good a fit suggests a thumb on the scales.
It’s like when a tinpot dictator claims 97% of the vote in a plebiscite. It’s simply too good to be true, and one knows ipso facto, it isn’t.
Yes, it’s not perfect, just pretty good long term.
S,
Correlation does not imply causation.
A testable GHE hypothesis is notably absent.
It would be pointless, in my view, to ask you to say why this should be. Feel free to answer if you wish.
Cheers.
That’s right Mike, correlation does not prove causation.
S,
Glad you agree. In that case, why do you believe increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere result in higher surface temperatures?
Have you a testable GHE hypothesis to bolster your belief?
Cheers.
Big mystery Mike.
What do we know about CO2 that relates to temperature?
S,
What’s the big mystery?
Cheers.
We are discussing the correlation between ln(CO2) and global temperature. Reread the last five messages to refresh your memory.
S,
No.
What’s the big mystery?
Cheers.
The correlation between ln(CO2) and global temperature.
S,
I cannot see any particular mystery.
For all I know, there might be a correlation between the amount of heat produced by burning hydrocarbons and CO2 in the atmosphere.
Would that be as mysterious, do you think?
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says:
“there might be a correlation between the amount of heat produced by burning hydrocarbons and CO2 in the atmosphere”.
OK, stop burning hydrocarbons to stop global warming.
Sounds reasonable.
S,
Which do you think is better – being warm or being cold? Only joking, of course.
I like running potable water, electricity, motor vehicles, health facilities, fast communications . . .
If I have to accept that living in the tropics as I do, is some some sort of dreadful penance, compared with living in the Antarctic, then so be it.
The Earth continuously loses heat equating to a rate of somewhere between one and three millionths of a Kelvin per annum.
I havent noticed the difference over the past few years. If I have the desire to be cold, I can move to a colder place, or just turn the air-conditioner down (or up) a bit. If it creates a bit of waste heat somewhere, I dont care. Yes, I know that makes me a sociopathic uncaring, selfish swine. Tough. Feel free to be mightily outraged on my behalf.
Why should I give toss about generating perfectly desirable heat – even as a waste product? People pay lots of money to avail themselves of the same amount of heat which I discard. Maybe you trap it, accumulate it, and store it. Using the miraculous powers of CO2 and the GHE, of course.
Only the truly ignorant and stupid would believe something like that wouldnt they? A GHE believer, for example.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says:
“I like running potable water, electricity, motor vehicles, health facilities, fast communications […], or just turn the air-conditioner down (or up) a bit. If it creates a bit of waste heat somewhere, I dont care. Yes, I know that makes me a sociopathic uncaring, selfish swine. Tough. Feel free to be mightily outraged on my behalf.”
No reason to feel bad, we need all of those things. I don’t expect anyone to take personal responsibility, I just think everyone should to pay for external effects.
“Why should I give toss about generating perfectly desirable heat”
Because humans and ecosystems are adapted to the current climate. Rapid changes will cause mass extinction and put valuable land under water.
“Because humans and ecosystems are adapted to the current climate.”
No, we are not. Human settlements span the globe, from the sun baked deserts to the frozen tundra. And, no they are not. Yours is a throwaway line intended to evoke a sense of panic in the face of unremarkable changes. It is screaming about monsters under the bed.
Don’t be buffaloed. There are no monsters under the bed.
Don’t get me wrong, humanity will survive and advance. It’s just bad economy and sad to force people to move. Many species will not be able to do that.
Skeptics often say ‘what is the ideal global temperature?’ knowing that of course we have had different temps in the past, and humans survived.
The ideal temperature is one in which our major cities are neither under ice or under water.
The ideal temperature is one in which our major agricultural regions continue to have adequate weather and water supply in the growing seasons.
” Its just bad economy and sad to force people to move.”
It doesn’t force anything. Even the most alarmist projections are pretty small potatoes, well within the ability of animals and humans to abide. The whole brouhaha is just ridiculous when you get right down to it. It really is flipping out over monsters under the bed.
Two degrees will wipe out the Greenland ice sheet, that’s about seven meters. Add Antarctica and thermal expansion.
Admittedly in ten thousand years, still plenty of risk short term.
‘10,000 y’ Some past melting events appear to be a few hundred y, I thought.
You know more than me. I’m based on this paper:
https://tinyurl.com/kdab4ou
People make predictions for 2100. The point is it’s not going to stop there.
Yeah, I dont know more. That’s a good paper.
Yeah, Antarctica is going to melt. Get a grip, fella’s.
Bart says:
an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.
That is a fallacy. Any fit within the range of uncertainty is a viable alternative.
What other fit comes close?
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
So show me I’m ignorant by showing what other fit comes close…..
(facepalm)
Again, Bart has no science or evidence. It’s his defining feature.
It’s a bit of a farce when you don’t even know definitions.
Latin explains all data away.
Yah. Pfft! Logic… who needs it?
Logic is fine, if applicable.
Dude…
Naming a logical fallacy doesn’t answer the question. It avoids the question.
No! Rigorous adherence to logic is the foundation of the scientific method. Evasion of rigorous logic is a form of cheating. An attempt to cut corners in a rush to judgment, and a mark of pseudoscience.
Bart
I like reading your posts. You at the type of Skeptic that will bring up points and ask questions but so far I have gladly seen that you have not attempted to make up your own brand of physics to disprove GHE.
Also there are many different pieces of evidence that suggest the Earth’s surface air temp is slowly rising. The cause may not be certain. One should consider Carbon Dioxide as a potential cause for the effect. I would not close the door on other possibilities. A 1% change in global albedo would cause the same amount of warming as we are currently seeing. Without really good measures of this it is a factor that should not be ignored and would need to be included to see if it indeed played a role in current warming.
Your point is valid. Just because we don’t have an alternate explanation for the warming does not mean it must be Carbon Dioxide.
Norman says, May 19, 2018 at 12:42 PM:
Well, Norm, then I’m happy to let you know that we are in fact already easily and confidently able to tell, from the relevant observational data collected from the real Earth system, that the Sun is what caused (and is causing) ‘current warming’, and that the rise in atmospheric CO2 didn’t contribute. There is NO real-world evidence to be found of an “enhanced GHE” over the last 33 years, even with a nearly 18% increase in the absolute amount of atmospheric CO2 since 1985 and a parallel 5% increase in atmospheric WV, while plenty of evidence exists of an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming’:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/
Kristian says:
…the Sun is what caused (and is causing) current warming,
TSI has been slowly decreasing since the 1960s. Now watch Kristian ignore this fact.
If the Sun were causing modern warming, the stratosphere would be warming. Instead, it’s cooling — a prediction of AGW theory.
There is NO real-world evidence to be found of an enhanced GHE over the last 33 years
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
3:20pm: “..evidence exists of an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming'”
Actually, not so happily for Kristian, the best longest period meaningful CERES/Argo science evidence is SW flux trend is negative (downward). As evidenced in a paper Kristian posted up around here Loeb 2018.
To support his own self-cited agenda, Kristian has to disagree with the CERES Team 95% confidence in reporting global mean TOA SW flux has been in a meaningfully negative (downward) trend Fig. 9a (-0.57 +/- 0.19 W/m^2/decade Table 7) for March 2000-September 2016.
Per Loeb 2018 CERES Team (from a cite) Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is in a range +0.5 to +1 W/m^2 supporting what Norman wrote in Kristian’s clip.
CERES Team in Loeb 2018 introduction:
“When the climate system is forced by natural or anthropogenic factors (e.g., changes in solar output, volcanic eruptions, and human activities), an imbalance in the TOA (earth radiation balance) results.”
Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen et al, (2007)
http://tinyurl.com/mb4xz38
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006
https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
“Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present,” Griggs, J. A., & Harries, J. E., Proceedings of SPIE, (2004) 5543, 164 – 174. DOI: 10.1117/12.556803
https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/3006745/paper.pdf
Ball4: What’s the citation to Loeb 2018? Thanks.
David Appell says, May 19, 2018 at 4:40 PM:
And ASR, the relevant solar parameter, has strongly increased since the mid 80s. Now watch Appell ignore this fact.
Why? What in the stratosphere is the Sun supposed to be warming?
So how is stratospheric cooling in any way relatable to tropospheric warming?
Ball4 says, May 19, 2018 at 4:45 PM:
Yes, which gives a strongly positive trend in ASR. Ouch!
Because you do know, of course, that when CERES measures a downward-trending SW flux, it effectively records a decrease in Earth’s global ALBEDO. And, as you know, Earth’s heat input from the Sun, the ASR, is TSI minus albedo. Lower albedo thus means a higher solar heat input to the Earth system = global warming.
Thanks for proving my case!
“when CERES measures a downward-trending SW flux”
Kristian, you really should read the paper closer. TSIs for the CERES Team are: “provided by the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE; launched 25 January 2003) Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) TSI V-15 dataset.”
Your comment is another unsupported but happy self-cite, double ouch! Search Loeb 2018 for ASR or albedo and there are no hits so your assertion is not from them in Loeb 2018 (at least using your words).
NB: Kristian wobbles around from “while plenty of evidence exists of an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming'” to “Lower albedo thus means a higher solar heat input to the Earth system = global warming.” What is the next wobble Kristian?
Oops, searching albedo is indeed found but not ASR in Loeb 2018, not sure what happened the first time.
Loeb 2018 cite is 1st Loeb et. al. paper:
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/publications/pdfs/CERES_pubs_1993-2017.pdf
Bart, you committed the rather ordinary fallacy of jumping the gun. David hadn’t presented a case that merited the argument from ignorance label. David asked you to indicate an alternatively good fit. He didn’t argue that CO2 was the only good fit. Yet.
Ball4 says, May 19, 2018 at 5:30 PM:
You are such a fool. You appear to have no understanding whatsoever of this particular subject matter. You’re just winging it.
It is pretty well-known (to all, basically) that what the various satellite-borne radiometric instruments are in fact measuring when they measure SW at the ToA, is the REFLECTED portion of the TSI. It is clearly and distinctly stated – everywhere – that the SW term (in both ERBS and CERES) is “outgoing SW”. That’s reflected sunlight, troll. => albedo.
TSI at the global ToA is ~ [1360/4=] 340 W/m^2. The outgoing SW flux at the global ToA, measured by the satellites, is ~ 100 W/m^2. Which means the “absorbed solar radiation” (the ASR), the solar term which is used as the actual ‘solar input’ to the Earth system in all energy budgets, is [340 – 100 =] 240 W/m^2. This is then specifically the value that Earth’s final output to space needs to match in order for our planet to retain radiative balance with its surroundings. And this is therefore why the global all-sky OLR at the ToA is ~240 W/m^2. It balances the average solar input.
This is elementary stuff, troll. And you still fail to grasp any of it, it seems …
Kristian 3:37am: “It is pretty well-known (to all, basically) that what the various satellite-borne radiometric instruments are in fact measuring when they measure SW at the ToA, is the REFLECTED portion of the TSI.”
Known to all, basically? No, not to all just errantly to Kristian self-citing as the SORCE Team in Kristian’s clip (thus I presume Kristian actually read it) provided for Loeb 2018 cited use “TSI V-15 dataset” is from Earth incoming radiation not outgoing.
Kristian should cite experts before self-cite commenting, see bold added:
“The Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) is a NASA-sponsored satellite mission that is providing state-of-the-art measurements of incoming x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared, and total solar radiation.”
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/
Ball4,
Although I haven’t read the papers you are discussing with Kristian, I am enjoying and learning from the debate. Thank you both and SGW, too.
I have a question. It seems likely that measuring both incoming and outgoing SW data is necessary. However, my guess is incoming SW will be more accurate than outgoing SW. Precision should be comparable in both cases.
So why would you be arguing that the incoming SW is the important factor being measured? Both are important, but outgoing will determine the error of the net SW.
Ball4 says, May 20, 2018 at 6:32 AM:
Yes, but we are not discussing the TSI, are we? We’re discussing the SW flux as measured by CERES.
Stop being an idiot. You’re already a deluded troll. So do at least try to act as though you have some understanding of what we’re talking about.
“Yes, but we are not discussing the TSI, are we?”
We are. Kristian discusses 5:01pm: “the ASR, is TSI minus albedo” so at least Kristian is discussing TSI satellite measurements which the CERES Team is provided by the SORCE Team.
By the way, TSI is not heat as Gordon so often correctly points out, TSI is EMR.
Chic 11:34am: “However, my guess is incoming SW will be more accurate than outgoing SW.”
CERES looks down (outgoing SW scenes) and SORCE looks up (incoming SW scenes). SORCE launched in 2003 so its radiometers should be as ~precise as CERES radiometers. However, I have not read much if at all on SORCE calibration efforts to true up the data for accuracy so I can’t comment on accuracy differences with CERES. Since CERES Team uses SORCE data there is probably informational ref.s on that in Loeb 2018 so it would be great if you have the interest to ask the question to look for an answer in there.
Ball4 says, May 20, 2018 at 2:10 PM:
No, we’re not. And the troll knows it. Because he’s the one who started this pointless squabble to begin with.
He unmistakably stated the following: “(…) the best longest period meaningful CERES/Argo science evidence is SW flux trend is negative (downward). As evidenced in a paper Kristian posted up around here Loeb 2018.
To support his own self-cited agenda, Kristian has to disagree with the CERES Team 95% confidence in reporting global mean TOA SW flux has been in a meaningfully negative (downward) trend Fig. 9a (-0.57 +/- 0.19 W/m^2/decade Table 7) for March 2000-September 2016.”
And there it is. He distinctly talks about the downward trend in “global mean TOA SW flux” as reported by the CERES team in Loeb et al.’s Table 7, and also pictured in their Figure 9a).
Well, that’s the outgoing SW flux measured by the CERES instruments.
Here’s the paper:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0208.1
Here’s its Table 7:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2018/15200442-31.2/jcli-d-17-0208.1/20180110/images/large/jcli-d-17-0208.1-t7.jpeg
And here’s its Figure 9:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2018/15200442-31.2/jcli-d-17-0208.1/20180110/images/large/jcli-d-17-0208.1-f9.jpeg
My direct response to the troll’s comment above:
“Yes, which gives a strongly POSITIVE trend in ASR. Ouch!”
Q.E.D.
Q.E.D. not Kristian.
I’ve also noted in past discussion of Loeb’s papers Kristian doesn’t show digging into the pertinent ref.s.
SW is in a negative trend Table 7 thus I maintain so was TSI similarly Kristian. If you look at their ref. discussing TSI “allowing determination of possible long-term variations in the sun’s output (Kopp and Lean 2011).”
In the period 2000 to 2010, all that is available shown, in K&L Fig. 1 confirms that negative trend in the TSI composite Solar irradiance. Loeb Fig. 9a is similar trend also for confirmation SW same trend in matching period.
So you are still not correct above 3:20pm: “..evidence exists of an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming'” unless you can find a ref. post 2010 that reverses the TSI trend as shown in Kopp and Lean 2000-2010 for the Loeb period after 2010 to 2016.
Yes, the net in Table 7 is positive but it is not due to an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming’ as you wrote since SW is trending down for the whole period and TSI is SORCE (and other) similarly trending down in much of Loeb observation period.
Loeb 2018 CERES Team also does not agree with Kristian “3:20pm ..evidence exists of an ongoing SOLAR-driven process of ‘global warming'”:
P. 908 All Sky: “These anomalies reflect the influence of internal variations in the climate system, particularly that of ENSO. Positive anomalies in net TOA flux in 2008/09 are associated with La Nina conditions during most of 2008 through spring 2009. During this period, negative anomalies in both reflected SW and outgoing LW TOA flux are observed.”
And in Loeb conclusion:
“CERES TOA fluxes exhibit pronounced interannual variability driven primarily by ENSO. SW TOA flux variations in the Arctic are noteworthy and are tied to changes in sea ice coverage.”
Ball4 says, May 20, 2018 at 7:39 PM:
This is very simple.
The Net SW at the global ToA, the ASR (“Absorbed Solar Radiation”), Earth’s solar heat input [its Q_in(sw)] of 240 W/m^2, is found by subtracting the reflected (outgoing) SW flux (SW_out), the one measured by the CERES instruments, from the incoming SW flux, the TSI (SW_in), measured by the TIM instrument onboard the SORCE spacecraft.
(1360/4) – 100 = 240 W/m^2
That’s the absolute flux values. And as you can see, the absolute SW_in (TSI) value is much bigger than the absolute SW_out (refl SW) value; 3.4 times bigger, in fact. Which is to be expected – Net SW, the solar heat to the Earth, should be positive, and strongly so. Otherwise we would freeze …
But after having established this rather intuitive fact, we’re no longer that interested, really, in the absolute values. Because what we want to find out is how things evolve over time. How does the TSI (incoming SW) evolve? How does the reflected (outgoing) SW evolve? And how does the Net SW (the ASR, the solar heat input to the Earth) evolve?
THAT’S what’s interesting.
And in order to do this, we instead turn to the flux value anomalies and track these over time. In other words, we deseasonalize (remove the seasonal signals from) the absolute values to get a clearer and cleaner picture of what’s going on.
This pretty standard procedure allows us to look beyond the total flux magnitudes, which would, after all, completely overwhelm any year-to-year, or even decadal, changes in those same flux magnitudes. The anomalies specifically highlight the changes (monthly, annually, decadally) by ignoring the total values.
And so we can return to what our foolish troll here originally wrote:
“(…) the best longest period meaningful CERES/Argo science evidence is SW flux trend is negative (downward). As evidenced in a paper Kristian posted up around here Loeb 2018.
To support his own self-cited agenda, Kristian has to disagree with the CERES Team 95% confidence in reporting global mean TOA SW flux has been in a meaningfully negative (downward) trend Fig. 9a (-0.57 +/- 0.19 W/m^2/decade Table 7) for March 2000-September 2016.”
Yup. All about the reflected (outgoing) SW flux, as measured by CERES, its anomaly plotted in Figure 9a):
https://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2018/15200442-31.2/jcli-d-17-0208.1/20180110/images/large/jcli-d-17-0208.1-f9.jpeg
Distinctly and significantly downward, yes. And I then pointed out to the troll how he utterly misconstrued the whole situation, thinking that a negative trend in SW was somehow proof that the solar input went down from 2000 to 2016:
“Yes, which gives a strongly positive trend in ASR. Ouch!”
Because, as we recall, the ASR is equal to the Net SW and the solar heat input to the Earth, and is found by subtracting the reflected (outgoing) SW flux from the incoming SW flux (the TSI).
And a significantly negative trend subtracted from a relatively flat one gives … a significantly POSITIVE trend.
This is what the troll cannot seem to wrap its head around.
Because, you see, as you remove the seasonality from the total flux values and turn them into anomalies instead, the incoming SW (TSI) values are no longer bigger than the outgoing SW values.
In fact, the whole situation is now pretty much reversed. Even if the TOTAL magnitude of the TSI (incoming SW) flux is much bigger than the total magnitude of the reflected (outgoing) SW flux, the (monthly, annual, decadal) CHANGES in the outgoing SW flux are much bigger and more pronounced than the equivalent changes in the TSI (incoming SW) flux.
Which is to say that, if we are interested in how the Net SW flux, the solar heat to the Earth, evolves over time, not just what it happens to be, on average, then we should be very much aware of the fact that changes over time in the OUTGOING SW flux, the one associated with and determined by Earth’s global ALBEDO, are much, much bigger than changes over time in the INCOMING SW flux, the TSI, and that changes in the outgoing (reflected) SW flux (effectively, in Earth’s global albedo) are controlling the Net SW, the ASR, the solar heat input to Earth, rather than changes in the Sun’s own output, which are rather minute in comparison.
To show you what I mean by this, here is a plot the TSI anomaly vs. the reflected SW anomaly between 2000 and 2017 according to SORCE/CERES:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/tsi-vs-refl-sw.png
(Notice how the light blue curve is equal to the red SW curve in Loeb’s Fig.9a), link above.)
There is no scaling of any kind here. This is a direct comparison.
Same for ERBS and PMOD (1985-99):
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/erbs-refl-sw-vs-pmod-tsi1.png
So when you subtract the light blue curve (the SW_out) in the top figure above from the yellow one (the SW_in), you get the Net SW, the ASR. And it looks like this:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/asr.png
As you can see, almost a simple reversal of the light blue SW_out curve.
And THAT’S the how the solar heat input to the Earth evolved between early 2000 and late 2017.
Same with the ERBS vs. PMOD figure. Subtract the blue (SW_out) from the yellow (SW_in) and get the net, the ASR:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/erbs-asr-20n-20s.png
Again, very simple:
If Earth’s global albedo drops, then the solar heat input to Earth rises. Because the TSI can be considered near-constant in comparison.
“If Earth’s global albedo drops, then the solar heat input to Earth rises. Because the TSI can be considered near-constant in comparison.”
TSI can not be considered near-constant in the comparison Kristian as I researched for you. Depends on what you mean by near as shown at a significance level with CIs which you do not provide.
The SW is reflected insolation. And TSI used/cited by Loeb 2018 by inspection trended similarly down in much of the period. Again, self-citing to your own website is not helpful. Perhaps if you offered original source links/material to check it might help bolster your case.
“..then the solar heat input to Earth rises.”
Solar EMR (TSI) is not heat. SW is not heat. Net of SW and LW is not heat, they are all power/m^2 of area.
See the UAH TLT series, that is also not heat, it is temperature. 9+ forcings go into global T and TSI is a minor one of them which has been recently trending down in the period. Measured change in TSI is very small player in global T. Your conclusion is simply not supported by the data. What you need to add is significance level and CI to show your conclusion might be meaningful as CERES Team has done.
Anyway, again, the CERES Team do not agree with you Kristian I clipped their assessments. I’ll go with the CERES Team. Internal variability was mostly ENSO in the period studied. With the other internal variabilities they list & several other +/- bit players on the forcings list.
Ball4,
“Solar EMR (TSI) is not heat. SW is not heat. Net of SW and LW is not heat, they are all power/m^2 of area.”
Yes, they are power/m2 which is heat input, J/sec per m2, or the rate of energy transfer just as Kristian is stating. You are causing unnecessary confusion with your sloppy verbiage.
You think you agree with the CERES Team and Kristian is wrong. But you appear to be the odd man out.
Power is “rate of energy transfer”
Good job, stick with that Chic. Heat is not power.
5:24am per Kristian: “Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.”
Then Chic claims in the face of that: “which is heat input”
So just where was your heat before it was input Chic? Not in any other body as the ~modern text is correct.
Caloric theory is just a relic of past times, you will get into trouble invoking the caloric fluid as input since elegant experimental evidence shows that is wrong. I observe this ancient relic is hard to cast off but Chic will always be in error as long as there is a hold on to it.
Ball4 is his name, obfuscation is his game.
I wrote power is heat input, the rate of heat (energy) transfer, not heat is power. You need to either read more carefully or stop twisting words around to make it look like you know what is right and others are wrong. Go ahead. Publish your thoughts on how heat input is not power.
Did you just learn about caloric theory? Or has it always been in your box of obfuscatory tools?
One more thing, have you heard the old adage “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
“power is heat input”
Power is not heat input.
Heat can’t be input from somewhere heat doesn’t exist. This is just text book stuff, read Kristian’s text book clip couple more times.
If you think power is heat input you are simply falling back on the caloric theory when power WAS heat input. Not any more Chic, science realized its mistake through experiment.
Kristian,
Still awaiting your response to this pertinent paper, which paints a very different picture of the long term trends than you have. Now the second time that you have evaded discussing it.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303564
Kristian,
Crickets?
A paper from the experts with exactly the type of 33 y plots that you are always showing. I would think you would have plenty to say.
Maybe because their findings are unsupportive of your views?
Maybe you only have an interest in supportive facts/analyses?
Kristian,
You are still bringing up the significance or the 33 y of data that you have constructed.
Yet you have no response to the question that I posed to you 3 times about your choices in creating the 33 y construct, how it differs from the choices of experts in the literature.
Oddly you say to Tim:
Since Tim Folkerts apparently doesnt have the courage to respond honestly to this question posed directly to him
Should you apply this to yourself?
Cargo planes land and it is good times.
Does not necessarily mean the rituals are as effective as we might hope.
I say Muller had mini crisis of faith and returned, but U imagine, better off, than before his crisis of faith.
Or it is better to explore things. To give my psychobabble.
So:
The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else weve tried. ”
I would say understanding we are in icebox climate is useful.
And I would say global climate involves long time periods.
And simply time will bring more answers.
And idea we are in crisis, and can’t afford any time, is wrong.
And as I have said the average volume temperature of Earth ocean is what controls (is the control knob) of global average temperature. And changing that temperature requires time.
I would not call this my theory because everyone already knows it, though they may dismiss it as merely an effect rather than casual factor.
And average temperature of ocean is why we are in an icebox climate.
I continue to be a lukewarmer, which means I don’t rule out that CO2 levels and/or human activity may have some effect on global temperatures, though I have no confidence it has been measured or can presently be measured.
But have rule out, that humans are having a large effect upon global temperatures and I think Earth is cold and would think it would be better if average global temperatures were higher (but humans are not, and are not capable, to warm earth fast enough, to make it warm Earth enough within century of time).
And I think we have no shortage of near term political problems which should be addressed and are not being adequately addressed. Or trying to address the long term political problem of “global warming” has been waste of time and wealth.
And world would a better place without this foolish and evil effort.
“I continue to be a lukewarmer, which means I dont rule out that CO2 levels and/or human activity may have some effect on global temperatures, though I have no confidence it has been measured or can presently be measured.”
Then why do you think the effect if small if you think it can’t be measured?
(It can be measured, by the way, and has. But you ignore all that science.)
I promised I would not engage in the futility of any more attempts to explain why your evidence for any CO2 effect on temperature is insufficient. But here you actually claim it can be measured. In your own words, describe the experimental design and methodology that was used to measure how much temperature rose when subjected to incremental additions of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Please don’t list any of the citations you’ve use ad nauseum.
ChicB wrote:
Please dont list any of the citations youve use ad nauseum.
Is reading scientific papers, which describe their methodology in great detail, above you or beneath you?
Chic Bowdrie says:
I promised I would not engage in the futility of any more attempts to explain why your evidence for any CO2 effect on temperature is insufficient.
I’ve responded to you many times. You never acknowledge them when they show you’re wrong. Gordon does the same thing.
Chic Bowdrie says:
May 14, 2018 at 8:14 AM
My first point is that definite evidence seems to me to be impossible to provide. You need a controlled experiment and how do you control for all the natural factors affecting global temperature to show how CO2 has any significant effect?
So what? Climate science isn’t an experimental science, it’s an observational science. So are astronomy, geology, and medical sciences. Are you saying we don’t know there are other galaxies in the universe? We don’t know tectonic plates exist? We don’t know viruses cause diseases?
In science, conclusions are reached when there is an overwhelming abundance of evidence. That’s the case for aCO2 and aGHGs changing climate.
“Second, if enough satellites were sufficiently deployed to measure every photon of energy in and out of the atmosphere over a sufficiently long time, it would explain why global temperatures increased, decreased, or stayed the same. But we dont have enough satellites do we?
Umm, no. We would need satellite coverage of the entire surface, i.e. satellite coverage of every square meter in the satellites’ orbit. Undoable.
By citing data from only two places or only using clear sky data or using different equipment to make before and after measurements, you cant say your conclusions are definitive.
Where exactly did I use the word “definitive?” Show me.
If you believe those conclusions are incontrovertible, you are practicing religion not science.
All conclusions are, in theory, controvertible. But using that as an excuse, in the face of overwhelming evidence, paints you as unscientific.
David,
“Where exactly did I use the word definitive? Show me.”
Here are places you replied when asked for definitive evidence:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302206
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302218
There could be others, but in all cases no temperature measurement to indicate any definite evidence that additional CO2 affects global temperature.
“Ive responded to you many times. You never acknowledge them when they show youre wrong.”
That’s false.
Here is my response to your claim that Harries et al. measured fluxes showing a GHE.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-301974
Here is my response to your claim that there is a statistically significant energy imbalance:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302052
Here is my response to your inference that accelerating sea ice melting and sea level rise show CO2 affects temperature:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302055
Here is my response to your claim that CO2 traps heat:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302073
There could be others, but too many to keep track.
Chic, in neither of those comments did I use the word “definitive.”
Right?
Chic: About Harries et al, you wrote
Those are not measured fluxes!
You can’t get a flux difference unless you have the measured fluxes at two different times.
Right?
Chic Bowdrie, about sea level you wrote:
Last I heard, sea level rise has been constant for a least a century.
That’s very very wrong, as I’m pretty sure you know.
See the chart atop:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Or you can read:
“A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise,” John A. Church and Neil J. White, Geophysical Research Letters, v. 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826, 2006GRL (2006).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL024826/abstract
“Global and regional sea level change during the 20th century,” Manfred Wenzel and Jens Schrter, JGR-Oceans, (7 Nov 2014) doi:10.1002/2014JC009900.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JC009900/abstract
Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century, John A. Church and Neil J. White, Surveys in Geophysics, September 2011, Volume 32, Issue 4-5, pp 585-602, doi: 10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10712-011-9119-1
Chic Bowdrie, about sea level you wrote:
Last I heard, sea level rise has been constant for a least a century.
If you really believe that, you’re clueless and ignorant and have no qualifications whatsoever to speak about the science of climate change. You should slink away in shame.
If not, you’re a bald-faced liar.
Chic Bowdrie says:
“Melting accelerates when the temperature difference between the air or water at the surface of the ice increases. This is more likely to happen at noon in the summer in the northern hemisphere.”
So why is the temperature increasing?
Melting of Arctic sea ice is happening year around.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Im not saying Stephens et al. arent faithful and honest. Good scientists just want to know.
You’re a scientist????
You not aware of recent research:
Improving estimates of Earths energy imbalance,
Johnson, G.C., J.M. Lyman, and N.G. Loeb
Nature Clim. Change, 6, 639640, Improving estimates of Earths energy imbalance,
Johnson, G.C., J.M. Lyman, and N.G. Loeb
Nature Clim. Change, 6, 639640, doi: 10.1038/nclimate3043 (2016).
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate3043.html
“Here, we update our calculations (Fig. 1), and find a net heat uptake of 0.71 0.10 W m−2 from 2005 to 2015 (with 0.61 0.09 W m−2 taken up by the ocean from 01,800 m; 0.07 0.04 W m−2 by the deeper ocean4; and 0.03 0.01 W m−2 by melting ice, warming land, and an increasingly warmer and moister atmosphere1). In addition to a remarkable quartering of uncertainty, owing to improved sampling by the Argo array over time (Fig. 1), the correlation between year-to-year rates of 01,800 m ocean heat uptake5 and the latest release of CERES EEI is a much-improved 0.78. This striking agreement between two completely independent measures of EEI variability bolsters confidence in both of these complementary climate observation systems, and provides valuable insights into climate variability.”
David,
“Chic, in neither of those comments did I use the word definitive.
Then why do you bother citing evidence that isn’t definitive when I ask you for it? You already acknowledged that climate science is “observational” which I assume means not real science. Why don’t you spend your time working on more definitive evidence rather than trying to convince everyone that what you think is correct? To take a line from Mike Flynn, how about a testable GHE?
Strictly speaking, sea level rise has accelerated slightly. I was wrong. I’m not following it, I don’t think it’s serious, and I don’t jump to the conclusion that it is totally caused by warming which is not incontrovertibly due to CO2 rise.
A better correlation on OHC doesn’t mean energy imbalance calculations are significant.
Was there anything else? I don’t want you to feel neglected.
Chic Bowdrie says:
You already acknowledged that climate science is observational which I assume means not real science.
You assumed wrong. Very wrong.
Other observational sciences include geology, astronomy, medical sciences, botany, and more.
Or do you think these also aren’t sciences?
“The definition of observational science is a field of science where controlled observations cannot be done in order to study causes and effects. Scientific studies are simply done through the observation of nature taking its course and recording the findings over time.”
http://www.yourdictionary.com/observational-science
Chic Bowdrie says:
Strictly speaking, sea level rise has accelerated slightly. I was wrong. Im not following it, I dont think its serious, and I dont jump to the conclusion that it is totally caused by warming which is not incontrovertibly due to CO2 rise.
Good for you for admitting you were wrong.
But if you don’t follow SLR, why did you claim it hasn’t risen in a century? It’s very easy to Google that….
You do this alot. It’s typical denier behavior. And I bet you’ll be saying again in a few months there has been no sea level rise in a century….
Chic Bowdrie says:
Why dont you spend your time working on more definitive evidence….
Define “definitive.” Thanks.
Being in a pharmaceutical field, I can assure you that medical science is not strictly observational. You do make a good point, however. Again you underscore my point. Why do you keep trying to prove additional CO2 warms if climate science is only observational? Correlations will never make your case.
“Define ‘definitive.’ Thanks.”
Definitive: conclusive, final, ultimate; unconditional, unqualified, absolute, categorical, and I’ll except sufficient. You are welcome.
“You do this alot.”
Define alot.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Being in a pharmaceutical field, I can assure you that medical science is not strictly observational.
Name one (ethical) experiment ever done in medical science.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Define definitive. Thanks.
Definitive: conclusive, final, ultimate; unconditional, unqualified, absolute, categorical, and Ill except sufficient.”
Where did you ever learn that science provides such conclusions?
David,
There are two definitions of placebo. The first definition may apply to non-ethical experiments where the patient is told he is receiving a potentially effective treatment, such as a drug. The second definition is an inert or innocuous substance used especially in controlled experiments testing the efficacy of another substance (such as a drug). Due take note of the reference to controlled experiments. Statistical analysis is used to determine how definitive they are.
My job is designing experiments that ensure drugs are safe and effective. When products are approved without definitive evidence, untoward consequences may result. Unfortunately, this has happened in the medical field.
Jumping to conclusions about climate change may have untoward consequences, too, especially in third world countries.
Would nuclear plants have ever been constructed without conclusive experimentation?
Chic,
You must then be aware that many available drugs are not 100% absolutely safe for everyone. That a small number of people will have some side-effects, and sometimes serious side effects, with commercially available drugs – and that this is a tolerable risk for the benefits. Penicillin is a great example. Still in use despite having deleterious effects for some people. Still in use because it is effective and the safeties are within tolerance.
There is very little in science – apart from pure math – that is definitive in the way you express it.
You would happily accept a geologist telling you the volume of water in a lake. You would nod along with an astronomer telling you the distance to the nearest star. You would step on a plane the safety features of which are built to modeled tolerances.
None of these are definitive values. It’s not that the bar you set is too high, it is impossible. How many decimal places do you want? If the answer is infinite, then you are way outside the realm of Earthly science. If your answer is not infinite, then you acknowledge that everything is an approximation, and you need now to define an acceptable parameter for that. If you’re good with this, then the next step is to define the parameter with some judgement and good old definitive math.
Barry,
This is one of those times when I wondered if I should just let it go. But I won’t.
Do you believe some experiments can be definitive or not?
My point was that when the consequences are serious we need a higher standard. Maybe the evidence needs to be stronger in those cases like when lives are at stake.
Do you believe some experiments can be definitive or not?
As in – to infinite decimal places? No. There is always uncertainty.
My point was that when the consequences are serious we need a higher standard
And my point anticipated your point.
“If your answer is not infinite, then you acknowledge that everything is an approximation, and you need now to define an acceptable parameter for that. If youre good with this, then the next step is to define the parameter with some judgement and good old definitive math.”
So is this “higher standard” something you are going to enumerate, or is it going to remain a piece of rhetoric based on your feels?
–Then why do you think the effect if small if you think it cant be measured?
(It can be measured, by the way, and has. But you ignore all that science.)–
On Earth, and recently (within 1 million years) when CO2 rises from 240 ppm to 360 ppm, how much does that rise in CO2 levels increase the global average temperature?
IPCC 5AR forcing chart:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/ipcc_rad_forc_ar5.jpg
So, you can’t give a answer to my question.
If you could, I would have than asked a more specific question.
Which is how much does it increase global land surface air temperatures. And how much does it increase global ocean surface temperatures.
Or as people should know the rise in land and ocean surface temperature over last century has not been equal.
gbaikie says:
Or as people should know the rise in land and ocean surface temperature over last century has not been equal.
Everybody knows this.
There’s no reason they should be equal. In fact, it’s expected that they are not, since heat can more readily escape downward from the ocean surface than from the land surface.
gbaikie says:
Which is how much does it increase global land surface air temperatures. And how much does it increase global ocean surface temperatures.
There is data on both — you only need to look it up.
If you could, I would have than asked a more specific question.
Which is how much does it increase global land surface air temperatures. And how much does it increase global ocean surface temperatures.
Or as people should know the rise in land and ocean surface temperature over last century has not been equal.
–David Appell says:
May 18, 2018 at 4:22 PM
gbaikie says:
Or as people should know the rise in land and ocean surface temperature over last century has not been equal.
Everybody knows this.
Theres no reason they should be equal. In fact, its expected that they are not, since heat can more readily escape downward from the ocean surface than from the land surface.–
Yes, everyone should know.
But you did provide, useful guess:
“… since heat can more readily escape downward from the ocean surface than from the land surface.”
I would not phrase that way, but some heat does.
Now, if difference of ocean surface temperature is always due to “escaping downward”, it seems that downwards over thousands years could result in downwards getting quite warm. And it is not quite warm.
Therefore the downward “theory” must have variable, and that means that if variable is not known, you can’t predict the warming from increased CO2 levels.
–David Appell says:
May 18, 2018 at 4:22 PM
gbaikie says:
Which is how much does it increase global land surface air temperatures. And how much does it increase global ocean surface temperatures.
There is data on both you only need to look it up.–
Maybe someone else, could look it up and provide the answer to my question. But as said above, it seems unlikely.
gbaikie says:
Now, if difference of ocean surface temperature is always due to escaping downward, it seems that downwards over thousands years could result in downwards getting quite warm. And it is not quite warm.
Here are the data showing increases in ocean heat content, down to 2000 meters:
http://tinyurl.com/jbf2xco
Below that:
“For 1992-2011…. In the global average, changes in heat content below 2000 m are roughly 10% of those inferred for the upper ocean over the 20-yr period.”
– Carl Wunsch and Patrick Heimbach, 2014: Bidecadal Thermal Changes in the Abyssal Ocean.J. Phys. Oceanogr.,44, 20132030.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-13-096.1
“The global long-term temperature trend below 2000 m, representing the time period 19912010, is equivalent to a mean heat flux of 0.065 0.040 W m−2applied over the Earth’s surface area.”
– Deep and abyssal ocean warming from 35 years of repeat hydrography, Desbruyres, D.G., S.G. Purkey, E.L. McDonagh, G.C. Johnson, and B.A. King, Geophys. Res. Lett.,43(19), 10,35610,365, doi: 10.1002/2016GL070413 (2016)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070413/abstract
Sva,, Multiple compelling evidence rules out CO2 as the GHG. The use of water vapor as the GHG is not ruled out. Properly combining the log of increased WV with an approximation for ocean cycles and, as a proxy for what the sun does, the time-integral of SSN anomalies results in a match to measured of 98.3% 1895-2017. http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
Water vapor is a condensable gas — its amount does not change unless the temperature first changes.
Given the spectra of both CO2 and water vapor, it’s clear CO2 is also a strong GHG.
DA,
Not strictly true.
The relative humidity of an air sample at a certain temperature can vary from zero upwards.
This shows that the amount of H2O is not dependant on temperature.
Just a small, but possibly relevant, correction.
As you cant actually define the GHE, talking about GHGs is just pseudoscience of the climatological variety!
Cheers.
Globally, the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere depends mainly on temperature. Regionally, it is not the case.
B,
And your point is?
Has it something to do with the GHE you cannot actually describe, or are you just making pointless random comments?
“Globally” combined with “mainly” imparts no useful information at all, does it?
What are you really trying to say? That sometimes the amount of water vapour in a sample of air depends on temperature, and sometimes not?
That might be amazing to a a GHE believe, I suppose.
Cheers.
Try to learn how to tell when someone is not replying to you.
Bond,
Why should I accede to your demands?
The answer to your demand is no.
Cheers.
Thanks Svante.
Svante says, May 17, 2018 at 3:11 PM:
To echo the words of Muller: Are you serious?
Yes I am.
You are right that I can’t account for the relative surface/TOA trends at the moment and it is a travesty that I can’t.
But Muller’s claim is evidently false. And you should know that, Svante. Yet you pretend you don’t …
You mean “it’s something else that just happens, by accident, to perfectly match the carbon dioxide increase”?
But it doesn’t “perfectly match the carbon dioxide increase”. It vaguely “matches” the carbon dioxide increase. AFTER significant adjustments …
On the other hand we have the Sun => temp connection which is unequivocal over the last 30-40 years:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/
Over the last 17-18 years (gold: ASR; red: OLR); CERES:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/asr-vs-olr.png
Which one’s doing the warming and which one’s doing the cooling here, Svante? What would be your first guess?
I think you might well be right, that ASR is doing the heavy lifting by now. That means a we’re a few years ahead of the climate models.
It think a lot of the GHGs are within the TLT, so a surface record would be better.
I think your argument is short term when you talk about plateaus of a decade or two. OHC does not stop at 700m.
Whatever the cause, can we agree that it is anthropogenic?
How plausible is it for this temperature spike to coincide with industrialization, when the rate is unprecedented in millions of years (or thousands if you prefer).
The ASR increase: A healthy portion of its increase since 2000 can be attributed to albedo effect of arctic sea ice decline. It can be estmated fairly easily. Of course this can placed in the cattegory of an AGW feedback.
I should say I have noted what more knowledgeable commenters have said about TOA imbalance and uncertainties.
Svante says, May 20, 2018 at 10:02 AM:
*Yawn*
The (quite massive) uncertainty related to the ToA imbalance has got absolutely nothing to do with the precision and stability of the anomaly data over time, Svante. You’re evading the issue. Moving through the steps of (cognitive) dissonance reduction.
Nate says, May 20, 2018 at 8:25 AM:
Nope. The rise in ASR post 2000 (CERES) is but an extension of the rise in ASR pre 2000 (ERBS). It all started in 1988/89, after a ~12-year lull in internal energy accumulation of the Earth system. The dynamic ToA balance up until that point was broken by a fairly sudden and large increase in ASR, which caused an instant rise in OHC, T_s and T_tropo, which in turn led to a natural increase in OLR at the ToA.
That 1988/89 rise in ASR was no “feedback” to “greenhouse warming”, Nate. That’s just wishful thinking on your part. The positive ToA imbalance that we see still today opened up 29 years ago. Before that there were 12 years of no imbalance and no overall warming. And the rise in ASR is behind the ENTIRE imbalance and more. The OLR has only worked to counter it, by increasing also, in step with the rise in temps, resulting from the increased solar input.
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/
This is what the DATA is telling us, Nate. You’re just making up your own storyline to suit your preferred world view …
I think you might well be right Kristian, that ASR is doing the heavy lifting by now. That means a were a few years ahead of the climate models.
Whatever the cause, can we agree that it is anthropogenic?
How plausible is it for this temperature spike to coincide with industrialization, when the rate is unprecedented in millions of years (or thousands if you prefer).
Svante says, May 20, 2018 at 5:45 AM:
Only, the models are clearly not describing what’s actually going on in the real Earth system. They’re following their own storyline, turning everything that happens completely on its head:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/ (Part II.)
No. ~85% of the OLR flux at the ToA is emitted by the troposphere, so you need to compare it to T_tropo, not T_s.
That depends. What “plateaus of a decade or two” are you referring to?
Again, you’re avoiding the issue, Svante.
The cause of ‘global warming’? It is 100% natural and 0% anthropogenic. An estimate based on the relevant data from the real Earth system.
That’s BS, and you know it. We have no way of knowing. We THINK we know, out of confirmation bias. But what kind of ‘data’ do we have, really, to base such claims on …?
Look at the data from the last 30-40 years. It unequivocally shows us ALL is natural during that time. So how plausible is it for it to be UNnatural all the way UP TO that most recent period, during times when 1) our industrial output was way less, and 2) we simply haven’t got the data to inform us?
It is a “god-of-the-gaps” argument, Svante, and nothing else. Because you WANT it to be so …
Open your eyes.
Kristian says,
An enhanced GHE means an increased surface/TOA temp difference, right?
Not TLT/TOA.
Here:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
OK, so we disagree on the temperature record. I think it’s pretty good. The Holocene peaked about 2C above the LIA, and now we are shooting past that in a very short time. Based on dozens of different proxies from around the world.
I say Bill Ruddiman is right, the anthropogenic enhanced GHE started thousands of years ago.
You say increased ASR, but you haven’t stated the root cause have you?
If it is natural we should not aggravate it, we should get it under control, for example by reducing the GHE.
Why? Because it is unsuitable for current ecosystems and us.
Svante,
You are a true and devout believer, I’ll give you that. In the face of real-world observational evidence, you choose faith, and seek refuge in perceived authority.
Dr. Leon Festinger probably described your type best:
Svante says, May 20, 2018 at 2:27 PM:
Same thing:
http://www.climatetheory.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/greenhouse-effect-held-soden-2000.png
Ah, you mean the 1977-1988 OHC plateau?
The only reason I use that particular plateau in my argumentation is to show how the subsequent opening of the positive ToA imbalance in 1988/89 due to an increase in ASR cannot be explained as a mere “feedback to prior greenhouse warming”, as the popular and convenient warmist talking point goes.
Kristian says:
Those parallel lines occur after equilibrium. You were looking for a perturbation, a TOA/surface trend difference. That will be harder when you are way up the lapse rate curve, at TLT.
Svante says, May 20, 2018 at 11:43 PM:
“Those parallel lines occur after equilibrium.”
Yes. After a hypothetical instantaneous doubling of atmospheric CO2. That doesn’t happen in the real world. The increase in incremental, and so the ‘equilibrium’ is supposed to be constantly tracking the increase in “forcing”, by gradually warming the system.
But the thing is, the lapse rate is assumed constant during the rise in Z_e, and so ΔT_s = ΔT_tropo, evident from the diagram.
And since the OLR (=> T_e) is much more directly related to tropospheric temps (like TLT), being, after all, to within ~15%, a mere radiative effect of them, basically the thermal emission flux OF the troposphere, then it’s much more prudent and relevant to compare the T_e (OLR) to T_tropo (TLT) than to T_s.
Because THAT is by far the easiest and most straightforward way to detect a rise in Earth’s Z_e: T_tropo (TLT) would increase gradually and systematically over time (the slanted line would move slowly to the right), while T_e (=> OLR) wouldn’t.
“You were looking for a perturbation, a TOA/surface trend difference. That will be harder when you are way up the lapse rate curve, at TLT.”
No. We’re looking at ANOMALIES, Svante. Not absolute values. This is basic stuff.
A recent paper that touches upon this matter – Dessler et al., 2018:
https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/18/5147/2018/acp-18-5147-2018.pdf
and,
And in conclusion:
Thank you Kristian.
Two remaining points while I digest the previous.
You say increased ASR and natural causes, but what is the root cause in?
If it is natural we should not aggravate it, we should get it under control, for example by reducing the GHE. So the remedy is the same?
Why? Because it is unsuitable for current ecosystems and us.
svante…”In fact, we can rule out every other scientific theory except the GHG theory….”
Mueller is no different than any other climate alarmist…uninformed, a propagandist, and having a need to appeal to authority.
Wrong.
He did it all again precisely because he did not trust the authorities in the area.
Gordon Robertson says:
Mueller is no different than any other climate alarmistuninformed, a propagandist, and having a need to appeal to authority.
This is just your idiotic, sad, comical attempt to dismiss his science without actually looking at it.
Gordon lacks the curiosity that anyone needs to learn science. He doesn’t have the slightest interest in science. Which is sad, because science is endlessly fascinating.
Re Gordon Robertson’s response to David Appell’s “So? The numbers are per wave number. What did you expect?”
Gordon wrote an essay trying to explain this away by looking at the horizontal axis, but didn’t do what most people do when considering vertical units – LOOK AT THE SCALE ON THE VERTICAL AXIS.
It is in milliwatts PER WAVENUMBER PER STERADIAN.
It’s just unbelievable that someone who claims to be educated in science would not look there first.
B,
Just as unbelievable as anybody thinking that the undistinguished mathematician Gavin Schmidt is a renowned climate scientist.
Or Michael Mann believing he was awarded a Nobel Prize.
Or Lord Kelvin believing that the Earth could be no more than 20 milliion years old.
Or climatological pseudoscientists believing that a testable GHE hypothesis is irrelevant to the scientific method.
Keep believing.
Cheers.
Mike,, I responded to your GHE challenge here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/uah-global-temperature-update-for-april-2018-0-21-deg-c/#comment-300239
How do you explain this simple observation?
Dan,
Im not sure what part of your comment relates to any supposed GHE challenge.
I have asked on many occasions if anybody could provide a testable GHE hypothesis, with no useful response to date.
However, if you are referring to this –
“Possibly the simplest example of what produces GHE is the common observation that cloudless nights cool faster and farther in the desert where absolute water vapor content is lower than they do where it is humid.
This is just a simple acknowledgement that radiative energy transfer is greater when there is less obstruction to the radiation.
Your example also applies when the radiation is in the other direction. The hottest surface temperatures on Earth due to the unconcentrated rays of the Sun occur in the same places.
I am not sure why this fact is supposed to demonstrate the GHE. As the GHE cannot be described in any way which would allow examination of the claim, it is impossible to ascribe any observation to the operation of an effect which cannot be described.
As I have pointed out more than once, the claim that increasing the amount of supposed GHGs into the atmosphere makes thermometers on the surface hotter seems ridiculous on the face of it. The fact that nobody has ever managed to raise the temperature of a thermometer by reducing the amount of radiation impinging upon it, supports my view.
To date, still no description of the GHE, and therefore no testable GHE hypothesis.
Cheers.
MF wrote:
There’s tons of work describing the GHE and testing of the theory. Here’s just one researcher’s publications:
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/about/publications.php
The theoretical foundation of the GHE goes back decades:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/RG016i004p00465
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/210/4465/6
Mike,
DP “cloudless nights cool faster and farther in the desert where absolute water vapor content is lower than they do where it is humid.
MF “The hottest surface temperatures on Earth due to the unconcentrated rays of the Sun occur in the same places.”
As I already showed and you could not dispute, while deserts are hottest, they contain way less heat than humid tropical places.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302769
So your point is moot.
ES,
It is completely pointless linking to irrelevant publications. You cannot actually copy and paste a useful description of the GHE so you attempt distraction by obfuscation.
It doesn’t work. Still no full description of the GHE, is there? At least, not one that you can actually produce.
Therefore, you cannot provide a testable GHE hypothesis. Copious links which dont provide a testable GHE hypothesis are quite pointless and irrelevant, wouldnt you say?
Try to copy and paste a copy of the description of the GHE (in normal scientific terms), and you will find you are unable to do so. Claiming it exists is a silly as claiming that fairies exist.
Cheers.
N,
Completely irrelevant. Are you disagreeing with something I said? It doesnt seem so, so I am unable to see the relevance of your response – unless you are just having a whinge for the sake of it.
Heat content has precisely nothing to do with temperature, despite what pseudoscientist of the climatological variety might like to imply.
All the considerable heat in the vast Antarctic ice sheets will not serve to raise the temperature of liquid water one iota. As a matter of fact, I can state with some assurance that none of the ice comprising said ice sheet is above the freezing point of water.
So, a vast amount of heat, no effect on temperature at all.
You are talking nonsense, attempting a semantic wriggle to extricate yourself from previous nonsense.
Maybe you could attempt to dispute something I said, and back your points with an actual fact or two. Give it a shot, if you feel particularly masochistic.
Cheers.
Mike,
“Maybe you could attempt to dispute something I said” with a fact.
Indeed you have not done this.
Something I said was that air in new orleans in july contains more heat than air in phoenix in july. I gave you facts, numbers. You did not dispute these.
Your brilliant response is that “heat content has precisely nothing to do with temperature”.
Ok Mike, lets be explicit. An air conditioner will have to work harder in New Orleans than in Phoenix, to condition the air in a home in July, because more heat will need to be removed from air with higher heat content.
Once again, you are full of crap.
MF wrote:
Funny guy. You have made no complaint that I can recall when Gordo posted links to early research from the 19th century, then berate me for posting a link to modern scientific efforts. How about these references on experimental detection of the GHE?
Madden, R.A.; V. Ramanathan (1980). “Detecting Climate Change due to Increasing Carbon Dioxide”. Science. 209 (4458): 736768.
Raval, A.; V. Ramanathan (1989). “Observational determination of the greenhouse effect”. Nature. 342 (6251): 758761.
The tests for the GHE have been widely reported, but you refuse to accept them, since they involve mathematical models. Math models are used because there isn’t another planet Earth available for direct testing. Smaller pieces of the puzzle can be measured, such as the up welling and down welling IR EM, but you won’t accept those results either. And, it turns out that the temperature profile of the atmosphere can’t be explained without including the GHE.
I suppose that’s to be expected from a non-scientist.
“It is in milliwatts PER WAVENUMBER PER STERADIAN.”
Which chart? This one being discussed is NOT luminous intensity W/sr vertically:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Ball4,
Ah, yes. More brightly coloured but strangely irrelevant graphics.
Roses are red, violets are blue,
But there are not many more foolish than you.
Just as relevant to the lack of a testable GHE hypothesis, wouldnt you say?
Cheers.
That was not the chart being talked about.
Which chart then?
bond…”LOOK AT THE SCALE ON THE VERTICAL AXIS.
It is in milliwatts PER WAVENUMBER PER STERADIAN.
Its just unbelievable that someone who claims to be educated in science would not look there first.”
*************
That’s exactly what my argument was based on that with a peak of 0.15 watts there is no way IR radiation blocking by CO2 at TOA could be compered to the overall flux measured in 100s of watts/m^2.
It was not me arguing about the wavenumbers, it was David Appell claiming the vertical axis was in mW because the horizontal axis was in wavenumbers. I was explaining wavenumbers and how that could not be the case.
The thing that is amazing is your obtuseness in failing to recognize that yourself. You alarmists talk in terms of 0.04% CO2 as if it could warm or block anything.
Gordon Robertson says:
You alarmists talk in terms of 0.04% CO2 as if it could warm or block anything.
You keep saying that, while providing no evidence, data or calculation that it’s true.
I mean, it’s clear you don’t have any such argument. All you think is that this (0.04%) is small, so that (CO2’s forcing) must be small.
No logic, no thinking, no science, no analysis, no data, no calculation, no measurement, no anything.
Nothing. You aren’t even curious about it. That’s the real shame.
I like to think of it as a life-giving blanket, densest and warmest near the surface, While I see with Dr Spencer is coming from, a greenhouse ( My grandfather owned one) if left unventilated would have the warmest air near the top of the greenhouse. This is different from the earth which has mentioned above has increased density and temperature in the lowest levels and hence different considerations, Still the point is well taken, no matter what you want to call it, it works, and without it , there is no life
JB,
Sunshade during the day.
Blanket at night.
Not too hot, not too cold – you could say humans developed to take advantage of the conditions.
There is no scientific description of the GHE. Therefore, no testable GHE hypothesis. Just belief. I dont generally donate on the basis of someones belief system, but maybe I’m in the minority.
People are free to waste their time, effort, and money, however they wish. Or believe in whatever pseudoscientific stuff they wish.
Cheers.
joe…”I like to think of it as a life-giving blanket, densest and warmest near the surface…”
You are talking about the real atmosphere which is comprised 99% of nitrogen and oxygen. What you feel surrounding you is nitrogen and oxygen, and occasionally, on a muggy night, some water vapour.
Another Joe, Joe Postma, claimed we build greenhouses to do what they atmosphere cannot do.
Evidence for the greenhouse effect:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Warming? What warming?
“Today reached 80-degrees in Indianapolis for the 8th straight day!
It is the WARMEST May in 122 years to date and the first time since 1922 that a May opens with 16 straight days above normal! With already ten 80-degree days! We’ve reached the mid-way point of May and it is on a record pace! There looks to be no let-up to the warm May pattern and evidence grows for potentially the WARMEST May ever. Above normal temperateness are looking likely to end month.
Today reached 80-degrees in Indianapolis for the 8th straight day!
It is the WARMEST May in 122 years to date and the first time since 1922 that a May opens with 16 straight days above normal! With already ten 80-degree days!”
http://fox59.com/2018/05/16/historic-warmth-to-continue-more-80-degree-days-and-rain-is-lacking/
OMG!!! We’re all gonna’ die!!!
So, what happened 122 years ago and in 1922?
Yes, all of us are going to die. You just realized that??
Seriously, though, this is just another tactic deniers use to dismiss AGW without (they think) looking at the evidence. There is a huge amount of room between “not a problem” and “we’re all gonna die.” You ignore all of it.
Yes, yes. When it’s colder, it’s weather, when it’s hotter, it’s climate. We all know the drill.
It’s not as cold as it used to be. That’s also a sign of warming.
True, if tautological. But, that doesn’t help us in regard to attribution.
It’s important news that there is less cold than there used to be, and more hottest ever records being set than coldest ever.
Because the climate system is warming.
Ignoratio elenchi.
Spouting Latin cliches is another way you avoid presenting any data and evidence.
No, it is the way I show you are cheating, and eschewing the scientific method.
M,
What is your point? Are you implying in some bizarre roundabout way that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer will make the thermometer hotter?
You point out that your reference location was hotter 122 years ago. That means today is cooler than then!
Are you using the pseudoscientific climatological method of redefining cooler to mean hotter?
Weather is variable. Temperatures are variable. The atmosphere is chaotic. Prediction of future atmospheric states is impossible. A naive persistence forecast assumption is as good as (and usually better than) numerical methods. As is also the case with things like the stock market.
Press on. Keep believing. With any luck, it will help to keep you from interfering in things where you could do some real damage, by attempting to predict the future.
Cheers.
Go team alarmist!
myki…”Go team alarmist!”
Yes…go!!! Go far away, to another planet.
What do you call a climate alarmist at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.
Mike Flynn
“increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer will make the thermometer hotter?”
No, of course not. You are missing one component.
You need a surface behind the thermometer. This surface absorbs sunlight and radiates IR into the CO2. Energy reradiated by the CO2 then warms the thermometer.
But when you do that, it does not make the thermometer hotter.
If it is at night, it can make thermometer hotter, but during day, it doesn’t.
Roughly speaking if you can get temperatures higher than you can get from the sun, you have a way to make energy which can be used by humans.
And you can magnify sunlight to make it hotter and magnified sunlight is used to generate energy that humans can use (though it not economical sound way to generate energy for humans, compared to cheaper ways to make energy).
Gbaikie
First lets describe our systems.
Mike Flynn’s control, his simplest system is a sun and a thermometer. There is no atmosphere or solid objects around the thermometer to affect the energy flow.
The thermometer absorbs energy from the sun. It’s temperature stabilises at whatever value causes it to radiate energy as IR at the same rate it absorbs energy from sunlight.
Add CO2 (in a transparant container?) between the sun and the thermometer. The sunlight passes through the container unhindered and only a negligible amount of IR from the thermometer interacts with the thermometer.
The thermometer temerature remains the same as the control.
Mow we go beyond Mike’s system by mounting the thermometer on a plate.
Without CO2, the plate and thermometer reach an equilibrioum temperature when the energy from the sun is balanced by IR radiating in all directions from the surface, just as in the original control.
Add the container of CO2. The same amount of sunlight reaches the plate and it warms to the original temperature and reradiates the same amount of IR.
BUT!
Some of the IR is absorbed by the CO2 and reradiated in all directions. A proportion of that reradiated energy hits the plate. Because the plate now absorbes the sunlight plus a bit of extra energy reradiated by the CO2, the plate increases in temperature. After a while the plate stabilises at a higher temperature at which it reradiates a bit more energy.
Before anyone asks, most of the radiated and reradiated energy disperses into space. You do not get a runaway temperature rise.
With magic, suppose the State of Arizona, had a vacuum like Mars. So passing the borders of Arizona, somehow, you have atmosphere like Mars.
So anything not in pressure suit dies, and water boils if warmer than about 5 C. And in the State of Arizona, a thermometer in the Sun is the hottest, compared to anywhere on
Earth.
So the ground would heat up to about 120 C, as compared to the non magical Arizona heating up to about 70 C.
The non magical Arizona is a good place compared other place on Earth, to harvest solar energy, the magical Arizona would a lot better place to harvest solar energy.
Even so, the magical Arizona might not allow solar energy to be viable source of Energy. But certainly better than anywhere else. The mars like vacuum might be more of economic resource than the more intense sunlight, and combination more sunlight and less atmospheric pressure could make it viable place to harvest sunlight for energy production.
Now biggest problem of solar power on Earth surface, is you only get 6 hours of peak solar hours, in magical Arizona you get 12 hours of peak solar hours. That alone more than doubled
value of solar power. And that you get more sunlight in any 12 hours that get in any hour of 6 hours peak hours elsewhere is also a bonus.
Another value is you might use sunlight to power a steam engine which is more energy efficient than PV solar panels.
Or magical Arizona would be very promising in terms of solar energy, and magical Arizona could get a lot people wanted to live there.
–Gbaikie
First lets describe our systems.
Mike Flynns control, his simplest system is a sun and a thermometer. There is no atmosphere or solid objects around the thermometer to affect the energy flow.–
Mike is not spacenut, so I doubt he is imagining being in
space. So, he is firmly planted on a surface. So include a dirt or sandy ground.
–The thermometer absorbs energy from the sun. Its temperature stabilises at whatever value causes it to radiate energy as IR at the same rate it absorbs energy from sunlight.–
And the dirt or sandy ground is absorbing sunlight.
–Add CO2 (in a transparent container?) between the sun and the thermometer. The sunlight passes through the container unhindered and only a negligible amount of IR from the thermometer interacts with the thermometer.
The thermometer temerature remains the same as the control.
Now we go beyond Mikes system by mounting the thermometer on a plate.–
I don’t think Mike said anything about plate or lack of plate.
A thermometer might be small, but regardless of size it absorbing the same intensity of sunlight. So a square meter absorbs about 1000 watts of sunlight, there being 100 x 100 square cm (10,000 square cm in a square meter) so each square cm gets .1 watts but each square cm is heated the same temperature as a square meter.
…
–BUT!
Some of the IR is absorbed by the CO2 and reradiated in all directions. A proportion of that reradiated energy hits the plate. Because the plate now absorbes the sunlight plus a bit of extra energy reradiated by the CO2, the plate increases in temperature. After a while the plate stabilises at a higher temperature at which it reradiates a bit more energy.–
Roughly, I think you missing that the Sun is the best source, and is “hottest”
best source,
meant: heat source,
Gbaikie
All the energy comes from the sun, but some takes the long way round.
Most of the energy warming the plate is shortwave coming from the sun.
The extra increment of energy that raises the temperature of the plate further is IR radiated from the plate, absorbed by the CO2, reradiated by the CO2 and reabsorbed by the plate.
Without the CO2 that energy would otherwise have dispersed into space.
gbaikie,
It is interesting to see the GHE supporters changing the narrative in a reflexive effort to justify their pseudoscience.
Unfortunately, they fail.
This nonsense with plates and all the rest, depends on the bizarre notion that in some mystical fashion a hotter body must absorb radiation from a colder, and the temperature of the hotter must rise a result.
This would have a strange side effect. The total energy must remain the same, and therefore the colder body, having transferred some of its energy to the hotter, would get ever colder, as the hotter became ever hotter. Completely nonsensical, but GHE proponents are oblivious to physics and logic.
If I point out that a billion watts of radiation from ice cannot be used to increase the temperature of the minutest amount of liquid water, any number of evasions spring into existence. Exactly the same mechanism prevents a billion watts of radiation from a body at 288 K from producing the slightest increase in temperature in a body at 288.000001 K, but the GHE enthusiasts obviously refuse to accept this basic fact, demanding to know where the radiation “goes”, or what “happens” to it.
It goes where it goes, and what happens to it happens. They have no clue whatever.
They cannot accept that the reason no useful definition of the GHE exists, is because it would have to contravene some basic physical laws, and require the inclusion of mutually exclusive properties. You have seen some of the sillier attempts, even when the intentions are no doubt well meant.
Cheers.
entropic…”Mow we go beyond Mikes system by mounting the thermometer on a plate”.
Whatever you are describing has laws governing it, one being the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Your system implies that any IR from any source, no matter its temperature, is absorbed by any other target, no matter its temperature.
The 2nd law, which governs HEAT TRANSFER, claims that heat can NEVER be transferred from a cooler surface to a warmer surface by its own means. It’s the very reason in Rabbett’s thought-experiment that the green plate cannot warm the blue plate.
gbaikie…”Roughly speaking if you can get temperatures higher than you can get from the sun, you have a way to make energy which can be used by humans”.
I saw solar EM focused by a lens which got so hot it melted steel. I imagine the limitation there is the surface area required by the lens compared to the pinpoint of focussed EM after the lens.
Comes back to the perpetual motion issue in that you can’t get something for nothing. If only the AGW crowd understood that.
Gordon Roberson
“Your system implies that any IR from any source, no matter its temperature, is absorbed by any other target, no matter its temperature.”
Yes!
This is what the physicists have been trying to tell you.
An individual photon is emitted from a source A and absorbed by a sink B. This is independant of the temperature of the source or the sink.
Many photons are exchanged in both directions between A and B. The 2nd Law applies to the total energy carried by all the photons. The net energy flow will always be from the warmer to the cooler. If A is warmer the net energy flow will be from A to B. If B is warmer the net flow will be from B to A.
DP says
For example, CO2 absorbs/emits terrestrial-emission-wavelength-range radiation only at 15 microns (with spreading of a micron or so as measured and also as calculated using QM). The effect of higher temperature is to increase the rate at which photons are emitted (proportional to the forth power of absolute temperature) at the characteristic wavelength.
It is definitely wrong that emission at a specific frequency is proportional to the fourth power of absolute temperature. That’s only true for total emission integrated over all frequencies and in case of a blackbody spectrum. Emission at 667 cm^-1 of CO2 is none of this.
At a given frequency f or wavelength the emission or radiance is in fact proportional to Planck’s function B ( f, T) and this varies never like T^4 at any frequency. It is for instance merely proportional to T at low frequencies, an example being the O2 microwaves used by Spencer in his satellite temperature measurements.
But yes a higher temperature of an IR-active gas (or any material) always increases the intensity or radiance of radiation emitted at any characteristic wavelength because Planck’s function is an ever increasing function of T at any frequency. This is even as true as is the reverse, namely an increase in thermal radiance at a specific wavelength of a gas (or any material) implies an increase in their temperature.
It’s funny that you acknowledge now such a basic piece of physics that you stubbornly rejected when kindly told about it by gammacrux a few months ago, in this blog.
And this piece of physics in turn implies the GHE since the observed decrease in IR-active gas notches of emission in TOA spectrum implies enhanced emission elsewhere in that spectrum, in particular in atmospheric window where it comes from surface and that in turn implies a warmer temperature of the surface.
So whether you like it or not this is nothing but the proof of CO2’s, O3’s or H2O’s GHE , no way out for the laughable buffoons.
IT,
Your analysis of the details of IR radiation belies your myopic view of the big picture.
“And this piece of physics in turn implies the GHE since the observed decrease in IR-active gas notches of emission in TOA spectrum implies enhanced emission elsewhere in that spectrum, in particular in atmospheric window where it comes from surface and that in turn implies a warmer temperature of the surface.”
Logically that makes sense, but you don’t have any data to back it up. Implication is a philosophical term, not a scientific one.
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004). http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1
“Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present,” Griggs, J. A., & Harries, J. E., Proceedings of SPIE, (2004) 5543, 164 – 174. DOI: 10.1117/12.556803
https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/3006745/paper.pdf
David,
Asked and answered already.
If you want to make a point, please say it in your own words and use the citation as a reference for those who are not already familiar with the evidence. Your incessant citing papers in lieu of a written respond is pedantic, trite, tedious, etc.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Asked and answered already.
Where?
—
Is there some reason you’re unable to read (at least) the abstract of a paper presenting science?
Tell me the scientific point the paper is making. If you do and it motivates me, I will at least read the abstract.
If you can’t be bothered to read at least the title and abstract, you aren’t interested in the science and aren’t interested in the evidence you keep claiming to want.
I’ll be the judge of that.
I don’t sense in you a desire to learn, only a desire to convince others you are right. The more I learn, the more I think you are wrong.
Implication is a philosophical term, not a scientific one.
Nonsense.
For the info of the laughable buffoons and ignoramuses “implication” is a technical term of logic or mathematics and here it’s about what’s “implied” by measured data.
And the “what” is the GHE.
No way out for the idiots. Twisting themselves into pretzels won’t help.
Hilarious.
Hasty generalization.
idiot…”implication is a technical term of logic or mathematics and here its about whats implied by measured data”.
It’s still a philosophical opinion till proved…or disproved.
Idi,, Thanks for pointing out that (proportional to the forth power of absolute temperature) is not true for each wavelength. That will teach me to not assume something that is so easy to check. Just delete the bracketed phrase. Now I would like to see what Hitran says about WV vs CO2 emission at 270 K instead of the default 296 K used for the freebe plots.
Sure the surface gets warmer (UAH trend 0.013/yr) so part of the absorbed energy shows up in the atmospheric window but a look at TOA emission, Fig 1 in http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com , shows that the fraction going out the window is about half.
I see nothing that changes my assessment that WV change is one of the primary contributors to climate change.
DP
Hitran’s absorp-tivities calculations don’t depend much on temperature.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/info/CalculatingSpectra.pdf
Fig.2, while quite correct, is nevertheless completely misleading. It shows absorp-tivities scaled by atmospheric abundance in lower atmosphere at surface. Of course this wipe out CO2 since there is roughly 10 to 100 times less CO2 than WV in air at 0 altitude.
This does by no mean imply that CO2 is also wiped out as to his importance as a GHG when compared to WV !
One reason is that it is the whole atmospheric pathway that counts, not just surface layers, and at higher altitudes (10 km) absorp-tivities of CO2 and WV become quite comparable.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/plots/guest1202552567.pdf
Actually it is rather atmospheric path calculations that may assess the relative importance of CO2 and WV contributions to atmospheric GHE.
An other reason is that CO2 is a well mixed gas that absorbs at 15 micrometers near maximum of surface emission spectrum while WV acts rather in the wings of that spectrum as can be seen in fig.1.
So the CO2 contribution is eventually not negligible at all and, yes, while lower than WV, ends up comparable to it.
In fact it is not Fig.2 that provides information about relative importance of various GHG’s but merely fig.1. The “size” ( that is the area= depth x width) of the respective notches in TOA spectrum directly reflects the respective contribution to GHE. Note that the narrow and deep CO2 notch area is definitely not negligible at all with respect the broad and shallow WV notches.
Relative importance of WV and CO2 have been fairly well assessed since more than 40 years for instance in Ramanthan’s 1978 paper:
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr15.pdf
See table 6 therein
A popularized summary in
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/02/10/co2–an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-five/
“The size ( that is the area= depth x width) of the respective notches in TOA spectrum directly reflects the respective contribution to GHE.”
No it doesn’t and the fact that you think notches directly contribute to GHE is evidence that you aren’t grasping the concept of thermalization affecting “the whole atmospheric pathway” which includes evaporation and convection moving most of the energy from the surface to the TOA.
Dan, what say you?
Amazing !
Chic bowdrie is not just a plain idiot, he even belongs to that bunch of idiotic suckers who funnily delude themselves and feign to believe they had to teach scientists about latent heat and convection transporting heat upwards.
Again he is not even capable to read the title of article linked to above:
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr15.pdf
Too tiresome. Too painful to learn real science
More fun to spew nonsense in Spencer’s blog;
Hilarious!
Dan, what say you?
As far as I know he at least acknowledges WV GHE.
It happens that deniers funnily evolve and some of these morons even create right now a it is plausible that humans contribute to climate change in a major way that low end IPCC climate sensitivity estimates are possible. department.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/19/green-confusion-trump-nasa-administrator-thinks-humans-contribute-to-climate-change/
Hilarious!
The Ramanathan and Coakley (1978) paper explains how IR-active gases at various altitudes affect the warming and cooling of the atmosphere. I see where a model requiring a change in a spectrum notch to change the model output could result in a net change in temperature attributed to the notch. I don’t see where the model was validated confirming that is what happens in real life.
In the concluding remarks section of the article, you will find the following admissions:
“The important limitation of the model is that the model results are mostly of academic interest, since the model does not give any information about regional and latitudinal temperature changes. Furthermore, many of the model parameters (cloud amounts, surface albedo, relative humidity, and critical lapse rate, to name a few) are prescribed on the basis of present-day conditions which may not apply for large departures from present conditions.”
But keep calling me names and showing that your faith in the unknown is strong. May the forcings be with you.
CB
Stop posting utter idiocy here and elsewhere and nobody will feel the need to call you names.
Did you ever think about it and did it never come to your mind that because of your ignorance and stubborn reluctance to learn any real science you talk about things you don’t know anything about and so the blabber you as well as a bunch of other morons post here is is nothing but a permanent insult to generations of scientists and to science itself.
As long as people arrogantly insult scientists and science I’ll feel free call them names
I’m not sure what you are appealing to, but it isn’t science. Pointing out inconsistencies in a scientific argument is not idiocy or blabber and should not be considered an insult. I’m sorry you feel that way.
I’ve challenged your interpretation of the notches in spectra and you haven’t been able to respond with a coherent rebuttal.
Ive challenged your interpretation of the notches in spectra and you havent been able to respond with a coherent rebuttal.
Nope.
Just amusing wishful thinking and physics illiteracy.
No physicist disputes the GHE and what I explained was clear enough, isn’t and cannot be challenged.
Hilarious.
Assertions you can’t back up. Appeals to authority. What else. Are you trying to compensate for something?
Idi,, Rather than being misleading, Fig 2 is a foundation of the concept. At near surface level, the greater total integral of intensity of WV overwhelmingly dominates emission from the atmosphere. That means, near ground level, the fraction of warming from added CO2 is only according to the fraction that it increases the total integral of both WV and CO2 intensities.
The atmosphere experiences a mix of thermalization, reverse-thermalization (causing emission from ghg) and, especially in the troposphere, convection. Fig 2 shows that WV dominates at low altitude partly because of all the WV and partly because the lower energy photons from WV are favored. At higher altitudes as WV content declines, emission from CO2 becomes significant and also, path lengths get longer so upwelling radiation starts to get all the way to TOA. But what goes on well above the surface (where its colder) has no significant effect on the temperature of the surface.
This hypothesis is easily verified (or refuted) by actually measuring upwelling radiation vs wavenumber at an altitude of 0.5 km or so. I have seen no analysis that takes thermalization into account so actual measurement is mandatory. The upwelling at 600-740 wavenumber/cm should be very low.
At near surface level, the greater total integral of intensity of WV overwhelmingly dominates emission from the atmosphere.That means, near ground level, the fraction of warming from added CO2 is only according to the fraction that it increases the total integral of both WV and CO2 intensities.
You were already told repeatedly once ( gammacrux in this blog and comments to your “blog articles”) that this (among other assertions of yours) is utter nonsense
Look it up at last and learn some more atmospheric physics.
Briefly, conservation of radiative energy (constant area under IR radiance spectrum) of course only applies at TOA where it is the sole form of energy being exchanged (with and flowing to outer space).
It definitely does not apply at all at lower levels (or at surface) where energy is transported upwards and exchanged between successive tropospheric layers by convection and latent heat too, not just radiation.
So the respective importance of CO2 and WV can only be assessed by reasoning on TOA spectra as I did upthread and that shows clearly that CO2 and WP contribute about 25% and 60% respectively to the total atmospheric GHE.
By the way you were also told too that there exists nothing like “reverse thermalization” in physics, what you talk about is just ordinary thermalization, an ubiquitous phenomenon in physics and statistical mechanics. It transfers energy from IR excited WV to the other molecules including CO2 and so excites every now and then also its vibration modes and makes it emit IR and it does of course also simultaneously exactly reverse, namely it tranfers energy from IR excited CO2 to other molecules including WV and so excites every now and then also its vibration modes and makes it emit IR.
Thermalization transfers energy among molecules and so ensures a thing called “local thermodynamic equilibrium”, for instance it ensures that the velocities of the molecules are statistically distributed according to Maxwell-Boltzmann equilibrium laws.
This false reasoning combined with basic misconceptions invalidate definitively everything you blather about “CO2 contribution being negligible”.
Idi,, Apparently you overlooked this part ,, emission from the atmosphere.,, Did I need to say EMR emission from ghg in the atmosphere for you to grasp that I was only talking about energy flow associated with EMR and was excluding the energy flows associated with convection and latent heat? Perhaps with that clarification you might see more clearly that what I said is depicted by what Hitran calculated as shown in Figure 2. Fig 2 shows the relative importance of WV and CO2 in radiating in the low-altitude atmosphere.
The dominance of WV at low altitude declines rapidly with increasing altitude (WV declines with altitude) until about 10 km. Above that, decline is much slower and continued thermalization/emission allows participation by CO2 to become significant. The ratio of energy transfer between CO2 and WV varies tremendously at high latitudes (nearly all via CO2 at the poles) but typically, as shown in Fig 1 at TOA about 20% of the total EMR from WV and CO2 combined is from CO2. Understanding this it becomes clear that ,,respective importance of CO2 and WV can only be assessed by reasoning on TOA spectra,, is not supported.
Interesting that you state that there is no such thing as ,,reverse thermalization,, and then go on to say that the jostling molecules, in accordance with the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, ,, excites every now and then also its vibration modes and makes it emit IR,, which is what I call ,,reverse-thermalization,, for lack of a better name. If you had gotten past your misguided arrogance and looked at my stuff, you might have picked that up.
By the way, I fail to see any gain in calling yourself an idiot and it is unclear what you might be tracking.
Did I need to say EMR emission from ghg in the atmosphere for you to grasp that I was only talking about energy flow associated with EMR and was excluding the energy flows associated with convection and latent heat?
As I told you, one cannot do that because EMR energy flow is not conserved in lower troposphere. The area under upwelling IR emission spectrum from surface as well as downwelling IR emission spectrum from atmosphere at surface is about 390 W/m^2 and 350 W/m2 respectively and that is much larger than the area of TOA IR spectrum and effective total IR emission to space of about 240 W/m^2.
Fig 2 shows the relative importance of WV and CO2 in radiating in the low-altitude atmosphere.
Nope.
What fig.2 shows is just the relative importance of WV and CO2 in radiation from of one cm or unit length of air at 0 altitude. Nothing more, nothing less.
Look at the units of vertical scale in Hitran calculations, uptread I even kindly linked you to the relevant Hitran explanations. In vain.
So, for instance, the IR emission in atmosphere observed near surface is not small at all in CO2 band as compared to WV bands since it is respectively the result of an integration over respective attenuation lengths and atmosphere is optically thick ( many attenuation lengths in thickness) in both CO2 and WV bands. Attenuation length is the length of optical path in gas needed to either absorb ‘essentially) all impinging radiation at relevant wavelength or to emit it at (essentially) saturation (max possible emission) from that length gas. (A larger length of gas adds essentially nothing since radiation from further gas is absorbed before it makes its way trough the column.of gas.)
So what does fig.2 reflects is simply that the attenuation length (proportional to partial pressures) In CO2 band is 10 to 100 times smaller than in WV bands in lower atmosphere. For instance it is 1 cm in center of WV band and 1 m in center of CO2 band. So to calculate the respective effective emission in atmosphere one has to integrate or sum emission over 1cm in WV bands and 100 cm in CO2 so that you end up with quite comparable IR emission of CO2 and WV in lower atmosphere in spite of the much lower partial pressure of CO2. This is simply the result of atmosphere being optically thick.
(So it is only in an optically thin atmosphere that your fig.2 would indeed reflect the relative contributions of CO2 and WV to IR emission.)
Put in an other way, IR emission is actually comparable for CO2 and WV merely because at any point in lower atmosphere one receives or sees the total IR emission of 1 m of air in center of CO2 band and only 1 cm of air in the center of WV bands. Essentially the same number CO2 and WV molecules contribute thus to the actual emission in both cases.
By the way, an elementary introduction to GHE and optical thickness is here;
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3720/GoodyWalker/AtmosCh3sm.pdf
Again this, if needed, once more definitely invalidates your whole reasoning.
Did I need to say EMR emission from ghg in the atmosphere for you to grasp that I was only talking about energy flow associated with EMR and was excluding the energy flows associated with convection and latent heat?
As I told you, one cannot do that because EMR energy flow is not conserved in lower troposphere. The area under upwelling IR emission spectrum from surface as well as downwelling IR emission spectrum from atmosphere at surface is about 390 W/m^2 and 350 W/m2 respectively and that is much larger than the area of TOA IR spectrum and effective total IR emission to space of about 240 W/m^2.
Fig 2 shows the relative importance of WV and CO2 in radiating in the low-altitude atmosphere.
Nope.
What fig.2 shows is just the relative importance of WV and CO2 in radiation from of one cm or unit length of air at 0 altitude. Nothing more, nothing less.
Look at the units of vertical scale in Hitran calculations, uptread I even kindly linked you to the relevant Hitran explanations. In vain.
So, for instance, the IR emission in atmosphere observed near surface is not small at all in CO2 band as compared to WV bands since it is respectively the result of an integration over respective attenuation lengths and atmosphere is optically thick ( many attenuation lengths in thickness) in both CO2 and WV bands. Attenuation length is the length of optical path in gas needed to either absorb essentially) all impinging radiation at relevant wavelength or to emit it at (essentially) saturation (max possible emission) from that length gas. (A larger length of gas adds essentially nothing since radiation from further gas is absorbed before it makes its way trough the column.of gas.)
So what does fig.2 reflects is simply that the attenuation length (proportional to partial pressures) In CO2 band is 10 to 100 times smaller than in WV bands in lower atmosphere. For instance it is 1 cm in center of WV band and 1 m in center of CO2 band. So to calculate the respective effective emission in atmosphere one has to integrate or sum emission over 1cm in WV bands and 100 cm in CO2 so that you end up with quite comparable IR emission of CO2 and WV in lower atmosphere in spite of the much lower partial pressure of CO2. This is simply the result of atmosphere being optically thick.
(So it is only in an optically thin atmosphere that your fig.2 would indeed reflect the relative contributions of CO2 and WV to IR emission.)
Put in an other way, IR emission is actually comparable for CO2 and WV merely because at any point in lower atmosphere one receives or sees the total IR emission of 1 m of air in center of CO2 band and only 1 cm of air in the center of WV bands. Essentially the same number CO2 and WV molecules contribute thus to the actual emission in both cases.
By the way, an elementary introduction to GHE and optical thickness is here;
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3720/GoodyWalker/AtmosCh3sm.pdf
Again this, if needed, once more definitely invalidates your whole reasoning.
which is what I call ,,reverse-thermalization,, for lack of a better name.
Sorry there not a lack of better name, just a lack of your education in physics.
Nothing wrong with this, you’re not a physicist.
But by the way and as to arrogance, just stop pretend to correct the work of physicist, and mine will end immediately.
As I told you this is just ordinary thermalization and is nothing else but the physical origin of thermal EMR emission being statistically distributed proportional to equilibrium Planck’s function B ( f, T) because it ensures local thermodynamic equilibrium. Exactly as it ensures that molecular velocities are distributed according to Maxwell law.
From his last comment, Dan may be done with you. One reason because much of what you write is garbled. Best example:
“So, for instance, the IR emission in atmosphere observed near surface is not small at all in CO2 band as compared to WV bands since it is respectively the result of an integration over respective attenuation lengths and atmosphere is optically thick ( many attenuation lengths in thickness) in both CO2 and WV bands.”
Your argument might be better understood if you compared CO2 and wv attenuation lengths at comparable gas concentrations.
You need to understand what Dan means by thermalization. Your interpretation may make sense to you, but if you don’t get what he means by thermalization, you won’t be able to effectively explain how he is in any way wrong.
with any sufficiently long optical path length, such as for atmospheric CO2 and H20 near the surface, 100% of the initial radiation is absorbed and only a small fraction remains to be detected as in shown in Dan’s fig. 2. That’s what thermalization does. It converts a large amount of radiation into kinetic energy. When convection, evaporation, and condensation move that energy to higher altitudes, the thinner air allows a much greater percentage of energy to be radiated compared to the surface. That’s what reverse thermalization does.
Here is another example:
“As I told you this is just ordinary thermalization and is nothing else but the physical origin of thermal EMR emission being statistically distributed proportional to equilibrium Plancks function B ( f, T) because it ensures local thermodynamic equilibrium.”
When the sun is radiating the surface, the atmosphere is not in local thermodynamic equilibrium. It probably comes closest to LTE just before dawn. That’s when it would be most likely for absorp-tions to equal emissions and temperature to remain constant. But while the sun warms, absorp-tions dwarf emissions and the thermalized air warms.
DP
As a proof of the pertinence of my above point you may do a realistic calculation of relative contributions of WV and CO2 to IR downwelling from atmosphere at surface using this code:
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran.html
Ask for 0 altitude looking up spectrum and
1/ set CO2 at 0 and WV at 1 and get the contribution of WV only without any CO2.
2/ set CO2 at 440 ppm and WV at 0 and get the contribution of CO2 alone in a perfectly dry atmosphere.
Compare and check that CO2 contribution is not negligible around 700cm-1 as compared to WV as I told you.
Now there is considerable spectral overlap between broad WV and narrow CO2 bands as can be seen which explains why the contribution to GHE is eventually only 25 % for CO2 as compared to 60 % for WV.
Clearly you fig.2 is definitively irrelevant to assess relative importance of CO2 and WV in GHE.
Idi,, After examining what Hitran and Modtran do and what you have asserted, it is clear that neither you or Modtran take thermalization into account and further, that your perception of how Hitran works is not valid.
Sure, we, as physicists who worked out the Hitran code, do not know or grasp what Hitran does.
Sure, we, as physicists who worked out the concept of thermalization (and Modtran code), do not take it into account, nor grasp what they mean and do.
And Dan Pangburn, as a physics illiterate layman, knows better and throws around the magic words of “thermalization” as an incantation supposed to magically wipe out the CO2 GHE. Similarly a bunch of other idiotic deniers pick each their own version of denial out of a never-ending list of magic incantations, usually mutually exclusive or inconsistent, supposed to wipe out the CO2 GHE.
So funny.
Mike Flynn,
This has nothing to do with defending any GHE. I just want to make sure we are on the same page. You say
“If someone claims that increasing the amount of insulation between a heat source and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter, then the logical conclusion might be that the thermometer would be at its hottest when the insulation was perfect, allowing no energy at all through.”
Assume a heat source supplying a constant amount of energy to one side of a plane sheet of uniform heat conductivity throughout. Temperatures are T1 at the surface of the source and 0K at the cold surface. If the thermometer is somewhere in the plane sheet and the thickness of the plane sheet is increased, the thermometer will show a rise in temperature proportional to the rise in T1 correct?
Also the temperature would increase if the heat conductivity of the material decreased as it approached perfect insulation. No?
Chic
I think I disagree with your proposition, but your analogy/example is unclear.
Let me say why. I assume you are referring to a heat source, a thermometer and some intervening material, of uniform heat conductivity throughout.
I also assume you are talking about the temperature of the thermometer.
If this is the case, then increasing the temperature of T1 may result in a hotter thermometer, a colder thermometer, or no change, if the amount of material between the heat source an the thermometer is increased.
Fairly obviously, the temperature of the thermometer will depend on its placement along the thermal gradient between T1 and 0 K. If the thermometer remains close to 0 K, then increasing the amount of material between the heat source and the thermometer will result in a fall in temperature. Or one might adjust the position of the thermometer along the thermal gradient to ensure that as the thickness increased, the temperature remained the same.
As I said, reducing the amount of radiation impinging on the thermometer cannot result in an increase in temperature.
As to your final sentence, quite obviously, increasing the amount of insulation between the heat source and the thermometer would result in a fall in temperature – just as interposing a sunshade between you and the Sun results in a reduction in energy reaching you. Your body produces less heat internally to maintain core temperature, and you feel cooler. You might even sweat less, and so on.
Please let me know if I misunderstood what you said.
If a testable GHE hypothesis existed, there would be no need for this sort of discussion. If experimental testing showed the hypothesis to be false – end of story. If the hypothesis was supported by experiment, a theory could be developed.
However, at the moment, all that exists is untestable pseudoscientific assertion. Not science.
Cheers.
Mike,
Brilliant. I didn’t even think about the possibility of moving the thermometer perpendicular to the plane, only that it would remain at an original distance from one side.
As far as the sunshade is considered, that would be a completely different model with non-uniform conductivity and possibly some radiation involved. I’m not ready to pose a radiation model at this point. I hope you don’t mind me picking your brain again when I am.
Chic,
Thank you.
I was concerned I misunderstood you.
Feel free to seek my opinion any time. The usual caution applies – any opinion is worth what it costs – generally nothing.
All part of the rich tapestry of life. Have fun!
Cheers.
IT,
While you’re here, why not respond to my last response to your comments beginning May 12 10:51 AM when you first mentioned the notches:
After more careful reading of your comments, I am still not sure you understand the negative GHE paper you cited [May 13, 10:31 AM].
Unfortunately, I did not properly explain why radiation from polar regions can compensate for differences in the notches in outgoing IR spectra elsewhere, thus ensuring that energy doesnt accumulate in the atmosphere. It follows from this that one cannot assume that changes in the spectra due to increases in CO2 will have any effect on global temperature.
You are correct that even a non IR-active atmosphere would transport warm air to higher latitudes. However, absorp-tion of IR and thermalization amplifies this effect.
You write less heat is radiated to space per square meter in polar caps than elsewhere at lower latitudes. That does seem obvious due to average temperature differences.
The paper you cited explained that increasing CO2 in the antarctic is not warming by blocking outgoing radiation as warmists assume. In contrast, an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system. Why would this be the case? Maybe because the meridional temperature gradient moves more warmer air over the antarctic than would otherwise be there.
So I will rephrase my earlier assertion. Unlike a greenhouse, IR-active gases transport warmed air to higher latitudes where more energy is radiated to space than would other occur. Furthermore, the massive daily energy transfers are more than enough to compensate for the small effect of any average notch fluctuations around a mean.
If you doubt there is a greater than proportional share of energy flux per degree of surface temperature at the poles, then I suggest you read this post: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/05/symmetry-and-balance/
He makes the mistake of assuming that overall warming is the same as incremental warming. It is the difference between a secant line and a tangent line.
A given function can be positive everywhere, such that a secant line drawn from the origin to any point has a positive slope, but this does not imply that the tangent line at any given point has positive slope.
bart…”It is the difference between a secant line and a tangent line”.
What’s the limit as a point on the curve and the secant approaches the tangent point on the same curve?
See below.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303261
The paper you cited explained that increasing CO2 in the antarctic is not warming by blocking outgoing radiation as warmists assume.
More nonsense.
“Warmists” or people who by no means reject the GHE as a bunch of utter idiots here do, are the authors of this paper.
So the “warmists” were quite aware of the results of this paper long long long before a certain Chic Bowdrie ever heard of it because I provided him the link to upthread.
Hilarious.
Futhermore I already clearly replied to and showed the nonsense of your drivel about your so called “compensation”. Not even in your dreams.
And why doesn’t Chic Bowdrie not even read the paper I linked to ?
I guess, it’s because it’s more fun and less tiresome to post nonsense in Spencer’s blog…
Quote from discussion in relevant paper itself:
It is important to note that these results do not contradict the key statements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [Solomon et al., 2007; Ramaswamy et al., 2001; IPCC, 2013], namely, the well-known warming effect that CO2 has on the Earths climate. Yet we showed that for the cold Antarctic continent some
care needs to be taken when discussing the direct warming effect of CO2.
Your spectulation on what I read and why I comment won’t deter me from challenging your preconceived notions.
I’ve never claimed the authors of the negative GHE effect disagreed with the IPCC.
I claim that notches in outgoing IR spectra aren’t sufficient evidence that increasing levels of CO2 cause further global warming.
You invoked the paper I linked to as providing evidence against the GHE.
Whether you like it or not it doesn’t at all. Quite the reverse is true, it confirms it.
Inconvenient truth ?
Hilarious !
You invoked the paper. I merely used it to explain how your assertion [that notches in IR spectra confirm rising CO2 causes global warming] is wrong. It’s now up to you to show conclusively that a notch in a spectrum translates into a measured temperature difference.
The issue isn’t the existence of the notch. That is the “secant line” I referred to above.
The issue is the sensitivity of the size of the notch to a change in CO2 concentration in the present state of the system. That is the “tangent line” to which I referred.
You’ve heard the expression “third time’s the charm?” One more mention of secant/tangent lines might do it for me.
What I mean is that the functional dependence in the present state of the system could very well be like this.
http://i64.tinypic.com/e88qd0.png
CO2 has an impact, but there is a point of diminishing returns, beyond which it no longer has a heating potential.
The mere existence of the GHE says nothing about its functional dependence. It is not guaranteed to be linear or even monotonic with concentration.
Please be clear. Is it nonsense that the warmist authors state in their paper that increasing CO2 in the antarctic IS NOT warming? Or is it nonsense that warmists in general assume CO2 in the antarctic IS warming by blocking outgoing radiation? Or is that warmists in general assume CO2 everywhere is warming by blocking outgoing radiation? Or is it something else that you could have read into my unclear statement?
I didn’t find any mention in the negative GHE paper where “It ‘might compensate’ for at most 3% of the warming effect elsewhere.” Maybe that comes from your imagination or an assumption from your AGW bias. Care to explain?
Be mindful that there is no conclusive evidence that additional CO2 has any effect on global warming. Model predictions don’t count.
I will repeat my earlier assertion. Unlike a greenhouse, IR-active gases facilitate transporting warmed air to higher latitudes where more energy can be radiated to space than would otherwise occur without pole-ward advection. Furthermore, these massive daily energy transfers are more than enough to compensate for the small effect of any average notch fluctuations around a mean.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303040
idiot…”Warmists or people who by no means reject the GHE as a bunch of utter idiots here do, are the authors of this paper.”
The author talks more like an alarmist than a skeptic. He acknowledges back-radiation as a warming factor.
One part that does make sense is what I thought of earlier independently. In the sub-zero temps of the Arctic and Antarctic, the surface could get colder than the atmosphere AT TIMES. In winter, and in general, not so. When there is no solar radiation in winter, very cold air descends from the stratosphere.
During expeditions to the North Pole, explorers have noticed the frigid Arctic Ocean emitting a steam-like fog.
We are here in the heart of the mystification. What says Idiot Tracker aka gammacruz aka alphagruis aka Tsih aka Bulshit Dectector, etc. is correct :
And this piece of physics in turn implies the GHE since the observed decrease in IR-active gas notches of emission in TOA spectrum implies enhanced emission elsewhere in that spectrum…
Demonstrate the reality of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. The following is only likely:
… in particular in atmospheric window where it comes from surface and that in turn implies a warmer temperature of the surface.
The quantitative theory, which claims to calculate the effect of additional CO2 on temperatures, is even more precise. It claims that the warming of the atmosphere is uniform before feedbacks. However, this is only an arbitrary hypothesis, never justified and very improbable. Yet, it is it alone that can quantify the effect of CO2 emissions. This assumption states more precisely two things:
1. Only convection sets the vertical temperature gradient.
2. Convection is independent of radiative phenomena.
Now, it is quite obvious that these two points are perfectly false since thermodynamics links flow and thermal gradient and that convection is a reaction to the radiative cooling of the atmosphere by GHG.
This hypothesis is very particular insofar as it leaves the climate system with only one way of restoring equilibrium after any disturbance: translation of the thermal profile. It is this peculiarity that justifies the assumed equivalence between backradiations and short waves and therefore the notion of radiative forcing.
In fact, this quantitative theory is a pseudo-scientific theory that ignores the laws of thermodynamics. An unfounded theory with arbitrary results.
Taking the measure of the greenhouse effect
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/
There is a Greenhouse Effect on Venus, Michael Hammer, 10/9/11
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/there-is-a-greenhouse-effect-on-venus/
phi…”Idiot Tracker aka gammacruz aka alphagruis….”
Same old idiot with a different nym. I figure there are more.
Takes a serious coward to hide behind different nyms.
Rivers of lava in Hawaii.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAB7ryt0D8U
I will say it again the global warming era is over. All this talk about what global warming may or may not do is a waste of time.
Another waste of time has been the topics which discuss why AGW theory may or may not be correct.
This I could see being discussed when AGW theory just came out but at this point in time I see further discussions on this topic as a big waste of time. It has been exhausted.
Where the focus should be is with solar/climate relationships which will be gaining in popularity as the warming ends.
What governs the climate are the amounts of energy coming into the climate system and leaving the climate system along with very slight changes in albedo and overall sea surface temperatures.
Co2 may inhibit long wave radiation from escaping into space but CO2 concentrations are a result of the climate not the cause and as levels of C02 increase the effects are much less. To add to this is there is no positive feedback between increasing amounts of CO2 and water vapor.
My forecast has been and is that this year is a transitional year to cooler temperatures as we march forward.
Less overall solar radiation and weak solar /geo magnetic field should result in a reduction of overall global temperatures by increasing global snow cloud coverage(galactic cosmic rays, more meridional atmospheric circulation( decreasing EUV light)), and increasing major explosive volcanic eruptions(galactic cosmic rays) , while overall sea surface temperatures lower, (less solar radiation).
The geo magnetic not only weakening but changing orientation (magnetic poles moving equatorward) will serve to compound given low solar radiation/low solar magnetic effects in my opinion.
This is my two cents on the subject of climate change we should find out much very soon, as long as solar conditions remain as is for the next few years which is very likely.
“…here is my prediction for climate going forward, this decade will be the decade of cooling.”
– Salvatore del Prete, 11/23/2010
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/andrew-dessler-debating-richard-lindzen/#comment-8875
Another problem is almost everyone still thinks the climate changes very gradually and slow over many man years. Wrong.
That being true only when the climate is in the same regime as it has been from 1850-present.
I think the climate regime we have been in for the last 170 years or so is now coming to an end.
If correct the climate will change in jerks not gradually.
“Your conclusions are in a word wrong, and that will be proven over the coming years, as the temperatures of earth will start a more significant decline (which started in year 2002 by the way)….”
– Salvatore del Prete, Reply to article: IC Joanna Haigh – Declining solar activity linked to recent warming, 10/8/2010
– http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6428
No David AGW theory is wrong as is evidence by the lack of any additional warming.
The news is that we just had the warmest La Nina on record.
This LA NINA was extremely weak and short.
This La Nina was stronger than last year’s, yet warmer.
Even warmer than the “mild” La Nina of 2010-2011.
We Just Had Two Years Of Record-Breaking Global Cooling
May 18, 2018 by Robert
Inconvenient Science: NASA data show that global temperatures dropped sharply over the past two years. Does that make NASA a global warming denier?
Writing in Real Clear Markets, Aaron Brown looked at the official NASA global temperature data and noticed something surprising. From February 2016 to February 2018, global average temperatures dropped by 0.56 degrees Celsius. That, he notes, is the biggest two-year drop in the past century.
Not surprisingly, this startling revelation did not warrant any coverage from the mainstream media.
However, they did report on such things as how tourists impact climate change, how global warming will generate more hurricanes, threaten fish habitats and make islands uninhabitable. They also quoted a UN official as saying that our window of time for addressing climate change is closing very quickly.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-global-warming-earth-cooling-media-bias/
Thanks to Adoni for this link
Cooling is expected when transitioning from a strong El Nino to a La Nina.
Nothing unexpected here, just the same foolishness and ignorance from outlets purportedly looking to inform investors about the future.
David,
What about your foolishness regarding the earth heating the sun? LMAO.
Yes, it’s true — some of the energy emitted by the Earth hits the sun and warms it.
David has also invented an ice powered oven. It won’t quite reach 5800 K just yet, but he has almost overcome the few minor problems that remain.
The Laws of Thermodynamics just need a bit of revision. David is seeking a consensus to declare the Laws irrelevant.
Once this is done, the ice powered cooker, and its little brother, the ice powered coffee heater, will become reality.
David’s PHD might stand for Piled Higher and Deeper.
Cheers.
I want to see this kind of a drop with the satellite data which is the data I use. Still I wanted to post this to make people aware of the opposite side of things since all we hear is the fake news about AGW.
“Dont you realize that, the warming that has now ended, that took place last century was one of the weakess warming periods the earth has undergone ,lets take a time period ,of the last 20,000 years.”
– Salvatore del Prete, April 7, 2011
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/roy-spencers-non-response/
That’s right Salvatore, temperatures are dropping:
https://tinyurl.com/yclndfye
Yes the temperatures are dropping.
Dont you realize that, the warming that has now ended, that took place last century was one of the weakess warming periods the earth has undergone ,lets take a time period ,of the last 20,000 years.
Salvatore del Prete, April 7, 2011
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/roy-spencers-non-response/
It is not clear that the warming has ended and it not known how much warming may be caused by CO2, but seems to be quite small.
I am optimistic that is will become significantly more clear within, one year. But this is not to say, that within 1 year, there will be an ability to predict global temperatures decades in the future. Unless you don’t want an accurate prediction, or global temperatures are roughly going to be the same, as they were couple decades in the next couple decades and may slightly trend upwards or down or essentially have an immeasurable amount change in either direction.
gbaikie says:
It is not clear that the warming has ended and it not known how much warming may be caused by CO2, but seems to be quite small.
The science says 110% of modern warming is caused by humans — CO2, other GHGs, brown carbon. See
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/the-ipcc-ar5-attribution-statement/
DA…”The science says 110% of modern warming is caused by humans CO2, other GHGs, brown carbon”.
Correction: The CONSENSUS says 110%…..”
From the realclimate link you provide it should read, The PROPAGANDA says 110%…”.
Realclimate specializes in conjecture and propaganda.
When will we exceed that trend line again do you think?
SATELLITE DATA FIRST 4 MONTHS THIS YEAR VERSUS LAST YEAR
AVG TEMPERATURE 2017 = + .302 C
AVG TEMPERATURE 2018 = + .2275 C
My reply to the replies is it has to start sometime but more importantly it shows more deviation from the global fake warming models which forecast a slow non changing gradually upward trend in the global temperatures with each succeeding year, without exception.
“Global cooling has started, and it will be here for sometime to come. All the factors that control the climate are now in, or going toward a colder phase.”
– Salvatore del Prete, December 31, 2010
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/12/dessler-and-spencer-debate-cloud-feedback/#comment-8257
Start from the bottom, re:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302962
I think over the last million years (or much longer) the average ocean surface temperature has always been warmer than average land surface air temperature.
Currently average surface ocean is about 17 C, and Land average surface air temperature is about 10 C. And combined this gives an global average temperature of about 15 C.
And roughly in last couple of centuries, land average surface air has increased a lot more than average ocean surface temperature.
And I think a small increase in average ocean surface temperature causes a larger increase in land average surface air temperature. For instance a 1/2 C increase in average ocean surface temperature may cause as much as 2 C rise in average land surface air temperature. And this increase is not causing hotter air temperature, but rather it increasing average air temperature. Or ocean surface temperatures are cool compared hotter land surface air temperatures (cooler does not warm what is warmer), but ocean surface temperature is warmer than night and winter land surface air temperature and the ocean surface temperature can reduce cooling of dry desert at night- which can at times get near freezing temperatures- even if desert is within the tropical zone AND the desert location not at a high elevation.
Also a small change in average temperature entire volume of ocean has larger temperature increase of the average surface temperature of ocean. And the entire ocean has average temperature of about 3.5 C and for more than 1000 years (perhaps more than 5000 years) the entire ocean temperature has been around 3.5 C though changes in terms of hundredths of a degrees could or should have occurred.
So again, as example, a change of 1/2 degrees in average temperature of entire ocean, could cause average ocean surface temperatures to increase by about 2 C. Which in turn has large effect upon land surface air temperature. And such large effect has not occurred in last 5000 years.
But in early part of Holecene can’t be ruled out. And we know entire ocean temperature got this warm or warmer in the last interglacial period (called, the Eemian).
Global warming is still in its infancy.
Hawaii
Particulate Matter < 1 m
mass of atmospheric particles with a diameter less than 1 micron
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/level/overlay=pm1/orthographic=-157.75,20.39,3000
Salvatore,
The critical prediction you’ve made is nigh. Starting next month you expect UAH global temps for 3 months (NH summer) to be at or below the baseline.
If this does not occur, you have stated that it would be a serious blow to your conception of solar effects on climate.
It would have to be, considering this is not the first time in the last decade you have predicted imminent cooling that did not eventuate.
I will hold you to what you have said. Good luck.
So Salvatore predicts that each of June, July and August will be at or below baseline, or their average?
Here’s what he said:
I still say according to satellite data global temperatures by next summer will be at or below 30 year means. 1980-2010.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/08/uah-global-temperature-update-for-july-2017-0-28-deg-c/#comment-258853
He means global temps during NH summer period, 2018. I take it as the average of the 3 months, not that each month will be at or below. Seems a fair interpretation.
Here is his list of factors that will contribute to global cooling.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/10/uah-global-temperature-update-for-september-2017-0-54-deg-c/#comment-267005
barry…”I will hold you to what you have said”.
As I will continue to remind you of your obfuscation and denials regarding NOAA and their fake warming scenarios.
Knock yourself out.
Barry you are calling it right.
On the other side you also have to say as far as AGW goes the fact that the temperature trend is down does not bold well for them.
I am pleased with the trends thus far. I do want lower and still expect it.
If they go up again I will be in bad shape.
“2016 will not be s warm as 2015….”
– Salvatore del Prete, 12/3/15
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/2015-will-be-the-3rd-warmest-year-in-the-satellite-record/#comment-203097
I don’t know what you mean by temperature trend being down. That temps are cooler than they were at the absolute height of the el Nino effect of February 2016?
Surely you wouldn’t select the absolute hottest month of a very strong el Nino as your start point for how temps are generally going…..
I’ve been watching your favoured data portals for how temps are evolving. The UAH global temps have been warmer in the months since the last el Nino finished than at most other times in the record. 2017 was in the top 5 warmest years, despite a lot of skeptics predicting a big chill for that year. 2018 has started off above average but may get a little cooler in lag to a weak la Nina (or may not).
Sea surface temps globally have hovered above 0.2 (tropical tidbits) for most of May. That doesn’t bode well for a June at baseline.
At this point I think it’s still just barely possible your prediction could come true, but highly unlikely.
I don’t base my opinions on GW and AGW on temps over 3 months. I reckon those from data spanning multiple decades. But you have put your eggs in the short-term basket, and we’ll see how it goes.
Above:
— KevinK says:
May 10, 2018 at 8:23 PM
Dr, Spencer, with respect, so the empirical results of Dr. Woods experiment are to be dismissed since his greenhouse was already inside the Earths GHG effect ???
Build a greenhouse inside a greenhouse and see what happens ???
Seems Dr. Wood already tested that in his experiments
….—
It seems to me there could be practical value to building greenhouses within greenhouses.
A problem with greenhouses on Mars or Moon is the structural strength of greenhouses with the pressure within them.
And the “see what happens” is also interesting. And
So, say start with 100 meter diameter hemisphere and have that pressure at .1 of psi.
1 psi is about 1/15th of Earth 14.7 psi. And .1 is 1/147th of Earth. And Mars pressure is about 1/100th of Earth, so less pressure than Mars.
Inside that have dome 99 meters in diameter and also at .1 psi and giving total absolute pressure of .2 psi, which would have greater pressure than Mars. Or water boils at higher temperature than 5 C.
Now, as simple look. And square foot has 144 square inches and 144 times .1 is 14.4 lb of force. And amount square inches of 100 diameter circle area is a lot.
Plus the Moon has micrometeorites.
So going have strong frame structure which has replaceable transparent panes- which will be designed to have automated system which can replaced them fairly quickly.
Next greenhouse is 98 meters in diameter and will have pressure of .2 psi, though designed to withstand a pressure of ten times as much pressure (2 psi) and be somewhat bullet proof, but again designed to have panes replaced quickly.
And absolute pressure is .2 + .2 which is .4 psi which is almost 3 times more pressure than Mars. And still requires a pressure suit to breathe, but it is unknown how much pressure plants need to live, and different plants or genetically altered plants could require different amounts.
Next a transparent balloon/bladder at .1 psi give total absolute pressure of 1/2 a psi and can withstand 1/2 psi pressure to seal a broken pane.
Now can have bunch of different greenhouses under this dome which is the size of a sports dome.
So say 20 meter diameter dome and at absolute pressure of 2.5 psi, so, something which doesn’t require pressure suit to breathe. And within that a 6 meter diameter dome with absolute pressure of 14.7 psi which encloses a pool of water, 5 meters deep. And there airlock entrances which go thru to all the domes.
And to make simple say this is at lunar equator and have Earth at Zenith.
And a place to start is what is the temperature of water in the pool? At noon.
My take on a simple GHE definition (for Flynnstone):
To insulate against radiative heat transfer to space while simultaneously not (or at least to a lesser extent) insulating against radiative heat transfer from the sun.
Snape
It would be impossible to have a hope of getting Mike Flynn to a rational logical thinking process.
The problem with using insulation as an analogy for GHE leads to confusion since insulation only changes the rate of heat transfer, in or out. There are no “transparent insulators” that allow some form of heat through but not others (since it is controlled by molecular vibrational energy).
With EMR you have visible light that can move easily though glass but will not move through a steel plate. However IR will not pass through glass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx49t4sv7f0
This is why people get confused when describing GHE using insulation examples. Maybe E. Swanson can do his vacuum plate experiment using a clear glass plate that he moves in front of the blue plate to see if the back radiant energy from the glass plate (heated by the blue plate) will raise the temperature of the blue plate above what it is without the glass in front.
I would think E. Swanson would have to have another glass plate in front of the light source to remove all the IR from the light source (as this would change the nature of the test). The glass plate in front of the light source would be stationary with both conditions. Only used to remove IR from the light source. The blue plate could be painted with some very absorbing black paint to maximize the energy absorbs from just visible light.
Hi Norman
I agree there is no getting through to Flynn, but I was really just pondering a good definition.
It’s an analogy to compare the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere to a greenhouse, but I think the concept of insulation can be taken literally.
Insulation is something that slows the rate of heat transfer between two bodies, and glass does little to slow the rate at which the sun’s heat is transferred to the Earth’s surface.
As you pointed out, though, glass DOES slow the rate that heat is transferred radiatively from a terrestrial source to a cooler body.
The confusion is having to figure out the contributions conduction and convection.
Snape
In my mind I can understand the use of insulation to describe GHE as in a generic slowing or reduction of heat flow rate. The problem, maybe for some, is that insulating materials never act like EMR in which you have some bands that go right through some material and not others. EMR sets up the unique GHE which insulation could not accomplish. Insulation can work keep a cool object cool or hot object warm or keep a room warmer or colder by slowing the down the rate of heat transfer. But it will not let some energy through while stopping energy. It just generically slows down heat transfer across it. EMR can totally go through some materials and is totally opaque at different bands. Like glass is transparent to visible but opaque to IR. It is a unique property of EMR that I do not think some of the fanatic skeptics can understand.
Norman
You’re right, I’m thinking of insulation in the generic sense:
“Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer (i.e. the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature) between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence.”
*******
Insulation in the more familiar context (like pink fiberglass) can be a confusing analogy for the GHE.
Norman wrote:
It just generically slows down heat transfer across it.
It REDUCES heat transfer across it.
norman…”In my mind I can understand the use of insulation to describe GHE as in a generic slowing or reduction of heat flow rate”.
Insulation in a home affects only heat dissipation through conduction, it has no effect on radiation. In an uninsulated wall, the heated interior air heats the inside of the wall and heat is transferred to the outside wall by conduction.
The insulation is designed to slow down the rate of heat transfer by conduction.
The glass in a greenhouse blocks heat dissipation via conduction as well but the glass will warm and pass it at a slower rate through the glass.
There is no heat flow through space via radiation, only by convection, which is a moving mass of atoms/molecules.
Gordon
“The glass in a greenhouse blocks heat dissipation via conduction as well BUT THE GLASS WILL WARM AND PASS IT AT A SLOWER RATE
THROUGH THE GLASS.”
That’s an example of slowing the rate of heat transfer. Conduction, radiation……doesn’t really matter. The idea is the same.
High energy atoms or molecules on one side of a pane of glass don’t get up and move to the other side, but heat is still transferred.
S,
Maybe you could try using the form “The Greenhouse Effect is a phenomenon in which . . ..
Writing “To insulate against radiative heat transfer to space while simultaneously not (or at least to a lesser extent) insulating against radiative heat transfer from the sun. does not say anything much at all, does it?
Pseudoscientific gibberish.
How would this explain the cooling of the Earth over four and a half billion years? Or at night Or during winter? Or when it is cloudy, raining, snowing or during a solar eclipse?
Still cannot do it can you? I suppose you could always claim that science is too hard, because people like me want to see rigour, rather than vapour.
Carry on S. A concrete block with a cavity seems to satisfy your requirements. Why not just call it the “Geode Effect” if you want something a bit more sciency? That is a rhetorical question, of course.
You appear too stupid and ignorant to accept that the scientific method involves more than just handwaving assertions.
Cheers.
Mike
Insulation slows the rate of heat transfer, it does not prevent it.
A thermos will slow the rate that a cold beverage gets warmer. Does that mean the beverage will still be cold a week later? Geez you’re dumb! It’s amazing you need that explained.
********
Even the simplest science sounds like
gibberish to a numbat.
S,
Maybe you coukd have a shot at defining the GHE. I believe that insulation has been fairly well covered, in the scientific sense.
How does increasing the amount of insulation between the Sun and a thermometer make the thermometer hotter?
Is this miraculous effect a recent phenomenon, just noticed after apparently not working for four and a half billion years, as the Earth cooled?
Maybe it is due to some sort of magical one way insulation? Would it be any good fro keeping stuff cold, or does it only work to heat things up? Would it work at night?
If you can provide cogent answers to those questions, it might help to support your assertions.
No global warming due to CO2, unless someone can provide a testable GHE hypothesis. It is part of the scientific method.
Cheers.
“Maybe it is due to some sort of magical one way insulation?”
Insulation is always one way, Mike. It slows the rate of heat transfer, and heat transfer is always from warm to cold.
*******
“Would it be any good fro keeping stuff cold, or does it only work to heat things up?”
Does a thermos make your iced tea colder? No, but it slows the rate that heat is transferred to the beverage. (already mentioned, did you miss it?)
*******
Works at night just fine
Maybe you’re wondering if insulation can make a colder object get even colder? Certainly.
In a warm room, place a thermometer next to a large block of dry ice. The thermometer will start getting colder.
Now do the same with another thermometer, except place the two objects (thermometer and dry ice) in a well insulated cooler.
The insulated thermometer will get colder than the one directly exposed to the room’s heat.
snape…”The glass in a greenhouse blocks heat dissipation via conduction as well BUT THE GLASS WILL WARM AND PASS IT AT A SLOWER RATE
THROUGH THE GLASS.”
Of course it will slow heat transfer by conduction but it does it mainly by blocking convection. Without the glass, the heated air molecules would rise quickly and be replaced by cooler air.
Terrestrial wavelength radiation blocking has very little to do with it.
Gordon
I should have quoted this:
“There is no heat flow through space via radiation, only by convection, which is a moving mass of atoms/molecules.”
If you stick one end of a pipe in a fire, the other end will get warmer as well.
To me that’s an example of heat transfer, even though the pipe’s molecules/atoms stay in the same location.
Snape,
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert (and standard “atmospheric physics”) describes the “GHE” as planetary insulation. Because that is what the atmosphere is and does. It insulates the solar-heated surface. There are no “ifs” or “buts” to accompany this fact.
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Kristian
Are you replying to what I said earlier?
“Insulation in the more familiar context (like pink fiberglass) can be a confusing analogy for the GHE.”
*******
The only ifs and buts is that the earth is solar heated rather internally heated. Fiberglass insulation, for example, doesn’t interfere with how a home acquires heat, but wrapped around the earth, it WOULD interfere with how the earth acquires heat.
S,
Insulation, in and of itself, can not raise the temperature of anything, nor reduce the temperature of anything.
The atmosphere is an insulator. It helps to keep you cool during the day, and warm you at night. It is a quite poor insulator.
There is no specific GHE, which is why you cannot describe it in any sensible way.
The properties of insulation can be measured. No heating properties are ascribed to insulation, because there are none.
Bad luck for you. No global warming due to putting more insulation between the Sun and a thermometer. If you think so, you are quite deluded.
Cheers.
“Insulation, in and of itself, can not raise the temperature of anything, nor reduce the temperature of anything.”
I thought just owning a coat would keep me warm, you’re telling me I need to wear it? Thanks for the helpful tip.
Snape says, May 20, 2018 at 7:09 AM:
But this is just YOU making it complicated and confusing. The analogy itself isn’t complicated and confusing at all. It’s really not even an analogy – the atmosphere IS an insulating layer on top of the solar-heated surface. It doesn’t work somewhat LIKE insulation. It IS insulation.
Kristian
I’ve changed my mind (again) and agree with you. I think Norman and I are guilty of making a generalization, “what confuses Flynn and Gordon must confuse others”. They are more likely exceptional buffoons.
*******
BTY, here’s what I wrote yesterday, agreeing with you completely:
*Its an analogy to compare the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere to a greenhouse, but I think the concept of insulation can be taken literally.*
snape…”If you stick one end of a pipe in a fire, the other end will get warmer as well.
To me thats an example of heat transfer, even though the pipes molecules/atoms stay in the same location”.
Of course it’s heat transfer, from atom to atom down the length of the pipe. At the atomic level, heat is conducted in the same way electrical charges are conducted from valence electron to valence electron.
I was implying that cannot happen in the atmosphere because the molecules are not in contact other than during collisions. Using Kristian’s analogy, that’s why the atmosphere acts as an insulator. When N2/O2, accounting for 99% of the atmosphere, receive heat from the surface by conduction, they cannot radiate it away at terrestrial temperatures.
With a steel pipe, the atoms are inter-meshed in a lattice structure, where atoms are bonded together by electrons. Heat can be transferred easily and very quickly from atom to atom via valence electrons. It’s a much slower process when you are depending on inter-molecular collisions in air.
That’s how Wood explained it. N2/O2 gather heat by direct contact with the surface and since they are poor radiators at terrestrial temperatures they tend to retain the heat. That’s as good an explanation for the GHE as I’ve heard. It involves all molecules in the atmosphere not just a fraction of a percent for CO2 and 1% on a good day for WV.
The beauty of wood’s explanation is that rising packets of N2/O2 will lose the heat naturally as they lose pressure at higher altitudes.
It also explain the insulation model. Heat transport by rising thermals takes time and that delay could be described as an insulation effect.
It’s significant that Wood was an authority on IR and did not like the radiation model. He felt that the radiation intensity would fall off rapidly from more than a few feet above the surface and that glass in a greenhouse blocking IR was not a good explanation for greenhouse warming. Hence, he came up with the conduction/convection model, which for me explains everything.
Gordon
If energy in is greater than energy out, the earth will get hotter, and there is only one way energy can go out ….via radiation.
Overrated? I think not.
snape…”what confuses Flynn and Gordon must confuse others”
The point is, snape, you don’t discuss the science, you resort to thought experiments that have nothing to do with what you are discussing.
I have posted articles on insulation from professionals in the business. They all claim, quite correctly, that home insulation slows down heat transfer via CONDUCTION. It has little or no effect on radiation and the implication is major. It means radiation is not a significant means of heat loss in a home at terrestrial temperatures, otherwise all homes would have reflectors built into the walls to radiate it back into the home.
In a thermos, they coat the inside of the inner bottle with a material to reflect radiation back into the bottle. However, that cannot stop heat being conducted to the outside of the inner wall. There is a vacuum between the inner and outer walls of the inner bottle to slow heat conduction but it cannot stop radiation. The liquid in the inner bottle can take hours to cool by radiation whereas it would cool in 5 minutes with direct conduction.
It’s apparent that a steaming hot cup of coffee left in a mug on a kitchen counter at room temperature does not cool by radiation primarily. It cools by direct contact with the air.
I’m claiming that radiation is highly over-rated as a means of cooling the Earth’s surface.
Gordon
I meant for the above comment to appear here. Anyway, when comparing conduction/convection to radiation, you seem to miss what is most crucial with respect to climate science:
If energy IN is greater than energy OUT the earth will get hotter, and there is only one way energy can get out .via radiation.
Overrated? I think not.
Kristian…from Pierrehumbert…”The greenhouse effect shifts the planets surface temperature toward the [Suns] temperature by reducing the rate at which the planet loses energy at a given surface temperature””.
I make no bones of the fact that I don’t like Pierrehumbert and his fictional physics. The GHG is a reference to two gases, water vapour and CO2. Between them throughout the entire atmosphere, they account for 0.31% of the atmosphere.
On average at sea level, one could claim 1% for wv and maybe 3% in the Tropics (what do you think Mike?). The Stefan-Boltzmann equation for surface radiation specifies two temperatures in a temperature gradient (T2^4 – T1^4).
What is more likely for T1, given that T2 is the hotter surface temperature, the 1% of GHGs or the entire atmospheric temperature consisting of 99% N2/O2?
I’m going with the temperature of the N2/O2. I think that’s what governs the rate of heat loss, not a GHG effect involving trace gases. And it has little to do with radiation, most of it is a direct transfer from the surface to the N2/O2.
Pierrehumbert has radiation on the brain and he perverts physics to make his theories work.
As a geologist, you should be on my side in this matter. You know about weathering and how atmospheric gases interact with surface material. They are interacting all the time and N2/O2 are the major molecules interacting. As they interact, they surely affect the rate that heat is transferred from the surface.
–And a place to start is what is the temperature of water in the pool? At noon–
So, warm is water at noon?
Some details not mentioned. What is the air?
I don’t think it matters much, but can assume it mostly oxygen.
And higher pressure of pool greenhouse, add buffer gas like argon, nitrogen, or helium (helium is abundant in lunar regolith). Have it been 50% mix with O2.
Or have it exactly like Earth air. Or pick are super greenhouse gas, such as Sulfur hexafluoride, wiki:
“an inorganic, colorless, odorless, non-flammable, extremely potent greenhouse gas” and “It has a density of 6.12 g/L at sea level conditions, considerably higher than the density of air (1.225 g/L).”
The other thing is water will evaporate and condense, so have it so that when 14.7 psi increases to 15 psi, and valve reduces pressure back to 14.7 psi, and when pressure reduces to 14.5 psi, air is added until it is 14.7 psi.
Pressure also increases or decreases when air temperature increases of decrease, so always be made to be within 14.5 to 15 psi.
And let water and air to be warmer than 0 C, when the Sun rises in the lunar morning.
And noon is about 7 days (168 hours) after sun rise.
In first 24 hours, the sun rises about 15 degrees above horizon. And when sun below 15 degrees, it does not warm a level surface by much. When sun at 30 degrees, and level surface will receive 1/2 of 1360 watts per square meter.
And 680 watts per square meter heat lunar surface to about 330 K (57 C).
So things will be quite warm, but water will have warmed up much, and air in the small greenhouse will not have warmed up much either.
A cubic meter of water is 1000 kg, and requires 4186 joules per kg per degree of warming.
And 680 watts is 680 joules per second.
10,000 seconds being 6.8 million joules vs
4.186 million joules to warm by 1 K a cubic meter of water or
41.86 million to warm by 10 K.
100,000 seconds is 27.7 hours and 68 million joules.
Or roughly 14 hours before sun at 30 and 14 hours after reaching 30 degrees above horizon and cubic meter of water warms by about 15 C. Or before sun reaches 30 degrees, the top 1 meter surface would be about 10 C. And air temperature would be about 10 C.
And that is the top 1 meter which has 4 meters of water below it, which roughly is still a bit warmer than 0 C.
Now it matters what kind water it is, fresh water is denser at 4 C, so warming it causes it to become denser and will mix with the deeper water. And once sunlight get above 30 degrees, the sunlight will directly warm water at deeper depth.
But if used fresh water and started with water temperature 5 C, then mostly heat top 1 meter of water in the morning and warm to about 15 C.
And without doing more detail, water will not get close to boiling before noon. But everything else will be around 120 C.
If the warming does not end this year I will be surprised.
I, too, will be surprised, but not confounded. This is an exceedingly complex, chaotic nonlinear system. We can only infer likely short term behavior. We cannot guarantee it.
true
Physics says the world will keep warming. There is always the possibility of an abrupt nonlinear event, but they don’t seem very common throughout the Holocene, with, what, two? The Younger Dryas and the 8k warming event?
DA,
After four and a half billion years of cooling? Maybe you are right. Maybe Nature has decided it is time for a change!
Use your ability to read Natures mind, and predict the future for us, David.
Maybe you could let us know – why now? Is this an example of the new physics, which Gavin Schmidt complains is stopping him from producing a user manual fo,r his expensive but pointless, second rate computer games?
I know you cannot answer, so I won’t hold my breath waiting.
Cheers.
No, physics merely says there is a mechanism by which the world might warm with increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. It does not in any way guarantee it.
But, physics also tells us that increasing temperature produces increasing CO2, and any significant sensitivity of temperature to CO2 would comprise a positive feedback loop and a runaway condition.
So, on the whole, physics tells us there is no significant, aggregate CO2 sensitivity in the present climate state.
No, physics tells us that putting GHGs into the atmosphere will warm the planet’s systems.
And, look! The surface, LT are warming. The ocean is warming. Ice is melting. Sea level is rising. All predicted decades ago.
—
PS: And, yes, physics says CO2 and temperature are linked in a positive feedback loop (up to a point) => even more warming.
“No, physics tells us that putting GHGs into the atmosphere will warm the planets systems.”
No, it does not. It does not tell us how the system will respond to the added GHG, neither in ambient quantity, nor in aggregate thermal response.
PS: This is not the positive feedback from water vapor. It is unstabilizable. But, forget I said anything about it, because you would never in 1M years grasp why.
“Increasing temperature produces increasing CO2, and any significant sensitivity of temperature to CO2 would comprise a positive feedback loop and a runaway condition”
Nonsense. Assertion without proof. T^4 guarantees no such runaway.
“T^4 guarantees no such runaway.”
It doesn’t.
proof?
Trivial. All you need is a positive feedback with high enough gain. A simple integrator, which has infinite gain at zero frequency, will do.
No. Not applicable. Gain is not arbitrary and we also have negative feedback with T^4.
Don’t be stupid. I have no time for it.
Your infinite gain at 0 frequency is stupid and unphysical.
Hardly. Integral action is one of the most basic processes in the universe. Try again.
Geophysical processes all have mechanisms driving a return to ‘eqilibrium’ or balance. They do not grow- away from balance- indefinitely. Your integral process is doing just that. Not physical, nor consistent with the data.
“They do not grow- away from balance- indefinitely.”
Some do. Others evolve over such long timelines that they effectively do so over intervals of interest.
“Geophysical processes all have mechanisms driving a return to eqilibrium or balance.”
The fact that theses systems appear to do so over timelines of interest is precisely the constraint I am using to argue that sensitivity of surface temperatures to CO2 cannot be significant, because otherwise, the constraint would have been violated.
“Not physical, nor consistent with the data.”
The data specifically tell us that CO2 concentration evolves as the time integral of temperature anomaly within the current timeline of interest.
‘The fact that theses systems appear to do so over timelines of interest is precisely the constraint I am using to argue that sensitivity of surface temperatures to CO2 cannot be significant, because otherwise, the constraint would have been violated.’
With an input of stored carbon to the system growing, the system can be out of balance as long as this is the case.
“The data specifically tell us that CO2 concentration evolves as the time integral of temperature anomaly within the current timeline of interest.”
The data are consistent with a short time-constant response, which matches the physics.
During an El Nino, it is well established that deep ocean upwelling in the pacific DECREASES. This REDUCES CO2 outgassing to the atmosphere, which is anti-correlated to global temps, not consistent with a mechanism involving a correlation between temperature and throttling of ocean CO2 cycle.
The papers researching ENSO/CO2-rate correlation find evidence that it arises from terrestrial sources. IOW due to heterogeneous weather changes, such as rainfall to the western pacific tropics (Australia, Indonesia, etc) which decreases in an El Nino. Therefore the net production of biomass decreases, therefore terrestrial carbon uptake is reduced. Therefore atm CO2 increases.
The effect of ENSO on CO2 is strong precisely because it is heterogeneous. Same goes for the annual CO2 oscillation. It is strong precisely because land is not uniform over the globe.
This is a lot of hand-waving gibberish. You shouldn’t fall for it.
Bart. You are good at labeling. Casting doubt with a broad brush. You should critique point by point.
Not ‘falling for’ anything. Im informed. Read papers describing many measurements and modeling. Several. You dont feel the need. Thats choosing ignorance.
El nino reduced upwelling is not disputable.
You are misinformed. It is very easy to focus on individual trees to divert attention from the forest. Occam’s razor applies here: my explanation is the one that fits the data with the fewest assumptions. Otherwise, you end up with tortured rationalizations such as you have presented above.
You seem to have the notion that the many human-hours that went into collecting the data, CO2 fluxes from various sources, ppm in various locations, ice core data. Meh…all just details that can be neglected. Unless they confirm your beliefs.
Einstein on Occam:
“It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”
You are neglecting the last part.
The details often actually matter, as Einstein realized when he matched GR prediction to the tiny extra shift of the perihelion of Mercury, which astronomers had so meticulously measured.
Are you aspiring to be like Trump – mislabeling things in hoped they will catch on?
Investigation =’witch hunt’
Reporting Trump fails = ‘fake news’.
Govt checks on presidential power = “deep state conspiracy”
Data collected, analyzed, modeled with known physics = ‘tortured rationalization’
Getting a little tired of your many excuses for ignoring science results.
“You seem to have the notion that the many human-hours…”
We have nowhere near collected comprehensive data that would prove the narrative. They’ve just collected enough to support their biases. Quantity means nothing without quality.
“The details often actually matter…”
Indeed. That is why it is so important to match the fingerprint in the high information portion of the data.
“Getting a little tired of your many excuses for ignoring science results.”
These aren’t “results”. They’re just narrative, sprinkled with a few factoids.
“Indeed. That is why it is so important to match the fingerprint in the high information portion of the data.”
Exactly what I was saying. Details matter to you when they confirm your beliefs, otherwise they will be disregarded for completely arbitrary reasons.
Consistency, integrity not in your cup of tea?
“We have nowhere near collected comprehensive data that would prove the narrative. Theyve just collected enough to support their biases. Quantity means nothing without quality.”
Again, having shown no interest in reading the papers, because they are ‘trees’, how would you know how comprehensive it is?
The data is, by definition, gibberish, biased, hand-waving, just spinning a narrative, tortured rationalization, low quality….unless or until it agrees with you.
Who behaves like this? Hmmmmmm.
I’m sorry you cannot see the difference between graphic data placed in front of your nose, and haphazard, thinly supported anecdotes.
The logical content of your arguments has been drastically curtailed. Desperation tactics seem all that remains.
Ought to be neon warning signal that your case is on life support.
bart…”This is an exceedingly complex, chaotic nonlinear system”.
You got that right. Since the 1998 El Nino the atmosphere has been downright bizarre.
In what way has the atmosphere been bizarre since 1998?
The world has warmed about 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees F) since the 19th century. The geological epoch since the last glacial maximum is called the Holocene, which began about 11,700 years ago. In central Greenland, where we have high quality ice core records of air temperature, the GISP2 record by Richard Alley (2004) shows a 10C temperature increase from 11,755 years ago to 11,611 years ago, this is 18F in 144 years! Evidence that the surface air temperatures rose 5-10C in just a few decades over the entire Northern Hemisphere at this time is presented in (Severinghaus, et al. 1998), link. This warming event occurred well before man used fossil fuels. Humans adapted to this change and even thrived. Farming was invented and the first stone monument we know of was built near Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey about this time.
This is important and true, which shows why AGW is FALSE!
1) Alley’s work was about the North Atlantic, not the globe.
2) No one ever said CO2 is the only factor that can change climate. (Alley’s event was a ice lake outburst that flooded the North Atlantic with fresh water.)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236646406_The_8_K_event_Cause_and_consequences_of_a_major_Holocene_abrupt_climate_change
DA,
A few deluded people wrote a paper titled –
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earths Temperature”
Principal. Main? Most influential?
By the way, climate is only the average of weather. Just in case you forgot. Just a number, nothing else.
Cheers.
So we have a .9c rise in 150 years and AGW is trying to say this is unique ? LOL
To make it worse the rise I think is coming to an end.
To make it worse the rise I think is coming to an end.
You’ve been saying that for years. You’ve been wrong all along.
DA…”To make it worse the rise I think is coming to an end.
Youve been saying that for years. Youve been wrong all along”.
Same for Hansen, Schmidt, Mann and Trenberth. They have all been wrong.
How have they been wrong, Gordon?
Salvatore, why hasn’t always being wrong caused you to re-examine your claims?
DA,
Possibly due to the same reasoning as used by GHE supporters?
How do you know he won’t be right this time?
Ah, I see. You have incredible powers to look into the future. (I am laughing, not choking!)
The future is unknowable.
Cheers.
Eventually he will be right. At present, both TPW (6 mo) and UAH T (4 mo) are below their long term trend lines. The huge effective thermal capacitance of the oceans will slow the T decline.
DA…”Salvatore, why hasnt always being wrong caused you to re-examine your claims?”
Why have Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, and Trenberth not re-examined their claims when real data proves them wrong over and over.
Salvatore thinks he’s right, a good for him for sticking to his convictions. If he’s wrong, it won’t be a big deal.
Even if he’s wrong, the catastrophic projections of models and the IPCC will never be correct. The atmosphere just doesn’t operate like that.
Gordon Robertson says:
Why have Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, and Trenberth not re-examined their claims when real data proves them wrong over and over.
When have they been wrong over and over?
[Now watch Gordon avoid this question.]
salavatore…”So we have a .9c rise in 150 years and AGW is trying to say this is unique ? ”
And there is a perfectly good explanation, re-warming from the Little Ice Age. No need for sci-fi explanation like AGW.
Except that ‘re-warming from the LIA’ is not an explanation. There is no mechanism invoked here, it’s just an assertion that presupposes that there is an average global temperature to which the planet naturally gravitates, as if by magic.
barry,
Thats about the same as saying that temperatures have gone up due to putting more CO2 between the Sun and thermometers, isnt it?
Or what about the Earth cooling for four and a half billion years, eh?
Tell us why, if you are so knowledgeable about such things? Oh, you dont know, and cant explain it?
Why am I not surprised?
Cheers.
You keep dialoging by yourself, petal. You don’t need anyone else interrupting you.
When the last prolonged solar minimum ended which was the Dalton, the Little Ice Age ended.
When the first prolonged solar minimum occurred that is when the Little Ice Age started.
When the sun was active like it was from 1850-2005 global temperatures rose as they did when the sun was very active during the Medieval warm period.
Now since 2005 the sun has been inactive and now with 10+ years of this going on I think the solar effects on the climate will start to manifest themselves.
On top of this we have a weakening magnetic field.
If weak solar and a weakening geo magnetic field do not at least stop the temperature rise I will be shocked, and it could come about in jerks rather then a slow gradual downtrend.
salvatore….”When the first prolonged solar minimum occurred that is when the Little Ice Age started.
When the sun was active like it was from 1850-2005 global temperatures rose as they did when the sun was very active during the Medieval warm period”.
Right on Salvatore. The Dalton minimum covered the second half of the LIA from 1790 – 1830.
The Maunder Minimum occurred from 1645 – 1715. Between 1715 and 1790, there was a brief respite from the LIA then it came back.
We are likely overdue for another one, right when the Sun is at it’s lowest sunspot activity.
Science rocks!!!
Salvatore Del Prete says:
May 19, 2018 at 8:28 PM
When the first prolonged solar minimum occurred that is when the Little Ice Age started.
The first prolonged solar minimum of the last 1000 years (Oort) happened around 1100, in the middle of the MWP.
The major minimum (Maunder) started about 1650, i.e. depending of the estimations, between 100 and 200 years later than did the LIA.
Between the two, there were two minima (Wolf and Spörer) but they played a rather minor role in comparison to the outer ones.
The Little Ice Age wasn’t caused by the Sun.
“Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks,” Gifford H. Miller et al, GRL (2013).
DOI: 10.1029/2011GL050168
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050168/full
barry,
A dialogue requires more than one participant. Thank you for participating.
Cheers.
barry…”Except that re-warming from the LIA is not an explanation”.
Au contraire. It’s a perfectly valid explanation with proxy data to back it and the blessing of a top geophysicist, Syun Akasofu.
Akasofu offers that we should re-warm at 0.5C per century and the IPCC has erred by not recognizing that warming. The IPCC had the LIA prominently displayed circa 1990 then allowed MBH to enter a hockey stick with no LIA or Medieval Warm Period. Since they scrapped the hockey stick they are now showing a replacement showing the LIA and MWP.
blessing of a top geophysicist, Syun Akasofu
Idolize those who agree with you, defame those who don’t.
No mechanism, no explanation. No physical cause – no physics invoke!. Strange ‘science’ from a geophysicist. Maybe that’s because Akasufo has no qualifications in climate dynamics. I’ll leave it to you to find out what his field of expertise is.
barry says:
Idolize those who agree with you, defame those who dont.
Perfect.
I think sustained low solar results in overall sea surface temperatures dropping and a slightly higher albedo. The result lower global temperatures.
The lowest solar cycle in 100 years and the highest global temperatures in a hundred years at the same time?
Can’t imagine what mechanism would explain a lag to get out of this contradiction. Only takes a few minutes for solar energy to get to Earth from the sun.
It does no work that quickly because of the oceans which are slow to loose accumulated heat.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
May 19, 2018 at 9:59 PM
Salvatore, the last top peak on the Sun Spot record is dated october 1957. Since then SSN moves down all the time.
Thus within this 50 year period the oceans should have had time enough to ‘to loose accumulated heat’, shouldn’t they?.
But:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1526807609407.jpg
{ As SSN and OHC have very different value ranges, these have been scaled to percentiles. }
No, the sunspot number has to be 40 or less sustained in order to result in ocean cooling.
It is not the peak that matters. What matters is the mean area under the curve – the response is an infinite recursion.
The Earth has exceedingly long thermal time constants. Here is a plot of the SSN filtered with a 100 year time constant. The increase in solar forcing in the latter half of the 20th century is obvious.
https://i2.wp.com/oi68.tinypic.com/2z850s4.jpg
The ocean-cycle forcing notion isn’t helped by this profile.
And warming from 1940 to 1970?
The 100 year filter degree of freedom makes the elephant look misshapen.
Bart says:
Here is a plot of the SSN filtered with a 100 year time constant. The increase in solar forcing in the latter half of the 20th century is obvious.
Why use a proxy when real data on TSI exists?
Average TSI has been slowly declining since the 1960s….
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TIM_TSI_Reconstruction.png
Why use a proxy when real data on TSI exists?
Uninterrupted direct TSI data is available from 1978. The longer record you’ve just cited is based on proxies, mainly SSN.
barry @ May 20, 2018 at 3:38 PM
You are again making the mistake of assuming 1:1, memoryless response.
“Average TSI has been slowly declining since the 1960s.”
The argument seems to have gone over your head, too. It is not the instantaneous input that matters, it is the progression of the mean in the form of a temporally weighted average.
The plot I made above shows how such a system response can influence the outcome. I don’t know what to tell you guys to make it clearer. If you do not have the requisite background in signals and systems, I can’t teach several semesters worth of it here.
c’mon, if you have resort to the, i could explain it if you were smart enough….its probably just BS.
One only needs a modicum of statistics understanding to know that you can fit anything with enough degrees of freedom.
I’m hardly assuming 1:1 response. I’ve been asking Salvatore to quantify his alternatives, for example, downthread.
But you should well know yourself, that you can’t just curve fit and assume you have the goods. You need the physics to explain it or its just mathturbation.
All I’m doing is countering the assertion that overall solar forcing has been in decline during the recent bout of warming. It hasn’t. It isn’t the peaks that matter, its the area under the curve.
Still not seeing a physical explanation for the curve fitting.
Take for example your comments downthread on cumulative warming from solar, as opposed to near instant effects.
You make no physical case for accumulation that continues after the thermostat (direct solar) is turned down. You just state it.
No definition of lag. No calculation of heat capacity (of what?) that would account for continued rise in surface temperatures when the sun is cooler for 11 years.
There’s no physics here, just assertions (“It is so”) and curve-fitting.
It’s not hard to get an average of intensity for each cycle. No need for fancy curve fits. And the difference for three cycles previous to the latest is. 30 years of stable TSI but the temperature went up. Then the weakest TSI for 100 years and the temperature still went up.
Fancy curve fitting doesn’t do the trick. And it IS a trick. More detailed accounting and a proper physical explanation is needed. Still lacking.
It’d be interesting to see a well-made case for that, but I don’t think anyone has it. It would be better at least than playing tit for tat.
“Still not seeing a physical explanation for the curve fitting.”
Simply a generalization of the amplitude function found in solving the heat equation for simple systems. That you do not “see” the physics suggests perhaps you do not know the physics.
I have shown that you cannot dismiss the possibility that solar variations have been a major driver of recent warming. Your further demands are beside the point.
What is the precise physical basis for your 100 year time constant?
If the answer to that is arbitrary or a result of fiddling until the curve looked like you want…
You could fit pirate attacks to global temperature with little effort. It’s meaningless.
You’re still just playing with parameters, finding a fit and saying that this is meaningful. Surely, if you teach this stuff, you should KNOW that this is bad practice.
You can’t wave away a need for a strong physical basis with empty rhetoric.
“If the answer to that is arbitrary or a result of fiddling until the curve looked like you want”
This is all beside the point. You claim the lack of 1:1 contemporaneous correspondence between solar output and temperatures is evidence that solar variations have no significant impact on terrestrial temperatures. I have shown that claim lacks foundation. Finis.
I can understand oceans losing heat more slowly than the direct effect of solar decline – oceans have enormous heat capacity. The lag in this case is agreed on.
But why oceans should continue to accumulate heat for a decade after solar activity has declined is beyond me. The current solar cycle is much weaker than the former. 2 cycles from 1996 to present, yet global temperature is warmer over the second cycle than the first.
That’s two 11-year periods doing the opposite of what’s expected according to your views on direct solar radiation determining climate.
So how long is this lag meant to be? 20 years? How could that possibly be the case?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
Barry this data is telling.
How were the PDO and AMO included in that curve?
And graph stops in 2008! Where is the rest of the data??
Sal,
Apparently there is no lag in that graph.
Did you change your mind about a lag to solar influence since yesterday?
There’s no data links for that short post. No way to verify. Can’t see how anyone would accept an unreferenced graph with barely a paragraph of explanation. Followed a link to WUWT, and lo and behold, the ‘temperature record’ was for the US, not the globe!
I do not understand how these curve-fitting exercises with no references and woeful cherry-picks pass the sniff test. Once upon a time skeptics demanded data. Now it seems they’ll buy anything regardless of whether it can be audited or not, as long as it tells them what they want to hear.
Poor scholarship.
So, how long is this lagged effect of solar changes on surface temps you mentioned? Weeks? Months? years? Decades? How many?
http://notrickszone.com/2018/01/22/3-new-2018-papers-link-modern-warming-and-past-cooling-periods-to-high-low-solar-activity/#sthash.clNhRYDF.dpbs
Graph stops in 2000! Where is the rest of the data?
This kind of thing is why you’re foolish to trust blogs over peer reviewed science. NoTricksZone most of all — every time — EVERY TIME — I look closely at one of their claims, it doesn’t hold up. It’s one of the most dishonest deniers sites on the internet.
“But why oceans should continue to accumulate heat for a decade after solar activity has declined is beyond me. ”
I think land cools ocean.
Land is cooling ocean, else, we would not be in a icebox climate.
So, we can make a list of land characteristics of our icebox climate which causing a cold ocean.
We have two major events, Antarctica moving to South pole and India smashing into the Asia continent with the mountain building.
We also have the separation of Atlantic and Pacific ocean:
“Twenty million years ago ocean covered the area where Panama is today. There was a gap between the continents of North and South America through which the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans flowed freely.” And:
“By about 3 million years ago, an isthmus had formed between North and South America. (An isthmus is a narrow strip of land, with water on either side, that connects two larger bodies of land.)
Scientists believe the formation of the Isthmus of Panama is one of the most important geologic events to happen on Earth in the last 60 million years. Even though it is only a tiny sliver of land, relative to the sizes of continents, the Isthmus of Panama had an enormous impact on Earth climate and its environment”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=4073
And other things I am not including and/or not knnown. Though broadly speaking, a lot of mountain building within last 10 million years of so, and the lowering of Co2 levels.
Anyhow it seems the Antarctic has a large effect. The southern hemisphere is about 80% ocean** and has this large continent which is very cold. Plus the southern hemisphere gets more sunlight, Earth closest to Sun at Jan 4, or summer in southern hemisphere.
** Wiki: “..surface is 80.9% water, compared with 60.7% water in the case of the Northern Hemisphere, and it contains 32.7% of Earth’s land”
And “southern oceans” is about 90% ocean. But one could have limited definition of the southern ocean.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/howmanyoceans.html
As they say, there is but one ocean and there is 4 or 5 ocean basins.
But terms oceans in the southern part of southern hemisphere
It is about 90% ocean, but in terms “southern ocean” being being down to only 60 degree South, not sure percentage, but very dominated by the antarctic land mass and polar sea ice.
Anyhow, land cools ocean. And I would say low solar activity is mostly about weather. And weather on land where people live. Or lower solar activity is causes colder conditions for farmers.
And colder on land doesn’t really necessary have much to do with global average temperature. Or colder land can be, less warming of land by the ocean (land cooling the ocean less).
And I will note, no one cares that Antarctic is not warming as part of the global warming. And they will rush to claim it is predicted not to warm (or it is not suppose to warm)
Well, in terms of equality, the same could occur with other land areas.
As I understand it Antarctica is projected to warm more slowly, owing to its relative thermal isolation from the rest of the planet (circumpolar winds and ocean currents), and because it is a giant ice cube, keeping temp change suppressed relative to other regions.
It’s not just a made-up rebuttal, it’s in the literature.
gbaikie says:
And colder on land doesnt really necessary have much to do with global average temperature.
Average surface land temperatures are rising about 50% faster than average surface mean temperatures (land+ocean).
About 1.5 C of land warming since late 1800s.
“Its not just a made-up rebuttal, its in the literature.”
The Antarctic peninsula has warmed and recently cooled, but continent has not warmed, and idea of polar amplification does not include the south polar region.
And when arctic polar sea ice was reducing in extent more Antarctic sea ice was added which would given global net gain rather than loss.
–David Appell says:
May 20, 2018 at 5:05 PM
gbaikie says:
And colder on land doesnt really necessary have much to do with global average temperature.
Average surface land temperatures are rising about 50% faster than average surface mean temperatures (land+ocean).
About 1.5 C of land warming since late 1800s. —
At least 50% faster, both Canada and Russia warmed by about 2 C, and both now have an average temperature of about -4 C or
they are up from about -6 C.
The Antarctic peninsula has warmed and recently cooled, but continent has not warmed
Over the longer term it has – slowly.
Cf Steig’s article on temps from 1952, and the skeptics critique of that paper, which still showed continental warming but not as much.
And when arctic polar sea ice was reducing in extent more Antarctic sea ice was added which would given global net gain rather than loss.
Over the whole period, Antarctic sea ice gain is less than the Arctic has lost.
IOW, the trend in GLOBAL sea ice over the long-term instrumental record is negative.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/375/31752304080_2b52b8157c_o.jpg
More graphs from here:
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/global-sea-ice-closes-out-2016-at-new-record-low-level/77828
And here:
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/global-sea-ice
Here’s a little trivia:
April 2015 was the 6th month of an el nino. UAH/TLT: 0.09 C.
April 2018 was likely the 7th month of a la nina. UAHTLT: 0.21 C.
You misspelled “triviality”.
Seriously? This is how you debate?
I think you hit the wrong “Reply” link. Or, are you seriously suggesting that if I can find two identical dates in different years, in which the later one is colder, I will have disproved AGW?
Salvatore,
Changes in TSI over time aren’t doing the warming or cooling of the Earth system. Changes in ASR (“Absorbed Solar Radiation”) over time are …
Why? Because TSI isn’t the solar heat [Q_in(sw)] to the Earth. ASR (TSI minus reflected SW) is. The net SW.
‘Everyone’ – on both sides of the climate debate – mysteriously seems to be in the dark about this simple fact.
Where is a time series on global ASR?
Gordon Robertson
YOU: “There is no heat flow through space via radiation, only by convection, which is a moving mass of atoms/molecules.”
Please take the time to read this article. It is not long or difficult to read. It clearly explains why the definition of heat has changed.
The basic point is that a temperature rise of some gas or object can be the result of work or “heat”. Scientists refer to the molecular energy of an object as internal energy. Heat is the transfer of energy from a hotter object to a cooler one. EMR is heat based upon this definition of the term. EMR is energy that transfers from a hot object to a cooler one.
Here is the article link.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html
norman…”Heat may be defined as energy in transit….”
They MAY define heat any way the like, and they would be wrong.
Clausius defined all this stuff about heat between 1850 and 1875. He DEFINED the U in the 1st law and in his book he goes into a good explanation of what it means.
The truth is that many modernists have lost touch with the basics and they are floundering in a sea of semantics.
U = internal energy is thermal energy according to Clausius. What are you going to do, leave it nameless? It’s called heat and you can change it by removing heat or adding it.
Clausius also defined the 2nd law IN WORDS and defined entropy as well. Many modernists have disrespected him by redefining what he had intended.
I say, if you want to plagiarize the work of others. at least get it right.
Gordon,
You are fighting a lost battle here. You are wrong and the field of thermodynamics is right.
Here is a neat description of how the concept of ‘heat’ [Q] is arrived at and defined in modern thermodynamics (and by “modern”, I mean “the last hundred years +”):
https://iiserbbookstore.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/heat-and-themodynamics-by-mark-waldo-zemanskyrichard-dittman.pdf
In section 4.1 “Work and heat” (p.73):
Then, in section 4.4 “Mathematical formulation of the first law” (p.79):
Finally, in section 4.5 “Concept of heat” (p.80):
5:24am: “it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.”
Kristian clips something useful about heat term. Heat doesn’t exist in a body or object! So if there is no such thing as “heat in a body” there is no such thing to transfer from that body either.
“Heat is either internal energy or enthalpy in transit”
So the heat term can be discarded without any loss. Always use enthalpy and internal energy for precise meanings & much less confusion & stop using any confusing def. of heat. Kristian prefers to comment confusingly by using heat. Well, its a free blog to do so and communicate confusingly except don’t use the dictionary spelling of absorp_tion.
For field of thermodynamics, the internal energy U of interest is of course the thermodynamic internal energy shortened to thermal energy.
Commenting here does no one any good deluding yourself or others into thinking you’ve gone to a lot of work explaining something when all you did was invoke something that doesn’t exist in an object. Always use enthalpy, specific enthalpy, enthalpy in transit instead, nothing will be lost and precision in communication will be gained.
You are one deluded little troll, aren’t you, troll?
It’s right there in front of you. A full modern textbook on standard thermodynamics specifically discussing and outlining the fundamental concept of heat [Q]. The quotes are there for all to read. Right above your deluded post.
There is nothing confusing about it, troll. You’re the confused one. Not the people, like scientists and textbook writers Zemansky and Dittman, discussing and using the term.
You can’t use the terms ‘internal energy’ [U] and ‘enthalpy’ [H] when talking about TRANSFERS of energy. As Zemansky and Dittman are very careful to explain. Because those terms are reserved specifically for energy as it resides INSIDE thermodynamic systems. That’s WHY we have well-defined terms for thermodynamic energy transfers: Q (heat) and W (work).
U and H are state functions OF a system, while Q and W are process or path functions operating BETWEEN systems.
Stop projecting YOUR personal confusion onto the rest of us.
That is, for energy in transit.
Kristian, readers will always have to unconfuse your words when you use a term that doesn’t exist in nature like heat. Authors know readers shouldn’t have to do that.
Kristian: “You can’t use the term….enthalpy [H] when talking about TRANSFERS of energy.”
Textbook: “Heat is…enthalpy in transit”
You know Kristian, it is best to read AND understand the text book meaning. Reasonable advice to blog readers is to refer to the text books, published papers and not refer to Kristian’s agenda driven website until Kristian learns to cite the published thermodynamic experts (a good start here) and published CERES Team specialists instead of Kristian’s self citing.
I side with Kristian on this issue. One can use the term “heat” if everyone knows what is being discussed. It is confusing only when you have multiple uses of the term and posters are not sure of what definition you are using the term. If you define “heat” as the energy that is transferred from a hotter object to a colder one (heat flow would be the energy in transit). Heat would be in joules. Heat flow would be in watts (joules/second).
I can see that Ball4 is trying to minimize using “heat” since it seems to confuse posters. If everyone uses the current meaning it should confuse no one.
“If everyone uses the current meaning it should confuse no one.”
Which is exactly the problem, commenters don’t agree; heat is anything the commenter wants it to be depending on the mood of the moment. No experiment can prove Kristian, Gordon, me or Norman right OR wrong in the use of heat term since heat does not exist in nature.
Just look at the disagreements that arise. Useless, wasted time. If you can rewrite any comment without the use of the heat term, do it. Your clarity will improve, disagreements go down, more progress to be made. Not going to happen though, what fun would using precise terms in science be? Dull but meaningful.
Ball4,
Unless thermodynamics has changed since the 1990’s, you’re going against classic terminology.
“Now since U is a property of the system, …; for nonadiabatic changes, dU differs from W, and the difference dU – W is called the heat input to the system. Designating the heat input by Q, we have dU = Q + W …. It must be emphasized that Q and W are not properties of the system. They are meaningful only in connection with the change in the system, W merely representing that part of the energy change that results from the performance of work on the system, while Q represents energy added otherwise (that is, as heat). Once the energy is in the system, it is in no way meaningful to attempt to divide it into one part which is work and another which is heat. [Chemical Thermodynamics, Charles E. Reid (1990)]
“the heat input to the system.”
I’ll admit to being irreverent but all in an effort reducing confusion rampant on climate blogs.
Why don’t the classics write the cold input to the system or the cold added to the system? Contradictions such as that are an impediment to understanding.
“Q represents energy added otherwise (that is, as heat)”
Why not Q represents energy added otherwise (that is, as cold). Confused? You should be.
“Once the energy is in the system, it is in no way meaningful to attempt to divide it into one part which is work and another which is heat.”
Agreed, so no such thing as heat or cold or work ever entered the system, constituent particle avg. kinetic energy changed:
1) With no net force
2) With net force
No heat or work transited, constituent avg. kinetic energy changed. Heated objects radiate, well so do cold objects. So forth.
Ball4,
“Why dont the classics write the cold input to the system or the cold added to the system?”
Probably because the commonly understood terms are heat output and heat withdrawn from the system. It’s convention, probably a residual from caloric theory, not contradiction.
“Why not Q represents energy added otherwise (that is, as cold).”
That’s why the convention is that Q is positive when heat is added and Q is negative when heat is withdrawn. There are other examples when convention must be used to eliminate confusion. Electric current flow is one.
“Agreed, so no such thing ….”
You lost me there. No idea what you are referring to.
“probably a residual from caloric theory”
I’d say absolutely. Many on this blog (and many others) can’t let the caloric theory go. Still think of heat as being poured into a solid object when no thing physically transfers.
What I was referring to is the text writing heat and work cannot be separated internally. I agree with that because all there is in thermal energy internally is the avg. of the kinetic energies of the object’s constituent particles. No tag that can be discerned on the energy which came from temperature difference (no net force) or came from work done (net force).
If Gordon and Kristian et.al. would stop to think like that they wouldn’t argue so much against simple tests Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson has performed showing where their written words are wrong about 2LOT.
“heat withdrawn from the system”
Caloric theory alert! No thing is withdrawn from any solid object like an iron bar anymore when its temperature changes.
Like Kristian’s text says, heat does not exist in an object to be then withdrawn.
Gordon Robertson
There is no one right or wrong about the definition of words. Words are just a form of communication to help transmit ideas. They have no solid meaning and do change from time to time.
If you look at most words they can have multiple meanings and uses.
You demonstrate the personality of a lunatic fanatic. You don’t know any physics but pretend to know it. You can’t grasp the 2nd Law for any reason. You have this made up version and you think everyone but yourself is wrong. You will no examine your own deranged thought process and realize the error is only in you, not the scientific body. Fanatics, like yourself, are neither rational, logical, nor reasonable.
You have such a twisted goofy made up version of physics, like emission of EMR, Inverse square law, unable to understand a milliWatt graph for individual waves needs to be integrated over the whole field to get a total amount of radiant energy. There are many others. You distort what other scientists have said.
Above you said no one has done an experiment to prove time dilation. I linked you to a video showing you are wrong.
You are wrong almost all the time. I think you might be better off to see this in yourself, it will help you correct the many flawed ideas you have inside your head. As long as you are a fanatic crusader you will be wrong in most of the things you post and it is really easy to show it by many many links.
GHE supporters love imaginary experiments, so here is one for anyone who believes that a colder body can raise the temperature of a hotter.
Closed system. Two bodies – one hotter, one colder, both above absolute zero.
The colder is emitting photons, as is the hotter. Any photons emitted by the colder body, and absorbed by the hotter, result in a reduction of energy of the colder, and a subsequent inevitable drop in temperature. The law of conservation of energy applies. No free photons, just like no free lunch.
Net result, the colder object goes to absolute zero, the hotter contains all the available energy!
Complete nonsense, of course. The hotter gets cooler, the cooler gets hotter, until thermal equilibrium prevails.
No mystery – weird gotchas demanding to know where the energy goes, and so on, notwithstanding.
Carry on, GHE believers.
Cheers.
“result in a reduction of energy of the colder, and a subsequent inevitable drop in temperature.”
No. Geez. The cold object is absorbing the warm object photons while emitting at its own temperature! No drop in temperature after the cold and hot objects reach equilibrium Mike, they happily go on exchanging photons equally at that point. No more enthalpy change.
Your comment was good for a big laugh, thank you for the entertainment.
Norman,
Learn to read.
The system is closed. I thought you GHE enthusiasts loved thought experiments.
Off you go then. Have another try.
Cheers.
Ball4,
Learn to read.
As I wrote, the cold and hot objects reach equilibrium. The colder does not increase the temperature of the hotter.
I pointed out the ridiculous situation which would occur if a colder body could increase the temperature of the hotter.
I am glad you agree that the hotter will decrease temperature, the colder will increase temperature until equilibrium is reached. Given this, I cannot understand how you can continue to claim that a colder body can somehow raise the temperature of a hotter body.
You can think about reconciling your two diametrically opposed views, if you wish.
Now you know why nobody can describe the GHE. It is impossible.
Cheers.
What Mike wrote is: “Net result, the colder object goes to absolute zero”
No.
“cannot understand how you can continue to claim that a colder body can somehow raise the temperature of a hotter body.”
It is obvious Mike doesn’t understand the experiments showing his statement is false. Both by Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson. I’ll go with the experimental results; Mike may choose whatever Mike wishes, I don’t care. The entertainment in Mike being wrong so much of the time is greatly enjoyable.
Mike has already described the testable GHE hypothesis so clainming the opposite makes me chuckle & point to Tyndall’s experiments confirming Mike’s GHE hypothesis.
Flynn
You show ignorance with you comment. Are you unwilling or unable to understand the physics of the GHE? Your post shows you know nothing at all about the topic but try to fool people with some incredible stupid logic.
With the GHE, the Earth is not a closed system. It has energy entering (from Sun) and leaving (space) the system.
With a constant input of energy, the equilibrium temperature will not be determined by the amount of energy you add (since it is always being added, there is not a set amount of energy). This is where you phony skeptics (You and Gordon Robertson), that don’t have even a little physics background, get the whole idea wrong.
The equilibrium temperature will be determined by the amount of energy that is leaving the system.
If you add 10 watts to an object will it reach an equilibrium temperature higher or lower than an object you add 1000 watts to?
This is where it depends upon how much energy each object loses. If the object that receives 10 watts is super insulated so it loses very little energy it can get quite hot. If the object with 1000 watts is submerged in a bath of liquid helium it will be quite cold.
You are not able to process this type of information. You are not very smart Mike Flynn. You just waste your time and the time of others. I suggested more than once that rather than waste my time and yours posting your terrible ideas, read some actual science books and come back with valid and useful information. At this point you are too ignorant to even understand science points that are brought up.
N,
Sorry – posted in the wrong place, initially.
Learn to read.
The system is defined to be closed. I thought you GHE enthusiasts loved thought experiments.
Off you go then. Have another try.
To address one of your gotchas – whether you add 100 W, 1000 W, or a gazillion W from ice, you cannot raise the temperature of a teaspoon of water. Want to try again?
You are quite deluded. Keep trying.
Cheers.
Mike
You described a closed system, and there a colder object can never make a warmer object warmer. As far as I know, nobody disagrees with that or has ever claimed otherwise, so what’s your point?
Standing up for integrity in science can cost a scientist his job. We’ve seen it in different ways but Oz must be up there amongst the worst examples. Sad! Worth supporting Prof Peter Ridd.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/18/climate-skeptic-professor-peter-ridd-fired-for-his-views-by-james-cook-university-jcu/
Another beat-up.
According to denialists, Ridd is being punished for telling the truth for going against the global warming establishment for simply presenting the facts.
Actually, Ridd was censured for an alleged breach of his universitys code of conduct that asks, among other things, for employees to be collegial, they respect the rights and reputations of other employees and dont call their academic integrity into question.
It seems clear Ridd would have a case to answer when he says things like we can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies two groups with partnerships and staff at his own university. He has accused them of lacking objectivity and being over emotional.
How do you know his criticisms were not valid? Degree of collegiality is not a valid metric for evaluating science.
RE: Peter Ridd
“…his employer, James Cook University, initiated its own action against Ridd after he had criticized specific organizations at his own university in media interviews, saying they could not be trusted. This, the university alleged, went against the universitys code of conduct.
“So this is not about Ridds ‘freedom’ to say what he wants, but is about an alleged breach of the universitys code of conduct whether you agree with that code or not.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/28/climate-science-deniers-new-hero-peter-ridd-institute-public-affairs
Whether they can be trusted or not is, of course, of no concern.
Myki:
As I have already pulled you up earlier about your deficiency in making claims on T measures for Perth, I would prefer if you actually quoted what Ridd said rather than assert he breached any obligatory code. Ridd’s version differs :
On 2 May, 2018, I received a letter from James Cook University (JCU) terminating my employment. JCU have sacked me because I dared to fight the university and speak the truth about science and the Great Barrier Reef.
You seem to suggest that the public should not be made aware of the full story. As there are very substantial public funds involved with the Great Barrier Reef I would like to be aware. Seeing that JCU has tried to shut him up I lean towards full disclosure; Ridd does not seem to fear that.
A more complete story is here:.
https://au.gofundme.com/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund
https://platogbr.wordpress.com/fired-details/
In summary, JCU (1) objects to my criticism of the earlier allegations; (2) criticised my involvement with the Institute of Public Affairs; and (3) objects to me not remaining silent. The facts of the matter are simple: (1) the earlier allegations were an unreasonable infringement on my academic freedom, I was well within my rights to criticise JCU; (2) I have never been paid by the IPA, other than some initial support for my legal case and reimbursement for flights and hotels related to speaking arrangements which is normal academic practice; and (3) I am well within my rights, as stated by my employment agreement, to speak publically about disciplinary proceedings.
Myki,
It would demonstrate that you have a full grasp of the issue here if you posted the university’s take, and then some blogger providing commentary sympathetic to it – a mirror to what you’ve done on behalf of the Ridd side.
Because otherwise it just looks like you’ve only read half the story and are shilling for Ridd. And because of that, I just write your contribution off as one-sided.
barry – you have gotten the wrong end of the stick. Read my post carefully – it is no pro-Ridd.
Yep, I addressed the wrong person. Too many capital Ms around here.
Statement by JCU.
https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2018/may/statement-about-peter-ridd
To summarise:
“Professor Ridd has on numerous occasions and in numerous ways seriously and repeatedly breached the Code of Conduct his employment has been terminated on this basis. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong.”
Purported letter from James Cook University to Peter Ridd:
https://platogbr.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/paper-work-serious-misconduct-case_redacted_redacted-b.pdf
Myki:
So you have produced the JCU version but not Ridd’s statements. I posted Ridd’s version. Neither of us is a judge nor has the the full story. As Prof Ridd is well on his way to build his fund to fight JCU this will almost certainly proceed to trial and certain disclosures will be made public.
Quite apart from that, it is unlikely that a person in Ridd’s position would simply go against findings and conclusions of colleagues based on his desire to grandstand (JCU: He has sensationalised his comments to attract attention). As I said, it is in the public interest that full disclosure is made.
There are two main issues here viz. vast sums of public funds made available for Reef research/health and economic interests. The former is self explanatory. What is not widely known is that the shrill voice (literally as I saw in a TV interview) of this alarmism was very, very costly for the tourist industry in lost revenue; tourists don’t book if researchers are “screaming” that there is little to see to meet their expectations. Ridd said:
Policy science concerning the Great Barrier Reef is almost never checked. Over the next few years, Australian government will spend more than a billion dollars on the Great Barrier Reef; the costs to industry could far exceed this. Yet the keystone research papers have not been subject to proper scrutiny. Instead, there is a total reliance on the demonstrably inadequate peer review process.
One of the original complaints was that Ridd was not being collegial enough as you have pointed out. It then seemed to escalate. My view is JCU and their idea of collegial takes second place when there are questions of scientific integrity and public interests when public money is involved. Ridd “subsequently published his concerns about the quality of reef science in a peer-reviewed journal.” There are others who were equally critical of the research conclusions and exaggerations.
IPA ( Institute of Public Affairs) research has found a worsening state of free speech on Australias university campuses. The IPAs Free Speech on Campus Audit 2017 found 34 of Australias 42 universities are hostile to free speech on campus through their actions and policies.
If those numbers are right it does not bode well for Oz tertiary academic institutions. Sadly I feel they are close enough to being right. Prof Ridd is just one such illustration.
https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/solar-cycle
I am paying attention to the solar storms which is related to the ap index/solar wind.
I have always maintained, to have a maximum solar cooling effect the solar wind should average less then 350 km/sec and the ap index should be 5 or less.
One of my solar criteria items for cooling are sub solar activity in general for 10+ years which we have. Sub solar activity starting in general post 2005.
Other requirement is very low solar average value parameters within the sub solar activity in general. That criteria I have posted many times.
solar wind – 350 km/sec or lower- not attained
cosmic ray count in excess of 6500 units – attained
euv light 100 units or less – attained
ap index 5 or lower – not attained
sunspot numbers less then 40- attained
solar flux sub 90 – attained
solar irradiance off .15% or more from sunspot maximum activity – not sure if this has been attained yet.
Getting very close, to having it all attained.
Looking for a slight increase in albedo due to major explosive volcanic activity increases and greater snow/cloud coverage, and overall lower sea surface temperatures.
All the above due to very low solar parameters.
Another note
OLR- I have yet to see data that shows this item is decreasing due to increasing CO2 concentrations.
“I have yet to see data that shows this item is decreasing due to increasing CO2 concentrations.”
There are papers that purport to show this – DA references one up above, but I think it is behind a paywall. I’ve seen one that presents data taken a couple of decades ago versus now, but they were different instruments, and assumptions have to be made as to how they overlay one another. The assumptions drive the result, so there is high risk of circular reasoning.
Bart
You disagreed with my idea that a drop in OLR (as a response to the GHE) cannot be directly measured at the top of the atmosphere. I don’t know if I’m right……too lazy to dig through the research papers David cited, but I remember thinking your objection was flawed. Something about the proportions of different wavelengths?
It’s not the measurements that are the problem per se, it is interpreting the measurements in the face of an overabundance of potential causes.
Hey Bart,
You might find this page of studies specific to your interest useful:
https://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/
Thank you, I do have that already. I reviewed the ones not paywalled and found them to be wanting.
Confirmation bias is rampant in the entire field. Data are always interpreted in the most favorable fashion. The justification at root is they already now the answer, so if they can simply interpret the data in a manner which supports the answer, they think they’ve proved it. But, this is begging the question, circulus in probando, a no-no in the application of logic and reason.
…know the answer…
Bart, you exhibit a consistent tendency question data, measurements, when their findings deviate from your beliefs. You always assert that there must biases underlying these results, but offer no evidence whatsoever.
Imo, this is crying wolf way too often, whenever it suits you. Very anti-science.
Whether you consider me biased or not, my questions and reservations are legitimate. It is not my fault that so many shortcuts have been taken, and the data not subjected to proper scrutiny.
The only one paywalled in the obs list is Chapman 2013. A title search on google scholar will bring up full versions of any not immediately available. (I would guess the same for the model list, but I didn’t bother searching for those assuming it wasn’t pertinent to your inquiry)
Confirmation bias from a bunch of independent observers? Or bias from the sole critic?
The papers are not uniform in their scope and conclusions. The review paper at the top doesn’t even give a conclusion on your question, but rather discusses the history of advances and limitations in atmospheric spectral analysis.
You should read it.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40641-016-0039-5
Bart says:
There are papers that purport to show this DA references one up above, but I think it is behind a paywall. Ive seen one that presents data taken a couple of decades ago versus now, but they were different instruments, and assumptions have to be made as to how they overlay one another. The assumptions drive the result, so there is high risk of circular reasoning.
How specifically did the assumptions driver the result?
Do you think the scientists don’t realize they have to calibrate their instruments???
Calibrating instruments is common throughout all sciences. All of them. UAH is now calibrating over something like 10 different satellites.
Again, you avoid actually discussing science in favor of feeble hand-waving arguments.
It is a simple fact that the change in the shape of the curve is very similar just on the basis of warming alone, and the only significant deviation is in components that also arise from instrument mismatch. It’s essentially an underdetermined system of fewer equations than unknowns, and it can only be solved by levying subjective constraints.
It has been a while, so Im replying at the bottom of the post. Perhaps I need to be clearer and more detailed about my original question. Using the basic premise that energy is neither created nor destroyed, let me expand up on the details as I see them:
1) Some short wave light from the sun is absorbed by the earths surface and it warms.
2) The earth then emits IR energy per its gray-body spectrum. The energy emitted with a wave length of 13u to 17u (about 15%) will be absorbed by CO2 within a short distance. David provided a value of 1 meter, which is very short indeed.
3) Once CO2 absorbs this photon then it warms. Some, perhaps the vast majority, of this energy is transferred to N2 or O2. The amount really doesnt matter to me and Im happy to assume all of the IR absorbed by CO2 is re-emitted in some random direction. This is the best case scenario for CO2s effect.
4) When CO2 re-emits IR in a random direction some will make it back to the surface where it is absorbed and converted back to heat. Gordon, you argue that the surface will not absorb the IR because it would violate the 2 LoT. I disagree with you and really do not want to argue it. Since the surface is warmer than the sky, more energy is leaving the surface and the net energy flows are towards space. The energy returned by CO2 reduces the net flows from the surface, keeping the earth warmer than it would be without CO2. If the sun was suddenly turned off and the earths atmosphere completely replaced with CO2, the surface would never increase in temperature. Therefore, CO2 is not warming the surface at all, but it is slowing the rate of cooling. The sun is the source of all the warming (ignoring the small amount from the earths interior).
5) Now this is the key part for me. Once the IR is absorbed by the surface and converted back to heat, that energy will again be re-emitted per the earths gray-body spectrum. Most (about 85%, giver or take) of the energy emitted by the earth is outside the 13u to 17u wave lengths. This is what I mean by a frequency change. It is not that the IR photon changes frequency directly, it first must be absorbed by the earth, converted back to heat, and then be re-emitted. Once converted to heat, then energy has no knowledge of its original frequency and it is free to be emitted in whatever wave length happens.
6) Since the re-emission is likely to be in a different wave length, it is likely that it will directly escape the earth to space. As I see it, the total time that IR is trapped is from one emission to the next. Now, of course, some of the energy will be re-emitted in 13u to 17u and the cycle continues. But if there is only a 15% chance that the earth will emit in 13u to 17u, then the total amount of energy trapped quickly decays. I think the simple formula of 1 (0.15)^N where N is the number of return cycles describes the percentage of energy that escapes. On the first cycle, the odds are 85% that energy escapes, on the second cycle then 97.75% has escaped, on the third then 99.7% escapes, and so on.
7) Given that the night time in most places is about 12 hours long (yes, I know the high latitudes are different, but they received very little energy) and the time that IR is trapped is in seconds, it appears to me that come sunrise the exact same amount of energy is in the earth system. In order for AGW to be accurate, there has to be more energy trapped and I just dont see it. Yes, CO2 returns some of the energy to the surface, and yes it adds heat back to the surface, but the total amount of time energy is trapped is extremely short. In the blue/green plate scenario, the green plate is opaque in all wave lengths, and hence energy does not escape through the green plate. This returns IR back to the blue plate and reduces it cooling. But if the green plate was transparent in most wavelengths, I doubt it would raise the blue plates temperature very much.
NP-Hard
NP-Hard,
you lost me here:
“6) Since the re-emission is likely to be in a different wave length, it is likely that it will directly escape the earth to space.”
Why do you think re-emission would be any different than the “original” emission? Did the surface’s temperature suddenly change?
Based upon the earth’s gray-body emissions spectrum, for a given temperature there is only a 15% chance the heat will be emitted between 13u and 17u. If the first emmission is at 15u then when it is returned to the surface and absorbed then there is an 85% it will be emitted outside of 13u to 17u. Once that happens then the energy will freely escape to space.
NP-Hard
“3) Once CO2 absorbs this photon then it warms. Some, perhaps the vast majority, of this energy is transferred to N2 or O2.”
That was my understanding as well, and I recently speculated: “the sun heats the earth, surface radiation heats CO2 molecules, and CO2 molecules heat N2/O2 via direct collision.”
Bond thought that was way off, claiming CO2 molecules almost immediately re-emit the energy they absorb, and so have no time to warm the non-GHG’s.
********
Roy Spencer disagrees with Bond’s view, and in his post, “Skeptical arguments that don’t hold water”, writes:
“3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS. No. When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state. See more here. Also important is the fact that the rate at which a CO2 molecule absorbs IR is mostly independent of temperature, but the rate at which it emits IR increases strongly with temperature. There is no requirement that a layer of air emits as much IR as it absorbsin fact, in general, the the rates of IR emission and absorbtion are pretty far from equal.”
and Snape the data shows AGW theory is wrong.
What data, Salvatore?
Snape,
In Skeptical arguments that dont hold water, there is a link missing where he writes “See more here.”
Much obliged if you can reproduce it.
Here is the original post:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/04/skeptical-arguments-that-dont-hold-water/
Also, NP-Hard was referring to the molecule getting warmer, not the photon.
Snape,
Thank you for the link.
Nitpick alert: Individual molecules don’t have temperatures either.
snape from your link to Roy’s article:
“The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature”.
There is nothing in the statement from Clausius on the 2nd law about a net energy flow.
For one, the statement in which he declared the 2nd law came from his treatise on heat and he mentioned nothing about EM. He was aware of radiation and he thought heat flowed through an aether, as did Kircheoff, Boltzmann, and Planck.
It was not till 1913, that Bohr presented the theory that electrons convert kinetic energy as heat to EM. Both Clausius and Boltzmann were long gone by then. However, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation upon which many rely today mentioned only a one way transfer of radiation between bodies of different temperatures. There is nothing in S-B about a two-way transfer.
Many people are confusing the work done by Kircheoff in which a two-way radiation exchange is implied. All of Kircheoff’s work was done in conditions of thermal equilibrium.
For another, he specified clearly, that heat can NEVER, by it’s own means, be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body.
The 2nd law has been stated in terms of entropy and that one implies the same principle. The entropy flow is always from the hotter body to the colder body and it fails completely in the opposite direction. In the opposite direction the equation returns a negative entropy and that is not allowed.
It would mean a body that disintegrates during a process could reverse itself and form the original body. Or that water falling off a cliff as a waterfall could run back up the cliff.
Gordon, rather than pontificating on the 2nd Law, please head down to the local university and ask any physics professor (or engineering prof who deals with thermodynamics) if your understanding is correct.
Gordon Robertson says:
It was not till 1913, that Bohr presented the theory that electrons convert kinetic energy as heat to EM.
You’ve got to stop trying to learn science from comic books.
tim…”Gordon, rather than pontificating on the 2nd Law, please head down to the local university and ask any physics professor (or engineering prof who deals with thermodynamics) if your understanding is correct”.
No need for that, it’s plainly written down by the master himself, Rudolf Clausius. He stated it very simply in words that would make sense to a layman. It’s only a few deniers like you and your fellow alarmists who have questioned it.
I have gone so far as to lay out the basis of the 2nd law at the atomic level. Besides some squawking from Norman I have seen no proof that my presentation, based on Bohr and Schrodinger, is wrong.
Maybe you should head down to a local university and see if you got it right. Anyone who argues that heat can be transferred cold to hot, without external compensation of some kind, is not only lacking an understanding of the 2nd law, he/she is demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of energy and energy transfer per se.
Gordon, we would need to agree on terminology before we can have any sort of discussion. Every modern text equates “heat” with Q. So either you need to agree to that usage, or we need to simply use Q and U and W, and never use “heat”.
PS Wikipedia disagrees with you:
“Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.[27]
The statement by Clausius uses the concept of ‘passage of heat’. As is usual in thermodynamic discussions, this means ‘net transfer of energy as heat’, and does not refer to contributory transfers one way and the other.
Not that wikipedia is the final authority; just one more example that your understanding does not match the understanding of experts in the field.
snape ….”When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state”.
***********
Pure theory. There is no direct proof that individual energy quanta behave like that and spread heat from molecule to molecule like that. And you cannot treat this out of the context of the percent mass of each gas in the mix.
Treating this as a problem in statistical mechanics would be mind-numbing. Clausius was quick to point out with heat transfer that the internals of the atom were not important as long as the externals could be established.
With a mixed gas in a lab in a fixed volume you would not use the statistical approach, you’d measure the pressure and temperature after having ascertained the gas constant, R, for each gas and the number of moles, n, per gas.
Why would that not apply to a ballpark situation in the atmosphere? I have already argued that treating the atmosphere as a fixed volume equates pressure directly to temperature. I also pointed out that Dalton’s law of partial pressures, a component of the Ideal Gas Law, claims the overall pressure of the gas mix is the sum of the pressures of the individual gases. That means as well that the mass percent of each gas affects the total gas pressure.
Since pressure is proportional to temperature it has to mean the heat contributed by each gas is proportional to its mass percent. There you have it, CO2 at 0.04% can never contribute more than a few hundredths of a percent of the heat.
If you have CO2 at a mass percent close to 0.04% and you heat it slightly, how much will its increased heat contribute to the overall mix? This is apparently not a case of the heat being randomly spread throughout the entire mix, it’s a case of satisfying the Ideal Gas Law.
As you rise more than a few feet above the surface, the surface IR drops off dramatically in intensity. Furthermore, N2 and O2 receive heat directly from the surface by conduction. Who is to say they are not already in thermal equilibrium or hotter than the CO2? And who said the CO2 is not warmed by direct contact with the surface?
A lot of conditions need to be satisfied before you theorize on the effect of one energy quanta on CO2 and surrounding molecules.
“I have already argued that treating the atmosphere as a fixed volume equates pressure directly to temperature.”
So … atmospheric pressure is higher in the summer and lower in the winter? If the barometric pressure is P = 101,000 N/m^2, what is the temperature? If the pressure is 1 atm at the surface and the temperature is 300 K, will the temperature be 150 K when the pressure has dropped to 0.5 atm?
All of these should be easily solvable if there is a direct relationship between pressure and temperature.
NP,
I applaude your efforts to get your head around this very complex climate debate. You make some good points, but I’m sure there will be many who take issue with them, me included.
2) I would imagine the percentage of radiation absorbed by CO2 varies with altitude and temperature of the surface. Just my guess. One meter may be too short.
3) I would not say a photon warms, because it doesn’t have a temperature does it? Where it came from had a temperature though, so I think I know what you mean. What happens when it gets there? It’s energy is either emitted or absorbed. The data for how likely this will occur one way or the other is well known. Dan Pangburn has discussed it here:
http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com/2018/02/top-of-atmospheretoa-graphs-of-radiated.html . Practically all will be thermalized by collisions with N2 and O2 near the surface.
Somewhere between 4) and 6) you need to explain what role convection and wind moving energy around plays.
7) The blue/green plate scenario is only helpful in understanding radiative energy transfer. Applying it to the atmosphere is how the greenhouse analogy mess got started. You can’t get conclusive data until you pull a vacuum on the system. How similar is that to the atmosphere?
Chic Bowdrie says:
3) I would not say a photon warms, because it doesnt have a temperature does it?
Ever get a sunburn?
chic…”The blue/green plate scenario is only helpful in understanding radiative energy transfer”.
There is no such thing as radiative energy transfer in that experiment since radiation transfer is inferred. The energy being implied is thermal energy and the 2nd law states clearly that is is not an exchange at temperatures outside of thermal equilibrium.
You have to be alert to the fact that alarmists throw the word energy around in its generic form to slide one by you. To an alarmist, EM and heat are described by the word energy but they are both entirely different forms of energy with totally different properties.
In case it may have escaped you, Eli Rabbett, who designed the experiment, is using it as an analogy to prove heat can be transferred from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface. He’s all wet, and he was told that by Gerlich and Tscheuschner, two experts in thermodynamics.
Rabbett thinks that a two way exchange of EM satisfies the 2nd law as long as the net is positive in the direction of hot to cold. In other words, he thinks heat can be transferred both ways via radiation resulting in the Earth’s surface temperature being raised beyond the temperature it is heated by solar energy.
Not possible.
Rabbett has seriously confused heat with EM, as have many of the alarmists on this blog. EM is the product of heat AFTER it has been converted by electrons in an atom. During the conversion, heat is lost and EM is generated. There is no heat associated with the EM flux once it is generated therefore you cannot deal with the EM as if it is heat in transit.
The 2nd law applies to radiative heat transfer as well but IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY!!! from hot to cold. No heat is actually transferred since the heat converted in the emitter is lost during conversion. The transfer is apparent and results from a cooler body absorbing the EM from the hot body, where it is converted back to heat.
The reverse process is not allowed. EM from a cooler body lacks the intensity and frequency to move an electron in a hotter body to a higher orbital energy level. Put another way, it is not possible to move anything against a potential energy gradient without using external power and means.
GR says:
No heat is actually transferred since the heat converted in the emitter is lost during conversion.
W-H-A-T??
Ever hear of conservation of energy?
Energy is never just “lost.”
So where does it go?
David,
Gordon seriously confuses “heat”, Q with “internal energy”, U. If you re-read his statement and mentally insert “internal energy” for each use of “heat” then his statement comes much closer to to making sense.
“During the conversion,
heatinternal energy, U, is lost and EM is generated. There is noheatinternal energy, U, associated with the EM flux once it is generated therefore you cannot deal with the EM as if it isheatinternal energy, U. ”But since Gordon states that U changes, and since ΔU = Q – W, then EM radiation must either be W or Q (or potentially it could be considered U of a different system, but that is not very common unless you want to get into photon gases).
The irony is that the confusion is mostly a result of Gordon insisting on using the wrong word.
DA…”GR says:
No heat is actually transferred since the heat converted in the emitter is lost during conversion.
W-H-A-T??
Ever hear of conservation of energy?
Energy is never just lost. ”
*********
One form is lost as another form is created.
Happens all the time. A gasoline engine burns gasoline and converts chemical energy to mechanical energy. A hydro station converts mechanical energy to electrical energy.
The degree to which one energy is converted to another is the efficiency of conversion.
In an atom, heat as kinetic energy is converted to electromagnetic energy by electrons. You know that, as an atom emits EM it cools. Heat is lost and the conservation results in EM.
tim…”Gordon seriously confuses heat, Q with internal energy, U. If you re-read his statement and mentally insert internal energy for each use of heat then his statement comes much closer to to making sense”.
Tim…it is you who is seriously confused. In his book, The Mechanical Theory of Heat, Clausius describes how he defined U.
Are you going to call the scientist who invented the term U, confused?
Here is his development of U from scratch:
***********
From Chapter I in the 1879 edition of The Mechanical Theory of Heat:
We will therefore start with the assumption that Heat consists in a motion of the ultimate particles of bodies and of ether, and that the quantity of heat is a measure of the Vis Viva [kinetic energy] of this motion.
*********
Let any body whatever be given, and let its condition as to temperature, volume, &c. be assumed to be known. If an indefinitely small quantity of heat dQ is imparted to this body, the question arises what becomes of it, and what effect it produces. It may in part serve to increase the amount of heat actually existing in the body; in part also, if in consequence of the imparting of this heat the body changes its condition, and that change includes the overcoming of some force, it may be absorbed in the work done thereby. If we denote the total heat existing in the body, or more briefly the Quantity of Heat of the the body by H, and the indefinitely small increment of this quantity by dH, and if we put dL for the indefinitely small quantity of work done, then we can write:
dQ= dH + dL…………..(I)
The forces against which the work is done may be divided into two classes: (1) those which the molecules of the body exert among themselves, and which are therefore dependent on the nature of the body itself and (2) those which arise from external influences to which the body is subjected. According to these two classes of forces, which have to be overcome, the work done is divided into internal and external work. If we denote these two quantities by dJ and dW, we may put
dL = dJ +dW
and then the foregoing equation becomes
dQ = dH + dJ + dW……….(II)
8. Energy of the Body.
In addition to the two differentials dJ and dW, which depend on the work done, we have on the right-hand side of equation (II) a third, which is the differential of H, the total heat actually existing in the body, or its quantity of Heat. This quantity H bas clearly the property, also mentioned as belonging to J, that it is known as soon as the condition of the body is given, without needing to know the way in which the body has arrived at tbat condItion.
Since the heat existing in the body and tbe internal work are on the same footing as regards the above most important property, and since further, on account of our ignorance as to the internal work, we generally do not know the several amounts of these two quantities but only their suni, the author, in his first Paper on Heat, published in 1850, combined the two under one designation. Following the same system, we will put
U = H + J
which changes equation (II) into
dQ = dU + dW…………(III)
The function U, first introduced by the author in the above mentioned paper, has been since adopted by other writers on Heat, and as the definition given by him – that starting from any given initial condition it expresses the sum of the increment of the heat actually existing and of the heat consumed in internal work….
Gordon from the 1850s: “If we denote the total heat existing in the body..”
Kristian’s text 5:24am: “Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat (existing) in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work (existing) in a body.”
Science has moved on from the caloric theory of the 1850s Gordon where the total heat was considered to exist in a body and be poured from body to body in touch. Gordon just needs to catch up on his reading and toss aside ref.s to the relic of an old catechism.
Gordon, the first scientist who proposes some idea is not sainted and their ideas enshrined in the Holy Book of Physics.
Science evolves. Ideas get improved. Clausius was not right about everything. Einstein was not right about everything. Newton was not right about everything.
The very first paragraph you quote has a serious error.
“We will therefore start with the assumption that Heat consists in a motion of the ultimate particles of bodies and of ether, and that the quantity of heat is a measure of the Vis Viva [kinetic energy] of this motion.”
That assumption is wrong. You get the wrong heat capacity, c, if you assume the internal energy of a solid consists only of kinetic energy — wrong by a factor of 2. The potential energy must be included too.
If his VERY FIRST assumption was wrong, do you suppose it might have been mistaken about a few other things? Do you suppose that as other scientists added knowledge and did new experiments, that maybe better understanding has evolved?
Gordon,
Clausius discusses H, J, L, Q, U, & W. Which of those letters would you associate with EM radiation?
ball4….”Gordon from the 1850s: If we denote the total heat existing in the body..
Kristians text 5:24am: Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the heat (existing) in a body, just as it is incorrect to speak of the work (existing) in a body. ”
***********
So I presume we discard Newtons laws of motion since they were written in 1600 something. How about dumping Kepler’s laws and those of Planck and Einstein.
I like Kristian’s comments for the most part and I agree with him on many things but he is clearly wrong about heat.
Clausius explained it all in the lengthy quote from his book. There is both heat (kinetic energy) and work in a body as well as externally. Clausius makes it clear that U refers to heat contained in a body and the work done by the atoms themselves.
What do you call the incessant motion of atoms in their bonds? There are forces acting over a distance and the last time I looked that is called work. If you add more heat the distances increase, and if you add enough a metal will melt as the bonds break.
As Mike points out, reduce the temperature to 0K and the vibrations stop altogether. Maybe you guys all work in low temperature physics.
I mean, Clausius introduced the term U and defined it. He told us what it is. Am I supposed to take the word of a non-Clausius that I am wrong just because some modernists are out of touch with basic physics?
I’m kidding here, Kristian, but you’re a frigging geologist. We learned a different kind of physics in electrical engineering. I have no idea what Tim is studying, maybe he’s an Aggie.
“So I presume we discard Newtons laws of motion since they were written in 1600 something”
Well, yeah replace them with recent developments as they fail as velocity appraoches c.
“How about dumping Kepler’s laws and those of Planck and Einstein.”
No, they have not been improved upon.
“There is both heat (kinetic energy) and work in a body”
No Gordon, your thinking is incorrect, a body contains atoms/molecules that’s about it & they do possess KE. Until you improve your thinking and drop your confusion over heat, you will be a source of failure and entertainment like Flynn and Kristian at times not a serious student of science.
How about dumping Keplers laws and those of Planck and Einstein.
No, they have not been improved upon.
Well, Kepler’s Laws did not take into account the gravity of other planets. It is precisely this ‘error’ in Kepler’s Laws that led to the discovery of Neptune.
As for Einstein, he initially formulated relativity without the ‘cosmological constant’, then added it, and then later removed it again, calling it “the biggest blunder” of his career. But lately astrophysicists have added it back. You could say Einstein was wrong about this one idea three different times!
Bottom line: Yes, Gordon, science changes and improves.
tim…”Gordon, the first scientist who proposes some idea is not sainted and their ideas enshrined in the Holy Book of Physics.
Science evolves. Ideas get improved. Clausius was not right about everything”.
**********
In the case of Clausius, the 2nd law, and entropy, the ideas are enshrined in the Holy Book of Physics, alongside Newton’s laws of motion and other laws.
Nothing has changed since Clausius stated the 2nd law in words and his formula for entropy is still intact. Heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a colder body to a warmer body. A net energy balance of EM changes nothing.
Why should it, you have not made your case?
What has changed is the views of people like you who have learned the theory incorrectly from teachers who have taught it incorrectly.
tim…”That assumption is wrong. You get the wrong heat capacity, c, if you assume the internal energy of a solid consists only of kinetic energy wrong by a factor of 2. The potential energy must be included too”.
Tim…are you sure you have formal training in physics? It sounds to me like you are hung up on equations, definitions, and models rather than stepping back and LOOKING at the actuality inside a solid. In metals, atoms are bound together by electrons into a lattice and the atoms are in constant motion through vibration.
What are you going to call that vibration and associated KE? I call it heat, and heat-related work, and that’s exactly how Clausius defined U.
If you add heat to a body, some is converted to work and some goes to increasing the internal heat in the body as kinetic energy. They involve different phenomena. The work involves inter-atomic forces involving attraction and repulsion whereas the KE as heat affects the energy level of the electrons that bind the atoms together.
We all know energy has to be conserved so if you add thermal energy to a body, some has to be conserved as thermal energy and some has to be converted to mechanical energy in the atomic vibrations. The thermal energy is measured as relative temperatures whereas thermal-related work affects the dimensions of a body. We know that heated metals expand and change temperature.
Work and heat are equivalent.
With regard to your point about heat capacity, there’s no point talking about how added/removed heat affects the temperature of a body unless we have a starting point for heat. With heat capacity, you are adding to or subtracting from heat that already exists in a body. Otherwise the temperature would be 0K.
Clausius claimed the internal energy is the sum of internal KE (heat) and work done by atoms against each other. Work in a body incorporating harmonic motion has both PE and KE.
He refers to heat existing in the body as H and the work done between atoms as J then he defines U as:
U = H + J
Therefore:
Q = U + W
break U into H and J as U = H + J, where H is the heat in the body and J is the work done by vibrating atoms.
Q = (H + J) + W
Q and W are external and H and J are internal.
Beautiful!!!
Come on, admit it, the analysis of Clausius is bleeding brilliant, especially for a guy circa 1875.
HE DEFINED U!!!
Gordon, Yes, Clausius was brilliant and he moved thermodynamics headed by several great leaps in that paper. (But that still does not mean that things can move ahead farther.)
In metals, atoms are bound together by electrons into a lattice and the atoms are in constant motion through vibration.
What are you going to call that vibration and associated KE? I call it heat, and heat-related work, and thats exactly how Clausius defined U.”
Two points.
1) On page 31, Clausius clearly states: “In what follows the quantity U will therefore be called the Energy of the body.” Not “heat” as you want to say, but “Energy of the body”. In modern texts this has been changed to “internal energy”.
You are specifically disagreeing with your ‘master’, Clausius, when you call U “heat”!
2) For a monatomic gas, the internal energy is indeed the net KE of the individual particles. You can use this to derive the correct specific heat for such gases.
But for solids this is off by a factor of 2. During each oscillation of an atom in the lattice, the atom stops at each end and has zero KE. If you try to calculate the specific heat just from the KE, you get the wrong answer. You must include the potential energy of the ‘springs’ that hold the lattice together. Clausius missed this.
tim…”As for Einstein, he initially formulated relativity without the cosmological constant, then added it, and then later removed it again, calling it the biggest blunder of his career. But lately astrophysicists have added it back. You could say Einstein was wrong about this one idea three different times!”
I hope not, but relativity may prove to be the biggest blunder of Einstein’s career. He has equated time to physical phenomena with which time has no relationship, like force and mass. From that, many scientists have drawn the inference that space-time has a reality and some have gone so far as to claim gravity is not a force but a product of space-time.
Einstein did much of his work in an era when psychology was in its infancy. Most people were not aware of the distinction between ‘awareness’, a timeless state, and knowledge, a time-based state. Naturally, scientists regarded time as being a real phenomenon and they built it into theories where it did not belong.
Psychologist, Eugene Gendlin, who is aware of the dichotomy, and who has expertise in quantum theory, has put forward the notion that Einstein has imposed imaginary time on real phenomena, hence arriving at incorrect conclusions about relativity.
Relativity will always work where velocities are insignificant compared to the speed of light, but the inferences drawn from relativity theory, like time dilation and dimensions changing in size, due to velocities near the speed of light, are seriously off the mark.
In essence, there is no need to include the speed of light in relativity theory and without it, the theory works fine based on Newtonian mechanics. It’s only at speeds and dimensions of atomic structure there is a problem.
There is no time factor in atoms or their motion. Can’t be measured, so other factors are employed. David Bohm, a top level quantum theorist, suggested we may have to do the same at the macro level.
ball4…”No Gordon, your thinking is incorrect, a body contains atoms/molecules thats about it & they do possess KE”.
Yes, and kinetic energy is a generic form of energy related to atoms and/or atomic particles in motion. KE does not tell you what kind of energy is involved.
In electronics, a steady-state voltage is potential energy and an electric current is kinetic energy. In an automobile, gasoline in a tank is potential energy, and after it explodes, the pistons, crankshaft, and driven wheels have kinetic energy provided the latter are moving.
In the cases above, KE represents electrical, chemical, and mechanical energy. In atomic structure, atoms can be declared to have kinetic energy but the energy described is thermal energy, aka heat.
“In electronics, a steady-state voltage is potential energy and an electric current is kinetic energy.”
This is WAY off-topic, but are you saying that potential energy in a battery becomes kinetic energy of moving electrons, and that the kinetic energy of electrons then (for example) gets turned into thermal energy when the electrons pass through a resistor?
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Back more on topic, let me repeat …
On page 31, Clausius clearly states: In what follows the quantity U will therefore be called the Energy of the body. Not heat as you want to say, but Energy of the body. In modern texts this has been changed to internal energy.
Are you willing to accept the words of your hero and stop using the word “heat” to refer to “U”?
Gordon,
I don’t support the warmist view that an incremental change in CO2 above its current level will cause any significant change in global temperature. That said I have no problem with hot objects being heated get warmer when colder objects are moved close to them. The heat flow is always hot to cold.
Take the Rabbit-Swanson green/blue plate example. The heat source warms the blue plate which loses energy to its surroundings until almost equilibrated. Then the vacuum is pulled and the blue plate warms because it is no longer able to lose heat via conduction and convection. It gets close to equilibrium again and then comes the green plate blocking its ability to continue to warm the surface of the chamber. So it warms up again, but continues to transfer radiation to the green plate which heats the chamber. So the temperature gradient goes from the source to the blue plate to the green plate to the inside wall to the outside wall which cools to the outside air. Eventually the heat flow will be constant from the source to outside the chamber.
At no time will any heat flow from a cold to a warmer body.
“At no time will any heat flow from a cold to a warmer body.”
That happens routinely all the time Chic, read up on the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution and realize any time temperature is invoked, then necessarily averages are involved.
This is where the use of the heat term enters in MUCH confusion.
At no time will any net energy flow from a cold to a warmer body is however true as that would decrease universe entropy. Gross energy can flow both ways increasing universe entropy each time but the net energy must only flow one way.
ball4…”That happens routinely all the time Chic, read up on the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution and realize any time temperature is invoked, then necessarily averages are involved”.
We are not talking about thermal equilibrium, we are talking about bodies at different temperatures.
We are talking about both thermodynamic internal (thermal) equilibrium AND we are talking about bodies at different temperatures Gordon. M-B distribution applies to both.
Ball4,
If you really want to help, rather than obfuscate, don’t try making up definitions to belabor a semantic argument. This is like playing tic-tac-toe. Anyone playing enough soon figures out there’s no winning, if you make the right move.
You can call what is happening between cold and warm objects whatever you want, but the net energy difference will never be heat in the classic sense from cold to hot.
“but the net energy difference will never be heat in the classic sense from cold to hot.”
Very good Chic. Stick to that and maybe Gordon will come around, maybe not.
M-B says this could happen also: the energy difference can be heat in the classic sense from cold to hot.
Just not the net.
chic…”That said I have no problem with hot objects being heated get warmer when colder objects are moved close to them. The heat flow is always hot to cold”.
You should have a problem with that since it contradicts atomic theory. Presuming your reference is to heat transfer by radiation, an electron in an atom (and all molecules are atoms with protons and electrons) converts heat as kinetic energy to EM as it drops from a higher energy level to a lower energy level.
Note that I said higher energy level to a lower energy level. The energy levels have differences in potential energy and it’s OK to drop from a higher potential energy level to a lower potential energy level. It’s not OK to go in the opposite direction naturally, without something occurring externally.
If an electron absorbs a quanta of electromagnetic energy, that some people like to call photons, and the quanta matches the frequency of the electron and the intensity in eV to the next energy level, or higher, the electron will jump to the next level or higher.
The relationship is E = hf, where E is the difference in energy levels in eV. If the frequency is lower, the energy, E, won’t match and guess where you find lower frequencies…in cooler objects.
Cooler objects have all around lower energy levels and there is no chance that an energy quanta originating from an electron in a cooler object will match the requirements of an electron in a hotter object UNLESS both bodies are very close to thermal equilibrium.
The 2nd law is satisfied. Why would anyone have a problem with atomic physics agreeing with the 2nd law?
Now, some people like Norman think atoms existing at temperatures in the terrestrial IR spectra don’t operate through electron transition but he has failed to explain how the IR is absorbed and emitted. I mean, how else would it be absorbed and emitted, through a black box EM generator/absorber secretly hidden in the nucleus?
ball4…”We are talking about both thermodynamic internal (thermal) equilibrium AND we are talking about bodies at different temperatures Gordon. M-B distribution applies to both”.
Last time I looked, M-B referred to an energy distribution at one temperature only. Same with Planck.
Well you get that right Gordon. Any more gems?
chic…”It gets close to equilibrium again and then comes the green plate blocking its ability to continue to warm the surface of the chamber”.
As I recall Swannie’s experiment, he evacuated the chamber and allowed the blue plate to equilibriate. In a vacuum, as you point out, heat dissipation can only be through radiation. Therefore the blue plate reached a state of equilibrium with whatever.
Then he raised the green plate and the temperature of the blue plate rose. Swannie claimed that as proof that the green plate at a lower temperature was heating the hotter blue plate through back-radiation. I claimed he missed the point, that the green plate was only interfering with the blue plate’s ability to radiate energy, therefore it warmed.
That scenario has been put forward as proof that CO2 at 0.04% of the atmosphere can act like a solid steel plate. In that regard, a theory physicist/meteorologist, Craig Bohren, termed ‘plain silly’, I claim the amount of surface flux has been seriously disregarded and underestimated.
Consider each and every surface atom/molecule radiating IR. How many of them are there compared to the 0.04% of CO2 molecules? I claim the surface flux density out-numbers the CO2 molecules bazillions to one.
There is proof of that in TOA IR absorp-tion guesstimates measured in milliwatts peak whereas TOA surface flux is guesstimated in the hundreds of watts.
The amount of surface flux absorbed by CO2 is totally negligible. There’s no way it could act to affect the rate of emission at the surface.
It all comes down to equilibrium temperatures. If a body in a vacuum is radiating to space, or wherever, it reaches an equilibrium based on the amount of radiation it can radiate. If you interfere with that radiation, you upset the equilibrium conditions and the body’s temperature changes (rises) to a different state of equilibrium.
It has nothing to do with the body absorbing radiation from a cooler body, all the cooler body does is interfere with the hotter body’s capacity to cool itself via radiation.
The 2nd law still stands.
There is no way the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere could interfere with surface radiation. We have been talking about the blanket or trapping model. The actual model applied in climate models is back-radiation warming the surface beyond what it is warmed by solar radiation. That’s a positive feedback that contradicts the 2nd law.
It not only contradicts the 2nd it represents perpetual motion in that energy radiated from the surface is recycled to warm the surface even more.
“The actual model applied in climate models is back-radiation warming the surface beyond what it is warmed by solar radiation. Thats a positive feedback that contradicts the 2nd law.”
If the two streams (SW + LW) aren’t added then 1LOT is broken.
“It not only contradicts the 2nd it represents perpetual motion in that energy radiated from the surface is recycled to warm the surface even more.”
Sure until equilibrium at ~289K is reached so no perpetual motion. No contradiction of 2LOT as universe entropy increases in the process and universe entropy increases at equilibrium steady state.
“I claimed he missed the point, that the green plate was only interfering with the blue plate’s ability to radiate energy, therefore it warmed.”
LOL. No mtter how you write up the experimental results Gordon, after the cooler green plate is added to the system, the warmer blue plate is observed to increase in temperature until a new steady state equilibrium is achieved.
No 1LOTs or 2LOTs or thermometers were harmed in the making of this experiment.
Hand-waving by Gordon …
“Consider each and every surface atom/molecule [in a steel plate] radiating IR. How many of them are there compared to the 0.04% of CO2 molecules? I claim the surface flux density out-numbers the CO2 molecules bazillions to one.”
Yet another claim utterly without merit! Rather than speculating, why not actually do the calculations?
Iron atoms have a radius of 1.26E-10 m, or an area of 5e-20 m^2, or 2E19 iron atoms covering 1 square meter of steel plate.
Air has a density of 1.2 kg/m^2, which corresponds to about 40 moles or 2.5E25 molecules. Since 1/2500 are CO2, that gives us about 1E22 CO2 molecules per square meter.
There are roughly 500 CO2 molecules in just one cubic meter for each and every iron atom on the surface of a steel plate. Rather than CO2 being outnumbered badly, the iron is outnumbered badly!
****************************
And yet more hand-waving …
“There is proof of that in TOA IR absorp-tion guesstimates measured in milliwatts peak whereas TOA surface flux is guesstimated in the hundreds of watts.”
First of all, I love how careful, experimental, textbook results that disagree with Gordon are belittled as “guestimates”.
Beyond that, he gets the units wrong and hence completely mis-interprets the results. He is almost certainly refering to a graph somthing like this: http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran_iris.jpg
The scale does indeed say milliwatts per square meter (“mW m-2”) for the vertical axis. But that is milliwats per square meter PER STERADIAN PER CM-1. Suffice it to say that when you understand and include the “sr^-1 cm”, the total flux is indeed 100’s of W/m^2.
So the*actual* proof is that the two numbers agree perfectly. 🙂
*****************************
Unfortunately, even though these ideas
1) are not all that complicated if you understand the topics
2) have been explained here before
several posters continue to boldly make the same errors over and over.
Chic,
7) The blue/green plate scenario is only helpful in understanding radiative energy transfer. Applying it to the atmosphere is how the greenhouse analogy mess got started.
No, the green plate scenario was only to demonstrate that introducing a cooler object to a system can result in a warmer object becoming warmer – but reducing its rate of energy loss.
Green plate exercise was an answer to those who misunderstand the 2nd Law.
barry, yes.
The green plate scenario is not demonstrate a cool object warming a hot object. The hot object has to be receiving enough heat so that it no longer cools, otherwise it will continue to cool albeit slower.
You don’t believe putting a block of ice in a room at 295K will heat the room?
It’s difficult to know who does and who does not understand the 2LoT.
“You don’t believe putting a block of ice in a room at 295K will heat the room?”
It depends. If the block of ice replaces a block of dry ice for instance, then yes. If the block of ice replaces boiling water, then no. If the block of ice replaces air at 295K then no.
2LOT in base form is an entropy law. If the process you describe increases universe entropy, it is possible. If the process decreases universe entropy or even keeps it the same, then the process is not possible.
The green plate scenario is not demonstrate a cool object warming a hot object.
It’s not an analogy for the GHE.
Maybe a trip down memory lane will help:
http://rabett.blogspot.com.au/2017/10/an-evergreen-of-denial-is-that-colder.html
“An evergreen of denial is that a colder object can never make a warmer object hotter.”
The demonstration that follows shows how the introduction of an object to a system reduces the rate of energy loss of a warmer object, and the temperature of the warmer object increases.
The arguments against are pure semantics and wishful thinking.
My colder jumper makes me feel warmer – by reducing my skin’s rate of heat loss.
Etc.
The green plate effect was always about showing that incorrect views of the 2nd Law were incorrect.
Not an analogy for Earth’s GHE.
chic…”The green plate scenario is not demonstrate a cool object warming a hot object”.
That is Eli Rabbett’s intention, with the green plate representing GHGs and the blue plate the Earth’s surface absorbing solar energy. He is trying to con people into believing that bring the GP closer to the BP will warm the BP, just as CO2 allegedly warms the atmosphere.
Two experts in thermodynamics told him he is full of green plates but he persists with his pseudo-science.
ball4…”2LOT in base form is an entropy law…”
Clausius developed the 2nd law in words (hot to cold only) then introduced and defined entropy. He even told us how he chose word. Even at that, the entropy version confirms the hot to cold only version.
For two bodies at different temperature:
delta S = Q(1/T2 – 1/T1)
Clausius claimed S has to be +ve or 0. If T1 > T2, the entropy is positive and that’s what we want. If not, the entropy is negative which is a no-no. It is agreeing with his subjective definition of the 2nd law.
Now let’s see you apply entropy to EM. Boltzmann tried and ended up taking his life. Planck tried and turned into a basket case worrying about it for 20 years.
It’s not trivial and no one can write it off as a net balance of energy. In the case of Stefan-Boltzmann, their equation in no way supports a net energy balance. It refers only to a one-way transfer due to a temperature gradient.
barry…”An evergreen of denial is that a colder object can never make a warmer object hotter.”
*********
This is why I regard Eli Rabbett, aka Josh Halpern, to be an educated fool. He has clearly broken the 2nd law by inferring the cooler green plate can warm the blue plate further than it is warmed by solar energy.
This is not just my opinion, he was taken to school on this very subject by two experts in thermodynamics, Gerlich and Tscheuschner.
When they invoked the 2nd law re heat transfer between bodies of different temperatures, Halpern et al claimed one of the bodies was not radiating. I mean, how dense can you get?
G&T did not imply that anywhere, they claimed heat can only be transferred from a hotter body to a cooler body. To Halpern et al that means one of the bodies was not radiating.
Come on, this is high school stuff, and he is a university professor. G&T had to point out the obvious, that the 2nd law APPLIES ONLY TO HEAT!!!!
How many times do I have to repeat that before you alarmists clue in?
HEAT IS NOT…REPEAT…NOT EM!!!
Why is that so hard to understand? Is it because you have all been mislead in school to believe that heat and EM are both energy therefore you can just sum them to get a net energy flow???
Yes, they are both energy but they have entirely different properties. I have pointed that out over and over, EM is an electric and magnetic field traveling perpendicular to each other. EM has a frequency and a spectrum.
Heat has no frequency nor does it have an electric or magnetic field. Heat is equivalent to work, EM is not.
Why do you alarmists find it so hard to comprehend that you cannot sum EM fluxes to get around the 2nd law?
The green plate cannot transfer heat to the blue plate. It not only contradicts the 2nd law, it contradicts atomic theory related to the restrictions placed on electrons by Bohr and Schrodinger, and it contradicts the accepted theory on potential fields that energy can only flow form a higher potential to a lower potential.
“The green plate cannot transfer heat to the blue plate.”
No matter how you write it Gordon, adding the cooler green plate increases the temperature of the warmer blue plate by experiment and 1LOT analysis consistent with 2LOT. No way around that no matter what you think of certain people.
The whole point of the experiment is to show that you are thinking about the 2LOT incorrectly. Adding the green plate raises system entropy thus passes 2LOT.
“Now lets see you apply entropy to EM.”
In any exchange of EMR, system entropy is increased Gordon. Perfectly ok with 2LOT.
ball4…”In any exchange of EMR, system entropy is increased Gordon. Perfectly ok with 2LOT”.
The entropy increase is unidirectional and over a temperature gradient from hot to cold.
As with the 2nd law, entropy is related to HEAT, not EM.
dS = dQ/T
No reference to EM whatsoever.
Clausius who coined the word entropy and who initially introduced the concept, claimed in words that entropy is the sum of infinitesimal changes of HEAT at a temperature T at which the changes take place.
Heat and EM are entirely different forms of energy with different properties. They can be converted from one to the other via electrons but it is not permissible to add EM fluxes and claim that satisfies laws related to heat only.
It is just plain ignorant to claim heat can be transferred both ways outside of thermal equilibrium via EM transfer. The EM flux flows intercepted by bodies from other bodies do not constitute a ‘net energy balance’. That is a fiction dreamed up by climate alarmists.
“No reference to EM whatsoever.”
+Q is due absorbed EMR, +T changes due absorbed EMR, dS is positive universe entropy increases due the EMR. No problem.
It is just plain ignorant to claim heat exists in an object to be transferred both ways outside of thermal equilibrium via EM transfer.
It is just plain ignorant to claim EMR doesn’t exist to be transferred both ways at & outside of thermal equilibrium via EM transfer.
barry….”Green plate exercise was an answer to those who misunderstand the 2nd Law”.
You mean, it was introduced by a professor of chemistry who is thoroughly confused about electromagnetic radiation, heat transfer, and the 2nd law. He was told that by two experts in thermodynamics who make their living in the field.
BTW…the inference by Rabbett was in connection to the skeptical view that back-radiation from the atmosphere could not warm the surface based on the requirements of the 2nd law.
Yes, that last bit is correct.
Gerlich and T, have been thoroughly scotched by a great many people regarding their woeful paper on the greenhouse effect. You’ve been shown the links. That they spend 20 pages pointing out that the atmosphere doesn’t operate in exactly the same way as a real greenhouse functions should be a clue as to their naivety on the subject. That is face-palm worthy.
6) … I think the simple formula of 1 (0.15)^N where N is the number of return cycles describes the percentage of energy that escapes. …
That is the wrong way to look at it. And the wrong formula!
* Without CO2, energy is continuously leaking off to space at some relatively large rate.
** With CO2, energy is continuously leaking off to space at some slightly smaller rate.
* Without CO2, the ground might cool from 20 C to 10 C overnight.
** With CO2, the ground might cool from 20 C to 11 C overnight.
I just realized another error in this equation, and I am trying to figure out how to best say it.
Without any GHGs, the surface would lose 100% of its maximum energy loss rate, not 100% of the energy in the surface
With CO2, the surface would lose 85% of its maximum energy loss rate, not 85% of the energy in the surface.
Let’s use numbers. Consider 1m x 1m x 1m cube of water = 1000 kg with c = 4186 J/kg*K. If you do the math, you will find it radiates enough to cool by 0.0001 K each second (all just rough numbers).
* That’s ~ 100% of the maximum rate of cooling
* That’s ~ 0.0001 K of cooling.
Or using an analogy, consider a tank full of water. Your equation assumes that you can drain 100% of the water in 1 s in one case. Then plugging 15% of the hole makes little difference, since pretty much 100% can drain in 2.0 s and the tank will be empty way before 12 hours in either case.
Instead we have a tank where the LARGEST POSSIBLE HOLE — draining at 100% of the best possible rate — can only drain ~ 0.0001% of the water each second. Over night only a few % will drain. If the hole is 85% as large, then a slightly smaller amount will drain overnight. Maybe 5% in one case and 4.25% in the other.
The one tank is definitely fuller with the smaller leak. The ground is definitely warmer with the smaller leak. The next day the sun starts from a warmer temperature and hence can warm the ground to a higher temperature.
Tim,
Why do you have to talk about tanks? Maybe you could spend the time finding a testable GHE hypothesis.
Then you wouldnt need to waste your time with pointless and irrelevant analogies, trying to explain something which you admit does not exist!
Cheers.
I have to talk about tanks because many people don’t understand thermodynamics, but *might* understand a more physical system that illustrates the same point.
Do *you* think the equation 1 – (0.15)^N accurately illustrates the rate the energy leaves the surface to cool the ground?
Tim,
No. If you specify the emissivity, the absolute temperature, the temperature differentials, and stop being so obscurantist, somebody other than me might have the slightest idea where you are going with your gotcha.
Not to mention that if the ground happens to be warming, your equation is pointless and irrelevant, unless you subscribe to the GHE dogma that CO2 simultaneously cools and heats, depending on your desired outcome!
Maybe you could say what you are trying to say. How hard can it be?
Cheers.
Mike…”Tim, Why do you have to talk about tanks?”
It’s obviously an obfuscation because he doesn’t understand the basics of how heat is transferred. Tim has already advised me that 0.04% ink in a vial of water blocks sunlight. He doesn’t get it that CO2 works in the atmosphere with an entirely different mechanism than ink in a vial.
If you had a vial of sufficient size and you injected 0.04% ink, it would not block a significant amount of sunlight.
NT…”Gordon, you argue that the surface will not absorb the IR because it would violate the 2 LoT. I disagree with you and really do not want to argue it. Since the surface is warmer than the sky, more energy is leaving the surface and the net energy flows are towards space”.
I am not arguing, I am telling you, there is no such thing as net energy flow. You are telling me that the surface is warmer therefore it can radiate energy to the atmosphere which is then collected and radiated back to warm the surface to a temperature higher than it is warmed by solar energy.
We are talking about HEAT transfer not the flow of electromagnetic energy, simply because EM is not heat. A net flow of EM DOES NOT satisfy the 2nd law, WHICH IS ABOUT HEAT!!! Heat can only be transferred one way by its own means, from hot to cold. There is no other law that modifies this law.
There is not even a net flow of EM. Bodies radiate EM isotropically after it has been converted by electrons from heat (kinetic energy). Heat is lost in the process and a new form of energy created (EM). The flow of EM flux through space between bodies is incidental, not by design. Some of the EM from each body is intercepted by the other and if you want to call that a net exchange of energy it is false, because no energy can be exchanged other than at thermal equilibrium.
Until you get it that EM and heat are entirely different energy forms you will never understand my point so it’s better to live with your ignorance and go on kidding yourself.
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/evidence-that-co2-emissions-do-not-intensify-the-greenhouse-effect/
AS I HAD THOUGHT.
Article suffers from extreme cherry-picking. Example: cites ONE paper for global DLR – that measures DLR for only one third of the United States.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/global.png
Meanwhile overall oceanic temperature trend is down to this from this past summer of a range from +.26c to +.37c or so.
We are talking almost a .15c drop, in less than a year!
The trend value is +0.29. As usual, you take a value above the trend and claim cooling.
wrong during the summer the average overall sea surface temperatures were north of +.30c
Thanks for illustrating for all to see your utter lack of understanding of the concept of a trend.
The AGW model forecast for global temperatures is more then 100% above where we are at.
I would say not very accurate and it is only going to get worse with time.
What does “more than 100% wrong” even mean??
How about proving your claim — where’s your evidence they were >100% wrong?
bond…”Thanks for illustrating for all to see your utter lack of understanding of the concept of a trend”.
It has been my experience dealing with alarmists that none have any knowledge of the statistical methods involving trends. Most are number crunchers wherein they enter data into an algorithm blindly and use the calculated trend as if it means something.
One of the basic in statistical analysis is becoming aware of what the data is saying and the conditions present where it is gathered. Alarmists on this blog think you can blindly enter data into Excel, calculate a trend, and infer the trend as proof of anthropogenic warming.
Gordon Robertson says:
It has been my experience dealing with alarmists that none have any knowledge of the statistical methods involving trends.
Now that’s truly funny, coming from you of all people.
We are talking almost a .15c drop, in less than a year!
This is hardly unusual.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979
Barry it has to start someplace. Let us see where it goes from here.
Than I have to say AGW calls for a relentless gradual warming which looks like is not gong to be the case.
You keep trying to say I am wrong when AGW forecasted projections are more off then I was.
Salvatore, why does cooling “have to start someplace?”
Of course it will, but it will likely be a couple of centuries from now. It certainly won’t be this decade, or next, or next….
Do you even care about understanding and discussing the science, or are you just here to repeat yourself over and over again until everyone leaves from boredom?
Sal,
I have to say AGW calls for a relentless gradual warming
Too vague.
Do you mean day by day, every day warmer?
Month by month?
Year by year?
What do you mean by ‘relentless’ warming, then? Drop rhetoric and help out with some values here.
pretty much year to year
Annual global temperature often swings by 0.2C year to year.
The long term trend is 0.02C per year – at most.
The annual variation is ten times the trend!
Even if CO2 were driving all of the trend, why on Earth do you think that this variation would suddenly stop happening?
The planet could be warming twice as much – from any source – and you would still see plenty of positive and negative variation.
This idea of a monotonic, year on year rise from any cause is outlandish.
Certainly no one at all in the AGW camp promotes such a crazy idea.
Here are the annual figures for the satellite record, where you can see the values for annual variation.
https://tinyurl.com/y7lqjr9q
Why on Earth would one expect all that variation to discontinue if increasing CO2 were warming the planet?
I don’t get where this idea comes from. Not from the IPCC, that’s for sure.
Year on year?! Que??
Now crunch time is coming and I have to defend myself because what I have said in the past has been so twisted as to what I really said.
Back in 2010 I said cooling is coming but it was based on IF AND ONLY IF solar conditions which were at my criteria in 2009 were going to stay around that level much less increase to levels of a weak solar cycle 24 solar maximum.
My climate prediction was wrong not because I might haven been wrong about solar /climate relationships but because the sun did not cooperate. In other words the sun was much more active which according to what I have said ,was needed for the sun to have a cooling effect.
All one has to do is look at my low average solar parameters which I said are needed for cooling taken into consideration the 10+ years of sub solar activity in general needed for cooling against what the sun did from 2010 -2016.
If I knew the sun was going to be as active as it was from 2010-2016 I would have never called for cooling back then.
Now this year it looks like finally the solar conditions needed for cooling have arrived not to mention the weakening geo magnetic field which will compound given solar effects.
So the test is on ,low solar sustained versus increasing co2.
From the AGW point of view if it were working the global temperature response should be a relentless slow gradual upward trend because they say CO2 is the ONLY climatic driver.
They put themselves in that position and this is why when they try to invoke ENSO as an excuse or anything else I do not accept it.
No climate scientist says “CO2 is the ONLY climatic driver”.
Take your straw man arguments elsewhere.
Yes they do. They say CO2 is the climatic driver which of course it isn’t.
Repeating your claim does not make it correct. There are countless factors that are incorporated into climate models. In fact these models have been run without increasing CO2, and this has shown a slight cooling trend projection. According to you that would be impossible because there are no other factors. Try not to get your information from the likes of WUWT.
The models at 100% wrong, look at my post 2:05pm scroll down to see model climate forecast versus reality.
Salvatore, where in this graph do you see “100% wrong?”
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2018-panela.png
bond…”There are countless factors that are incorporated into climate models”.
Like a positive feedback that does not exist and cannot exist, and a warming factor assigned to CO2 of 9% to 25%.
Take away the fake feedback and reduce CO2 warming to where it belongs and no catastrophic warming or climate change is possible.
In fact, UAH has claimed ‘little or no true warming’ over the range of it’s data.
Gordon Robertson says:
In fact, UAH has claimed little or no true warming over the range of its data.
Where did they claim that?
Gordon Robertson says:
Like a positive feedback that does not exist and cannot exist, and a warming factor assigned to CO2 of 9% to 25%.
The feedbacks have already been observed.
And you’re again lying about the “9-25%” thing. You made that up. Climate models don’t “assign” any factor to anything, they calculate the results from the PDEs that describe the physics.
But you aren’t interested in the science.
DA…”The feedbacks have already been observed”.
I said ‘positive’ feedback, which has never been observed in our atmosphere and hypothesized in fields like string theory or the sci-fi in space-time theory.
bond…”No climate scientist says CO2 is the ONLY climatic driver.
Take your straw man arguments elsewhere.”
Without CO2 as the primary climate driver, AGW falls apart. Ergo, all alarmist climatologists are inferring exactly that.
Talk about straw man arguments.
You still refuse to read the science. I don’t think you’re the least bit interested in the science. I can’t even figure out why you come here in the first place, if you don’t want to discuss science.
DA…”You still refuse to read the science”.
What science, none of the AGW theory meets the requirements of the scientific method? It’s all consensus-based bs.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
My climate prediction was wrong not because I might haven been wrong about solar /climate relationships but because the sun did not cooperate.
That’s not what you said back then — you said all your qualifications were met:
—–
Global cooling has started, and it will be here for sometime to come. All the factors that control the climate are now in, or going toward a colder phase.
– Salvatore del Prete, December 31, 2010
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/12/dessler-and-spencer-debate-cloud-feedback/#comment-8257
—–
Your prediction was wrong, period.
You’re just trying to save face here. A common human trait, yes, but you’re just making excuses.
You’ve very frequently been wrong. But you never learn from that. And you almost always confuse short-term natural variations (ENSOs, Sun) with climate.
I predicted this circulation, as a consequence of low solar activity/high lat. volcanic activity.
From what you said I said David.
The low solar activity however did not materialize . Thanks David for proving my point.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
The low solar activity however did not materialize .
But you wrote in 2010:
“All the factors that control the climate are now in, or going toward a colder phase.”
A-l-l.
Now you’re backtracking. You were as wrong as wrong can be.
all the factors that control the climate are going toward a colder phase they were until solar activity picked up.
So you were wrong about “going to a colder phase.”
From the AGW point of view if it were working the global temperature response should be a relentless slow gradual upward trend
If the time period is measured over multiple decades, then this is a fair statement.
This statement is absolutely wrong if the time-frame is meant to be month by month or year by year. No one predicts a monotonic annual rise from AGW. Natural variation still occurs – el Ninos/la ninas, for example.
because they say CO2 is the ONLY climatic driver.
Absolutely no one says that. No one.
(Except skeptics misrepresenting what others think)
barry…”This statement is absolutely wrong if the time-frame is meant to be month by month or year by year”.
How convenient!!!
Alarmist like Trenberth claim the warming is there but it’s a travesty that no one can measure it.
It’s been well measured now, mainly due to Argo ocean thermometer data that has accumulated since early 2000s. And deeper from a couple other researchers. The research is cited in Loeb 2018. have at it Gordon try to add to your knowledge base, it is not that hard.
Gordon Robertson says:
Alarmist like Trenberth claim the warming is there but its a travesty that no one can measure it.
Wow, you got this right for once. Did you forget to lie?
PS: Trenberth’s point is one reason why the science community is now building Advanced ARGO.
And build initial Argo.
DA…”Trenberths point is one reason why the science community is now building Advanced ARGO”.
Do you mean the buoys that float submerged at a depth of 15 feet or so then suddenly spring to the surface to measure ocean temperatures?
Doesn’t fill me with confidence.
“Do you mean the buoys that float submerged at a depth of 15 feet or so..”
No, the Argo ocean thermometer anomaly are from data to a depth of 1800m analyzed following Lyman and Johnson (2008).
Gordon,
How convenient!!!
Nope, it’s absolutely consistent – like the IPCC saying;
“due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends.”
It’s the consistent message that you don’t want to acknowledge. No wonder you act surprised (!!!).
barry…”Its the consistent message that you dont want to acknowledge”.
The IPCC also stated in 2013, “Despite the robust multi-decadal timescale warming, there exists substantial multi-annual variability in the rate of warming with several periods exhibiting almost no linear trend including the warming hiatus since 1998”.
That was 15 years of no trend, subsequently extended to 18 years. We are currently waiting to see if the flat trend will continue beyond 20 years and onto the 30 years alarmists require as proof of no warming.
The trend since 1998 is not currently flat.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/mean:12/plot/uah6/from:1998/mean:12/trend
What do you mean by ‘continue’?
And once again, you cherry pick the information you want to promote instead of providing proper context.
Here’s the whole paragraph:
“Despite the robust multi-decadal warming, there exists substantial interannual to decadal variability in the rate of warming, with several periods exhibiting weaker trends (including the warming hiatus since 1998) (Figure TS.1). The rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998 2012; 0.05 [0.05 to +0.15] C per decade) is smaller than the trend since 1951 (19512012; 0.12[0.08 to 0.14] C per decade). Trends for short periods are uncertain and very sensitive to the start and end years. For example, trends for 15-year periods starting in 1995, 1996, and 1997 are 0.13 [0.02 to 0.24] C per decade, 0.14 [0.03 to 0.24] C per decade and 0.07 [0.02 to 0.18] C per decade, respectively.”
As I’ve said all along, the period is too short to determine trend.
If by shifting the trend period forward one year you halve it, then the uncertainty is too great to say whether or not it reflects underlying, long-term trends.
And look again at the error bars for the 1998-2012 period. The trend is anywhere between -0.5 and 1.5 c/decade. There’s no statistical certainty whether it’s flat, slightly cooling, or warming at three times the rate of potential cooling.
Why does this need to be explained to you? Why are you so blind to the rest of the commentary on the period? Why do you have such a white-knuckle grip on your view that you refuse to digest what the IPCC is saying in total about the period and short trends, and clutch only the bit of text that allows you to remain ignorance of the rest?
Every time. You omit the same bits of text. This is not rational. It’s purely selective based on what you prefer to believe.
Learn from the IPCC:
“due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends.”
“Trends for short periods are uncertain and very sensitive to the start and end years”
https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=57
human versus natural causes according to fake AGW theory.
Of course this is wrong.
Why is this wrong?
Do you think CO2 doesn’t absorb infrared radiation, or do you think the Earth doesn’t emit any?
LOOK AT MY POST 2:05PM
You’ll fall for anything as long as it says what you want.
DA,
Et tu, David?
Cheers.
DA…”Why is this wrong?
Do you think CO2 doesnt absorb infrared radiation, or do you think the Earth doesnt emit any?”
*******
There are two problems:
1)the source is an uber-alarmist who used to pose as a solar physicist and now admits he makes a living as a cartoonist.
2)no one has ever measured the effect of the 0.04% of CO2 in the atmosphere, the idea that it warms the atmosphere is nothing more than consensus based on bad science.
1) All the research studies cited as listed in the second paragraph below the figure.
2) You’re still lying!
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
DA,
Do you think that bananas do not absorb and emit IR?
Why do they get cold in the refrigerator? Why do they get hot in the tropical sun?
Did you attend Stupid U?
Cheers.
Mike…”Do you think that bananas do not absorb and emit IR?
Why do they get cold in the refrigerator? ”
They not only get cold, the get black as well.
Any solution?
Chic bowdrie
This blog post includes a picture of the apparatus John Tyndall used in the 1850s.
http://mustelid.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/laffaire-foote.html
I find it curious that Mike Flynn describes as “mythical” a process which has been measured for more than 160 years.
E man,
I don’t know why you draw attention to Tyndall’s apparatus. I don’t think Mike Flynn doubts some gases absorb and emit IR radiation. I certainly don’t.
The problem is taking a simple model showing a heated surface cooling to 0K warms up 20% when insulated and offering that as evidence that more CO2 will warm the planet.
chic…”I dont know why you draw attention to Tyndalls apparatus. I dont think Mike Flynn doubts some gases absorb and emit IR radiation. I certainly dont”.
I know for a fact that Mike supports Tyndall and his experiment. So do I, although I am not crazy about some of Tyndall’s inferences about heat as a mode of motion.
E,
What process did I describe as mythical?
You are dreaming. You cannot describe the GHE, and you cannot produce a testable GHE hypothesis.
These are mythical – as in fantastic, imaginary, non-existent, delusional.
Press on. Build another of the straw men you are trying so desperately to use to prop up your pseudo scientific edifice.
Cheers.
norman…”You dont appear to know as much thermodynamics as you think you do. It would seem you have the wrong conclusions and are unwilling to accept the actual situation”.
Kristian offered exactly the same conclusions I reached on Swannie’s experiments, and unlike what Kristian seemed to think regarding responses to Swannie, I pointed it out immediately following all of his experiments.
You need to get it, Norman, that it is your understanding of thermodynamics that is the issue, and those of Swannie.
Swannie has contradicted the 2nd law and I pointed out there was no back radiation from a cooler plate to a warmer plate which could warm the warmer plate. I told Swannie it was a heat dissipation issue wherein he had interfered with convection in his first experiment and radiation in his experiment done in a vacuum.
Once again, from Clausius, heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a cooler body to a warmer body. There is no way, in Swannie’s experiments that heat was transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body. That applies equally to the thought-experiment by Eli Rabbett with his green plate and blue plate.
Rabbett was told about that by two experts in thermodynamics and he still doesn’t get it. They told him, the 2nd law is about HEAT and it is not permissible to sum EM fluxes to satisfy the 2nd law. That rules out the popular alarmist go-to that a positive net balance of EM fluxes satisfies the 2nd law.
“Swannie has contradicted the 2nd law”
Experiments can not contradict 2LOT.
“heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a cooler body to a warmer body.”
Happens all the time as Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution proved extending Clausius’ work.
“There is no way, in Swannie’s experiments that heat was transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body.”
But data shows this happened! There was a way! This just shows explicitly Gordon’s confusion sowed by using the heat term. If Gordon were to rewrite this without using heat term then Gordon might start to come to grips with the experimental results.
“Rabbett was told about that by two experts in thermodynamics and he still doesn’t get it.”
G-T are not experts in thermodynamics & their paper had nothing new in all the ~200 pages.
Ball4,
Gordon: heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a cooler body to a warmer body.
You: “Happens all the time as Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution proved extending Clausius work.”
Heat in the thermodynamic sense or in your convoluted interpretation of it? Please cite where Maxwell or Boltzmann said heat goes from cold to hot?
Gordon: There is no way, in Swannies experiments that heat was transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body.
You: “But data shows this happened!”
No it doesn’t. When was the green plate ever warmer than the blue plate? You are now contributing to the confusion you were objecting to in an earlier post.
“Please cite where Maxwell or Boltzmann said heat goes from cold to hot?”
Couldn’t find the original ref. quickly, wiki has a decent M-B discussion though. Essentially M-B work on ideal gases shows in a gas at a constant temperature the velocities of the molecules follow a stistical distribution. They are not all the same velocity. Put two containers of ideal gases at different temperatures in contact.
Per M-B, the colder gas could have a faster velocity molecule than avg. transfer KE TO a slower than avg. velocity molecule in the hotter gas thus increasing the hotter gas temperature, cooling the colder gas.
Net however, all the collisions added +/- must transfer total KE on avg. + to the colder gas. Gordon says this never could happen, M-B showed it is possible and passes 2LOT as an entropy law.
You have to think of heat correctly as the avg. KE of object constituent molecules to really understand this as to why Gordon is wrong.
“When was the green plate ever warmer than the blue plate?”
It wasn’t. That’s not the point.
The point is adding the colder object (green) to the system (blue + sun) increases the temperature of the hotter blue plate object.
The colder green plate added in the system means the sun warms both the blue plate and the green plate. This was proven in E. Swanson’s experiment and also on the atm. by Dr. Spencer. Supporting analysis by both Dr. Spencer and others.
Now your getting it. The sun warms the surface and the surface warms the atmosphere. Simple enough. No net warming by the cooler object.
Unless the sun goes down and the atmosphere becomes warmer than the surface.
“The sun warms the surface”
Sure and the sun also warms the atmosphere. The surface increases in temperature by adding the cooler atmosphere radiation replacing the radiation from deep space. This ought to be obvious. That it is not generates a great deal of blog land entertainment.
chic…”Gordon: There is no way, in Swannies experiments that heat was transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body”.
That’s exactly what Swannie is implying. He is claiming bringing a cooler body into close proximity with a hotter body will raise the temperature of the hotter body through back-radiation.
I told him in both his experiments that the blue plate is warming due to an interference with it’s ability to dissipate heat.
Gordon Robertson
You are constantly adding energy to the plate. You have a heat flow from the hotter blue plate to the green plate. The HEAT FLOW IS THE NET ENERGY the blue plate emits minus what it absorbs. It does not violate the 2nd Law in anyway to get warmer. Yes backradiation exists. You are just wrong, wrong all day all the time with all your posts.
I do not have problems with thermodynamics. You have so many problems that you are becoming unfixable. You just have no understanding at all.
HEAT is the sum of EM fluxes in vacuum conditions. Sorry I can’t help you with your ignorance.
The blue plate gets warmer with the green plate moved up behind it. That is a fact. It has two sources of energy. With the green plate it is receiving more energy than it did from the cooler walls so its temperature rises until it emits energy at the same rate it is receiving it. The light did not get hotter in the test, it delivered the same energy. The increase in temperature was the result of the blue plate absorbing the energy from the light (a fixed amount) and absorbing an increase in energy from the green plate over the cooler walls. You have no clue of what the 2nd Law is or states. You are a fanatic and will refuse to even consider the obvious fact you don’t know any physics and make up most of what you don’t know and are unwilling to learn.
“The HEAT FLOW…HEAT is the sum of EM fluxes in vacuum conditions. Sorry I cant help you with your ignorance.”
Norman, how would you rewrite this without using the heat term? Think more clearly about what is physically happening. You should have learned by now it is always possible to drop the heat term and write more clearly.
norman…”The HEAT FLOW IS THE NET ENERGY the blue plate emits minus what it absorbs”.
Norman, old buddy, heat cannot flow through an air space as radiation. If there is no conduction to the air mass, or a flow of convection involving the air mass, there can be no heat transfer other than by radiation.
However, such a heat transfer is APPARENT, not real. The heat diminishes in the hotter body after conversion to EM, and if the EM contacts a cooler body, it can be absorbed and converted back to heat. Therefore the heat increases in the cooler body.
No heat flows through the air via radiation. The apparent transfer takes place locally.
The 2nd law has to apply here. Heat can only be transferred by radiation from hot to cold. In other words, if EM was radiated from a cooler body, the cooler body would cool. However, the frequency of the EM would be lower than required for absorp-tion at the hotter body.
Remember E = hf. E is very precise therefore f must be very precise.
Remember that 1962 video you posted? They used the analogy of a resonant spring, and they pointed out that only certain frequencies would cause the spring to vibrate. It’s the same with the frequency of EM emitted from a cooler body, it lacks the proper frequency to make the receiving electron in the hotter body resonate. That also translates to it lacking the intensity required.
This is all familiar stuff to me because I have gone through similar scenarios in electronic communication devices as well as resonant circuits. The EM transmitted from an antenna is due to very high frequency oscillations of electrons in the antenna.
Resonance is a strange phenomenon. More fascinating than strange. In electronics, you can build a filter to block most frequencies, allowing only a very narrow band of frequencies through. David Appell will ask what happens to the rejected frequencies. I don’t know, they just lack the whatever to activate the electron.
No heat through the air. The green plate can transmit all the EM it wants, if it’s cooler than the blue plate its EM will be ignored.
Gordon gets it wrong again: “The green plate can transmit (actually emit) all the EM it wants, if it’s cooler than the blue plate its EM will be ignored.”
E. Swanson experiment proves Gordon wrong about that (as did Dr. Spencer’s testing on the atm.), the blue plate increased in temperature when the green plate was added in the near vacuum so the green plate EMR was experimentally NOT “ignored” by the blue plate.
Some of that green EMR was absorbed, some EMR reflected, none was transmitted by the blue plate. These processes increase universe entropy so fully compliant with 2LOT.
Gordon Robertson says:
Once again, from Clausius, heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a cooler body to a warmer body.
Still wrong, Gordon.
Still unwilling to learn.
You are correct David. I have eternal hope Gordon will get this right one of these days as he understands EMR is not heat. Which is something you could improve on.
Ever get a sunburn?
Sure but burn in sunburn is not from fire.
EMR is not heat. Upon being absorbed by an object, EMR is converted into thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy which is just the avg. KE of the constituent particles impinging on the bulb of a thermometer.
ball4…”EMR is converted into thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy….”
Go on, say it…HEAT!!!!
It’s not that hard once you get the hang of it.
Thanks for explaining an EM burn to DA.
BTW…temperature is a human invention, like time. We invented temperature based on the boiling and freezing point of water.
Don’t believe me, read Planck on it. From his book on heat:
“164. Natural Units. All the systems of units which have hitherto been employed, including the so-called absolute C. G. S. system, owe their origin to the coincidence of accidental circumstances, inasmuch as the choice of the units lying at the base of every system has been made, not according to general points of view which would necessarily retain their importance for all places and all times, but essentially with reference to the special needs of our terrestrial civilization.
Thus the units of length and time were derived from the present dimensions and motion of our planet, and the units of mass and temperature from the density and the most important temperature points of water, as being the liquid which plays the most important part on the surface of the earth, under a pressure which corresponds to the mean properties of the atmosphere surrounding us”.
So most of our important comparative devices like length (multidimensional space), temperature, time, density, and pressure were invented by the human mind based on natural properties of our planet.
Maybe Planck should have discussed the artificial nature of time with Einstein before he incorporated it in his theory of relativity, and the Great Misinformed generalized that to the equally imaginary concept of space-time.
“Go on, say it..HEAT!!!!”
No. EMR is not heat Gordon. Right up front Planck shows an experiment why that is. Read him again.
And check out Kristian’s text book clip too, heat doesn’t exist in an object just like work does not exist in an object.
And Gordon is wrong about time too, time is why they call it relativity.
Gordo, As usual, you cite Clausius incorrectly. His statement published in 1854 was in regards to a closed system. the Earth is not a closed system and the same applies to my Green Plate demo. You are ignoring the fact that there is an continuous external source of energy in the form of EM, including visible and IR, supplied by the work light.
As for your previous claim that the Green Plate “blocked” the cooling of the Blue Plate, in which you wrote:
swannie…”Gordo, As usual, you cite Clausius incorrectly. His statement published in 1854 was in regards to a closed system”.
A closed system is one that does not exchange matter with its surroundings, it has no application to the 2nd law. The 2nd law is about heat and the transfer of heat is the same for an open and closed system.
Do you think Clausius did not know that? Do you think he would not have stipulated that as applied to the 2nd law if it mattered?
Do you seriously think the 2nd law does not apply to an open system? If you had a setup shaped like a dumbbell, a glass cylinder with spheres on either end, with ice in one sphere and water in the other, the water heated by a heat source, do you think heat would not flow hot to cold just because matter as steam was being exchanged?
Now, if you had the same setup with a membrane between sections that allowed heat to pass via conduction, but no steam, would that affect the requirements of the 2nd law?
Where did this notion come from that the the 2nd law is dependent on a system being open or closed? It’s about heat. If heat can be transferred, the 2nd law applies whether matter is exchanged or not. The exchange of matter is called convection with gases and liquids.
Gordo, your “dumbell” analogy is an open system because energy is supplied from an external source. Think of a similar system called a refrigerator, where heat is moved from a cold area to a warmer area as the result of an external energy flow thru the system with the resulting thermal energy being rejected to the environment. It’s the energy flowing thru the boundaries and inside the system that’s important, not the state of the various parts of the system as measured by temperature.
You always seem to forget that Clausius qualified his statement with the caveat:
Note the phrase “without some other change”, which you always ignore…
swannie…”Gordo, your dumbell analogy is an open system because energy is supplied from an external source. Think of a similar system called a refri.g.erator, where heat is moved from a cold area to a warmer area as the result of an external energy flow thru the system with the resulting thermal energy being rejected to the environment”.
Swannie…I did not ignore the Clausius claim of without another change taking place. Clausius was explaining the compensation required in order for heat to be transferred from a colder body to a warmer body, that it has to happen at the same time. He also claimed such a process can NEVER occur by itself.
In fact, I have described how your refri.g.erator works and it’s not due to an external energy flow.
BTW..an open/closed system has little to do with the 2nd law. Our atmosphere and surface are warmed by solar energy whereby the Sun is very hot compared to the Earth. The 2nd law applies to this system because heat is being transferred hot to cold, even though David Appell insists heat is being transferred from the Earth to raise the temperature of the Sun.
A refri.g.erator works on the principle of the expansion and compression of a gas. External power is required to drive the compressor but it’s the compression of a low pressure, low temperature gas to a higher temperature higher pressure liquid that is the basis of refrigeration.
By compressing the gas to a liquid, heat can be vented from the HP liquid to the atmosphere by a condensing coil as the liquid runs through it. The HP liquid exits the coil, still at a high pressure but a lower temperature, and it is atomized and fed into an evapourator, where it can expand back to a low pressure, lower temperature gas. As it expands back to a gas, it absorbs heat from air touching the evapourator coils.
Please note that such a process cannot work by itself. It needs external power to run the compressor since gases will not turn to liquid by their own means. Neither will heat transfer from a cold body to a warm body by it’s own means.
Gordo, I should have added a mention of your other omission. You failed to admit that your reference to the StefanBoltzmann Law was incorrect when you claimed that the effect of the colder temperature body was to “block” the energy flow from the higher temperature body. No, the second term in your equation refers to the energy emitted from the colder body (as in, the surroundings) which is absorbed by the warmer body, thus the net energy flow away from the warmer body is less than it would be in an isolated situation.
Pardon my bad HTML coding. The last paragraph should not have appeared as a quote.
Hey Gordon – I’m still waiting for your response to this thread:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302715
I misread your post, sue me!!
Why are you snaking about like a sniggering fool trying to hook people in with gotchas. In our normal discourses you are miles behind, is this your way of trying to make up for your lack of understanding in physics?
The only reason I am miles behind you is because you are facing in the wrong direction.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs-thru-2013.png
MODEL FORECASTED TEMPERATURES VERSUS REALITY.
Salvatore, do you ever wonder why that graph was never submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal? I’ve read of lots of people who do.
This might be why — not that you’ll read this. But others might.
“John Christy’s Misleading Graphs,” 5/7/16
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/05/comparing-models-to-the-satellite-datasets/
David hat is exactly what is wrong with AGW which is they will twist and turn everything to try to vindicate their false theory and even go so far as to slash their wrong outlooks like I showed in my previous post.
Here is my prediction as the global temperature trend trends down AGW theory is going to say we called for it.
I said 2018 is the transitional year.
No – you said 2017 was the transitional year. You said that if you don’t get a persistent UAH anomaly around zero by August 2018, then you would admit that you were wrong. Four months to go.
Here’s your prediction:
“Your conclusions are in a word wrong, and that will be proven over the coming years, as the temperatures of earth will start a more significant decline (which started in year 2002 by the way)….”
– Salvatore del Prete, Reply to article: IC Joanna Haigh – Declining solar activity linked to recent warming, 10/8/2010
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6428
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/
They are going to have to slash more.
Really? Top three warmest years for the lower troposphere, from UAH:
2016
1998
2017
From RSS:
2016
2017
2010
Monckton spins the usual bull. It’s tiresome taking apart these articles lie by lie. The lie on scenario A, for example, when Hansen testified that he thought scenario B was a more likely projection, not A.
Etc etc etc. These purveyors of bull, and Monckton is a king, are tiresome ten years on.
Unnoticed, the IPCC has slashed its global-warming predictions, implicitly rejecting the models on which it once so heavily and imprudently relied. In the second draft of the Fifth Assessment Report it had broadly agreed with the models that the world will warm by 0.4 to 1.0 C from 2016-2035 against 1986-2005. But in the final draft it quietly cut the 30-year projection to 0.3-0.7 C, saying the warming is more likely to be at the lower end of the range [equivalent to about 0.4 C over 30 years]. If that rate continued till 2100, global warming this century could be as little as 1.3 C.
David read.
The IPCC made that change because they thought there was a hiatus in 20th century surface temperatures. As you should know, lots of new science has come in since the 5AR. In particular, better data on SSTs found no “hiatus” in the 20th century (Karl et al Science 2015).
The best metric of a planetary energy imbalance, ocean heat content, never showed a hiatus.
because there is a lag time involved.
How long?
DA…”The IPCC made that change because they thought there was a hiatus in 20th century surface temperatures”.
You are claiming that NOAA fudged the hiatus, producing a warming trend, then the IPCC lowered their model catastrophe projections dramatically because the record now shows warming.
Logic!!!
You remind me of the IPCC in the same review in which they announced no warming the past 15 years prior to 2012. They raised their confidence level to indicate it more likely that humans are causing the warming.
Why would anyone be more confident that humans are causing the warming following a 15 year warming hiatus? And why would they dramatically lower their model projections following an inference by the cheaters at NOAA that it had actually warmed during those 15 years. Would that not make them more confident in their lies?
According to AGW theory the trend in global temperatures is going to have to rise.
If it even stays the same much less drops they are wrong.
Over what time period?
Now just like I said the temperature trend should be down moving forward.
Over what time period.
PS: Doesn’t it depend on emissions?
NO
No? So if emissions stopped tomorrow AGW would still accelerate for decades?
I do not believe in AGW to begin with. I really just do not see it as of today.
I dont believe in it either I understand the overwhelming evidence for it.
Science of Doom:
“But because Gerlich and Tscheuschner have made such a huge contribution to the misunderstanding of basic thermodynamics it needs some extended explanation, including some maths.
“Many people have got confused about the subject because
‘Heat flows from the hotter body to the colder body.’
“We all agree.
“Many people have taken the statement about heat flow and imagined that thermal radiation from a colder body cannot have any effect on a hotter body. This is where they go wrong.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/05/08/radiation-basics-and-the-imaginary-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
DA,
You quote “Many people have taken the statement about heat flow and imagined that thermal radiation from a colder body cannot have any effect on a hotter body.”
Name one of these people, if you can. You can’t, can you?
Just about as stupid and ignorant as claiming there are people who deny that the climate (the average of weather) never changes! You cannot name one of these non-existent people either, can you?
Stupid and ignorant pseudoscientific handwaving is no substitute for fact.
The non-existence of a testable GHE hypothesis is a fact.
Cheers.
Science of Doom:
But because Gerlich and Tscheuschner have made such a huge contribution to the misunderstanding of basic thermodynamics it needs some extended explanation, including some maths.
*******
Many people have taken the statement about heat flow and imagined that thermal radiation from a colder body cannot have any effect on a hotter body. This is where they go wrong.
******************
Here we have an absolute idiot claiming two scientists who work in the field of thermodynamics are wrong whereas he is right. Fair enough, if you supply the evidence, which SoD does not.
In his analysis, he thoroughly confuses heat with electromagnetic energy then he goes on to draw inferences from experiments at thermal equilibrium and applies them to bodies at different temperatures.
DA,
You quote “Many people have taken the statement about heat flow and imagined that thermal radiation from a colder body cannot have any effect on a hotter body.”
Name one of these people, if you can. You cant, can you?
Gordon Robertson and g-e-r-a-n at the least, and occasional interlopers from ‘Scientifica Principia’, aka sky-dragon slayers.
Science of Doom:
“When two bodies have an energy source which has created a constant surface temperature and they are subsequently brought into proximity with each other, there will be an increase in each others temperature. But no thermal runaway takes place, they just reach a new equilibrium.”
– continued –
“Basic thermodynamics explains that bodies em.it thermal radiation according to temperature (to the fourth power) and according to em.issiv.ity. Not according to the temperature of a different body that might happen to ab.sor.b this radiation.
– continued –
“And basic thermodynamics also explains that bodies ab.sor.b thermal radiation according to their ab.sorp.tiv.ity at the wavelengths (and directions) of the incident radiation. Not according to the temperature (or any other properties) of the originating body.”
– continued –
“Therefore, there is no room in this theory for the crazy idea that colder bodies have no effect on hotter bodies. To demonstrate the opposite, the interested student would have to find a flaw in one of the two basic elements of thermodynamics described above. And just a note, theres no point reciting a mantra (e.g., The second law says this doesnt happen) upon reading this. Instead, be constructive. Explain what happens to the emitting body and the ab.sorbing body with reference to these elementary thermodynamics theories.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/05/08/radiation-basics-and-the-imaginary-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
DA,
Unfortunately for you and the other GHE loonies, you still cannot raise the temperature of a spoonful of water with a gazillion Watts of radiation from ice.
Playing semantic games of the nature of “Therefore, there is no room in this theory for the crazy idea that colder bodies have no effect on hotter bodies. is ultimately an exercise in futility.
I am not sure who has said that colder bodies have no effect on hotter bodies. The implication seems to be that the temperature of the hotter can be raised by magical means. Certainly, this miracle has never been achieved, and I doubt ever will
Complete and utter balderdash, of course. Just more lunatic attempts to avoid acknowledging that no testable GHE hypothesis exists. Not even a useful description of the non-existent Greenhouse Effect. Redefining an insulator, by claiming it is a Greenhouse Effect, is purely pseudoscience.
Still no GHE. CO2 heats nothing, and is not even a magical one-way insulator. The surface heats when it receives enough sunlight, or other radiation from a source hotter than the surface, and cools when it does not.
Over the longest term known, four and a half billion years or so, the surface of the Earth has cooled – stupid and ignorant pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding.
Keep trying David. Maybe you will get a different result one day.
Cheers.
“you still cannot raise the temperature of a spoonful of water with a gazillion Watts of radiation from ice.”
Sure can, E. Swanson and Dr. Spencer have demonstrated experimentally how that can happen. Until Mike understands that, he will have nothing of value to say about climate.
Dig into the experiments and the analysis thereof Mike if you want to learn in this field. Or not as you wish, I don’t care as I enjoy the entertainment of your fails.
Ball4,
When you can demonstrate your ice-powered water heater and turkey cooker, I will change my views. Until then, you remain stupid and ignorant.
That doesnt mean you cannot accumulate a vast fortune by doing something that has never been done before. Heating water using ice would be a good example.
I wish you all the best. You could team up with David Appell. He shares your belief.
Good luck.
Cheers.
“When you can demonstrate your ice-powered water heater..”
Dr. Spencer already did so, no need for me to do so. Though I’ve done simpler experiments to convince myself I could also do so. Up to Mike to learn from the experimental work done by others but maybe not, do as Mike wishes, I don’t care. Your fails are so very funny.
That doesn’t mean I can accumulate a vast fortune simply by doing something that has routinely been done before.
I am not sure who has said that colder bodies have no effect on hotter bodies.
WTF?!?! It has been a bone of contention for years at this site.
Gordon Robertson is a purveyor of this view, as was g-e-r-a-n, most definitely.
DA…”Science of Doom:”
I suggest you refrain from quoting the pseudo-scientists at SoD. They are not only pseudo-scientists they are bad, armchair pseudo-scientists.
On the other hand, it’s encouraging to see climate alarmists making absolute fools of themselves. It’s like Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year contest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ba1OKY7Xc
What evidence? I see none David.
Are you saying you are sure AGW is wrong but youve never taken an hour to learn about the evidence for it???
DA,
I would be very interested to see the evidence to support your testable GHE hypothesis.
Only joking, you don’t even have a description of the GHE, let alone a testable GHE hypothesis!
Not terribly convincing, David, not convincing at all.
Cheers.
David I have studied it you know I have. I just do not agree with it.
What do you disagree with, and why?
The same for you when it comes to solar you have studied it and just do not agree.
I dont agree because theres no evidence for the sun causing modern warming. In fact, theres evidence against it.
DA,
It is pretty simple David – like you perhaps?
Thermometers respond to heat, don’t they?
CO2 produces no heat.
Cheers.
“Thermometers respond to heat, don’t they?”
No, they don’t. That’s an ancient relic of an abandoned theory.
Mercury thermometers nowadays respond to the avg. KE of the particles banging into the bulb.
Ball4,
“. . . particles banging into the bulb. definitely seems like an ancient relic of something!
Do you still believe that atoms are little round spheres, perhaps? Or that they bang into things?
What about your particles? What particles might they be? Are they different particles in a vacuum?
Maybe you could explain more – I am sure everybody would delight in your thoughts on physics.
Cheers.
Atoms are not little round spheres Mike wherever did you get that idea? Funny though. Particles might be, depending on certain parameters.
I will not do your bidding Mike, even though that upsets you, I don’t care & I will do as I wish. I presume Mike will do as he wishes, or not, I don’t care.
Ball4,
You are perfectly free to appear as ignorant and stupid as you wish.
Of course, I agree about not dancing to the tune of others, but I am not sure why you think I would be upset. Where did you get that particularly bizarre idea?
Are you attempting to demonstrate your amazing mind reading skills again? You could attempt to obtain a refund from your mind-reading instructor, and I would be happy to provide a statement attesting to the fact that you certainly cannot read my mind!
Carry on. Keep talking about particles banging into bulbs, if you desire. It sounds very sciencey – if you are not terribly hard to convince.
Cheers.
I stuck a thermometer inside my jumper. The temperature went up, yet the jumper doesn’t produce heat. I guess there must be something wrong with your principle.
Bond,
I assume you are joking, but I can’t be sure.
Generally, placing a thermometer close to a heat source hotter than the thermometer, causes the thermometer to indicate a raised temperature.
Although this obviously comes as an enormous surprise to you, your body generates heat as a consequence of oxidising carbohydrates, and some other processes. Your core temperature will be about 37 C.
Maybe you should stick your thermometer into a corpse, which has been allowed to cool. Or a slab of dead animal – called meat.
Then tell me again what the relevance of your eminently witless comment was, as I cannot determine it for myself.
Cheers.
Bond,
You may have inserted your foot into your mouth.
Take the temperature of a corpse. It is not generating nearly as much heat as you.
Cheers.
“Are you attempting to demonstrate your amazing mind reading skills again?”
No Mike, mind reading is not possible in reality which you’ve been told countless times but as long as you write that it is then I’ll keep laughing.
Ball4,
You wrote –
“. . . even though that upsets you . . .
If you admit you cannot read minds, what would lead you to make to such a bizarre and incorrect assertion?
Do you always make such things up for fun, or do you have a mental deficiency?
Others might also wonder.
Cheers.
MF wrote more nonsense:
Mike is standing outside surrounded by ice where the temperature is about 0C. The ice is radiating energy toward his body at about 315 W/m^2. Mike thinks his coat isn’t warming his tender body, so he strips necked. His body surface might be at 35C, so his skin is radiating EM energy at about 510 w/m^2. Trouble is, at rest, his body burns carbs and produces about 100 w/m^. As a result, his tender body cools and if he doesn’t come to his senses, he will freeze to death.
Now, Mike is a smart guy, even though he is somewhat deluded, so he puts his socks, jeans and coat back on and runs away, thus warming his butt and living to lie another day.
“If you admit you cannot read minds, what would lead you to make to such a bizarre and incorrect assertion?
Your comments Mike. I can read those which is all that’s needed.
Sorry Mikey? Where did I say I was wearing the jumper??
MF wrote:
As I understand it, quantum electrodynamics, aka, modern physics, has found that EM radiant energy is the result of particles known as photons. Those claims are based on decades of very accurate experimentation and, according to Feynman in his 1985 Lectures, QED perfectly explained all EM phenomenon observed up to that date.
Exactly we see it differently as so many do.
We have three possible outcomes temperatures fall ,temperatures rise or they stay in limbo land.
I hope they fall but I hope they do not stay in limbo land. I hope we will have a definitive move one way or the other.
The UAH trend is only +0.013 degrees per year, and there is no reason that should change in the short term. So natural variation will continue to make it impossible for people who only look at a few months or even a few months of data to see the trend over the noise. There is no “definite move”.
For some reason Salvatore can’t grasp this simple concept, which is why he gets fooled again and again about climate change.
We have three possible outcomes temperatures fall ,temperatures rise or they stay in limbo land.
Yes, that even true.
For once.
Congratulations!
Can you start a fire from magnified moonlight?
No:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/
Can you start a fire from magnified Earthshine?
g,
According to GHE enthusiasts – no trouble at all! Easy-peasy.
Boil water with the 300 W/m2 radiation from ice? A snap – apparently people have been doing it forever! Ball4 says so, and he is at least stupid and ignorant!
Some people will believe anything at all – even the heating power of CO2!
Cheers.
“Boil water with the 300 W/m2 radiation from ice?”
Sure, if the ice replaces something cooler in the system that was holding the water just below boiling. Like the atm. radiating at a toasty 60F replacing deep space radiating at 2.8K above Earth surface. This ought to be obvious but apparently Mike is more interested in providing humor than science. And Mike’s fails are so humorous – keep failing Mike!
Ball4,
If . . .
If my bicycle had 3 wheels, it would be a tricycle. If my aunty had testicles, she would be my uncle, and so on. If there was a testable GHE hypothesis, it would exist!
You cant actually warm even a teaspoon of water using any amount of ice, can you?
Just more stupid and ignorant pseudoscientific blather.
Thanks for the support. There is nothing wrong with laughter, so I am glad to be able to help out.
Cheers.
“You cant actually warm even a teaspoon of water using any amount of ice, can you?”
Yes I can as Dr. Spencer’s experiment on the atm. demonstrated. You may be as upset about that as you wish, I don’t really care Mike. Your fails are so humorous. They just keep coming. Calm down and read some atm, science experiments. They’re cool, very calming.
gbaikie…”Can you start a fire from magnified moonlight?”
from your link, “You can’t use lenses and mirrors to make something hotter than the surface of the light source itself”.
Seems to me that’s exactly what the AGW is claiming via back-radiation. They are using the surface as a source of IR, using GHGs as a mirror/lens, and sending the surface IR back to make the surface hotter than it was when the IR was emitted.
This boggles the mind. If that has been happening since time immemorial, based on CO2 and WV in the atmosphere, why have we not been burned to a crisp by now?
NP-Hard
I think the simple formula of 1 (0.15)^N where N is the number of return cycles describes the percentage of energy that escapes.
100 % energy finally escapes of course, otherwise it would accumulate in surface and make it ever hotter.
So the correct reasoning is not what percentage of energy escapes. That’s known, in steady set, 100% escapes. Period.
The correct reasoning is to ask at which rate energy escapes and the point is more CO2 diminishes the rate of escape.
Once this is grasped the CO2 GHE follows as the analogy of the water tank proposed by Tim Folkerts unthread nicely illustrates.
Idiot,
And also to ask at what rate incoming energy is attenuated, don’t you thinK?
Given that more than 30% of insolation doesnt make it as far as the surface, it seems that insulation possesses no magical one way energy retaining properties.
Otherwise, if you reversed it, you could have free heating or cooling on demand. Something along the lines of perpetual motion of the second kind?
This seems nonsensical to me, unless somebody can actually demonstrate such a thing – in reality, rather than in some imaginary, poorly thought through, scenario.
Cheers.
The 30% attenuation has been taken into account. This leads to the infamous 255K temperature. Without the attenuation of the incoming sunlight, this temperature would be about 278 K.
There is nothing magical about it. The atmosphere attenuates some incoming thermal radiation from the sun before it reaches earth’s surface — a cooling effect. The atmosphere attenuates some outgoing thermal radiation from the earth’s surface before it reaches space — a warming effect.
Since the spectra of the incoming sunlight and the outgoing earthlight are very different, it is not at all surprising (or ‘magical’) that they impact the two spectra differently. It turns out the warming effect outweighs the cooling effect.
The rest of Mike’s speculations (eg perpetual motion) are simply his misunderstandings of physics.
Tim Folkerts says, May 21, 2018 at 7:48 AM:
But this is precisely the great misunderstanding. This is NOT the reason why the surface ends up being warmer on average with an atmosphere on top than without. The whole ‘spectrum thing’ is just an interesting by-product OF the real cause.
As you should well know by now, Tim:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302490
But you always seem to show up in some new place promoting that same ‘misunderstanding’. Over and over again. As if you had some kind of investment in it …
Kristian, you keep reading more into my statements than are there. You also give an odd primacy to temperature over energy.
K: “You try to make it seem as though the IR radiation and the radiative properties of matter specifically and independently CAUSE temperatures.”
This is in response to me specifically saying:
“IR-absorbing materials affect temperatures.”
So no — I am not saying IR independently causes temperatures. IR is just one of many factors.
K: “It is then the elevated TEMPERATURE of the matter, resulting from this absorp.tion and internal accumulation of energy, that will affect the temperature of OTHER thermodynamic systems in some kind of thermal contact with it.”
And how do you calculate the change in temperature of an object? The basic equation is
ΔT = Q/mc.
The HEAT, Q, into an object causes its temperature to change. Of course, the temperature of the surroundings (along with distance, insulation, emissivity, etc) affects Q. However, it is Q, not T, that is the most ‘direct cause’ of the temperature change.
T & Q are inextricably intertwined. BOTH inextricably cause temperature changes in the surroundings.
K: “IR radiation, after the initial thermodynamic connection has been established between surface (solar-heated) and atmosphere (surface-heated), is NECESSARY only as an atmospheric COOLANT.”
So other than being NECESSARY as a surface ‘warmant’ and NECESSARY as an atmospheric “warmant’ — besides those two necessary things — thermal radiation is only necessary as an atmospheric coolant. /smile
Certainly, IR’s ability to cool the atmosphere by radiating to space is a critical part of the energy balance. Because IR carries off energy very ineffectively from the cold upper atmosphere, the surface must warm to ‘take up the slack. IR as an atmospheric coolant is necessarily simultaneously a surface ‘warmant’.
Tim Folkerts says, May 21, 2018 at 11:09 AM:
Nope. The atmospheric IR doesn’t make the surface ‘warmer’. The atmospheric TEMPERATURE does.
Try again. I know you can do better than this.
And the atmospheric IR works towards LOWERING that temperature. At every level. By cooling the atmosphere to space.
Tim Folkerts says, May 21, 2018 at 11:09 AM:
I didn’t claim you SAID so. Read what I wrote, Tim. You TRY TO MAKE IT SEEM AS THOUGH …
Very different thing.
Sure. But we’re not talking about heat vs. temperature. We’re talking about temperature vs. thermal radiation; LWIR. Thermal radiation is a by-product of the temperature of matter. The temperature of matter is NOT a by-product of thermal radiation.
We went through this EXACT same issue on the previous thread, Tim. Guppy memory tactic employed once again …?
No. It is only necessary as an atmospheric coolant.
This is ridiculous. You act as though our previous (and quite recent, I might add) exchange about this never happened.
A connecting device enabling causation between the power input (engine) and the power output (wheel) to occur, is not ITSELF what drives the vehicle forward.
Why is this simple point sooo hard to concede?
“You TRY TO MAKE IT SEEM AS THOUGH “
And how do I try to make it *seem* one way when I specifically say something else??
“But were not talking about heat vs. temperature. Were talking about temperature vs. thermal radiation”
But thermal radiation *is* one form of heat — conduction, convection, and radiation. So you are saying:
But were not talking about heat vs. temperature.
Were talking about temperature vs. heat.
“A connecting device enabling causation between the power input (engine) and the power output (wheel) to occur, is not ITSELF what drives the vehicle forward.”
But … the engine is just a device enabling causation between the power input (GASOLINE) and the power output (CRANKSHAFT) to occur. /smile
I think this is the guts of our philosophical differences. I want to go back a step or two farther than you. Look a layer or two deeper.
I will grant that in the equation
P = σ A T^4, it makes sense to say the temperature of the surface (and the emissivity) *causes* the thermal radiation. If the surface temperature is 255 K and the emissivity is 1, that will *cause* outgoing radiation of 240 W/m^2 to the cold vacuum of space.
My bigger point is that thermal radiation (among the other heat flows) is ALSO the *cause* of the surface temperature to begin with. Suppose I shine 240 W/m^2 on an object in deep space (with ε = ~ 1). The balance of incoming radiation and outgoing radiation *causes* the temperature to settle @ 255 K. No matter what the temperature was to start will, it will move toward 255 K — *caused* entirely by thermal radiation.
The 240 W/m^2 of incoming thermal radiation *causes* the temperature to be 255K. The 255 K temperature of the surface does not *cause* the incoming radiation to be 240 W/m^2.
Kristian says:
And the atmospheric IR works towards LOWERING that temperature. At every level. By cooling the atmosphere to space.
And more GHGs mean less IR escaping to space which reduces the cooling rate which means lower atmospheric warming.
You sure do twist yourself up into knots trying to deny the obvious.
Tim Folkerts says, May 21, 2018 at 1:19 PM:
But you’re NOT specifically saying something else, Tim. You’re rather here in vehement opposition to and specifically striving against my point about the atmosphere’s thermal radiation NOT being the ’cause’ behind elevated surface temperatures, merely an ENABLER of causation, a CONNECTING tool between the thermal mass of the atmosphere and the thermal mass of the surface.
So, I wonder, why are you so incredibly slippery when it comes to this simple point? It’s a fairly straightforward one, after all. Why are you being so defensive about it on the one hand, and so evasive about it on the other? You start out by openly affirming and advocating what appears to be some agreed-upon “consensus” truth about the world, and as soon as I call you out on it, you start backpedalling, claiming that’s not really what you said or meant at all. But what DID you say? What DID you mean? Really? You never let that on …
“Back radiation” (DWLWIR) isn’t. A “photon cloud” isn’t. Only as it moves towards a cooler place. Because the TEMPERATURE is lower there …
Sure. But this is – as you know – completely irrelevant to this particular discussion. Again, we’re not talking about temperature vs. heat [Q], nor vs. internal energy [U]. We’re talking about temperature vs. thermal radiation.
Thermal (blackbody) radiation is a by-product of the temperature of matter. (And, yes, the temperature is the macroscopic manifestation of the average level of molecular (microscopic) kinetic energy of the matter. But thermal (blackbody) radiation is STILL a by-product, a radiative expression, of temperature.) No temperature, no thermal (blackbody) radiation generated.
The temperature of matter is, however, NOT likewise a by-product of thermal (blackbody) radiation. So you can’t conversely say: No thermal radiation absorbed, no temperature caused.
Earth’s IR radiation is along for the ride. It doesn’t control anything. It is itself controlled. By the solar input to the Earth system (the ASR), and by Earth’s temperatures and internal circulation.
No, that’s not it, Tim. Rather, you desperately want to avoid the layer we’re at when discussing the warming (insulating) effect of our atmosphere on the surface and what is actually CAUSING it. So you pretend wanting to go “deeper” or “back a step”, but what you’re really doing is trying to sidetrack the whole thing, basically going “Oh, I don’t know. No, that’s not … Hey, look over there! Isn’t THAT much more interesting? Let’s go have a look!”
*Sigh*
No, Tim. “Thermal radiation” does not itself constitute a “heat flow”. And so it can’t CAUSE the temperature of the surface. Heat flows are caused by temperature differences. And so, if a heat flow moves from hot to cold, then it doesn’t thereby cause the hot to become hotter and the cold to become colder. The hot will become hotter only if the cold becomes less cold, that is, if the temperature of cold becomes higher. And the thermal radiation of the atmosphere (‘cold’) itself doesn’t make or work towards making the atmosphere’s temperature higher. On balance, it works towards cooling it. And strongly so. Radiative heat flux coming IN: 75 W/m^2 [from the Sun] + 33 W/m^2 [from the surface] = 108 W/m^2. Radiative heat flux going OUT: 220 W/m^2 [to space].
Look, how come a solar-heated surface grows warmer on average as you put a massive (thus also partly IR-active) atmosphere on top of it? Is it because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it, atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun? Or is it because, as the atmosphere starts absorbing heat from the surface, storing some of it up internally, its TEMPERATURE rises, making the temperature difference between the surface and its thermal surroundings decrease, thus reducing the heat transfer from the surface (its heat loss) to those thermal surroundings?
The 240 W/m^2 in question is THE SOLAR HEAT FLUX TO THE EARTH. A heat flux will be able to cause warming. You’re deliberately mixing up “thermal radiation” and “heat fluxes”, Tim. In order to try and obfuscate the issue.
Why?
Kristian, How do you explain the measured characteristics of the atmosphere? No hand waving allowed. Here’s a detailed look at a simple model that was presented 40 years ago:
Climate Modeling Through Radiative-Convective Models (1978) PDF
If you can’t come up with a better analysis, you had best give it up.
E. Swanson says, May 22, 2018 at 6:09 PM:
The “characteristics of the atmosphere”? By that I guess you mean its ‘radiative’ characteristics …?
So why do I have to “explain” these characteristics? They’re there. I don’t have any alternative explanation for them, if that’s what you think …
The only problem with the whole “GHE” proposition is that it confuses cause and effect. It (mis)interprets a mere effect of the real cause as somehow itself the cause …
The atmospheric thermal/insulating effect on the solar-heated surface is very real, no doubt about that. It just isn’t a radiatively caused effect.
That’s ironic. Considering how the whole “GHE”/”AGW” endeavour itself is but one big hand-waving exercise.
No real-world evidence of the claimed causality is ever presented. And there is of course a very good reason for that. Such evidence simply DOES NOT EXIST. Because the atmosphere’s radiative properties AREN’T the cause behind Earth’s elevated global average surface temperature.
The K writes:
No, I was referring to the mundane meteorological characteristics, such as the lapse rate from the surface up to the tropopause and then on to the TOA. OF course, that would include an explanation of the measured spectroscopic data for IR EM.
The K continues:
More hand waving. The atmospheric sciences community long ago concluded that the Greenhouse Effect was a necessary component required to explain the measured data for the weather and climate. If you can not show mathematically how your version of the atmosphere works, you are just excreting more of your usual BS. Your reasoning is just another version of your long winded post from 2015 in which you admit that the ultimate path thru which energy leaves the Earth’s atmosphere is radiative transfer, but you fail to mention the Stratosphere, where there’s almost no water vapor, thus the radiative emissions are due to CO2. And, you want to ignore the fact that each layer of the atmosphere emits in both the upward and downward direction, which ties in with the stability of the convective process which dominates in the Troposphere.
IT & NP, it is critical to specify which “energy” we are discussing.
The original equation in (6) seems to describe the energy emitted by a specific patch of the earth’s surface in 1 second that escapes directly to space. So the full, 100% value would correspond to
Q(full) = ε(sur) σ T(sur)^4 A (1.00 second)
when the atmosphere is perfectly clear to IR. This value is about 390 J for 1 m^2 in 1 s for ε(sur) ~ 1 with T= 288 K.
If you add some GHG to that atmosphere, you could reduce this to:
Q(GHG) = 0.85 Q(full)
Which would be ~ 331 J with the above numbers. But waiting for 2 seconds does not turn this into.
Q(GHG) = 0.9775 Q(full)
which would be ~ 381 J. If anything, we should say that after (1/0.85) = 1.18 s we have lost as much energy as Q(full) in 1.00 s.
*********************************
But in part (7), the discussion is instead about energy “in the earth system” which is a completely different beast. And I.T. says “100 % energy finally escapes”, which would seems to be 100% of the energy “absorbed by the surface from sunlight” which is yet a different thing.
*********************************
Freely interchanging THREE different meanings of “energy” is sure to lead to confusion!
My point was about (6) in NP’s post and a climate system averaged over time and space, no diurnal., seasonal or regional effects.
-Upon adding GHG’s to the atmosphere, trapping of heat in the system ( surface + atmosphere) takes place temporarily, during a transient regime only, not in steady state once (average) temperatures are stabilized and constant everywhere again. It seems to me that mixing up these regimes results in a lot of misunderstanding and confusion.
– NP seems to wonder that the energy of any IR photon emitted at surface may eventually finds his way to outer space either directly or after bouncing N times forth and back between surface and atmosphere and this whether there are or not GHG’s in the atmosphere. I say this is not surprising, in steady state with or without GHG’s , 100 % of the energy absorbed by the surface from sunlight must be able to do so.
– And indeed this does not mean that 100 % of the energy radiated by the surface must or does escape to outer space. It’s much less and besides radiative transport there is also convective and latent heat transport.
IT, Tim,
Based on a few of his previous posts, I think this is what NP is trying to figure out:
If the sun shines on the surface for 12 hours, how much of the day’s accumulated energy will be left, if any, by the time the sun comes up again the next morning?
And how would more Co2 change that?
I assume the “12 hours” is to average the longer summer days in one hemisphere with the shorter ones in the other.
S,
I agree. Actually, it is worse than that. A little after the Sun passes the zenith, the surface temperature begins to fall.
And at the Poles, 6 months of continuous sunlight cannot even keep up with the rate at which the surface is losing energy.
And in Winter, it will be noted that the surface is cooler than in Summer.
Fourier realised this a long time ago, and wrote to the effect that at night, the Earth loses all the heat it gained during the day, plus a little of that which is its own.
Hence four and a half billion years of cooling, on average.
Cheers.
S
If the sun shines on the surface for 12 hours, how much of the days accumulated energy will be left, if any, by the time the sun comes up again the next morning?
And how would more Co2 change that?
This addresses the daily and seasonal fluctuations of the energy in system. Reasoning at this level is hardly pertinent and much confusing as far as the effect of additional CO2 induced GHE is concerned. The latter essentially and first of all changes the average state ( averaged over one year or so) and therefore the average internal energy of the climate system.
IT
I had a conversation with NP a while back and that was the question he was trying to answer. Just passing along HIS thinking on this, not mine.
Idiot,
The GHE changes the average energy state over a year or so? Using magic, I presume?
Complete and utter nonsense. A non-definable GHE has an undefined and unmeasurable effect over an ill-defined period of time – gee, how convincing is that!
Pseudoscientific folderol.
The average energy state has been declining for four and a half billion years, in case you haven’t noticed. Although you have cleverly managed to avoid any mention of heating or warming, I assume you are claiming that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter?
More nonsense. No GHE. No CO2 heating. No temperature increase due to increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and thermometers.
Stop dreaming. Learn physics – if you can tear yourself away from your pointless and stupid tracking activities. Do you suffer from an uncontrollable obsession with performing pointless and irrelevant actions?
Cheers.
Mike,
It is true that, “The average energy state has been declining for four and a half billion years, in case you havent noticed.”
There are so many things that are going on.
The sun is slowly turning into a red giant over the next several billion years.
The universe is expanding, and has been for 13 billion years.
The milky way is on a collision course with Andromeda over the next few billion years.
Income inequality is on the rise.
US birthrate is dropping.
All are true, but all are just as irrelevant to the climate change issue.
No need to bring them up, at least not more than once.
tim…”If you add some GHG to that atmosphere, you could reduce this to:
Q(GHG) = 0.85 Q(full)”
*********
Could??? I don’t recall that in any of my physics classes.
And why a 15% reduction for GHGs making up 0.31% of the atmosphere overall?
Why not Q(GHG) = 0.97 Q(full)…to be generous?
Don’t blame me! I am just using HIS numbers. But it is a reasonable estimate. Just eyeballing, the 15 um band for CO2 is on the order of 15% of the whole thermal IR spectrum emitted by the earth’s surface.
Whether we use x = 1% or 90% or 15%, the principle of 1 – x^n is incorrect.
https://turbulenteddies.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/the-ceres-series/
Very informative important information on albedo which I have maintained is the climate driver and what can cause this metric to change the answer is changes in solar activity.
“albedo which I have maintained is the climate driver and what can cause this metric to change the answer is changes in solar activity.”
Note that Svenmark’s gamma ray hypothesis has been tested at CERN and shown to be too small.
You are trying to explain how a reduction in solar radiation can cool the planet by affecting albedo. This can only happen if a reduction in solar radiation increases albedo. For most of us in the consensus this is counterintuitive.
What mechanism do you invoke to produce such an effect, and what evidence do you have?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
Very informative important information on albedo which I have maintained is the climate driver and what can cause this metric to change the answer is changes in solar activity.
Then show the data and evidence this has happened.
Mike Flynn
May 15th 4.44
“You cant even properly describe the mythical GHE, because there is no such thing. ”
It is not mythical. You refuse to accept the existance of a phenomenon which has been measured in the laboratory and observed in the atmosphere since the 1850s.
Since your misunderstanding stems in part from an incorrect interpretation of the 2nd law, let us try a non-GHE thought experiment.
It is early afternoon on a clear spring day. The sun is 45 degrees above the horizon. You are standing in a field with a thermometer on the ground beside you reading 10C.
A crane suspends a 10M by 10M mirror 15M above your head. You look up and see your reflection as the mirror reflects both visible light and IR radiation back towards the surface.
How does adding the mirror affect the temperature reading on the thermometer?
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 8:39 AM:
Hahaha! So the fabled “atmospheric GHE” has been “measured in the laboratory”? Is that right?
Quite a feat, I would say!
And exactly how was it “observed in the atmosphere since the 1850s”? I’m dying to know …!
Ah, you’re referring to the well-known fact that some gases absorb and emit IR within certain narrow bands of the EM spectrum?
But you see, THAT’S not the “GHE”. That’s just a suggested mechanism behind the ultimate hypothesized THERMAL effect.
Kristian
Have you had any scientific training?
May I remind you that you test a hypothesis by matching the predictions of the hypothesis with experiment and observation.
Tyndall first showed that a GHG absorbs and reradiates IR in the 1850s. Foucault and Arrhenius then showed theoretically that this effect would have a warming effect on climate.
The development of heat seeking air-to-air missiles such as Sidewinder required a lot of background research into tha a*bsorb*tion and em*ission spec*tra of CO2.
The final result was a missile which homed on the 15 micrometre radiation from hot CO2 in the target’s jet exhaust. The main range limitation was the scattering effect as this radiation was progressively absorbed by atmospheric CO2 and reradiated in all directions.
Out of the Cold War came a detailed understanding of the radiation physics of CO2.
Today the GHE and its effect on AGW are demonstrated by testing these predictions.
1) There should be a correalation between increased CO2 and increased temperature.
CO2 has increased from 280ppm to 410ppm while global temperature has increased from 13.8C to 14.8C. Check.
2) Without GHGs the outgoing IR spectrum should follow a smooth black body curve. With CO2 there should be a reduction of intensity around 15 micrometres. Check.
3) With increasing CO2 there should be even less emission around 15 micrometres.
Emission in the OLR around 15 micrometres is decreasing. Check.
4) Some of the reradiated energy from CO2 and other GHGs will propogate downwards.
Downwelling radiation is now monitored. Check.
5) Downwelling radiation should show a peak around 15 micrometres due to reradiated energy from CO2.
There is a DWR peak at 15 micrometres. Check.
6) The amount of 15 micrometre DWR should increase as atmospheric CO2 increases.
15 micrometre DWR is increasing. Check.
I could go on, but this should make my point. The GHE hypothesis makes predictions about the behaviour of reality which can be checked by laboratory experiment and real world observation. This has been done and demonstrates the validity of both GHE and AGW.
Note that Dr Spencer accepts all of the above. Where he differs from the consensus is that he expects less warming than most climate scientists.
Slight correction.
The original missiles homed on the 4 micronmetre CO2 emission, which is stronger than the 15 micrometre emission at high temperatures.
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 9:47 AM:
Yes. Have you?
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 9:47 AM:
No, it doesn’t. Because the “GHE idea” postulates a quite specific mechanism – a radiative one – to be the CAUSE of elevated surface temperatures. And this particular causal connection has NEVER been empirically shown to exist in the real Earth system. In fact, it is pretty straightforward to both argue theoretically and logically, AND to show through real-world observations, that there IS no such causal link, that the proposed mechanism ISN’T what causes elevated surface temperatures.
To the contrary. My points 2-6 are empirical evidence that the Earth system is behaving as expected under the GHE hypothesis.
“empirical
adjective
based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.”
My points 2-6 meet the generally accepted definition of “empirical”.
Do you belong to the school of thought that the only empirical approach is the type of tightly controlled experiments usually associated with laboratory physics?
Some aspects can be studied on a global scale, such as energy budgets.
The nearest we have been able to manage to a fully controlled experiment on a global scale (for lack of replicate planets and enough time) are simulations and comparisons between past and present climates.These agree with the GHE hypothesis.
If you have any better ideas, they would be welcome.
” it is pretty straightforward to both argue theoretically and logically, AND to show through real-world observations, that there IS no such causal link, that the proposed mechanism ISNT what causes elevated surface temperatures.”
If that were so, we would be in the middle of a paradigm crisis and the different world views would be slugging it out with competing papers in Nature.
Instead the consensus view is almost universally accepted and vague assertions like yours appear on fringe websites.
Lets do this by the proper scientific rules.
I gave you six pieces of empirical evidence for GHE.
Can you describe a clear alternative explaination for the warming and provide six pieces of empirical evidence to support it?
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 1:35 PM:
Hahaha! Yeah, right. You’re quite the naive one, aren’t you, Entropic?
Of course it is. The imposed paradigm “consensus” is precisely what keeps people from thinking for themselves …
No, you didn’t. None of your ‘pieces’ constitutes ’empirical evidence for GHE’. Just claiming evidence doesn’t make evidence.
Of course I can. I can also easily explain and show why CO2 isn’t the cause:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 1:16 PM:
No, they’re not. It seems you do not know (or understand) your own “hypothesis”, what it says, claims and predicts.
No.
Exactly. And THIS is where it can be readily observed how the increase in atmospheric CO2 hasn’t been (and isn’t) contributing to ‘global warming’.
But you need to understand WHAT to look for, Entropic.
Models, huh? Hahahahaha!
Yeah, how about actual, relevant observations from the real Earth system?
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 9:47 AM:
But this isn’t evidence of causation, Entropic.
Yes. Still no evidence of causation. That particular link is all in your head. Preconceived. Circular reasoning.
I’m sure it is. But is this isolated circumstance CAUSING overall warming? Again, no evidence of causation (+CO2 => +T).
DWLWIR is not “reradiated energy”, Entropic. It is THERMALLY emitted energy. Big difference, but one I’m not too sure you fully grasp.
No temperature, no thermal IR.
None of this is evidence of “GHE”, Entropic. It is evidence that CO2 emits IR with a peak wavelength around 15 micrometres. We knew that already. The “GHE” postulates thermal causation.
And again, it is NOT reradiated. It is thermally emitted. It is a product of the temperature of the air.
I’m sure it is. But is this isolated circumstance CAUSING overall warming? Again, no evidence of causation (+CO2 => +T).
Kristian says:
DWLWIR is not reradiated energy, Entropic. It is THERMALLY emitted energy.
Yes, it is — it’s right there in the name — “…IR” = … infrared radiation, radiated by molecules in excited quantum states.
David, it is the “re” part of “reradiated” that is problematic.
“Re” has an implication (for many people) that
1) radiated energy gets absorbed by CO2
2) the energy rattles around in the CO2 molecule for a moment
3) this *same* energy radiates back out.
“Re” has the implication that if I shine 50W/m^2 of IR in a band near 15 um, that 50 W/m^2 of IR in the 15 um band will come back out (be ‘reradiated’).
In fact, the absorbed energy is MUCH more likely to get thermalized. The energy that DOES get radiated is much more likely to have come from some later random collision with surrounding gas molecules. The temperature of the gas determines the outgoing thermal IR. A cool gas could radiate less than 50 W/m^@ in that band. A hot gas could radiate more than 50 W/m^2 in that band.
DWLWIR does NOT specifically depend on the UWLWIR.
DWLWIR DOES specifically depend on the temperature of the gasses emitting the DWLWIR.
(Of course, the temperature of the atmosphere does in part depend on the UWLWIR, but that is a different level of analysis).
Kristian
I’m starting to understand your thinking on this and have come up with a thought experiment for you:
Imagine a person is on the dark side of the moon trying to take a nap. He is laying on a thick, insulated pad, so is not loosing much heat to the ground.
For a blanket, he has a very thick pile of nitrogen. The nitrogen is heated by his body, and thus there is a WARM MASS between him and outer space.
Will this blanket keep him warm?
*****
No, he was never losing heat via conduction or convection……only by radiation, so a blanket of nitrogen does him no good. It’s a useless insulator.
The “insulation” will remain the same temperature as his body as he freezes to death.
Wrong.
A person needs air to breathe and food to eat.
And without pressure suit dies.
In pressure suit the person needs cooling not warming.
Or Apollo astronauts carried a block ice on their backs.
Gbaikie
I did not intend the example to be taken literally, only as an example that perhaps illustrates how N2/02 do not insulate against radiative heat loss to space…….even though they are a warm, intermediary mass.
Kristian wrote:
“IR radiation, after the initial thermodynamic connection has been established between surface (solar-heated) and atmosphere (surface-heated), is NECESSARY only as an atmospheric COOLANT.”
******
Here are Dr. Spencer’s thoughts regarding that argument:
“The SECOND misconception is that because greenhouse gases allow the atmosphere to cool to outer space, adding more GHGs cant cause warming. While it is true that GHGs do lead to an overall decrease in the mass-weighted average temperature of the atmosphere, their altering of the energy budget of individual layers leads to net warming of the lowest layers of the atmosphere.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/more-musings-from-the-greenhouse/
Btw Apollo crew only landed in the morning:
“Conservative Apollo mission rules dictated that the LM should land only between 12 and 48 hours after sunrise at its target landing site, when the Sun would stand between 5 and 20 above the eastern horizon”
Because it provided lighting conditions which safest to land on the moon. You don’t want to land on rough terrian, and could more easily see it, in those lighting conditions. At 5 to 20 degrees, the sunlight will cast long shadows on anything sticking up on level surface and craters will also be dark.
And:
“Because of limited supplies of avionics cooling water, battery power, and breathing oxygen, the longest an Apollo lunar surface mission could last was about 72 hours. The period during which Apollo explorers could gain experience working in lunar lighting conditions thus only spanned from 12 hours – the earliest permitted landing time – to five days – the latest permitted landing time of two days plus the maximum stay-time of three days. ”
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/high-noon-on-the-moon-1991/
And longest stay on Moon was 33 hours.
Snape says, May 21, 2018 at 10:53 AM:
Yes. Which is wrong.
–Snape says:
May 21, 2018 at 10:42 AM
Gbaikie
I did not intend the example to be taken literally, only as an example that perhaps illustrates how N2/02 do not insulate against radiative heat loss to space.even though they are a warm, intermediary mass.–
Human bodies temperature is not controlled by radiant heat loss. Instead it is evaporation heat loss and conventional heat loss. Btw this is also true of cars. Or basically any machine.
So providing O2 and fuel to car on the moon, a problem to overcome is car engine would become too hot- even in a polar dark crater at 50 K.
Gbaikie
Spacesuits designed by NASA for Apollo astronauts used heating elements to protect astronauts from extreme cold. Some of this same technology has been incorporated into a heated vest marketed by the Australian company Jett. It includes rechargeable lithium polymer batteries and flexible heating coils. The garment can keep you toasty at very cold temperatures. Another high-tech insulator incorporates microencapsulated phase-change materials. These are also microscopic balls, but theyre filled with chemicals that change phase that is, go from solid to liquid and back depending on temperature. NASA researchers developed them for use in astronaut glove liners. When a persons body temperature rises, the material absorbs the heat. When it drops, the material gives off the heat, providing warmth.”
I forgot to add quotation marks. Here is the link:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/05/10/how-astronauts-stay-warm-and-safe-in-the-deep-cold-of-space/amp/
Also btw, when we land on lunar poles, the angle of sun will always be about 5 degree (or less) above the horizon. And it will be land of shadows.
Snape says, May 21, 2018 at 9:59 AM:
No. You’re obviously not. In fact, you’re an expert in misrepresenting my thoughts and arguments.
Kristian wrote:
“Matter is NOT (!!!) dependent on being able to absorb IR in order to warm, Tim. All it needs is to be able to absorb and store up internally SOME kind of energy transferred to it as heat [Q] (or work [W]).
It is then the elevated TEMPERATURE of the matter, resulting from this absorp.tion and internal accumulation of energy, that will affect the temperature of OTHER thermodynamic systems in some kind of thermal contact with it.”
The nitrogen blanket is “able to absorb and store up internally SOME kind of energy transferred to it as heat [Q] (or work [W]).”
So how is the “elevated TEMPERATURE”
of such a blanket able to, “affect the temperature of OTHER thermodynamic systems in some kind of thermal contact with it.”?
Keep in mind, the person was never losing any heat to space via conduction or convection to begin with.
Kristian says:
So the fabled atmospheric GHE has been measured in the laboratory? Is that right?
Measurement of the GHE from curves like these:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
The GHE will be the difference of the integrals of the red and black curves.
And:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
“Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Em,
How about describing the GHE in scientific terms?
You cannot, of course, soo you resort to what you admit is a non GHE thought experiment. Fairly obvious, because you cannot describe the mythical GHE!
Your gotcha is completely pointless. You imply that you can multiply the light of a candle by filling a room with mirrors.
If you mirror shades the thermometer from the sun, its temperature will drop. This form of insulation is commonly used under roofs, with the mirror surface facing down, for this very reason.
If you are cavorting on a bed under a mirrored ceiling, any extra heat you feel is probably not due to the mirror.
Why do you insist on presenting pointless and irrelevant analogies? If you cannot present a scientific description of the GHE, maybe you should change your religion.
Just for fun, what happens to your thermometer at night? Or like the fools at NASA, does your imaginary situation not relate to reality at all? Perpetual day – everywhere?
Cheers.
There is a GHG effect which is the result of the climate/environment not the other way around.
Mathematical description please.
co2 follows the temperature change does not lead it.
Wrong Salvatore — the causality can go either way.
‘can’ = ‘does’
Right.
Climate Science on Trial; CO2 is a Weak GHG, it has no Permanent Dipole
The best way to argue for the science, and against the climate alarmists is to simply go back to the basic physics of the greenhouse gas effect (GHG) and how CO2 contributes to it. Stated simply, the GHG effect is the trapping/absorbing of outgoing infrared (IR) radiation by various greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. These Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/climate-science-on-trial-co2-is-a-weak-ghg-it-has-no-dipole/
Exactly CO2iLife.
In the mean time overall temperatures for the globe and oceans are in a down trend.
AGW theory will however maintain they are correct no matter what the climate does.
The theory is a sham and is the only theory I have ever come across that has legs despite all the basic premises the theory is based on have not materialized.
Exactly CO2iLife.
No one is proposing getting rid of the natural CO2, just the anthropogenic CO2.
In the mean time overall temperatures for the globe and oceans are in a down trend.
Again, short-term thinking based on natural variations. The long term, climatic trend in SSTs is very much upward.
which should have been the case due to very high solar activity especially last century.
Please ADDRESS this graph, which shows average TSI has been slowly declining since the 1960s….
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TIM_TSI_Reconstruction.png
DA…”In the mean time overall temperatures for the globe and oceans are in a down trend.
**
Again, short-term thinking based on natural variations. The long term, climatic trend in SSTs is very much upward”.
********
Even the most diehard alarmist had to expect global temps to decline following the February 2016 EN peak. The question arises as to what took it so long.
If you alarmists were not so myopic and hung up on your CO2 fetish, you might ponder that question. As John Christy of UAH claims, the atmosphere is a very complex phenomenon. Far too complex, IMHO, to be reduced to a case-closed situation based on anthropogenic CO2.
There are obviously very complex forces at work and I fear we are missing the forest for the trees by focusing on CO2.
CO2 and other aGHGs are playing a central role.
ENSOs are all getting warmer — the last El Nino was the warmest ever El Nino, this past La Nina was the warmest ever La Nina, and the last neutral year was the warmest ever neutral year.
Warming is unequivocal. How many more decades of it do you need?
“it has no Permanent Dipole”
Not relevant. IR radiation induces an oscillating temporary dipole.
bond…”it has no Permanent Dipole
Not relevant. IR radiation induces an oscillating temporary dipole”.
And what causes the dipole??? Unbalanced negative charges due to the difference in electronegativity between the oxygen and carbon atoms.
So, what happens if one of the electrons absorbs a quanta of energy on one side of the linear molecule? One side becomes unbalanced. What happens if electrons on both sides of the linear molecule absorb energy? The molecule begins to torque slightly around the C atom.
It all comes down to electrons, their negative charges, and the current orbital energy levels in which they reside. There is nothing else in a CO2 molecule that can cause oscillations to which you refer.
The dipole remains stable as long as the electron charges remain balanced. If their is an unbalance, the dipole becomes erratic.
There are rules for absorp-tion/emission by electrons, hence the 2nd law.
No, again, it doesn’t come down to electrons for GHGs.
Their relevant energy transitions aren’t changes of electron states, they are changes in the configuration of the GHG molecules — changes in their vibrations and rotations.
Go learn some quantum mechanics.
co2…”Climate Science on Trial; CO2 is a Weak GHG, it has no Permanent Dipole”
Not only is CO2 a weak GHG, this article is weak on science. Full of generalities and short on precision.
Example. CO2 absorbs surface radiation. No mention of how much surface radiation there is and whether 0.04% of CO2 can absorb a significant amount of it.
There is an inference that CO2 acts like insulation in a home. Let me tell you, if the amount of insulation used in a home was in proportion to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, it would be useless as an insulator.
That’s besides the fact that insulation in a home only provides a means of slowing heat dissipation by conduction, something CO2 cannot do. The insulation in a home does not affect IR radiation.
The GHE is full of generalities that have been accepted verbatim without questioning the basis of the theory. When I try to question it, I am met with ad homs and insults but very little in the way of precision and fact.
Gordon Robertson says:
Not only is CO2 a weak GHG….
Define “weak.” Better yet, quantify it.
In addition mainstream always goes with the current climatic trend.
In other words they are not capable of calling for a climatic turn.
Wrong – the models simply calculate the physics. If the physics warrants a “turn,” the models will show it. If not, not:
https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-07/scenarioco2.jpg
The models are in a word wrong.
Show me where:
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2018-panela.png
What you show is a big reduction on what the models are forecasting for global warming in contrast to a few years ago.
They are not showing much, at least not compared to before.
Huh?
That graph shows was models predict after 2005. What actually happened in very near the ensemble average.
“If the physics warrants a turn, the models will show it.”
Your fallacy is: circulus in probando
Nope. It’s like any other physics — set up the problem and solve the equations. That’s what climate models do. There’s nothing circular about that, any more than is solving F=ma.
In fact, we know F = ma is wrong, and only works in the low speed, low gravity milieu. We would never have discovered the relations between space and time had we relied purely on models using F = ma.
Ha ha. You know very well what I meant. Avoiding the question again.
BTW, F=dp/dt does hold in special relativity, with F and p as 4-vectors.
It doesn’t hold in general relativity. Force doesn’t make much sense in GR, where everything is simply in free falling along a geodesic of curved spacetime.
Only if t is proper time. And, gravity is not the only influence allowed in GR.
But, I wasn’t avoiding the question. I was pointing out that models do not show you everything, and a model happens to match a finite subset of observational data cannot be declared validated on that basis alone.
Bart says:
I was pointing out that models do not show you everything, and a model happens to match a finite subset of observational data cannot be declared validated on that basis alone.
You mean models aren’t perfect? Of course they aren’t.
If you have a better model fit than AGW, let’s see it. You don’t — you just make very thin abstract arguments with no foundations to them.
Bart,
From NASA re computer model –
“As new physics is introduced, old bugs found and new applications developed, the code is almost continually undergoing minor, and sometimes major, reworking. Thus any fixed description of the model is liable to be out of date the day it is printed.
Damn. They keep discovering new physics.
No wonder the models are useless.
Oh well.
Cheers.
–Snape says:
May 21, 2018 at 12:56 PM
I forgot to add quotation marks. Here is the link:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/05/10/how-astronauts-stay-warm-and-safe-in-the-deep-cold-of-space/amp/ —
Here link for electrical heated ski gloves:
https://www.glovesmag.com/heated-gloves/ski
And mittens:
https://www.glovesmag.com/heated-mittens/
Mittens are better for cold conditions, but you don’t get the dexterity of gloves. Which is also issue related to doing things when doing a spacewalk. (Servicing Bubble or doing things outside ISS).
As for your link and the diagram, I will direct your attention to some important elements. First the liquid cooling and ventilation garment.
I will note that surgeons also use something like this to prevent them from sweating under the bright lights (though imagine with more efficient light it is less of a problem).
Next:
Sublimater and H2O tank.
And for drinking: disposable in-suit drink bag.
Anyways what gets cold is the fingers of gloves that need to have as much dexterity as is reasonable possible, and electrically heating them, allows this.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/carbon-rises-800-years-after-temperatures/
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/natlssta.png
look at all the warming
Salvatore, do you honestly not understand that looking at just a few months of data says nothing about climate change — it’s simply about very short-term natural fluctuations?
Really?
I will say this it has to play out more a few months is not near enough time. I agree.
“…a few more months…” is also a short time. Still natural fluctuations.
But, we expect it to cool, and it is thereby noteworthy.
Isn’t that what you told me about warm events earlier on this page?
No, cooling is not expected. And it hasn’t been happening for decades now.
Cooling is expected and this year is the transitional year David.
As far as solar activity goes it should have had a warming effect on the climate through year 2005.
I’m not really interested if cooling is happening this year. I’m interested in climate and its long-term trends.
AGW is just getting started. The long-term outlook is more warming for decades….
I expect it. Salvatore expects it. Looks like it’s expected, Dave.
Cue special pleading in 5, 4, 3, 2…
A couple of guys on a blog expecting global cooling is noteworthy?
It’s every bit as noteworthy as using random warm records as support for AGW on the foundation that they are “expected”.
Which is to say, no, not even a little.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/global.png
cooling is the rule
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/large/public/2016-07/sea-surface-temp-figure1-2016.png
again this past summer overall ocean temperatures were in a range of +.28c to +.37c
Average Global Sea Surface Temperature, 18802015
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/large/public/2016-07/sea-surface-temp-figure1-2016.png
that was the past
It’s a very long trend… and it’s long for a reason.
My reason is the very high solar activity
But solar activity has been declining for 50-some years.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
May 21, 2018 at 4:22 PM
Here is an SST dataset up to date presented by the Japanese Met Agency, best known for ‘cool’ temperature time series:
http://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/kaiyou/data/english/long_term_sst_global/global_rngmn_e.png
What about counting all the small, temporary declines between 1891 and today, Salvatore?
As I said it has to play out. Will see.
We’ve already seen. You’ve been repeatedly wrong.
And still no well-defined GHE, is there?
Hence no testable GHE hypothesis. No science. Just more handwaving pseudoscience – to be expected from people who cannot even clearly state what it is they believe in, in any useful form.
Where may this GHE be observed? Under what conditions? And so on.
Nobody has managed so far. That supports my contention that it does not exist.
My view is simple to refute – just produce a valid description of this scientific effect.
Cheers.
Kristian
Too much to answer easily near my bedtime, but I’ll hit a few high spots.
The GHE is not a single event, it is a chain of causation, with each step passing energy to the next. There is no single experiment which confirms the whole process. You have to demonstrate that each step is taking place.
Your first post sounds like conspiracy theory. The Royal Academy does not hang rubbish art or prescribe the choice of subject. It hangs pictures which meet minimum standards of composition and execution.
Similarly published papers do not have to agree with the consensus, they just have to meet the quality control standards. One very good way to a Nobel Prize is to show that the consensus is wrong.
I stopped reading your first link when I read this.
“positive feedback is essentially an effect that amplifies its cause; in other words, it causes the initial magnitude of what caused it to increase.”
The blog is claiming that a warming Earth makes the Sun warmer!
Perhaps you could explain more clearly in your own words!
Your second post struggles with the concept of energy conversion.
When a CO2 molecule absorbs a 15 micrometre photon it excites a vibration mode in which the molecule gets longer and shorter, with the energy from the photon stored as the kinetic energy of the vibration.
If nothing else happens the molecule emits the stored energy as another 15 micrometre photon after a few microseconds.
If the excited CO2 molecule collides with another molecule the energy may become kinetic energy of motion, accelerating one or both molecules. This increases the average kinetic energy and increases the temperature.
It works both ways. A collision with a CO2 molecule can convert kinetic energy to vibration energy which is then emitted as a photon. This removes kinetic energy of motion and lowers the temperature.
You have not made clear how your concept of thermalisation works, but it does not seem to allow this two-way flow of energy between kinetic energy of motion and photons.
In fact you do not make much clear. You complain that we do not understand what you are saying, but do not try to clarify. Please be much clearer and much more specific
Two minor points:
“You have to demonstrate that each step is taking place.”
And, you have to show it is scalable, i.e., that other confounding processes are not taking place in the full scale system. This, IMO, has not been demonstrated, and is in fact contraindicated.
“…with the energy from the photon stored as the kinetic energy of the vibration.”
Stored as alternating kinetic and potential energy of the vibration.
And, one observation: positive feedback does generally provide amplification, if it is prevented from running away by more powerful overarching negative feedback. But, as I’m not sure of the specific reference, I will not comment further on this.
Otherwise, I am generally on board with the comment.
Well, except for the notion that conspiracies, loosely knit or otherwise, never happen. It especially bothers me when I see someone minimizing the ClimateGate emails as “conspiracy mongering.” The conspiracy is right there, in the players’ own words. It’s no longer just a theory.
Bart,
The sciencey sounding folk generally omit one important consideration when talking about vibration, rotation, kinetic energy and the rest of their jabber.
Left to itself, CO2, like any other matter, emits photons – all by itself – at progressively lesser energy levels and longer wavelengths. Theoretically, all the way to absolute zero.
GHE enthusiasts always have a secret and undeclared energy source to keep everything in motion in their imaginary fantasy scenarios.
CO2 does not store, trap, or accumulate energy in any way that means it creates heat. Surrounding a thermometer with CO2 does not cause a temperature rise. Putting more CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer, does not make the thermometer hotter.
Now we have the evolving farce where the GHE is claimed not to actually exist, but instead, to be the product of a chain of other events – which of course cannot themselves be described, or verified. Stupidity piled upon ignorance, all supported by a foundation of wishful thinking.
Cheers.
CO2 inhibits radiative heat loss from the surface. There can be no doubt of that. But, that is just one of the processes involved in establishing the heat balance of the globe.
So show that some other process is responsible for modern warming.
Bart,
But doesnt stop it, of course. There are about 4 CO2 molecules per 10000 of other molecules.
The CO2 molecules are at most 2000 times as effective as O2 and N2 at interacting with certain frequencies of radiation – at least according to Tyndall, whose results have been supported by later measurements.
This leads to 4 CO2 molecules interacting with 8000 rays, while the other constituents account for some 9996. It doesnt really matter, as eventually all the radiation takes the line of least resistance, and moves from anything hotter than outer space (be it surface, atmosphere, aquasphere – whatever), to the cold sink of 4 K or so.
The net result of the atmosphere is a slightly cooler daytime, and a slightly warmer nighttime – relatively speaking of course. Temperatures from the unconcentrated rays of the Sun range from -90 C to +90 C or so.
The Earth as a whole has cooled for four and a half billion years. Trying to talk this fact out of existence does not help the GHE supporters. Nor does the fact that they cannot actually describe this mythical beast, the GHE.
Oh well. Good for a wry smile at least. A good ROFL, or LMAO, if one happens across a particularly idiotic piece of nonsense. For example, get a GHE supporter to explain how IR photographs of the surface can be taken from space – through the atmosphere! Radiation – direct from the surface – not a lot of blocking, or you couldn’t take a photo!
The GHE will suddenly develop new inexplicable properties – what a surprise!
Cheers.
Bart wrote:
It especially bothers me when I see someone minimizing the ClimateGate emails as conspiracy mongering. The conspiracy is right there, in the players own words. Its no longer just a theory.
What, exactly?
Talk about confirmation bias…. You’re taking a couple of emails of a couple of friends blowing off steam, and creating a worldwide conspiracy involving, what, tens of thousands of scientists and every scientific society on the planet?
Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?
Spin, spin, spin…
You’re the one doing the massive spinning, not me.
With zero evidence of anything untoward.
Who’re you gonna’ believe? DA, or your lyin’ eyes?
The conspiracy is right there, in the players’ own words. Its no longer just a theory.
Having read the allegedly offending articles and about 10 times more of the climate gate emails beside for context, that didn’t get hoovered up in the semi-popular debate, it sure looks to me like the evidence presented was highly selective, woefully misrepresented for the most part, and that the whole was a sordid beat-up of ordinary frustrations, while ignoring thousands of emails that demonstrate people trying hard to get to the truth of things and being gossips.
The papers weren’t kept out of peer review – they made in into the IPCC what’s more. Mike’s nature trick didn’t hide the decline – that’s Briffa’s supposed ‘trick’. Trenberth’s lament on the ‘travesty’ of inadequate monitoring systems (he also wrote a paper about it) was twisted into something else. The harryreadme file is the moanings of a justifiably frustrated data compiler trying to make one data set out of various with different formats and numerous problems; and the string of commands he noted ironically as ‘fudged’ were never used. Jones is misinterpreted on the flat trend time frame, and he was absolutely wrong to suggest deleting emails. That last is really the only juice in the whole kerfuffle.
Entropic man says, May 21, 2018 at 6:07 PM:
Mmmm, strange way of putting it, but OK.
And no one is asking for one.
Ah, but you have to do more than that. What you have to show is that your specifically postulated “chain of causation” does in fact end up CAUSING the average global surface temperature to be and to stay elevated. The easiest way to do this is to show, through consistent and relevant observations from the real Earth system, that strengthening your hypothetized ‘warming mechanism’ actually causes temps to rise: +GH => +E, alternatively: +CO2/+WV => +T.
This has NEVER been done. Not even remotely so. It is all down to assertions and assumptions.
I’m sure it does. To you. Clearly blinded by the ‘paradigm consensus’. I can assure you it’s not.
Of course you did.
Mmm, no. Whatever gave you that idea!?
No, I think you will have to explain that one …
Indeed. So what’s your problem? Nothing I wrote contradicts any of this.
What I’m pointing out is simply that talking about “reradiation” the way you do confuses the matter. It will make people think that what the atmosphere does is absorbing (much of) the IR being radiated to it from the surface, and then REemitting half of it directly back down to warm the surface some more.
But this is NOT how it works. And I wonder, are you aware of that …?
More or less exactly like you described it above.
That’s priceless! You’re making a point out of NOT reading the material I specifically link to … for you to read. And then you have the nerve to accuse me of ‘not making much clear’ …!!!??
I do. In those two links, Entropic.
Em,
You wrote –
“The GHE is not a single event . . .”
Well, then, you might care to describe each step, which supposedly makes up this GHE, and why it needs to be called the GHE, if it has no separate existence.
If it cannot be confirmed by experiment, it remains speculation.
That is about as stupid and ignorant as claiming climate influences weather – or indeed anything at all. Climate is a number, an average, and determines precisely nothing.
You also made the statement –
“If the excited CO2 molecule collides with another molecule the energy may become kinetic energy of motion, accelerating one or both molecules.
Molecules do not collide. They are not little perfectly elastic billiard balls. You are trying to sound sciencey, and might even claim that telling the truth would be too hard for mere mortals to understand.
Anybody who claims the GHE exists, and then says it is really a collection of other unspecified things without an independent verifiable existence is likely to be laughed at in scientific circles.
Still no GHE, even according to you. A testable GHE hypothesis is obviously out of the question. Is this really a cunning climatological pseudoscientific ploy to try to avoid the scrutiny which would result from actually going along with the scientific method?
You don’t appear to have much of a clue, about physics or anything else.
Carry on making stuff up.
Cheers.
Desperate denialists denounnce de-employment of dud professor.
“Climate science denial groups from the UK, U.S. and Australia have leapt to support a controversial marine scientist who was fired from his job at an Australian university.
Dr Peter Ridd, formerly a professor at James Cook University (JCU), was sacked for repeated breaches of his employment’s code of conduct, according to a statement from the University.
Ridd claims that the Great Barrier Reef is “in great shape” and dismisses evidence that human activities including dredging and human-caused global warming have damaged the internationally iconic marine wonder. Back-to-back coral bleaching events linked to record-breaking sea surface temperatures have killed about one third of the reef’s corals…
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/climate-science-deniers-from-around-the-globe-rally-around-sacked-jcu-scientist-peter-ridd,11522
Great Barrier Reef is in “great shape” !!! What an idiot!
Myki,
So now its “climate science denial”.
At least its a change from “climate denial” which is a completely stupid term, climate being merely the average of weather. This of course, leads to trying to define the nonsensical term “climate science”. if climate is the average of weather, then there should be “average of weather science”!
Complete nonsense. There is a “climate” pseudoscience which the self proclaimed practitioners represent as valid science. This pack of bumbling incompetents cannot even define the GHE, upon which their nonsense is supposedly based.
Press on. You might be able to convince someone, somewhere, that a testable GHE hypothesis, which explains something or other, (which nobody can actually identify), actually exists.
I doubt it.
Cheers.
Loser!
Myki:
Now that we know where you source your information, Desmog backed up by Readfearn, it becomes clear why you are wet behind and thick between the ears.
You could not provide any quotes from Ridd when asked earlier. Now your source states that Ridd said the GBR IS in great shape. I doubt you can find that phrase from Ridd in the last twelve months. You will find it in 2007!
Despite their alarmist claims there seems to be much wrong with the GBR right now. Ridd will have forgotten more about the GBR than Desmog/Readfearn know about it. You can stay stuck with your source and wear the idiot crown while sensible people go do a bit of homework:
Reports from theEye on the Reefnetwork indicate that, following summer 2017/2018, there are currently minor levels of coral bleaching, disease and damage in the Marine Park. Severe active outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish continue in the northern and central management areas, as well as in the southern Swain Reefs.
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/visit-the-reef/current-conditions-on-the-great-barrier-reef
correction:
Despite their alarmist claims there seems NOT to be much wrong with the GBR right now.
tonyM, according to your logic, the fact that there are only a few incidents this year, everything is ok. That is like a doctor telling you “we dont have to amputate your remaining leg this year”. What happened last year?
According to the site you cited:
“Reef health Updated: 29 June 2017
Global coral bleaching over the last two years has led to widespread coral decline and habitat loss on the Great Barrier Reef.
Since December 2015, the Great Barrier Reef has been exposed to above average sea surface temperatures, due to the combined effects of climate change and a strong El Nio.
These conditions triggered mass coral bleaching in late summer 2016 and led to an estimated 29 per cent loss of shallow water coral Reef-wide, according to findings by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Winter sea surface temperatures in 2016 remained above average and, by the beginning of the 2016-17 summer, the accumulated heat stress on the Reef resulted in a second wave of mass bleaching.”
i.e. once the coral is gone – it is gone. Your naivety/ignorance is astonishing.
Tony:
Scientists said nearly one-third of the reefs coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Damage to Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming Is Irreversible, Scientists Say, NY Times, 4/19/18
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/world/australia/australia-barrier-reef.html
Myki
DA
Some warmistae just make a perfect match displaying the WBTBE syndrome. The acronym is a new classification and stands for Wet Behind and Thick Between the Ears. The top performers so far are Myki and Appell.
These two need to be led by the nose to grasp the continuum of time.
Both can’t seem to get the idea of a time continuum. The Oz summer runs from Dec to Feb. The 2017/18 summer means this summer just gone and we are now in May of 2018.
I referred to the most recent observations from an official site saying the reef is basically fine. In response the clot Appell posts a reference to the 2014 report from the same site. Some mothers do have them.
He doubles down with a NYT article quoting a 2016 report. Myki is in the same boat with dated info.
For their benefit AGAIN and hopefully they get it that the 2017/2018 summer refers to the most recent time:
Overview of coral reef health reports
Prior to summer 2017/2018, multiple significant impacts affected the Great Barrier Reef over the years 2016 and 2017, including severe coral bleaching, outbreaks of coral disease and crown-of-thorns starfish, and a severe tropical cyclone and subsequent flood plumes. A separate summary of these past reef health impacts is available.
Reports from the Eye on the Reef network indicate that, following summer 2017/2018, there are currently minor levels of coral bleaching, disease and damage in the Marine Park.
Corals are pretty resiliant.
As for analogies Myki, I suggest it is time for you to change your diapers. The GBR is over a two thousand kms long feature and is NOT one body. And yes Myki, when some corals die they stay dead!!! So what? Get to understand life and death but particularly with corals and colonization.
Corals have existed for at least 300 million years and have experienced far higher T than exists today. Corals thrive in warm water; they die in cold water. Just look further north near PNG or the Persian Gulf where sea T is some 6C higher than around Oz. Further the GBR did not exist some 9000 years ago’; it was dry land. So there is always change.
Readers might note that the bleaching occurred in the shallow waters. It is a bit more complex but think about what happens when El Nino occurs and water sloshes away from Oz towards S. America. Are some corals exposed for longer and baked dry? Is all of the shallower water still able to mix with the cooler water further out? We had back to back El Ninos prior to this 2017/18 summer!
The GBR has not shrunk by 33%. Not even close. It certainly has not been damaged by a few tenths of degrees temperature change. That’s just stupid.
It’s not just warming:
“Notwithstanding positive actions since 2009, the greatest risks to the Great Barrier Reef have not changed. Climate change, poor water quality from land-based run-off, impacts from coastal development, and some remaining impacts of fishing remain the major threats to the future vitality of the Great Barrier Reef.”
Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014
http://hdl.handle.net/11017/2855
It’s not from warming at all. Ebbs and flows are natural. But, land run-off, coastal development, and overfishing do have impacts.
“Damage to Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming Is Irreversible, Scientists Say,” NY Times, 4/19/18
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/world/australia/australia-barrier-reef.html
“Scientists said nearly one-third of the reefs coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.”
DA:
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/visit-the-reef/current-conditions-on-the-great-barrier-reef
“Overview of coral reef health reports
Prior to summer 2017/2018, multiple significant impacts affected the Great Barrier Reef over the years 2016 and 2017, including severe coral bleaching, outbreaks of coral disease and crown-of-thorns starfish, and a severe tropical cyclone and subsequent flood plumes. A separate summary of these past reef health impacts is available.
Reports from the Eye on the Reef network indicate that, following summer 2017/2018, there are currently minor levels of coral bleaching, disease and damage in the Marine Park.”
Obviously the GBR is resilient and does not respond to the shrill calls from alarmists. Your reference is dated.
You idiot.
A third of the reef is already dead. What is happening at the moment cannot alter this fact.
Myki says:
A third of the reef is already dead. What is happening at the moment cannot alter this fact.
When you stop throwing a tantrum and mommy changes your diaper, then, with your limited language skill and comprehension, ask her what is a third of 2300km. Then ask her to show you such a length on an Oz east coast map. The area of the GBR is some 344000 sq km. So you believe that 750km by 150km (avg) is dead. Absurd! Just one word is needed ABSURD.
You are a gullible fool. Where do you get this rubbish. Can you not grasp that Ridd, who has been at JCU for over 30 years, would have had no option but to support any alarmist call. Yet he called for moderation and says:
..despite the conventional wisdom that says that the GBR is on the brink of extinction, in fact it is one of the most pristine ecosystems in the world, well protected, and least likely to be affected by climate change (natural or otherwise). In fact the future for the GBR is excellent.
You will need to ask mommy many questions for you are clueless on corals and the GBR. You certainly show you cannot read plain English and have limited thinking skills. Give up on Desmog and Redfearn. Get rid of alarmist calls. Ask mommy to do some homework.
The alarmist scaremongering has been coral bleaching. Oh woe is
me, the hot weather, climate catastrophe, is doing these bad things, real bad! Mommy will find that coral bleaching occurs in changes in environment such as warming water or cold water. It is a survival mechanism not a death spiral! It is the coral which expels the symbiant as a survival strategy. It does not mean the coral has died!!! Nor that the coral will die! It even has a capability of feeding directly on plankton.
Go get mommy to do some reading and stop wasting peoples time with your myopia and alarmist dribble. Until Appell comes along you made it to the top of the WBTBE club. Congratulations!
tonyM, you are a triple rated idiot. How about this from a real authority as opposed to a stupid denialist:
“Scientists have chronicled the mass mortality of corals on the Great Barrier Reef, in a new report that says 30% of the reefs corals died in a catastrophic nine-month marine heatwave.
The study, published in Nature and led by Prof Terry Hughes, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, examined the link between the level of heat exposure, subsequent coral bleaching and ultimately coral death. The extent and severity of the coral die-off recorded in the Great Barrier Reef surprised even the researchers. Hughes told Guardian Australia the 2016 marine heatwave had been far more harmful than historical bleaching events, where an estimated 5% to 10% of corals died.
When corals bleach from a heatwave, they can either survive and regain their colour slowly as the temperature drops, or they can die, Hughes said. Averaged across the whole Great Barrier Reef, we lost 30% of the corals in the nine-month period between March and November 2016.
The scientists set out to map the impact of the 2016 marine heatwave on coral along the 2,300km length of the Great Barrier Reef. They established a close link between the coral die-off and areas where heat exposure was most extreme. The northern third of the reef was the most severely affected.
The study found that 29% of the 3,863 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef lost two-thirds or more of their corals.Hughes said researchers were also surprised at how quickly some corals died in the extreme marine temperatures.
The conventional thinking is that after bleaching corals died slowly of … starvation. Thats not what we found. We were surprised that about half of the mortality we measured occurred very quickly.
The study found that initially, at the peak of temperature extremes in March 2016, many millions of corals died quickly in the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef over a period of only two to three weeks.
These widespread losses were not due to the attrition of corals that slowly starved because they failed to regain their symbionts. Rather, temperature-sensitive species of corals began to die almost immediately in locations that were exposed to heat stress.
egraded systems, with just a few tough species remaining, he said.
The researchers estimate half of the corals in shallow-water habitats in the northern Great Barrier Reef have been lost.
The Great Barrier Reef is certainly threatened by climate change, but it is not doomed if we deal very quickly with greenhouse gas emissions. Our study shows that coral reefs are already shifting radically in response to unprecedented heatwaves.
Myki:
Switching back to 2016 news story is hardly answering what is there now as clearly stated earlier.
Reports from the Eye on the Reef network indicate that, following summer 2017/2018, there are currently minor levels of coral bleaching, disease and damage in the Marine Park.
But let’s entertain your 2016 newsworthy piece from Hughes with a response from none other than the chairman of the GBR Marine Park Authority
Russell Reichelt says that activist groups are distorting surveys, maps and data to exaggerate the coral bleaching on the reef. The bleaching affects 22% of the reef and is mostly localized to the far northern section, which has good prospects of recovery.
Two reef groups are in conflict. One is Reichelts GBR Authority, and the other is a special “National Coral Bleaching Taskforce” run by a guy called Terry Hughes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/great-barrier-reef-scientists-exaggerated-coral-bleaching/news-story/99810c83f5a420727b12ab255256774b
Great Barrier Reef: scientists ‘exaggerated’ coral bleaching:
Dr Reichelt said the authority had withdrawn from a joint announcement on coral bleaching with Professor Hughes this week “because we didnt think it told the whole story:. The taskforce said mass bleaching had killed 35 per cent of corals on the northern and central Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Reichelt said maps accompanying the research had been misleading, exaggerating the impact. “I dont know whether it was a deliberate sleight of hand or lack of geographic knowledge but it certainly suits the purpose of the people who sent it out,” he said.
This is a frightening enough story with the facts, you dont need to dress them up. We dont want to be seen as saying there is no problem out there but we do want people to understand there is a lot of the reef that is unscathed.”
Dr Reichelt said there had been widespread misinterpretation of how much of the reef had died.
“Weve seen headlines stating that 93 per cent of the reef is practically dead,” he said.
“Weve also seen reports that 35 per cent, or even 50 per cent, of the entire reef is now gone.”
Graham Lloyd,The Australian
A lot of hype won’t drop your star rating on that list. And your real authority turned out to be the same old dud authority.
Reichelt does not deny that much of the reef has died – thinks it is less than 35% – big deal!
“We dont want to be seen as saying there is no problem out there ..”
“Citing Graeme Lloyd or anything published in that rag “The Australian” is a sure sign of b.s.
Myki:
Intellectually the Australian newspaper has been leagues ahead of any other Newspaper in Oz especially after The Age was ruined by Conrad Black (a Canadian) decades ago. But do go on and stick to your favourite junk source, Desmog-blog and Readfearn.
Clearly you wish to bypass the point that the Australian is directly quoting the Head of GBRMPA who said that Prof Terry Hughes organisation was misleading the public. He even pulled out of a joint statement because of exaggeration.
Perhaps if you read more widely you would not be so much of a negative, myopic alarmist. The GBR is far more resilient than you suppose.Try this one:
Hock et al (2017)Connectivity and systemic resilience of the Great Barrier ReefPLOS Biology(doi10.1371/journal.pbio.2003355)
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003355
How about the ABC story (2017):
Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science this month surveyed 14 coral reefs between Cairns and Townsville to see how they fared after being bleached.
The institute’s Neil Cantin said they were surprised to find the coral had already started to reproduce.
We’re finding corals that are showing early signs of reproductive development, really visible eggs that we can see under the naked eye, Dr Cantin said.
There are more. Try and get a balanced view; there are none so blind as those who will not see
tonyM, if the GBR is all hunky-dory, why is the government spending half a billion dollars in order to save it? Are you implying they should “try and get a balanced view”.
and are ‘blind because they will not see”? Your argument that everything is fine means you have your head up your bum.
as for:
“Intellectually the Australian newspaper has been leagues ahead of any other Newspaper in Oz” you must be joking. It is excellent for lining the parrot cage and nothing else.
Myki:
I guess I should not be surprised by your comments given your sources are of the Desmog-blog/Readfearn calibre.
You are top of the list of WBTBE rock star stable but I think I will have to make a change. TBE should not mean Thick Between the Ears rather it should mean “Thin Between the Ears.”
What is it that you don’t understand about the findings, comments and peer reviewed literature of real scientists who don’t have a proclivity to exaggeration? The only people I find in denial are people like yourself who don’t take the time to grasp what is going on. I focused on the current state of the GBR. You have done everything to avoid addressing that.
Conflating and obfuscating by reference to a Govt decision (which is not a “save it” funding) which serves to cover a range of areas and issues does not address what the discussion is about. It is irrelevant! There is nothing in that package that addresses Hughes’ Climate Change, CO2 COP21 mantra of alarmist BS. Were Oz to spend all its GDP on CO2 mitigation it would have virtually zero effect on the GBR.
I certainly can’t help your choice of crap reading material. You seem to get joy out of it. Go waste someone else’s time promoting its content.
“What is it that you dont understand about the findings, comments and peer reviewed literature of real scientists who dont have a proclivity to exaggeration?”
You mean one lone academic who is so brilliant he has been sacked by his university?
as opposed to:.
“In December 2016, Professor Terry Hughes, was recognized by Nature as one of the “10 people who mattered this year” for his leadership in responding to the global coral bleaching event caused by climate change.
No? How about:
Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation Dr John Schubert said the investment brought real solutions within reach. Mr Schubert said the reef was under enormous threat from climate change and “we must all work together to do everything possible to achieve the Paris Agreement”.
NO? HOW ABOUT:
Chair of the Reef 2050 Advisory Committee and former governor of Queensland Penny Wensley said global warming and cyclones had contributed to the reef’s ill health.
“Our reef is in trouble, our reef has been severely damaged over recent years from a combination of pressures.”
No? How about:
Australian Marine Conservation Society campaign director Imogen Zethoven said the money for problems like water quality and crown-of-thorns starfish plagues were welcome.
“But there’s a huge missing piece in the puzzle and that is a dramatically significant response to climate change.
No? How about:
Former Australian Conservation Foundation president Geoff Cousins said while any help for the reef was welcome news, it was unfortunate that the package does not address the “real issue global warming and climate change”.
I feel sorry for you since it is a fact that denialists have a serious problem finding anyone with scientific credibility to lead them. They have a history of latching on to crackpots and Ridd is just the latest pin-up boy.
Myki:
Thanks for confirming that the Govt package does not address Hughes’ issue of CO2 or code for it.
In focusing on that, you again avoid addressing what I was referring to viz. the state of the GBR. I have given you four references most of which include multiple organizations and scientists. Yet you can’t count beyond one scientist!!
I have a solution for the claimed CO2 problem. Rajendra Pachauri, who headed the IPCC, stated it to be his religion. Lindzen says the whole climatology field has become a religion. Now, religions often receive tithes from their member believers. I suggest you volunteer to organize such tithes amongst the bretheren. You can start with the members who have mentioned CO2 or its mitigation.or the code words for it. This applies equally to any organization whose head mentions it.
You will of course no doubt be very happy sending your inaugural tithes to this cause – straight to the UN. There will be a published list of the bretheren and whether they have paid their tithes.
All these people will no doubt be happy once again. I guarantee it will solve the CO2 problem rather quickly 🙂
Lindzen?
“Twenty-two professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have written to Donald Trump to say that climate change poses a serious risk to humanity, disavowing a retired colleague who claimed it did not.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/mit-scientists-letter-donald-trump-climate-change-global-warming-real-richard-lindzen-a7620386.html
22 to 1. That would be consistent with the 97% consensus amongst scientists. I will stick with them and you can wallow in your minority paranoia and ignorance.
Myki:
Yet again you avoid addressing the issue that I referred to; viz the state of the GBR. Do you think it will go away?
So divert to Lindzen. I’m surprised only 22 signed. As Einstein said when told that 100 authors had written that he was wrong: “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”
In fact it was 120 authors loaded with professors. Galileo had vast opposition. The existence of the aether was an orthodoxy in science. Even the great Newton practized alchemy. Science is littered with failed beliefs.
Yet, not one of your professors, using the scientific method, can show that Lindzen is wrong.
Instead they hide behind code, a wishy-washy descriptor of “climate change.” I suppose when an ice age comes their ilk will claim they were right all along.
Obviously POTUS was not impressed!
BTW: Lindzen does say that a doubling of CO2 would result in an increase in T of about 1C. Thus far over 97%% of the alarmist prognostications have failed.
Of you go and find some other diversionary piece in your favourite swamps. Here I was helping you support the church in a meaningful way. All these people and yourself can send your tithes to the UN. Lots of tithing from around the world. Immediately $50 million can be available from the Oz Govt package. What is there not to like?
Do keep on with the diversionary tactics to avoid addressing the issue I raised viz. the state of the GBR.
Which bit of the following can’t you understand? Just 4 months ago the GBRMPA stated:
“Boosting the Great Barrier Reef’s resilience so it can withstand the increasing pressures from climate change and other threats is more critical than ever,” Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Chairman Dr Russell Reichelt said.”
And:
“Rising ocean temperatures as a result of climate change pose the greatest challenge to the survival of the Great Barrier Reef, compounded by poor water quality and outbreaks of the major predators of corals, the crown-of-thorns starfish.
The Great Barrier Reef has experienced major losses of corals over the past few years, with a serious decline due to the back-to-back coral bleaching in the 2016 and 2017. ”
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/media-room/latest-news/corporate/2018/saving-the-great-barrier-reef-through-new-science-partnerships
If you still think everything is hunky-dory you must be on another planet. Keep denying.
David, solar should of had a warming effect on the climate up to year 2005.
Which leaves you with the dilemma of explaining why UAH shows an increase in the 13 month average of 0.25C since 2005, while the sun has become less active.
No it does not I have said lag times of 10+ years repeatedly not to mention low average value solar parameters.
You do not pay attention.
Why the lag?
I do not see how you can pump energy into the climate system at a rate consistent with an active sun for thirteen years after the sun weakened.
Where are you getting the extra energy without a 1st law violation?
Energy does not stop being accumulated just because the input rate decreases. It has to decrease below a particular level before accumulation stops, and dissipation starts to dominate.
Put it this way. You have a pot of water on the stove. You turn the burner on high. The water starts to heat. Now, you slowly turn the burner lower. At what point does the water start to cool? When you turned the burner down? Not generally.
It would do so only if it had already reached steady state temperature for that level of input. If it hadn’t, it’s not going to stop heating until you have turned the burner down to a level lower than would sustain the water at its current temperature in the steady state.
But, even this example does not do the climate system justice, because it is a simple system with only one heat reservoir.
The last solar cycle was the least energetic in a hundred years.
That cycle was for the last 11 years.
Why should not average temps over the last 11 years be lower than temps for the 11 years previous, when there was a much more intense solar cycle?
Sal has finally stated a lag time, although quite vague – 10+ years (which could mean 10-100 years??).
So if direct solar is primarily responsible for global surface temps, with a lag of 10 years, then we should see then 11 years at an average temp comparable to the 11 years after the last time we had a solar cycle this low – which was at the beginning of the 20th century.
In short – if direct solar is the dominant driver of surface temps, the temps of the next 11 years should be comparable to the 11 year period centred on about 1905.
Plus whatever special pleading will follow in 5, 4, 3…
“Why should not average temps over the last 11 years be lower than temps for the 11 years previous, when there was a much more intense solar cycle?”
Because it is cumulative. This is an autoregressive process. What you see now reflects a weighted average of the past. Why is this so difficult?
The thermostat (direct solar) has been turned down for 11 years.
What’s the lag on direct solar influence, Bart? When do we see the effects of the latest solar cycle of lower intensity than any for 100 years?
I expect there is a spread of time constants ranging anywhere from days to hundreds if not thousands of years.
And yet Bart, you think the global temps follow the AMO with little lag.
I think the OHC is what would respond with a lag to a TSI forcing, while the atmosphere has little lag.
“And yet Bart, you think the global temps follow the AMO with little lag.”
The AMO is an oscillation in temperature, not a forcing. The measurement is basically SST in the North Atlantic with the trend removed.
“I think the OHC is what would respond with a lag to a TSI forcing, while the atmosphere has little lag.”
These are not decoupled. In fact, they are strongly coupled.
I expect there is a spread of time constants ranging anywhere from days to hundreds if not thousands of years.
No chance of pinning down a solar forcing on global temps, then?
You’d think that seasonality would give you a clue as to the response time of surface temps to direct solar. Pretty much immediate.
Is it now? Tell me, is the hottest day of the year generally in mid-June, or the coldest in mid-December?
Depends on where you live – and we’re talking about NH temps here.
It can be as early as mid to late June or as late as mid to late September.
Compared to suggestions here of lags of a few years to a century, a few days to weeks is pretty much immediate.
The lag is caused by the upper few meters of the ocean which retain heat more effectively than the atmosphere, and is different depending on latitude as well as local topography and perennial weather systems. For example, coastal areas tend to lag more than continental interiors – the heat capacity of the oceans is chiefly responsible for the lag here.
These seasonal lags have an explainable physical basis.
This is what is missing from the direct solar mathturbation.
You just don’t get it. There are lags associated with every thermal reservoir. Some are shorter, some are longer. Some are very long indeed. The oceans are immense, and the time constants associated with turnover stretch over many centuries.
You are trying to imagine things in your head, and decide on their truth or falsity based on how you feel about them. It is becoming tiresome.
No Bart, you just don’t get it, and you make no effort to.
You say the temp of atm and ocean are strongly coupled. Then you say the deep ocean has very long time constant. Huh? Makes no sense.
The atmosphere responds quickly to solar forcing, then the mixed layer responds with a short lag, THEN the deep ocean responds with a very long lag.
Whatever lags the global response has, will be present for AMO, an ocean surface warming, or a TSI.
And, they are all coupled, Nate. What is in the oceans drives the atmosphere. This is very basic. I’m not going to argue it with you anymore.
Bart,
The quite standard, 0-dimensional energy balance model, that everyone uses, including Roy, to model forcing-response, gives ~ 1.5 year time constant. This assumes the key heat capacity is of the mixed layer ocean to ~ 100 m.
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/137
Yeah, that’s what we’re arguing about, Nate. Whether that kind of model is legitimate or not.
It is farcical to opine that the time constants associated with temperature swings of the deep oceans are just a few years. Utterly ridiculous.
EBM models have been used to look at responses to known forcings: volcanoes, seasonal cycle.
It works well, to first order, eg for Pinatubo, showing a ~ 2 y time constant.
“It is farcical to opine that the time constants associated with temperature swings of the deep oceans are just a few years.”
Nobody is saying that. The deep ocean temperatures have barely budged, as expected.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
David, solar should of had a warming effect on the climate up to year 2005.
Why?
TSI has been slowly *decreasing* since the 1960s….
Actual TSI data (non-proxy)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod
TSI had been relatively stable over the solar cycles from 1979, but the 4th solar cycle, just ending, is of much lower intensity.
Going by sun spot numbers, which is a very good proxy for TSI, the latest solar cycle is of comparable intensity to that beginning 1880 and beginning 1900. By this metric, it is actually even less intense than those 2.
https://tinyurl.com/y8llj2uu
So if direct solar is the primary driver of global surface temps, we should be seeing temps similar to the beginning f the 20th century after some lag that Salvatore has pinpointed at 10+ years.
“The GHE is not a single event . . .
Well, then, you might care to describe each step, which supposedly makes up this GHE, ”
Again?
Ok, one more time.
Visible light (shortwave) photons leave the sun and are absorbed by the surface of the Earth.
The energy is radiated from the surface as infra-red (longwave) radiation. In accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law it conforms to a black body spectrum.
Greenhouse gas molecules absorb 80% of this SB radiation and reradiate it in all directions.
An emitted photon can do one of three things.
It can be absorbed by another GHG molecule.
It can radiate to space.
It can be absorbed by the surface. This adds energy in addition to the energy coming from the sun and makes the surface warmer than it would be in the absence of GHGs.
Em,
Don’t be stupid. Surely you realise that energy radiated from the surface results in the surface temperature dropping?
It sure as heck can’t increase, or even remain the same, can it?
However, if you acknowledge that the temperature drops at night, after the Sun reaches its zenith, in winter, when it’s cloudy, raining, snowing or very cold, ands that the average surface temperature has dropped over the last four and a half billion years, I am happy to continue with your education.
Up to you.
Cheers.
By day energy arriving from the sun warms the surface. Energy radiating from the surface cools it. The warmer the surface, the more outgoing energy is produced.
The temperature to which the surface settles is the temperature at which incoming and outgoing energy balance.
If more energy comes in than leaves, the surface warms until balance is reached. If less energy comes in than leaves, the surface cools.
Entropic man,
The energy is radiated from the surface as infra-red (longwave) radiation. In accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law it conforms to a black body spectrum.
Always this confusion between radiance, energy and heat.
What the surface releases is heat. The fraction released as IR intercepted by the atmosphere represents only 14% of the total heat flow (23 W / m2 over 161 W / m2).
Greenhouse gas molecules absorb 80% of this SB radiation and reradiate it in all directions.
GHG are net emitters, heat sinks and not heat sources!
A minimum of rigor is necessary if you want to understand the mechanism of the greenhouse effect.
phi
I do believe Entropic man has an incorrect view of what IR is doing. I think a lot of people think that IR is absorbed by GHG then emitted. The thermalization is the correct view with the atmospheric density near the surface.
But I don not know where you got this: “What the surface releases is heat. The fraction released as IR intercepted by the atmosphere represents only 14% of the total heat flow (23 W / m2 over 161 W / m2).”
The surface of the Earth emits an average of 390 W/m^2 (more at the equator less at the poles). This emission is all in the IR band. I do not know where you got your 23 W/m^2 from.
Can you explain this? I would have the Earth emits 390 W/m^2 and about 40 W/m^2 are not absorbed by the atmosphere.
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media/File:The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
They have 398.2 emitted by surface with 358.2 being absorbed by the atmosphere (clouds included, this an overall average).
358.2/398.2 = Around 90%.
Norman,
Now your see where the confusion comes in. The surface can’t be emitting 390 W/m2 24/7. It’s only receiving 161 W/m2. So the extra “back radiation” is recycled, i.e. counted twice. I’m not saying it wasn’t there, just that the energy budget diagram doesn’t explain all the energy flows in real time. This I think is phi’s point.
“Its only receiving 161 W/m2. “
This is a tricky topic! There are a couple different ways to look at this.
A two-way flow model for IR (which I personally favor):
* The surface receives and absorbs photons from the sun (mostly in the range of ~ 0.2-4.0 um). This amounts to ~ 161 W/m^2 (on average).
* The surface ALSO receives and absorbs photons from from the atmosphere (mostly in the range of ~ 4.0-50 um). This amounts to 333 W/m^2. These are real photons that really get absorbed.
The surface absorbs a total of 494 W/m^2 of photons.
The surface loses 17 + 80 + 396 = 493 W/m^2.
There is a rough balance, so temperatures are pretty stable.
A net flow model for IR:
* The surface receives and absorbs photons from the sun (mostly in the range of ~ 0.2-4.0 um). This amounts to ~ 161 W/m^2 (on average). This is the only net gain.
* The surfaces loses net IR to the tune of 396 – 333 = 63 W/m^2. 40 of that is to space and 23 is to at atmosphere.
The surface loses 17 via thermals
The surface loses 80 via latent heat
The net absorbed = 161
The net lost = 80+17+63 = 160
There is a rough balance, so temperatures are pretty stable.
*************************************
Both work identically. Both give the same answer. The first highlights individual photons — a microscopic perspective. The second highlights “heat” — a macroscopic perspective.
Tim Folkert,
A two-way flow model for IR (which I personally favor)
In fact, you do not have this choice if you want to quantify the greenhouse effect because you have to solve a problem of thermodynamics where exchanges are heat (and therefore one way) and of many natures (conductive, convective and radiative). In addition, temperature, like heat, is a macroscopic concept.
The quatitative theory escapes thermodynamics only thanks to a trick, it does not calculate the convective flux according to the laws of physics but uses an unverified empirical method. Ramanathan et al 1978, chapter 3 Convective adjustment :
An exact treatment for qc [convective heat flux] would require the solution of the equations of motion and continuity in addition to the solution of the energy equation. This ambitious task has not been attempted by any of the radiative-convective models. In general, qc is accounted for by semiempirical or empirical techniques.
Wow, do you mean that since 1978 with all the computing power we have now, models don’t properly incorporate convection, etc?
Chic Bowdrie,
Exactly and no specialist will tell you anything else.
Ramanathan et al 1978, chapter 3 Convective adjustment
Why are you going by science that’s 40 years old?? That’s nuts.
Try these:
NASA GISS GCM Model E: Model Description and Reference Manual http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/modelE.html
“Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 3.0),” NCAR Technical Note NCAR/TN464+STR, June 2004.
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/description.pdf
David Appell,
On this particular point, there is nothing new in 40 years. The thermodynamic calculation of convection is totally out of reach and will remain so for a long time.
We are very far from possessing the material means and the intellectual means are regressing at a great speed. See these ridiculous energy balances with backradiations and the popularity of the ludicrous concept of radiative forcing.
David,
phi said specialist.
tim…” The surface ALSO receives and absorbs photons from from the atmosphere (mostly in the range of ~ 4.0-50 um). This amounts to 333 W/m^2. These are real photons that really get absorbed”.
Absolute pseudo-science.
You are claiming that the Sun, which is a very high temperature source, cannot deliver more radiance over a bandwidth that remarkably exceeds the terrestrial temperatures that are the source of the down-dwelling IR, from gases representing 0.31% of the overall atmosphere in a very narrow IR band?
To make matters worse, you are claiming back-radiation from a source that has a temperature equal to or less than the surface temperature, THAT SUPPLIED THE ENERGY FOR THE ATMOSPHERE, according to AGW, can be re-absorbed by that same surface.
You should patent this, heat re-circulation that can make a heat source hotter.
The thing that really gets me is the way guys discuss this sci-fi as if it has any merit.
chic…”Im not saying it wasnt there, just that the energy budget diagram doesnt explain all the energy flows in real time”.
The energy budget diagram of Kiehle-Trenberth is total sci-fi. Read the derivation they present and see how much it depends on guesses and presumptions.
Norman,
With the greenhouse effect, we are in a thermodynamic problem with heat exchanges and possibly work. If you want to perform an energy balance, you must use compatible notions for the exchange (Q or W). Radiance is not included.
23 W / m2 (396 – 333 – 40) is the radiative heat flux between the surface and the atmosphere. You can calculate it by radiance difference if you wish, or more properly by an expression of the form qr = Sigma (Ts ^ 4 – Ta ^ 4).
Norm, the wording is critical.
You are describing the *IR* escaping the *surface*.
* 396 leaves
* 356 of that leaves to the atmosphere
* 40 of that leaves to space.
356/396 = 90% of the IR leaving leaves to the atmosphere
Phi is describing energy *balance* of the *surface* in *all forms* of energy coming and going. (Using Trenberth numbers)
* 161 W/m^2 of sunlight comes in (sunlight)
* 80 leaves (evaporation)
* 17 leaves (thermals)
* 40 leaves (IR through the atmospheric window
* 23 leaves (= 356-333 = net IR to the atmosphere).
23/161 = 14 % of the energy that gets absorbed gets to the atmosphere in the form of (net) IR.
You are BOTH correct!
Tim,
(All numbers are in W/m^2)
I think your calculations are off. If 356 of the total 494 absorbed by the surface are emitted as IR to the atmosphere, that’s 72 %, which is a proportion.
The same proportion of absorbed solar should also be emitted as IR to the atmosphere.
72% of 161 = 116
Snape,
Yes, 356/494 = 72% of incoming energy is emittined as thermal IR to the atmosphere.
The 494 incoming comes from two sources – sunlight (161) and DWLWIR (333). Since all of this incoming energy gets thermalized together, then if you REALLY want to ‘assign’ a source to the UWLWIR, then the most logical way would be proportionally.
116 = 72% of 161 sunlight becomes UWLWIR
240 = 72% of 333 DWLWIR becomes UWLWIR.
A total of 116+240 = 256 UWLWIR comes from the surface.
You could similarly say that 13 of the 40 W/m^2 escaping to space ‘comes from’ sunlight and 27 ‘comes from’ DWLWIR. Again, all the energy is thermalized into one pool, so there is no real way to assign which Joule goes where, but proportionally is the simplest, most logical if you do want to make such an assignment.
Tim
I’m relieved you agree! Here are the rough numbers as far as I can tell:
*******
Of the total 494 W/m^2 absorbed by the surface (all in W/ m^2):
356 = 72% : UWLWIR to atmosphere
80 = 16% : Evaporation
40 = 8% : UWLWIR directly to space
17 = 3.4% : conduction/convection
*******
Of the 161 W/m^2 the surface absorbs from the sun:
116 = 72% : UWLWIR to atmosphere
26 = 16% : Evaporation
13 = 8% : UWLWIR directly to space
5.5 = 3.4% : conduction/convection
tim…”The 494 incoming comes from two sources sunlight (161) and DWLWIR (333)”.
Nonsense.
You are claiming there is twice the incoming radiation from CO2 and WV than from sunlight???
It’s no wonder you have so much trouble with heat and the 2nd law, not to mention the recycling of heat via perpetual motion.
Norman
I am quite happy to accept that energy radiated from the surface can be absorbed immediately by GHGs and carried upwards by convection.
The problem is that you can overestimate the energy carried by convection.
As any glider pilot can tell you, convection is a conveyer belt. For every thermal carrying warm air upwards there is a downdraught carrying slightly cooler air downwards.
The amount of energy carried upwards is not the total energy content of the warm air. It is the energy content difference between the rising air and the descending air.
What makes the descending air cooler?
entropic…” As any glider pilot can tell you, convection is a conveyer belt. For every thermal carrying warm air upwards there is a downdraught carrying slightly cooler air downwards.
The amount of energy carried upwards is not the total energy content of the warm air. It is the energy content difference between the rising air and the descending air”.
*******
Just out of curiosity, where did you learn physics?
The down-dwelling air is convection as well. Hot air rises due to its buoyancy and cooler air descends to replace it.
Why do you, like other alarmists, insist on using energy generically? The upward air thermals are a force, as the glider pilot will tell you, as is the downward rush of air. That is mechanical energy.
Have you never had to lean into a strong wind? Have you never felt a strong tail wind pushing you forward? Nothing to do with heat.
However, the rising air is at a different temperature, which means it has a relatively higher content of heat. The rising air parcel has more heat AND it has mechanical energy. The difference in forces, hence mechanical energy, between up and down have nothing to do with the heat.
For those of you who think heat does not exist as a phenomenon, why do scientists refer to substances as having a heat capacity? Why do they have a specific heat, with both related to temperature?
Temperature is a measure of relative heat levels. Where you guys today are learning your physics is beyond me.
norman…”The surface of the Earth emits an average of 390 W/m^2 (more at the equator less at the poles). This emission is all in the IR band….”
Now that we have established that, let’s look at how much is absorbed by CO2. In the diagram David Appell keeps pushing from NASA GISS and another supplied by Dan Pangburn, CO2 is claimed to absorb in the MILLIWATT range with a peak near 0.15 watts.
So out of this 390 watts, CO2 is absorbing a few milliwatts, just as I claimed.
phi,
“Always this confusion between radiance, energy and heat.”
I agree with that. I think the confusion is due more to energy diagrams than the definitions of those terms. What was your take?
The magnitude of the downwelling IR is adjusted so that the magnitue of the upwelling IR is consistent with what the average surface temperature is assumed to be, correct? So people ask how can the surface be radiating 398 W/m2 when it is also losing 105 W/m2 by evaporation and conduction? I’m still trying to get my head around that.
What I am more confident of is that at least 65% of the energy leaving the surface gets to cloud level by convection and that could be as much as 80% depending on what altitude you pick to make the guestimate at. Except for the 20-25% radiated directly to space, the rest of IR radiation is absorbed near the surface and thermalized.
Chic Bowdrie,
These energy budgets are stupid but, careful, they reflect perfectly the quantitative theory and are in particular consistent with the concept of radiative forcing (http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302940).
Your linked comment suggests we need to demand more rigorous reliance on thermodynamics from climate scientists and their models.
At this point I’m still agnostic about how much warmer IR-active gases make the planet. Moderate temperatures due to the influence of IR-active gases will radiate the same amount of radiation as a lower average of more extreme temperatures. However, I doubt that more CO2 will have any more effect on global temperatures.
Chic Bowdrie says:
At this point Im still agnostic about how much warmer IR-active gases make the planet.
You can see how much in data like this:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
“You can see how much in data like this:”
Yes, we’ve been discussing this at length through this blog post. Where have you been?
Please try to keep up.
Chic Bowdrie says:
What I am more confident of is that at least 65% of the energy leaving the surface gets to cloud level by convection….
What data are you looking at? Because that’s not at all what the science says:
https://scied.ucar.edu/radiation-budget-diagram-earth-atmosphere
David,
65% is (18.4 + 86.4) W/m2 of the 161 W/m2 the surface receives daily from the sun on average. I don’t count the back radiation, because didn’t that energy leave and come back?
Chic Bowdrie says:
65% is (18.4 + 86.4) W/m2 of the 161 W/m2 the surface receives daily from the sun on average. I dont count the back radiation, because didnt that energy leave and come back?
Backradiation carries energy just as sunlight does.
2/3rds of the energy impacting the surface comes from “backradiation,” only 1/3rd from the Sun. That’s why it doesn’t get super cold at night.
“Thats why it doesnt get super cold at night.”
My, I never heard that before. /sarc
Where did the back radiation come from, David?
Chic Bowdrie says:
Where did the back radiation come from, David?
Radiation from the molecules in the atmosphere.
Chic Bowdrie says: So people ask how can the surface be radiating 398 W/m2 when it is also losing 105 W/m2 by evaporation and conduction? Im still trying to get my head around that..
The energy balances, as of course it must. Look at the Trenberth diagram again:
https://scied.ucar.edu/radiation-budget-diagram-earth-atmosphere
upward energy flux from surface = 17+80+396 W/m2 = 493 W/m2
downward energy flux to surface = 161+333 = 494 W/m2
The extra downward flux 1 W/m2 is global warming.
PS: I admit this diagram can be confusing. But I don’t know of a better one.
It’s not the balance that bothers me. Mathematically it works. It’s the confusion over the interpretation of what the numbers represent.
Allow me to illustrate. NP-hard alleged that you said IR from the surface is absorbed within one meter of the surface. Between one meter and ten meters, what is the net IR flux? Between ten and 100 m? Between 100 and cloud level?
My contention is that whatever the level of saturation is, between that and cloud level all energy transfer is by convection and wind. Maybe small amounts of conduction and from emissions near IR-active bands close to the “window.”
Chic Bowdrie says:
NP-hard alleged that you said IR from the surface is absorbed within one meter of the surface.
No I didn’t. I said over 90% of IR at CO2’s prominent ab.sorp.tion line is ab.sorb.ed within 1 meter of the surface.
OK, NP-hard’s bad.
How about speculating on the IR fluxes between altitude levels?
Chic
Of the 161 w/m^2 the surface receives from the sun, the same amount has to leave one way or the other.
Here is what I calculated using Tim’s numbers
116 = 72% : UWLWIR to atmosphere
26 = 16% : Evaporation
13 = 8% : UWLWIR directly to space
5.5 = 3.4% : conduction/convection
How about speculating on the IR fluxes between altitude levels?
I don’t know. That’s one of the main things climate models solve — the Schwarzschild equations, also called the two-stream equations, which basically say, for any layer or grid in the atmosphere
flux out = flux in + atmospheric emission – atmosphere ab.sorp.tion.
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ross/Science/RadTrans.pdf
snape…”5.5 = 3.4% : conduction/convection”
Get serious!!!
Nitrogen and oxygen make up 99% of the atmosphere and they are in direct contact with the surface, including the oceans. Both are continually absorbing heat from the surface and you rate their contribution to emissions as 3.4%????
As Lindzen pointed out a while back, were it not for convection, the surface would average 72C. Where do you think the heat goes that the convection/conduction is leaching from the surface?
Up into the atmosphere!!!
phi..”What the surface releases is heat. The fraction released as IR intercepted by the atmosphere represents only 14% of the total heat flow (23 W / m2 over 161 W / m2)”.
I prefer ‘dissipates’ heat. I think most heat is released directly via conduction and convection and the rest by heat dissipation involving radiation.
When you talk about heat flowing, it can only do so via convection and conduction. Heat will flow through a metal rod from valence electron to valence electron in atoms just as electrical charge flows. In gases and liquids, heat flow is by a mass movement of atoms and molecules.
However, heat cannot ‘flow’ via radiation, the flow is electromagnetic energy which was converted from heat to EM by electrons in the emitting body. With a purely radiative heat transfer, no heat flows between bodies. It is reduced in the hotter body via heat dissipation and converted to heat from EM in a cooler body by the electrons in that body. Heat transfer via radiation is apparent, not as an actual heat flow body to body.
With collision, kinetic energy as heat is transferred between atoms/molecules but the transfer has to take place between electrons in the atomic shells, even with molecules. The energy that can be shared via collision exists in the atomic energy shells occupied by electrons.
Due to repulsive forces between nucleii it’s highly unlikely that the nucleii can come in contact to transfer energy. There is a repulsion between electrons as well, and I’m sure that has to be factored into the equation. However, electrons are 1/1800th the size of protons but with the same charge.
I would love to see a collision between two CO2 molecules or even an N2 or O2 molecule with CO2. I don’t know if the energy transfer is done electrostatically, at a distance, or whether the atomic orbitals intermix. That’s provided the Bohr model has a reality of some kind.
I would not want to do the math with wave equation-based orbital mixing.
E man,
“It can do one of three things.”
You forgot the other things happening in the life of a photon as you related in an earlier comment to Kristian:
“If the excited CO2 molecule collides with another molecule the energy may become kinetic energy of motion, accelerating one or both molecules. This increases the average kinetic energy and increases the temperature.
It works both ways. A collision with a CO2 molecule can convert kinetic energy to vibration energy which is then emitted as a photon. This removes kinetic energy of motion and lowers the temperature.
You have not made clear how your concept of thermalisation works, but it does not seem to allow this two-way flow of energy between kinetic energy of motion and photons.”
Kristian took exception to the clarity part, but agreed to what sounds like thermalization to me. So do I and I explained thermalization to you two times.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302469
and here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302791
Dan Pangburn explained it several times upthread and here: http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com/
Unless you can show evidence that thermalization does not take place more or less as it’s been described to you, at least four of us can’t take you seriously.
I’m quite happy to accept your version of thermalisation, now that you have clearly described it as a reversible process.
I’ve been under the impression that Kristian, at least, regarded thermalisation as a one-way process.
I am also coming from a description of the GHE requested by Mike Flynn, so I am focused on the behaviour of CO2 rather than how heat transfers through the atmosphere.
On the other hand you seem to be under the impression that I expect a 15 micrometre photon to travel right through the troposphere unabsorbed. Since the free path length between interactions is about 15 micrometres at sea level, that would be absurd. Only in the stratosphere do you start to see long enough path lengths to allow some 15 micrometre photons to escape to space.
I see the troposphere as a bath of thermalised energy and photons with a sink at TOA and a sink at the surface.
Lets keep talking. We might eventually communicate!
“We might eventually communicate!”
I would say we already are. Whether we agree, that might be something else. Which is OK.
Entropic man says, May 22, 2018 at 12:58 PM:
He doesn’t, and he never did. And he really wonders how Entropic came to that peculiar conclusion.
entropic…”Greenhouse gas molecules absorb 80% of this SB radiation and reradiate it in all directions”.
Where’s your proof? AGW tends to throw around numbers with no hard facts to back them.
I seriously doubt that CO2 molecules absorb more than a few one-hundredths percent of surface radiation.
The problem is the strength of the GHG effect depends on the environment not the other way around.
Not to mention CO2 changes follow the temperature they do not lead it.
This is all going to be more apparent as we move forward from here and the global temperature response is flat if not down, which I expect.
This year up to today is going the way I was expecting but it is early no celebrating yet.
Salvatore Del Prete
“CO2 changes follow the temperature they do not lead ”
For most of the last 2 million years that has been true. The recent glacial/ interglacial cycle has been driven by orbital changes which change temperatures.
The CO2 follows the temperature. Higher temperatures cause CO2 to be released from sinks. Lower temperatures cause the sinks to take up CO2. Those of us who recognise the effect of CO2 on climate recognise that the changes in CO2 acted as an amplifying feedback on temperature.
Since the Industrial Revolution began, a different pattern has prevailed. Our rapid CO2 production has reversed the normal pattern Now the temperature is following the CO2 upwards.
I do not agree.
Salvatore, why do you care if it’s a fact that CO2 causes climate change? Why does that notion bother you so much?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
Not to mention CO2 changes follow the temperature they do not lead it.
Oh come on.
We’re pouring CO2 into the sky. Regardless of the temperature. In such a case CO2 clearly leads temperature.
This is so obvious I don’t understand how deniers can’t see this.
North Atlantic cooling fast!
Watch AGW will say it is because of global warming and the slowing of the AMOC because of the melting Arctic Ice.
They always will try to show they are right even when they are wrong.
They are con artist which twist and turn everything to try to make it fit their soon to be obsolete theory.
pathetic loser! Give up.
Salvatore, address this: the global ocean is still warming. Latest data here:
https://davidappell.blogspot.com/2018/05/latest-ocean-heat-content-data.html
Then if cooling should come due to an increase in major explosive volcanic activity which is a consequence of weak solar/geo magnetic fields AGW enthusiast will NOT accept this is part of the reason why the climate cools during periods of prolonged solar activity.
They will twist this and say AGW will still be the rule after this temporary cooling.
What evidence says there’s a link between volcanic activity and solar/geo magnetic fields?
What’s the physical mechanism?
WHY THE LAG
Oceans take a very long time to respond to changes in energy entering or leaving them.
In addition the secondary solar effects are probably much more important to solar/climate then solar irradiance.
It take time for less EUV light which changes the atmospheric circulation to a more meridional pattern to impact the temperatures.
It takes time for global cloud coverage/snow coverage to increase in response to low solar activity.
It take time for the solar/geo magnetic field to weaken to a point where it translate to having a climatic impact.
I say 10+years which is on the low side many people think much longer lag times.
I’m sure you would have said the same thing 10 years ago. You probably did, on some blog or the other.
Phi
“Energy is capacity for doing work”
That is the formal definition. In practice it shows up in a variety of forms which are inter-convertable.
Start with heat.This is the average amount of energy stored in the molecules of a substance. In a solid it is the kinetic energy stored as the molecules vibrate. In a liquid or a gas it is the average kinetic energy stored as they move. The faster a molecule moves or the more it vibrates, the more energy it stores.The higher the average kinetic energy, the higher the temperature.
How do you convert from heat to photons? The first step is collision. A collision with a CO2 molecule can start it vibrating as the bonds between molecules extend and contract. The molecule is tuned. It vibrates at a particular rate and stares a constant amount of energy. The other molecule leaves the collision with less kinetic energy, having transferred it to the CO2.
After a few microseconds the CO2 emits a photon. This carries away the energy of vibration stored in the bonds. The amount of energy used to make the photon determines its wavelength, in this case 15 micrometres.
This chain of events is what cools the stratosphere. The kinetic energy of molecules in the gas transfers to CO2 molecules, is stored as vibration and then radiated as photons to space.
In the troposphere energy transforms easily between the three forms and CO2 can be an absorber and an emitter. It is a net emitter because it is converting heat from conduction, evapotranspiration an absorbed from sunlight into photons
Because you can know the amount of energy moving around, whatever its form, you can work out an energy budget for the whole system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media/File%3AThe-NASA-Earth's-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
Nice explanations.
Entropic man says, May 22, 2018 at 11:44 AM:
And these two short passages alone basically disqualify you from any further discussions on this whole subject.
Why would you respond and not explain why?
Kristian
How do you define heat?
According to standard thermodynamics. Q.
O3 dominates in stratosphere.
CO2 is also important in the stratosphere, because there’s little water vapor in there.
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_5GH_GreenhouseGas_files/image002.jpg
entropic…”Start with heat.This is the average amount of energy stored in the molecules of a substance. In a solid it is the kinetic energy stored as the molecules vibrate”.
Molecules don’t tell you anything about mechanisms related to heat and vibration. A molecule is an abstraction in the sense that it is a definition. The basis of molecules are atoms and the basis of atoms are protons and electrons. In fact, it is the electron’s energy that is responsible for heat.
You might as well say that heat is the average kinetic energy of electrons. That’s apparent because KE requires motion and the electron is the only part of an atom that moves.
With collision, it is the electron that absorbs the KE related to collision. The energy of an atom is in it’s orbital energy.
If you don’t understand this and how electrons interact with protons, the molecule abstraction will only confuse.
You mentioned that during a collision, the energy is absorbed by the bonds. Those bonds are electrons, they are not springs joining atoms into molecules.
When you regard molecules as aggregations of electrons and protons, everything starts to make sense. EM absorp-tion/emission makes sense and so does the 2nd law. heat even makes sense.
Well…heat makes sense to people other than climate alarmists.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/01/05/north-atlantic-cooling-has-plunged-below-1950s-and-1800s-levels-and-scientists-project-more-cooling/#sthash.WdLjJiGo.dpbs
another nail in the coffin for AGW
Nope — it’s just one region, well known to be cooling, and probably due to all the melting sea ice in the Arctic — but let’s see the graphs for the Pacific and Indian oceans, OK?
Meanwhile the global ocean is stillllllllll warming:
https://davidappell.blogspot.com/2018/05/latest-ocean-heat-content-data.html
SDP, Pointing to the “No Tricks Zone” of disinformation expecting enlightenment? Sorry, Kenneth loves to present data out of context to make distorted claims. For example, the area considered in most of his references is the Sub-Polar Gyre of the North Atlantic, not the whole area of ocean north of the Equator.
The Sub-Polar Gyre responds to the outflow of colder waters from the Arctic Mediterranean, which includes the GIN Seas, which is heavily influenced by the Thermohaline Circulation, aka, the AMOC. If the THC slows, as appears to be happening, all that cold surface water gets flushed out of the GIN seas in the East Greenland Current which carries waters from the Framm Strait all the way into the Labrador Sea, thus feeding cold surface water into the Sub-Polar Gyre.
This is no surprise and has been projected with model studies used to explore the impacts of AGW. Some of the present situation may be of natural origin, as previously seen in the event called The Great Salinity Anomaly. If the model projections prove correct, the THC may cease and Northern Europe will experience colder conditions than would otherwise be the situation.
Time will tell
Time has told
was warming
“They will twist this and say AGW will still be the rule after this temporary cooling.”
Yup.
But this merely confirming that stupidity is infinite.
But solar min and volcanic activity does not explain or account for global temperatures, either.
The reason global average temperature is 15 C, is largely to do with the choice made of how to measure global average temperature.
Allowing for this choice, why it is about 15 C, is due to there being an atmosphere which is similar to Earth atmosphere.
And two, it is due to ocean surface temperature.
And three, because of the distance from the Sun.
The distance from the sun, indicates Earth should be about 5 C, if Earth has temperature which is fairly uniform (and it is), though one could choose to talk about how Earth does not
“really” have a uniform temperature. But loosely Earth is about 5 C and loosely has uniform temperature. And if move Earth closer or further it will loosely have cooler or warmer temperature.
Distance is important and Earth varies it distance and in past Earth distance from Sun during its yearly journey has varied less and more.
Anyhow, our way to measure global average temperature, depends on having an atmosphere (it is a measurement of air temperature, 5 feet above a “natural” land surface) and air temperature 5 feet above a natural land surface averages about 10 C.
The reason it averages 10 C, is due the warming from the ocean. And as everyone should beaware, Europe would be much cooler if not for the warming of the Gulf Stream. And Europe is not the only land warmed by the ocean, though it maybe a large chunk of land that warmed the most by ocean, though there is some disagreement about how much the Gulf Stream warms Europe, and how it exactly does this.
I think an assertion which could debated is that land temperature without ocean warming could have average temperature to 10 C cooler or 10 C – 10 K equals an average land surface of about 0 C.
Though there is a lot variables to account for and such a debate might be endless and fruitless.
And other reason is ocean surface temperatures being higher.
Tropical ocean is about 26 C, and tropical ocean is the heat engine of the World. The tropical ocean causes the world land and ocean surface to be warmer.
The tropical ocean is the world heat engine because it is ocean and because it absorbs the most amount sunlight.
Anyhow average ocean temperature is 17 C, and it is 70% of total class, it makes the class have an average score of 15 C.
But in terms of global average temperature, what is important or what is predictive or drives global climate, is the entire ocean average temperature which is about 3.5 C.
And 3.5 C is pretty close to 5 C.
And this average temperature over a million years has varied
from 1 to 5 C.
The pseudoscience is attempting figure out, where one call the net heat, is heading.
And net heat at moment is very cold. Or said differently if mix heat of ocean and thereby lower surface temperature of ocean from 17 C to uniform temperature temperature of 3.5 C,
then with average ocean of 3.5 C, global average temperature lowers significantly lower than 15 C.
And with cold ocean surface temperature of 3.5 C, it does not warm the land surface, by much.
If if you model ocean with average surface of 3.5 C, you might get idea of how by the ocean warms the land, and what happens if the tropical ocean is no longer the heat engine of the World.
But if course such mixing warms the colder water of ocean- energy is not lost, and you no longer have polar sea ice. Nor would polar sea ice form anytime soon. Though not would tropics warm anytime soon.
And this average temperature over a million years has varied
from 1 to 5 C.
But our ocean is warming much faster than this.
Let’s say the average temperature of the ocean varies by your 4 C over 1 Myrs.
That’s an average or 4e-5 C/decade = 0.0004 C/decade.
According to NO.AA’s ARGO ocean heat content data (starts 2005), the top half of the ocean has been warming at 0.03 C/decade.
750 times faster.
The top 700 m of the ocean has been warming at a trend of 0.02 C/decade, since 1955.
500 times faster.
–David Appell says:
May 22, 2018 at 11:46 AM
And this average temperature over a million years has varied
from 1 to 5 C.
But our ocean is warming much faster than this.
Lets say the average temperature of the ocean varies by your 4 C over 1 Myrs.
Thats an average or 4e-5 C/decade = 0.0004 C/decade.–
By varies, I mean it gets cooler, then warmer, then cooler, etc.
Though over last million years there might be a slight lowering.
But as guess it somewhere around 1 K increase per period of 4000 to 5000 years. But it could and tends to not change much over say 10,000 year chunks within a glacial period.
So when falling in glacial period it could cool by 1 degree per several thousand years, and leaving glacial period same type 1 C per thousands of years rate, but within glacial it might be .5 C fluctuation up or down over about a 10,000 year period.
And during the Holocene, I think it gone from a peak of around 4 C, and over about 10,000 years period has lower by .5 C (or less).
Holocene seems to me, has had same slow change as occurs within a glacial period and glacial periods tend to be about 100,000 years (or longer) and having many up and down ocean warming and cooling cycles lasting about hundred centuries.
There’s a lot of guessing in your comment, with almost no data.
Ok, but:”Thats an average or 4e-5 C/decade = 0.0004 C/decade”
is wrong and to be clear, I did not claim such a rate ever occurred.
Now you say, 500 and/or 750 times faster than that, if that was current rate and it that rate were to continue, that would be fine.
So, if oceans warmed at 500 times 0.0004 C/decade that is
.2 C per decade.
And that would be changing the world very quickly.
We would easily see a rise of sea level, that we have not seen. Something like a foot per year, rather than 7 inches per century.
.02 C per decade would also be remarkable and still be quite noticeable in terms of sea level rise.
The modern human have lived in the times of such rate sea level rise, though not during a time when oceans were warming so quickly. And global climates would be changing fast, but as said it would cause there to be hotter weather, rather it would cause warmer and wetter weather. And at such rate warming arctic summer polar sea could/should disappear within a decade.
Or if instead it was .002 per decade, within century arctic polar in summer should disappear.
And if ocean warmed as fast as .002 per decade, I would think CO2 had more significant warming effect than I thought as possible.
gbalkie wrote:
We would easily see a rise of sea level, that we have not seen. Something like a foot per year, rather than 7 inches per century.
What calculation gives you 1 ft/yr? I’d like to see that.
Oh, my mistake 1 ft per decade.
So our 2 to 3 inch rise due to thermal expansion would be a rise ocean average temperature of about .04 C over period more than century.
Exactly the global temperatures are not going to rise any further.
Warming? What warming?
“Many places across New Zealand have enjoyed their warmest May on the books, as a climatic tussle continues across the equatorial Pacific…
The year had already seen the warmest first three months of any year on record, along with a warmest-ever January that marked the high-point of a record-hot summer.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12056394
Ridd controversy:
“As a very brief summary, Ridd has long been associated with groups that have misrepresented the state of climate science, he has been speaking openly for more than a decade about his views which, to give you an even shorter summary, is that the Great Barrier Reef is doing just fine and is not threatened by global warming or industrial activity.”
http://www.readfearn.com/2018/05/how-many-things-did-andrew-bolt-get-wrong-about-the-sacking-of-climate-contrarian-peter-ridd-ready-set-go/
See my post above:
“Since December 2015, the Great Barrier Reef has been exposed to above average sea surface temperatures, due to the combined effects of climate change and a strong El Nino.
These conditions triggered mass coral bleaching in late summer 2016 and led to an estimated 29 per cent loss of shallow water coral Reef-wide, according to findings by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.”
Who do you believe?
Myki…”Since December 2015, the Great Barrier Reef has been exposed to above average sea surface temperatures, due to the combined effects of climate change and a strong El Nino”
According to an authority on ocean warming, Bob Tisdale, the problem is one of very poor coverage of the oceans till recently then an exaggeration of the problem based on Argo buoys located primarily in the Southern Ocean.
If you want to find warming, you can fudge the statistics and find it. Then you can draw dumb inferences, blaming it on climate change.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/26/ocean-heat-new-study-shows-climate-scientists-can-still-torture-data-until-the-data-confess/
Of course and I think surface ocean temperature changes have to be the metric because this can be measured much more accurately.
Surface ocean temperatures for the globe are now in a down trend.
Ocean heat content is (by far) the best metric, not the little sliver on top.
Same reason a doctor sticks a thermometer up a baby’s bum instead of just touching the thermometer to his/her skin.
Believe what you want David. I have shown in detail why you should not.
We have very different standards for “shown.”
For more information about the numerous problems with ocean heat content reconstructions, see the post Is Ocean Heat Content Data All Its Stacked up to Be?
Once again, the climate science community has shown, when the models perform poorly, they wont question the science behind the models, they are more than happy to manufacture warming by adjusting the data to meet or exceed the warming rate of the models.
This paper will make a nice addition to a chapter in my upcoming book. Thanks, Cheng et al.
Salvatore…Bob Tisdale summarizes the problem well:
“….ocean heat content is not a reliable datasetandits not a dataset in which we should have confidence”.
From what I gather, we have gone from a recent era with scant and unreliable ocean coverage to a recent age of Argo buoys that are located primarily in the Southern Ocean. The inference of ocean warming seems to come from the latter.
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/is-ocean-heat-content-data-all-its-stacked-up-to-be/
what I meant to send
Salvatore
Ocean heat content would be better than sea surface temperature. As Bob Tisdale pointed out in your link, short term variations such as ENSO, NAO and other short term cycles make SST very noisy compared to OHC.
Only problem is it is extremely hard to measure accurately.
NO.AA includes error bars on all their measurements. See their graphs with error bars here:
https://tinyurl.com/y7yf4wzm
Salvatore
You mentioned a downward trend in SST. You may have noticed that we moved from an El Nino in 2016 to a La Nina at th start of 2018. This is the sort of short term variation which is easy to misinterpret as the start of a long term trend.
I am talking global sea surface temperatures not ENSO.
SSTs are affected by ENSOs.
SHORT TERM? Will see.
Salvatore, are you going to respond to any of the questions/points we’re asking you above? Or just ignore them?
What I wanted to do which I have is expose the uncertainty when it comes to OHC.
“The decadal/multidecadal variability, which is defined as 2σ of the time series after applying a 7-year low-pass filter (see Materials and Methods), is 0.076C, at least two times larger than the 2σ sampling error, with a signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio larger than 3 (Fig. 3H). This indicates a robust reconstruction of ocean decadal/multidecadal variability.”
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1601545.full
I think that is good enough.
For you not others.
You simply dismiss any science you do not like, often for no reason at all.
So if OHC is increasing the way you believe that means the global surface temperatures are gong to have to keep increasing.
If the global surface temperatures do not continue to increase what would that tell you.
If the global surface temperatures continue to increase what would that tell you.
That I am wrong.
Sal,
Increasing OHC should cause higher SST. Higher SST should cause warmer lower troposphere. That’s exactly what’s happened, but it does so in fits.
You’re like a day trader who watches the market go up and down.
Snape what is your basic climate outlook for the next few years? I am curious.
Warmer in the coming months (although May looks chilly), but no idea after that. 10 years from now?
UAH/TLT: + 0.13/decade
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/ocean-temperature-and-heat-content/
alternative data
Why are you showing data that excludes the last 5 years?
Try this instead:
https://tinyurl.com/ydhf9k7z
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/01/friday-funny-climate-centrals-scare-graph-excuse-the-oceans-ate-the-warming/
perspective
That is all well known.
Salvatore…”perspective”
The ‘oceans ate the heat’ propaganda began as a face-saving measure from Trenberth. He confided to his Climategate cronies off the record that they could no longer find the warming. When the Climategate emails revealed his admission and frustration he concocted the theory that the heat they could not find is hidden in the oceans.
There is no proof for any of it.
Gordon claims inaccurately: “There is no proof for any of (the heat they could not find is hidden in the oceans.)”
There may not have been much at the time, there is now as in Loeb 2018:
“…heat storage in the earth-atmosphere system, as determined primarily from ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) data. In the current version, the global annual mean values are adjusted such that the July 2005June 2015 mean net TOA flux is 0.71 +/- 0.10 W/m^2, as provided in Johnson et al. (2016) [uncertainties at the 95% confidence level account for expendable bathythermographs (XBT) correction uncertainties and Argo sampling errors for 0-1800 m].
The uptake of heat by Earth for this period is estimated from the sum of (i) 0.61 +/- 0.09 W/m^2 from the slope of weighted linear least squares fit to Argo OHCA data to a depth of 1800m analyzed following Lyman and Johnson (2008),(ii) 0.076 +/- 0.04 W/m^2 from ocean heat storage at depths below 2000m using data from 1981-2010 (Purkey and Johnson 2010), and (iii) 0.03 +/- 0.01 W/m^2 from ice warming and melt and atmospheric and lithospheric warming for 1971-2010 (Rhein et al. 2013). We note that the 0.1 W/m^2 uncertainty in EEI in Johnson et al. (2016) is at the low end of the uncertainty range compared to other estimates, which typically range between 0.2 and 0.4W/m^2 (Abraham et al. 2013; von Schuckmann et al. 2016).”
The travesty period is over, proof is at hand. Undoubtedly the travesty quote in print helped in part inspire & fund these studies. Not a bad thing – the only bad thing will be Gordon not learning from them. I predict though Gordon will live up to all my expectations and fail to learn.
ball4…”The uptake of heat by Earth for this period is ***estimated***….”
Duh!!!
Don’t you read the fine print or do you read it and filter it out?
Estimated from measurements that have an uncertainty Gordon. EVERY measurment has an uncertainty, certainty is not of this earth. Trenberth was not writing of the travesty of uncertainty. He was talking about the travesty of having no measurements at all.
Now there are measurements with uncertainties quantified, read the papers (I know you won’t, easier to make stuff up.). You want certainty? Look into another field.
Gordon Robertson says:
The oceans ate the heat propaganda began as a face-saving measure from Trenberth. He confided to his Climategate cronies off the record that they could no longer find the warming
You don’t even care what Trenberth himself said about this, do you? You’re worse than Trump.
Kevin Trenberth:
“In my case, one cherry-picked email quote has gone viral and at last check it was featured in over 107,000 items (in Google). Here is the quote: ‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.’ It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often. It stems from a paper I published this year bemoaning our inability to effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability. It is quite clear from the paper that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in the context of short-term natural variability.”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/emails/
DA…”Here is the quote: The fact is that we cant account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we cant.”
During the period referenced by Trenberth’s claim, the IPCC announced in 2013, that no warming had taken place. They called it a warming hiatus. Therefore Trenberth knew there was no warming and painted a picture that it was still there but no one could find it.
Talk about double-talk.
It now becomes clear that NOAA went back and ‘adjusted’ the SST trying to produce the warming Trenberth had lost. NOAA had been showing a warming hiatus as well till they retroactively fudged the SST to produce a trend.
I believe the story is 90% of warming by greenhouse gases is heating the 3.5 C ocean.
So during pause, it not necessarily a pause in the ocean warming by the magical greenhouse gases, just pause in warming the atmosphere.
I wonder if all faithful do think 90% of warming is warming our cold ocean. And if so, how do they imagine a warm atmosphere can heat the ocean.
Or it seems a ocean is warm by sunlight and is cooled by evaporation. How would a warmer atmosphere stop evaporation.
Or mixing the ocean warm waters with colder waters, seems like a way to warm the entire ocean, so how does a warmer atmosphere do that?
Or I would alter the story and make it more simple, to being 90% of warming is from the Ocean warming. And ocean is being warmed by the sun.
Dr. Roy is going toe-to-toe with Willis and others at Climate Etc.
https://judithcurry.com/2018/05/22/energy-budgets-climate-system-domains-and-internal-variability/
Willis is a psychology major with a very large ego. A science pretender.
chic…”Dr. Roy is going toe-to-toe with Willis and others at Climate Etc.”
Interesting, Roy seems to be heads and shoulders above them from the responses I read.
Willis seems in over his head. He has claimed a cruise control on a car is a governor, which it’s not. A governor sets an absolute maximum speed and clamps it. A CC does keep speed fairly constant but it adjusts the speed for different road conditions. It accelerates up hills and tries to decelerate down hills.
He was comparing the CC to positive and negative feedbacks but he seems to be confused about the difference between that servo-type feedback and the feedbacks claimed in the atmosphere to increase warming that require gain, hence an amplifier.
No such animal.
“(cruise control) adjusts the speed for different road conditions. (Cruise control) accelerates up hills and tries to decelerate down hills.”
Ha, Gordon that’s good for a laugh. Cruise control doesn’t do that, the mass of the car and gravity does that, CC is fighting the inevitable in each case. With some hysteresis.
Gor,, Response to your comments back at http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303066
WV absorbs in the same wave number range as CO2 so cannot tell how much each gets. IMO between the two of them they absorb essentially all. But all absorbed energy gets thermalized, i.e. shared with surrounding molecules by thermal conduction in the gas, so shrug. Hitran says, at low altitude, radiation from the gas is essentially all by the low wave number (low energy) WV molecules.
AGW is wrong because CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Planet warming, which might have already stopped, has been caused partly by WV increase. Temperature increase from WV increase is ultimately self-limiting (higher albedo and more precipitation).
Of course vertical convection occurs because of warmer air (radiant and convective energy from the ground) and lower density air because of added WV molecules (mol wt 18 for WV vs 29 for air). The rising itself causes the temperature to decrease but total energy does not change, just changes kinetic energy to potential energy. The only way planet energy is significantly reduced is by radiating it away and the only gases that can do that are ghg like CO2 and WV.
The experiment you described is a classic one and was first done about a century ago by Joule & Thompson (aka Lord Kelvin). With a large valve, like a barrier removed so the two tanks can still mix after pressure equilibrates, final temperature is the same as starting temperature for an ideal gas. The process is a constant enthalpy one. With a small valve, no mixing after flow stops, its a lot more complicated and not applicable to the open atmosphere anyway.
IMO the climate scientists went wrong by assuming CO2 had a significant effect on climate because it is a ghg. They did not consider thermalization, QM and WV at low altitude which is why CO2 has no significant effect in spite of being a ghg. They also did not account for the effect on planet temperature of the time-integral of the forcing associated with solar variability
The rising WV, along with a proxy which is the time-integral of SSN anomalies which accounts for solar effects, and an approximation of ocean cycles, does an excellent job of matching average global temperatures since 1895. http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
Dan Pangburn says:
AGW is wrong because CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Graphs like this clearly show otherwise:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
AFAIK you’ve avoided this evidence when I’ve brought it up in the past.
Idi,, After examining what Hitran and Modtran do and what you have asserted, it is clear that neither you or Modtran take thermalization into account and further, that your perception of how Hitran works is not valid.
==
I used that graph and added to it as Fig 1. Six examples of compelling evidence that CO2 has no significant effect on climate are listed at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
They are:
1. In the late Ordovician Period, the planet plunged into and warmed up from the Andean/Saharan ice age, all at about 10 times the current CO2 level [3].
2. Over the Phanerozoic eon (last 542 million years) there is no correlation between CO2 level and AGT [3, 4].
3. During the last and previous glaciations AGT trend changed directions before CO2 trend [2].
4. Since AGT has been directly and accurately measured world wide (about 1895), AGT has exhibited up and down trends while CO2 trend has been only up. [2]
5. Since 2001, average uptrend calculated by GCMs which assume CO2 causes AGW is about twice measured.
6. Analysis of CO2 and Temperature data 2002-2008 shows a close correlation between d-CO2/dT and lower tropospheric temperature. This demonstrates that CO2 follows temperature and not the reverse. [30]
The explanation at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com with Fig 1 explains how that happens.
Dan Pangburn says:
Idi,, After examining what Hitran and Modtran do and what you have asserted, it is clear that neither you or Modtran take thermalization into account and further
What does that even mean, “take thermalization into account.”
Let’s see some equations that you think explain it.
Equations.
Dan Pangburn says:
1. In the late Ordovician Period, the planet plunged into and warmed up from the Andean/Saharan ice age, all at about 10 times the current CO2 level [3].
Same old denier claims. They never learn.
1) The Sun was weaker then, since it’s radiance is increasing by about 1% every 110 Myrs.
So at the Ordovician-Silurian boundary the Sun was about 4% weaker — a huge 54 W/m2 less entering at the TOA.
2) There is not good data on CO2 back then. The data points are about 10 Myrs apart, whereas the O-S ice age only lasted about 0.5 Myrs.
In other words, this graph is just a cartoon with too little resolution to draw the conclusion you did:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/co2_temperature_historical.png
And #2-6 are more denier talking points that have been endlessly debunked, but you won’t accept the science.
(And you act like scientists never thought of the possible objections you listed, which is ridiculous.)
DA…”Graphs like this clearly show otherwise:”
More fudged data from GISS.
Note the CO2 notch where CO2 allegedly absorbs most surface IR. The depth of the notch is 120 MILLIWATTS. That’s right folks, CO2 is grabbing 0.12 watts from surface radiation that is claimed to be in the hundreds of watts.
Again, that graph shows flux per wavenumber. But I don’t think you understand what that means.
dan…”WV absorbs in the same wave number range as CO2 so cannot tell how much each gets”.
Dan…I am not knocking your theory on WV, I have always accepted that WV is by far the principle GHG. I also understand that the WV spectrum overlies the CO2 spectrum and I have asked in the past how they are separated to show the effect of CO2. I don’t think it can be done.
I think WV’s effect is far more pronounced in the Tropics and gradually reduces poleward. Lindzen’s theory seems to be stating that since he thinks heat transfer from the surface is predominantly from the Tropics as cloud-action toward the poles where it gains altitude and radiates to space from clouds.
I don’t know what’s going on but I think many of these theories are too narrowly focused and simplified. It makes sense to me that the atmosphere itself can absorb and dissipate heat simply by expanding then contracting at night when the Sun disappears from view.
Not enough is said about the interaction of volume, pressure, and temperature changes. It’s mainly put down to radiation in the GHE and AGW and I think radiation at terrestrial temperatures is an inefficient way of heat dissipation.
Gordon Robertson says:
I am not knocking your theory on WV, I have always accepted that WV is by far the principle GHG.
No one disputes this. But it is con.dens.able, which means the amount of w.v. in the atmosphere can’t change unless the temperature first changes.
I also understand that the WV spectrum overlies the CO2 spectrum….
This is wrong — they do not completely overlie one another, esp around 4 microns and 15 microns. See
https://tinyurl.com/y843js8t
Also, there’s little water vapor in the stratosphere and in the polar regions, whereas CO2 is well-mixed.
and I have asked in the past how they are separated to show the effect of CO2. I dont think it can be done.
Easy:
https://tinyurl.com/y843js8t
DA,, How do you separate them where they overlap like CO2 and H2O around 15 microns.
Mik,, Back at http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302845 you wrote ,, This is just a simple acknowledgement that radiative energy transfer is greater when there is less obstruction to the radiation.,, in response to ,,what produces GHE is the common observation that cloudless nights cool faster and farther in the desert where absolute water vapor content is lower than they do where it is humid.,,
Your image of ,,increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer will make the thermometer hotter,, is misleading. The correct image is changing the amount of ghg (WV) between the thermometer (earth heated by a nearly constant source, the sun) and the 3 K effective background temperature of the universe. Yes the thermometer would warm up if you increased the ghg and cool down if you reduced the ghg for the reason you just gave; and yes this simple observation demonstrates the GHE.
Dan,
Not at all. The constant heat of the Sun is only available during the day. Reducing the amount of energy available rom the Sun causes the thermometer to be colder, not hotter. Basic physics.
And of course, the extreme case is the absence of sunlight – at night, during a solar eclipse, or similar. Even a moderate reduction in insolation, say when a cloud passes between the Sun and a thermometer, or the onset of Winter, reduces the temperature of the thermometer.
Just stating that the temperature of a thermometer will increase by surrounding it with GHG is not enough, I’m afraid. It wont.
You will notice that nobody has managed to define the GHE. The reason is simple – it cannot be done. No doubt you have tried to do so yourself, and cannot come up with anything that makes any sense.
The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years. Any description of the GHE needs to accord with fact, and of course none can. That is because the GHE is about as real as unicorns or fairies.
As a matter of interest, you might note that you speculated that something “would” happen, and then presented this speculation as observed fact. Tut tut.
Still no GHE. Not even a useful description. Certainly no testable GHE hypothesis – just religious faith.
Cheers.
Mike…”Even a moderate reduction in insolation, say when a cloud passes between the Sun and a thermometer, or the onset of Winter, reduces the temperature of the thermometer”.
And pretty fast at that. It was amazing during the last eclipse how quickly temperatures dropped with the Sun behind the Moon.
Down your way, in the Tropics, I was laying around in the Sun waiting for transport to catch a plane. It was cloudy at first and quite pleasant. Then a cloud moved away from in front of the Sun and the heat produced by direct radiation was incredible.
I have no scientific proof of this but I get the impression the Sun’s radiation has become hotter at times in my neck of the woods. I hear what is being claimed about 1300 watts and change at TOA but that is an average.
aturday, August 6, 2016
Climate Change Drivers
Summary
Thermalization and the complete dominance of water vapor in reverse-thermalization explain why atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has no significant effect on climate. According to the 2017 update, reported average global temperature (AGT) since before 1900 is accurately (98.3% match with measured trend) explained by a combination of ocean cycles (34.8%), sunspot number anomaly time-integral (39.0%) and increased atmospheric water vapor (26.2%).
I by into that.
Citation?
Graphs like this clearly show that CO2 clearly has a large effect on the Earth’s temperature and climate:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Keep avoiding it.
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com/
You really need to keep up. Apparently you aren’t following any of several threads on thermalization here. Again, your posting the same links over and over is very annoying.
I post the same links because they show the science of what’s going on. That graph shows that a lot of radiation at CO2’s ab.sorp.tion frequencies never makes it to space.
I’m stunned. You can’t be serious.
Don’t you realize the notch at 15 micron shows CO2 radiating to space at 220K or so? Any most of the other notches represent wv radiating at around cloud level?
This is how the atmosphere cools at the TOA. Thermalization at the surface leads to convection which also cools. Reverse thermalization at night keeps us warm. It’s a beautiful thing. Embrace it and endorse it!
Chic Bowdrie says:
Dont you realize the notch at 15 micron shows CO2 radiating to space at 220K or so?
How did you calculate the 220 K?
David, see fig. 1.5, the yellow curve is 220K Planck curve coinciding with bottom of CO2, H2O vapor notch around 665 wavenumber.
Good lord where did you people ever learn physics??
The temperature is a function of the entire integrated spectrum
j=sigma*T^4
not for each individual wavenumber. A blackbody at temperature T emits radiation of all wavelengths. There is no temperature assigned to an individual spectral line.
Oh, and pretty sure Gordon will think that’s obviously bogus at only around 0.2 to 0.4 W. “It’s not 100s of watts!” – Gordon. Gordon will once agin miss the per wavenumber if he lives up to all my expectations.
And this Fig. 1.5 isn’t intensity, something IS bogus. Strictly intensity being one of the SI base units is W/sr. This chart is saying in effect area is what the world perceives as length.
“There is no temperature assigned to an individual spectral line.
No David, ideally 220K is assigned by Planck formula to each of the spectral wavenumbers along the yellow curve. Where did YOU learn physics?
Properly the Fig. 1.5 chart should be labeled irradiance not intensity.
Ball4 says:
No David, ideally 220K is assigned by Planck formula to each of the spectral wavenumbers along the yellow curve.
A photon of a certain wavelength/wave number doesn’t have a temperature.
If you think so, how is it calculated? Show the equation for T(wavelength).
“A photon of a certain wavelength/wave number doesn’t have a temperature.”
Light from any matter (N2, O2 are matter) of a certain wavelength and a certain temperature has a certain ideal nonzero irradiance David.
A photon has no temperature, no heat David so there is no formula; the photon possesses EMR energy, linear AND angular momentum and polarization.
This is college freshman/sophomore level physics and you are having trouble understanding.
David,
Planck’s law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law) lets you calculate the spectrum of a blackbody. It puts an upper limit on the radiance at a each wavelength. That is where those curves on the graphs come from. It’s not just the integrated area that is related to temperature — it is each individual wavelength.
At least near the center of the bands, the spectrum will be very nearly that of a BB, so the depth of the notch is indeed an accurate measure of the temperature of the CO2 that is radiating to the satellite making the measurements.
Tim, yes, I certainly understand most of that.
But I don’t agree that radiation of a single wavelength has a temperature, regardless of the intensity of that radiation. Again, if it does, what is T(wavelength)?
I don’t think I’ve ever read a paper or textbook that said CO2 at the bottom of its notch is radiating at 220 K, or the like.
Chic Bowdrie says:
Dont you realize the notch at 15 micron shows CO2 radiating to space at 220K or so?
“I don’t think Ive ever read a paper or textbook that said CO2 at the bottom of its notch is radiating at 220 K, or the like.”
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
David, see the red curve – that’s the ideal planck irradiance (they call it flux) found by plugging 294K temperature into Planck’s law formula (Tim linked) at each wavenumber (frequency) on the x axis.
See the black jagged curve – that’s the real measured irradiance looking down at TOA unfortunately they call it flux. Note that the curves offset in locations by maybe 5%? That’s because the actual gas emissivity is about 0.95 in those wavenumbers so is lower than the ideal curve. So the gas is actually radiating a bit below 294K (~289K actual Tsurface in window regions).
Wherever there are notches, run the Planck curve at the bottom of the notch and you can find the ~temperature the gas is emitting higher in th atm. to space due absorp_tivity of the lower atm. is higher at those wavenumbers lowering actual radiance at TOA at those wavenumbers and spreading it out to other wavenumbers where the emissivity is higher to achieve equilibrium at Ts 289K.
Typed this fast, I’m out of time. Check for typo.s all you cognoscenti out there.
CO2 radiates at whatever the temperature of the atmosphere is — the atmosphere it’s in. A blackbody radiates according to its temperature — period.
It’s just wrong to say that CO2 radiates at some other temperature just because some OLR gets blocked.
“It’s just wrong to say that CO2 radiates at some other temperature just because some OLR gets blocked.”
CO2 gas which is responsible your blocking at the notch in question has a measured emissivity at Earth STP at each frequency always below 1.0 while an ideal BB has 1.0 emissivity all the time at all frequencies so they will never ever have the same irradiance at same temperature & same frequency. At some frequencies, Earth atm. irradiance is much less than a BB (40%), at some frequencies (window) the difference is only 5%.
To get the equivalent BB temperature that CO2 is radiating in the notch, just reduce the temperature of the BB emissivity 1.0 until the BB temperature is the same at the frequency of interest. This is what the colored curves do for you in linked Fig. 1.5.
David,
https://www.slideserve.com/faunus/from-grant-petty-s-book-a-first-course-in-atmospheric-radiation
Look at slide 5 showing spectra looking down and up at the pole. At the CO2 band around 15 micron in the top figure, you see the notch corresponds to a temperature of about 225K, because that’s where the radiation is coming from as seen from space. In the bottom figure, you are sitting on the ice looking up at CO2 radiating down on you at the temperature of your face, 275K or so.
I forgot the most important thing. If you went up 2 km and the temperature was 285K and you took spectra looking up and then down, both spectra would show the CO2 notch at 285K.
The argument against using a single IR spectra to prove a GHE started here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-301784
Here are links to some other comments you should read:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303750
You can’t show the GHE with just one spectral line, and that’s not what this graph does.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Not one spectral line, a single spectrum.
You keep using that one spectrum as if that proves a GHE. You are jumping to the conclusion that it represents trapping OLR, forcing an increase in surface temperatures. That may be the case, but there’s no definitive/conclusive/sufficient etc. evidence of that.
There are too many other things going on that are not accounted for in a single spectrum at one location at one point in time. And there are not enough satellites covering every inch of the globe 24/7 for any sufficient length of time. As a scientist, you should be able to at least acknowledge this.
Chic Bowdrie says:
You are jumping to the conclusion that it represents trapping OLR, forcing an increase in surface temperatures.
It does represent trapping of OLR — there is less OLR than if there were no greenhouse gases present. That’s why the atmosphere warms up — to restore energy balance between OLR and incoming energy.
The increase in the greenhouse effect at the surface has been measured:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006.
https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
Chic, If you google “satellite IR spectrum earth” and look at the images, you will find many spectra that show the CO2 dip near 15 um (667 cm-1). Some of the images are repeats, but many are not. That fact that 1) the dip should be there theoretically and 2) the dip always seems to show up is a pretty good indication that this is a universal feature of the atmosphere.
(Actually, I did see one spectrum from the Antarctic that had a *slight* increase at 15 um. apparently the air was warmer than the surface at that time/location.)
Tim,
Does the problem of using a single spectrum or a collection of spectra to account for all the energy transfer processes through the atmosphere need further explaining or are you just flat out disagreeing with me?
I downloaded an excel model you put up somewhere (tallblokes?) and have had fun trying to add convection to it. It’s not yet ready for prime time. Maybe you have improved it already to do that?
Chic, NP-hard, here’s what I was talking, from the scientist who writes Science of Doom:
“As you can see 95% of radiation at 15μm is absorbed in just 1 meter of atmosphere at the surface of the earth (1000 mb).
“Amazing, considering that CO2 is only 370ppm or thereabouts.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2011/03/07/understanding-atmospheric-radiation-and-the-%E2%80%9Cgreenhouse%E2%80%9D-effect-%E2%80%93-part-eight/
If you go to this page and search for these words, you’ll find graphs right above them that calculate this conclusion.
DA…”As you can see 95% of radiation at 15μm is absorbed in just 1 meter of atmosphere at the surface of the earth (1000 mb)”.
I’d say that sounds pretty odd. The graphs spreading around here, both of your NASA graphs and another, claim the 15 um absorp-tion band peaks around 150 MILLIwatts.
Is SoD claiming there is a peak of 0.15 watts at 15 nm?
Sounds like them. Here’s the Sod crew participating in sports events.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5ba1OKY7Xc
The SoD graphs I referred to above are measurements of transmission, a unitless number from 0 to 1.
“The graphs spreading around here, both of your NASA graphs and another, claim the 15 um absorp-tion band peaks around 150 MILLIwatts.”
NO NO NO!
The graph claims the band peaks around 150 milliwatts per steradian per inverse cm . You have to integrate that curve and multiply by 4 pi to get the total radiation. OR integrate the area of the notch and multiple by 4 pi to the the impact of CO2.
Gordon, this was explained to you several times upthread, including by me. You are simply mis-interpreting the graph.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303735
Tim Folkerts
I consider you to be somewhat of an expert on the Heat transfer topic but I might need clarification of your post that you multiply the steradian by 4 pi. When I do this the values become way too large and do not make sense with the empirical data.
http://www.patarnott.com/atms749/images/MeasuredRadianceReno.jpg
This one shows the contribution of DWIR by CO2 in Reno.
I have looked at some typical DWIR graphs of Desert Rock in the summer and you might get 440 Watt/m^2.
If you take the 0.13 W x 100 cm-1 you get 13 Watts/m^2 then if you take your factor and multiply by 4 pi you get a value of 163 Watts/m^2 from CO2. If the total value of DWIR is 440 W/m^2 that would mean the CO2 contributed 37%. Even in dry air CO2 may contribute up to 20% but not that much.
I found this calculator.
http://calculator.org/property.aspx?name=solid+angle
If you convert 1 hemisphere to steradian the factor is 6.28 Steradian.
If you use this value instead of 4 pi you get a W/m^2 of 13 x 6.28
81.6 W/m^2 which would give the contribution of CO2 at about 19% which seems more realistic based upon other information.
Norman, I think you are correct here. The curves Tim seems to be discussing that are linked that I could see do not show the Y-axis as per sr. I didn’t feel like proving that out from his comments, good work. Many such curves do show per steradian units but these didn’t so let’s see if Tim can agree or not if he cares to comment.
Yes! Sorry!
4 pi is a full sphere and I typed that on autopilot. A surface radiates only into a hemisphere, so the correct value is indeed 2 pi.
Amazing, considering that CO2 is only 370ppm or thereabouts.
What’s amazing is how you don’t see what’s going on. What do you think happens to that radiation absorbed by ONLY 400 ppm of CO2 within just 1 meter from the surface?
Most of it gets re-radiated, in all directions, some of it downward.
No, most of it gets incorporated into the bulk air by the mechanism of thermalization. What percentage of the radiation absorbed do you think gets emitted within one meter of the surface?
Chic Bowdrie says:
No, most of it gets incorporated into the bulk air by the mechanism of thermalization.
What is the evidence for that?
Chic Bowdrie says:
No, most of it gets incorporated into the bulk air by the mechanism of thermalization
So you’re saying the air gets warmer because CO2 is present.
“What is the evidence for that?”
Please read Dan Pangburn’s treatise on thermalization where he explains in detail what I already reviewed several times here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303750
“So youre saying the air gets warmer because CO2 is present.”
It’s not only about CO2. Frankly I’m wondering if you even realize what’s involved. Read the above and give me some idea that you understood.
I”ve read Dan’s blog post — I’d hardly call it a “treatise.” It’s just a bunch of handwaving with no real science. Very few numbers, no equations, and reaches a ridiculous conclusion.
Let me try a different approach in describing what I think it going on and how it relates to my question. First, lets assume the atmosphere is 78% nitrogen and 22% oxygen and nothing else. No CO2, water vapor, etc. I want to follow a little bit of energy as it changes forms, back and forth between heat and an IR photon.
— The sun warms the ground.
— A little bit of heat converts to an IR photon with a wavelength of 15u.
— That photon shoots into space in microseconds since it does not interact with N2 or O2.
— Done. The heat has left the earth in microseconds.
Now lets assume there is some CO2. CO2 is reactive to IR from 13u to 17u, give or take. The mean free path doesnt matter, and I dont care about thermalization. Lets give CO2 all it can do in terms of back radiation.
— The sun warms the ground.
— A little bit of heat converts to an IR photon with a wavelength of 15u.
— The photon travels some distance and hits some CO2, which absorbs it.
— The CO2 re-emits the IR photon with a wavelength of 15u in some random direction. I assume that CO2 will re-emit at the same wavelength.
— This re-emitted photon could go up or back down. Lets assume it goes down and hits the surface.
— The surface absorbs the IR photon with a wavelength of 15u. This is the back radiation from the atmosphere, and the photon is destroyed and its energy added back to the surface.
— Now the energy is re-emitted as another IR photon, except this time it has a wavelength of 12u. This is the frequency change I have mentioned. The new photon is free to be at any wavelength per the earths gray-body emission spectrum, and the odds are significant that it will not be between 13u and 17u.
— Since this is outside of CO2 sensitively the photon escapes to space in microseconds and is gone.
The second scenario is in exactly the same energy and temperature state as the first one, except it happens a little later because of the time it takes the 15u photon to rattled around. I believe this time is short, but Ill grant it a few seconds. Light is fast and the distances to space is relatively very short. If this timing delay is only a few seconds then the duration of night is orders of magnitude longer. Since night time is so long the same amount of energy leaves the earth regardless of whether or not there is CO2 in the atmosphere.
Thoughts? Where is the trapped heat? To me appears it is gone.
NP-Hard
Same thread: O2,N2: Done. The heat has left the earth in microseconds.
The EMR has left the earth at the speed of light in the atm. but not all of it.
Thats not quite done. O2 and N2 molecules absorb and emit too. Could be not done if your photon gets absorbed by one of those dudes and thermalized. That process is in quotes since seems to have a lot of defn.s and/or opinions around here, take your pick.
The sun also warms the atm.
The CO2 emits a brand new IR photon.
“Where is the trapped heat?”
This process you describe raises surface thermometer temperature above a planet’s TOA brightness temperature long term. That temperature difference has become known rather unfortunately as the trapped heat. Heat is not temperature nor does heat even exist as a form of energy any more nor can heat even be trapped if it did exist. But the statement persists.
O2,N2: “Done. The heat has left the earth in microseconds.”
The EMR has left the earth at the speed of light in the atm. but not all of it.
That’s not quite done. O2 and N2 molecules absorb and emit too. Could be not done if your photon gets absorbed by one of those dudes and “thermalized”. That process is in quotes since seems to have a lot of defn.s and/or opinions around here, take your pick.
Ball4 says:
O2 and N2 molecules absorb and emit too.
Not in the IR.
Planetary N2 and O2 absorb at all frequencies, all temperatures David including the IR, check out the Planck curve you seem to be having trouble with.
N2, O2 emissivity, reflectivity will be relatively low compared to CO2 but non-zero, relative transmissivity will be high at Earth STPs.
Planetary N2 and O2 absorb at all frequencies
No, they don’t, and I don’t see your conclude that from this graph:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Are you confusing N2O with N2 and O2?
In fact, no molecules absorb at all frequencies.
“Are you confusing N2O with N2 and O2?”
No.
David, you claim no molecules absorb at all frequencies. Find a frequency for which the Planck curve irradiance for matter is identically zero for us then, pick the IR if you like, pick visible maybe. You seem to be having trouble with the fundamental college freshman/sophomore physics.
Then find a real temperature for which the Planck curve is identically zero for us.
You will need to do so to back up your claim. I predict you won’t be able to do so.
Ball4, the Planck curve is for a black body at the specified temperature — an ideal radiator that emits/absorbs as well as possible at all wavelengths. All real materials radiate between 0% – 100% as well as this.
For some real materials at some wavelengths, the value is 0.000%. They simply don’t radiate effectively at those frequencies. Like 300K N2 @ 14-16 um. You will not see 14-16 um IR photons coming from a box full of N2. (You will see plentiful 14-16 um IR photons from a box full of 300K CO2).
[I will not say “absolutely never”, since both statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics can allow for very odd, very unexpected things to happen with very low probability. But if something would happen less than once in the lifetime of the universe, I think we can call that “never” for all practical purposes.]
I will apply “I will not say “absolutely never”” to “For some real materials at some wavelengths, the value is 0.000%”
In the 1930s they used spectral exposure times on real photographic plates collecting emitted photons on the order of 30 minutes which was time limited due to the chemistry if I recall. Today’s photographic plates, CCDs, whatever may turn your 0.000% into 0.000000001% & who knows what tomorrow’s instrumentation will show.
I have not maintained negligible amount is wrong, only that all matter radiates a non-zero ideal amount per Planck formula. As long as there are charged particles in motion in a magnetic field you get EMR: thank you Michael Faraday and JC Maxwell.
Ball4
I agree with David Appell. I think you are just wrong about this and maybe you should read some physics on the topic. They will explain why O2 and N2 are not IR emitters. In order for these molecules to emit in the IR band they have to be in complex multi-molecule conglomerates that will have a slight charge imbalance over the assembly of molecules.
Ball4 it is time for you to support your claim. I don’t want you to become another Gordon Robertson. Making claims with no evidence. This is science not opinion.
Where do you have supporting evidence for your opinion that you state: “Planetary N2 and O2 absorb at all frequencies, all temperatures David including the IR, check out the Planck curve you seem to be having trouble with.”
What Planck curve supports that N2 and O2 absorb all frequencies, all temperatures. Without support it is a useless comment.
I look at Hitran
Abundance in atmosphere at 10 KM
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/plots/guest1040502836.png
O2 and N2
N2 is an intensity of 2.5 x 10^-9
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/plots/guest559188845.png
CO2 at 15 microns is about 0.001
The CO2 is emitting and absorbing 400,000 times as strongly as N2.
I think David Appell is correct to say it is not emitting. When it is that small an amount it is pointless to pretend it makes a difference.
If CO2 absorbs 60 Watt/m^2 N2 will absorb 0.00015 W/m^2
This compares to a blackbody at 7 Kelvin.
“N2 is an intensity of 2.5 x 10^-9”
Feeble but that is nonzero as I wrote – what are the units? If truly intensity they will be W/sr.
“What Planck curve supports that N2 and O2 absorb all frequencies, all temperatures.”
Thanks for asking. The colored curves in Fig. 1.5 linked. I did not give David many hints as his claims are that he has an advanced physics degree.
Molecules having neither infinite nor zero kinetic energies leads to matter continuously emits radiation no matter how feeble & N2,O2 are matter.
Google string: Planck function
Plug in any real temperature at any frequency and get a nonzero result.
The integral of this function over any frequency interval is the ideal radiant energy in that interval crossing unit area in unit time from O2,N2 etc. called their irradiance. Integrating over all frequencies is necessary to find N2,O2 ideal total radiant energy. The real total radiant energy is found by multiplying by emissivity (a number between 0-1 for real bodies of gas) unique to each molecule found from test.
This stuff is where a college course in radiation begins.
“The CO2 is emitting and absorbing 400,000 times as strongly as N2.”
Pretty strong emitter that CO2 huh? This is why they call CO2 IR active. And why Gordon’s claims are wrong that 0.04% CO2 in air can not make a difference in gas temperature when illuminated by IR light at Earth STP as Prof. Tyndall long ago proved out.
Ball4
I will still disagree with you. I do not think you are right at all with your idea. Quantum mechanics suggests you are wrong. For visible light, if an atom or molecule does not have a potential energy level for an electron to move to, no photon will be absorbed at that frequency or emitted. None, nothing. Complete zero. That is what quantum mechanics is all about.
The old classical view was that you would have a smooth transition of energy levels. That is not what the experimental data shows.
If you wish to persist in your opinion on EMR spectrum then you will have to provide supporting experimental evidence. Scientists have devices that can measure individual photons.
The experiment would consist of a photon detector tuned to a forbidden frequency of some material. Excite the material to emit visible light, use a prism or diffraction lens to send all photon emitted in a forbidden frequency to the detector and watch. My understanding of quantum physics would indicate you would have zero photons in a forbidden frequency no matter how long you waited.
If you can provide evidence for you claims then please do so. Until then I will reject your idea as something you made up based upon your misinterpretation of quantum physics.
“If you can provide evidence for your claims then please do so.”
Much of the lab work was done in the 1920s/1930s just after the world went gaga over quantum mechanics and thought like you are thinking: Planck was wrong N2,O2,Ar don’t absorb/emit. I was interested too & looked up the papers. Much research interest at the time so much data was generated and evidence produced. I’ve spent time in the stacks reading the musty material, somewhere I have the notes. You could do the same before I find my stuff!
Local college librarians live for the day when someone walks up and asks them to practice their career specialty. google is your friend but these folks will radiate with glee over the challenge.
N2,O2 even Ar atoms rotate. Their rotations were found to be quantized and that was a big surprise as the going in thinking was, like translation, these modes would not be quantized. But they are. N2,O2 were found to absorb photons and change their spin rates, reduce spin rates by emitting a photon. Once this was found a specific heat conundrum was resolved too, this history is really interesting (to me anyway) & forgotten today as we just read it in text books.
Some of the emission was so feeble, lab equipment of the day was not precise and accurate enough. I found some reports out to around 1949 and mid1950s still interested enough & funded to be doing the exacting work on the noble gases with better equipment.
Norman – Looks like I got interested in this about 4-6 years ago according to the dates of the saved file dates on my computer.
The natural greenhouse effect of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2012GL051409
If you doubt my understanding of quantum mechanics, here’s a delightful paper on a majority of introductory calculus-based physics textbooks, including many widely used ones, which give misleading or incorrect explanations for the failure of the equipartition law to describe correctly the classically expected rotational degrees of freedom in monatomic and diatomic gases. This article outlines typical textbook treatments and reviews the quantum mechanical explanation.
It explains the early 1900s classical mechanics conundrum in specific heats that was not resolved until quantum mechanics fully explained it. As I recall I used the references in this to track down the original ~1930s experimental papers still in the stacks at my local college library with the help of the ref. desk.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253889591_Specific_heats_and_the_equipartition_law_in_introductory_textbooks
David Appell
on the issue of thermalization I would side with Chic Bowdrie.
I did think that it was a process of absorbing the IR by CO2 which just redirected it in a random direction.
I think the evidence supports the claim that the amount of energy emitted by the Earth’s surface has no correlation to amount of energy the atmosphere radiates. The temperature of the atmosphere is what determines the amount of energy it will emit.
Here are some of the evidence.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04d1b1623c2.png
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04d20cb0a0d.png
The redirection hypothesis is not supported by the actual empirical data. The surface heats up during the day and emits more radiant IR.
It shows no correlation with the DWIR. The DWIR correlates very well with air temperature.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04dba2057ee.png
If the redirection hypothesis were valid, the increase in the UWIR would be matched by a similar increase in DWIR. This does not happen, the opposite actually happens. As the surface emits more IR the DWIR does not follow. The DWIR starts to go up when the air temperature rises.
Norman says:
I think the evidence supports the claim that the amount of energy emitted by the Earths surface has no correlation to amount of energy the atmosphere radiates.
I don’t follow you. If the Earth had no atmosphere, it would radiate at (assuming the same albedo) 255 K.
But with an atmosphere it radiates at 288 K.
The temperature of the atmosphere is what determines the amount of energy it will emit.
These temperatures aren’t mutually independent. So, again, I don’t follow.
David Appell
It might be a a semantic issue.
I was just demonstrating that the “redirection of photons by GHG” hypothesis is not supported by the evidence.
The idea that a GHG molecule absorbs an IR from the surface, then redirects it in a random direction (redirection) with 50% returning to the surface.
The evidence shows that the GHG are emitting based upon the atmosphere temperature and not based upon the amount of energy the surface is emitting. If the redirection hypothesis was valid, then as the surface emission went up there would be a direct correlation with the DWIR energy.
If I am not clear enough I will try again.
Nor,, Fig 2 in http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com is about the atmosphere adjacent to the surface not the surface itself. Your observation ,,The DWIR correlates very well with air temperature.,, is consistent with the redirection theory.
Looks to me like there is reasonable same response of DW and UW in your first chart. Note around 4am (in the night) a cloud passed by uptick in DW with slight uptick in UW too bad you didn’t plot air temperature. Not “he opposite actually happens.”
Ball4
The air temperature does not show much. Too much variation from other effects not included in the radiant energy information, maybe air currents, wind.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04ea3be5cbe.png
Thanks. Looks like near surface air temperature does go up and down about 2C, I’d say that does show much for the persistence time of the cloud.
And about in the realm of experience on calm nights when clouds are present over clear air. Can you show wind speed at the time?
Ball4
Maybe more information will help you.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04eaed52ed7.png
This is a plot of temperature and IR emissions.
Yes DWIR and UPIR correlate at night. That is because the temperature of both emitting items is going down at the same rate.
During the day there is no such correlation. The difference in the NET IR drops considerably during the day because the air is not warming as rapidly as the surface that is heated directly by the Sun
This one will show you very clearly that the DWIR is not dependent upon the UPIR.
If such a correlation existed you would see a flat line across the day for Net IR. This is not the case.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04ec49e6172.png
First curve to my eyball DW does follow UW during the day. Don’t “see” why you don’t “see” that.
“If such a correlation existed you would see a flat line across the day for Net IR.”
I wouldn’t think so as in clear sky the UW is looking at the ground which is nearby & opaque, the DW is looking at an atm. with a lapse rate that is not nearly opaque – the IR comes from many heights including space (the window). If a cloud comes by, the height from which most of the IR is emitted greatly reduces thus the instrument reads higher as shown by the the earlier passing cloud.
Ball4
Most of the DWIR that reaches the detector comes from IR emitted close to the surface.
I can see you are not understanding my point at all. Yes the DWIR does follow the UWIR during the day to some extent, that is because both are warming. The air is not warming as fast so you do not have a direct correlation.
Let me see if I can explain it to you. If the DWIR were dependent upon the UPIR as in redirected energy, the curves of both would match.
They would go up at the same rate, they do not.
Maybe you do not know what I am discussing. I am not sure what your point is.
“Most of the DWIR that reaches the detector comes from IR emitted close to the surface.”
How did the instrument (tuned to the IR) register the DW increase when the cloud came by then? It couldn’t see it in the visible at night. Aviation weather for that time can give you the cloud height.
My point is that looking up through the column of air in the IR is very different than the short distance looking to the ground.
For that reason the UW and DW should look like they do. I am thinking about pointing my IR thermometer up through the column and down at the ground and what I would observe at night doing that with a passing cloud.
Suppose you moved the instrumentation to just below the height of the passing cloud. So there is a significant air column looking down. Would you expect the same result? Should be easy to test this out.
Too, my IR thermometer would measure near surface temperature looking down but looking up a very different temperature than surface air temperature (so IR is not coming mostly from surface) and how would that change with clouds?
Norman
I finally see what’s causing the confusion. Imagine if above Desert Rock, Nevada there was only one CO2 molecule. That molecule would absorb IR from the surface and then emit 1/2 towards space and 1/2 towards earth.
What would the chart look like?
Norman
I’m wrong. Even just one molecule should still follow the curve of surface emissions. Is that what you’re thinking?
Good stuff, Norman!
Sorry for my stupid first comment. I hadn’t put much thought into what you were pointing out.
Norman
Hard not to notice that upwelling IR fluctuates much more than downwelling. My first suspicion is that during the early part of the day, GHG’s are absorbing a high rate of IR but a lot of that energy may be going towards heating N2/O2 (conduction) rather than emitted back to the surface.
As night approaches sort of the opposite. Perhaps some of the N2/O2’s accumulated heat is being transferred back to GHG’s and so their downwelling remains fairly steady compared to the faster dropping rate of upwelling.
A wild guess of course, but I thought you might like some feedback.
Dan Pangburn
If you look at empirical measured data I am not sure your conclusions are correct.
YOU: “WV absorbs in the same wave number range as CO2 so cannot tell how much each gets. IMO between the two of them they absorb essentially all. But all absorbed energy gets thermalized, i.e. shared with surrounding molecules by thermal conduction in the gas, so shrug. Hitran says, at low altitude, radiation from the gas is essentially all by the low wave number (low energy) WV molecules.
AGW is wrong because CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Planet warming, which might have already stopped, has been caused partly by WV increase. Temperature increase from WV increase is ultimately self-limiting (higher albedo and more precipitation).”
Scientists have measured the spectrum of DWIR and can easily pick out what contributes to the energy.
Here:
http://lidar.ssec.wisc.edu/papers/dhd_thes/node3.htm
Or
http://www.patarnott.com/atms749/images/MeasuredRadianceReno.jpg
Earth’s surface will absorb on average over 90% of this energy.
The energy CO2 molecules send to detectors on the Earth’s surface is a measured amount. The IR from the surface will be thermalized to a very large degree, but the reverse thermalization will cause the CO2 to emit a significant amount of energy back to the surface.
What you say is quite correct, Norman.
Except that there is no such thing as “reverse thermalization” in physics. What you talk about is just the result of ordinary thermalization, namely the relentless re-distribution of the available energy among the various molecules and their various degrees of freedom ( translation, rotation, vibration etc) as a consequence of chaotic collisions and interactions between molecules. These microscopic processes tend systematically to establish and maintain the well known statistical equilibrium distributions such as Maxwell law for molecular velocities, Planck’s emission of radiation etc. and ensure a local equilibrium characterized by a meaningful temperature T.
Thermalization by no means wipes out back radiation due to GHGs such as CO2, it is actually quite the reverse that is true. It is precisely also because thermalization is ubiquitously at work that CO2 as any IR active molecule can continuously radiate IR at a rate that is proportional to Planck’s function B( f, T) and so depends only on temperature T in very specific and universal way for any characteristic frequency.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303523
Radiation transfer calculations in climate science (as in astrophysics) precisely all include this Planck function B and so all of this physics takes of course into account ipso facto “thermalization”.
Throwing this (misunderstood) concept idiotically around and pretend that it invalidates the CO2 GHE effect is just laughable and reflects only the physics illiteracy of the crackpots who do so.
Proof of atmospheric GHE in a nutshell:http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302920
Idiot Tracker
Thank you for the intelligent and informative post.
It seems you have taken courses in statistical thermodynamics. Maybe you could tell Gordon Robertson that most molecules, at room temperature, are in the ground vibrational state and can absorb any incoming IR that resonates with the vibrational states. He has this idea that a hotter object has all its available (in his twisted mind, electron transitional states) states at higher levels and hence cannot absorb any energy from a colder object. I can’t get him to understand he is so wrong. I have posted many links to statistical thermodynamics but he either does not look at them or understand them.
I think Skepticism is good and healthy in science. I would encourage people to question AGW. I just don’t like the totally made up physics and unsupported declarations.
“… most molecules, at room temperature, are in the ground vibrational state and can absorb any incoming IR that resonates with the vibrational states.”
Yes, most are in the ground state … but that actually doesn’t matter! Vibrations are quantized, but they can gain energy even within an excited state. They just vibrate with a larger amplitude!
If a 15 um photon (f = 2E13 Hz; E = 1.3E-20 J) happens upon a non-vibrating CO2 molecule, the photon can get absorbed and the CO2 molecule will start to vibrate with an energy of 1.3E-20 J.
If a 15 um photon happens upon a CO2 molecule already vibrating with energy E = 1.3E-20 J, the photon can get absorbed and the CO2 molecule will start to vibrate with an energy of 2 x 1.3E-20 J.
And a CO2 molecule with an energy n x 1.3E-20J can emit a 15 um photons, lose 1.3e-20 J of energy, and vibrate with an energy (n-1) x 1.3E-20 J.
Tim Folkerts
Thanks for the post. It would mean that Gordon Robertson is even more wrong, as molecules in lower excited states can be raised to higher vibrational states by the same energy photons.
From Hottel’s empirical work with water vapor and CO2 emissivities, you have to get very hot gas to drop the emissivity (I am thinking because more and more vibrational states are filled and will no longer be able to be raised to higher levels by the internal energy of the hot gas).
Also, molecules in a higher vibrational state do not remain there long. They will decay to a lower energy level fairly rapidly.
I know you try to educate Gordon Robertson. But he refuses to learn anything and believes he is an expert on every topic related in physics. Even highly intelligent people know they have some limits and tend to specialize.
The ratio of (thermalized by the way…) molecules in successive excited vibrational states (n+1)/n) is just a Boltzmann factor
b=exp( – E / kT) where E is the quantum of energy, k Boltzmann’s constant and T absolute temperature.
At room temperature kT = 1/40= 2.5E-2 eV and with E = 1.3E-20 J = 1.3E-20 J / 1.6E-19 J/eV = 8E-2 eV so that b= exp(- 8/2.5) = 0.04 or 4 %.
So one gets in ground state (n=0) about 96 %, in first excited state (n=1) 4 %, in second excited state (n=2) 1.6e-3 etc.
What is funny with GR is that his made up physics is every now and then nevertheless instructive to correct and discuss.
Here for instance his reasoning in terms of a Bohr model with IR emission of CO2 is of course quite misleading, there are no Pauli principle or orbitals to worry about in vibrational or rotational transitions that can only be described and understood in terms of simple quantized harmonic oscillators and rotators.
Yet GR naively retorts that even molecular vibrations involve stretching of chemical bonds and chemical bonds are made of electrons that ultimately interact with radiation. This is even not wrong but the subtle point is that this is actually irrelevant. The point is that we can ignore that the molecule or solid is made of electrons and protons when interested in low energy excitations such as in IR absorp-tion of CO2. These excitations are collective motion in nature, involve complex motion of all particles, yet emerge globally as a very simple thing namely an harmonic oscillator. The charge that is involved in interaction with EMF is not the one of a single electron but some subtle mix of the one of all the protons and electrons.
Norman says
I would encourage people to question AGW. I just don’t like the totally made up physics and unsupported declarations.
I fairly agree, though I would replace AGW with CAGW. The remaining uncertainty is really about how much warming we will get not about the possibility of AGW nor a fortiori about GHE itself.
And yes everything has to be questioned, but this must be done with scientific rigor and competence. When ignorance and incompetence mixes with arrogance to criticize and dismiss the work of generations of scientists it is an insult to science and reason.
Norman,
There seems still to be some misconceptions about thermalization. Idiot Tracker refers to it in the context of “local thermodynamic equilibrium” LTE which is probably exactly what’s happening at 4 am on the graph you linked to here:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04d1b1623c2.png.
But during the heat of the day, there is no LTE. That is why the big difference in the net. And in another link, you showed that DW correlates with surface temperature:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04dba2057ee.png
What is missing is data showing the difference between DW and UW at the same altitude with the UWIR directly from the surface subtracted out. I would expect this adjusted net difference to remain the same 24/7 because the gas molecules at any given location and altitude are at the same temperature. In other words, the DW and UW from IR-active gases cancel out leaving the true net being whatever is radiated directly to space from the surface.
More to the point, when the sun is heating the surface there is no LTE. A much greater percentage of radiation is being absorbed and thermalized (as opposed to emitted) resulting in warmed air which rises. During the night, the percentage of thermalization vs emissions tends toward the LTE state of 50/50 (absorp-tions = emissions).
CB
LTE which is probably exactly what’s happening at 4 am on the graph you linked to here:
No, LTE and thermalization is a just process that acts in troposphere at the scale of a micrometer or less and is what allows us to talk of a meaningful concept of temperature T (r) as a collective property of the gas in that cubic micrometer that surrounds any point r.
It is the result of collisions provided there are a sufficient (actually tremendous) number of them in that tiny volume. This is true in lower atmosphere where the mean free path of a molecule between collisions is short enough about 0.1 micrometers, mean time elapsed betwen collisions 10^-10 seconds or so and there are still as much as 10^5 or 10^6 molecules in interaction in that volume.
So it is essentially true in troposphere anytime anywhere but it is not in a rarefied gas as at very high altitudes.
LTE equilibrium must be carefully distinguished from and is a far less restrictive condition than global thermodynamic equilibrium in any system. The latter for instance never occurs in climate system, ocean or atmosphere since it would mean a uniform temperature, same T everywhere.
I apologize for not being as explicit as necessary with someone of your intelligence. I confused the issue using percentage instead of rates to compare numbers of emissions or absorp-tions vis a vis molecular collisions as a function of time.
Take your femtometer at 4 am your time and calculate the rate of CO2 molecules undergoing emissions and absorp-tions. Choose any temperature you want. Would you agree the rate of emission will equal the rate of absorp-tion in that femtometer and that it is at LTE?
Now bombard that femtometer with IR radiation from a source with a temperature greater than the femtometer. Is it at LTE?
Assuming some typical temperature values for the surface and your femtometer on a clear day at noon, how would the rate of emissions from CO2 molecules compare with the rate of absorp-tions?
Femtoliter is 1 cubic micrometer, not femtometer. My bad.
Would you agree the rate of emission will equal the rate of absorp-tion in that femtometer and that it is at LTE?
This is rather a thing called radiative equilibrium (RE) in physics An perfect example of RE is a molecule of CO2 put in a cavity (or the walls of that cavity) at temperature T and filled with blackbody radiation at equilibrium. In this situation there is RE (emission rate = absorp-tion rate at any wavelength) and also global thermodynamic equilibrium and thus obviously LTE too.
Yet there is LTE in troposphere even if those rates are not equal, RE not realized, and they are not in a real atmosphere with convection.. The main reason is that there are other forms of energy exchange of a parcel of air with its surroundings than just radiation and that there is no global thermodynamic equilibrium. Climate system is actually a problem of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and even far from equilibrium thermodynamics but that doesn’t preclude (essentially) LTE everywhere.
Consider for instance the CO2 at emission level say 10 km altitude. At this level its emission rate generally prevails over its absorp-tion rate and there is a net flow of energy from other kinds of molecules to CO2 via collisions, otherwise CO2 would rapidly cool and stop emitting. Of course, to conserve energy, all the gas in parcel must receive a net energy flow from surrounding and in particular from lower levels in the form convection and latent heat.
The reverse happens is lower layers, in particular as you note as a diurnal effect, absorp-tion prevails over emission with part of the absorbed radiation being exported upwards in the form heat in convective cells or simply increasing the temperature of those atmospheric layers.
IT,
“Yet there is LTE in troposphere even if those rates are not equal, RE not realized, and they are not in a real atmosphere with convection.”
I cannot understand that sentence. Do you mean when a femtoliter is absorbing more radiation than it is emitting, it is still in LTE as long as it is moving up by convection? I doubt it. A temperature increase in LTE is oxymoronic.
“Consider for instance the CO2 at emission level say 10 km altitude. At this level its emission rate generally prevails over its absorp-tion rate and there is a net flow of energy from other kinds of molecules to CO2 via collisions….”
If you had stopped right there, it would have been a perfect description of reverse thermalization. But then you ruined it:
“otherwise CO2 would rapidly cool and stop emitting.”
No, “CO2” wouldn’t necessarily cool at all, because the femtoliter each CO2 molecule belongs to stops cooling when it goes into LTE or it could still be warming during midday.
“The reverse happens [in] lower layers…”
Yes, that’s reverse reverse thermalization, which is the same as just thermalization. Now you are getting it!
I cannot understand that sentence. Do you mean when a femtoliter is absorbing more radiation than it is emitting, it is still in LTE as long as it is moving up by convection?
Yes, of course, It is absorbing more radiation than it emits. No problem with that.
When it does that there are 2 possibilities:
-Either, it exports simultaneously energy in another form, heat, not because “it is moving by convection” but because it looses energy by mixing with or conduction to surrounding colder air that moved down by convection from colder higher layers as well as possibly by evaporation of a liquid water droplets in clouds nearby.
-Or its internal energy must increase and consequently its temperature too.
At any rate there is nevertheless LTE everywhere. Isn’t physics amazing?
..
Now you are getting it!
Do you feel the need to play dumb again ?
Idiot Tracker,
The reverse happens is lower layers…
No, the temperature difference (optical) is always higher upwards. GHGs are therefore always net emitters even in the lowest layers.
It,
No, I’m not playing dumb and I now know for sure you don’t get the LTE/thermalization business.
You are saying a parcel of air can absorb more energy than it emits and one of two things can happen:
1) It engages in some extremely slower process, like mixing with or conduction to a surrounding air parcel.
OR
2) It increases in temperature.
Both cases are inconsistent with LTE.
phi,
Are you having issues with thermalization, too?
“GHGs are therefore always net emitters even in the lowest layers.”
It’s really very simple. When a parcel of air containing IR active gases emits energy equal to that which it is absorbing, there is no change in its temperature, i.e. LTE.
When more energy is being absorbed than emitted, the parcel’s temperature increases and its called thermalization.
When more energy is being emitted than absorbed, the parcel’s temperature decreases. It makes sense to call that reverse thermalization.
CB
I now know for sure you don’t get the LTE/thermalization business.
Funny.
Nobody may ever get your version of LTE/Thermalization…
That’s just made-up “physics”.
I made an effort to explain what it is in real physics and you chose to ignore it and make a fool of yourself.
So be it.
phi
No, the temperature difference (optical) is always higher upwards. GHGs are therefore always net emitters even in the lowest layers.
(optical) temperature difference ? Is this more of your fancy made up “physics” ?
No clue what you mean.
At any rate here is a simple counter-example of GHGs absorbing more than emitting in low atmospheric layers. When sun goes up in the morning it heats rapidly the surface. As as consequence UWIR emission from surface suddenly increases and in turn its absorp-tion by GHGs in lower atmospheric layers must do so too. Yet, emission by these same GHGs is only a matter of their temperature, so necessarily it stays behind until these layers warm up in turn.
So at least for a few hours absorp-tion must exceed emission and this invalidates your claim and should, at last, stop you throwing idiotically around the “GHGs are net emitters” thing.
IT,
Maybe you can cite page numbers where this real physics is?
I don’t see it.
If the effect weren’t even as powerful as you claim, there could be no adiabatic lapse rate, as heat would be constantly added to the atmosphere. And the colder it got on rising, the more heat it could absorb.
If only very little heat is added, the effect is weak, and your hypothesis is incorrect. If the effect is strong, the adiabatic condition should never be possible. But adiabatic it often is, contrary to what I would expect if you were right.
If you want to sell me on the idea, please show me how the atmosphere can absorb heat, and not absorb it at the same time.
Excellent. Less analogies, more physics.
All that is needed now, is a description of the GhE.
Cheers.
Many agree that greenhouse is not a good analogy, because it leads to application of wrong physics. Can we call it something else like a “black box” effect? Maybe someone can come up with a name that doesn’t have black (so as not to be confused with black body) in it. Then we can decide what happens when things change inside the box.
The first step is to define the starting point. A black body with no atmosphere is NOT it. If the effect is due to IR-active gases, then we need to start with an inert atmosphere like all N2 or N2/O2. People have to realize that starting point is much different than a black body with no atmosphere (Is that redundant?). A planet like that will be warmer than a black body, because the air and the surface will be a reservoir for HEAT.
Maybe Dr. S can start a new post on that topic.
Chic, The starting point would also have to address rotation and/or uniformity of the incoming light.
The simplest case is uniform lighting (eg a constant 240 W/m^2 everywhere). In this case the entire surface will be ~ 255 K. Morespecifically, adding an IR-transparent atmosphere (like N2) would have no impact — the surface would STILL be 255 K.
With a more realistic lighting (eg 4×240 = 960 W/m^2 coming from one direction toward a rotating planet) then some parts of the surface would be warmer than 255K and some parts would be colder than 255K. The average would be strictly less than 255K. Any thing that serves to even out the temperature swings would rise this average. So a faster spinning planet would be closer to 255 K than a slower spinning planet. A surface with a large heat capacity (that warms up and cools down slowly) would be warmer than a surface with low heat capacity. And a planet with an atmosphere (both because an atmosphere is a reservoir for INTERNAL ENERGY (not “heat” in the thermodynamic sense) and it carries energy from warm areas to cool areas) would be closer to 255 K than a planet with no atmosphere.
I hope you were not trying to imply that a planet with an IR-transparent atmosphere could ever get above the temperature of a uniformly heated planet (ie above 255K in this example).
[It is exactly these sort of details that make any discussion difficult. There are so many levels between the simplest possible idealized model and something that tries to include all the details of the real atmosphere! Someone will always find something to object to!]
Tim, chic
I’ve been thinking about an N2/02 atmosphere a lot lately, so it was interesting to get your thoughts.
It’s important that those who don’t believe GHG’s warm the planet, or actually have a cooling effect, concider the temperature of a non-radiative planet.
My take is the moon, with no atmosphere at all, is perfectly insulated against conductive/convective heat loss, and only cools radiatively. So how could adding gases invisible to IR make the surface warmer?
I posed this question to Kristian and have so far been ignored. I suspect it ruins his hypothesis.
“So how could adding gases invisible to IR make the surface warmer?”
Because they aren’t. Instead of the moon, think of this: warm a Tesla roadster amount of O2,N2 to 289K & enclose it in the highest transmissivity material available at 1bar (consult a headlamp engineer on Elon’s staff for the material rec.)
Have Elon launch that dude into space in his next test – out to where Planet 9 is thought to lurk. Check on it in say 10 years or whenever Planet 9 is found or dismissed.
According to Nate, by your “adding gases invisible to IR” this O2,N2 will still measure 289K on your IR thermometer if the gas doesn’t emit or absorb as you write.
Me? I’m sure the gas will radiate away like gangbusters and be nearly at 3K equilibrium with the CMB + what little solar TSI is out there.
“According to Nate, by your adding gases invisible to IR this O2,N2 will still measure 289K on your IR thermometer if the gas doesnt emit or absorb as you write.”
I think the car (and via conduction, the gas) would still radiatively cool off.
Oh wait, I think the car is not in there, just gas.
In that case, there are no perfectly transparent materials, always some emissivity at some frequencies. It will cool off, but slowly.
This was sloppy:
“concider the temperature of a non-radiative planet.”
****
Should be:
“…….consider the surface and air temperature of a non-radiative atmosphere.”
I think O2 and N2 will also emit a small amount because there are always a few molecules in an excited electronic state (10^-18 chance)
Ball4, “Gangbusters” seems a bit strong!
Just eyeballing the spectra from Spectracalc . com …
* The strongest IR absorp.tion/emission band for N2 (near 5 um) is about 1 billionth as strong as CO2 at that wavelength.
* hardly any IR is emitted in that band at room temp any way (and even smaller faction as it gets colder).
* CO2 also absorbs/emits over a wide band from 6-30 um where N2 doesn’t seem to emit at all.
This all suggests that CO2 would emit (and cool) at least a billion times faster than N2. If that is the case, then the CO2 would cool as much in 1 day as N2 would cool in ~ a billion days (~ a million years).
A more detailed calculation could be done more carefully, but it seems clear the N2 would cool orders of magnitude slower than CO2.
(It looks like O2 would cool better than N2, so maybe the 20% O2 would actually be more important than the 80% N2 for cooling).
With a little work Tim, you might be able to estimate the cooling time. My guess would not be very long (order of days, weeks, months not decades & certainly not forever as is being implied around here) so used gangbusters which is in the eye of the beholder.
“because there are always a few molecules in an excited electronic state”
Not at Earth STP, there isn’t enough collisional energy at normal temperatures to excite the electronic levels by a factor of like 100, the electronic levels will not be populated, all will be in the ground state. Well ok, maybe two molecules randomly in all of earth surface get up to high enough speed and happen to hit head on.
Tim Folkert,
Yes. And thanks to the hydrostatic equilibrium, almost all of a GHG-free atmosphere would be at uniform temperature close to the maximum surface temperature (hot and isothermal).
This theoretical case is interesting because it illustrates the effective roles of GHG which are :
1. To cool the atmosphere.
2 To create a vertical thermal gradient.
phi,
If I have a long tube full of nitrogen, and i heat one end, you’re saying the gas throughout will reach the same temperature as the hot end? Why?
Nate
In that case the cool end of the tube would be surrounded by the vacuum of space. It would continuously gain energy from the warm end until it was the same temperature.
What phi doesn’t get is that a non-radiative atmosphere could be represented as having two such test tubes of nitrogen. The bottom of one would be in contact with a very hot radiating object, the bottom of the other would be in contact with an extremely cold radiating object.
Via conduction, both tubes would reach the same temperature as the object they are touching. The atmosphere’s average temperature would be the average of those two extremes.
The crucial idea is that if a warm column of nitrogen were in contact with a very cold surface, the nitrogen would continuously transmit energy to that surface through conduction That process would continue until the column of nitrogen is no longer warmer than the surface.
The surface would be able to “radiate away” whatever energy it receives, which is why GHG’s are NOT necessary to keep such an atmosphere from overheating or becoming hotter than the average surface temperature.
Nate, initially any hot N2 at the bottom of a column will convect and carry energy upward. This will stop fairly quickly once the gas column approaches the adiabatic lapse rate.
After this, conduction will VERY SLOWLY spread energy until everything is at a constant temperature.
[This assumes no IR radiation loss from the N2. The small amount of IR from real N2 would allow some temperature gradient to be maintained.]
i had in mind a tube touching the north pole and at the other end the equator.
Phi was claiming the atm reaches uniform temp, even with latitude.
φ,
I agree about the uniform temperature — at least for a uniformly heated surface.
For a real, rotating planet, it seems convection — both from equator towards poles and from day towards night — would create some much more complicated thermal gradients (and winds) in the atmosphere!
Tim Folkert,
As conduction is very inefficient, the thickness of the boundary layer (in a situation of strong inversion) should not exceed a few tens of meters. This means that the pressure differences would be limited and therefore the winds quite weak.
Nate, Snape,
A GHG-free atmosphere can only be cooled by conduction on the surface. It’s infinitely less efficient than heating by rising hot air bubble. As TF has rightly pointed out, this mechanism leads to an adiabatic profile (but an adiabatic profile with a base corresponding to the hottest temperatures of a rotating earth). Isothermal is then slowly reached by conduction.
Phi
You continue to just look at the sunlit side of the planet. What’s happening on the other side where the surface is far below zero?
You don’t think cold, dense air would be trapped near the surface?
*********
“Its infinitely less efficient than heating by rising hot air bubble.”
Wouldn’t that displace a similarly cold bubble of air that would then sink?
You really think the air above a surface temperature of say – 250 F. (on the dark side of the planet) would be the same temperature as the air above the red hot sunlit side??
By isothermal, I was envisioning a column of air might become the same temperature as the surface below…… but definitely NOT from one side of the planet to the other.
phi, I’ve looked for a paper that agrees with your isothermal comment without success. I’d be interested in what you base your comments on. The research I’ve found all point to non-isothermal T(z) being the higher entropy solution. For example, Bohren 1998 Sec. 4.4.
Also I don’t understand how convection goes away as long as you have a fluid heated from below in a gravity field to achieve isothermality – like Earth’s midlatitude tropics standard lower stratosphere. There convection ceases because the fluid becomes warmed from above.
Ball4,
I do not have Bohren 1998 but you surprise me. I have never read anything that claims that isothermal does not correspond to the situation of an environment without heat flow.
In the case of an atmosphere without GHG, hot and cold sources are both below, so there is no general vertical heat flow. The thickness of the layer which can be the seat of vertical heat fluxes (necessarily balanced) is very limited because of the asymmetry of the efficiencies between convection and conduction.
snape,
Air cooled in contact with the surface will not go elsewhere, it becomes denser but it is already down. The cooling propagates therefore only by conduction. It is infinitely less effective than heating by convection over hot spot.
phi writes: “A GHG-free atmosphere can only be cooled by conduction on the surface.”
N2 and O2 would radiate away to deep space whatever the atm. absorbed (emissivity=absorp_tivity) reducing the OLR by about 0.28 W/m^2 from the surface radiating at slightly above 255K (the 0.28 W/m^2 equiv. amount).
The sun would shine through the atm. mostly straight to the surface causing sunlight to warm the fluid from below in a gravity field. conduction/convection up would arise equiv. to downdrafts and establish a hydrostatic lapse rate approx. -g/Cp (using Cp of N2,O2) up to tropopause. There would be thermals but no evaporation (assuming no liquid water or wv). The surface would shine though mostly to deep space raising the atm. temperature only a trifle above 255K in steady state in the case of earth orbit.
Phi, fluid dynamics is notoriously difficult, so I don’t have a strong sense of what the final solution would be. My *intuition* suggests that the huge differences in temperature between day/night and pole/equator would continue to drive some major convection that would prevent conduction from pushing the atmosphere toward a final isothermal condition.
But your arguments have merits too.
Of course, all known atmospheres have IR-active gases, so the discussion is purely academic anyway.
Probably unavoidable, but we’ve slipped into a discussion of a uniformly lit planet. Phi is right that an isenthalpic situation leads to an isothermal atmosphere. Ball4 is right if you allow for heat flow through the atmosphere and assume an isentropic scenario.
Back to more realistic, but a still hypothetical rotating planet with an inert atmosphere …
phi,
First you wrote,
“As conduction is very inefficient, the thickness of the boundary layer (in a situation of strong inversion) should not exceed a few tens of meters.”
Then you wrote,
“Isothermal is then slowly reached by conduction.”
Is this for the uniformly heated body or rotating planet? I’m confused.
I think I agree with this:
“The cooling propagates therefore only by conduction. It is infinitely less effective than heating by convection over hot spot.”
Because conduction is relatively inefficient in the sense of warming during the day, but cooling at night should be much more inefficient. Wouldn’t the air get pretty warm?
More systematic:
1. Bottom warming is infinitely more efficient than bottom cooling.
-> Cooling occupies almost the entire surface of the planet.
2. A zone with cooling is in inversion of temperature.
3. There can be no convection in the inversion zones.
-> There is practically no convection in an atmosphere without GHG.
Chic Bowdrie,
Is this for the uniformly heated body or rotating planet? Im confused.
Both. But for a planet uniformly lit everything would be at the same temperature.
For a rotating planet, the atmosphere would be much warmer with a cold and thin boundary layer in strong inversion.
phi,
In your earlier comment, I don’t think your conclusion follows if you are describing a rotating planet. There will be convection. What model did you use to conclude practically none?
In the next comment,
“Both [the uniformly and rotating planet slowly reach isothermal by conduction]. But for a planet uniformly lit everything would be at the same temperature [24/7].
For a rotating planet, the atmosphere would be much warmer with a cold and thin boundary layer in strong inversion [on average isothermal].”
With my additions, is this what you meant?
Chic Bowdrie,
With my additions, is this what you meant?
Yes, sorry for the clumsiness.
There will be convection.<
Certainly not deep convection. Our deep convection is caused by the imbalance of the atmospheric column resulting from the cooling of the air by the GHG.
In an atmosphere without GHG, one can only find a weak convection strictly limited to the thin boundary layer. It must be understood that convection is only a reaction to a too high vertical gradient. Free convection is never the cause of the thermal gradient.
The hot up and the cold down is a very stable configuration that effectively prevents vertical movements.
phi,
We are still discussing an inert atmosphere on a rotating planet. You assume “equilibrium” to be isothermal which I assume means no deep convection AKA practically no convection.
Here is my problem. The equilibrium temperature profile can’t be isothermal if the TOA approaches 4K. So it seems to me that the least amount of warming will produce deep convection. The inversion will be much slower in cooling and could result in a fairly warm atmosphere at some mid-altitudes.
Chic Bowdrie,
So, you will have to explain what happens to the heat that migrates at high altitude thanks to the thermal gradient.
Good luck.
Tim,
All good points, but let’s skip the simplest case of uniform lighting. Absolutely no use at all.
I understand that more extreme temperatures should result in a cooler average T in theory. And you are also allowing for the heat capacity of the reservoirs and the circulation of warm air to cold areas.
So the only thing I can think of that you didn’t mention is the possibility that air temperatures close to the surface might be warmer than actual ground temperature. I assume average 288K surface temperature is based on ground and ocean surfaces and not 2 meters up. Is that right?
Also, what about using the full TSI of 342 or so instead of 240 which includes albedo which wouldn’t apply in an inert atmosphere?
These details may make discussions difficult, but if it was easy it wouldn’t be as much fun. Seriously, the devil is in the details. I think a reasonably correct position is a lukewarm one. Some IR-activity increases the average temperature of an inert planet. But I think there might be a point of diminishing returns when IR-activity nears saturation and convection maximizes preventing further increase in temperature. Obviously this will need solutions of an extremely complex set of differential equations that apparently aren’t yet possible. Otherwise I don’t think there will be any end to CO2 sensitivity arguments.
Phi, the poles are cold because radiating to space. Therefore n2 in vicinity of pole will be cold, by conduction. What choice does it have?
Thermal gradient equator to pole, probably some winds
Crunch time has arrived . We will see where the climate goes from here.
I say global warming has ended meaning global temperatures will not be increasing from these levels and are likely to fall moving forward.
Do you know the parable of the boy who cried wolf?
The difference is I have it backed up with reasons.
You’ve said that before too, many times.
Eventually the wolf arrived . . .
Except it took him several centuries.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/solar-activity-levels-vs-surface-temperature-variation/
good article on how sunspot numbers correlate to global temperatures.
Ball4 says:
May 22, 2018 at 9:38 PM
Planetary N2 and O2 absorb at all frequencies, all temperatures David including the IR, check out the Planck curve you seem to be having trouble with.
Sorry Ball4: this assertion, endless repeated by pseudo-skeptics, is untenable.
Look at the linear HITRAN2012 output according to respective atmospheric abundance, produced by
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/db_intensity.php
You obtain the following graphs for the wavelengths 5µ-40µ:
1. H2O-CO2: about 150000 lines at 5e-3 cm-1/cm
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1527077511388.jpg
2. N2-O2: about 2500 lines at 5e-10 cm-1/cm
4GP.ME/bbtc/1527077565745.jpg
N2 is completely inexistent, and for O2 you have a factor of 10^-7.
Thus N2-O2 are completely negligible in the non-solar IR.
In the solar IR region, O2 shows indeed absorp-tivity in the mesosphere, and N2 is absent in the near-IR region too.
“Thus N2-O2 are completely negligible in the non-solar IR.”
But non-zero as I wrote.
Depends on what you mean by negligible. Your own work and Norman’s work verifies my claim at Earth STP: O2 and N2 molecules absorb and emit too.
You quote values per cm. You need to integrate over all cm.s (all frequencies). And it is not clear if your values are the sum of all O2,N2 emission from a hemisphere of directions. There are papers I think I have in inventory that do the work to correctly convert O2,N2 radiant energy total to W/m^2 of surface area. I haven’t looked at them in years.
Maybe you or Norman can find them and beat me to it, I’ll look later. Be a good exercise as it appears you two have never looked into this.
Ball4 says:
Your own work and Normans work verifies my claim at Earth STP: O2 and N2 molecules absorb and emit too.
Again, where are the data showing that?
N2 and O2 do absorb a little bit through collisionally induced ab.sorp.tion (CIA); when two of any of these molecules collide, they briefly act like a 4-atom molecule and temporarily have a dipole moment and can absorb IR. But it’s a small effect.
Otherwise, N2 and O2 do not absorb IR and are not GHGs.
“Again, where are the data showing that?”
Look for papers. Get your local college librarian on the scent. The research is no longer of interest having been done in the 1930s. I’ll look later I think I have some in inventory.
Collision induced emission is indeed another physical origin of N2 emission besides higher order quadrupolar emission. It is important at high pressure and density for obvious reasons.
David, what do you find in this to change your views?
The natural greenhouse effect of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2012GL051409
Ball4: I’m familiar with that paper. It is indeed about collisionally induced ab.sorp.tion.
The CIA forcings are small — from the abstract, 0.11 W/m2 for O2 and 0.17 W/m2 for N2. (Not sure why they didn’t calculate for O2-N2 collisions.)
From that paper’s abstract:
“Together this amounts to 15% of the OLR-reduction caused by CH4 at present atmospheric concentrations. [2012]
In 2012 CO2’s RF was 1.85 W/m2, according to NO.AA, and the total RF from all GHGs was 2.86 W/m2. So CIA in 2012 was about 10% of total GHG forcing.
Like I said, relatively small. I don’t know climate models include CIA or not. If they don’t, then they’re undercalculating the net reduction in OLR, i.e. underestimating warming.
This is wrong in that the numbers aren’t radiative forcings, they are changes to OLR. The paper says their total is about 1/3 that of CH4’s reduction of OLR.
Yes N2 and O2 emit IR but technically emission is not leading order electric dipolar allowed but only higher order quadrupolar allowed. That is typically a factor equal to (molecular size/wavelength)^2 smaller i.e. roughly a factor 10^-8 smaller in rough agreement with Hitran calculations.
Physically this means that vibrating N2 cannot does not behave as a tiny oscillating dipolar antenna but only as an oscillating quadrupole which means 2 opposite oscillating dipoles like this -+ +- whose emissions almost cancel each other at large distance.
You quote values per cm. You need to integrate over all cm.s
Yes that’s exactly what I tried to convey to Dan Pangburn upthread (in vain) in a discussion of relative importance of H2O and CO2.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303712
Hitran doesn’t directly reflect relative importance of respective emissions. To get relative emissions one has to integrate over all cm of an attenuation length at the wavelength in question.
And this changes markedly the result. For instance here in center of CO2 band the attenuation length is about 1m (atmosphere optically thick) whereas in the center of the N2 or O2 band it is 10^7 m (atmosphere optically thin). So one has to integrate over whole atmosphere for N2, about say 10 ^4 m.
As a consequence IR emission of CO2 is only about a 10^3 (as opposed to 10^7) times larger than the one of N2 and O2.
N2, O2, Ar atoms also have quantized spin with energies on the order found at Earth STP (unlike electronic transitions being too much energy at Earth STP to be of importance unless maybe rarified upper atm.). As noted, the radiation is indeed feeble but non-zero. I’ll look for papers that have done the work later.
For N2 and Ar S=0 in ground state, hence no magnetic dipole transitions possible in Earth STP conditions, as far as I know
For O2 S= 1 in ground state indeed and there is a magnetic dipole allowed emission band around 60 Ghz. This is the microwave range and the radiation taken advantage of in atmospheric temperature measurements by Spencer et al.
“no magnetic dipole transitions possible”
Yes, although if I recall the slight dipole effect created can be detected as the N2 molecules bend. Rotational transitions can be populated especially Ar atoms. Again, this is from multiple papers in the 1930s when the research interest was there & now largely forgotten as you say the effects are feeble enough to be ignored in Earth atm. – my original point being Planck was found not wrong as all normal (baryonic) matter finds a way to radiate & N2, O2 are matter, no exceptions.
Dark matter not radiating, not reflecting still is a conundrum though.
Idi,, At http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303897 I responded to the erroneous interpretation that you were/are trying to convey.
Idi,, I just read your response up thread where you claimed that you understood Hitran because you were a physicist. It is apparent from what you said that you do not understand Hitran.
Nope.
You were unable to retort to what I objected to your fancy tales.
Nothing, nada, nichts.
You have obviously no clue.
That’s not enough to convince anyone and just repeat again and again to one’s interlocutor that he is wrong while being definitively unable to support your wild imaginings and provide the even slightest argument won’t make them true.
Idi,, At http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303712 You correctly note the units of the vertical scale as being for a centimeter thick layer. But next you say ,, IR emission in atmosphere observed near surface is not small at all in CO2 band as compared to WV bands since it is respectively the result of an integration over respective attenuation lengths,, This is totally bogus. The calculation is for a layer 1 cm thick, as declared by the units of the vertical scale.
The redirection of the energy absorbed by the CO2 molecules to the longer wavelength, lower wave number, lower energy photons emitted by H2O actually takes place continuously vs altitude (at low altitude). The selection of a 1-cm thick layer is simply so the assumption of no significant change of molecule count with altitude can be made.
Modtran at http://modtran.spectral.com/modtran_home#plot at an altitude of 1 km, wn to 1500, resolution 0.4, all else default shows no transmittance in the 600-740 wn range. All of the EMR in this range from the surface has been absorbed. Yet the same conditions (careful, the range and resolution need to be reset and the best resolution is 1.2) but show radiance and near full surface EMR emission is shown. Obviously, they do not account for thermalization.
The calculation is for a layer 1 cm thick, as declared by the units of the vertical scale.
Sure what Hitran in your fig.2 shows is for 1cm, as I pointed out to you.
As as pointed out to you too, this fig;2 does not compare atmospheric emissions from CO2 and H2O in lower atmosphere. To get those you have to sum up and compare total contribution from a layer not 1cm but one attenuation length in thickness.
That’s the correct physics and whether you like it or not and now for sure will continue to play dumb, post ridiculous drivel and write a further idiotic “blog article” is quite irrelevant.
Idi,, A quick check verifies that there is no significant change in the ratio of CO2 intensity to H2O intensity in the first 10 m. You should be able to comprehend that the ratio of CO2 intensity to H2O intensity for 10 m is essentially the same as it is for 1 cm. Your assertion is not only unfounded, it is ridiculous. Fig 2 is correct as presented.
You should be able to comprehend that the ratio of CO2 intensity to H2O intensity for 10 m is essentially the same as it is for 1 cm.
Fig.2 is about absorp-tivity or emissivity of one unit length of air. Period.
It is not the actual emission intensity or radiance that is observed in atmosphere.
The point is that attenuation length in center band of WV is about 1 cm only as opposed to 100cm for CO2 because there is about 100 times more of it. And what contributes to emission is what amount of gas in an attenuation length. In WV (CO2) band you see all the radiation that is emitted from all the molecules in 1 cm (100cm) and this difference is not at all taken into account in your Fig.2.
This is the real physics and by the way is precisely the one behind atmospheric temperature measurements by Roy who probes various depths in atmosphere by changing absorp-tivity in wing of 02 microwave band with different channels.
You still have got to understand this and read carefully and comprehend what I kindly explained to you upthread;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303712
Ball4 says:
May 23, 2018 at 10:10 AM
Jesus Ball4! I know that paper, I read it years ago. I just need to recall the abstract:
We have found that on global average under clear‐sky conditions the OLR is reduced due to O2 by 0.11 Wm−2 and due to N2 by 0.17 Wm−2. Together this amounts to 15% of the OLR‐reduction caused by CH4 at present atmospheric concentrations.
This, Ball4, corresponds exactly to what I mean: a completely negligible amount, even if non zero.
The potential OLR reduction caused by CH4 increases in the future will be by dimensions higher then all what N2/O2 could ever contribute.
In the native language of my friend, this is best described by the idiom: ‘couper les cheveux en quatre dans le sens de la longueur’.
“even if non zero.”
Yes. Which was my point: non zero. These guys put a number on how far above zero. Prof. Planck would smile.
The IPCC is adjusting their global temperature outlook to what the global temperatures are doing rather then forecasting the global temperatures.
As David just sent showing the model adjustments down for the outlook for global temperatures in contrast to what they forecasted earlier.
This is the problem
I will say it now, if substancial cooling should occur for the North Atlantic Region the IPCC is going to say they called for this and it is due to AGW.
On the other hand if no cooling takes place they will say the warming is due to AGW.
A bunch of phonies who know next to nothing about what/why/and how the climate changes!
CO2 climate change garbage, and look at all the wasted time that has to be spent on this!
Anyone who seriously set out to compile a scientifically accurate temperature series — like BEST — would quickly realize the necessity of adjustments, to remove biases.
“Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth about global temperature data: How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it *must* be done,” Scott K Johnson, Ars Technica 1/21/16.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/
“Understanding Adjustments to Temperature Data,” BEST
http://berkeleyearth.org/understanding-adjustments-temperature-data/
“Understanding Time of Observation Bias,” Zeke Hausfather, 2/22/15.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/
Salvatore
“Snape what is your basic climate outlook for the next few years? I am curious.”
Warmer in the coming months (although May looks chilly), but no idea after that. 10 years from now?
UAH/TLT: + 0.13/decade
Salvatore…”I will say it now, if substancial cooling should occur for the North Atlantic Region the IPCC is going to say they called for this and it is due to AGW”.
What else would you expect from the IPCC, who announced a 15 year global warming hiatus and in the next breath raised the confidence level from 90% to 95% that humans are LIKELY causing global warming.
When it comes to political bs, the IPCC are in a class of their own.
Gordon, have you read the new science out since the 5AR?
Thanks let’s see if it is correct.
This is why I expect the next few months (after May) to be warmer:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/anim/wkxzteq_anm.gif
The Earth could be on a collision course with the Sun and you’d still predict global cooling.
If Earth is on collision course with the Sun
What shortest time period before they hit.
DA…”The Earth could be on a collision course with the Sun and youd still predict global cooling”.
It would be interesting to see how much the Sun cools through back-radiation from the Earth as the Earth gets closer.
I am going to go out on limb, and say a part of Earth, will be cold, as it dives into the Sun.
Since Tim Folkerts apparently doesn’t have the courage to respond honestly to this question – posed directly to him – upthread, but rather wants to go on acting the Great “GHE” teacher and promoter elsewhere, I put it up for general consideration here instead:
How come a solar-heated surface grows warmer on average as you put a massive (thus also partly IR-active) atmosphere on top of it?
Is it because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it, atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun? Or is it because, as the atmosphere starts absorbing heat [Q] from the surface, storing some of it up internally as U, its TEMPERATURE rises, making the temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and its immediate thermal surroundings decrease [they used to be space, they’re now a warming atmosphere], thus reducing the heat transfer from the surface (its heat loss) to those thermal surroundings?
“Is it because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it, atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun? ”
No, that is metaphor lacking any intention of enlightening.
Also called, bullshit.
If you don’t understand something, why not just ask for clarity or say nothing?
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
Kristian
An N2/02 atmosphere could have a very high temperature but would radiate nothing, or next to nothing, to the surface. How would that temperature difference (much warmer than outer space) slow the surface’s rate of radiative heat loss?
Snape,
Read what I’m writing. This atmosphere is partly IR-active. With a completely radiatively inert atmosphere, in reaching the steady state, the immediate thermal surroundings of the surface would (still, or once again) be space, not the atmosphere. The thermal radiation is what CONNECTS the two systems thermodynamically even in a state of dynamic equilibrium. It enables a steady-state heat exchange between the two. But it doesn’t CAUSE it. The generation of thermal radiation is still completely dependent on the atmosphere having a temperature at all, while the atmosphere is NOT dependent on ABSORBING thermal radiation from the surface in order to warm (to gain and have a temperature). It is only dependent on being able to EMIT (its own) thermal radiation to space in order to cool.
No atmospheric temperature, no atmospheric thermal radiation. So a 100% CO2 atmosphere with no temperature can do absolutely nothing at all to insulate (and thus warm) the surface.
It goes both ways, Snape.
So concentrate on the IR-active atmosphere. What is actually the cause of rising surface temps as you place it on top of the solar-heated surface?
I think the form of insulation needs to match the form of heat transfer that your trying to lessen.
Imagine the front and back door of your home is wide open, and a cold, 30 MPH wind is blowing through. The warmth from your furnace is obviously being lost to convection.
Shut the two doors and we know the house will immediately get warmer. They (the doors) could be defined as providing insulation against convective heat transfer.
Did their temperature have anything to do with it?
Kristian
I’m bringing up an N2/02 only atmosphere because some people think such a system would be warmer than if GHG’s were included. As Chic pointed out it’s a logical place to start.
If the surface and atmosphere are only losing heat through radiation, it seems to me the only effective form of insulation is one that slows that particular means of heat transfer. There is NO LOSS from convection or convection.
We saw upthread from Norman that the atmosphere radiates according to it’s temperature, so we agree on that. But it ALSO matters what kind of gasses are up there, and how much. The more GHG’s at a particular temperature, the more downwelling radiation.
Just to be clear, I’m not one of those that think an inert atmosphere would be warmer without IR-active gases, but I think it would be warmer than a black body with no atmosphere.
–Snape says:
May 23, 2018 at 1:58 PM
Kristian
An N2/02 atmosphere could have a very high temperature but would radiate nothing, or next to nothing, to the surface. How would that temperature difference (much warmer than outer space) slow the surfaces rate of radiative heat loss?–
Quick answer by very little.
But with Earth atm is basically N2/02 and if include argon gas that about it. Though it in tropics one can have more water vapor than argon gas.
So assume you in Kansas. And skies are clear, you have N2/O2 and argon and the mass of it is 10 tons per square meter. And is vaguely like having 10 meters of water above your head.
Difference is, water has 4 times more specific heat per kg or
Cubic meter. Water blocks all longwave IR and radiate and full spectrum of IR depending upon its temperature.
If you are in water, you will be same temperature as water. 10 C water is dangerous to humans in terms dying from being too cold, in short period of time. And 10 C air is easier to keep warm enough, a jacket helps.
Now if under 10 meter of water, it being a roof. The temperature it is radiating has little effect upon the floor below it. The floor could frozen ice, or 100 C. What would effect the floor is the air temperature air will be affected by temperature of water because it is in contact with it, not due to radiant energy.
So say water is 20 C, and contained by glass (or steel) the glass will be 20 C. And say air is 20 C. And floor is an inch of water ice. The ice will cool the air (and ice is warmed by air) ice will win, and air will become close to temperature of ice, but closer they get to same temperature the less heat is transferred. And you will get cold air near the floor and near ceiling it will be closer to starting temperature of 20 C.
Remove the water, have 20 C air, and 1 inch ice, ice loses. Leave inch of ice outside in night starting at 20 C, ice will melt quicker than being under 10 meters of water, because the water blocked air convection with 10 tons air per square meter above it.
Now if instead had one ice cube, there would little difference. Or if outside was empty swimming, ice on bottom, likewise is inhibited by convectional loss.
snape…”An N2/02 atmosphere could have a very high temperature but would radiate nothing, or next to nothing, to the surface”.
N2/O2 does not need to radiate, it represents 99% of the atmosphere and it touches the surface everywhere. It can transfer heat by conduction. As far as cooling is concerned, all it has to do is rise to a higher altitude where the air is thinner and it will cool automatically without radiating.
If the Sun shone 24/7 on each square meter of the surface it would be another matter. However, one part of the surface heats variably then that surface area turns away from the Sun WITH ITS ATMOSPHERIC PORTION.
I am theorizing that the affected portion of the atmosphere can expand during the day as solar energy heats it then contracts at night, hence cooling. Charles’ Law from the Ideal Gas Law states V1/T1 = V2/T2.
I am not claiming I’m right I am throwing this out for feedback. Over the eons the Sun and the Earth have been interacting, can a steady-state be reached where radiation to space is not that essential? We know it’s going to happen anyway.
With regard to your point about N2/O2 radiating, both can absorb/emit heat fine by direct contact. If they absorb heat, they rise high into the atmosphere and the heat is reduced by a reduction in pressure.
Think steady-state over millions of years. The surface heat does not have to be dissipated 24/7.
“As far as cooling is concerned, all it has to do is rise to a higher altitude where the air is thinner and it will cool automatically without radiating.”
I don’t even know what to say.
Kristian, first I don’t owe you an answer to every question you pose. At some point, we have said all that seems useful. I thought we had reached that point, because we don’t seem to be discussing physics (like what equations to use) but rather philosophy (causality).
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As for your question, I would start by saying that the *cause* of a temperature change is heat. The temperature change is calculated according to the equation many people learned in high school:
ΔT = Q/mc
(ignoring details like phase changes, chemical reactions, etc).
If there are multiple sources of Q (sunlight, blowing hot air, evaporation from the surface, implanted electric heaters, lasers, thermal IR, etc), then you have to add all these individual Q’s to find the net Q to plug into the equation. But all you REALLY need to know are the values of all the Q. Not the temperature of the source. Not even whether the source was thermal IR or an electric heater.
(Just like all you need to know to find acceleration are the values of all the forces being applied (and the mass, of course) — not whether the force is electrostatic or gravitational or a spring or tension in a rope …).
So at a very fundamental level, Q from the surroundings (not T of the surroundings) *causes* ΔT of an object.
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We can of course take a step back and ask what caused the Q’s. You could calculate …
* electrical Q if you know I & R
* conductive Q is you know thermal conductivity and the temperatures of the object and the surroundings
* radiative Q is you know emissivities and the temperatures of the object and the surroundings.
* …
These cause Q; but Q causes ΔT. If you disagree, what ’cause and effect’ equation would you propose in place of ΔT = Q/mc?
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So let me now propose a different answer.
[a solar-heated surface grows warmer on average] because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it
atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun. Period.It is only vaguely like a second sun.
I don’t even know what you mean by “no atmospheric temperature” — every atmosphere has a temperature!
I think you are focused on the penultimate cause, not the ultimate cause. The penultimate cause is interesting. It is handy to know. The penultimate cause adds to our understanding. But ultimately ΔT = Q/mc and Q *causes* ΔT.
That’s is my position. I hope that clarifies.
Tim Folkerts says, May 23, 2018 at 3:23 PM:
Of course you don’t. But there are certain crucial questions posed where sudden silence becomes very telling indeed.
No, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. You’re just desperately evading the problem, because you feel you can’t be honest about it. You apparently have too much invested. You rather want me off your back so that you can be free to go on promoting – in peace – your dogmatic take on reality when it comes to this particular subject.
Hahahaha! Sure, Tim. So a thing causing another thing, and one thing being the effect of something else, is just philosophy. Physical processes don’t work like that at all, do they …?
Stop playing dumb, Tim, and just concede the point I’m making. You KNOW I’m right and you know that therefore you’re defending an untenable position.
Ok. Let’s go there. By all means.
So I ask the same question once again:
How come a solar-heated surface grows warmer on average as you put a massive (thus also partly IR-active) atmosphere on top of it?
Is it because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it, atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun? Or is it because, as the atmosphere starts absorbing heat [Q] from the surface, storing some of it up internally as U, its TEMPERATURE rises, making the temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and its immediate thermal surroundings decrease [they used to be space, they’re now a warming atmosphere], thus reducing the heat transfer from the surface (its heat loss) to those thermal surroundings?
Did you notice I specifally talked about HEAT and HEAT TRANSFER, Tim?
And what specifically controls that heat transfer?
Let’s go back to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation: Q_lw = σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4)
What am I describing above? Second scenario. What happens as the atmosphere warms from the transfer of heat from the surface?
And how do the radiative properties of the atmosphere contribute to the overall warming (heating) of the atmosphere? Its heat balance (in/out)? Its net accumulation of internal energy [U]?
Come on! Are you telling me you can’t see it?
Read on …
Let’s have a look at an hypothetical planet.
In the initial steady state, there is no atmosphere on top of its global surface, and so the global surface has simply equilibrated with the average radiant heat input (ASR, net SW) from the planet’s mother star, meaning, its average radiant heat output (OLR, net LW) is equal to it. In our particular case, let’s now say that the average ASR value is 296 W/m^2, and so, in the steady state, this is also the average OLR value: 296 W/m^2 IN = 296 W/m^2 OUT. This state is ideally attained at the point where the planet’s global surface T_avg has reached ~269 K. (This, of course, relies specifically on two purely hypothetical conditions to abide: The global surface is i) a blackbody, and ii) isothermal.)
We now place a massive – and very much radiatively active! – atmosphere on top of this equilibrated planetary surface. Now, just as the surface before it could be considered to start its original journey toward its original steady state temperature (269 K) from a hypothetical initial temperature around absolute zero (or 2.7 K, rather), so could the atmosphere. We simply want to see what happens as energy accumulates inside this massive atmosphere, gradually warming it.
So to begin with, before any energy has managed to be transferred as heat from the surface to this new atmosphere, the surface radiant heat loss is: q/A = σ (T_sfc^4 – T_atm^4) => σ(269^4 – 2.7^4) => 296 W/m^2, IOW just what it was before the atmosphere was placed on top of it. And remember now, this is a fully radiatively active atmosphere – it is able to absorb and emit EM radiation. The only problem is that it’s still too cold.
But what happens as this atmosphere now absorbs more and more energy from the surface (and from the local sun), thermalising it and gradually warming from it? Its temperature rises beyond that of space itself. And as a simple consequence of this, the atmosphere is now turned into an insulative layer, basically interposing a thermal barrier between the solar-heated surface and the absolute coldness of space.
As the atmosphere warms, its apparent DWLWIR to the surface increases. But the atmosphere warms, not from apparent, thermally generated ‘radiant fluxes’, but from the absorbed and thermalised energy transferred to it as heat from the surface and directly from the sun. And what happens when the surrounding temperature of a constantly heated object/surface all of a sudden increases? The temperature difference between the object/surface and its surroundings is reduced. And what does this lead to? It leads to a reduction in the rate of “heat loss” from the object/surface in question. This is true whether the mode of heat transfer happens to be ‘radiative’, ‘conductive’ or ‘convective’. And so, if we assume that the rate of incoming heat to the object/surface remains unchanged, then energy will accumulate (because Q_in > Q_out) and the object/surface will necessarily warm as a result, until its heat balance is restored (Q_in = Q_out). And what happens when the surface temperature rises as a consequence of this process? Its apparent UWLWIR increases. Which makes the (radiant) heat loss rate (DWLWIR minus UWLWIR) of the surface go up again. And so the surface radiant heat loss rate itself could theoretically stay constant during the entire warming process towards the new steady state temperature. It would be 296 W/m^2 in the initial state (296W/m^2 – 0W/m^2, 269 vs. 2.7 K), and it could be 296 W/m^2 in the final (steady) state also (say 398W/m^2 – 102W/m^2, 289 vs. 206 K).
The thing is, though, that once the massive atmosphere is put on top of the solar-heated surface, then the whole surface situation changes. Moving towards the new steady state, the atmosphere will 1) make the planet’s albedo increase substantially, and 2) absorb for itself a significant portion of the incoming heat input from the sun, so that it never manages to reach the actual surface at the bottom. This will reduce the average ASR at the surface from the original no-atmo value of 296 W/m^2 to a final +atmo value of a mere 165 W/m^2. Which would mean that about 44 % (!) of the original solar heat absorbed by the global surface is now somehow made unavailable to it by the very presence of the radiatively active atmosphere resting on top of it, either reflecting it back out to space or absorbing it for itself, before it could ever reach the surface.
This situation alone would reduce the potential steady-state surface radiant heat loss from 296 to a maximum of 165 W/m^2. But would it thereby necessarily change the surface T_avg also? No. Because the radiant heat loss (the net LW) is only constrained by the effective temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and the atmosphere, not by the individualeffective temperature of the surface and/or the atmosphere. So we couldtheoretically go from 296 minus 0 W/m^2 (net LW: 296 W/m^2) in the initial steady state (at 269 vs. 2.7 K), to 296 minus a potential 131 W/m^2 (net LW: 165 W/m^2) in the final steady state (at 269 vs. 219 K).
However, it doesn’t end there. You see, more things change at the surface once the massive atmosphere is put on top of the solar-heated surface than just the total heat balance (moving from Q_in(296W/m^2)= Q_out(296W/m^2) to Q_in(165W/m^2)=Q_out(165W/m^2)). The surface heat budget after all also stops being a purely radiative one. And this fact is an extremely important one to appreciate, because it has obvious implications for the surface radiant heat loss, which used to make up 100 % of the total. It won’t anymore. It will naturally have to “make room for”other losses, NON-radiative ones. IOW: It will, by physical necessity, become significantly smaller. Even without any increase in atmospheric IR opacity.
And so this really changes the whole narrative. The surface radiant heat loss ISN’T reduced because of a rise in the effective atmospheric temperature leading to a rise in apparent atmospheric DWLWIR to the surface. It is simply reduced because there is less ‘need’ for it, because other heat loss mechanisms than the radiative one are also now contributing to the total.
So you see, the absolute magnitude of the surface radiant heat loss is thoroughly constrained first by the heat INPUT to the surface (the ASR), then by the (effectiveness of the) other heat loss mechanisms at work. It can’t be determined simply according to some perceived atmospheric level of IR opacity (or ’emissivity’).
In the end, we might have a situation where, after having emplaced a massive atmosphere around our hypothetical planet, the surface steady state corresponds to a Q_in = Q_out of only 165=165 W/m^2 (rather than one of 296=296 W/m^2), where the radiant part is further reduced to, say, 53 W/m^2. And so we’re left with the following inescapable apparent DWLWIR-UWLWIR relationship: 398 – 345 W/m^2 (net LW: 53 W/m^2), at 289 (T_sfc) vs. 279 K (T_atm).
The thing is, then, that this doesn’t tell us anything at all about how we got from a surface T_avg of 269 to one of 289 K. Nothing about physical causes. All it really tells us is that a) the surface steady-state T_avg happens to be 289 K, and that b) the surface steady-state radiant heat loss happens to be 53 W/m^2. 289 K => 398 W/m^2, and 398 – 53 = 345 W/m^2. This is exactly how a pyrgeometer would compute the apparent “sky radiation” (DWLWIR). But it tells us nothing about why the radiant heat loss happens to be 53 W/m^2 and not some other value, nor why the surface T_avg happens to be 289 K and not higher, not lower.
Remember how, when we first placed the atmosphere on top of the solar-heated surface, the heat input to the surface from the sun was 296 W/m^2, and there were no other heat loss mechanisms in operation except the radiative one. Moreover, the no-(or pre-)atmo steady state surface temperature was 269 K (296W/m^2 IN = 296W/m^2 OUT), and this was also the initial situation as the massive, radiatively active atmosphere (at 2.7 K) was placed around the planet – the DWLWIR was practically zero, because the atmosphere was too cold.
Then several things happened: i) the atmosphere started warming (from absorbing energy transferred to it as heat), ii) the heat input to the surface was reduced, and iii) other heat loss mechanisms besides the radiative one became available and operative as the system kept growing warmer (a direct result of the warming atmosphere). And so, from the initial to the final steady state, we went from a surface net LW (radiant heat loss) shedding 296 W/m^2 to one at a mere 53 W/m^2. Meaning, we went from a temperature difference of [269-2.7=] ~266 K between the surface and the APPARENT “effective atmospheric level of downward radiation” to one of [289-279=] 10 degrees. Does this mean that the atmosphere somehow got immensely more opaque to outgoing surface IR and that its “downward emissivity” at the same time soared, lowering the effective level of “sky radiation” to the surface by this huge amount, during the journey from t_i to t_f? No, of course it doesn’t. The atmosphere was just as IR active the entire time. In fact, if anything, it grew LESS active, becoming less dense as it warmed and thus thermally expanded.
Here’s what happened instead: 1) the atmosphere got warmer, meaning, the temperature difference between the surface and the layers of air above it grew steadily smaller; 2) the overall heat input to the surface from the sun, the ASR (net SW), grew steadily smaller, and so the surface target output value naturally decreased with it; 3) the radiative share of the total surface heat output dropped significantly from its initial 100 % as NON-radiative heat loss mechanisms naturally rose to prominence …
To conclude:
1)
The increase in DWLWIR is an apparent radiative effect of the warming of the atmosphere. When the atmosphere warms beyond space, from absorbing, thermalising and storing up energy transferred to it as heat from the surface and directly from the sun, the temperature difference between the surface and its surroundings decreases, and so its total heat loss is naturally reduced. This forces the surface to warm so as to restore its heat balance (the heat input is assumed constant). Yes, if the atmosphere in question is completely radiatively inert, it (or the main portion of it) will eventually be thermodynamically disconnected from the surface, and so space can still be considered the surface’s only significant cold reservoir. But as soon as you make the atmosphere radiatively active, you will connect it thermally with the surface, and so now the atmospheric temperature will directly affect the total heat loss from the surface, which will be greatly reduced at any given surface T_avg relative to the former situation, once the atmospheric T_avg rises above the ‘temperature’ of space. You might fool yourself into thinking that it is in fact the increase in the apparent atmospheric DWLWIR itself that forces the surface temperature to rise in this situation. But it’s not. The absolute rise in TEMPERATURE is the cause. The DWLWIR is but a tool enabling the atmospheric temperature to connect with the surface temperature in the first place. When the atmospheric temperature rises in this situation, it will then simply be able to affect the surface temperature, because now the atmosphere is thermodynamically connected with the surface, and so it effectively replaces space as the surface’s thermal surroundings, meaning that, as it warms, the temperature difference between the surface and its surroundings goes down (this couldn’t happen with only the vacuum of space around, since a vacuum cannot warm). And as the temperature difference between the surface and its surroundings goes down, there will be a decrease in both radiant, conductive and evaporative/convective heat loss from the surface. Forcing the surface temperature to rise.
The increase in DWLWIR is simply one expression of this decrease in temperature difference between the surface and its surroundings, thus of the reduction in surface heat loss.
2)
The steady-state magnitude of the surface radiant heat loss is to a certain extent simply a function of the steady-state magnitude of the non-radiant heat losses (conduction and evaporation/convection), which will inevitably start “eating into” the radiant portion of the total as soon as a massive atmosphere is in place on top of a solar-heated planetary surface. At some point along the continuum – from 100 to 0 % – a balance will be struck. It simply depends on how effective the radiant vs. the non-radiant losses are at ridding the surface of energy at some particular temperature. This will vary from place to place on the same planet, as it will from planet to planet. The relationship between this steady-state ratio of heat losses and the steady-state surface temperature, though, is apparently not a straightforward (as in ‘linear’) one.
Case in point, from the real Earth system:
The total heat loss from the surface in the Sahara-Sahel and in the Congo are the same. As is the total heat gain from the Sun. However, the radiant portion of the total heat loss is *much* larger in the Sahara-Sahel (103-107 out of 174 W/m^2) than it is in the Congo (34-51 out of 174 W/m^2). This circumstance, though, doesn’t translate at all into a lower surface T_avg in the former region. So there’s no way cou could just draw the simple conclusion that a region with an equal heat input, but with a considerably “stronger GHE” (much more DWLWIR, much smaller Net LW (radiative heat loss)) will necessarily end up having a higher T_avg than one where the “GHE” is much “weaker”. In fact, the surface T_avg is lowerby several degrees in the Congo (with equal heat input and a nominally much stronger “GHE”) than in the Sahara-Sahel (with equal heat input and a nominally much weaker “GHE”).
So how come the radiative heat loss in the Congo is reduced to a mere 34-51 W/m^2, only one half to one third that of the Sahara-Sahel, and not creating ‘extra warming’ whatsoever? The other heat loss mechanisms should, after all, be larger only as compensation for the reduced radiative loss – according to “GHE”/”AGW” ‘theory’. And when a heat loss grows in intensity in order to compensate for an increased “radiative forcing”, it can only do so as a result of … A TEMPERATURE RISE. So if all of this is true, why isn’t the Congo considerably HOTTER than the Sahara-Sahel!?
Another question one might ask: How come the surface radiative heat loss in the Congo is so strongly reduced in the first place? On the one hand, there’s much higher atmospheric humidity and much more clouds. On the other hand, the power of evaporative heat loss and deep moist convection is much greater in wet climes than in dry ones. The two effects go hand in hand.
But, one might counter, if it weren’t for the radiative properties of the atmosphere, the troposphere wouldn’t be warmer at the bottom and colder at the top in a steady state of dynamic equilibrium, and that is the very reason why the “GHE” works. The atmosphere AS A WHOLE would most likely end up warmer, yes, but it would be more or less isothermal from the shallow and wildly fluctuating boundary layer at the bottom and all the way to the top, which means that the lowermost part of it, the one closest to the surface, the one that matters the most to the surficial rate of heat loss, would most likely be cooler.
And you’d be right. But this would also unfortunately be an irrelevant point to make. Because it hasn’t really got anything to do with what I’m talking about.
If there were no IR-active constituents in the atmosphere at all, if the atmosphere had no radiative properties of any kind, couldn’t significantly absorb, emit, scatter or reflect EM radiation, then it would eventually, towards the steady state of dynamic equilibrium, effectively be disconnected thermodynamically from the surface. The “clutch would be disengaged”, and all thermal causation between the two systems would cease as a result. But that still doesn’t make the CLUTCH the cause of surface warming. It only makes it the – by all means, absolutely essential! – connecting device.
This is an on/off switch. Either the two systems are connected thermodynamically, or they’re not. There’s nothing in between. If they are connected, then there will naturally be a negative tropospheric temperature gradient, the temperature falling off from the heating end (the surface) towards the cooling end (the tropopause). But what you crucially need in order to establish and sustain that negative profile is ‘convection’.Earth’s own thermal radiation (that isn’t emitted straight out through the atmospheric window to space) really only has TWO roles to play in all this:
a) As one of several heat INPUTs (from the surface to the atmosphere), and
b) as the lone heat OUTPUT (from the atmosphere to space).
Which once more brings us back to the fundamental realisation that the atmosphere only needs radiative properties for ONE reason: to be able to COOL. The atmosphere would easily WARM adequately with or without the ability to significantly absorb radiation, but it wouldn’t be able to adequately COOL without the ability to significantly emit radiation.
And so, relating directly to the attemped counterargument above, the heating of the atmospheric layer closest to the surface is NOT dependent on the air’s ability to absorb thermal radiation from the surface, but the cooling of the troposphere as we move up towards the tropopause is dependent on the air’s ability to emit thermal radiation to space. In other words, as the Sun heats the surface and its temperature as a result rises swiftly during the early part of the day, the surface will in turn start heating the lowermost part of the air column resting on top of it by way of several different heat transfer mechanisms, only one of which will be radiative. The diurnal heating of the lowermost part of the troposphere simply isn’t a purely radiative process. In fact, the radiative part isn’t really needed at all. It’s there, it happens to contribute, but it’s not at all necessary for the process to occur and go forward. The Sun heats the surface, and the surface in turn heats the air layers closest to it.
What’s interesting from that point on, though, is what happens next. This is where the radiative properties of the atmosphere really pull their weight. Their contribution at the cooling end is indispensable. It simply helps draw the heat up from the surface air layers and towards the top. If there were no cooling aloft, complementing the parallel heating down low, there would be no incentive for convection to pull the surface heat up and away, because it would ultimately have nowhere to deliver it. And so, the negative tropospheric temperature gradient is the product of a grand collaborative effort between three different, but very much interconnected, thermodynamic processes:
# Surface (solar) heating=> tropospheric heating down low (IR radiation NOT a necessary factor),
# tropospheric cooling up high (IR radiation a necessary factor), and
# internal heat transfer between the heating end and the cooling end by way of convection (IR radiation NOT a necessary factor).
And so you see, the troposphere is NOT warm down low – but IS cool up high – because of Earth’s own thermal radiation.
You can’t REDUCE the temperature gradient away from the surface of the Earth by making the air more IR active!
If only Kristian had used the time constructing his epistles by reading up on basic meteorology, he could have explained the basics. Instead Kristian chooses to follow his own agenda.
“(This, of course, relies specifically on two purely hypothetical conditions to abide: The global surface is i) a blackbody, and ii) isothermal.)”
Near BB & ii) Not isothermal, the dark side temperatures of any real planet will be on avg. lower than the lit side temperatures.
“if the atmosphere had no radiative properties of any kind”
This is like dividing by zero after which Kristian can come with any result Kristian wants to show.
“You can’t REDUCE the temperature gradient away from the surface of the Earth by making the air more IR active!”
Actually, basic meteorology shows nature responds with a reduced temperature gradient away from the surface of the Earth as the air becomes more IR active as Kristian’s often cited Held and Soden 2000 explain, also Manabe and Strickler Fig. 4 1964, Manabe and Wetherald Fig 16 1967 so forth.
All show as IR active gas ppm increases, the surface increases in temperature and the stratosphere equally cools (no net change in system U) reducing the temperature gradient from the surface.
To show you have something important Kristian, you first need to show these basic meteorology paper Figures and discussions are substantially wrong.
“All show as IR active gas ppm increases, the surface increases in temperature and the stratosphere equally cools (no net change in system U) reducing the temperature gradient from the surface.”
How can that be? A cooler stratosphere and warmer surface increases the gradient.
Good catch, the lingo Kristian used is not precise, I copied it since that wording has become commonplace around here. Actually it is more correct to write cooler stratosphere and warmer surface decreases the slope of the troposphere T gradient as should be apparent that is what I meant from the ref. to Manabe’s papers. Kristian disagrees with Manabe that added IR active gas ppm warms the lower troposphere consistent with the analogy in the top post, cools the lower stratosphere as Manabe shows.
Kristian, I’ll address just a few points.
I am starting to realize one significant, initial difference hinges on this:
“Now, just as the surface before it could be considered to start its original journey toward its original steady state temperature (269 K) from a hypothetical initial temperature around absolute zero”
We could suppose the atmosphere is initially very cold and has essentially no internal energy. Let me point out, however, that this is a very specific assumption — one that is not at all obvious or necessary. For one thing, an “atmosphere” at 2.7K would be entirely solid (or liquid in the case of helium).
To me, a much more reasonable/intiutive/simple initial condition would be something like
* uniform temperature @ 269K, or
* 269K @ surface, cooling at the adiabatic lapse rate, or even
* really hot, to match the “original journey” of the surface from molten rock DOWN to 269 K, or maybe
* 269/2 K to “split the difference” between the temperature of the surface and space
To even be called an “atmosphere” you would probably want to start somewhere at or above ~ 100K so that a few common materials like N2, O2, Ar, & H2 will actually be gases.
So in any of my much more reasonable/intiutive/simple initial conditions, then yes, thermal IR from the atmosphere immediately starts to shine on the surface, providing Q and helping to warm the surface.
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Once we move beyond the direct, immediate cause of temperature changes, then things rapidly get much more complicated — as your multi-page post shows. A complex interplay of conduction and convection and radiation. Of sunlight and “earthlight” and “airlight”.
You have a lot of good thoughts about the causes of the causes. And then causes of the causes of the surface temperature. There is no real point, buried in Roy’s blog, to try to address each point at the level it deserves.
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And a word or two about the “end game”.
I’ll go along with “You cant REDUCE the temperature gradient away from the surface of the Earth by making the air more IR active!”.
What you can and will do is make the radiation that escapes to space come from a higher altitude. And since you say the gradient will stay the same, then there must be a larger difference between top and bottom. To maintain the same TOTAL power to space, this means the very top MUST be cooler and the very bottom MUST be warmer. All because of the reduced radiation at the top due to increased GHG.
Tim writes: “I’ll go along with “You can’t REDUCE the temperature gradient away from the surface of the Earth by making the air more IR active!”.”
So you go along with Kristian’s claim Held and Soden 2000, Manabe and Strickler Fig. 4 1964, Manabe and Wetherald Fig 16 1967 are wrong?
Why so? Semantic issue or fundamental?
Tim: “the very bottom MUST be warmer.”
Kristian: “the heating of the atmospheric layer closest to the surface is NOT dependent on the air’s ability to absorb thermal radiation from the surface…the troposphere is NOT warm down low”
These clips shows Tim does go along with Manabe’s papers and not with Kristian’s comments.
Maybe Tim can fundamentally ‘splain or point out a semantic or context issue.
Tim,
It’s hard to follow Kristian’s math, but I think he might be onto something conceptually.
Make the starting point a reasonable surface temperature where gases are gases at 100K. Picture the temperature gradient as something like 4K/km near the surface tapering off higher up to near 2.7K. Without IR gases, the final “equilibrium” temperature falls short of present day conditions because of the extreme surface temperatures on an inert atmosphere.
Now start over with IR-active gases and as the planet warms from 100K, the IR-gases cool the upper atmosphere so the surface has to be warmer when the final temperature is reached. The temperature gradient would be greater than the hypothetical inert atmosphere, but not as great as a purely radiative atmosphere. That’s because of the convective influence doing the heavy lifting moving the heat higher up. There’s no need to “make the radiation that escapes to space come from a higher altitude.”
I forgot this: So making the air more IR-active will decreases the lapse rate and facilitate both the surface and troposphere cooling.
Chic, describing only in text here limits info. transfer. If you want to understand better with a graph, check Manabe and Wetherald 1967 Fig. 16: Vertical distributions of temperatures in radiative convective equilibrium for various values of CO2 content.
As CO2 ppm increases 150, 300, 600 the equilibrium temperature at 1000mb (surface) increases and the equilibrium temperature at about 80mb (20km altitude) and above decreases more and more. If you shift the 150 line over to the 600 line above 20km, the same equilibrium radiating temperature is at ever higher altitudes.
For example, at 150ppm radiation at 255K is around 33km and for 600ppm radiation at 255K is from around 45km.
Making the air more IR-active decreases the slope of the T vs. altitude line line up to about 0.2bar. Above that the air is isothermal for about 8km of altidue due to being warmed from above not below so there is no convection. Then at 20km the slope inverts warming with altitude but at ever decreasing amounts as CO2 ppm increases.
Semantic issues aside I hope in describing the actual graph.
Ball4,
Your description of Fig. 16 is very good.
Now look at Fig. 5, showing pure radiative conditions either assuming fixed relative or absolute humidity. Either way the temperature gradients (lapse rates) are greater than the radiative convective model with fixed relative humidity. So it appears the models predict that convection reduces the lapse rate. That makes sense to me.
Now go to Fig. 11. It looks like increasing humidity increases the lapse rate or at least increases surface temperature with no change at the tropopause. So how can that be if the wet lapse rate reduces the dry lapse rate, not increases it?
So if the model is wrong for water vapor, how can it be right for CO2 in Fig. 16?
Not sure how you draw the conclusion the model is wrong for wv. Fig. 11 shows as the opacity of the atm. decreases due less wv so does surface temperature. This is the same as Fig. 16 atm. opacity decreases due to less CO2 so too decreases surface temperature.
Note Fig. 11 above 0.2 bar there is very little wv while CO2 remains well mixed so there is not as much wv effect on stratosphere temperatures.
I’m trying to draw your attention to what actually happens in real life. Then go to the model and see if it makes sense. If it doesn’t, there is probably something wrong with the model. Or do you think the atmosphere is wrong?
The dry lapse rate is over 9 K/km, is it not? When the air is humid, the wet lapse rate can be as low as 5 K/km almost. Average lapse rate is usually considered to be 6.5 K/km, yes? So an increase in humidity should show up in the model as decreasing the lapse rate. But the model doesn’t do that in Fig. 11 for humidity. So why should I believe what the model suggests for CO2?
“So why should I believe what the model suggests for CO2?”
You can believe what you want.
Do you believe the atmosphere is wrong? I don’t. A danger in deriving the DALR is that DALR 9.8 can be mistaken for what the lapse rate in the atm. is or should be as you are doing. This paper is dealing with actual measured avg. lapse rates i.e. the lapse rates that don’t artificially exclude phase change i.e. condensation.
The meteorological significance of the DALR is that it is the boundary between statically stable and unstable atm.s. It does turn out that for well mixed atm. layers far from surfaces in which phase changes are not taking place the DALR is often measured as the lapse rate of air temperature which is not the subject of this paper allowing for natural condensation in the lapse rate of air temperature around 6.5K/km in Fig. 11 from the measured avg. midlatitude US Standard LR.
My question should have been why would you believe the model results for CO2. Have the model results been validated?
The DALR has been measured by radiosondes and corresponds very closely to a calculated one.
I don’t know what else you are getting at. I wasn’t concerned about the meteorological significance of the DALR other than that the lapse rate goes down as humidity increases. But the model shows it possibly increasing some or, at a minimum, not changing. A model failure.
Tim Folkerts says, May 24, 2018 at 4:39 PM:
It is not an “assumption” at all, Tim. Here’s what I specifically wrote about it: “We simply want to see what happens as energy accumulates inside this massive atmosphere, gradually warming it.”
We’re setting up a particular hypothetical scenario to enable us to analyse one side of a problem.
It’s no different, really, from your “What if the atmosphere didn’t have any GHGs in it?” thought experiment.
Hahaha! Tim, you’re not this stupid. I am not claiming this scenario to be a physically realisable one. I am presenting it with the sole purpose of showing you how temperature governs thermal radiation. You know, that direct causal link that you for some reason cannot get yourself to acknowledge as true.
When, in this particular scenario, the DWLWIR starts increasing, it is ONLY due to the rise in atmospheric TEMPERATURE. It is a direct radiative EFFECT of the increase in atmospheric temperature.
My simple point is: No temperature, no thermal radiation. You can’t have thermal radiation without temperature. In order for an atmosphere to work as an insulating layer on a solar-heated surface at all, it is imperative that that atmosphere is physically able to acquire and maintain a temperature higher than that of space. And the ‘radiative properties’ of an atmosphere will NOT in themselves enable that atmosphere to acquire and maintain a temperature higher than that of space.
But I am not claiming that you could actually have an atmosphere at absolute zero, Tim. Get real!
Ultimately, your objections to my thought experiment is of the exact same kind as the ones being complained about by people from ‘your side’ of the argument (even by you yourself, I seem to recall) whenever a thought experiment aiming to elucidate in some fashion the “GHE” is submitted, as totally nitpicky, irrelevant and, as such, utterly missing the point of the entire mental exercise.
Two things: 1) So now you’ve just gone and changed the initial conditions of MY scenario to YOUR liking, and THEN, presumably, you can go on and pretend that what YOU claim is somehow still correct (even when it’s obviously not); 2) how is the thermal IR from the atmosphere that “shines down on the surface” PROVIDING Q? What Q is it “providing”?
Much simpler to state the whole thing like this, Tim (in accordance with standard thermodynamic principles):
The TEMPERATURE of the atmosphere is higher than that of space, therefore the temperature DIFFERENCE between the constantly solar-heated surface and its thermal surroundings is smaller than before, and therefore its (total) HEAT LOSS is reduced as a result, which in turn forces it to warm to restore its heat balance with the Sun. It INSULATES the surface.
As soon as you bring in Q, then you should drop that whole notion of “thermal IR from the atmosphere shining on the surface”. That’s just confused. All you need at that point are temperature differences.
Ah, but this is once again the THEORY speaking, Tim. Not reality. This is what the THEORY says. And I’m fully aware of what the THEORY says.
If you read what I wrote in my (admittedly somewhat lengthy) posts above, you would’ve seen that I addressed this ‘argument’ specifically, and gave empirical examples as to why there’s no reason to assume that this is an actual ‘working mechanism’ causing the ‘thermal effect’ as postulated. It simply isn’t how the real world works. Sahara-Sahel vs. the Congo for one. And there is more. The ToA observations over the past 33 years. Earth vs. Mars (and Venus, and Titan, and other planets with substantial atmospheres).
I will quote a few passages for you to (re)read:
“Remember how, when we first placed the atmosphere on top of the solar-heated surface, the heat input to the surface from the sun was 296 W/m^2, and there were no other heat loss mechanisms in operation except the radiative one. Moreover, the no-(or pre-)atmo steady state surface temperature was 269 K (296W/m^2 IN = 296W/m^2 OUT), and this was also the initial situation as the massive, radiatively active atmosphere (at 2.7 K) was placed around the planet – the DWLWIR was practically zero, because the atmosphere was too cold.
Then several things happened: i) the atmosphere started warming (from absorbing energy transferred to it as heat), ii) the heat input to the surface was reduced, and iii) other heat loss mechanisms besides the radiative one became available and operative as the system kept growing warmer (a direct result of the warming atmosphere).
And so, from the initial to the final steady state, we went from a surface net LW (radiant heat loss) shedding 296 W/m^2 to one at a mere 53 W/m^2. Meaning, we went from a temperature difference of [269-2.7=] ~266 K between the surface and the APPARENT “effective atmospheric level of downward radiation” to one of [289-279=] 10 degrees. Does this mean that the atmosphere somehow got immensely more opaque to outgoing surface IR and that its “downward emissivity” at the same time soared, lowering the effective level of “sky radiation” to the surface by this huge amount, during the journey from t_i to t_f? No, of course it doesn’t. The atmosphere was just as IR active the entire time. In fact, if anything, it grew LESS active, becoming less dense as it warmed and thus thermally expanded.
Here’s what happened instead: 1) the atmosphere got warmer, meaning, the temperature difference between the surface and the layers of air above it grew steadily smaller; 2) the overall heat input to the surface from the sun, the ASR (net SW), grew steadily smaller, and so the surface target output value naturally decreased with it; 3) the radiative share of the total surface heat output dropped significantly from its initial 100 % as NON-radiative heat loss mechanisms naturally rose to prominence …”
And,
“Case in point, from the real Earth system:
The total heat loss from the surface in the Sahara-Sahel and in the Congo are the same. As is the total heat gain from the Sun. However, the radiant portion of the total heat loss is *much* larger in the Sahara-Sahel (103-107 out of 174 W/m^2) than it is in the Congo (34-51 out of 174 W/m^2). This circumstance, though, doesn’t translate at all into a lower surface T_avg in the former region. So there’s no way cou could just draw the simple conclusion that a region with an equal heat input, but with a considerably “stronger GHE” (much more DWLWIR, much smaller Net LW (radiative heat loss)) will necessarily end up having a higher T_avg than one where the “GHE” is much “weaker”. In fact, the surface T_avg is lowerby several degrees in the Congo (with equal heat input and a nominally much stronger “GHE”) than in the Sahara-Sahel (with equal heat input and a nominally much weaker “GHE”).
So how come the radiative heat loss in the Congo is reduced to a mere 34-51 W/m^2, only one half to one third that of the Sahara-Sahel, and not creating ‘extra warming’ whatsoever? The other heat loss mechanisms should, after all, be larger only as compensation for the reduced radiative loss – according to “GHE”/”AGW” ‘theory’. And when a heat loss grows in intensity in order to compensate for an increased “radiative forcing”, it can only do so as a result of … A TEMPERATURE RISE. So if all of this is true, why isn’t the Congo considerably HOTTER than the Sahara-Sahel!?
Another question one might ask: How come the surface radiative heat loss in the Congo is so strongly reduced in the first place? On the one hand, there’s much higher atmospheric humidity and much more clouds. On the other hand, the power of evaporative heat loss and deep moist convection is much greater in wet climes than in dry ones. The two effects go hand in hand.”
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/the-congo-vs-sahara-sahel-once-more/
It is not the amount of IR-active gas molecules in the air that determines how high the “ERL” is pushed, Tim. It is the TOTAL amount of gas molecules in the air; the bulk density and pressure. And a higher “ERL” does not in itself guarantee a higher T_s.
Chic 11:09 am: “DALR other than that the lapse rate goes down as humidity increases.”
So…tell us what relative humidity was used to calculate the DALR so we can determine if it went down or not.
“The DALR has been measured by radiosondes and corresponds very closely to a calculated one.”
Yes, the 6.5K/km in midlatitude tropics in Fig. 11 has been measured & avg.d by ~1000s radiosondes, weather balloons. Some radiosondes measured between 6.5 and 9.8+ (the DALR away from surfaces and no condensation, calm clear sky) and some below 6.5 to about 5 (cloudy, condensing a lot). The atm. on avg. is 6.5. nowhere near 9.8 LR and the temperatures on the bottom are global median so the 6.5 is appropriate atm. LR to use in Fig. 11. The model is well validated as you say by radisondes because thats where the model LR used comes from.
Later on there are papers that show the radiative convective model by then called LBL RTM (line by line radiative transfer method codes) that reproduces the local radiosonde thermometer lapse to within order of 1% (Clough Iacono 1995 and follow-ups) so there is no Manabe model failure as you claim, the model is good to instrument accuracy mainly because it is from and verified by instruments.
Ball4,
“So…tell us what relative humidity was used to calculate the DALR so we can determine if it went down or not.”
It doesn’t matter what the DALR is calculated to be. The MEASURED DALR is about 9.8. By definition it is at 0% humidity. The measured 100% relative humidity wet lapse rate is maybe 5? So as relative humidity increases from 0 to 100%, the lapse rate decreases.
While the dry adiabatic lapse rate is a constant 9.8 °C/km, the moist adiabatic lapse rate varies strongly with temperature. A typical value is around 5 °C/km [wiki].
Manabe’s model does not show a decreasing lapse rate with increasing in humidity in Fig. 11. The model was not ready for prime time. Since then the model may have been tweaked, but still has not been validated to my knowledge. Do you have better information?
Correct thread: “The MEASURED DALR is about 9.8. By definition it is at 0% humidity.”
How can you measure a definiton? And no, by defintion the DALR is not 0% absolute or relative humidity. The DALR def. allows for no condensation, not no humidity.
When the atm. is measured in the troposphere to be ~9.8, there is always much wv so there is always nonzero relative & absolute humidity. I’m asking you what is that RH in the DALR calculation because you claim Manabe model is wrong due the RH difference. To know the difference in RH, DALR from Manabe, YOU must know the two inputs to get the difference.
My contention is that you can not support your assertion Manabe model is wrong because you will not find RH in the DALR derivation. Until you can show that, your assertion Manabe model Fig. 11 is wrong remains unsupported.
I must admit that I assumed DALR meant dry as in no humidity. Online sources go from bone dry to anything less than saturated (100% relative) humidity. Apparently people seem more interested in what happens to the lapse rate during convection or as air parcels subside. That seems to be Ball4’s concern.
Manabe’s Fig. 11 shows calculated temperature profiles at 0.2, 0.6, and 1.0 relative humidity. Other than a parallel increase in temperature at all lower troposphere altitudes, there is no or possibly a small decrease in the projected lapse rate as the humidity decreases. If the moist or saturated lapse rate is 5 and any substantially less moist lapse rate approaches 10, then it seems obvious that a model of the atmosphere should show an increasing lapse rate as humidity decreases. Manabe’s model is not showing that.
Ball4’s position is …, well who knows. But he thinks the model is accurate and therefore increasing CO2 must increase global temperature. That’s his position and he’s sticking to it.
“Online sources go from bone dry to anything less than saturated (100% relative) humidity.”
Seems expected since DALR does not include RH in its derivation.
Bone dry to less than saturated air can sport the same DALR. When the LR in the actual atm. is measured close to DALR there is always various amounts wv present as no air exists naturally on our planet without a wv content.
Any conclusion about the accuracy of the basic model in Fig. 11 should be based on the bulk of the 1967 paper (and any previous ref.s) not sound bites in comments.
If you haven’t noticed, Chic, Ball4 is a troll. Just like David Appell …
DFTT!
Tim Folkerts says, May 23, 2018 at 3:23 PM:
Oooh, a little gem right there! I’ll definitely save that one.
–Tim Folkerts says, May 23, 2018 at 3:23 PM:
[a solar-heated surface grows warmer on average] because that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it (). Period.
It is only vaguely like a second sun.
Oooh, a little gem right there! Ill definitely save that one.–
Obviously Tim is wrong. But in certain sense he is correct.
But the radiation is diffused SW radiation.
Or the indirect sunlight.
At noon, clear sky, sun near Zenith, one gets about 1050 watts per square of direct sunlight. And get 1120 watts per square meters of direct and indirect sunlight.
Wiki, sunlight.
And that 70 watts per square meter is important if have a planet mostly covered by a ocean.
“Or is it because, as the atmosphere starts absorbing heat [Q] from the surface, storing some of it up internally as U, its TEMPERATURE rises, making the temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and its immediate thermal surroundings decrease [they used to be space, theyre now a warming atmosphere], thus reducing the heat transfer from the surface (its heat loss) to those thermal surroundings? ”
One could say, a problem with that story is it does not warm enough.
A main aspect of an atmosphere is it warms a sphere by creating a more uniform air temperature. And less atmosphere is less uniform. Earth has enough, Mars does not.
But if at high latitude, like Europe, one could say Earth lacks enough atmosphere, and to make to warm enough one has include H2O, the ocean and the water vapor provides enough uniformity to atmosphere warming to enough of the sphere.
Or Europe is warmer than it should be, if you are not allowing for additional warmth due to H2O.
So atmosphere and H2O are transporting warmth to the further corners of the world.
But this is not warm enough.
Now your story might be why don’t things freeze at night. And for things to freeze or water to freeze, air must be at 0 C.
If air at 2 C, things do not freeze (though it can snow when air temperature is 2 C, because at higher elevation, air is cold enough freeze water, it is also possible to have freezing ground and be rained on, giving freezing rain (or an ice storm). But without some weather event bringing warm or cool air in, one needs 0 C air to have the surface freezing.
And factor here is any water vapor will condense in colder air above the surface, any water droplets will freeze in colder air in higher elevation air above the surface air. Both have warming effects effecting surface air temperature.
Anyhow the insulative effects of warm air regarding radiant
heat is another factor.
But still are getting enough warm and/or not allowing enough variance to explain glacial and interglacial periods. And not explaining Venus.
And I would say glacial periods and Venus are a big part of the climatic religious mysteries.
kristian…”Is it because:
1) that atmosphere simply starts radiating down on it, atmospheric temperature or no atmospheric temperature, as if it were a second sun? Or
2)is it because, as the atmosphere starts absorbing heat [Q] from the surface, storing some of it up internally as U, its TEMPERATURE rises, making the temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and its immediate thermal surroundings decrease…”
2) agrees completely with Stefan-Boltzmann’s (T2^4 – T1^4) whereas 1) contradicts S-B.
S-B claims the heat dissipation will reduce as you bring the temperatures closer together.
The atmosphere as a second Sun is sci-fi, better suited to Star Trek.
Now, if I could just convince you that heat is real and related to atomic motion. ☺
On page 31, Clausius clearly states: “In what follows the quantity U will therefore be called the Energy of the body.” Not heat as you want to say, but Energy of the body. In modern texts this has been changed to internal energy. *This* is the energy related to atomic motion.
Tim, yes. That is so simple. I doubt Kristian or Gordon will learn anything though. I’ll add the form of energy:
*This* is the kinetic energy related to atomic motion.
ball4…”*This* is the kinetic energy related to atomic motion”.
You have a lack of understand as to what kinetic energy means. What you are claiming is akin to claiming electrical current does not flow through a conductor as electrons, that it is simply kinetic energy.
Both are true but no one has a problem naming the kinetic energy of electrons as electrical energy.
If I push a boulder off a cliff, as it travels through space it has kinetic energy, but what kind of energy? You could call it mechanical energy because it represents work where a force is exerted over a distance, or you could call it gravitational energy.
Kinetic energy means ‘energy in motion’. It tells you nothing about what kind of energy is in motion, therefore it is a generic description of energy.
So is internal energy. All processes involving energy have internal energy.
If you took a long metal rod of 1″ diameter and heated one end with a torch flame, you could go to the other end and likely feel no heat. As you ran your hand up the rod toward the flame you would notice a temperature gradient, however, if the flame was hot enough, you had better not run your hand right up to the flame.
What’s causing the temperature gradient? You might correctly claim it is kinetic energy, or internal energy, but that still does not name the energy. We need a name for the energy.
Many of us know the name already, it is thermal energy, or heat as we often call it. Heat flows through metal like an electric current, however, you would not call it an electric current because there is no electromotive force driving the current. Furthermore, a whopping great current would heat the rod uniformly, there would be no temperature gradient.
The temperature gradient is caused by heat being transferred from the flame, at a temperature of 3000C in the case of an acetylene torch. Heat flows from the hot end of the rod to the cool end.
This modern theory you espouse claims heat is a transfer of energy, or energy in transit.
WHAT KIND OF ENERGY????
Is it electrical energy, mechanical energy, or chemical energy? It is definitely not gravitational energy nor is it nuclear energy.
IT IS THERMAL ENERGY!!!
Why would anyone define heat as the transfer of thermal energy?
“I doubt…Gordon will learn.”
I claim I was right!
“What you are claiming is akin to claiming electrical current does not flow through a conductor as electrons..”
I make no such claim Gordon. When an electron moves (flows) thru a circuit the electron has KE which is determined by the movement of its mass. The electron mass also sports nuclear energy. If the electron is rotating, it sports rotational energy in addition to its linear KE.
“Kinetic energy means ‘energy in motion’.”
No Gordon, KE is mass in motion.
“Many of us know the name already, it is thermal energy, or heat as we often call it.”
Incorrectly as Kristian points out above 5:24am: “it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
Thermal energy is short for therm-odynamic intern-al energy Clausius called U.
“Heat flows from the hot end of the rod to the cool end.”
Not since the caloric theory was discarded by science and replaced by kinetic theory.
“This modern theory you espouse claims heat is a transfer of energy, or energy in transit. WHAT KIND OF ENERGY????”
Kinetic energy of the object constituent particle’s mass in motion i.e. thermodynamic internal energy, U increases in one object, U decreases in another object in contact, no thing flowed.
“Why would anyone define heat as the transfer of thermal energy?”
I wouldn’t as it is incorrect to refer to the heat in a body to transfer out. Science has discarded the caloric fluid flowing in your iron bar. You won’t succeed claiming heat has any kind of corporeal existence to physically “flow” Gordon, elegant tests in the 1800s showed your claim is wrong.
tim…”On page 31, Clausius clearly states: In what follows the quantity U will therefore be called the Energy of the body. Not heat as you want to say, but Energy of the body”
Already explained that with a direct quote from Clausius.
He explained that U is both internal heat and work, but if you read him carefully he explains that heat and work are equivalent. Joule proved that in an experiment before Clausius did his work on the 2nd law and entropy.
When Joule first presented his finding before the British Royal Society, they essentially laughed at him. It was not till a second presentation years later, in which he was supported by Thomson that they began to take him seriously. It chagrins me to realize that more than a century and a half later people still think heat is a transfer of energy but not a real phenomenon.
You cannot call U heat because it has a work component. However, if you add heat, the work increased due to the atoms vibrating more.
Kristian has pointed out that we don’t need to worry about the internal state and that’s what Clausius claimed. By simple measuring external work and heat with specified beginning conditions such as temperature, we can account for the internal energy.
However, if you want to understand what is going on internally at the atomic level, you need to study matters related to U.
I have always implied that heat is ‘related’ to atomic motion and I don’t see how anyone can refute that. It is known that heat is transferred in a conductor from valence electron to valence electron in the same way electric charge is transferred.
I don’t want to get into a p***ing contest over the meaning of U, I am simply claiming that U is affected by external heat and work. Therefore, heat as a reality must flow through substances as thermal energy.
Actually, I am amazed at the close relationship between heat and electrical charge flow in conductors.
I have no interest in winning debates or being right. May I suggest that when you read Clausius, you don’t do it to prove me wrong. Get into it and get the entire message, from the first chapter where he describes work.
His work really was brilliant and should be enjoyed.
Gordon, you keep ignoring the adabaticity condition in the 2nd law (and, yes, in Clausius’s version too).
The planetary warming resulting from the greenhouse effect is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics because a planet is not a closed system. It exchanges heat with a high-temperature bath by absorbing radiation from the photosphere of its star and with a cold bath by emitting IR into the essentially zero-temperature reservoir of space. It therefore reaches equilibrium at a temperature intermediate between the two.
Pierrehumbert RT 2011: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today 64, 33-38
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Gordo wrote:
Your reference to SB does not dwell on the fact that the second term, T1^4, is the back radiation from the cooler source. In the 2 body situation, both bodies emit photons, i.e., IR EM. That the photons from the cooler one are absorbed by the warmer one is the reason that the temperature of the warmer one (T2) must increase in order to achieve an equilibrium state where the emitted IR EM is equal to that absorbed. That’s the Green Plate Effect in a nut shell.
swannie…”Your reference to SB does not dwell on the fact that the second term, T1^4, is the back radiation from the cooler source….”
swannie, that makes no sense. A temperature has to be related to mass, back-radiation is not mass. It has no temperature other than a colour temperature and that is a pseudo-temperature applied to frequencies of Em that correspond to the frequencies given off by a body heated to a certain temperature.
In S-B, the T reference is obviously about masses giving of radiation. The T refers to the heat in the respective bodies BEFORE it is converted to EM.
No one can attribute a real temperature to EM, it doesn’t have one.
Gordo, are you trying to be obtuse, or just commenting to fill space with your words? All solid bodies emit EM Radiant ENERGY (and we are speaking about IR EM), thus exhibiting a reduction in internal energy as measured by temperature. They also receive EM energy by absorbing it, which adds to their internal energy. Without a supply of energy from another source, bodies “cool” to the temperature of their surroundings, which is to say, their IR emissions equal the IR energy absorbed from the surroundings.
But, when there’s an external energy source, one can use the SB model to calculate the internal energy/temperature of an emitting body. To do so, one must also include the EM energy which is absorbed from other bodies including that which arrives from the surroundings. That’s the Green Plate Effect.
Gordon Robertson says:
In S-B, the T reference is obviously about masses giving of radiation.
By definition, a blackbody is in equilibrium. So it receives as much energy as it emits.
This blog entry is about idea that the atmosphere is like a greenhouse.
And I would add that the ocean is like a greenhouse.
And a solar pond is more like greenhouse, a hot greenhouse or very similar to park car in sunlight with the windows rolled up.
Now, I would say our atmosphere is exactly like a very huge greenhouse and I would say our oceans are exactly like a very huge solar pond.
And also add that solar pond does not alter the world much, but a very huge solar pond would alter the world much.
So we already have very huge solar pond which is the ocean, but if the U.S. was a huge solar pond, it would have a global effect. Or US has average temperature of about 12 C, and if solar pond, it would have average of about 30 C (if it was shallow pond) and if deeper cooler but wind and rain would be less distruptive, or normal size solar pond designed to heat water to 80 C and have surface temperature of 30 C, can lose heat due to wind and rain.
Now if US was one huge and high greenhouse, instead of solar pond, it not clear to me, it would be warmer. It might seem it would be warmer, it would block cold northern weather, but I think the U.S. is warmed by tropical ocean, and greenhouse blocks that, though one could design it in various ways to result in it being warmer.
gbaikie…”And a solar pond is more like greenhouse….”
Where do you get these solar ponds, at Walmart? They have greenhouses on sale every so often. ☺
As said, if made US and giant solar pond, that would increase the average temperature of the US. And the temperature a meter below the surface pond be hot.
And could do same thing with continent of Africa.
Africa is hottest continent with average temperature of 25 C:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/africa
As said with US one increase it to about 30 C from about 12 C by making it a giant solar pond, what temperature would get with the hottest continent, roughly it would be about same, 30 C.
Or solar ponds don’t get hotter in Africa, they can get more energy, or if using the 80 C not water, you could use or get more hot water. But solar pond can take awhile (months) to get to 80 C, but they stay this temperature during night and day, and don’t get hotter if even more time. So with Africa solar pond would warm up to 80 C faster if getting more sunlight, and with large chunk of Africa in tropics, it gets more sunlight.
And as far as cooling solar ponds, wind is larger cooling factor than cloudy weather. Or day heavy overcast clouds has less effect than a day of windy conditions.
But Africa is currently getting warmed by tropical ocean, and instead ocean warming Africa, Africa would warm oceans, or Oceans could warm something else, and/or simply get warmer.
Or if covered all tropical land with solar ponds, the average temperature of tropics would have average temperature of about 30 C, so increase from 26 to 30 C. And the tropics, rather than just the tropical ocean becomes heat engine of the world.
So, how can make Earth be like Venus?
Basically, you elevate the heated surface.
So you can put land under solar pond, or put solar pond over land. So say put giant glass greenhouse covering at say 3 km elevation and put 3 meter of water above it. Add salt to water, and get heat gradient.
And without doing math, assume the surface of water averages 20 C, and bottom of water (top of greenhouse glass) averages 50 C. And then got 3 km of atmosphere below it, so 3 times 6.5 C is 19.5 C AND 50 + 19.5 is 69.5 C, average air surface temperature. So at 1 atm of pressure on Earth, it is close to Venus air temperature at 1 atm of pressure.
And with such thing, one would not change the lighting situation much, at the earth surface. Still have blue skies, and sunlight would still feel a bit warm.
Now, if did all that, but had 1/2 atm pressure instead of 1 atm.
What would the air temperature temperature be?
This is a trick question, or tricky question.
I will has clues or perhaps confusion.
One has 1/2 the density of air.
So had 1 atm of pressure, and remove the air until you had 1/2 the air pressure. You could put 1/2 air above the greenhouse and solar pond, which might add complication, or just put it in vast pressurized air tanks and keep it below the glass or don’t pump it above the glass (which I would guess makes it simpler or clarifies the question).
Oh, I will add 30 C is 86 C and is pretty hot if very humid.
(And I did not get into the factor of humidity.)
One could regard 35 C and higher humidity as feeling hot and
for humans, hot. Or a problem.
Whereas 35 C (95 F) and low humidity as fairly comfortable- if not wearing warmer clothes)
Or humans cool mostly by evaporative cooling, and even hot air of 70 C, can be tolerated, if air is dry. Or saunas become exciting/fun at 100 C.
30 C is 86 F
Salvatore Del Prete says:
May 23, 2018 at 6:16 AM
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/solar-activity-levels-vs-surface-temperature-variation/
good article on how sunspot numbers correlate to global temperatures.
*
A reference to Had-CRUT3 (deprecated since end of 2012) lets think that a blogger who should have known that in 2015 cannot be so pretty clean, especially when he is brazenly enough to put his copyright on a graph produced by WFT, a web site whose owner is Paul Clark.
Moreover, comparing SSN with a detrended temperature time series is the best way to make things fitting which in fact dont at all. The same holds for trials to integrate SSN over a long period to show how Suns energy input to Earth accumulates. Typical exercises lacking any scientific basis, but visible on lots of blogs, of course without any reference to a proof of validation.
What remains, Salvatore, is this:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1527114779386.jpg
And extending the period back to Had-CRUTs begin (1850) doesnt change anything:
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1527115450574.jpg
Who says 10 years averaging is representative of terrestrial energy storage and release mechanisms?
What about 100 years?
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1527193418868.jpg
Now, you have an uptick. Now, scale and offset to get a match.
There will be no match Bart, and my guess is that you know that. Any child would see the two plots can’t.
Oh, I think there is:
http://i64.tinypic.com/3532ses.png
What is the bright yellow?
And any chance of getting a readable x-axis?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html
let’s try this study.
Blog posts aren’t science. Especially those that don’t explain their methodology. They’re only intended to fool people just like you.
A little primer for you nice boys and girls on frequency, wavelength, and wavenumber.
What source? I’m an expert on this. ☺ Check my math.
In audio circles a 1Khz signal is almost a standard because the ear hears it very well. 1khz = 1000 hertz, and for you newbies to real physics, a hertz is one cycle per second.
Some rocket scientists thought it would be nice to honour pioneers in certain fields by naming dimensions after them, hence there are people today who don’t understand that monikers like hertz, oersted, maxwell, ohm, etc., have actual physical meanings behind them. If you know that, good for you. I just read a Google article in which they claimed frequency is written per second, with no reference to what per second.
Frequency should be taught as cycles per second because that is exactly what it is. A frequency of 1 khz means the signal vibrates or oscillates 1000 times per second.
If you want to know the length of just one cycle you invert the frequency value as in t = 1/f. Therefore a 1 khz signal has one cycle equal to 1/1000 c/s = 0.001 seconds/cycle. You can read that directly on an oscilloscope.
But what happens if you want to know the length of one cycle as in wavelength? Frequency as a number doesn’t mean a lot so you have to relate it to something real.
Depends on the medium. Sound travels in air at various velocities depending on temperature. For air at 20C sound travels at a speed of 343.2m/s and the relationship between frequency and wavelength (lambda, or L) is:
L = v/f with v = 343.2 m/s at 20c.
Take f at 1000 c/s = 1000 Hz.
L = (343.2m/s)/1000 c/s = 0.34m/cycle.
That’s the distance between compression wavefronts in air for a sound with frequency 1000 c/s.
All EM travels at the speed of light, therefore for EM
L = c/f
One end of the green part of the visual EM spectrum has a frequency of 526 Thz. A Thz = 10^12 hz = 10^12 c/s.
Speed of light approx 300 x 10^6 m/s
L = c/f = (300 x 10^6m/s)/ 526 X 10^12 c/s = 0.57 x 10^-6 metres per cycle. That’s 570 X 10^-9 metres or 570 nm.
So wavecrest to wavecrest on that frequency of green light is 570 nm.
The wavenumber is simply 1/L = 1/(570 x 10^-9 m/c)
= 0.00175438596 x 10^9 c/m.
It’s telling you how many cycles of that frequency there are in a metre.
There are 1754385.69 cyles in a metre but they are normally stated in cms, I think.
Therefore there are 17543.85 in a cm.
Why anyone would want to know that is a mystery to me but apparently it has an application with absorp-tion/emission spectra.
David Appell keeps posting this graph from NASA GISS:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
It shows the x-axis in wavenumbers and the graph shows a notch in the IR spectrum that is claimed to be caused by CO2.
The notch falls roughly between the wavenumbers of 650/cm and 800/cm. Actually the wn should be stated as cycles/cm, because nothing/cm makes no sense.
650 c/cm can be converted to wavelength as 1/650 (c/cm) which is 0.00153 cm/cycle, which is 0.0000153 m/cycle.
That’s about 15.3 microns.
For 800: 1/800 (c/cm) = 0.00125 cm/cycle = 0.0000125 m/cycle.
That’s about 12.5 microns.
So in this very narrow box of wavelengths, which peak at 400 milliwatts per m^2, we are supposed to see most of the surface IR absorbed by CO2.
Yeah…right!!! I think Norman claimed earlier that surface radiation is around 380 w/m^2. CO2 is absorbing in the 400 MILLIWATT range max. For 380 w/m^2, one would expect to see a peak very, very much higher.
GR wrote:
CO2 is absorbing in the 400 MILLIWATT range max.
Tim has explained why this is wrong MANY times.
Why do you refuse to at least read him??
You really have no interest in being scientifically correct, do you?
DA…”Tim has explained why this is wrong MANY times.
Why do you refuse to at least read him??”
Ever occur to you that Tim might be wrong?
If you think Tim is wrong, explain why.
(PS: Tim’s not wrong. He’s explained this inside and out, and very well.)
I will say that Gordon did provide a rather good summary of high school level science in the first 2/3 of that post. Anyone who didn’t already know all that about frequency and wavelength and the speed of light probably appreciated it.
tim…” Anyone who didnt already know all that about frequency and wavelength and the speed of light probably appreciated it”.
That was partly my aim, to clarify, f,L, and WN for anyone interested.
However, much of this stuff is ingrained in my psyche from studying electrons and it had rusted over. I needed to write it down, essentially explaining it to myself to clarify my understanding. Thought I’d share my findings.
I expected many flames.
The thing that was nice was the way my engineering notation came back. We learned early on to always include parameters (dimensions…values) and ensure that they canceled out or gave the proper relationships. Also, we were taught to convert numbers to engineering notation, using the proper number of decimal points as required.
I found with wv conversion that I had to included many more numbers after the decimal point since the number of cycles per cm can be relatively large.
Wavenumbers, wavelengths, etc pertain to the study of light, not electrons.
Yes, electrons have a de Broglie wavelength. But that’s a very outdated way of thinking that no one does anymore. Since about 1925 electrons have been described by a wave function, not a wavelength.
Gordon, have you ever heard of integration??? The AREA under the curve is the total W/m^2!
The units are mW/m^2 PER INVERSE CENTIMETER! So if you integrate the y value with respect to the x value, you get your answer.
So for example, eyeballing the “blackbody emission” curve on your graph, the average height for the is about 200 mW/m^2/cm^-1. The width is 2000 cm^-1. So roughly the area under the whole curve is … hmmm … (200 mW/m^2/cm^-1) x (2000 cm^-1) equals … hmmm … 400,000 mW/m^2 which is … hmmm … 400 W/m^2. Pretty close to 380 W/m^2 for an eyeball integration!
For 380 w/m^2, one would expect to see a peak very, very much
higherexactly like this peak!Similarly, the actual TOA flux is less — maybe (150 mW/m^2/cm^-1) x (2000 cm^-1) =300 W/m^2. The ‘CO2 notch’ is maybe 150 mW/m^2/cm^-1 deep by 200 cm^-1 wide, or about 30 W/m^2 removed by CO2. Both are about what we would expect.
tim…”Gordon, have you ever heard of integration??? The AREA under the curve is the total W/m^2! ”
If you want to eyeball it, you can do a very close rectangle that just requires height times width. That will give you the area of the notch.
You should know, however, that a curve with a peak of 0.4 watts above the x-axis will have an area under the curve of a fraction of a curve peaking at 380 watts.
Also, I converted the wave numbers back to wavelengths with a range from 12.5 microns to 15.3 microns. All that will do is invert the graph horizontally.
Btw my 12.5 and 15.3 does not fit another curve exactly leading to my suspicion that such curves are manufactured based on someone’s imagination, not fact.
If a wn is the inverse of a wavelength, why should that affect the vertical axis?
Enlarge the graph at this site and it is indicated that the integral over that notch is 18 w/m^2, with 28 w/m^2 given off by the surface. I would like to see corroboration of those values, however, since many of them are mathematically contrived.
Given 380 w/m^2 claimed as total surface radiation, that is 4.7% of surface radiation, not the 90% claimed. How then, can Trenberth et al claim a back-radiation of almost the same value as surface radiation?
Maybe Trenberth needs a refresher course in calculus.
http://energyredirect3.blogspot.ca/
GR says:
Given 380 w/m^2 claimed as total surface radiation, that is 4.7% of surface radiation, not the 90% claimed.
Huh? So you think the surface radiation is 380/0.047 = 8,085 W/m2?????
DA…”Huh? So you think the surface radiation is 380/0.047 = 8,085 W/m2?????”
Since when do you divide by a percentage to get the percentage value? 0.047 x 380 = about 18 watts, as the graph claims.
“Also, I converted the wave numbers back to wavelengths with a range from 12.5 microns to 15.3 microns. All that will do is invert the graph horizontally.”
No, it is more subtle than that. For instance, the peak will be at different places if you plot vs wavelength or plot vs wavenumber. The graph shown for T = 294K has a peak near 580 cm-1 (plotting wavenumber). On the other hand, Wein’s law says the peak should be at 9.86 um (plotting wavelength). But 9.86 um –> 1010 cm-1.
This is not an error! The peaks are indeed at different places in the two graphs!
“leading to my suspicion that such curves are manufactured based on someones imagination, not fact.”
Go study the wikipedia page on Planks Law (or any other source) until you actually know how to generate the curves (both for wave length and wave number). Until then, your ‘suspicions’ are worth NOTHING!
When you can do this, you will also know why the peaks are in different places (or at least be ready to understand when someone explains).
PS it is a great step forward that you now realize your error is claiming that these graphs are a couple orders of magnitude too small.
Gordon Robertson
YOU: “Given 380 w/m^2 claimed as total surface radiation, that is 4.7% of surface radiation, not the 90% claimed. How then, can Trenberth et al claim a back-radiation of almost the same value as surface radiation?
Maybe Trenberth needs a refresher course in calculus.”
You need to realize the graph that David Appell links to is one of outgoing IR. It is not backradiation. You need to go to a DWIR spectrum to get this value.
Gordon Robertson
You would use a graph like this to find Trenberth’s backradiation.
https://www.patarnott.com/atms749/images/MeasuredRadianceReno.jpg
norman…”You need to realize the graph that David Appell links to is one of outgoing IR. It is not backradiation”.
I know that Norman, I was talking about outgoing IR. The entire surface outgoing IR is claimed by you to be 380 w/m^2. The notch in that value claimed in the graph is 18 watts, integrated between about 12.5 um and 15.3 um. Don’t quote me on that, those wavelengths are very rough guesstimates taken from the wavenumbers on the graph.
Just look at the graph with the notch, it’s vertical axis is in milliwatts. Someone has integrated that over the notch range in the diagram and claimed 18 watts notched by CO2.
I don’t see how they can do that since the WV spectrum overlies the CO2 spectrum. There is a lot of fudging going on to get those figures.
Also, if the overall surface IR is 380 w/m^2, you can bet the range of frequencies covered by CO2 are a whole lot more than indicated on the graph with the CO2 notch. I’m claiming there is no way CO2 grabs all of that surface radiation in the notch area.
norman…”You would use a graph like this to find Trenberths backradiation”.
Norman…I don’t trust graphs like that. They are very short on detail and I think that is by design. I don’t think that graph came from a measurement, I think it is modeled or created by a graphic artist.
That graph comes from calculations that come from measurements.
You don’t trust them because they don’t agree with your wrong ideas about the science.
Gordon Robertson
I agree with you.
YOU: “Also, if the overall surface IR is 380 w/m^2, you can bet the range of frequencies covered by CO2 are a whole lot more than indicated on the graph with the CO2 notch. I’m claiming there is no way CO2 grabs all of that surface radiation in the notch area.”
Yes. CO2 absorbs a maximum of 20% of the upwelling IR. The notch area would not give you an indication of how much IR CO2 is absorbing. It will absorb all the IR emitted from the surface in a few meters.
I know you think there is not much CO2 in the air but maybe if you think in 3D instead of 2D it will make more sense.
The notch in David Appell’s graph is not what CO2 is absorbs from the surface, it is what it emits to space at -60 F (220 K).
Gordon Robertson says:
So in this very narrow box of wavelengths….
“There are almost 315,000 individual ab.sorp.tion lines for CO2 recorded in the database. The database has 2.7M ab.sorp.tion lines in total for 39 molecules.
“Between 665 669 cm-1 there are over 2,000 lines.
“Between 647 687 cm-1 there are over 16,000 lines.
“Between 500 800 cm-1 (12.5 μm 20μm) there are almost 63,000 lines.
“Over 248,000 lines for CO2 are above 800 cm-1 , i.e., between 0-12.5 μm.”
SoD:
https://tinyurl.com/y7d2s5gs
Luckily, all here is outside the atmospheric window!
http://4gp.me/bbtc/1527194603176.jpg
Wrong. This graph clearly shows otherwise:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s2.gif
That’s a very poor graph. It doesn’t even say what it’s calculating.
Gordon Robertson says:
Actually the wn should be stated as cycles/cm, because nothing/cm makes no sense.
No. Wavenumber is the number of waves in a given length. So its units are [number]/length = 1/length.
DA…”No. Wavenumber is the number of waves in a given length. So its units are [number]/length = 1/length”.
What did I just say? The wn is the number of cycles/cm. A cycle is a wave. It cycles from 0 to 2pi radians, or 0 to 360 degrees, whatever you prefer.
The term for Hz used to be cycles per second, not waves per second.
Think of a ‘bi’-cycle wheel. Put a chalk mark on the back tire behind the rim at about 3 o’clock. Now run the bike forward till the chalk goes around once. That’s a cycle.
If you want to get a sine wave, project a line from the chalk mark over to the y-axis. The motion it makes along the y-axis can be transferred to an x-y plot marked in radians along the x-axis to give you a pure sine wave.
One cycle of the wheel = 1 cycle of the sine wave.
Gordon Robertson says:
The term for Hz used to be cycles per second, not waves per second
It is.
Here’s why wavenumbers were first used, and are still used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavenumber
“The historical reason for using this quantity is that it proved to be convenient in the analysis of atomic spectra. Wavenumbers were first used in the calculations of Johannes Rydberg in the 1880s. The RydbergRitz combination principle of 1908 was also formulated in terms of wavenumbers. A few years later spectral lines could be understood in quantum theory as differences between energy levels, energy being proportional to wavenumber, or frequency. However, spectroscopic data kept being tabulated in terms of wavenumber rather than frequency or energy, since spectroscopic instruments are typically calibrated in terms of wavelength, independent of the value for the speed of light or Planck’s constant.”
As I wrote earlier, for climate science you have to be able to think in both wavenumbers and wavelengths. That’s just how it is.
DA…”A few years later spectral lines could be understood in quantum theory as differences between energy levels, energy being proportional to wavenumber, or frequency”.
Thanks for link with explanation.
It’s interesting that atomic energy levels are equated this way to frequency, which is related to wavelength and wavenumber.
Now, if we could find something relating energy levels to temperature that would explain the dependence of frequency on temperature.
Intuitively, each energy level has different levels of kinetic energy since the electron velocity is different at each level. KE is related to temperature.
Gordon Robertson says:
Now, if we could find something relating energy levels to temperature that would explain the dependence of frequency on temperature.
Wishing isn’t physics.
You think scientists just somehow missed this over the last 120 years? Here’s your chance to shine by setting them straight.
Gordon Robertson says:
Intuitively, each energy level has different levels of kinetic energy since the electron velocity is different at each level.
When are you going to learn that the Bohr model is wrong and electrons don’t actually travel around the nucleus in orbits?
KE is related to temperature.
If so, what’s the relation? What’s KE(T)?
Gordon Robertson
That is some incredibly made up physics. Temperature does not determine the frequency of the light emitted. Hotter of colder an atom or molecule will only emit certain frequencies. Too cold and some frequencies will not be emitted. If you are at a temperature that can cause electronic transitions of all electrons in a given atom or molecule then a higher temperature will not give you new frequencies. It will just give you brighter emission bands. You really do not understand quantum physics or science at all.
https://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/scmh/1010/Flame.php
Temperature does not determine frequency of emission. The electronic nature of the atom or molecule determines what potential frequencies will emit. Get off this blog and learn some science. You are doing nobody a favor with your bad physics. It is not helpful but harmful.
DA…”Wishing isnt physics”.
No wishing here, I have seen the correlation between temperature and atomic orbital level.
You can see it easily on the EM spectrum. You know that the colours emitted by a heated metal rod increase in frequency with temperature. As the metal gets hotter the frequency of light emitted increases.
Gordon Robertson says:
No wishing here, I have seen the correlation between temperature and atomic orbital level.
Then what is it?
DA…”When are you going to learn that the Bohr model is wrong and electrons dont actually travel around the nucleus in orbits?
KE is related to temperature.
If so, whats the relation? Whats KE(T)?”
**********
No one has proved the Bohr model to be wrong, no one knows what happens at the atomic level. However, chemists have ascertained exact shapes of atoms and molecules based on the notion that electrons orbit nucleii. Linus Pauling, from your neck of the woods, did excellent pioneer work in developing molecular shapes.
In fact, Bohr’s work is still the basis of modern chemistry. His work has been modified considerably but it’s all based on the notion that electrons orbit atoms.
It becomes dicey when people think of electrons as planets orbiting the Sun. Hydrogen, with one electron can have numerous energy orbitals with the primary orbital being its ground state. If the electron absorbs energy and moves to a higher orbital energy level it goes into an excited state.
The electron’s kinetic energy changes as it moves between energy levels and temperature is the average KE. There’s your connection.
DA…”No wishing here, I have seen the correlation between temperature and atomic orbital level.
Then what is it?”
Kinetic energy. Temperature is the average kinetic energy. If you heat a mass, the atoms in the mass heat when the electrons in the atoms absorb the thermal energy and jump to higher energy levels.
Here’s the relationship between temperature and KE for a gas:
1/2 mv^2 = 3/2 kT….k = Boltzmann
It gets complicated because T is the average KE for the entire gas. However, you cannot ignore the KE of each electron. which is proportional to the orbital energy level in which the electron is located. That will vary with applied heat.
DA…Here’s one of your favourites:
Q = mc (Tf – Ti)
If you heat a substance, this equations measures the total heat absorbed (Q). m = mass, c = heat capacity, Tf = final temperature and Ti = initial temperature.
The only part of an atom that can absorb heat is its orbital energy levels where the atoms’s electrons reside. When an electron will change energy levels when it absorbs heat, just as it does when it absorbs EM. It has to since that’s how the energy levels are defined by the Schrodinger wave equation.
DA…correction….don’t know how the ‘When’ got in here:
“When an electron will change energy levels when it absorbs heat…”
Should be “An electron will change energy levels when it absorbs heat…”
Kristian,
You are still bringing up the significance or the ’33 y of data’ that you have constructed.
Yet you have no response the challenge to your construct from from competitors in the literature.
Then, oddly you say to Tim:
“Since Tim Folkerts apparently doesnt have the courage to respond honestly to this question posed directly to him”
Will you apply this plea to yourself?
–wws May 24, 2018 at 10:59 am
Scott Adams, of Dilbert Fame, made an incredibly funny comment on this:
Four things to understand about SPYGATE:
1) There was no spy in the Trump campaign.
2) The spying that did NOT happen was totally justified.
3) It would be bad for national security to identify the spy who doesnt exist.
4) His name is Stefan.–
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/24/winning-trump-officials-discussed-whether-to-ignore-climate-data/#comment-2825403
I want remind people that space is not cold or hot, but it anything, a part the space near Earth is very hot.
Space per official definition starts at 100 km up.
And 100 km up, does not really have a temperature, but it is
described as being very hot.
” The thermosphere is the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Within this layer of the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation causes photoionization/photodissociation of molecules, creating ions in the ionosphere. Taking its name from the Greek θερμός (pronounced thermos) meaning heat, the thermosphere begins about 85 kilometres (53 mi) above the Earth”
And:
“Temperatures are highly dependent on solar activity, and can rise to 2,000 C (3,630 F). “
And if space were hot, it does not stop and kind of radiation.
Or cold or hot things will cool by radiating “into” it.
And space can not really have a temperature and it can not warm or cool anything. Or things can cool by radiating into the “hot or cold” or space.
Dan Pangburn…”DA,, Closest thing by Pierrehumbert I could find on line is Fig 4.12 here http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/rocky-planets-class09/ClimateVol1.pdf ”
I don’t know if you use Peirrehumbert as a reference. If so, I’d go somewhere else, this guy is seriously misleading.
For example, he leads up to the Ideal Gas Law but does not present it as stated, which is PV = nRT. He presents how it ‘can’ be presented in terms of density and when he talks about the three basics of the gas law, he mentions pressure, temperature and density.
That is completely wrong, it is pressure, temperature, volume, and the number of atoms.
OK, I know it can be twisted to reveal density as P = pRT since density = p = n/V, however, volume is a basic parameter whereas density is not.
Then he goes on to murder the 2nd law:
“The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that entropy never decreases for energetically closed systems systems to which energy is neither added nor subtracted in the course of their evolution”.
Absolute bs. In other words, Pierrehumbert has no idea what the 2nd law states, as stated by its creator, Clausius.
He goes on later to built a fabricated theory of the GHE based on his misunderstanding of the 2nd law. Had he stated it as Clausius stated it, he would have had a great deal of difficulty developing his pseudo-science.
I have found that many scientists present arguments based on entropy when it’s obvious they have no idea what it is.
********
“The Second Law is perhaps more intuitive when restated in the following way: In an energetically closed system, heat flows from a hotter part of the system to a colder part of the system, causing the system to evolve toward a state of uniform temperature”.
More bs. Clausius said nothing about open/closed systems. It doesn’t matter whether a system is closed or open, heat MUST flow from hot to cold unless it is compensated.
*********
“Entropy is a very general concept, of which we have seen only the most basic instance”.
He absolutely murdered his explanation of entropy whereas its creator, Clausius explained it in one sentence. Clausius told us that entropy is the sum of infinitesimal quantities of heat at a temperature T.
Please note: entropy is about heat as is the 2nd law. Since the 2nd law states clearly that heat can NEVER be transferred cold to hot, by its own means, then anything related to entropy must state the same thing.
********
Norman accuses me of making up science but that’s exactly what Pierrehumbert does and he spreads it to unwitting ears. When I quote Clausius verbatim, I am called a liar and/or a fabricator, but when Pierrehumbert spreads absolute bs, alarmists stand and applaud.
Gordon Robertson
I can see you are still making up physics and misquoting and torturing the concepts Clausius developed. Sad that you do this. If you recall I did read Clausius’s own words from his own book.
You don’t understand the 2nd Law at all and project your own illogical thought process on others. The flaw is in your own mind.
Case of point. You insanely and ignorantly believe that spectrum of DWIR shows that CO2 only emits back to the Earth a total of 0.13 W/m^2 because you are unable or unwilling to even attempt to understand the units or what you are seeing.
I can show you quickly how poor and ridiculous your thought process is. I am hoping one day you can see you are the one with the errors and flaws, not established scientists.
Here:
http://pyspectral.readthedocs.org/en/latest/_images/solar_irradiance_wnum.png
This is a spectrum of the solar flux. The units are in milliwatts/m^2 cm-1. You have a peak about 0.08 Watts/m^2. In your moronic and illogical thought process and your inability to see how bad your thought process is you would find it impossible for the Sun to warm the Earth. How dumb are you really?
If you take about 0.07 times 15000 cm-1 you get the much closer
1050 W/m^2 and then you add some more.
There is only one thing valuable about any of your numerous posts. It tells kids to stay awake during science class or you will end up as goofy as Gordon Robertson. You are a poster child of what a good Skeptic should never be.
norman…”If you recall I did read Clausiuss own words from his own book”.
Yes…you cherry-picked quotes from his book, presenting the quotes out of context. In one quote you took an explanation from Clausius on compensation as proof that he claimed heat could flow from a colder object to a warmer object.
He was actually explaining what he meant by ‘by its own means’. when he defined the 2nd law, as in, heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a colder object to a warmer object.
Clausius made it totally clear that heat can NEVER flow from a colder object to a warmer object unless it is compensated by returning heat to it immediately. You took that explanation of a two way heat transfer as evidence of the 2nd law and it is not.
In an air conditioning unit, heat can be transferred both ways but it requires external power, a compressor, a compressible gas, a condenser that extracts heat from the liquified, compressed gas, to a warmer environment than the cooled area, an expansion valve to atomize the compressed liquified gas, and an evapourator to allow the HP liquid to return to low pressure low temperature gas.
It is the evapourator that extracts heat from the cooled area while a separate unit transfers the extracted heat to an environment warmer than the cooled area, therefore heat essentially is transferred cold to hot.
That process is called compensation and there is no way that transfer of heat from cold to hot can happen naturally by its own means.
Sorry, Norman, it is you who fails to understand the 2nd law and basic thermodynamics. You still persist in confusing heat with electromagnetic energy.
Am I the only one getting an issue with the Name and Mail boxes being erased after each post?
Thought at first that Roy had finally got around to banning me. ☺
No, it’s the same with me. I’m not letting it bother me. But I think some of us might be wearing out our welcome.
Same here.
It could be related to volume of posts.
Chic
I glanced at some of the above conversation involving Kristian. Like many others, he thinks it would be a violation of the 2LOT if backradiation contributed to surface warming.
For that reason he disagrees with the most basic and straightforward description of the GHE:
The surface receives ~163 w/m^2 from the sun. With no GHG’s, then, it only needs to shed 163 w/m^2 to achieve a steady state.
That is not the case. It ALSO receives ~340 w/m^2 from backradiation……a total of 503 w/m^2. The surface, therefore, had to get hotter in order to shed that greater input and acheive a new equilibrium.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg/1200px-The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
Snape,
Budget diagrams cannot be used to explain why backradiation does or does not violate the 2nd Law or does or does not indicate a GHE (whatever that means to you).
Somewhere upthread Norman linked to some diagrams showing DWIR and UWIR and the net IR at various times during the day. At no time was DWIR greater than UWIR. The UWIR tracks with surface temperature, because it always has a component that goes directly to space. If you subtract out that window IR, you would be left with a value almost if not exactly the same as the DWIR. That’s because anywhere you go in the lower troposphere, an equal amount of radiation from a specific altitude goes up and down. This is what the energy diagram can’t tell you. Unless the air at some altitude becomes warmer than the air below, no DWIR can warm the surface because it will be cancelled by UWIR coming from warmer air below. [semantics alert] At most it delays surface cooling.
When I say cancelled, I’m not talking about photons disappearing in thin air. I just mean that the net exchange of photons always favors the warmer air.
Chic Bowdrie
YOU: “This is what the energy diagram can’t tell you. Unless the air at some altitude becomes warmer than the air below, no DWIR can warm the surface because it will be cancelled by UWIR coming from warmer air below. [semantics alert] At most it delays surface cooling.”
This is true but with our Earth system you get a continuous input of new energy.
I know a lot of people think that energy does not add but not one has given even a reasonable support of it and it does go directly against heat transfer science.
You have a nearly constant input of solar energy to the system (adding joules all the time). If you now have an atmosphere which is largely transparent to incoming solar energy in the 15 micron band, you add the solar energy to the surface, this energy warms the atmosphere and it starts to radiate in all directions. Now you have more energy reaching the surface than you would with no GHG and the surface warms up until it reaches a temperature where it will be in balance with the total incoming energy. Energy gain will equal energy loss, the temperature the surface achieves is when these balance.
Norman,
“Energy gain will equal energy loss, the temperature the surface achieves is when these balance.”
You can do this with a pot of water on the stove. Just set the control knob so that the water gets warm, but doesn’t boil. Put a thermometer in there, keep the room temperature constant, come back awhile later and your water will be at an equilibrium temperature.
This doesn’t happen in the Earth system EVER.
Furthermore, I don’t think any of us know that “you have more energy reaching the surface than you would with no GHG.” The IR-gas-free atmosphere will probably warm up faster, because the IR gases will cool the surface faster during the day although keeping it warmer during the night.
More to the point, you can measure fluxes from two separate sources during a given time interval, and take temperature measurements to confirm the numbers OR you can add imaginary energy flows during the same period of time and take averages that sum to the measured values. But that doesn’t mean those imaginary energy flows happened that way. At no time was any flux from a cold place to a warm place.
chic…”You can do this with a pot of water on the stove. Just set the control knob so that the water gets warm, but doesn’t boil. Put a thermometer in there, keep the room temperature constant, come back awhile later and your water will be at an equilibrium temperature”.
Eh??? If you turn off the control knob that would happen, but not if you leave it on enough so that it makes water warm. Even if you left the control set to the minimum position it would not equilibrate.
“The surface receives ~163 w/m^2 from the sun. With no GHGs, then, it only needs to shed 163 w/m^2 to achieve a steady state. ”
According to chart, 77 w/m^2 absorbed by atmosphere, so would need to shed that also.
Not saying I agree with whatever numbers given, but that is what is claimed.
Snape says, May 24, 2018 at 10:29 PM:
AGAIN you managa to misrepresent me, Snape. Why?
I must say I don’t appreciate you spreading false information about me like this.
“AGAIN you manage to misrepresent me, Snape. Why?”
A desert could have the sand warm to 70 C, and I would guess, that many would agree that the sunlight is causing that temperature.
But there could some disagreement about why the air could warm to 50 C.
And why the air do not cool faster.
I would say the sand, is prevented from reaching 70 C, if there is cool air above it. But I would also say that hot desert sand and air which 50 C, has nothing to do warming the world.
has nothing to do with warming the world.
Land and its hot air has nothing to do with global temperature. And you can have it in a glacial period.
And you could lots of it, and have a cold average global temperature.
With water, you have a means of transporting heat to areas of world, which have less sunlight.
And on Earth one has lots area getting less sunlight. Though tropics is 40% of Earth and gets the most sunlight.
The Moon could make a lot of hot air, if had a bunch of greenhouses, and this alone would not do much to increase the average temperature. Even if the Moon had a faster rotation.
snape…”I glanced at some of the above conversation involving Kristian. Like many others, he thinks it would be a violation of the 2LOT if backradiation contributed to surface warming.
For that reason he disagrees with the most basic and straightforward description of the GHE:”
**********
Kristian is correct. The GHE (and AGW) are violations of the 2nd law.
People who argue against that are introducing a notion that has no basis in physics. They are using a net balance of energy as a justification, but the term energy is an obfuscation.
With heat transfer by radiation, heat in a body is converted to electromagnetic energy by electrons in atoms. When the heat is converted to EM, it ceases to exist as thermal energy, The EM, now called far-field EM, can be viewed as potential energy and as such can be converted back to heat in an absorbing atom.
Those arguing on behalf of a net balance of energy are regarding EM as heat flow through the atmosphere, and when the radiation occurs between a hotter emitting body and a cooler emitting body, they are summing the EM fluxes emitted from each body and claiming it satisfies the 2nd law provided the sum is positive in the direction of heat transfer.
That is completely wrong. For one, the mutual fluxes of EM do not represent heat. In one direction, hot to cold, they represent potential heat, provided the EM is absorbed by a cooler body.
To understand the 2nd law in this context, one must deal only with heat. EM must be disregarded. However, no heat is transferred physically since there is no mass to transfer the heat by convection or conduction. Therefore, heat transfer becomes apparent, meaning it is reduced in the hotter body and increased in the cooler body. Apparent is a reference to the fact that heat appears to be transferred between bodies yet it is not.
The reverse process is not possible. EM from a cooler body lacks the frequency to be absorbed by electrons in a hotter body residing at higher energy states at a higher frequency.
Therefore, a net balance of energy, which can only be a reference to EM, does not apply.
Mine just got deleted too.
Basically, a greater input requires a greater output if there is to be an equilibrium. A greater output requires a higher temperature.
You are possibly mixing apples and oranges. First, there is no actual equilibrium, only a hypothetical one that assumes an increase in IR-activity will reduce OLR and require surface heating to compensate. No proof of that.
Or you could be referring to a quasi-equilibrium that occurs just before dawn. The greater input that occurs at sunrise is totally due to radiation from the sun. The greater output is from rising surface and atmosphere temperatures.
Chic
You’re not getting it. The 163 w/m^2 is the average solar input to earth’s surface. On average, then, how hot would the surface need to be to emit/evaporate/conduct a similar output?
Uhh, as hot as it needs to be?
This is the problem. To get an average output to equal a given input, you could propose an infinite number of ways where the global temperatures rise and fall like they do every day.
And how hot would it need to be?
Really? Suddenly you’re ok with the 340 being added to the 163? Not complaining, of course. Just surprised.
Kristian is not saying, and he going think you just trying to lose him off.
Whoops, that my reply to Kristian.
Piss him off.
Roughly he thinks air is warmed, and having warm air, causes insulation.
He also imagines upper air cools due to greenhouse gas, and this create more convection.
And that causes warmer average temperatures.
But he will use math.
Chic
I’m not looking for an exact number. The point is, on average, the surface actually receives ~ 503 w/m^2
It needs to be hotter in order to return that higher input.
I’m glad you ain’t looking for an exact number.
I suppose the surface could be receiving 1006 W/m2 for 12 hours and 0 W/m2 for another 12. So what’s your point.
My point is these averages mean squat.
The surface isn’t receiving any net W/m2 from any cooler places at any time.
Chic Bowdrie says:
My point is these averages mean squat.
Only if you have no interest in understanding the planet’s energy imbalance and why it’s warming.
gbaikie…”Roughly he thinks air is warmed, and having warm air, causes insulation”.
That’s pretty well what R.W. Wood has claimed, and he was an expert on IR and atomic theory. Wood has claimed it is likely that air receives heat by direct contact with the surface, convects that heat upward, and because 99% is N2/O2, which are poor emitters ar terrestrial temperatures, retains the heat.
If you observe how insulation in a home works, its effect is to slow heat loss by slowing the rate of conductive heat loss. I think the atmosphere operates in a similar manner, it absorbs surface heat and stores it for a while.
Obviously, if the Sun turned off, N2 and O2 would be subjected immediately to the 0K of space, and they would radiate the heat pretty fast. There must be some research to prove they radiate anyway as they rise higher in the atmosphere and experience very cool temperatures.
DA…”Only if you have no interest in understanding the planets energy imbalance and why its warming”.
You mean there is anyone out there who knows that stuff? I have only seen wild guesses and misinformation.
“First, there is no actual equilibrium, only a hypothetical one that assumes an increase in IR-activity will reduce OLR and require surface heating to compensate.”
That’s not the equilibrium I’m talking about. “IR-activity” is what heats the surface…..like you get hotter standing in the sun than the shade. On average the earth’s surface receives 503 w/m^2 through radiation. If it’s total output is less (through some means), it will get HOTTER.
S,
And at night, it doesn’t get hotter at all, does it?
Or for the last four and a half billion years, either.
Equilibrium? Maybe you are spouting rubbish.
Cheers.
Mike,
I have on occasion hung food in trees at night. But that wasn’t to keep it cool.
Me too.
Raccoons. Bears. Squirrels. Mice. Either they ate, or I did.
On average the earth’s surface receives 503 w/m^2 through radiation.
Certainly not. This almost general obstinate refusal to reason in terms of thermodynamics is extraordinary.
How many perfectly empty comments because of this refusal?
Try to discipline yourself a bit, use thermodynamic notions when dealing with a thermodynamic problem, think heat transfers.
I have to respectfully disagree, Phi. To me, this sounds like complaining that someone solved a problem using Newtons’ Laws when you expected them to use conservation of energy. Or someone used spherical coordinates and you expected them to used Cartesian coordinates.
There are usually multiple ways to solve a problem. If they all produce the same answer (using legitimate methods).
Classical thermodynamics using Q (net energy flows due to temperature differences) is certainly an excellent way.
* 161 W/m^2 = Q(sun->surface)
* 23 W/m^2 = Q(surface-> atmosphere)
* 40 W/m^2 = Q(surface->space)
** 98 W/m^2 = 161-40-23 = Net energy onto the surface
But it works identically to look at flows of photons
* 161 W/m^2 = photons to surface (from sun)
* 333 W/m^2 = photons to surface (from atmosphere
* 396 W/m^2 = photons leaving the surface (to anywhere)
** 98 W/m^2 = 161+333-396 = net energy into the surface.
It is two ways of thinking about the same problem!
(I will admit there is potential confusion when people are not careful with wording and/or calculations. But you can legitimately solve the problem either way.)
Tim Folkert,
But you can legitimately solve the problem either way.
You can but as I explained below, it is perfectly useless and only confuses.
See the notion of radiative forcing which is a thermodynamic aberration or the confusion of Idiot Tracker when he claims that the GHGs of the lower layers are net ab s orbers.
The problem here, Tim, is that not all heat exchange with the surface is via radiative means. Heat is convected from the surface as well, and convection increases with increasing temperature, which provides a negative feedback on surface heating.
Heat transported to the upper atmosphere via convection thermalizes radiators in the upper atmosphere. Thus, while surface radiation is impeded from egress by increasing CO2, heat transported by convection is facilitated in its exit by increasing CO2. Moreover, thermalization is broad spectrum, and increasing convection facilitates radiative dissipation in other radiators, notably H2O, as well.
I cannot say how it all works out in the end, but I can say the evidence I see tells me that the net impact, in the present state of the climate (nominal temperatures and convective activity) is essentially nil.
Bart, the flip-side here is that all heat exchanges with space ARE via radiative means. So if you want to know how well earth as a whole loses energy, you just have to look to thermal IR leaving from the TOA (top of atmosphere).
Adding more CO2 cause some of the escaping radiation (eg in the 15 um band) to come from greater altitudes, where the temperature is lower, leading to a lower energy loss to space from the TOA. The only possible response is for things near the TOA to warm up. This in turn would reduce convection up to the TOA, which warms the next layer down, etc, until we get a warmer surface.
Once the surface has warmed enough to compensate for the reduced radiation from the top, a new steady-state will develop, with the surface warmer than before.
Tim,
Is anyone keeping track of the increasing emission altitudes? If there’s no measurements of radiation escaping from greater altitudes, your hypothesis will always be just that.
Tim Folkerts says, May 25, 2018 at 2:51 PM:
Stop it with this nonsense, Tim! You’re basically ripping off Pierrehumbert here. An obvious talking point, IOW. For the nth time: ALL YOU’RE DOING IS STATING THE THEORY! We all know about the hypothetical ‘greenhouse warming mechanism’ of “the raised ERL”.
What is never shown, though, is this hypothetical warming mechanism in effective operation in the real Earth system (or anywhere else, for that matter; anywhere real, that is). You are not backing your claims up with observational evidence that this mechanism is actually working as postulated, forcing the very specific thermal effect that’s being postulated.
You’re just repeating the dogma, as if doing so in and of itself were enough …!
“Modern Climate Science” in a nutshell. Nothing but hand waving all the way.
This is so stupid. The ASR controls the OLR via the T_tropo, which in turn is (mainly) controlled by the T_s. Putting more IR-active gases into the atmosphere is evidently not doing anything to change these connections. This is what we actually OBSERVE.
I agree with Bart, the postulated radiative (‘greenhouse’) warming mechanism is THEORETICALLY sound, and WOULD work, ceteris paribus. The problem is, nothing is ever equal. And the warming mechanism has never been OBSERVED to work as specified out there in the real world. Which means that, scientifically, there is no reason to simply assume and assert that it IS working.
Yes, this is a Just So story, lacking critical middle steps. Like, where is the energy going to come from to maintain the ERL at a higher altitude? You’ve got to have a temperature rise first.
Tim – I think you may have skimmed over what I wrote, and would ask that you take another look.
Yes, ultimately, cooling of the globe is via radiation only, but it is not solely surface radiation. Convection transports heat to high altitude where it can be radiated away, bypassing the atmospheric filter. It is like having a spillway for a dam. No matter how high you build the dam, the water is limited to the level of the spillway.
Kristian 11:43pm: “You are not backing your claims up with observational evidence that this mechanism is actually working as postulated, forcing the very specific thermal effect thats being postulated.”
Observational evidence actually is plentiful & backed up and pointed out despite Kristian’s assertions; Kristian just chooses to ignore or misunderstand (especially about basic stuff like heat) starting with Dr. Spencer’s experiments on the atmosphere and in the lab. Kristian even disagrees with the CERES Team conclusions to suit his agenda.
Unfortunately for Kristian, the agreed warming mechanism has been OBSERVED by many author’s tests to work as Tim writes out there in the real world. Which means, scientifically, there is every reason to agree the top post mechanism IS working as one component of the 9+ unnatural forcings amid all the natural forcings of L&O global median surface temperature.
”Unfortunately for Kristian, the agreed warming mechanism has been OBSERVED by many author’s tests to work as Tim writes out there in the real world.”
Generally, I find such tests are merely consistent with the phenomenon they purport to “prove” but could be consistent with other interpretations, and/or are conducted at specific locales rather than comprehensively over the entire Earth, and/or are based on such a hodgepodge of selectively mangled data extruded through some arbitrary homogenization process that no genuine conclusions can be made.
It’s really hard to truly prove anything outside the controlled settings of a small scale laboratory, and no guarantees that such results scale to the enormous and uncontrolled setting of the entire planet.
It is, on the other hand, very easy to interpret test results in a manner favorable to the outcome that was expected and desired. Someone famous once said, the first rule is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
Bart, generally? The certainty you desire is not of this Earth. Significance at 95% in thermo. experiments is a common standard not 100%.
If you desire certainty in an endeavor, I suggest you look into a different field than thermodynamics.
Possibly try cash accounting where you can count the cash. Stay away from income accounting, it will cause you much suffering as no one has ever precisely defined income not even the IRS. Managements choose income accounting hugely over cash accounting as income becomes more manageable for them “to put lipstick on pigs” as the field knows.
Bart says:
“It is like having a spillway for a dam. No matter how high you build the dam, the water is limited to the level of the spillway.”
But no matter how big the pipes are that carry away the excess water, if the far end of the pipes is constricted, that will limit the water than can flow out! Its like having several pipes labeled “latent heat” and “convection” and “radiation” that all act as overflow pipes, but by the time they get to the bottom, they all get funneled into “radiation” and there is a small opening in that pipe to leak out. It is the size of the opening at the bottom that limits the flow!
Tim Folkerts says, May 26, 2018 at 9:27 PM:
But you’re not addressing what Bart is saying, Tim. You’re just repeating your original argument, the very one Bart is countering with his spillway analogy.
It’s not about how “big” or “small” those pipes are. Heat is NOT restricted from escaping the surface by increasing the IR activity of the atmosphere. Because of convection.
This is exactly what I’ve been talking about also. But you’re not listening. You’re not reading. Too busy defending your dogma.
Enhancing the radiative properties of the atmosphere by putting more IR-active gases into it does not help warm the lowermost parts of the troposphere (and thus the surface). Because down there CONVECTION governs the rate of heat loss, not radiation. It does help cool the upper parts of the troposphere, however, because up there the RADIATIVE loss is what cools the rising air down to the point where convection finally stops altogether, at the tropopause.
Once you have convection through a fluid medium, the opacity of that medium to IR no longer matters to the overall heat transport from the heating end to the cooling end of that medium. It is all about the steepness of the temperature gradient. And if you make the medium more IR-active, you will help it release the heat transported by convection to the cooling end of the medium to its surroundings via radiation potentially more effective, not potentially less effective.
–Tim Folkerts says: May 25, 2018 at 2:51 PM Bart, the flip-side here is that all heat exchanges with space ARE via radiative means. So if you want to know how well earth as a whole loses energy, you just have to look to thermal IR leaving from the TOA (top of atmosphere). —
Ok, I want to look.
Now, I don’t need to look to know, that on average emits 240 watts per square. Due to near constant sunlight and near constant sunlight reflected. Or we have about 240 watts on average absorbed and same emitted.
We know the Earth is unevenly heated.
And most are aware that tropical oceans warm the rest of the world. Or tropics absorb X amount, and emit less than X amount because the energy is transported elsewhere, and elsewhere it will be emitted back into space.
And tropical ocean regions have a lot of water vapor, and it is this moisture, which is one piece of tropical ocean means of transporting energy out of the tropics. The other more major way, is pole ward movement of ocean waters.
Or said differently, deserts in tropical zone don’t have as much of a means of transporting heat to rest of world as compared to oceans or land receiving a lot of rainfall.
“Adding more CO2 cause some of the escaping radiation (eg in the 15 um band) to come from greater altitudes, where the temperature is lower, leading to a lower energy loss to space from the TOA. The only possible response is for things near the TOA to warm up. This in turn would reduce convection up to the TOA, which warms the next layer down, etc, until we get a warmer surface.”
So idea is more CO2 causes atmosphere to radiate at higher elevation. And obviously that means less CO2 should cause atmosphere to radiate more at lower elevation.
I would think where CO2 radiates depends on air density. And air density changes due changes of surface air temperature.
Anyhow, one find place of same surface air temperatures, with different amounts of C02 in local air. And with deserts one will have less water vapor.
tim…”So if you want to know how well earth as a whole loses energy, you just have to look to thermal IR leaving from the TOA (top of atmosphere)”.
That would be true if the Sun heated the surface 24/7 and/or the planet turned far more slowly. That is not the case and the atmosphere has time to absorb solar energy through gas expansion during the day and contraction during the night (Charles’ Law).
That means a good deal of heat during the day causes an increase in atmospheric volume then dissipated naturally during the night as the atmosphere contracts.
Why has there been no studies to that effect? Heat can be dissipated naturally without radiation.
Kristian is right, Tim. You are still talking past my point.
The radiative “pipe” is constricted from the surface, but it is not constricted further up in the atmosphere, where convection can carry the heat.
“This is so stupid. The ASR controls the OLR via the T_tropo, which in turn is (mainly) controlled by the T_s. Putting more IR-active gases into the atmosphere is evidently not doing anything to change these connections. This is what we actually OBSERVE.”
What is stupid and cowardly is how Kristian refuses to confront the reality that the experts disagree with him about what we actually OBSERVE.
“Kristian, you have tried to draw conclusions from 33 y of data that youve stiched together by making various choices about offsets between the sets.
But as I showed you, and you ignored, Loeb and collaborators have made different choices to produce a continuous set. And do not draw your conclusions.
Here is a paper.
https://tinyurl.com/y8vk795j “
Thanks, Nate.
You might’ve missed it, but I already included the update to that paper, Allan (2017), in the second of my original blog posts about this issue:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/ (Part I)
Basically they’ve done exactly what I have done, only, while I used the ISCCP FD and HIRS radiation flux datasets to determine the calibration offset across the five-month data gap between the ERBS and the CERES series, Allan et al. let the ERA Interim reanalysis dataset determine the offset. There is no well-founded justification given for WHY they do this. In fact, they don’t provide any justification for it at all. Allan, 2017, even writes about the ERAI dataset (my emphasis):
“ERAI (…) captures month to month variability in the radiation budget remarkably well given that cloud cover, which dominates these fluctuations, is not directly assimilated. However, decadal variability and trends are unrealistic and the reanalysis does not represent volcanic radiative forcing as evident from the lack of response to the 1991 Pinatubo eruption.”
This is readily confirmed in Fig. 2a), c) & e) of Allan et al., 2014 (red lines and question marks are mine, to highlight the 1999-2000 splice):
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/allan-et-al-2014-fig2ace.png
Look at those OLR and ASR curves! There is no way you can let the ERAI curve be your guide with any confidence whatsoever when trying to determine the calibration offset between the ERBS (WFOV) and the CERES datasets. Look at them! That’s ridiculous. And yet that’s exactly what they do! ISCCP FD and HIRS fit sooo much better:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/
What’s more, we already KNOW (from the same link) that my way of doing the calibration is directly corroborated by Loeb et al., 2012, where they adjusted the offset between the tropical OLR series of the ERBS and CERES datasets.
In fact, watch how much better the fit between the ERAI and the ERBS+CERES curves (OLR) becomes if you rather use MY offset across the 1999-2000 gap (red ellipse):
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/olr-at-toa-ceres-erbs-erai1.png
It all makes sense, Nate!
nate…”What is stupid and cowardly is how Kristian refuses to confront the reality that the experts disagree with him about what we actually OBSERVE”.
You highlight OBSERVE then you post a link from Loeb which I have cited below. Is this an example of what you call observing?
“Combining satellite data, atmospheric reanalyses, and climate model simulations, variability in the net downward radiative flux imbalance at the top of Earths atmosphere (N) is reconstructed and linked to recent climate change….”
Atmospheric reanalysis??? I call that fudging. Climate model simulation??? From unvalidated models??? Super-fudging. Sci-fi. Reanalysis???
Where’s the observations???
Gordon Robertson says, May 27, 2018 at 3:55 PM:
Gordon,
The observations are incorporated into the data assimilation model of the reanalysis. It’s no problem per se using reanalysis output in a study of various climate parameters. And ERAI is normally considered quite good. But using it as the very touchstone that constrains and determines the offset between different observational datasets is definitely problematic. Especially one which is described as (and shown to have) unrealistic decadal variability and trends. Usually you would go about the other way around – testing the quality of the reanalysis output against real-world observational data.
Kristian,
Thanks for your response.
These adjustments of the CERES data are rather technical and rather difficult for us non-experts to judge, much less decide between two opposing methods. I can’t be sure Allan (2017) does it right.
But what is clear is that in their analysis, in the end, there are no clear discontinuities, except at Pinatubo. Whereas in yours, there are significant jumps, particularly in OLR at 2000 (1 W), and ASR at 1993, both occur where there are gaps in the data. The jumps dont look natural.
They say There are notable gaps in the WFOV record which may introduce unrealistic variability. First, the gap between the WFOV and CERES period (19992000) exhibits a systematic difference. A secondary hiatus in the WFOV record during 1993 due to a battery failure may also introduce a discontinuity in the record [Trenberth, 2002]. To bridge these gaps, the reconstructed fluxes prior to 2000 are adjusted such that the20002001 minus 19981999 global mean changes agree with UPSCALE simulations; fluxes prior to 1994are similarly adjusted based upon simulated 19941995 minus 19921993 global mean changes. this seems reasonable.
The Allan (2017) paper, unlike your analysis, is peer-reviewed and published in a reputable journal. It is co-authored by Loeb, who is the agreed-upon expert on this data.
If my kid has liver cancer, and me not being an expert on liver cancer, it would be difficult to make the call that a guy on a blog knows better what treatment to go with, than the mainstream doctors who follow the latest published results.
But that’s me.
Kristian,
Comparing more closely yours and Allan (2017), the biggest differenc occurs at the 1993 gap.
The 1994-99 period is shifted up in both OLR and ASR, in yours, by ~ 0.7 W, in an unnatural looking way.
Nate,
Yes, I see this is even worse than I originally thought:
http://images.slideplayer.com/35/10512440/slides/slide_5.jpg
The way they manage to take the original (observational) data and turn it into something completely different using model simulations, truly epitomises the deep-seated attitude among modern “climate scientists” towards real-world observations, that they are of no use until they have somehow been “interpreted”, “taken apart” and “reconstructed”, ultimately forced into compliance and conformity with their own ‘theory’. We see this happening all the time nowadays.
There is so much going on here that I think I need to write it all up on my blog …
When there are gaps in the data, and unknown offsets, then producing a continuous record, however you do it, is by definition, a reconstruction.
You decided, it seems, that no adjustment is needed at 1993, whereas they and Trenberth saw a discontinuity there (which seems clear to me). If so, then there needs to be a method for bridging the gap.
tim…”Classical thermodynamics using Q (net energy flows due to temperature differences)….”
There is no such thing as net energy flow involving heat in our atmosphere. I think that’s why phi is complaining about the lumping of different forms of energy as a generic energy.
Heat does not flow throw the atmosphere as radiation. It is first converted to electromagnetic energy and it flows as a flux. However, it is not permissible to sum EM fluxes and reach a conclusion about heat transfer.
That’s where you alarmists have it completely wrong, your brand of science is based on a faulty understanding of heat and EM.
tim…”Classical thermodynamics using Q (net energy flows due to temperature differences) is certainly an excellent way”.
Q does not represent generic energy, it represents HEAT. Anything related to a temperature difference involving heat transfer is about Q as heat AND IT MUST OBEY THE 2ND LAW!!!
Tim…you are thoroughly confused about the difference between heat, EM, and a generic energy you insist on introducing.
Thermodynamics is the study of heat and processes involving heat. EM is not heat, thermodynamics is not about EM even though EM is an important factor in radiative heat transfer. Even though it’s an important factor it cannot be measured as a temperature difference.
EM has no temperature, so when you talk about heat transfer while inferring an EM flow, you are talking nonsense.
Statistical mechanics made an attempt to study EM as particles and related that to heat. Planck made it very clear that statistical mechanics cannot be visualized and it cannot be verified directly. The discipline is so convoluted with statistical math that it has to rely on mathematical equations to figure anything out.
It is possible to fluke outcomes using math. That does not help us understand the underlying phenomena and it seems to me that’s where you are caught. You are created scenarios to satisfy a mathematical obfuscation that cannot be visualized.
Go back to basics. Go back to the atomic theory that can be verified and modeled based on the Bohr model. Sure, it’s a simplified model but it can be visualized. Statistical mechanics cannot.
I might add the Kircheoff, Boltzmann, and Planck, regarded what we now know is EM, as heat rays. They thought heat flowed through an aether as rays of energy.
We must make allowances for that error in the equations they produced. The Stefan-Boltzmann equation is not about heat transfer even though that is implied.
From wiki…”The StefanBoltzmann law describes the power radiated from a black body in terms of its temperature….”
It’s not clear what S-B intended here. Were they talking about heat dissipation at a surface or the EM emitted as far.field radiation, which is subject to the inverse square law?
Applying w/m^2 to EM makes no sense, I am thinking it applies to the heat lost at a surface due to conversion of heat to EM.
Mike, phi
*****
-Radiation is energy, and in thermodynamics, heat is often defined as the energy exchanged as a result of a difference in temperature.
-That means two objects with the same temperature would exchange energy, but not heat.
********
-suppose it’s night, and a surface is absorbing 100 w/m^2 from the atmosphere.
-Being warmer, suppose the surface radiates 120 w/m^2 in return
-that means the surface has a 20 w/m^2 deficit and gets colder
-the atmosphere has a 20 w/m^2 surplus and gets warmer
*heat has passed from warm to cold as a result of a difference in temperature
Has the 2LOT been violated?
-suppose its night, and a surface is absorbing 100 w/m^2 from the atmosphere.-
That would mean surface is warming. Surfaces cool at night.
snape…”-Radiation is energy, and in thermodynamics, heat is often defined as the energy exchanged as a result of a difference in temperature.
-That means two objects with the same temperature would exchange energy, but not heat”.
***
Radiation is electromagnetic energy and it is not studied in thermodynamics per se. It may be studied as it is related to heat transfer via radiation but that kind of radiative heat transfer is subject to the 2nd law.
Heat is not defined as the energy exchanged as the result of a temperature difference. HEAT TRANSFER can be defined as the transfer of THERMAL ENERGY between bodies of different temperatures via conduction or convection, but not by radiation.
Heat transfer by radiation is an illusion. The transfer is apparent, in that heat is reduced in a hotter body as some of its heat is converted to EM. If SOME of that EM is intercepted by a cooler body, the cooler body warms when some EM is converted back to heat. That is your heat transfer, a cooling of the hot body and a warming of a cooler body.
Whoops, the last line should have been:
*20 w/m^2 of radiant energy is being passed between the surface and atmosphere as a result of their difference in temperature. The colder atmosphere is therefore being HEATED by the warmer surface.
*has the 2nd law been violated?
The question wasn’t to me, but I think I know where you going. Why don’t you just go there?
Snape,
Whether or not there is an exchange of energy between two bodies at the same temperature is not the question. What is important is that from the point of view of thermodynamics, there is no heat exchange. There is no more GHG heat flux towards the surface than there is heat flux from cold walls to a heated interior.
These notions of backradiation, backconduction or backconvection bring nothing and are very delicate to introduce into a problem of thermodynamics because the two opposite flows are not independent (2nd law). They are perfectly useless and confuse the minds.
A radiative heat transfer is calculated in the form Q = SA (Th ^ 4 – Tc ^ 4) as a conductive flux is calculated by Q = LA (Th – Tc).
Point.
Good post, phi.
The confusion on this topic is all about those two LW ‘fluxes’ introduced into what is strictly and distinctly a thermodynamic problem.
None of those ‘fluxes’ are free to individually cause ANY thermodynamic effects. Because they are always fully integrated into ONE (!!) macroscopic transfer of energy, the RADIATIVE HEAT FLUX [Q_lw].
People here on this blog have SUCH a hard time grasping this simple circumstance. They’re simply unable to separate between certain MACRO (‘thermo’) and MICRO (‘quantum’) aspects of reality.
I’ve been trying to explain these things for a loooong time to these people. To no avail. It will not stick …
Kristian
You have been stating your own opinion on the issue for a loooong time. Your opinion is not supported by any valid science on radiant heat transfer. All textbooks clearly state a two-way interaction at any surface you are investigating. Both fluxes are macroscopic energy flows. Both are independent from each other.
The two fluxes are energy emitted which is ONLY dependent upon the surface emitting the energy. It is a macroscopic flow of energy.
The other is the energy the surface absorbs from the environment. This is an energy source. It is also macroscopic and is not related to the emission flux. The energy that is absorbed does nothing at all to the emission rate. This is basic quantum physics.
Support your point or you will have not change anyone’s mind. You can state you opinions forever, but that does not make them right.
I told you a simple test you can do in your own home to prove your opinion is not valid. You will not do it.
Sit in a chair not facing a light in your room. You see a macroscopic flow of energy emitted by the light. Now turn around and face the opposite view and you will see macroscopic flows of energy coming back to you from the light. Two macroscopic flows. I try to get you to accept the science but you won’t. I have linked you to multiple sources of valid science that state a two-way flux at a surface. You make up some notion of macroscopic verses microscopic. No such reality exists. There are multiple macroscopic flows. Photons move on through each other with little to no interaction. They do no behave like matter particles that will collide and change direction.
Please support your view with valid physics. You make the claim you studied it, why is it so hard for you to support what you believe. I can’t fine even one source that supports your view.
norman…”All textbooks clearly state a two-way interaction at any surface you are investigating”.
AT THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kircheoff’s law re emissivity and absorb-tion apply only at THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
REPEAT TEN TIMES!!!!!
norman…”The two fluxes are energy emitted which is ONLY dependent upon the surface emitting the energy. It is a macroscopic flow of energy.
The other is the energy the surface absorbs from the environment. This is an energy source. It is also macroscopic and is not related to the emission flux. The energy that is absorbed does nothing at all to the emission rate. This is basic quantum physics”.
*******
It’s not quantum physics at all. Quantum physics is based on Bohr’s model of the atom and Schrodinger applied the Newtonian wave equation to define the allowed orbitals for electrons in the Bohr model. That still applies today.
All radiation, either emission or absorp-tion, is related to the electrons and their energy levels. You can raise an electron to a higher energy level by it absorbing the correct frequency of EM, by atomic/molecular collision, or by applying heat externally. All of those processes raise the temperature of the mass as a whole.
The process you have described above applies only between bodies at thermal equilibrium. When two bodies have different temperatures, quantum theory tells you they won’t exchange heat both ways and a two way radiation transfer makes no sense under such conditions.
If you use the basic quantum equation for EM radiation to/from an electron, E = hf, it tells you that. Stefan-Boltzmann tells you the same thing, radiation travels from the hotter body to the cooler body.
LOL! And along comes Norman to prove my case. He’s simply one of the worst examples of blind, entrenched dogmatism, of stubborn, confused unenlightenment, that I’ve ever come across.
Beware of this person, phi.
Norman:
*Sigh* I have supported my view with valid pysics, Norm. Many times. You just ignored it. I’m only presenting and discussing valid physics. I specifically go by the physics. That’s all I do. You just don’t understand what I’m talking about. What – perfectly valid – physics I’m leaning on and referring to. Not my problem. And the reason why I ignore you.
Bye.
Kristian,
No you have not at all supported you view of a single macroscopic flow of energy from a surface. There would be a single macroscopic flow of the calculated value of heat flow. This is not something anyone can measure directly as it is only a NET value. The Heat flow and emission would be the same if the surroundings were at absolute zero.
You have linked to an article on photon clouds and your own blog. You have NEVER supported your opinion on a one-way energy flow with any valid source of physics. On this very thread, way up somewhere, I linked you to a valid source that makes the opposite claim of you.
You can “Sigh” all you want and pretend you have supported you opinion. You have not at all in reality.
I told you to do the simple experiment which shows a two-way flow of macroscopic energy.
The fact that you can see any object in any lighted room proves you really do not know what you are talking about. There is no photon cloud with some macroscopic flow of one way energy in such a cloud. A photon cloud would be what you have on a foggy day. When you look around and see distinct objects it is because each object is sending a macroscopic flow of energy to your eyes that can be converted into a signal the brain understands.
So you can ignore me all you want or even call me stubborn. Evidence (seeing things) and valid science, not self referenced blog, are on my side. You have none that is why you will never link to valid science supporting your view.
Do you believe there is some one way macroscopic flow of visible light? You are a strange fellow. Wrong as you are. Not as bad as Gordon Robertson but you still make up your own ideas not based upon any real physics. I can post a lot of links to real physics that support my POV and I will not be able to find one that supports yours.
Provide a real valid link or quit telling people I am stubborn and confused. You won’t, you never have.
Norman…”There would be a single macroscopic flow of the calculated value of heat flow. This is not something anyone can measure directly as it is only a NET value. The Heat flow and emission would be the same if the surroundings were at absolute zero”.
I don’t know where you get the temerity to lecture me on made up physics when you print rubbish like this.
Heat is not a NET anything when radiation is involved. Heat does not leave a body and it can only flow in a conductor or through a medium as a mass movement of a gas or liquid, called convection.
You have fallen for this pseudo-science that heat is a transfer of energy, not real energy associated with atoms. If heat is a transfer of energy then what energy is being transferred? There is only one kind of energy being transferred, thermal energy, meaning heat is the transfer of heat, according to the pseudo-science.
There is a lot of pseudo-scientific junk being taught in schools today.
“No you have not at all supported your view of a single macroscopic flow of energy from a surface.”
Very apparent Norman, Kristian has not ever performed one experiment supporting his views (especially of heat). Kristian prefers the much easier twisting of words & writing epistles instead of real testing.
Kristian’s conclusions are unverified and sometimes run counter to those that have done actual verification through testing like Dr. Spencer, E. Swanson, and CERES Team et. al.
Norman, Kristian,
The terms downwelling and upwelling long‐wave radiation are used regularly in meteorology and climate science. No one seems to get confused about what they are. They seem to be measurable and definable. It works for them.
If you tell them these quantities don’t exist, they will just laugh at you.
Kristian…”None of those fluxes are free to individually cause ANY thermodynamic effects. Because they are always fully integrated into ONE (!!) macroscopic transfer of energy, the RADIATIVE HEAT FLUX [Q_lw]”.
Simple reason for that, heat is not a flux and there is no heat in radiative flux. However, the fluxes are free to cause thermodynamic effects, when they come into contact with matter THAT CAN ABSORB them.
As EM flux, which has no thermal properties, the fluxes have no properties related to heat. EM can travel around empty space forever and do nothing…absolutely nothing.
There is indeed heat in a radiative flux.
Ever get a sunburn?
phi…”Whether or not there is an exchange of energy between two bodies at the same temperature is not the question. What is important is that from the point of view of thermodynamics, there is no heat exchange”.
I am supportive of your views on thermodynamics but what you claim above needs to be clarified. Whether or not there is an exchange of energy between bodies at different temperatures is the question. Heat is energy assocuiated with atoms which we call thermal radiation, and there is never a mutual heat exchange via radiation, nor by conduction/convection other than at thermal equilibrium.
The word energy is used far too loosely in discussions involving heat transfer by radiation. It needs to be stated which energy is involved but alarmists who support the theory that GHGs in a cooler atmosphere can transfer heat to the surface intentionally mix up electromagnetic energy with thermal energy.
Alarmists talk about a net energy balance which is either a summation of EM fluxes or a confusion between EM and heat. They claim that fictitious net energy balance satisfies the 2nd law as long as it is positive, meaning as long as there is a net EM transfer in the direction of conventional heat transfer.
That in itself contradicts the 2nd law, which according to its inventor, Clausius, heat can NEVER be transferred by its own means from a cooler body to a warmer body. Applied to the net energy balance fiction, that means heat is being transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body as long as more energy is transferred the other way by EM.
Atoms don’t work that way. Conversion of heat in atoms to EM is at the expense of heat in the body. If that body is in the vicinity of a cooler body, both radiating EM isotropically, the frequency of the radiating cooler body’s EM must exactly match the frequency of the electrons in the hotter body, otherwise the cooler EM cannot be absorbed.
If that was the case near the surface, the surface would never cool. It cools because heated molecules of air rise and the warmed air is replaced by cooler air from above. The surface has a constant supply of cool air above it due to convection.
That means radiation from a cooler body cannot raise the temperature of a hotter body simply because it lacks the frequency (E = hf) to force a receiving electron to a higher energy level, which would represent an increase in temperature.
Besides, when a hotter body radiates isotropically, only a fraction of it radiation reaches the cooler body. Same for the isotropically radiating cooler body.
yet another typo:
“Heat is energy assocuiated with atoms which we call thermal radiation…”
Should be
“Heat is energy associated with atoms which we call thermal energy…”
Gordon Robertson wrote:
The word energy is used far too loosely in discussions involving heat transfer by radiation. It needs to be stated which energy is involved but alarmists who support the theory that GHGs in a cooler atmosphere can transfer heat to the surface intentionally mix up electromagnetic energy with thermal energy.
Blah blah it doesn’t matter.
You are making arbitrary and artificial distinctions that don’t matter. As SoD put it well
“Some people get upset if we use the term heat, and object that heat is the net of the two way process of energy exchange. Its not too important for most of us. I only mention it to make it clear that if the colder atmosphere transfers energy to the ocean then more energy goes in the reverse direction.
“It is a dull point.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/10/06/does-back-radiation-heat-the-ocean-part-one/?blogsub=subscribed#subscribe-blog
It is indeed a DULL POINT.
phi…”A radiative heat transfer is calculated in the form Q = SA (Th ^ 4 Tc ^ 4)”
That’s Stefan-Boltzmann and it does not calculate heat transfer. It measures the power of radiation from the body and it’s based on the antiquated presumption that heat flowed as rays from a body.
Radiative heat transfer could only be measured by summing the heat in each body, due to heat in the hotter body decreasing and the heat in the cooler body increasing.
Remember, radiation is subject to the surface area of radiation on both bodies and the distance the bodies are apart affects the radiative power due to the inverse square law.
My personal opinion is that Stefan-Bolyzmann erred in presuming heat can be radiated to space. I think their equation represents the heat dissipated at a surface due to radiation and another set of equations would be required to measure the heat produced in the cooler body after the received EM is converted back to heat.
Of course, the 2nd law required that the process is not reversible, therefore a two way radiative exchange would make no sense in light of that.
Phi
You didn’t answer the question. Do you think the scenario I described violates the 2LOT? If so, how?
Snape,
The problem you pose shows the confusion caused by your way of thinking.
The 20 W / m2 are absorbed by GHGs.
However, GHGs are net emitters, including in this case. So, at the same time, the atmosphere has cooled down.
In appearance, what you express does not violate the second principle but your example illustrates the violation of the second principle in the representation of the mechanism of the greenhouse effect.
Chic, “my point is these averages mean squat.”
Do you think global temperature and anomalies mean squat? Maybe that should be your argument here.
*****
Let’s say you put a 1/2 meter diameter globe in front of a 1000 watt heat lamp and spin it at a rate of one rotation per minute. Tim could easily calculate the average energy input in (W/m^2). Do you think such an average is meaningless?
Of course it is meaningless unless you can measure to confirm it. What will you do next, calculate the backradiation from the room? Maybe if the globe was big enough, you could get inside and take the measurements to confirm.
“Lets say you put a 1/2 meter diameter globe in front of a 1000 watt heat lamp and spin it at a rate of one rotation per minute. Tim could easily calculate the average energy input in (W/m^2). Do you think such an average is meaningless? ”
The equator will be warmer, if lamp is at zenith in relation to equator.
1/2 meter globes vary, 1000 watt heat lamps vary.
What is distance between them?
Is there air, and what it’s temperature.
But one could get globe and lamp and measure it. Then characterize the rate of warming, and temperature it ends up as.
Let say it absorbed and emitted 240 watts per square meter, what would be temperature of equator?
gbaikie…”1/2 meter globes vary, 1000 watt heat lamps vary”.
Must keep in mind that the 1000 watts refers to the electrical power drawn from the electrical supply, not the power of emitted radiation.
I think it would be an interesting experiment to do but it would really have to be done in a vacuum. It would be impossible to remove the effect of conduction and convection.
Even in a vacuum, I’m sure there would be issues related to conduction through the container walls, unless they could be somehow insulated.
I’m curious as to exactly how much effect radiation would have. The Stefan Boltzmann equation makes it sound as if the radiation emitted is to the 4th power stronger than the emitting temperature but I think those 4th powers are in there to balance the tiny S-B constant in the equation.
Phi
Yes, at night the atmosphere cools along with the surface, but in my example the atmosphere still receives more from the surface than it returns.
You think two bodies cooling in unison (the system is not closed) would be a violation of the 2LOT?
I do not see what you are looking for, your question does not make sense.
I showed you your confusion when you implied that GHGs warmed the atmosphere. I have nothing to add.
Phi
What?? Where in the example did I imply GHG’s warm the atmosphere?
The SURFACE warms the atmosphere:
“Being warmer, suppose the surface radiates 120 w/m^2 in return”
********
What I’m looking for is an answer to the question, “did the above scenario in any way violate the 2LOT? If so, how?
Kristian says:
“*Sigh* I have supported my view with valid pysics, Norm. Many times. You just ignored it.”
Actually, Kristian, you supported your view with a homemade models of photons flying in completely random directions, and claimed, with no supporting evidence, that there could be no direct flows of energy from an object on one side of a room to another.
We demonstrated that view is incorrect. For example, a heat seeking missile is able to detect a specific radiative signal 100’s of meters away (hat tip the Swanson).
Not possible according to the “photon cloud” diagrams you self cite.
Snape says:
May 25, 2018 at 12:12 PM
Snape, the problem of bloggers like Okulær alias Kristian is that they tend to confound their private meaning with globally acknowledged science.
Snape
Thanks for the example of the heat seeking missile.
Kristian is just a more intelligent version of Gordon Robertson. He makes up his own physics based upon some notions he has read about like the photon cloud or gas.
He will never support his made up physics with any valid physics not matter how many times you request it.
There are other things you can examine to know he is a poser and makes up stuff. He thinks there is just a one way transfer of energy the Heat flux.
If you look at real textbooks they will include examples of multiple objects in problem set. The thing is if each object as at a different temperature you have multiple heat fluxes. Say you have a 200 C object a 100 C object and a 0 C object. The 200 C object will have a heat flux flowing to both the 100 and 0 C objects. The 100 C object will have its own heat flux flowing to the 0 C object. The 0 C object will have two heat fluxes at its surface from two objects.
Heat flux is not a real thing. It is what is calculated. Energy fluxes are the real thing. Each object emits its own energy flux and it receives its own energy flux. The flow is only two-way at a surface even if you have multiple objects. The surface heat flux (that is all you are calculating, the heat flux for a given surface and it can be positive if losing heat or negative if it is gaining heat), is the amount of energy the surface emits minus the energy it is able to absorb. Very simple and makes sense on all levels. Kristian’s view makes sense only to himself.
So far I have not read one other poster interacting with Kristian that can understand his point. He even calls one of the most informed posters, Tim Folkerts, wrong. He also calls PhD scientist wrong. He can’t back anything up and will never. He acts like he is some super authority on the topic. I fail to see even anything close to that.
norman…”Kristian is just a more intelligent version of Gordon Robertson”.
**********
Coming from norman’s inverse universe that means Kristian and Gordon Robertson are very intelligent. I am better known for my devastating good looks, so I’ll concede that Kristian is more intelligent than me.
Snape says, May 25, 2018 at 12:12 PM:
LOL! So ‘thermal photons’ aren’t flying in completely random directions. According to Master Physicist Snape …
I am not referring to self-cites, Snape. I’ve linked to sources (like standard physics textbook material) where the physics I’m dealing with is described. And I’ve done it on multiple occasions.
None of you have ever acknowledged these in the least, however. Or, should I rather say: None of you have ever shown even an inkling of understanding of what any of these sources describe, of what they are in fact saying and discussing. No sign of any kind of contextual background knowledge.
And again, that’s not my problem. I’ve explained it all IN DETAIL, over and over, WITH supporting links, including direct quotes. I’m done with all that. You don’t care anyway. You’re not interested in getting any of it. In even trying to. Because you’re wedded to a dogma. That’s what it’s like. It’s like talking to the proverbial wall.
If you want to bicker on about this, be my guest. You won’t be doing it with me …
Kristian
In this post I sent you a link to some valid science that shows your view is not supported by science.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-302859
No you have never supported you ONE-WAY energy flux. Heat flux does not exist as an actual entity. It is a derived value from NET energy exchange. A surface gaining energy will have a negative heat flux. A surface losing energy will have a positive heat flux. Just a derived value. An energy flow is the real deal, the heat is derived when you sum up all the energy flows to a surface. Nothing more complex than that. I do not mind if you ignore me. I does not mean you are right or correct. Your view is your own made up one. You have not posted one link to a heat transfer textbook to support you claims of a 0ne-way energy transfer or that energy of photons moves like a wind, one way. Visible sight proves you wrong every time you look at some object.
Chic says:
“Furthermore, I dont think any of us know that you have more energy reaching the surface than you would with no GHG.”
Look at the measurements below, and notice, even at night, there is a relatively steady flow of IR to the surface. That’s an example of the input that gets averaged into the global rate…..~ 340 w/m^2
All that IR would have travelled directly to space if not for the GHG component of the atmosphere.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b04d1b1623c2.png
“The MEASURED DALR is about 9.8. By definition it is at 0% humidity.”
How can you measure a definiton? And no, by defintion the DALR is not 0% absolute or relative humidity. The DALR def. allows for no condensation, not no humidity.
When the atm. is measured in the troposphere to be ~9.8, there is always much wv so there is always nonzero relative & absolute humidity. I’m asking you what is that RH in the DALR calculation because you claim Manabe model is wrong due the RH difference. To know the difference in RH, DALR from Manabe, YOU must know the two inputs to get the difference.
My contention is that you can not support your assertion Manabe model is wrong because you will not find RH in the DALR derivation. Until you can show that, your assertion Manabe model Fig. 11 is wrong remains unsupported.
I see you double posted, so I post here too. However, I think I’m done unless there is still something I’m not seeing in Fig. 11.
I must admit that I assumed DALR meant dry as in no humidity. Maybe it isn’t measured for lack of zero humidity or nobody putting radiosondes up in hot deserts. Online sources go from bone dry to anything less than saturated (100% relative) humidity. Apparently people seem more interested in what happens to the lapse rate during convection or as air parcels subside. That seems to be Ball4’s concern.
Manabe’s Fig. 11 shows calculated temperature profiles at 0.2, 0.6, and 1.0 relative humidity. Other than a parallel increase in temperature at all lower troposphere altitudes, there is no or possibly a small decrease in the projected lapse rate as the humidity decreases. If the moist or saturated lapse rate is 5 and any substantially less moist lapse rate approaches 10, then it seems obvious that a model of the atmosphere should show an increasing lapse rate as humidity decreases. Manabe’s model is not showing that.
Ball4’s position is …, well who knows. But he thinks the model is accurate and therefore increasing CO2 must increase global temperature. That’s his position and he’s sticking to it.
Its really pretty simple.
*************************************
If you CHOOSE to work within the macroscopic framework of classical thermodynamics (and this is an *excellent* choice, by the way), then net energy flows are the way to go. There is a radiative heat flow of 23 W/m^2 from the surface to the atmosphere. Plug this into various equations for “Q” (or for dQ/dt / A) and you are off!
This has the additional advantage of heading off critiques like “why can’t I focus that 333 W/m^2 of DWLWIR to cook a turkey?”.
*************************************
If you CHOOSE to work within a more modern, statistical, microscopic framework, that works too! Photons really are flying up and down. 396 W/m^2 of IR photons are leaving the surface; 333 W/m^2 of IR photons are getting absorbed. You do have to be careful not to call that 333 W/m^2 “heat”. But you end up with the same results just using slightly different words in your explanation.
Tim Folkert,
…within a more modern, statistical, microscopic framework…
Firstly, all these ridiculous discussions based on backradiations have nothing to do with statistical thermodynamics. They are only a logical consequence of an arbitrary hypothesis that constrains the thermal gradient (see, for example, Ramanathan 1978). From this singular hypothesis arises an undifferentiation between backradiations and solar flux.
Second, classical thermodynamics incorporates the second principle into the powerful notion of heat. Where do you integrate it?
1) If you accept the existence of photons, then you accept the existence of “backradiation” Photons are flying all the time from the cooler atmosphere toward the warmer surface.
2) S = k ln(Ω)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
Tim Folkert,
1. I do not claim that backradiations do not exist. I explain that backradiations are used in climatology because their equivalence with the solar flux stems from an arbitrary theoretical hypothesis on the gradient.
2. I am not asking you for the formula of entropy, but I would like to know how you introduce the second principle into your two-way balance (it is implicit in the notion of heat).
The real problem first arises when there is already a constant supply of heat from an external/internal source (like the Sun). You are then forced – using the “two-way flow” model – to explain the ‘extra rise in surface temperature’ as DIRECTLY and SOLELY CAUSED by the ‘addition of back radiation from the cooler atmosphere’, since there is no other ‘flow’ of energy around to explain it: There is no more energy coming in from the heat source (the Sun). There is no less energy moving out from the surface. The only difference is a second ‘flow’ of energy coming IN to the surface, right next to the solar input.
So you are effectively forced to treat this additional input as a second HEAT flux: A macroscopic thermal transfer of energy directly and all by itself INCREASING the U, and thus the T, of the receiving system (the surface). In thermodynamics, such a transfer with such an effect is called HEAT [Q] and nothing else.
Only problem is, this particular transfer is coming from a COOLER place.
And THERE’S your 2nd Law violation. You cannot DESCRIBE the process like this.
The ‘extra’ warming of the surface itself doesn’t violate the 2nd Law. It’s just a matter of insulation, after all. But the “extra warming by back radiation” EXPLANATION of the effect clearly DOES violate the 2nd Law.
Kristian 1:42am remains confused about non-existent heat. I note Kristian NEVER cites an experiment supporting his views. Correctly based on experiments not assertions:
So you are effectively forced to treat this additional input as a second JOULES of ENERGY flux
In thermodynamics, such a transfer with such an effect is called JOULES of ENERGY [Q] and nothing else.
And THERE’S no 2nd Law violation as proven by Dr. Spencer’s experiments on the atm. and E. Swanson in the lab.
the “extra warming by back radiation” EXPLANATION of the effect clearly DOES NOT violate the 2nd Law or 1LOT as proven by atm. experiment.
Two things.
1) Q in thermodynamics specifically and distinctly denominates HEAT, not just “joules of energy”. Heat IS always joules of energy (in transit from hot to cold). But joules of energy isn’t always heat. Which is why calling Q “joules of energy” is confusing AND confused.
2) The experiments you refer to don’t prove the EXPLANATION. They simply verify the EFFECT. And as I pointed out, the effect does not violate the 2nd Law. It is just insulation. But the way the effect is explained through the direct addition of “back-radiation” is indeed in violation of the 2nd Law.
Kristian 8:40am: Then experimentally prove me wrong; please show by any test you want to perform: “joules of energy isn’t always heat.” All you need is one test.
“But the way the effect is explained through the direct addition of “back-radiation” is indeed in violation of the 2nd Law.”
2LOT for any real thermo. process simply says where dS = change in entropy: delta S(universe) is to be greater than 0 by:
dS=dQ/T is greater than 0
so adding joules of energy to Earth surface absorbing radiant energy from atmosphere:
d(+Q)/+T = d(+joules of energy)/+T is greater than 0
is positive thus NO violation of the 2LOT in this process showing Kristian is wrong.
Q.E.D.
Kristian is again confused and misled by a nonexistent substance or entity called heat as in his text book quote above:
5:24am per Kristian: “Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.”
This is basic stuff.
Phi,
2) Consider two identical plates that face each other, but at different temperatures. The warmer plate has molecules with a higher average energy which emit more thermal IR. The cooler plate has molecules with a lover average energy which emit less thermal IR. Even thought there are two flows of thermal IR, the NET flow (the ‘heat’) is always from warmer to cooler, because the warmer plate always emit more.
The same principle holds even with different materials when the emissivities my vary significantly — both from one material to the other, and from one wavelength to another. The analysis just gets a little more complicated.
It is simply a matter of statistics and probability. There is a higher probably of excitation in the warmer object, causing a higher probability of IR photons getting emitted.
Tim Folkert,
Right.
Probability qualifies the relationship between the two opposite flows. In statistical thermodynamics, the two opposite flux are therefore connected by a probabilistic relation. Exactly as in classical thermodynamics the two flows are aggregated in the notion of heat. There is therefore in both cases, and it is very happy, an essential link.
My question: where does this essential link appear in a flow chart like that of Trenberth ?
How do I see that the downstream flux is not independent of the upstream flux ?
How do I know that the convective fluxes represented are heat flux while the IR fluxes are interdependent energy flows?
“How do I see that the downstream flux is not independent of the upstream flux ?”
You have to have passed the physics pre-req.s learning that incoherent atm. photons do not interact with each other so the atm. downstream photon flux is independent of the atm. upstream photon flux.
The tropospheric convective fluxes represented are kinetic energy fluxes driven by a fluid warmed from below in a gravity field.
This is a no-win semantics game. I’m not saying one person or group is right or wrong. Just that each grouop’s explanation satisfies themselves. I side with Kristian, because the two-way flows cannot be measured. Only the one way hot to cold flux can be measured. If I’m wrong, please explain how Dr. S or E. Swanson measured them.
Dr. Spencer measured the added DWIR from icy clouds appearing overnight increase surface thermometer temperature of a tub of water above that of nearby water not in view of the icy cloud added DWIR.
Norman shows the NOAA ESRL routinely 24/7 measured independent photonic UWIR and DWIR here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-303977
Ball4,
That’s a good point, but the UWIR is measuring what’s seen at the TOA which is a combination of what’s being radiated from the surface and at many elevations above the clouds. And the DWIR is basically measuring the IR from the first few meters above the surface. So it isn’t exactly like measuring the flows between two objects. There are at least four objects, not counting clouds. The surface, the air above the surface, the air at the TOA, and the air in between.
Chic, NOAA ESRL instruments are on the ground in this case at Desert Rock, Nev. so the UWIR is from an instrument looking down at the ground a couple feet away and the DWIR is from a nearby instrument looking up. The DWIR instrument detects passing clouds so it is receiving IR from much higher than “a few meters”.
phi says, May 26, 2018 at 3:19 PM:
A very good question, and one I would very much like to see Folkerts responding to, not these other imbeciles lurking around …
Phi, you basically answered your own questions when you said:
“In statistical thermodynamics, the two opposite flux are therefore connected by a probabilistic relation.”
Statistical mechanics connects the flows. People can see this in the diagrams if they understand physics.
This essential link appears in a flow chart like that of Trenberth because that is fundamental physics that readers of the paper should have as background knowledge.
You see that the downstream flux is not independent of the upstream flux because they are both thermal IR that depend on the same rules.
You know that the convective fluxes are heat flux while the IR fluxes are interdependent energy flows because you read the paper, rather than just taking one figure out of context.
Tim Folkert,
I sincerely thank you for your honest answer.
It causes an avalanche of new questions. I shall mention only a few points.
1. I have always been taught, even in professional relationships, to clearly distinguish between values reflecting different notions. So I hold these balance diagrams as at least defective.
2. Just read Idiot Tracker or Ball4 to understand how the defectiveness of these schemes is troubling the minds of people claiming yet as literate in the field.
3. These defective diagrams are constantly emerging in the vulgarisation of the greenhouse effect, they are clearly not intended for specialists and must be held to be seriously misleading and false.
4. Why mix up inconsistent notions and make a schema unnecessarily complex when the mere representation of heat flux would suffice?
5. The most important. The backradiations represented have, in the quantitative theory of the greenhouse effect, effectively value of heat flux. This incongruity is the consequence of hypotheses related to the thermal gradient. These assumptions leave the climate system only a mode of recovery after any radiative imbalance. Whether this imbalance is due to a variation of the incoming energy or a change in the radiative structure, the effect is supposed to be identical.
Conclusion: The diagrams representing backradiations without distinguishing them from heat fluxes are consistent with the theory of the greenhouse effect. Their inconsistency with thermodynamics signals the inconsistency of the greenhouse theory.
Tim Folkerts says, May 26, 2018 at 8:53 PM:
But people DON’T understand the underlying physics, Tim. You see it all the time on this very blog. Don’t you get it? THAT’S the problem. These charts CONFUSE people into THINKING that these two ‘flows’ are actually somehow INDEPENDENT fluxes of energy, able to generate their very own and distinct thermodynamic (thermal) effects. Because THAT’S how it’s being presented to the world. Invariably. Both in charts and in words. It is NEVER explained, much less emphasized, that the DWLWIR and the UWLIWR are really just two sides of the same macroscopic flow of radiative energy, the net LW, the Q_out(lw). Instead, they are very much treated separately. As if they were two discrete (independent) thermodynamic fluxes. Just like the solar flux, just like the latent flux, just like the sensible flux. Which are all treated as what they actually are: HEAT fluxes.
The problem is, the two opposing LW ‘fluxes’ are treated just the same way. They’re in the same chart. They are – independently – placed right next to those real heat fluxes, as separate inputs and outputs, in setting up Earth’s energy budget.
Notice what Feynman is describing here:
“If the gas at the top of a container is hotter than the gas at the bottom, heat will flow from the top to the bottom. (We think of the top being hotter because otherwise convection currents would be set up and the problem would no longer be one of heat conduction.) The transfer of heat from the hotter gas to the colder gas is by the diffusion of the “hot” molecules – those with more energy – downward and the diffusion of the “cold” molecules upward. To compute the flow of thermal energy we can ask about the energy carried downward across an element of area by the downward-moving molecules, and about the energy carried upward across the surface by the upward-moving molecules. The difference will give us the net downward flow of energy.”
He’s describing a “two-way flow” model of CONDUCTION through a volume of gas. In just the same manner as you can conceptualise a “two-way flow” of thermal radiation through a radiative field.
If you look at the formula describing convective heat transfer, it takes the exact general form of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, describing radiative heat transfer:
P/A = h (T_1 – T_2)
P/A = e s (T_1^4 – T_2^4)
In other words, all heat transfers COULD be conceptually conceived of as a “two-way flow” of thermal energy, a larger one from hot to cold opposed by a smaller one from cold to hot.
However, macroscopic REALITY is different. This is all a mental/mathematical construct. There is only the net flow of ALL microscopic movements of energy to be observed. That’s the heat. In reality, there is no such thing as a “half heat flow”. Those conceptual ‘hemifluxes’ are POTENTIAL fluxes only, what COULD’VE been if the other one weren’t there.
So the only reason, really, why the smallish radiative heat loss from the surface isn’t shown in these ‘flow charts’, but is rather split into two separate and massive (thus maximum attention-drawing) opposing arrows, while the other heat losses are represented just the way they are, is that someone badly wants to hammer into people’s minds the idea that the average global surface temperature is higher with an atmosphere than it would be without simply because of all that “back radiation” from the atmosphere.
It is so obvious. And so silly.
Phi, at this point my best advice is to read the paper!
The diagram was never intended to stand on its own to explain all about the greenhouse effect. The diagram has a caption. The diagram is part of a paper (actually a series of papers that have been updated over the years). Read the whole paper — then offer detailed criticisms.
Kristian 6:35am remains adamant and manifestly wrong on basic stuff: “These charts CONFUSE people into THINKING that these two ‘flows’ are actually somehow INDEPENDENT fluxes of energy, able to generate their very own and distinct thermodynamic (thermal) effects.”
Kristian, it is you that is confused & doesn’t understand the basic underlying physics. Experiments put before you show that the UWIR and DWIR really are two independent fluxes of incoherent photonic energy able to generate their very own and distinct thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy effects. That you ignore Dr. Spencer’s and E. Swanson’s experiments is very telling.
Do any proper experiment that supports your view and show us what you physically mean is correct.
“Instead, they are very much treated separately. As if they were two discrete (independent) thermodynamic fluxes.”
Because there ARE two discrete separate fluxes observed in nature looking up and down based on observation & experiment. Incoherent photons don’t interact in nature. As nature has been trying to teach Kristian through experimental evidence.
“That’s the heat.”
Kristian should pay more attention to Kristian 5:24am:“Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
“However, macroscopic REALITY is different.”
When exactly does micro physics change and be different macro physics? There is no such change Kristian. No dividing line.
It is so obvious. And so correct.
To Earth surface, the atm. emits terrestrial radiation & the Sun emits solar radiation; the Earth emits terrestrial radiation to deep space. The arrows are correct.
Dig into the experimental evidence, Kristian, and that is what you will find. Observations in line with theory are what the charts are based on. Take Tim’s advice: read the papers and critique details based on your own experiments.
Ball4
I have been trying to educate Kristian on the nature of photons. I think he is stuck in a place where he concluded photons acted like molecules of air. Most his examples and claims use this type of thinking.
I have told him about up and down detected IR flows that are different and independent of each other. This does not help he goes of on a tangent about how the device works. I recall with you and him in past interactions, you explained to him the instruments are calibrated in labs with known standards of IR so out in the field they can correctly record the actual values. It did not help him.
I am trying to educate him (but he ignores it, he is too smart for anyone. He is very much like Gordon Robertson. Whatever he thinks is correct and everyone else, including the entire science community hasn’t got a clue or is intentionally dishonest about it).
I am using visible light, which most of us can experiment with on our own. Look at an object, you can see it. Only a macroscopic flow of energy can give you enough information about an object to see it. Photons do not act like a gas colliding and moving in all directions. They move away from objects in straight lines, even if those lines might be extreme high number all around the object, they do not move sideways, or back to the object, they do not interact with each other as you have told him many times.
I try to explain to him, in vain, that the Two-way flow is only a surface phenomena of what you are determining. A given surface in reality will have multiple macroscopic energy fluxes reaching in from all the different objects. All this energy is just combined to equal the energy the surface absorbs. What it emits is a singular energy flux away from the surface. The heat it loses or gains is how much energy it emits (loses) minus the energy it absorbs (gains). The heat flow of the equations is the NET of this energy. I have not seen one source make a different claim.
I want the skeptics to use good valid science and find flaws with the AGW theory. As of now most of the “skeptics” have horrible incorrect physics and are completely unwilling to learn why they are wrong and to correct their terrible science. They seem in a war to convince themselves that the scientific community is making up the science. The reality is that they are the only ones making up this junk fake science and pretending they are these super experts in the field. It is a sad thing to see and it seems hopeless to change any of them to become good rational skeptics. So far I think only Bart and Roy Spencer have good science in their skeptic views. The rest is all garbage. Over and over pulling out the same worn out crackpot science that has been discredited numerous times.
Even Wood’s Greenhouse experiment was discredited in the same magazine that he posted it by another scientist shortly after the original article pointing out many flaws in Woods test.
Norman says, May 27, 2018 at 8:23 AM:
Says Norm, The Great Pretender!
Hahahahahahahahaha!
I agree Norman, your commenting agrees with experiments unlike much of Kristian’s. Though my reading of Prof. Wood experiment is different than yours, Prof. Wood got it right as did Fourier much earlier.
Kristian simply needs to do confirming testing like Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson et. al. if he wants his views to be generally accepted.
Kristian
No pretending at all. After falling for the false skeptics for a period of time (The PSI people) I started reading the real science. The actual material. I studied Chemistry in college not heat transfer. I had one year of physics and they just cover some basic ideas.
You really do not have a clue about photon interaction evident by reading your posts. Ball4 states the nature of photons correctly, you do not.
The odd thing about you is you are so stubborn you are rejecting the information your eyes give you. They clearly give you individual macroscopic flows of visible light energy in such number you can read the text of a post. NO photon cloud or gas, the photons are not moving to your eyes in a chaotic pattern. They are arriving in your eyes with macroscopic detectable evidence.
You reject your own eyes. I am not sure why you do this.
Tim Folkert,
We must read Manabe, Ramanathan, etc. They are the ones who set the foundation of the quantitative theory. Trenberth only fits into this framework.
Let’s read Ball4:
Gross globally averaged latent heat (LH) transported annually upwards = about 77 W / m^2 net of condensation snow and rain LH transported downwards 77 W / m^2 = 0 in LTE. Long term being observed over 4-12+ annual periods.
Same for convection (sensible heat SH) 24 gross up net of 24 down = 0 in LTE.
Neither SH or LH affect the surface energy balance over 4-12+ annual periods as these components net to zero in all the 100s of Earth surface energy balances (Trenberth has a lot of competition).
(http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304654)
This is in total contradiction with thermodynamics but fully in line with the quantitative theory of the greenhouse effect.
Ramanathan et al. 1978 :
An exact treatment for qc [convective heat flux] would require the solution of the equations of motion and continuity in addition to the solution of the energy equation. This ambitious task has not been attempted by any of the radiative-convective models. In general, qc is accounted for by semiempirical or empirical techniques.
convection is what determines the temperature gradient of the atmosphere
Means:
1. There is no thermodynamics of the greenhouse effect.
2. Convection is independent of radiative transfers.
3. The thermal gradient is independent of heat fluxes.
4. Convection does not participate to heat fluxes, so, do not cool the surface.
The empirical technique considerably simplifies the procedure for solving the thermal structure of the atmosphere. Since the temperature gradient is prescribed within the troposphere, (8) [qT(z) + qS(z) + qC(z) = const = 0] need not be solved. Instead, the equation for the radiative equilibrium condition, i.e., qT + qS = 0, is solved with the provisio that the lapse rate at any level within the atmosphere should be less than or equal to the critical lapse rate.
Ramanathan and Coakley 1978.
In other words: convection is independent of the radiative structure and does not participate in heat transfer but sets the temperature gradient.
From this trick arises that any radiative imbalance is recovered in an imposed way and that therefore backradiations or heating by the sun have the same effect.
Thus, all these discussions on backradiations do not have as their origin in physics (the laws of thermodynamics have solved the problem for a long time) but in a strange trick, a cluster of wobbly hypotheses never verified.
At the same time, the concept of radiative forcing that stems from this trick is an aberration and the results of the models are only perfectly arbitrary.
phi writes: “This is in total contradiction with thermodynamics..”
phi, assertions have no credibility unless accompanied by test.
“This” is simply 1LOT energy balance in accord with 2LOT as the LH+SH processes increase universe entropy. Fully in accord with basic thermodynamics as is the top post as all are based on observations.
Farmers really do use greenhouses to grow stuff instead of out in the field and LH&SH processes are observed & added together being confirmed and replicated by 100s of authors in 100s of papers not just Trenberth’s.
“any radiative imbalance is recovered in an imposed way”
No imposition phi, Argo now allows a measured significant estimate of the imbalance with confidence to instrument accuracy combined with several other instrument observations discussed and cited in Loeb 2018.
“But people DONT understand the underlying physics, Tim”
That is like saying judges should use legal terms in court because “people” don’t understand legal jargon. Or that doctors should not use medical terms when talking to each because “people” will have a hard time understanding.
Clear communication should always be a goal, but communication requires a level of shared knowledge. I assure you that physicists do not feel all this confusion about the diagram!
^^ like saying judges should NOT use legal terms ^^
Tim Folkerts says, May 27, 2018 at 7:32 AM:
Read my bloody comment, Tim. I explain WHY this is an all-important point. The argument of DOOM and accompanying demands of wide-ranging changes in policy, in society and in common people’s everyday lives and habits, arguments based ON these very charts, is sold to the entire WORLD. This is NOT an academic exercise meant only for the elect few that “understand the underlying physics”. These are propaganda tactics.
And you know this perfectly well, Tim. So stop pretending you don’t …!
“These are propaganda tactics.”
Only when not accompanied with confirmatory testing such as Dr. Spencer and E. Swanson have done. And many others.
Kristian’s comments are not accompanied with confirmatory testing. As yet, that can change.
Firstly, all these ridiculous discussions based on backradiations have nothing to do with statistical thermodynamics.
This is one of the nicest gem among your idiotic assertions !
As you were repeatedly told, you obviously have no clue what statistical thermodynamics or mechanics is all about.
So how could you ever know that anything is wrong with back radiation ?
What’s “ridiculous” here is just you keeping make a fool of yourself.
Firstly, all these ridiculous discussions based on backradiations have nothing to do with statistical thermodynamics.
This is one of the nicest gem among your idiotic assertions !
As you were repeatedly told, you obviously have no clue what statistical thermodynamics or mechanics is all about.
So how could you ever know that anything is wrong with back radiation ?
Whats ridiculous here is just you keeping make a fool of yourself.
The “two opposite flux” concept explaining at microscopic level the classical thermodynamic heat transfer thing is precisely ubiquitously made use of in statistical thermodynamics.
If phi knew a little bit what he talks about he certainly never had posted such nonsense.
Feynman, often invoked by physics illiterate deniers to support their laughable drivel, shows a nice example in his introduction to this science when he explains thermal conduction in a gas for instance (or blackbody radiation in a cavity).:
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_43.html
Quote from Freynman, paragraph 43-6 (emphasis mine)
The methods of the kinetic theory that we have been using above can be used also to compute the thermal conductivity of a gas. If the gas at the top of a container is hotter than the gas at the bottom, heat will flow from the top to the bottom. (We think of the top being hotter because otherwise convection currents would be set up and the problem would no longer be one of heat conduction.) The transfer of heat from the hotter gas to the colder gas is by the diffusion of the “hot” molecules—those with more energy—downward and the diffusion of the “cold” molecules upward. To compute the flow of thermal energy we can ask about the energy carried downward across an element of area by the downward-moving molecules, and about the energy carried upward across the surface by the upward-moving molecules. The difference will give us the net downward flow of energy.
Idiot tracker says, May 25, 2018 at 10:28 PM:
But it isn’t really “explaining it on a microscipic level”, is it? Radiative fluxes in W/m^2 or similar (macroscopic) units don’t have anything to do with the quantum world. Actually describing thermal radiation on a microscopic level is a totally different ballgame.
Statistical mechanics works by the priciple of taking ALL microscopic constituents and potential degrees of freedom of a physical system or process to create a (ONE!) probabilistic average for the system or process as a whole.
And THEN people – normally for simplifying computational purposes – can (and do) apply certain geometric constraints to the system or process, like splitting a volume of gas or a thermal radiation field into two directional halves or hemispheres. That, however, is not an inherent characteristic of the volume and field themselves. That part is all in our mind.
This final operation is exactly what Feynman is describing in your quote:
“To compute the flow of thermal energy we can ask about the energy carried downward across an element of area by the downward-moving molecules, and about the energy carried upward across the surface by the upward-moving molecules. The difference will give us the net downward flow of energy.”
The “two-way flow” concept is a mental construct, not microscopic (or MACROscopic) reality. You only get ‘bidirectional flow’ if you first DEFINE for yourself two directions in which to look. The gas molecules and the thermal photon themselves, if you were to ‘dive in’ and have a look, do NOT move in two directions only. They basically move in ALL spatial directions. Complete chaos. No order whatsoever.
Physics as science in general is certainly a “mental construct” whether you like it or not and by the way it is not about philosophic blather.
In the example of Feynman, it is Nature that “defines” the direction in which to look. It’s the one of the temperature gradient and the two flows are as “real “along this direction as is the relevant classical thermodynamics heat flow nor are they any more of a “mental construct” than is classical heat flow.
And nobody of course ever said that the molecules just move along this direction. Are you really that dumb as to believe that we, as physicists, had to be taught about this by a certain blogger named Kristian.? What is statistical mechanics all about, do you think ?
idiot tracker says, May 26, 2018 at 3:05 AM:
Er, no. It is Feynman. The thermal gradient just IS. You can ‘look’ up the ladder or you can ‘look’ down the ladder. But macroscopic energy will only FLOW one way – DOWN the ladder. From high potential to low potential. MICROscopic energy won’t care about the ladder at all.
This is basic stuff.
Kristian
That is why you are wrong. In your mind you are thinking photons and molecules have the same basic nature. You read about a photon gas (which exists in a special setup and can exist in a fog) and think that photons act like molecules of gas.
YOU: “The gas molecules and the thermal photon themselves, if you were to dive in and have a look, do NOT move in two directions only. They basically move in ALL spatial directions. Complete chaos. No order whatsoever.”
There is no complete chaos with photons. They do not collide with themselves and exchange energy and direction. Photons need to hit some matter to exchange energy (there are exceptions)
Photons DO NOT move in all spacial directions in complete chaos. They move in straight lines away from an emitting object until they interact with some matter, that is why you can see objects and why you can’t see anything behind you or even at slight angles away from you side. You have this false notion about photons attributing them to particles of mass. Just wrong.
With air you have pressure gradients that bulk molecules move in a given direction. You use this same concept with photons but it does not work like that. Each object emits its own photons away from its surface, the photons from one object move right on through the photons emitted by another object with no interaction. If air molecules were like photons you could have wind (macroscopic energy flows) flowing in opposing directions that could turn turbines. You should educate yourself on photons. They are not like molecules at all and do not behave like them.
K
This is basic stuff.
Nope.
This is just meaningless idiotic philosophic blather .
Idiot tracker says, May 27, 2018 at 6:25 AM:
That’s your retort!?
You can do better than that, Idiot.
Kristian says: “Statistical mechanics works by the priciple of taking ALL microscopic constituents and potential degrees of freedom of a physical system or process to create a (ONE!) probabilistic average for the system or process as a whole.”
No, not really.
Suppose you have two identical chambers at two different (but uniform and constant) temperatures. Both have zero net flux inside; zero heat in the form of thermal radiation. Your ‘probabilistic average” net flow of photons is zero for both.
But that is not the end of the story. There really are measurable differences within the chambers. There is an energy density associated with the photons. There is radiation pressure against the walls. Both of these are higher in the warmer chamber. Stat mech does SO much more than find one probabilistic average!
Mmm, what was the purpose of this comment, Tim?
Tim,
Do you consider 396 W/m2 anything other than a number that corresponds to the 289K average surface temperature? You do realize that 63 = 396-333 = 463- 400 = 263 – 200 = 63 – 0?
In other words, do measurements back up that number as distinctly separate from measurements of sensible and latent heat?
396 W/m^2 = σ (289K)^4 = power that should be radiated from a 289K blackbody surface (to the cold background of space).
So yes, it is much more than just a number pulled out of a hat. There is a very specific, very theoretical, very logical connection between 289 K and 396 W/m^2.
(There are more details, but that is the short answer)
That should be “sigma”, not “σ”
And this time the sigma did come out right! I give up! hahaha
Just a tiny detail: if you want your comments to contain special characters correctly output on this site, please use for example
https://mothereff.in/html-entities
Using it,
El Nio La Nia then will be output here as
El Niño ± La Niña
Tim,
If 289K is the average global temperature, then any set of extreme temperatures making up that average will radiate more than 396 W/m2, no? So maybe that relates to the details you mentioned, like admitting the number is pulled out of a hat because you don’t have any measurements of it. Can you rectify the 396 with numbers for sensible and latent heat or do they need to change to compensate?
Chic,
I would suggest looking at Trenberth’s paper if you want to know the details. I don’t know the exact methodology.
As you say, a real BB with an average temperature of 289K would emit more than 396 W/m^2 because the temperature is not uniform. OTOH, the surface is not a true BB, so it would emit less than a true BB. It seems plausible that these two would approximately cancel out. But again, see what Trenberth has to say about it.
I’m really more interested in understanding the phenomena than the numbers. What troubles me is the possibility that estimates of the numbers are adjusted to fit the hypothesis.
Let’s say we have estimates for surface SW in, latent and sensible heat out. Maybe Trenberth wanted the surface IR out to be consistent with the average global temperature. Voila, 396 W/m2. Why can’t a body at 289K lose 63 W/m2 by IR up, and 98 W/m2 by other means as long as it continues to receive 161 W/m2 solar SW? Maybe it’s more like 51 IR and 110 others.
The problem with the backradiation concept, or at least the Trenberth diagram view of it, is it leads people to think IR is raining down to the surface from 5 km up. That’s not happening.
Chic,
What you should ask Folkerts is what phi is asking him:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304580
“What troubles me is the possibility that estimates of the numbers are adjusted to fit the hypothesis.”
Once again, do the work read the paper if you are really interested. Don’t just ponder ‘possibilities’ or make up your own answers. What does the paper say about the source of the estimates? What about their methodology do you disagree with?
This is basic stuff.
Funny.
This is just meaningless idiotic philosophic blather .
Sorry, post just above in wrong place.
As a punishment, I’ve got to make a sensible contribution to this thread.
So since Chic Bowdrie is much too lazy to do any of the home work suggested by TF let’s make an evaluation of the upwards latent heat flow shown in Trenberth ‘s diagram.
Fairly good statistics exist as to the total amount of precipitations (rain, snow) that fall on earth, found to be about 505 000 cubic kilometers a year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_rainfall_climatology
Annual globally averaged precipitation is thus 990 mm= 990 liters / m^2
Every liter of water that evaporates at about 25 C from surface absorbs 2450 kJ / liter of latent heat
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-properties-d_1573.html
Globally averaged latent heat transported annually upwards from surface is therefore 2450 x 990 KJ /m^2
that is per second: (2450 x 990)/ (365 x 24 X 60 X 60) = about 77 W / m^2 to be compared with trenberth’s diagram.
What can here be pulled out of the hat ?
Admittedly evaluating convective contribution is a bit more tricky and not that elementary but experiment et theory from fluid dynamics here again provide a reasonable estimate.
As to radiation from surface component the 396 W/m^2 correspond to 289 K to be interpreted as an effective radiation temperature of earth surface and not as its average temperature closer to 287-288 K;
Gross globally averaged latent heat (LH) transported annually upwards = about 77 W / m^2 net of condensation snow and rain LH transported downwards 77 W / m^2 = 0 in LTE. Long term being observed over 4-12+ annual periods.
Same for convection (sensible heat SH) 24 gross up net of 24 down = 0 in LTE.
Neither SH or LH affect the surface energy balance over 4-12+ annual periods as these components net to zero in all the 100s of Earth surface energy balances (Trenberth has a lot of competition).
The 0.5-1.0 unbalanced W/m^2 at the surface originates from net radiation not balancing within instrument accuracy.
Your taste in net radiation determines its source from 9+ unnatural forcings and all the natural forcings combined.
Ball4
Gross globally averaged latent heat (LH) transported annually upwards = about 77 W / m^2 net of condensation snow and rain LH transported downwards 77 W / m^2 = 0 in LTE.
There seems to be a serious misunderstanding here.
Snow and rain do not “transport 77 W / m^2 of LH downwards” when they fall and return to surface.
Water vapor formed by evaporation at surface transports LH upwards up to condensation level. Upon condensing there it heats the air at this level and the relevant energy is then transported further upwards by convection and/or by direct IR radiation to space.
Little LH comes ever back to surface for instance upon formation of dew by the end of a clear night when wet air in contact with the radiatively.cooled surface reaches dew point.
Moreover what you say even if it was true would not be LTE. LTE is a local property of any small parcel of the system that exists anyway and independently.
“Snow and rain do not “transport 77 W / m^2 of LH downwards” when they fall and return to surface.”
Physically snow and rain transport a small amount in liquid and ice to the surface that is, to simplify, included as radiation in the transport of the 77 in the bulk of the downward emission from the atm. to the surface.
For example, see L’Ecuyer et. al. 2015 Fig. 4 “The Observed State of the Energy Budget in the Early Twenty-First Century” which breaks out the LH from the total atm. emission down: shows 81 +/- 4 in snow and rain LH released radiation down arrow and 81 +/- 4 evapotranspiration up radiation arrow.
The net is always zero in the 100s of budgets for cyclical LH&SH over many global annual periods as these processes simply cycle up and down equal amounts of thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy in Earth system.
Kristian says:
“LOL! So thermal photons arent flying in completely random directions. According to Master Physicist Snape ”
It’s not that a “photon cloud” doesn’t make sense, or that I think there isn’t a random, chaotic element to the energy around us. It’s that we know from evidence that there must ALSO be direct lines of energy between objects far apart. How else would thermal images, heat seeking missiles, etc. be possible? I have no idea how the randomness and non randomness can exist at the same time…..I’m not a physicist.
Master physicist Kristian, on the other hand, presuming to have secret insight into that invisible world, DRAWS PICTURES of it for us all to see.
“This view combines the sharp imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with color imagery from a previous Spitzer Space Telescope survey done with its Infrared Astronomy Camera (IRAC). The Galactic core is obscured in visible light by intervening dust clouds, but infrared light penetrates the dust.”
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1578.html
–experimentally prove me wrong; please show by any test you want to perform: joules of energy isnt always heat. All you need is one–
The blue sky.
And another,
the thermosphere.
How about the million degree solar corona.
None of those prove joules of energy isn’t always heat. Plenty of joules of energy in the blue sky, thermosphere and solar corona.
Yes, but no heat, or they do not increase the temperature of something, or none of 3 will warm a brick.
Or like space, they have no temperature, in regards to being able to cool or warm something.
There is plenty of heat in blue sky, thermosphere and solar corona. Their constituent particles all have plenty of kinetic energy.
How much do they warm the Earth surface, or how much do they warm anything?
That is the test.
Predict how much, and test it.
I predict moonlight warms the Earth surface more than any of them.
There is no kinetic energy in moonlight.
Gbaikie, I love how in consecutive sentences you can complain that people make predictions with no basis, then make your own prediction with even LESS basis!
Ball4, since photons have no rest mass, all of their energy (E=hf) is generally consider “kinetic energy”.
Geez, Tim you ought to know it is generally considered mass in motion KE = 1/2 m*v^2 is not photon energy at a certain frequency E = hf.
Mass in motion KE for a photon = 1/2 0.0*c^2. Zero*. Photons do have hf energy, linear and angular momentum, polarization.
*Given this is basic science though, as usual there are uncertainties. The mass of the photon often is said to be identically zero as I wrote. But given the near impossibility of measuring zero in the face of inevitable errors and uncertainties, it would be more correct to say that the upper limit of the photon mass keeps decreasing, its present (2006) value being about 10^-24 times the mass of the electron.
No kinetic energy in moonlight. Plenty of photonic energy hf.
Ball4,
The KE of a photon is pv, where p is its momentum and v its speed. Look it up.
–Tim Folkerts says:
May 27, 2018 at 8:05 AM
Gbaikie, I love how in consecutive sentences you can complain that people make predictions with no basis, then make your own prediction with even LESS basis!–
I don’t imagine that I complain.
I do like arguing.
Let’s review:
“experimentally prove me wrong; please show by any test you want to perform: joules of energy isnt always heat. All you need is one”.
When people plead for something, I am somewhat tempted to provide them with what they want.
And in this case, I gave 3.
I assumed 3 would be even more appreciated than 1.
And if going to test something, one should establish how it is tested.
The Moon light does warm earth by a very small amount.
And there seemed to be an unwillingness to help define the test, so, I asserted that moonlight warms more any choice of the 3, or if you like, all 3 of them.
It probably would be simpler to measure the warming effect from a star. One could magnify the star light.
Though it might be regarded as unfair, as do not think you gain much from magnifying and of the 3.
If you could magnify, any of 3 and get some heat, that by itself, would prove something.
Oh, heat from starlight is pretty hard to measure:
“The telescope used in the present investigation was the well known Crossley Reflector which is part of the equipment of the Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton, California. The reflecting mirror is three feet in diameter. The altitude of the station is a little over 4,000 feet. The summer months being rainless; there being no fog or dew; the night temperature being only a few degrees lower than the day timethese were items which made it possible to have fairly uniform conditions on different nights.”
And:
Whichs extremely minute amount of heat is sufficient to warm the thermojunction a few hundred-thousandths of a degree and thus generate an electric current which passes through the coils of a miniature tangent galvanometer, ”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_86/May_1915/Measuring_Heat_from_Stars
Nevermind, moonlight much easier measure.
Kristian, pc is the photonic energy of motion. To that would be added 1/2mv^2 which is the mass energy of motion or KE if it is found the photon has a nonzero rest mass. Again, a photon possesses energy, linear and angular momentum, polarity but no mass within experimental limitations.
In addition to pc, at the upper limit of the photon mass about 10^-24 times the mass of the puny electron, yes, can not rule out the photon carries KE (as of 2006). Photon KE being independant to photonic energy pc. Experiment keeps ever decreasing the upper limit on the photon mass, didn’t look for the latest info.
ALL of a photon’s energy is kinetic energy, since it has no rest mass and cannot travel at anything but the speed of light.
E = p for a photon, with some factors of c somewhere.
Ball4 says, May 27, 2018 at 2:02 PM:
Yes. Which is the kinetic energy of the photon.
Ball4, it seems everyone disagrees with you here (not the relativity really as anything to do with the discussion)!
1/2 mv^2 is only the first term in a series expansion for KE in relativity. At low speeds (say below 0.1c), it is the only therm that matters. Ih a photons actually had some tiny mass, it would be moving just a SMIDGE under the speed of light and the rest of the series expansion would become critical. In that case, KE would be JUST A SMIDGE under hf.
“it seems everyone disagrees with you here”
Science is not a voting process Tim, it’s at least an experimental process. The energy of motion has two components photon motion hf (no mass or at least no measurable mass) and mass motion 1/2 m*v^2.
Here’s a contrary vote: I searched an entire textbook on atm. radiation Bohren 2006 for kinetic energy & of 15 hits every hit was kinetic energy of molecules. In the text hf is always the component of energy of motion for light at a certain frequency. The total radiant energy being its integral over all frequencies.
Tim, a good way to think about the two energies of motion is the photoelectric effect.
By the photoelectric effect is usually meant the emission of electrons by a surface (often metallic) because of illumination by radiation (often ultraviolet). In photon language, the photoelectric effect is simple to describe.
When a photon of energy hf at a certain frequency f is absorbed by the surface, the maximum kinetic energy E = m*v^2 of the electrons thereby set free is E = hf − p where p is the minimum energy an electron loses in breaking free of the surface (first written down by Einstein 1905).
ball4, you are correct that science is not decided by vote. I was simply pointing out Occam’s razor. If multiple people with different perspectives disagree with you, then the simplest hypothesis is that the one is wrong and the many are right.
In this case — you are wrong and the many are right. You are trying to take your non-relativistic knowledge of KE and apply it to relativity. 1/2 mv^2 is NOT the correct equation for KE in relativity — it is simply a low-speed approximation.
If you want to learn more about RELATIVITY in specific, then read a relativity text, not an atmospheric thermodynamics text.
E^2 = p^2c^2 + m^2c^4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence#Background
Yes, as I’ve written those are the two components of energy of motion. At Earth STP relativistic effects are nil.
Experiment is the voting machine not comments on blogs that aren’t traced or traceable to any experiment like, you know, the photoelectric effect testing.
At Earth STP relativistic effects are nil.
When one talks about photons relativistic effects cannot be “nil” and not even small.
And there are plenty of photons at “Earth STP” and they are relativistic particles by essence.
And the fact that nobody can observe them at rest and all observers whatever their own motion, in all inertial reference frames ( or free falling frames in presence of gravity) measure
them moving at exactly the same speed c is the most relativistic effect one might dream of.
Photons have energy E, momentum p and spin s.
Technically their energy can be labeled as being “kinetic” since the general relativistic form of kinetic energy, namely Ec = mc^2 – m0 c^2 = mc^2 = pc =E applies.
Also if photons had not a rest mass m0=0 strictly, special relativity would break down.
A fairly tough thing.
“When one talks about photons relativistic effects cannot be “nil” and not even small.”
Name one atm. phenomenon that depends on relativistic effects in the Lorentz sense.
Again, for those of you say there is KE in a photon, do a test proving it. Photon kinetic mass is below science ability to measure so far.
Here is the 1905 test for photon energy of motion hf & electron motion KE 1/2 m*v^2: When a moving photon of energy hf at a certain frequency f is absorbed by the surface, the maximum moving kinetic energy E = m*v^2 of the electrons thereby set free is E = hf − p where p is the minimum energy an electron loses in breaking free of the surface (first written down by Einstein 1905).
For those of you ask why solar panels don’t work from DWIR at night, this will be a good test to look into for physical understanding.
Ball4
“Kinetic energy” is definitely not 1/2 m v^2 for a relativistic particle such as the photon. It is what I (or TF) recalled upthread, you have to learn it..
Period.
That’s my point, photon energy of motion is hf as demonstrated in photoelectric tests. No process in Earth atm. cares about relativistic light speed energy of motion KE of molecules. So Einsteinian mechanics of no relevance in atm. phenomenon discussions, Newtonian mechanics serves well enough.
When you talk about the energy of a photon, you talk about the energy of a relativistic particle. And so you have to uses Einsteinian relativistic mechanics, a science that tells us what kinetic energy of a relativistic particle means, namely Ek= mc^2 – moc^2 = mc^2 in the photon case since m0=0.
m= m0 ( 1 – (v/c)^2)^-(1/2).
For a non relativistic particle of velocity c this expression can be expanded as to quantity v/c which when v << c retrieves to leading order the familiar Newtonian kinetic energy 1/2 mo v^2
This means that all of the energy of a photon is merely kinetic or "of motion" ( no difference by the way), there is neither rest mass nor rest energy as for an electron or a proton.
What makes the difference of kinetic energy or energy between photons is not their speed as for "newtonian particles" , their speed is always the same c, but their mass m at speed c:
And yes, m is proportional to f, frequency of associated radiation field but that's now quantum mechanics
E = Ek = mc^2 = hf
For a non relativistic particle of velocity v…
Yes, e=m*c^2 but that is for a particle with mass m and therefore KE. Photons have NO mass (so far as science has measured) so only momentum therefore have no KE only hf energy, both of which are energies of motion.
Not sure why this goes in circles. F=ma is part of the derivation for KE and for photons m = 0 so cannot apply that derivation.
If it bothers you that a photon particle without mass can carry momentum this is because you are stuck on the notion that momentum is mass times velocity. Sometimes this is true (approximately), sometimes not. Momentum is momentum, a property complete in itself and not always the product of mass and velocity. Photons are of one kind, differing only in hf energy and momenta.
Yes, e=m*c^2 but that is for a particle with mass m and therefore KE. Photons have NO mass (so far as science has measured)
You have to study special relativity.
You readily confuse m , mass of particle at velocity v and m0 rest mass of a particle at rest that is at v=0.
In relativity mass depends on speed of a particle, the higher the speed, the higher the mass, i.e. its inertia when subjected to a force.
So the photon has of course a mass m, yet it has no rest mass m0. So in summary
Energy of a photon E= mc^2 = Ek = its kinetic energy
Momentum of a photon p = mc
Not sure why this goes in circles. F=ma is part of the derivation for KE and for photons m = 0 so cannot apply that derivation.
The reason is very simple. Your reasoning is in terms of Newtonian mechanics and this is wrong for relativistic particles. There is no F= ma in relativity. This become F = dp/dt and this is what’s involved in deriving kinetic energy in relativity, p being momentum. Nobody can accelerate or decelerate a photon ( a=0).
If it bothers you that a photon particle without mass can carry momentum this is because you are stuck on the notion that momentum is mass times velocity.
Well, as I told you, you’ve got to seriously study special relativity.
Whether you like it or not, momentum p = mc in case of photon , that is mass m times velocity. Again you confuse mass of a particle at velocity v and m0 mass of that particle at rest v=0.
“the photon has of course a mass m”
Well, I will not circle back to explain this is wrong. If so, science would have detected photon mass m. Perhaps tell me what you believe mass m of a photon is in mass SI units or how many photons in a bucket full of photons weighing 1kg on Earth? That may expose your reasoning issues.
Better: what does a bucket full of photons total mass 1kg weigh on Earth? And how many photons are in the 1kg of mass.
Photon have their rest mass = 0 but have a finite relativistic mass m, Einstein’s generalization of mass.
The relativistic mass of a photon of frequency f is m= E /c^2 = h*f / c^2
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/mass.html
Nothing there based on any experiment. There really are experiments looking for the photon m though. It may indeed someday prove to be your cited formula but as of now, that formula has not been proven. A bucket full of photons does not contain photon mass, no KE in light.
No mas.
No, that’s not a matter of experiment, just a matter of semantics.
Even if you want to reject the concept of relativistic mass m measured in kg !in SI units) you’ll make use it’s equivalent by Einstein’ s famous formula E = m c2 measured in J (in SI units)
And so what ? Irrelevant.
The point was, is E kinetic energy in the case of a photon ? And whether you like it or not the answer is a definite yes for physicists.
And by the way:
A bucket full of photons does not contain photon mass, no KE in light.
Nope, it does, even if one accepts as concept of mass only rest mass. The rest mass of a bucket full photons is larger than the rest mass of an empty bucket. For instance a cavity at T = 0 K has less inertia (rest mass) than that cavity at higher T that fill it with blackbody radiation.
“And whether you like it or not the answer is a definite yes for physicists.”
Not a matter of like or dislike, it is a matter of experiment. No experiment has ever shown what you claim — that light has mass m. I also note many physicists as mentioned in the article you posted disagree with those claims.
I will disagree with you that a photon possesses nonzero mass m until you can produce an experiment showing proof. Light possesses linear and angular momentum, energy and polarization by test but as far as experiment goes, no mass.
No mas.
No experiment has ever shown what you claim that light has mass m.
This semantics drivel is quite amusing as is your twisting into a pretzel about the nature of photon energy.
Light has energy and therefore is actually also mass as your “bucket full of photons actually illustrates”. And that’s not in contradiction with photons (or gluons, another gauge boson) having no rest mass
More than one century of experiment and theory in physics has shown that energy and mass are really the same thing.
What do you think even the rest mass a particle originates in ?
Most of the mass of a proton is not in the quarks “it’s made of” but in a soup of accompanying gluons.
What becomes the concept of mass in general relativity?
You every now and then assert obviously false things.
For instance and charity reasons I didn’t even retort to this post of yours (upthread):
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304091
Yes all matter finds a way to radiate somewhere in spectrumbut no:
– diatomic molecules such as N2 cannot bend.
– monoatomic gases such as Ar cannot have rotational transitions.
No experiment has ever shown what you claim that light has mass m.
This semantics drivel is quite amusing as is your twisting into a pretzel about the kinetic nature of photon energy.
Light has energy and therefore is actually also mass as the bucket full of photons actually illustrates. And thats not in contradiction with photons (or gluons, another gauge boson) having no rest mass
More than one century of experiment and theory in physics has shown that energy and mass are really the same thing.
What do you think even the rest mass a particle originates in ?
Most of the mass of a proton is not in the quarks its made of but in a soup of accompanying gluons.
What becomes the concept of mass in general relativity?
You every now and then assert obviously false things.
For instance and charity reasons I didnt even retort to this post of yours (upthread):
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304091
Yes all matter finds indeed a way to radiate somewhere in spectrum but, no:
diatomic molecules such as N2 cannot bend.
monoatomic gases such as Ar cannot have rotational transitions.
“– diatomic molecules such as N2 cannot bend.
– monoatomic gases such as Ar cannot have rotational transitions.”
Experiment shows N2 can bend and create a detectable dipole in the process.
Argon & noble gases were experimentally shown to have feeble rotational transitions by experiment in the 1930s (and later) with long exposure times.
These are easily confirmed by obtaining and reading a good text on the subject. If your physics research ability isn’t goood enough (as indicated already) I can supply the clues to look up in your local college library. You (and Chic) ought to learn to do this on your own.
You can save all those experimentalists a lot of time and touble by publishing that you have found the mass m of a photon is different than 0.0 as so far they have not.
I can supply the clues to look up in your local college library.
Why much blabber, not make things simple and either provide right now the references of the papers (DOI) or textbook supposedly supporting your nonsense or simply shut up if you don’t have any.
-Bending is the change in the angle between two bonds in a polyatomic molecule (such as CO2) but since diatomic molecules have only one bond there is certainly no bending mode possible in them, only one vibration mode actually exists and it involves stretching of their single bond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_vibration.
-Rotational transitions of polyatomic molecules are related to their kinetic energy of rotation and thus their moments of inertia. Monoatomic Ar has no sizable kinetic energy of rotation because its moment of inertia is essentially 0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_spectroscopy
Thus this funny “bending” of N2 or “rotation” of Ar can be nothing else than the well known electronic excited states of these molecules that may by no means be populated at usual temperatures in troposphere.
If you feed a commenter a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach the commenter to fish, he will waste all day on the water.
The most I will do is give you the first clue, from Bohren 2006 Atm radiation text. Then up to your interest as I had some time ago. That enabled me with some work to trace the ref.s down to the actual 1930s noble gas excitation line experiments in the library stacks which show argon rotational transitions which are NOT electronic. I’ve no time until much later tonight.
N2 can bend that bond also, wiki is not your best friend as is the local college library. You may not have the interest to do the work, but if you do then you are invested in the outcome also.
Ok, here’s more than just a simple cluefish.
Your ref.s, should you have an interest to follow-up, on atomic rotational quantum transitions actually come from Bohren 1998 Atmospheric Thermodynamics explanation of the various quantum level jumps. See p. 127 where Bohren points to a 1995 article that explains yet another example of error propagation in physics text books. Not only blogs propagate errors.
See Clayton A. Gearhart, 1996: “Specific heats and the equipartition law in introductory textbooks” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 64 pp. 995-1000. Gearhart concludes that only 6 of 27 intro. text books he examined treat specific heats “correctly” & explains in detail how that occurs & offers a guess at why. Gearhart is a very delightful read. Think I found it free on line.
Gearhart: “rotations of nuclei in monoatomic atoms are more complex…nuclear rotational spectra do exist” and points to Cohen “Concepts of Nuclear Physics” 1971 p. 147ff.
That page points or hints further back in time to 1960s texts for a list of the experimental papers on Argon and noble gas spectra from the 1930s, several of which I tracked down in the stacks of my local college library.
Ball4,
I just read the paper by C.A. Gearhart.
(Paper that by the way you were sadly not even polite enough to simply give me the relevant DOI (10.1119/1.18316) as we, professional physicists, kindly do when inviting a colleague to read a paper.)
As I expected, your own reference can only and does actually very clearly confirm what I told you repeatedly before and even briefly and kindly explained previously to you, namely that there definitely isn’t and can’t be any contribution of rotational kinetic energy to the physical properties, whatever they are, of noble gases such as Ar.
Obviously you have yet to read yourself your own reference and comprehend what it says. If you can’t grasp the bulk of the paper check at least on page 988 (paragraph B Adequacy of the “symmetric rotator” model) that what you blather idiotically here is pure nonsense:
Quote from your own reference (emphasis mine):
…. In principle, therefore, one might expect three rotational degrees of freedom for monoatomic gases such as mercury or the noble gases, corresponding to nuclear rotations about three mutually perpendicular axis through the center of the nucleus.
These degrees of freedom do not show up for two reasons. First as argued above, the lowest excited rotational energy for such states is on the order of 0.1 MeV, far greater than kT, and so the equipartition law could not apply…..
So funny, remember what I told you:
Monoatomic Ar has no sizable kinetic energy of rotation because its moment of inertia is essentially 0.
The moment of inertia J of a nucleus is so small that its rotational excitation energy, that is inversely proportional to J lies in the MeV range. This means that to excite the lowest rotational state and make the nucleus rotate and store some kinetic energy temperatures as high as a few million K must be reached where Ar is converted into a plasma and cannot and by far exist anymore as a neutral gas, not to speak in a troposphere.
Moreover the radiation potentially emitted or absorbed by theses rotational states would be in the gamma ray range and certainly not in the IR.
And yet Gearhart points out “Atomic nuclei, of course, are no more rigid bodies than are atoms or molecules. Nevertheless, collective “rigid body” modes that lead to nuclear rotational spectra do exist, just as they do for molecular spectra” and points to ref. 21 that I laid out that do show that in experiments.
Looking up that Cohen and subsequent reference is your next step.
When Gearhart writes “These degrees of freedom do not show up for two reasons” he means they don’t show up in the theory but they do in actual spectra. And the 6 of 27 texts that get the theory right correctly explain why that is. You will have to go and find the original testing to learn these degrees of freedom do show up in weak rotational Ar spectral lines. (Ref. 21 et.al.)
As I recall, Cohen discusses the solution to the disconnect lies in what is meant by spherical symmetric nuclei. I don’t have that borrowed ref. anymore, so can not comment further without redoing the work in which I have no further interest. I will leave tracing Gearhart’s “collective “rigid body” modes that lead to nuclear rotational spectra do exist” comment to your interest level as I have already traced the comment to its original source material.
“Atomic nuclei, of course, are no more rigid bodies than are atoms or molecules. Nevertheless, collective “rigid body” modes that lead to nuclear rotational spectra do exist, just as they do for molecular spectra”
Yes, of course, these modes exist, there no doubt about this !
Yet they may and indeed do only show up at very high temperatures and in nuclear physics, for instance in solar plasma, nuclei may absorb and emit gamma rays linked to their collective rotation modes as I pointed out in previous post.
Please note that Ref 21 to L. Cohen is indeed nothing but a textbook on nuclear physics !!!
So these modes play absolutely no role at all, I say it once more, no role at all, in the physical properties of Ar as a neutral gas around ordinary temperatures.
As I (or Gearhart, if you prefer) clearly explained, this is expected theoretically and quite well understood. The three rotational modes of the nucleus must be completely “frozen” in ordinary neutral Ar gas at all temperature where such a gas exists
And this of course is not just a theoretical “speculation”, it is a conspicuous experimental feature that could by no means be missed already even in 19th century !
Indeed if these modes were active in ordinary monoatomic gases their specific heat capacity would not be C = 3/2 k / atom as actually observed but c= 3 k /atom, as much as twice the measured value…
k is Boltzmann’s constant.
“So these modes play absolutely no role at all, I say it once more, no role at all, in the physical properties of Ar as a neutral gas around ordinary temperatures.”
Your original comment: “monoatomic gases such as Ar cannot have rotational transitions”
Now you seem to imply “these modes” do exist just don’t play a role at STP so Gearhart’s paper was helpful.
Now, you need to look into the temperature issue: if you are interested enough to pursue Cohen’s book as I was, page 147ff you will find more discussion why the rotational transitional spectra of Ar atoms were found at terrestrial STP. The experimentalists referenced show you the rotational transition data they obtained from long exposure Ar spectra at or near terrestrial temperatures, pressures. You still have an interesting adventure ahead, or at least I found it interesting. If 21of27 texts are less than “correct” per Gearhart it is easy to understand why this area of physics is in Bohren’s words an: “example of error propagation.”
I’ll go with the 6 texts Gearhart finds “correct” (including Cohen) since they are based on the experimental rotational spectra of Ar at terrestrial temperatures I found (look these up also in the stacks) from 1930s when this area was a research topic.
NB1: Where this becomes important around here and why I was interested at all is when atmospheres made of N2,O2,Ar (i.e. atmospheres with no IR active constituents) are discussed some commenters write these constituents cannot radiate at all.
Well, experiment proves these constituents can so radiate, however feebly, and Gearhart’s pointer to Cohen starts the chain of experimental explanations in the case of Ar rotational spectra.
NB2: You mention 19th century. The specific heat in test differed by so much from theory of the time that the masters back then were long term stumped until quantum mechanics was invented to fully explain the conundrum & was an early success of the new field.
Thanks for the discussion, trip down memory lane.
Now you seem to imply “these modes” do exist just don’t play a role at STP so Gearhart’s paper was helpful.
Nope, laughable wishful thinking.
You do not understand what you talk about in general, nor do you understand what Gearhart’s paper is all about as I demonstrated clearly upthread.
And of course I stay, more than ever, with my original comment:
monoatomic gases such as Ar cannot have rotational transitions
because those transitions cannot and do not show up “at Earth STP” as very explicitly stated by Gearhart himself and as I explained kindly to you previously here:
The three rotational modes of the nucleus must be completely “frozen” in ordinary neutral Ar gas at all temperature where such a gas exists
A sentence that unfortunately once more you do not grasp. If you did grasp what “frozen” means you would not have posted what you idiotically did once more just above and there is certainly more of this nonsense to come.
Now, you need to look into the temperature issue:
Hilarious.
No, I certainly don’t “need” it at all.
I already wasted enough of my time with your blather and a paper that according to you supported your idiotic drivel yet doesn’t at all and actually nicely confirms what I told you.
Without even consulting Cohen text and the experimental evidence contrary to your “opinion” you simply remain another example of Bohren’s “error propagation” and a victim of Gearhart’s 21 of 27 less than correct texts on rotational spectra of monoatomic gas.
I’ll go with the experimental evidence.
Chic Bowdrie
As to your question upthread about local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_equilibrium#Local_and_global_equilibrium
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ3SNAFaVG4&feature=youtu.be
IT,
The wiki reference indicates there are conditions when LTE doesn’t apply. Your analysis states LTE everywhere all the time. You can’t have it both ways.
Your youtube link explains that the temperature gradient can be nonzero in LTE. But it implies that when the temperature gradient changes with respect to time, LTE doesn’t apply. Watch your youtube again and pay close attention starting around 12:00 where he explains the coupling of all temperatures in LTE. When the troposphere is subjected to increasing radiation from the surface, the temperature gradient starts increasing with time, because more radiation is being absorbed than emitted at any level. No LTE.
If you still think I’m missing something, you will need to provide a better source to explain it.
Your analysis states LTE everywhere all the time
Chic Bowdrie, you do not read carefully what I post.
I said LTE generally (essentially) applies everywhere and all the time in troposphere
Nothing more, nothing less. I even added that it does not apply in rarified air at high altitudes.
When the troposphere is subjected to increasing radiation from the surface, the temperature gradient starts increasing with time, because more radiation is being absorbed than emitted at any level. No LTE.
No this is not true. When T increases sufficiently slowly as in present example LTE still applies to an excellent approximation. Briefly if dT/dt is small as compared to T/tau where tau is the collision time it definitely applies.
This is generally verified in troposphere but not for instance in nuclear bomb explosion.
A constant dT/dt is one thing if you have some criteria (fudge factor) to justify it. But an ACCELERATING gradient out of bounds. At some point you have to stop trying to win an argument and try to understand what is really happening.
Utterly meaningless blather.
Neither “constant DT/dt” nor “ACCELERATING gradient” in what I talked about.
What I said is that if T changes slowly ( about a few K / hour, or less as typical in atmosphere or surface ) then LTE is still ensured merely because there is ample time for the tremendous amount of collisions that occur at the 10^-10 second time scale to maintain it.
Period.
Quote: (emphasis mine)
Global thermodynamic equilibrium (GTE) means that those intensive parameters are homogeneous throughout the whole system, while local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) means that those intensive parameters are varying in space and time, but are varying so slowly that, for any point, one can assume thermodynamic equilibrium in some neighborhood about that point.
from Wiki article I linked you to previously.
To no avail.
Yesterday it was my responsibility to cook tri-tip for the picnic and in my hurry I butchered the explanation of an accelerating gradient. I apologize.
dT/dt is the change in temperature and if you define it to be slow enough, you could and you are arguing that the phenomenon you are describing is in LTE. However, a positive change in dT/dt with respect to time (d2T/dt2) means the slow dT/dt is increasing. At some point LTE has to be violated. Nothing you have cited or said ensures the atmosphere is always in LTE. Your opinion vs. mine.
More importantly, are you claiming that while an air parcel’s temperature is slowly increasing (a small dT/dt), the number of photons absorbed by the parcel still equals the number of emissions? Or as I have proposed, that the increasing temperature is due to most of the absorbed radiation energy being transferred to the parcel by molecular collision without re-emission.
Chic Bowdrie, once more, read carefully what I already posted, you have already there all the answers to your questions.
Your opinion vs. mine.
Not really. What I told you is not an “opinion” it’s the real physics.
I don’t need to read anything more carefully. I carefully detailed how our positions differ. You failed to provide any additional evidence to show your opinion is any thing other than an interpretation which is not necessarily real physics. What about my interpretation is not physics?
CB
I don’t need to read anything more carefully.
Sure, chimps in african rain forest don’t need it either.
No problem, be happy.
One may add that in troposphere there is LTE, yes, but in gas of molecules (Tkin = Tex =T, see video) but not in the radiation. The latter is generally not in LTE, mean free photon path is large, interaction with gas small, except to some extent in center of absorp-tion bands and in lower layers. It’s clear that in atmospheric window Trad is not the same as Tkin and Tex.
Nothing about what you write is clear. Where did the goal post go this time?
This time I agree with Chic.
Goal post is set by Nature, not me.
And Nature is wont to hide herself.
No effort, no chance to comprehend.
Pure sophistry.
Actually if you enjoy really good climate sophistry, there is a whole blog so named. Even have experiments proving the top post (way, way up there) wrong, inaccurate, falsified, debunked call it what you will.
Chic writes:
“The problem with the backradiation concept, or at least the Trenberth diagram view of it, is it leads people to think IR is raining down to the surface from 5 km up. Thats not happening.”
Backradiation is not a concept, it’s a measurement. Look at Norman’s Desert Rock example.
*******
Backradiation IS raining down from the entire bulk of the atmosphere above, why do you suppose otherwise?
If you point a measuring device at a clear sky above, and then at a small cloud, the latter will show greater input because the cloud is reflecting/emitting more IR than the nearby clear area.
Point a sensitive devise at jet flying high above, the device will detect IR from the exhaust.
Neither of those examples would be possible if the surface only received IR from the atmosphere a few meters above.
Snape,
Unfortunately, I sometimes (hopefully, not too often) assert things I’m not sure of in hopes of being corrected if wrong or affirmed if right. I’m not in school anymore and climate science is not my field of expertise. I may have misinterpreted some data regarding UWIR and DWIR because I did not make sure of the location of the sensors. In fact, in preparing to answer your question, I realize I’m not even sure what the measurement of IR means. Nevertheless, I’ll summarize my current understanding of backradiation.
The air near our planet’s surface is optically thick to CO2 and to water vapor with sufficient humidity. Upward IR measured at some small distance from the surface will track closely with surface temperature. That’s because the temperature of the atmosphere 10 meter from the surface is on average only 0.065K cooler than the surface. The UWIR includes radiation which is coming directly from the surface on its way directly to space and IR which has been emitted from CO2 and water vapor below. DWIR at the 10 meter altitude is coming from Co2 and water vapor above at nearly the same temperature and, therefore, essential the same magnitude of radiation except that the DWIR does not contain the contribution from the surface to space that the UWIR has. Within the 10 meter air between the surface and measurement level, most of the radiation during the day is absorbed and thermalized, not emitted. The thermalized air will rise with equal amounts of radiation up and down while the warmed air is moving up.
On a clear day, there is no IR at 5 km up zooming down to the surface, because the air will still be relatively opaque. It is statistically very unlikely that a photon at 5 km can make it to the surface. Instead at the 5 km altitude about the same magnitude of IR will be going up and down except that the UWIR will have a component of radiation directly headed to space from the surface.
So at both 10 m and 5 km there is the same amount of net radiation up through the window to space. So where is the backradiation? It is cancelled out at every level in the lower troposphere except close to the surface where the UWIR is being absorbed.
In the upper troposphere there will be a gradual transition to more UWIR, because there will be less DWIR to cancel out the UWIR.
Evaporation and clouds is a special case, but still no zooming down except for DWIR from clouds.
Chic — very well said.
The one place I might quibble is
“So where is the backradiation? It is cancelled out at every level in the lower troposphere except close to the surface where the UWIR is being absorbed. “
I would say the DWLWIR (backradiation) and UWLWIR are everywhere within the troposphere. The NET radiation almost exactly cancels out. Diagrams like Trenberth don’t try to describe what happens within the atmosphere, so they only show DWLWIR at the bottom and UWLWIR at the top.
But that is a semantic quibble. I like everything you said about the science of IR.
“The air near our planet’s surface is optically thick to CO2 and to water vapor with sufficient humidity.”
Optically thick but not opaque at Earth STP. Clouds are detected on the surface routinely in both visible and IR bands even high icy cirrus passing by.
Venus is a different story where the 90+atm. surface pressure does make the IR bands opaque in a short distance but not the visible bands. A surface instrument looking up tuned only to IR bands would not detect passing high cloud depths on Venus.
On Earth, a surface energy balance with only an opaque surface layer and an optically thick semitransparent atm. layer 1LOT energy balance can calculate the global median surface temperature with measured inputs.
On Venus, this fails, multiple layers have to be iterated to a balance up the lapse rate same energy balance technique as Manabe’s papers used to plot the troposphere lapse with various CO2, wv amounts.
Thank you, Tim. I am comfortable with that degree of scientific quibble.
Snape says, May 27, 2018 at 2:40 PM:
And the opposite is true, of course. “Back radiation” is a concept, not a measurement.
Exactly. They use a PYRGEOMETER, which CALCULATES the DWLWIR based on the detected heat exchange at the sensor and the sensor temperature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgeometer#Measurement_of_long_wave_downward_radiation
It’s sad to see how people – even after having been explained a hundred times how these instruments actually work – STILL walk around believing they actually register “back radiation” directly.
“They use a PYRGEOMETER, which CALCULATES the DWLWIR based on the detected heat exchange at the sensor and the sensor temperature:”
Because that’s a cheaper way to manufacture those instruments to get same results then using two thermopiles which Prof. Tyndall used to measure the two independant up & down IR radiation streams directly. The result for these instruments is the same once calibrated to BB source. NOAA ESRL instruments are routinely recalibrated.
Ball4, sorry, but thermopiles only measure differences, too. One side of the thermopile cools or warms based on the NET energy flow from that surface. If the thermopile is facing an object at the same temperature, the NET thermal energy flow will be zero and the output will be zero.
In fact, if you read the wiki article about pyrgeometers, you will see that is says they use theropiles!
Hope that helps.
Tim, sorry but those instruments use 1 thermopile not two. Not plural. If what you say were true, NOAA ESRL data would only show the differences not the magnitudes, IR thermometers would not correctly read temperatures. But they do. UW and DW W/m^2 are the output data not the differences.
Calibration with BB radiation allows this, same process as Prof. Tyndall calibrated his thermopile to read temperature in degrees F and Dr. Spencer can read global temperatures from radiometers. Even mercury thermometers need calibration.
Hope that helps. Incoherent photons do not interfere with each other, there is UW and there is DW independent flux in nature depending on which direction the instruments are looking.
Yes, one thermopile to measure the flux for one hemisphere. Reread the description: “The pyrgeometer’s thermopile detects the net radiation balance between the incoming and outgoing long wave radiation flux “
“net radiation balance”
So when the balance nets to zero, the calibration process with BB radiation source tells you for example -396 in the back and +396 in the front, net zero just like Prof. Tyndall’s needle calibrated to read zero when the IR from his two boiling water IR sources balanced out. This does NOT mean zero in and zero out, it means two independent streams looking back to back at brightness temperature equivalent to 396 BOTH ways, incoherent atm. photons do not interfere.
This seems so basic, so simple that if commenters don’t get it in the 1st few minutes, commenters never get it. (I borrowed that phrase from accounting and business valuation principle lore.)
Ball4, I think we need an interactive whiteboard!
1) I am NOT arguing against a two-way flow — just that these instruments don’t measure two-way flows.
2) The instrument you seem to be describing works on a slightly different principle than the “pyrgeometer.”
3) Neither Tyndall’s device (as I understand it from your description) nor the pygeometer actually measures individual flows in each direction. The pyrgeometer measures the NET into one side. Tyndall’s seems to adjust until the NET into BOTH sides is zero.
“1) I am NOT arguing against a two-way flow — just that these instruments don’t measure two-way flows.”
How’s that again? You have to point these instruments in two different directions to measure the two flows Tim, like NOAA ESRL mounts them, one looking up to get DWIR (clouds detected), one looking down to get UWIR.
Prof. Tyndall only ever pointed his in one direction since he wasn’t interested in the other direction flow measurement, it was just a control and he didn’t vary it.
Geez. How many more semantic issues are there? Endless it seems.
That does not mean that all the downwelling photons throughout the atmosphere can be ADDED UP to get a surface rate. Just like not all upwelling photons can be added up to get a figure at the TOA.
It’s complicated.
Fluxes add linearly. (Conservation of energy.)
Snape,
I agree with both statements 100%.
David
Not necessarily. If there was a flux of one rabbit/second leaving the south end of a field and running straight to the north end, the flux crossing the north end would also be one rabbit/second.
Now what if each rabbit, instead of immediately running to the north end of the field, first ran half way and returned?
When an equilibrium of rabbits entering and leaving is reached, there would now be a flux of two rabbits/second leaving the south end of the field, but still a flux of one rabbit/second crossing the north end.
That same general principle, as far as I can tell, is why the upwelling LWIR flux measured at the surface is greater than what is measured at the TOA. (There are a lot of photons moving up and down before leaving to space.)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg/828px-The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
For Salvatore,
SSTs are holding steady at 0.2C heading into June.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/global.png
The la Nina looks to have ended a month ago at the latest, and possibly at the end of March. The lag from ENSO events to global temps is anywhere from 2 to 5 months. But this was a weak la Nina, so we might not see much response.
Chic
A few things:
*for some reason I have to re-enter my name and email for every comment, and then it ends up on the bottom of the blog. Anyone else having that problem?
*******
Unlike some of the other regulars, I only have a 101 level understanding of climate science, so don’t put too much weight on what I have to say.
*******
This is starting to look questionable:
“That does not mean that all the downwelling photons throughout the atmosphere can be ADDED UP to get a surface rate.”
******
Along similar lines you mentioned,
“DWIR at the 10 meter altitude is coming from Co2 and water vapor above at nearly the same temperature and, therefore, essential the same magnitude of radiation….”
The air at 10 meters might be the same temperature as the surface, but isn’t it only a fraction of the MASS? And wouldn’t a small amount of mass emit much less IR per square meter than a much larger amount at the same temperature?
That’s why I’m thinking the downwelling LWIR at 10 meters (using your example) might in fact be a product of LWIR coming down from all levels of the atmosphere above.
Snape, if ~ 10 m of CO2 can absorb all the surface radiation in the 15 um band (ie act as a black body for those wavelengths), then if will emit just as well in that band back toward the surface (ie still act as a BB). Read up on Kirchhoff’s radiation law.
This also means the bottom ~ 10 meters could absorb all the IR from above in those bands. So the DWLWIR in the GHG bands really does come from pretty close to the surface and is not from 5 km up or from a summation of many layers. Similarly, very little energy gets carried upward by IR in the GHG bands because the temperature gradients over 10’s of meters are usually pretty small.
“So the DWLWIR in the GHG bands really does come from pretty close to the surface and is not from 5 km up or from a summation of many layers.”
Tim, Norman has linked NOAA ESRL DW and UW charts here that shows the instruments detect IR band radiation from liquid water and ice in high clouds passing by. So some IR is from “pretty close” but not all because Earth surface & above atm. is not opaque in the IR.
Ball4, without seeing the specific links I can’t be sure, but I strongly suspect the ice and liquid water are detecting OUTSIDE the bands absorbed by CO2 and water vapor.
Ball4
Tim Folkerts is correct as usual.
Here look at an actual spectrum of downwelling IR. It does not specify the place but I am assuming the air may have been around 280 K as that is the Blackbody curve they are using to compare DWIR.
http://lidar.ssec.wisc.edu/papers/dhd_thes/node3.htm
The IR is emitted mostly from warm air which would be near to the ground. Also a few meters of air has enough GHG to absorb all the DWIR a few meters above.
If you look at the spectrum you see a large atmospheric window that radiates very little IR. Clouds close this window and you will see an increase in the DWIR when they move in. Could be around 50 W/m^2 value depending on the water vapor content.
Ball4
Also compare a dry air mass in summer with a very wet air mass.
The Dry desert air
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b0c3c4a96881.png
You can see about 90 W/m^2 minus Net IR at night with no input energy
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b0c3c8566259.png
In the wet air the difference is only -35 W/m^2. A much smaller window.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b0c3db15b17d.png
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_5b0c3d787761c.png
Just the Downwelling IR. If you look at the number. Maybe average of 380 W/m^2 for Nevada and maybe 420 for the wet area. Just consider the Stefan-Boltzmann Law for radiant energy.
To get 380 W/^2 with an emissivity of 0.9 you have to have a radiating temperature of 294 Kelvin. To get 420 W/m^2 you have to have a temp of 301 K. It would seem the bulk of DWIR reaching the Earth’s surface is emitting from a few meters above the surface.
“Ball4, without seeing the specific links I cant be sure, but I strongly suspect the ice and liquid water are detecting OUTSIDE the bands absorbed by CO2 and water vapor.”
The IR band detected is the band the instruments are designed to receive, the instruments detect high cirrus, low clouds so the added IR from them is in the band the instruments detect.
Dr. Spencer used a broadband instrument to detect the IR from high icy cirrus overnight and read the result in degrees C. The instruments? A tub of water and a thermometer.
“It would seem the bulk of DWIR reaching the Earths surface is emitting from a few meters above the surface.”
Norman, find a spectrum for the humid tropics and a spectrum in the dry arctic regions looking up. There are many in text books. They will tell you which frequency has what irradiance on the NOAA ESRL instruments. Find ones with the Planck curve superposed at various temperatures. That will tell you roughly the temperature at which the bulk but not all of the photons were emitted that are incident on the NOAA ESRL instruments. The whole column emits IR band photons incident on the instruments in Earth atm. STP as the atm. is not opaque to IR at the surface like that of Venus.
Ball4
Here is the graph you requested.
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/nauru-barrow-looking-up-annotated.png
I do not think the IR emitted hundreds of meters up by GHG will make it to the ground without being totally absorbed. I could be wrong but it does not appear to be the case.
Tim Folkerts did point out that there are enough GHG molecules in a few meters of air to totally absorb and emit all the energy you need to satisfy the measured values.
Don’t have much time at the moment, need to find the surface temperature at those two sites at the time of the snapshot. Going to guess higher than 80F for Nauru. And looks like a little higher than -19F for Barrow. Also, whether it was clear sky or cloudy at the time. Maybe your source has this info.
I couldn’t quickly find weather reports for these places on dates back that far. The Nov. climate pages do show as I guessed around 90F highs for Nauru (which occurred a couple times week of Nov 15, 2017) and for Barrow the avg. March low is -19 so my guess is also good the snapshot was likely taken much higher T say a guess around the avg. high -6F.
Now look at the ideal Planck curve for 305K+ around 15micron, if plotted it would be slightly above the highest Nauru irradiance intensity (units per sr) on the observing instrument as the emissivity of the real atm. with all that humid precipitable water in the column means an atm. emissivity ~0.95 to 0.98 or so, thus the real Nauru curve as shown is only slightly below the ideal Planck curve given an educated guess at 90F surface temperature.
Look at Barrow 15micron at about 252K guess at surface temperature and see how much the atm. emissivity has dropped off, maybe down to 0.65 to 0.75 over the spectrum with much less precipitable water in the column.
So you can see the effect of water liquid or wv without info. for clear or cloudy sky can’t guesstimate which.
NOA ESRL precision radiometers view the IR in this band from a hemisphere of directions (sr):
“transmission range of approximately 3.5 to 50 m”.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/instruments.html
Take a look at the difference in higher wavenumbers, shorter wavelengths see what water does? Big changes, from near zero Barrow to 50 Nauru at 900 wavenumber. The total radiant energy plotted for ESRL DWIR is heavily affected by water in the whole column not just a few meters above the instrument. At Desert Rock, a guess is the irradiance would be between these two curves.
As Tim wrote “I hope this helps” understand how the NOAA ESRL instruments detect passing clouds which are abundant in the troposphere up to around 5 or 6km at ever lower temperatures. And since Dr. Spencer used a tub of water instead of a tuned radiometer, that tub was sensitive to whole IR band and his thermometers picked up a nightime increase in surface water temperature over the water tub not being irradiated with the icy cirrus IR.
Ugh: “transmission range of approximately 3.5 to 50 micron”.
Tim,
I agree with your second paragraph, but your first bothers me. The CO2 molecule absorbs and emits like a black body, but not when you place it in an atmosphere with 95+ % N2/O2. The excited CO2 molecules are much more likely to transfer their absorbed energy to the bulk air. So the air at 10 meters won’t be emitting “just as well” as a black body.”
Chic, the reverse happens too! Collisions with surrounding molecules can bump a CO2 molecule up to a higher level so that it can radiate away IR. If the surface is at 300 K and the surrounding molecules are at 300 K, then both processes (CO2 absorbing IR from a 300 K surface; CO2 at 300 K emitting IR) are just as likely. This is what we mean by thermal equilibrium. You can’t have more photons moving one way than the other (ie have a heat flow) if both materials are at the same temperature.
(Of course, with a lapse rate, the higher layers are at a slightly cooler temperature, so the net flow will be slightly upward, but that is a different issue.)
Hope that helps.
Tim,
I interpreted your comment as saying CO2 emits what it absorbs always.
From what I understand a black body emits the same as it absorbs when at a constant temperature in a vacuum with no internal heat source. So in that sense, when an air parcel is at LTE, the CO2 will be similar to a BB. However, if an external heat source increases its output to a BB, the latter has to absorb more than it emits to warm up. Same with CO2 in an air parcel warming up.
You explained elsewhere that you know that.
“I interpreted your comment as saying CO2 emits what it absorbs always.”
That was not my intent. I think we are on the same page now. CO2 (or any object emits AS EFFICIENTLY as it absorbs. The net flow depends on the temperature of the objects. I thin we are on the same page now here.
Snape,
Mass has nothing to do with my interpretation of “backradiation.” The unit area of surface mass could be any thickness and still radiate the same. The 10 meter altitude is a plane, as you write later, and mass of that plane is a molecule of gas thick. But its optical thickness is only a little bit less thick than at the surface. However, at that altitude the vast majority of any daytime radiation from the surface has already been absorbed below. So the plane is convecting upwards carrying essentially all radiation from the surface other than what went directly to space through the window. That goes for all the other planes of air from 10 meters up to say cloud level. Then things change, but more or less start going in reverse.
“That’s why I’m thinking the downwelling LWIR at 10 meters (using your example) might in fact be a product of LWIR coming down from all levels of the atmosphere above.”
No, that is why you are correct to say “all the downwelling photons throughout the atmosphere [can’t] be ADDED UP to get a surface rate.” Only the photons coming from inside the optical thickness can be added up. Most will be coming from less than 1 meter and almost every other from within 10 meters. And when you add the photons up, the net will be close to zero with an ever so slight advantage to the UWIR originating from IR-active gases. In other words, I’m ignoring the UWIR going directly to space.
Thank God for all men and women who defended and defend their citizen’s rights and freedoms.
That does not mean that all the downwelling photons throughout the atmosphere can be ADDED UP to get a surface rate.
Obviously with a line of photons moving downward only one at a time could pass through a plane…….not sure what I was trying to say.
Thanks, Tim
It seemed impossible to me that a layer of air, with much less mass than than a nearby surface, could exchange the same amount of IR radiation. If impossible though, then my next question was “then how could they be almost the same temperature?”
So if I understand you correctly, the layer of air would have a much higher energy/mass ratio than the surface?
******
“So the DWLWIR in the GHG bands really does come from pretty close to the surface and is not from 5 km up……”
If that’s the case, then how could slight changes in IR output (between one object and another) be detected at great distances? If a photon moving from point a) to point b) was absorbed by a CO2 molecule en route, it would be re-emitted in myriad directions. How then could point a) be seen by point b)?
The layer of air would have a much higher [energy EMITTED]/mass ratio than the surface. Just like a thin sheet of plastic would emit just as much total energy as a thick sheet would — the thin sheet emits much more PER KG than that thick sheet at the same temperature.
Slight changes in IR output (between one object and another) can be detected at great distances through the atmospheric window. IR cameras are designed to look at wavelengths that don’t get absorbed. Similar for IR thermometers — this one (the first and only one I checked) says it responds from 8-14 um, ie the atmospheric window.
https://www.techrentals.com.my/pdf/products/Fluke-572-2-Infrared_Thermometer.pdf
Hope that helps!
Kristian
From your link:
“The pyrgeometer’s thermopile detects the net radiation balance between the incoming and outgoing long wave radiation flux and converts it to a voltage according to the equation below.”
Incoming long wave radiation flux……..also known as backradiation.
Snape says, May 28, 2018 at 9:30 AM:
The net radiation is what is actually being DETECTED, Snape. By the sensor. Keep your eye on the ball. What is then being STATED about what makes up the net radiation is just a theoretical (hypothetical, assumed) concept being … stated. The only thing that is actually being detected is the net radiation … also known as the RADIATIVE HEAT.
There is no way you can argue your way out of this, Snape. Pyrgeometers DO NOT DETECT “back radiation”. They detect radiative heat. Thermopiles are THERMAL detectors. Full stop.
The K wrote:
When a Pyrgeometer is mounted horizontally pointing upwards, it responds to the down welling IR radiation from above from what ever IR source is located there. Of course, the instrument is band limited to the IR wavelengths. Also, it’s measurement is cosine weighted, as the flat detection surface responds most strongly to IR radiation from directly overhead. That’s “back radiation” for those of you who don’t know physics.
E. Swanson says, May 29, 2018 at 10:32 AM:
Nope. It responds to the heat flux at its surface. It is not a ‘quantum’ (photon) detector, after all. It’s a ‘thermal’ detector.
Hahaha, you people so badly want this myth to be true! Sorry, it isn’t. Pyrgeometers DO NOT DETECT “back radiation” from a cooler atmosphere. No matter how you twist it around.
“It responds to the heat flux at its surface.”
Heat entity doesn’t exist Kristian. Nothing that exists responds to an entity that doesn’t exist except in Kristian’s imagination. And there is more to IR than just the 3.5 to 50micron band.
Radiometers respond to incident radiation (hence their name) in the bands they are designed to respond.
Kristian should take his own advice 5:24am per Kristian: Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
NOAA ESRL pyrgeometers DO detect radiation 3.5 to 50micron from a cooler atmosphere and from the surface or any object in their field of view such as a cloud. Kristian’s use of the heat term clearly confuses Kristian.
Ball4,
1. Heat exists or does not exist exactly as probability exists or does not exist.
2. The sensors respond to a flow difference in a given range, so to a heat flow. If a sensor measures an object colder than itself, the detected flow goes from the sensor to the object.
1. Yes, exist only by definitions neither of which is a physical entity.
2. The ESRL DWIR radiometers measure radiation emitted in their view in a 3.5 to 50micron band. When a radiometer views an object colder than itself, the detected radiation in the object’s view still is emitted from the object (say 32F ice water). True, the room temperature radiometer emits radiation (e,g. toward ice water) as does all mass at any temperature.
The radiometers know nothing of any definition.
Ball4,
The radiometers know nothing of any definition.
This is why radiometers are sensitive only to losses and gains of energy which are very precisely heat flows.
“This is why radiometers are sensitive only to losses and gains of energy”
Yes. Which for radiometers are very precisely from radiant energy. Something that doesn’t exist in an object can not flow from the object, Kristian got it right:
5:24am per Kristian: “Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
Kristian
Do you think a sensor on the device knows in advance the temperature of the cooler object in view? Does it then calculate the difference with it’s own temperature and thereby emit the appropriate one-way flux from warm to cold?
G* , Gordon and phi might like that idea…..because then it would not be necessary for the sensor to absorb radiation from something cooler.
Snape says, May 28, 2018 at 10:16 AM:
Seriously? What grade are you in? Or are you just fishing for a facepalm …?
Look up thermal detectors and start reading. They do not need to know the temperature of the cooler object in view. They only need to know their OWN temperature plus the radiative heat exchange (the net radiation) at their own surface. THAT’S how they calculate the DWLWIR and the UWLWIR.
This is not some great big denialist lie, Snape. This is common knowledge. At least amongst people who are even slightly interested in and knows just a LITTLE BIT about radiometric instruments.
Tim,chic
“The layer of air would have a much higher [energy EMITTED]/mass ratio than the surface. Just like a thin sheet of plastic would emit just as much total energy as a thick sheet would the thin sheet emits much more PER KG than that thick sheet at the same temperature.”
****
Both a thin and thick sheet of plastic would only emit from their surface layer, which are of identical mass.
I was envisioning earth’s surface as being a sheet of plastic, so to speak, and a plane of atmosphere being a sheet of plastic FULL OF HOLES, therefore having much less mass. The sheet of plastic with holes in it would have to be a higher temperature in order to emit at the same rate as the one without holes.
I imagined that as you move higher in elevation, each layer of “plastic” (i.e. GHG’s) would have more holes than the one below, until finally, at the TOA, there would be no plastic at all.
What’s right or wrong with that view?
Well, yes the atmosphere sort of like a sheet that is 99% holes. But it is also like hundreds of sheets each meter. The net effect is that a short distance can absorb almost all the photons.
Hope that helps.
Snape,
The atmosphere is not like a sheet of plastic and what purpose does it serve to go there? Plastic sheets have fairly consistent conductivity and heat capacity throughout. The atmosphere doesn’t and is more like the opposite of a sheet with mostly holes. Holes are the continuous phase of the atmosphere and tiny plastic balls go where the holes were only they don’t stay in one place.
I would avoid analogies of the atmosphere, especially greenhouse ones.
Tim
Thanks for your reference reminding me of the atmospheric window. Here is what confuses me, though.
I thought if a molecule (CO2 for example) could not absorb a certain band of IR, it could also not EMIT in that band. Apparently I’m wrong?
no, you were right. Since CO2 can absorb 15 um photons well, it can also emit them well.
Tim
Yes, your replies have been very helpful. Now I just have to figure out how a heat seeking missile can see IR emitted from CO2 exhaust.
Maybe because it’s so hot coming out of a jet engine?
Snape, they just design the camera to “see” in the range of the atmospheric window — say 10 um or 12 um. Then IR from far away can get through!
(If they designed a camera that saw in the 15 um range, it could only see things a a few meters away!)
“Lighting the afterburner causes further radiation of IR, in fact the exhaust plume, around 2000 deg C, then dominates the aircraft’s signature, being hotter and physically larger than the tailypipe. (note: at speeds above 2.5M the plume radiance will decrease due to the decreased overall engine pressure ratio).”
Would IR emitted by CO2 at such a high temperature contain bands transparent to the much cooler CO2 and WV in the surrounding atmosphere?
I couldn’t tell for sure, but this article was otherwise very informative!
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-IR-Guidance.html
This is a continuation of an earlier thread:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304639
It also relates to this comment today in another thread:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304900
Idiot Tracker,
Thank you for explaining the latent heat estimate in the energy budget diagrams. It sounds reasonable that what goes up must come down. And even if the estimate is off, it doesn’t matter when the objective is to understand the interactions of all the phenomena involved.
There is still an argument for what can be pulled out of the hat. Of the 396 W/m2 attributed to energy loss from the surface in some form, I can accept estimates of IR radiating directly to space and estimates of latent heat loss based on precipitation. That leaves sensible heat and IR radiation not directly going to space. Tim Folkerts has been using 17 W/m2 for sensible heat and 23 W/m2 as the IR radiation into the atmosphere.
At small distances off the surface–except for 80 W/m2 leaving the surface by evaporation, 40 W/m2 by radiation going directly to space, and a small amount conducted–most of the rest of the total energy leaving the surface will be absorbed gradually by the atmosphere. From the saturation point upward, IR NOT going directly to space contributes nothing until the altitude at which the atmosphere starts to become optically thin. Its contribution was converted into and added to the contribution of convection which includes the latent heat. So the IR component not going directly to space is nearly all of the 40 W/m2 just above the surface and almost nothing once a sufficiently optically thick altitude is reached.
Verbose, but I wanted to be clear. Note that there are two 40s which might be confusing.
Of the 396 W/m2 attributed to energy loss from the surface in some form, I can accept estimates of IR radiating directly to space and estimates of latent heat loss based on precipitation.
The 396 W/m^2 are not energy loss of surface “in some form”. They are just the total globally averaged energy radiated by the surface in the form of IR, a physical phenomenon that happens just because the surface temperatures are about 288 K rather than 0 K
40 W /m^2 out of them manage to escape directly to space through atmospheric window around 10 micrometer wavelength. The remainder of 356 W /m2 is absorbed by atmosphere and since the latter is also not at 0 K it radiates itself IR in particular towards the surface about 333 W/m^2, the infamous back radiation.
The net energy or heat that flows from surface into atmosphere in form of IR is thus 23 W/m^2
Latent heat loss of about 80 W/m^2 is a different thing due to water evaporation that has nothing to do with these 396 W/m^2
Sensible heat of 17 W /m^2 is the energy lost by convection itself that is by ordinary thermal conduction from warm surface to colder air in motion above it because of convection.
And that’s the energy exchange and balance at the interface between surface and atmosphere nothing more nothing less.
It does not tell you what happens in atmosphere. Complex things happen in atmosphere, all the net energy absorbed by atmosphere from surface must find its way upwards. This takes place both by convection and by radiation transfer. The latter provides a net IR energy flow upwards in atmosphere merely because there is necessarily a lapse rate, temperature decreasing with altitude whether there is or not convection, and lower layers thus always radiate more than higher layers.
Very nice interpretation of exactly what I wrote, only you left out a couple of complex things I pointed out. You don’t really know that 396 is accurate. It just an estimate subject to a +/-. You don’t have convection at the interface, only conduction and IR radiation. Evaporated water immediately convects because it makes air less dense than dry air. The water vapor in moist air becomes able to receive IR which will accelerate convection during the day compared to night. Lower layers radiate more than upper layers if you include both down and up, but less radiation TRANSFER occurs below than above. Most importantly, practically all net energy transfer between 100 meters and somewhere around cloud level is due to conduction and convection.
Most importantly, practically all net energy transfer between 100 meters and somewhere around cloud level is due to conduction and convection.
And not less importantly, practically all of your assertions in this post are wrong.
Funny.
If you have any data indicating my assertions are wrong, I will gladly stand corrected.
Otherwise it is just your opinion, isn’t it?
chic…”Otherwise it is just your opinion, isn’t it?”
A seriously uninformed opinion at that.
You can work out a model where photons are emitted and move up from the surface at a steady rate, say 1/sec. At ten meters elevation, imagine half the photons get to continue upwards and half are required to first return to the surface.
Of the photons that continued upwards, at 20 meters elevation imagine again only half are allowed to move up while the other half are required to go back to the level directly beneath them, where similarly half go up and half go down.
All of the photons that end up returning to the surface (ground level)
get to go back up to the 1O meter level (but again, only half of those get to continue up.)
If you work through this idea a little ways, you end up with a whole bunch of photons moving up and down between the surface and 10 meters, fewer moving up and down between the 10 and 20 meter levels, fewer still between levels higher up.
The end result is always the same…at the upper most level, only one photon/second is continuing upward.
snape….”You can work out a model where photons are emitted…”
Why do you persist with benign thought-experiments, this time related to imaginary particles?
Just to be clear: an equilibrium is always reached where the rate of photons continuing upwards from the highest level equals the rate emitted from the surface.
Kristian says:
“Look up thermal detectors and start reading. They do not need to know the temperature of the cooler object in view. They only need to know their OWN temperature…….”
Obviously!! How could a device know in advance the temperature of the object in view? That was the point I was trying to make.
******
Maybe I’ve been under the wrong impression, but I thought you didn’t believe in an opposing incoming and outgoing radiative flux?
“The pyrgeometer’s thermopile detects the net radiation balance between the incoming and outgoing long wave radiation flux and converts it to a voltage according to the equation below.”
Tim
“Snape, they just design the camera to see in the range of the atmospheric window say 10 um or 12 um. Then IR from far away can get through!
(If they designed a camera that saw in the 15 um range, it could only see things a a few meters away!)”
******
Now I’m confused again! I thought CO2 doesn’t emit at those wavelengths?
Tim
Again, the exhaust from jet engines is mainly CO2. Heat seeking missiles often track the IR emitted from that CO2.
If CO2 does not emit in the 10 -12 um range, I was wondering how the missile tracks it?
I don’t know all the details of the systems for the missles, but lots of things are hot! The CO2, the H2O. other random molecules that might come out. The tailpipe. Something will emit enough in the IR window for the IR cameras to detect!
Hi Tim
Yes, I agree, and from what I could tell from the article, the missiles track CO2 emissions as well, but from very hot CO2 which emits IR at short wavelengths, 2 – 3 um, mostly transparent to the surrounding atmosphere……..that was my impression anyway.
This stuff is new to me, so I may have misunderstood. Here again is the excellent link:
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-IR-Guidance.html
Chic
You wrote, “Of the 396 W/m2 attributed to energy loss from the surface in some form…….”
According to the Trenberth diagram I’m familiar with, the surface loses 493 w/m^2 in some form. 396 is emitted, 80 through evaporation, 17 through conduction/convection.
https://scied.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/images/large_image_for_image_content/radiation_budget_kiehl_trenberth_2011_900x645.jpg
Snape,
I unnecessarily confused the issue by stating 396 instead of 493. The 493 – 396 = 97 is agreed by all to be approximately represented by latent and sensible heat. What I was focussing on is the nature of the 396. This is being or has been discussed downthread by phi and ball4.
But let me try once more to better explain my interpretation of the 396. This is the estimated amount of radiation from the surface based on the generally accepted average surface temperature of around 287K to 289K when you plug it into the SB equation. Some radiation, only 22 W/m2 in your link, but 40 W/m2 in others, goes directly to space. So using 40 W/m2 going directly to space, that leaves 356 W/m2 going to the atmosphere. But does that mean that a full 356 W/m2 actually leaves the surface with a full 333 W/m2 returning? What is the evidence for that? I’m told it comes from IR detectors which measure the UW and DW IR. But don’t those values just reflect a temperature difference? Are the corresponding W/m2 actually being exchanged? How do we know? How is it measured?
Has anyone calculated how much W/m2 should be eminating from a slice of the atmosphere 2 km up by assuming a temperature and the corresponding number of emissions/sec?
If anyone can nail that down, I’ll shut up. Maybe.
Chic Bowdrie,
Are the corresponding W/m2 actually being exchanged? How do we know? How is it measured?
Only the heat flows are detectable, so the 23 W / m2. The rest is more philosophy than physics.
Again, there is no need to be fixed on these points to do the little that is possible scientifically. The decomposition of flows, ie the allocation of energy to the calculated irradiance is only a trick. It is enough then to forget the second principle to make believe that one solved the problem.
“Only the heat flows are detectable”
Funny since science tried for like a century in the 1800s but never detected one flow of heat. Finally they gave up and elegant experiments proved heat did not exist, only various forms of energy.
The relevant atm. energy flows are quite detectable, routinely 24/7/365 by NOAA ESRL.
norman…relocated from above.
normanKristian is just a more intelligent version of Gordon Robertson.
**********
Coming from normans inverse universe that means Kristian and Gordon Robertson are very intelligent. I am better known for my devastating good looks, so Ill concede that Kristian is more intelligent than me.
snape…”Do you think a sensor on the device knows in advance the temperature of the cooler object in view?”
Bingo!!!
If you are talking about hand-held IR detectors that’s exactly how they work. The detectors are calibrated in a lab to convert the frequency of IR radiation to a temperature. They are not measuring heat at all, they are measuring the IR frequency which has a direct correlation to its temperature.
The more expensive detectors used in astronomy have a cooled detector that has a temperature below that of the detected EM. Those are true heat detectors.
GR, No, as Dr. Spencer pointed out previously, those hand-held IR thermometers use a BOLOMETER. A bolometer is a device for measuring the power of incident electromagnetic radiation via the heating of a material with a temperature-dependent electrical resistance
. Point one at an object and you are measuring the intensity of the emitted Thermal Radiation within the cone of acceptance.
An EE with your claimed experience should know all about that. You ARE an EE, aren’t you?
swannie…”GR, No, as Dr. Spencer pointed out previously, those hand-held IR thermometers use a BOLOMETER. A bolometer is a device for measuring the power of incident electromagnetic radiation via the heating of a material with a temperature-dependent electrical resistance….”
A bolometer could not be used in a hand-held since the thermal reservoir has to be maintained at a cooler temperature than the heat source.
A temperature-dependent resistor is a thermistor. There is no way a thermistor can respond to specific frequencies, it just heats and changes its resistance.
I have told you before, hand-helds work due to an algorithm which is based on measurements of IR in a lab. Furthermore, they have a restricted lower range, the hand-helds are used more for measuring temperatures above room temperature.
Gordo, so now you think those handheld units don’t measure IR frequency (wavelength) directly? Surprise, surprise! I thought you “told” us that they measure frequency. Why did you say that?
Here’s one design.
http://www.cypress.com/applications/infrared-thermometer
The imaging systems use an array of “micro bolometers” on a chip, etc.
Yes. And microbolometers are a type of bolometer. That is, they’re THERMAL detectors.
Radiometers are radiation detectors, hence their name.
E. Swanson says, May 29, 2018 at 10:45 AM:
No. A bolometer is a THERMAL detector. In other words, it detects HEAT.
Heat can not be detected as it does not exist, bolometers detect radiation not thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy U. See how confused Kristian remains, mistakenly using a definition as an entity that actually exists.
Snape,
…the surface loses 493 w/m^2…
493 W/m2 is the irradiance of the surface. Losses are heat and it is 80 W/m2 for evaporation, 17 W/m2 for sensible heat, 40 W/m2 for IR through the atmospheric window and 23 W/m2 for IR passing through the atmosphere.
This constant confusion between irradiance energy and heat is however very clearly solved by thermodynamics for a long time. If the basic thermodynamic notions are so poorly understood and so poorly applied in the context of the greenhouse effect, it is not for any theoretical uncertainty but because of a trick in the quantitative theory. Since convection is not calculable, it is removed from theory at the same time as thermodynamics.
See here : http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304900
Oups, irradiance is 396 W/m2.
One more confusion linked to these pseudo-scientific notions carved by climatology.
Then see here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304925
The confusion in modern atm. thermodynamics is always introduced with those that have to resort to using the heat term such as phi: “Losses are heat”
Losses and gains are joules of energy/sec/m^2 typically W/m^2.
Ball4,
As I have already noticed, you are perfectly consistent with the greenhouse effect theory. I just hope that the lack of cooling effect of convection claimed by this theory can open some people’s eyes. Maybe even yours.
As you have noted, the best answers lie in the basics as put forth by Manabe’s 1960s papers. Radiative-convective atm. theory works well compared to observations. Sound bites in comments are full of endless semantic issues stirred by confusion over heat term. Better to read Manabe and a modern atm. radiation test based text, avoid the heat term.
Ball4,
Radiative-convective atm. theory works well compared to observations.
It’s hardly surprising as the observed gradient is imposed!
Obviously, when the CO2 level changes and you keep the same gradient, nothing works. It is enough to compare the results of the models to observations (in particular the temperature gradient).
Well I think yes you have it there, as CO2 changes (no thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy change for the system) so must the lapse rate slope as is well known in radiative-convective atm.s since the time of Prof. Tyndall, and earlier. The surface cools removing IR active ingredients (reducing opacity) and the upper regions equally warm and vice versa once the system comes into balance along the LR. Consistent with Manabe and modern L’Ecuyer papers.
Ball4,
That is all speculation and hypothetical, because there is no evidence of any changes in lapse rate due to CO2.
Chic, you just need to read up on the latest published evidence. That evidence changes the LR in the direction as expected from Manabe’s papers.
Changes in the lapse rate have been measured? I wouldn’t know where to look.
Or are you begging the question by assuming that whatever evidence you are referring to must mean the lapse rate has changed?
“there is no evidence of any changes in lapse rate due to CO2….
I wouldn’t know where to look.”
A college library would work. You are not exactly inspiring confidence in your conclusion Chic.
LOL. My hint was a little too subtle. Where is the data indicating any measured change in lapse rate?
Alternatively, admit that the evidence you referred to implies the lapse rate has changed, but you don’t know for sure that it did.
Once you read the bulk of papers on the subject, you will see that the LR indeed has changed and be able to reason the amount since it seems to be of interest to you. Do not worry, the sky will not fall. Again, if certainty is what you desire, atm. thermo. is not the field of choice.
I’m not going to look for needles in a haystack. If you don’t know where the papers are, I will assume you are bluffing and don’t have a clue.
Of course he’s bluffing. He’s a troll.
I’ll assume you don’t care to do the work to understand on your own.
If you do, you can start by looking into the TLT product that Dr. Spencer puts up 1st of each month for the surface end of the lapse rate changes. The papers & atm. radiation texts are in your local college library. Many are free on the internet you could read those for reasoning out lapse rate changes.
Not a needle in a haystack either, google is your friend. Look for Manabe’s papers, CERES/Argo Team papers for surface lapse rate movement & CERES based energy budgets, check NOAA ESRL and read up on their surface instruments. Many papers posted in this comment thread. Look for upper troposphere/lower stratosphere global temperature changes for evidence of the upper end of the lapse rate movement over time. They will all have past ref.s to catch you up.
There was a guy said you can observe a lot just by watching. Be sure to read published ref.s not those that self cite to their own website.
“Not a needle in a haystack either, google is your friend.”
Five minutes after googling “lapse rate change in time” I found this:
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/joc.2136
This paper assesses trends in the temperature record over time compared to the nearby lowland temperature record at Durham. Overall warming for 1991–2006 compared with 1931–1960 and 1961–1990 was approximately the same at the upland site (0.53 °C and 0.73 °C for the two time periods, respectively) as at Durham (0.61 °C and 0.71 °C), maintaining a similar lapse rate.
“Many papers posted in this comment thread.”
Where? And all those other resources at your finger tips and you couldn’t site one in 24 hours. Kristian is right. Bye, troll.
Chic Bowdrie,
I do not know what you’re looking for, but yes, the lapse rate changes. It changes first because of the variation of the absolute humidity level as a function of temperature and, more importantly, it has absolutely no reason to remain fixed in case of modification of the radiative structure of the atmosphere.
The comparison of two ground stations is not enough to conclude.
You have a related discussion here: https://www.mwenb.nl/the-missing-tropical-hot-spot/
and for example this graph: https://www.mwenb.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Christy-fig-2.jpg
Nice googling start. But I’ll continue to assume you don’t care to accomplish the work to understand evidence of LR changes on your own.
That’s fine, entertainment is cool. Many don’t do the work, just comment inaccurately for entertainment not physical understanding.
phi,
Some comments back you wrote:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-305031
The troll answers you:
“Well I think yes you have it there, as CO2 changes (no thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy change for the system) so must the lapse rate slope as is well known in radiative-convective atm.s since the time of Prof. Tyndall, and earlier.”
Since then the troll has been unable to show any evidence of any historical change in the lapse rate due to the increase in CO2.
“…[the lapse rate] has absolutely no reason to remain fixed in case of modification of the radiative structure of the atmosphere.”
Then maybe you can help the troll find the evidence of where CO2 modifications over periods of more than a day change the lapse rate, the slope, dT/dh. Otherwise there are more important issues to resolve.
So far you, phi, have only provided evidence of possible warming due to a shift in the degree/decade trend in the lapse rate, not a change in dT/dh as CO2 increases over the years since CO2 has been measured.
BTW, I should mention that I agree that CO2 should have some slight effect reducing the lapse rate similarly to how water vapor massively reduces it. I just don’t see where that slight effect can be filtered out of existing data.
And, phi, in case you were assuming the issue was a degree/decade change, that will occur in a warming world no matter what the cause of the warming.
Chic Bowdrie,
The discussion on Climate Dialogue is enlightening on the state of the issue.
Ball4 thinks of the feedback on water vapor, it is taken into account by models and is indeed very well observed in the annual to decadal variations but not at all in the long term trends.
The variation due to the radiative effect of CO2 is a different story. The quality of observations do not allow to pronounce for the moment.
If the climate sensitivity is lower than the assumed one, it is quite likely that it comes from this mechanism because it is totally ignored by the theory. Not because we would have reason to suppose it weak but because it is totally inaccessible to calculation.
Chic: “I agree that CO2 should have some slight effect reducing the lapse rate” slope.
Yes, very good, after Manabe. Now Chic agrees with me after a little dancing around.
The evidence is in the global mean temperature measurements surface and at height. Local lapse rates are measured daily but a decades worth is needed to pick out the temperature signals from noise.
Too, given 9+ unnatural +/- forcings on those temperatures and all the natural +/- forcings there is a lot of reading to do to form an evidence based accurate comment on LR changes over time.
phi,
“If the climate sensitivity is lower than the assumed one, it is quite likely that it comes from this mechanism because it is totally ignored by the theory.”
I’m not sure what mechanism you refer to, but I suspect it is inaccessible to statistically significant measurement.
I’m wondering if the troll thinks, period.
The troll can’t help himself. He hasn’t learned when in a hole, stop digging.
“Chic: ‘I agree that CO2 should have some slight effect reducing the lapse rate’ slope.”
The troll leaves out the remainder of my sentence which is “…similarly to how water vapor massively reduces it.”
The troll forgot that he has been arguing in favor of Manabe’s model which shows in Fig. 11 that water vapor, if anything, increases the lapse rate. So after originally trying to defend the indefensible, the troll is now contradicting himself in order to claim that I agree with him.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304334
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304451
Ball4 is a troll. QED.
“water vapor, if anything, increases the lapse rate.”
No contradiction in my comments as Chic mistakes, again, humidity in Fig 11 for condensation. I argue in favor of condensation decreasing the LR slope from no condensation but plenty of natural wv or humidity at 9.8 “dry” to 6.5 midlatitude tropics “wet” with wv condensation into rain, snow, and clouds voted on by a committee looking at 1000s of thermometer LRs.
Chic is making a good effort to gain some credibility in meteorology though, this is commendable for this particular blog. I’d suggest Chic make some more progress and search for Dr. Spencer’s experiments as accomplishment is gained in this field.
Chic Bowdrie,
I’m not sure what mechanism you refer to, but I suspect it is inaccessible to statistically significant measurement.
The mechanism modifying the thermal gradient under the radiative effect of CO2. It is rather better highlighted by observations than global warming (the rotation of the temperature profile is more legible than its translation).
phi, that’s a good point. CO2 effect evidence is from rotation of the avg. LR with no change in thermodynamic internal (thermal) earth system energy.
Solar (TSI) effects for example would be a translation of the avg. LR with changes in thermodynamic internal (thermal) earth system energy.
phi,
“The mechanism modifying the thermal gradient under the radiative effect of CO2.”
Modiyiing it how? By changing the dT/dh profile or by changing the degree/decade model predictions or observations?
“It is rather better highlighted by observations than global warming (the rotation of the temperature profile is more legible than its translation).”
What observations? What rotation? What translation? Where are you getting this stuff? Am I on the right thread? Legible??? as in clear enough to read?
Meanwhile the troll blathers on incoherently. Are you playing good cop to his bad cop trying to drive me up the wall?
“Modiyiing it how?”
See Manabe 1967 Fig. 16. See the circles for 600 ppm CO2? They are shifted to left (cooler) above 20km and to the right (warmer) at 0km from the triangles (150ppm CO2). The LR curve rotates about a point near 15km as CO2 ppm increases.
Manabe’s iterative solution is from a starting guess LR until getting an energy in/out balance both at surface and TOA. For this case, the solution is for no change in thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy as CO2 burns no fuel to add any energy to the earth system.
Since the sun burns a fuel, TSI can add energy to earth system translating the LR curve to the right all the way from top to bottom monotonically shifted to warmer temperatures.
chic….”Changes in the lapse rate have been measured? I wouldn’t know where to look”.
Before you look anywhere, ask ball4 for a definition of lapse rate. The definition used in climate science is screwy.
It is claimed temperatures decrease with altitude due to convection. Does convection cause the air pressure at 30,000 feet to drop off to 1/3 the air pressure at sea level? Does convection cause temperatures to drop off in proportion?
Gravity is responsible for the reduction in pressure and temperature. Convection has to operate on top of that gradient.
ball4 likes to introduce his version of physics. Don’t get hooked into a change in lapse rate till you have him explain what it means while taking into account the effect of reduced gravitational force with altitude.
Manabe was a pioneer in climate modeling and I would not take him as a reference for anything related to real physics.
Gordon,
“Before you look anywhere, ask ball4 for a definition of lapse rate. The definition used in climate science is screwy.”
You ask him. I’m done with the troll.
Gordon Robertson says, May 30, 2018 at 5:14 PM:
The definition is from atmospheric physics, not from “climate science”. And it’s not “screwy”. It’s standard physics.
Which is true.
No.
Yes. The dry adiabatic lapse rate – -dT/dh = g/c_p – is for vertically moving air masses in a gravity field only.
Yes.
No.
No.
Thanks Kristian.
Chic – See Manabe for a reference to actual atmosphere physics facts, not Gordon.
Also good reference for lapse rate of temperature in the atm. is Bohren 1998 Atmospheric Thermodynamics. A parcel on the LR will have same T and P as surroundings. If an actual parcel doesn’t, unbalanced convection will ensue driving the system back toward hydrostatic balance.
Ball4,
If an actual parcel doesnt, unbalanced convection will ensue driving the system back toward hydrostatic balance.
If there are no other disturbances, so no heat flow, this is a first step.
The second step leads to thermodynamic equilibrium, thus to uniform temperature, radiatively if there are GHGs, by conduction otherwise.
In our atmosphere with GHGs, because they are the cold source, the flow is necessarily permanent. Convection only gives a local limit to the thermal gradient. The average thermal gradient is still strongly fixed by radiative phenomena because most of the atmosphere is in subsidence and has a gradient generally lower than the dry adiabatic one.
So convection limits the gradient and there is still a lot of reserve because the atmosphere is still very far from having everywhere an adiabatic thermal gradient.
phi,
Are you being vague on purpose?
“The second step leads to thermodynamic equilibrium, thus to uniform temperature…”
Did you mean the whole atmosphere as if the sun stopped rising each day? When is the atmosphere ever at a uniform temperature?
“Convection only gives a local limit to the thermal gradient.”
Is that due to convection or the amount of solar insolation absorbed at the surface? Convection is a response to other influences, isn’t it?
“The average thermal gradient is still strongly fixed by radiative phenomena because most of the atmosphere is in subsidence…”
Do you mean because the sun only warms between dawn and noon, i.e. less than half a day?
“…and has a gradient generally lower than the dry adiabatic one.”
I thought evaporation will cause convection. What does that have to do with radiation?
So, no, I don’t see how convection limits the gradient rather than causing the majority of the cooling of the planet’s surface. You seem to have come a long way from your original position in this thread:
“I just hope that the lack of cooling effect of convection claimed by [Manabe’s GHE] theory can open some people’s eyes.”
“When is the atmosphere ever at a uniform temperature?”
On avg., above the tropopause in the lower stratosphere for about 9km where convection ~ceases due the fluid being warmed from above in a gravity field, check the US Standard Atm.
Annualized global convection has no effect on surface temperatures after steady state is achieved, what goes up comes down in all the energy budget balances at that point.
Manabe 1964 Fig. 4 showed how with only radiative balance surface temperatures would be above 340K with their basic assumption for solar and albedo. So they showed there is more to the story than net SW and LW.
Chic Bowdrie,
Sorry, wrong thread, my answer is bellow.
phi,
I think we are in agreement about the inadequacies of Manabe’s model and the potential influences of changes in both long term and daily atmospheric IR-active gas composition.
Your contributions to this thread include “…the lapse rate changes. It changes first because of the variation of the absolute humidity level as a function of temperature and, more importantly, it has absolutely no reason to remain fixed in case of modification of the radiative structure of the atmosphere.” And you cited degree/decade data indicating lapse rate variability.
Despite all that, do you agree that there is no statistically significant evidence from lapse rate data showing any net change in temperature profiles due to increasing CO2?
Chic Bowdrie,
The answer to your question is far from obvious. If you have seen Christy’s graph, you may have realized that the discrepancy between observations and models is enormous. The warming of the troposphere should be greater than that of the surface due to the increase in the water vapor content and the measurements indicate the opposite.
So, either we do not understand anything about the physics of atmosphere or the observations are deficient.
In the Climate Dialogue thread, I pointed out that by normalizing the observation – model curves to 850 hPa, the divergence disappeared and only the surface value was out of frame. In addition, ignoring the likely defective surface measurement, it was possible to normalize at 1000 hPa and find that the attenuation of the observed gradient was greater than predicted by models. As, on the other hand, the measured absolute warming is lower than that calculated, it could be deduced that the greater attenuation of the gradient is explained by the effect of CO2.
The quality of the data is however insufficient for this to be a certainty, it is just a possibility.
I admire your attempts to make sense out of all that variability. I don’t, but don’t need to, understand your logic regarding the attenuation of the gradient.
Maybe looking at more than the mid-latitudes (20S to 20N) would be necessary. Tropical heat is vented north and south. If nature kept it contained, the models might look pretty good.
Kristian…”rtically moving air masses in a gravity field only.
Gravity is responsible for the reduction in pressure ()
Yes.
() and temperature.”
***********
Kristian…either this definition of lapse rate is correct or the Ideal Gas Law is wrong.
If pressure drops by one-third in a relatively constant volume, the temperature MUST drop in proportion. No choice. When there are fewer molecules of air to collide that translates to lower temperature.
And this notion of an adiabatic process in the atmosphere is pseudo-science. A hotter air parcel will rise through cooler air due to density-based buoyancy, but it must transfer heat as it rises to the 99% N2/O2 surrounding it.
The lapse rate can be explained by reduced pressure following by warming in the stratosphere due to oxygen absorbing UV from the Sun.
I am not arguing that other processes are not involved, such as convective currents, but we must not abandon the basics like the Ideal Gas Law. Pressure, temperature, and volume have a definite and tested relationship.
“If pressure drops by one-third in a relatively constant volume, the temperature MUST drop in proportion.”
Only at constant density Gordon. Routine weather reports show density is not constant.
Gordon Robertson says, June 1, 2018 at 1:39 AM:
Yes, the physics definition of the LR is correct, and so is the Ideal Gas Law. There is no contradiction whatsoever.
No. In the atmosphere, when pressure drops, density drops with it. Which means the temperature won’t. In STATIC conditions.
No. Air temperature is simply a macroscopic manifestation of the air’s average molecular speed, regardless of how many molecules there are.
Of course it isn’t. It is standard physics. You are seriously misguided, it appears.
It cools as it expands, thus transferring energy to its surroundings in the form of so-called PV work [W_pv]. It hardly transfers energy to its surroundings in the form of heat [Q], though; it rises and expands way too fast. Which is why the process is called “adiabatic” in the first place.
Er, no. This is just you being misguided.
Exactly. And THIS relationship specifically tells us that a parallel reduction in pressure (P) and density (ρ) won’t lead to any appreciable decrease in temperature (T) in static conditions:
P/ρ = RT
where R is the individual gas constant of the air.
ball4…”The confusion in modern atm. thermodynamics is always introduced with those that have to resort to using the heat term such as phi: Losses are heat”
Most people understand what heat means, even laymen. It’s only a few malcontents like you who need to obfuscate the meaning.
“Losses and gains are joules of energy/sec/m^2 typically W/m^2”.
The energy is heat. What do you think it is, electrical energy, mechanical energy…..?????
Name it, what is the energy you specified?
The energy is not heat which hasn’t existed as an entity in science for over 100 years despite all Gordon’s & Kristian’s et. al. attempts to give heat corporeal existence as an entity that can “transfer” or “flow” or be a special type of heat called “radiant”, or an entity that can “rise”.
The avg. kinetic energy of an object’s constituent particles is the energy correctly used in thermodynamic internal energy U in modern science and an object’s U can change due to Q (by virtue of a temperature difference no net work) or net work W.
It’s really pretty simple – if you spot someone writing the heat term as an explanation you know immediately they are invoking a non-existing entity to fool you into thinking their explanation is clear. That explanation then is NOT clear, manifestly.
No heat was harmed in the making of this comment.
Kristian clearly should follow his own advice freely given to others as should Gordon:
5:24am per Kristian: “Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
But I’m certain they both will live up to all my expectations & continue to pack heat.
ball4…”The energy is not heat which hasnt existed as an entity in science for over 100 years despite all Gordons & Kristians et. al. attempts to give heat corporeal existence as an entity that can transfer or flow or be a special type of heat called radiant, or an entity that can rise”.
*********
You can wave your arms in the air and protest all you want, energy with different properties has different names. Kinetic energy and internal energy are generic terms which do not identify the energy in question.
Clausius suggested heat is the kinetic energy of atoms in motion then he went on to define U, the internal energy of a body, as INTERNAL heat and work related to atomic motion/vibration. In the 1st law, Q and W are references to external heat and work.
However, heat and work are equivalent with one causing the other. Also, one is consumed while causing the other. Carnot made the mistake of not realizing that.
Clausius defined internal energy as work performed by atoms, affected by heat. If you add heat to a body, say using a flame, the atoms absorb the heat and they work harder causing a greater vibration. Extract heat and they work less with less vibration.
Work is a measure of kinetic energy since both involve a force moving a mass through a distance. However, heat is that kinetic energy in that context, where atoms are vibrating and/or moving through space.
Kinetic energy also explains the motion of a piston in a cylinder when a gas explodes. The exploding gas is chemical reaction, which can be described as chemical energy, but it’s also heat, which causes the gas to expand. No chemical reaction can take place without heat being emitted (exothermic) or absorbed (endothermic). The KE of the gas is transferred to the piston where it becomes mechanical energy.
We need to name energies in the contexts in which they act because the terms kinetic energy and internal energy tell us nothing about the energy(s) acting.
As you can see with certain alarmist comments in Roy’s blog, when you don’t name the energy, then energies with entirely different properties, like heat and EM, become thoroughly confused.
Work as mechanical energy, and heat as thermal energy are related but they cannot be summed directly because their parameters are different. They can be shown to have an equivalence as demonstrated quite brilliantly by Joule in the 1840s.
It’s the same with EM and heat. Although Stefan Boltzmann described EM using W/m^2, they believed that heat was flowing through the air. It was not till 1913, till well after their theory appeared, that Bohr first hypothesized the notion of electrons converting heat to EM, that anyone realized EM is not heat.
When I look at S-B, I regard it as heat dissipation. It’s strange to attribute W/m^2 to EM since it carries no heat and cannot be measured in W/m^2 as EM. First, it has to be converted to heat by the measuring instrument, or after it is converted to an electrical current in a communications antenna.
However, we are stuck with declaring EM in W/m^2 due to a totally understandable misunderstanding by S-B, and some modernists have mistakenly presumed that EM emitted from bodies of different temperatures are emitting heat. Therefore, they have tried to circumvent the 2nd law through the incorrect summation of EM fluxes.
The definition of heat by Clausius is a perfect definition of heat since it involves the kinetic energy of atomic motion related to both heat and work. I don’t know how long it will take it for this man to be acknowledged as the genius he was, yet dismissed by modern wannabees who cannot tell their butts from a hole in the ground.
“Clausius suggested heat is the kinetic energy of atoms in motion then he went on to define U, the internal energy of a body, as INTERNAL heat”
As Tim points out as I recall, you are stuck in the 1800s wording Gordon. As Kristian correctly points out in modern times 5:24am:
“Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body,” just as it is incorrect to speak of the “work in a body.””
ball4…”As Tim points out as I recall, you are stuck in the 1800s wording Gordon. As Kristian correctly points out in modern times 5:24am:
Consequently, it is incorrect to refer to the heat in a body, just as it is incorrect to speak of the work in a body.”
Until Clausius is proved incorrect, his version stands. Tim has shown absolutely nothing to contradict Clausius.
It’s unfair to comment on Kristian without having read his claim directly. However, if he feels it’s incorrect to refer to the heat in a body he is wrong as well.
Clausius created the term U for internal energy. He explained clearly what he meant by it and it was a reference to the heat existing in a body and the work done by the atomic vibrations in a body. That’s both heat and work.
If either Tim or Kristian have evidence to rebut that claim, I’d like to hear it.
You guys like to talk about heat as an abstraction. I have asked several times what kind of energy is in transit if heat is simply a mode of energy transfer. Explain what kind of energy is in transit. And no, it’s not kinetic energy or internal energy. There is a specific energy related to heat and it’s called thermal energy.
It is not Clausius version that is wrong Gordon it is your interpretation that is wrong. Clausius knew it is incorrect to refer to the heat in a body, just as it is incorrect to speak of the work in a body given Clausius defn. of heat and work. His words translated from the original at a time when heat was thought to exist in a body may be the source of your misinterpretation.
Clausius knew from experience if he boiled away some water and let some ice water evaporate there were not two piles of heat left over, one larger than the other. Because there was no heat in either body to begin with – only the total KE of the particles which departed.
Gordon,
“Most people understand what heat means, even laymen.”
The verb is self-explanatory, but I doubt the thermodynamic term would not be easily defined by a typical layman. Look at the trouble illustrated on this blog. It is precisely because once a quantity of heat is transferred into a system, it cannot be distinguished from work.
“Its only a few malcontents like you who need to obfuscate the meaning.”
Namely trolls. I wonder how he/she would define adiabatic without using heat?
Chic Bowdrie,
You seem to have come a long way from your original position in this thread
No, absolutely not. The surface is cooled by both convection and radiative flux and so the gradient is dependent on these two supports. We can not do as the quantitative theory : only radiative cooling and gradient only fixed by convection. This is nonsense and the reason why this pseudo-science is still standing escapes me completely.
phi – think you need to distinguish between nonequilibrium and steady state equilibrium.
If Manabe’s pure radiative surface solution guess at LR is not in equilibrium, only SW in & LW out radiation is varied until steady state temperature ~340K is achieved, convection is ignored, the LR allowed to be whatever balances.
If Manabe’s radiative-convective solution is not in actual measured balance surface and TOA, both convection & SW in LW out is allowed to adjust until 6.5 AND SW in and LW out are balanced at ~290K. After that point, convection no longer changes the SS balance (because the 6.5 is observed natural) but added unnatural radiation can affect both surface and upper reaches slightly altering the natural 6.5 (you know, few tenths K up at surface, few tenths K lower upper regions over decades).
Of course this is where feedbacks hit the fan and all sorts of opinions break loose.
Ball4,
…but added unnatural radiation can affect both surface and upper reaches slightly altering the natural 6.5 (you know, few tenths K up at surface, few tenths K lower upper regions over decades).
But nobody knows anything about it !!!
The effect on the gradient depends on the reaction of convection to a greater opacity. It could be a pivot at surface and therefore no surface warming as a pivot anywhere else. The choice of translation is completely arbitrary.
phi,
“No, absolutely not. The surface is cooled by both convection and radiative flux and so the gradient is dependent on these two supports. We can not do as the quantitative theory : only radiative cooling and gradient only fixed by convection. This is nonsense and the reason why this pseudo-science is still standing escapes me completely.”
Ok, I think I agree 100%. But “only radiative cooling and gradient only fixed by convection” is somewhat unclear. If by quantitative theory you mean Manabe’s, I would agree that is wrong because 1) cooling is not only radiative, but includes the contributions of evaporation, conduction, and convection, and 2) convection does not “fix” the gradient, but rather tends to restore the pre-dawn quasi-equilibrium temperature profile after the daily solar input ceases.
I would avoid responding to the troll. If you do, be very careful with what you write and how you write it. The troll will use every opportunity to misquote or distort what you write.
Chic Bowdrie,
The crux of the matter is there :
Ramanathan and Coakley 1978 :
The empirical technique considerably simplifies the procedure for solving the thermal structure of the atmosphere. Since the temperature gradient is prescribed within the troposphere, (8) [qT(z) + qS(z) + qC(z) = const = 0] need not be solved. Instead, the equation for the radiative equilibrium condition, i.e., qT + qS = 0, is solved with the provisio that the lapse rate at any level within the atmosphere should be less than or equal to the critical lapse rate.
phi,
I agree.
I have one final question on the other thread.
That is I agree that the crux of the matter is that Ramanathan and Coakley’s assumptions about convection are misguided.
phi 11:45am, a pivot of the LR curve at the surface due increased atm. opacity would violate the 1st principle; energy would be created from nothing as all temperatures above the surface would be increased or energy would be destroyed if all temperatures above surface decrease.
The LR pivots shown in Manabe 1964 Fig.4 are at such a height that energy in the system is always conserved; warmer temperatures below and cooler temperatures above the ccw pivot with increased CO2 ppm.
phi 11:45am, there is not an arbitrary choice of pivot since the pivot height is selected by the total energy in the system remaining constant due opacity changing.
Ball4,
But no, I do not know what you cook.
A pivot at surface and a weaker gradient perfectly verify the first principle.
Translation is an arbitrary choice and result simply from the strange trick of ignoring the convective part of heat flow. I remind you Ramanathan: the temperature gradient is prescribed within the troposphere
“A pivot at surface and a weaker gradient perfectly verify the first principle.”
You will have to explain where the extra energy in the system comes from to raise the temperature all along the lapse rate from a pivot at the surface. Can’t possibly satisfy the 1st principle, energy in the system is obviously not conserved.
The pivot in Manabe is set at a height allowing no energy change in the system, this is known as conserving energy.
phi…”The crux of the matter is there :
Ramanathan and Coakley 1978 :”
Why do you presume Ramanathan and Coakley are correct?
Just curious.
Could they be wrong?
ball4,
I still do not see what strange physics you are talking about. Read chapter convective adjustment in Ramanathan 1978.
Gordon Robertson,
Ramanathan and Coakley are just arbitrary, and the quantitative theory with them.
phi….”Ramanathan and Coakley are just arbitrary, and the quantitative theory with them”.
Thanks.
Ramanathan and Coakley 1978 is in my inventory & references and agrees with Manabe 1964 and 1967 phi: “both studies used the same radiative-convective model” as RC 1978 with some numerical efficiencies improved.
Gordon,
If I understood phi correctly he was pointing out where Ramanathan and Coakley make an erroneous assumption which leads to an incorrect model, which explains why it doesn’t work.
The confusion between 493 and 396 is very enlightening.
493 W / m2 represents the sum of the inputs while 396 W / m2 is the irradiance and therefore the value depending on the surface temperature. The difference between 493 and 396 represents the sum of the convective fluxes. In other words, convection has no effect on temperature. This is the faithful translation of the trick used (see the link).
“In other words, convection has no effect on temperature.”
Yes, globally! Net convection is zero over multiple annual periods, so this is the case for the earth/atm. system, the thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy carried by convection cycles with no effect on surface temperature globally.
See L’Ecuyer et. all. 2015 Fig. 4.
What about Manabe and Strickler 1964 Fig. 4 ???
Sure, MS Fig. 4 is in accord with L’Ecuyer Fig. 4 – the point being pure radiative equilibrium doesn’t work as well as a radiative-convective atm. since assuming at the Earth’s surface the net upward flux of LW is equal to the net downward flux of SW (pure radiative quilibrium) is not as good as what is shown in the various surface energy balances using radiative-convective atm. to get the tropospheric lapse rate to the observed avg. value (6.5) in the midlatitude tropics.
Ball4,
Try to understand that the radiative-convective model does nothing other than to impose the observed gradient.
There is no thermodynamics in there !!!
And it’s crashing when you change parameters, for example the CO2 level.
A radiative-convective atm. solution with the observed LR is not a bad thing phi. Not sure what you mean by “it’s” and “crashing”. Be more specific to communicate better.
Ball4,
This is indeed a good idea, an arbitrary working hypothesis for a preliminary test.
In no case an applicable theory.
phi,
“The difference between 493 and 396 represents the sum of the convective fluxes.”
I think you mean that is what the difference represents if one assumes that only latent and sensible heat convect. In fact, that 97 W/m2 plus 78 W/m2 solar into the atmosphere and the net 23 w/m2 IR from the surface all are transported up by convection and wind. That is 80 + 17 + 78 + 23 = 198 W/m2 which is nearly all of the 200 W/m2 to space that isn’t going through the window.
Phi
“493 W/m2 is the irradiance of the surface. Losses are heat and it is 80 W/m2 for evaporation, 17 W/m2 for sensible heat, 40 W/m2 for IR through the atmospheric window and 23 W/m2 for IR passing through the atmosphere”
I’m talking gains and losses to the earth’s surface in way that’s similar to a balance sheet, here in W/m^2.
According to the diagram I linked, the surface gains 494 w/m^2 through a combination of radiation from the atmosphere and sun.
It loses 396 w/m^2 through it’s own radiance, 80w/m^2 through evaporation, and 17 w/m^2 through conduction/convection.
There is a net gain of 0.9 w/m/2
Snape,
Erratum: 396 W / m2 for surface irradiance.
These balances are far from accurate enough to detect a difference of 0.9 W / m2.
Otherwise, your balance sheet is standing up.
160 + 333 = 97 + 396
But you manipulates non-thermodynamic notions.
A correct balance would have the form: 160 = 97 + 63
The equilibrium used in the quantitative theory is still different because it eliminates convection and one obtains 160 + 236 = 396 (the DWIR part of the supposed convection loop is subtracted).
Chic
“But does that mean that a full 356 W/m2 actually leaves the surface with a full 333 W/m2 returning? What is the evidence for that? Im told it comes from IR detectors which measure the UW and DW IR.”
Try looking at this a different way:
Do you trust the SB equation that a body at 289K will emit ~396 w/m^2 ?
Are you ok with Trenberth’s numbers for surface loss from evaporation (80 w/m^2) and conduction/convection (17 w/m^2)?
If so, that’s a net surface loss of 493 w/m^2. Now, if you trust that the absorbed gain from solar is 161 w/m^2, then where do you suppose the difference, 332 w/m^2 comes from? Do you understand there would need to be a gain of that amount to balance the losses? If not average surface temp would drop like a rock.
As for IR detectors, you can read about the various kinds and how they work online. I assume if you pointed one at a hot cloud of nitrogen, the reading would be very low. So as far as I know they don’t just measure a difference in temperature.
Snape,
I’m not challenging the math or what the number estimates supposedly represent. My question is about whether measurements of UW and DW IR radiation represent a true magnitude of W/m2 or is it just the SB equivalent of a temperature.
A solid object like a desk or a liquid or even a cloud has a temperature. But a CO2 molecule only has a temperature equivalent to the parcel of air it belongs to. Does it have a Planck distribution that can be integrated to give an amount of W/m2 capable of actually being transferred?
From the dialogue here, I’m still not sure exactly what IR detectors measure and I have to learn.
Phi
“Erratum: 396 W / m2 for surface irradiance.”
That’s better, but you’re still using the wrong term:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/radiance-and-irradiance.365082/
That 396 is the irradiance of the surface onto the atm., some of that radiant energy is transmitted, some is absorbed, and some reflected.
There are some technical differences but trying to stay sober enough to pronounce which one or hear which one correctly is not worth the effort.
Upthread I was wondering how a layer of air could absorb/emit as much radiation as, say, a dirt surface with the same area.
If the only GHG’s in the layer of air was CO2 at 400 ppm, then let’s compare that ratio to the ratio of IR active constituents in dirt.
The dirt might have 800,000 molecules/million that could absorb/emit as well as CO2 (Just a guess….maybe 20% reflects?)
******
Tim’s analogy upthread was very helpful,
“Well, yes the atmosphere sort of like a sheet that is 99% holes. But it is also like hundreds of sheets each meter. The net effect is that a short distance can absorb almost all the photons.”
Using his example, then taken together 2000 “sheets” of air as described above (400 ppmCo2) gives the same ratio of absorbency as the dirt surface.
Is this an accurate way of looking at it? (Obviously the numbers are just speculation)
No, no! 30 seconds after hitting send I see the error. Sorry.
Ball4
“That 396 is the irradiance of the surface onto the atm., some of that radiant energy is transmitted, some is absorbed, and some reflected.”
I don’t think that’s correct, or at least it’s an inappropriate way of looking at it. A layer of atmosphere (we’re talking about w/m^2) at say 10 meters altitude would not receive the same irradiance as a layer at 1000 meters altitude.
So what layer of atmosphere are you talking about that you think gets 396 w/m2 ? A layer 2 centimeters above the surface?
******
The 396 w/m^2 is a measure of radiance. Looking at it the other way is just goofy.
Lotsa’ stuff happens after emission through the atm. all the way to deep space, I forgot to mention scattering. Like I say, staying sober to pick between irradiance and radiance isn’t worth it. Count the Planck curves that say irradiance and radiance, keep track. Some even say flux, or the incredibly bad intensity (wrong if not W/per sr).
Radiance has been recommended by the Optical Society of America (OSA) for more than 60 years and endorsed by other international organizations devoted to standardization. OSA is the largest optical sciences society in the world, and the bulk of papers on optical science (including atmospheric optics) has been and continues to be published in its journals, the editors of which are supposed to frown on manuscripts in which intensity is used for radiance (or for whatever else strikes the mood of their authors).
Either you have to be VERY careful to get exactly the right term, or you have to trust your readers to understand the INTENT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiance#SI_radiometry_units
Ok, Tim I’ll have to trust your INTENT is correct when discussing W/m2 so you will always use irradiance flux density when you really mean “Radiant flux received by a surface per unit area”, radiosity when you really mean “Radiant flux leaving a surface per unit area”, and radiant exitance when you really mean “Radiant flux emitted (not reflected, nor transmitted) by a surface per unit area”.
Btw, note the top lingo of the wiki page does not correspond with the chart. For example: “Historically, radiance is called “intensity” and spectral radiance is called “specific intensity””. This does not agree with the chart, perhaps edited in by a non-believer.
And I enjoyed the pointer to “Brightness” discussion where it is pointed out the FTC is butting into the OSA business of optical term standardization with standards that are different! Imagine that – a Federal Glossary of Telecom terms defining brightness.
Snape
I was reading up on heat seeking missiles.
It seems they use the atmospheric windows to pursue the target.
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shripad_Mahulikar/...
Not sure if this link will go through.
If the link is not good you can click on the pdf with the first entry on this link.
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A2KLfS7Z0w1brJQA2xVXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzajVvczlrBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwYWdpbmF0aW9u?p=do+heat+seeking+missles+use+the+atmospheric+window&ei=utf-8&type=37781_062417&fr=tightropetb&b=11&pz=10&bct=0&xargs=0
Thank, Norman
It’s an interesting way for me to learn about wavelengths and windows. Looks like they use different windows to track different parts of the aircraft. Do you agree with what I wrote about CO2, though? If it’s really hot it must emit in bands that are transparent to cooler GHG’s in the atmosphere, and the signal can therefore be tracked?
*********
Here was my reply to Tim:
“from what I could tell from the article, the missiles track CO2 emissions as well, but from very hot CO2 which emits IR at short wavelengths, 2 3 um, mostly transparent to the surrounding atmosphere..that was my impression anyway.
This stuff is new to me, so I may have misunderstood. Here again is the excellent link:”
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-IR-Guidance.html
Snape
From the link I posted it makes this statement: “It is seen that the intervening atmosphere does
not transmit IR radiation from the aircraft to the ground-based IR
detector outside the atmospheric windows. Hence, the IR detector
cannot detect aircraft outside the atmospheric windows”
From this test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGaV3PiobYk
YOU: “If it’s really hot it must emit in bands that are transparent to cooler GHG’s in the atmosphere, and the signal can therefore be tracked?”
I am not sure about that. I will see if I can find something on it.
Norman
I liked that demonstration.
This is from your earlier link:
“Modern missiles track aircraft by using either radar guidance or heat-seeking. The best stealth military jets can make their radar signatures small enough to be effectively invisible to radar-guided missiles, but hiding the heat signature from a jet engine’s exhaust is both difficult and expensive, according to Defence Today magazine”
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr9DtCgJQ5bxy4Arflx.9w4;_ylu=X3oDMTEzNWQ0cWs4BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDTlNSUEMwXzEEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1527682592/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.livescience.com%2f20061-navy-hide-aircraft-missiles.html/RK=2/RS=.gsYp10yNzoUTyx82moAKquYxnw-
Snape
It is possible with enough IR emitting from the hot gas that a detectable amount makes it through the GHG. In the demonstration of the flame going away (the IR camera did have a filter to only allow the 15 micron IR through so that is why the flame disappeared) there is still a residual flame you can still see which could be detectable.
I might look for experiments in the visible spectrum. If you have ink in a beaker that is able to block a lower intensity light will it totally block a much higher intensity light? Will some of the visible light make it through and you see a slight glow?
Eclipse glasses block NEARLY all light. The world looks black through them. Only if you look at the sun (or directly at a light bulb filament) will you see anything. Of course, it doens’t TOTALLY block the lower intensity light, but it blocks so much that your eyes can’t detect other objects.
Snape
I think Tim Folkerts answered it. The detection capability of a heat seeking sensor is 0.25 microwatts. A very small amount of energy. It is possible this much energy could get through the carbon dioxide at 4.3 microns to allow a heat seeking sensor to “see” it.
Greenhouses and the greenhouse effect are complex which this duscussion shows. Very much more so than the standard newspaper article suggests. And many have made gedanken experiments and put greenhouses on the moon. But one moon greenhouse doesn’t seem to have been investigated.
Suppose we put an air-filled greenhouse on the moon. Big if you like. The floor ist just ordinary moon surface. What would happen to the ground SURFACE temperature during a lunar day compared to a reference area? I suspect that it would be cooler than the reference area! Why? Because the ground heats the air which heats the glass. And since the walls should see more space than the ground it should cool more by radiation. (On the other hand it also sees more heated ground around so the answer is not obvious). What if IR transparent material was used? Little effect, is my guess. GHG ?
Norman, Tim
That makes sense. Good examples.
******
I read that the early heat seeking missiles weren’t very sensitive and could only track a hot exhaust pipe…..from directly behind. Reminds me of some old war movies!
Steven
That’s an interesting idea. I think you’re right about the greenhouse surface temperature being cooler than a reference surface.
I assume a similar principle to what we see in the Trenberth diagram, where the surface has a net loss to thermals.
https://scied.ucar.edu/radiation-budget-diagram-earth-atmosphere
Norman, Tim
Maybe this is the “old war movie” I was remembering. Lol!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFc0EPRSI4
Gordon Robertson
Still another example of your scientific ignorance and your complete lack of actual physics that you cannot recognize how little you know or understand but post as an authority. It just makes you look plain stupid.
YOU: “And this notion of an adiabatic process in the atmosphere is pseudo-science. A hotter air parcel will rise through cooler air due to density-based buoyancy, but it must transfer heat as it rises to the 99% N2/O2 surrounding it”
Really? Pseudo-science for adiabatic process? I am sure you don’t understand it so call it wrong out of complete ignorance.
You can test this one by yourself in your own home with a can of computer duster. When you spray the can gets really cold.
The adiabatic cooling results from work being done on the surrounding air as a parcel rises and expands (less pressure). The work removes energy and the gas cools.
Do you have the slightest knowledge of the heat conductivity of air? I don’t think you do. It is a very good insulator.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
Air is a better insulator than loose asbestos.
That is why adiabatic cooling is real. The amount of heat transfer with air is much slower than the cooling rate.
Proof of the adiabatic cooling was done in lab many years ago. Scientists sent pressurized air in a vacuum flask. The aid did not cool as it filled the volume. It did not work.
You are so lost in you delusional ideas you have to start back at the very beginning. Read some real science just once, the blogs damaged your information set.
The problem is you believe your horrible science is good and correct and no one is able to tell you how wrong you are. Even Kristian moved in to inform you that you are wrong but even he is unable to convince you. Are you beyond help? So arrogant and sure of your nonsense you can’t conceive of the reality that is it really wrong?
norman…”Really? Pseudo-science for adiabatic process? I am sure you dont understand it so call it wrong out of complete ignorance.”
I am not disputing the term adiabatic.
“From wiki…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
1)Lapse rate is the rate at which Earth’s atmospheric temperature decreases with an increase in altitude, or increases with the decrease in altitude. [1][2] Lapse rate arises from the word lapse, in the sense of a gradual change.
Although this concept is most often applied to Earth’s troposphere, lapse rate can be extended to any gravitationally supported parcel of gas”.
“In general, a lapse rate is the negative of the rate of temperature change with altitude change, thus:
Γ = − dT/dz
where Γ is the lapse rate given in units of temperature divided by units of altitude, T = temperature, and z = altitude”
They have explained it with a reference to gravity and that’s all you need to know. Then they get stupid by bringing in convection and radiation with an inference that they provide a temperature PROFILE. They are not rescinding the definition of the lapse rate as being due to a natural pressure gradient, they bring in processes working on top of that to create a profile.
Then they infer an adiabatic process related to convection and radiation that transfers no heat into or out of the surrounding air through which heated air is rising.
That’s bs. Air is not a good conductor of air but that does not mean it does not absorb heat through conduction. It just means the molecules are too far apart to conduct heat the way it is conducted through a metal.
In a metal, the atoms are bonded together by electrons and the heat can be transferred rapidly by the valence electrons. In air, that is not the case, the molecules have to rely on collision to transfer the heat.
AIR will absorb heat from a parcel of heated air rising through it. and that will affect the temperature gradient LOCALLY.
It’s bs that rising air is an adiabatic process. True adiabatic processes need heat insulators.
Gordon Robertson
You are a goofball. I gave you a list of thermal conductivities! Air is a very very good insulator of heat.
YOU: “AIR will absorb heat from a parcel of heated air rising through it. and that will affect the temperature gradient LOCALLY.”
Insignificant amount. The rate it rises is much faster than heat will transfer. You are just wrong but to ignorant to understand why. You don’t know any physics. It is obvious. You also have no desire to learn it. Take care. I am glad you are happy. Ignorance is bliss!
Gordon Robertson says, June 1, 2018 at 6:37 AM:
Gordon Robertson says, June 1, 2018 at 6:37 AM:
No, not really. It WILL absorb some of the rising air’s internal energy [U], but not via the transfer of heat [Q], but rather through the performance of (PV) work [W]. That’s what makes the process “adiabatic” …
The rising (and falling) of air is not an adiabatic process. It’s a mechanical process. It’s just moving air up and down. The adiabatic process is in the expansion and contraction of the air AS it rises (or falls). And it IS surrounded by a (very good) heat insulator: air.
Kristian…”No, not really. It WILL absorb some of the rising air’s internal energy [U], but not via the transfer of heat [Q], but rather through the performance of (PV) work [W]. That’s what makes the process “adiabatic” …”
********
I’ll admit right off the bat that I have little knowledge of the meaning of lapse rate. Obviously a wide swath of hot air rising through cooler air due to convection will have a heat transfer only at the boundaries. Such a boundary condition should be low enough that the process could be termed adiabatic.
My interest at the moment is in a steady state definition of lapse rate and I came across the term Environmental Lapse Rate. As I have indicated, I am trying to understand lapse rate from the Ideal Gas Law position with a superimposed thermal convection element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
**********
“The environmental lapse rate (ELR), is the rate of decrease of temperature with altitude in the stationary atmosphere at a given time and location. As an average, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines an international standard atmosphere (ISA) with a temperature lapse rate of 6.49 K/km[15] (3.56 °F or 1.98 °C/1,000 ft) from sea level to 11 km (36,090 ft or 6.8 mi). From 11 km up to 20 km (65,620 ft or 12.4 mi), the constant temperature is -56.5 °C (-69.7 °F), which is the lowest assumed temperature in the ISA.
The standard atmosphere contains no moisture. Unlike the idealized ISA, the temperature of the actual atmosphere does not always fall at a uniform rate with height. For example, there can be an inversion layer in which the temperature increases with altitude”.
**********
This stationary atmosphere is more what I’m getting at. If we find an area of the atmosphere unaffected by convection and water vapour, why does temperature still decrease at 6.49K/km if it is not due to the IGL relationship between pressure and temperature?
“If we find an area of the atmosphere unaffected by convection and water vapour, why does temperature still decrease at 6.49K/km if it is not due to the IGL relationship between pressure and temperature?”
It doesn’t. There is a ~9km thick layer of the standard atm. unaffected by convection and wv namely the lower stratosphere above the tropopause. Temperature remains constant (no lapse at all) but pressure decreases consistent with IGL.
ball4…”the following link provides an argument for the lapse rate more along my way of thinking.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=3941
“There is a ~9km thick layer of the standard atm. unaffected by convection and wv namely the lower stratosphere above the tropopause. Temperature remains constant (no lapse at all) but pressure decreases consistent with IGL”.
By that altitude, air has become so thin it cannot support human life. The pressure will be very low and likely uniform, hence the temperature.
As ren pointed out before, the stratosphere is warmed by UV interacting with oxygen.
Gordon Robertsong says, June 1, 2018 at 7:01 PM:
Yes, but you see, a “steady state” like the one the Earth system is experiencing is nothing like a “thermodynamic equilibrium”. Our “steady state” is maintained by a steady flow of heat into, through and out of the system, and this flow is what maintains the observed tropospheric temperature profile, or “environmental lapse rate”. The system’s heat INPUT and heat OUTPUT are both purely radiative; net SW in and net LW out. Through the ToA.
The system’s heat throughput, however, from the heating end (down low, at and near the surface) to the cooling end (up high, towards the tropopause) is convective.
And so, a balance is struck between the radiative input and output heats [Q_in(sw) and Q_out(lw)] and the convective throughput heat [Q_in=>out(conv)]. And this balance is what maintains the tropospheric temperature profile as observed. This “radiative-convective equilibrium” is very much a DYNAMIC one.
If it weren’t for the constant heating of the surface by the Sun and the simultaneous constant cooling of the troposphere to space by its IR-active constituents, there would be no tropospheric circulation; the whole atmosphere would ultimately grind to a halt, and slowly grow isothermal from internal conduction.
Well, that’s a dead-end enterprise, for sure. A negative tropospheric lapse rate can only be with heat flowing dynamically in and out of the system. It is not something that will just establish itself out of thin, static air.
Ah, but you shouldn’t confuse the concept of a “stationary atmosphere” (basically, air masses in transient hydrostatic equilibrium) with the idea of air masses that have never and never will overturn. All the air within the troposphere partakes in the large-scale (global) circulation that gives the lowermost part of the atmosphere its very name. That isn’t to say that all the air is in constant motion all the time.
No area of the troposphere is “unaffected by convection and water vapour”, Gordon. Some areas (as some parts of the day and year) are more affected than others, but no area is permanently isolated from the global engine of atmospheric circulation.
Because of the incredibly low thermal conductivity of air. Hypothetically, if an air mass is convected up through the tropospheric column, naturally cooling along the gravitationally set adiabatic lapse rate, then the air along its convective path won’t just fall directly back to isothermal conditions, from internal conduction, once the vertical movement has stopped. That would take A LOT OF TIME. And long before it could be potentially achieved, convection would occur yet again.
Kristian…”Well, that’s a dead-end enterprise, for sure. A negative tropospheric lapse rate can only be with heat flowing dynamically in and out of the system. It is not something that will just establish itself out of thin, static air”.
*********
I appreciate the lengthy reply with the detail. I am not arguing your points, except for one that I’d like to clarify through a further exchange. I am aware that radiation and convection are at work and I have acknowledged that in other posts.
You said:
“Well, that’s a dead-end enterprise [IGL], for sure. A negative tropospheric lapse rate can only be with heat flowing dynamically in and out of the system. It is not something that will just establish itself out of thin, static air”.
Out of a point of interest only, the Ideal Gas Law says it will do just that. We agree that a pressure gradient is established by gravity and the IGL says PV = nRT.
*****IF*****the atmosphere can be considered a constant volume maintained by gravity, and with a stratified pressure gradient especially in the lower atmosphere in particular, then we have a constant volume in a lab except for the pressure gradient.
I know this is iffy because a strata of air that warms should expand against the next layer, pushing it up. I have another theory for that which I think partially explains how solar energy can be absorbed by an expanding atmospheric volume.
Lets remove a stratum so it has no more pressure gradient, then the IGL tells us, with a constant volume, that
P = (nR/V)T….with the values inside the brackets a constant. Therefore we can claim P = T provided we multiply T by (nR/V).
It’s easy to see from that, the temperature decreases with altitude automatically as the strata are piled on top of each other.
It makes sense at the atomic level as well. A high pressure stratum at the surface has the number of of atoms in it, n, pulled tightly to the surface. Inter-molecular collisions are at a maximum, therefore the temperature is at a maximum.
It may take the stacking of strata to get a significant change but at some altitude, the atoms won’t be as densely packed, the collisions decrease, and the temperature decreases.
By the time you reach the peak of Mt. Everest at 30,000 feet, the air pressure is 1/3 the air pressure at sea level. That means the molecular collisions are less still and the energy of each molecule is less, therefore the temperature is much less.
That proves to be true. There is a constant difference in pressure and temperature between the South Col of Everest at 7900 metres and the peak at 8848 metres. That difference in P and T cannot be explained solely by radiation/convection.
An interesting aside that may appeal to your geological side is what happens as you dig into the Earth? It appears the pressure increases as you get deeper due to the load of air above, and guess what, it gets hotter too.
I realize heat can come from the Earth’s core region, but still, the increases pressure causes a natural increase in temperature.
http://www.askamathematician.com/2012/08/q-if-you-could-drill-a-tunnel-through-the-whole-planet-and-then-jumped-down-this-tunnel-how-would-you-fall/
Kristian…ps…add you convection/radiation onto what I have described for the steady-state IGL description.
BTW…I agree that heat has to be transferred from the hotter surface region upward….no argument there whatsoever.
Gordon Robertson says, June 2, 2018 at 5:37 PM:
No, Gordon. I just showed you upthread how the IGL specifically says it WON’T do that:
P/d = RT
Remember?
No.
Air temperature isn’t the macroscopic manifestation of the amount or frequency of molecular collisions inside the air, Gordon. It is the macroscopic manifestation of the air’s average molecular speed, regardless of how many molecules there are.
Kristian…”No, Gordon. I just showed you upthread how the IGL specifically says it WON’T do that:
P/d = RT
Remember?”
Hopefully we can keep this academic without slinging doo-doo. This stuff interests me.
Nope. I did not see that equation above. Maybe I missed it.
You are saying P = dRT and since d = n/V then
P = (nR/V)T which is what I wrote.
“Air temperature isn’t the macroscopic manifestation of the amount or frequency of molecular collisions inside the air, Gordon. It is the macroscopic manifestation of the air’s average molecular speed, regardless of how many molecules there are”.
I agree that frequency has nothing to do with it, that’s about transitions and radiation. However, temperature is defined as the average kinetic energy of particles in a system.
I agree with you in principle that changing the number of atoms/molecules in a gas should not affect the KE of the gas particles if the temperature is kept constant.
However, part of the IGL is Gay-Lussac’s Law that can be written:
P1/T1 = P2/T2
If P1/T1 is the surface pressure/temperature and P2/T2 is at a higher altitude, If P2 decreases, then T2 has to decrease as well.
Says nothing about radiation or convection.
Houston, we have a conundrum.
ps. I don’t think anyone knows why atoms/molecules in a gas have a certain velocity hence a certain KE. Changing the pressure must affect the KE, according to Gay-Lussac and the IGL.
KE internally is related to the velocity of the electrons but the KE references as the entire atom/molecule moving at velocity, v, makes little sense to me. Why does the atom/molecule start moving in the first place.
Thinking about KE, it has that velocity term. However, velocity is the change of distance wrt time. Getting a particle moving requires a force and the only appreciable forces between atoms are electrostatic forces between the negatively charged electron and the positively charged proton.
I know the inter-atomic forces are weak in gases but something has to start them moving.
What??? Figure that out and maybe we can see why P1/T1 = P2/T2.
Personally, I think that atomic interactions in a gas must be related to the KE somehow. Maybe as you thin out the gas, there are less collisions and things settle down KE-wise.
Gordon Robertson says, June 3, 2018 at 12:20 AM:
Of course. I didn’t say your equation is wrong. I just rearranged it to highlight the importance of density and how that will adjust according to BOTH pressure AND temperature. Which means you will seemingly ALWAYS “get it right”, tricking you into thinking that figuring out the pressure/density relationship (P/d) at any given altitude is all it takes to explain the temperature (T) at that same altitude. But that would be completely backwards, and the simple lack of understanding of how the different IGL variables will naturally adjust according to the others at all times is the fundamental reason why so many people appear to believe they have uncovered some kind of hidden secret here and that this ‘secret’ somehow explains it all – no need for heat flows and dynamic turnover of air masses whatsoever.
You know, people try to explain the surface temperature of Venus using the exact same (flawed) reasoning:
“With the observed surface air pressure and the observed surface air density, the surface air temperature HAS TO BE precisely what it’s observed to be. Which proves that all you need is pressure and density!”
Surface air pressure (P) on Venus: 9200 kPa
Surface air density (d) on Venus: 65 kg/m^3
Individual gas constant of CO2+ (R): 0.192 kJ/kg K
P/(d R) = T
9200/(65*0.192) = 737.18 K
Try Earth:
Surface air pressure (P): 101.3 kPa
Surface air density (d): 1.225 kg/m^3
Individual gas constant of air (R): 0.287 kJ/kg K
Plug in the numbers and what do you get?
P/(d R) = T
101.3/(1.225*0.287) = 288.13 K
Voila! There it is! Amazing, isn’t it? This just CAN’T be a coincidence!
Well, it isn’t …
Why do you think the surface air PRESSURE on Venus is ~91 times that on Earth, while the surface air DENSITY is ‘only’ ~53 times that on Earth?
Could it perchance have something to do with the much higher surface air TEMPERATURE on Venus …?
Air density in an atmosphere is a product of air pressure AND of air temperature. It naturally adjusts. Given a constant air pressure, the air density will drop proportionally as you increase the air temperature.
And this, Gordon, is why and how this version of the IGL so neatly exposes the flaw (and/or confusion) in your thought process on this particular subject:
P/d = RT
There is absolutely nothing in the IGL itself necessitating a negative tropospheric temperature profile given simply a drop in air pressure with altitude. Just try it. Reduce P, but keep T constant. What happens? d simply adjusts accordingly.
Kristian…”There is absolutely nothing in the IGL itself necessitating a negative tropospheric temperature profile given simply a drop in air pressure with altitude. Just try it. Reduce P, but keep T constant. What happens? d simply adjusts accordingly”.
I appreciate you taking the time to go into this in depth, I do find it interesting. Don’t have the time at the moment to study what you said in depth.
However, I gave you the equation of Gay-Lussac, which is an integral part of the IGL.
P1/T1 = P2?T2.
That strongly suggests that as altitude increases and pressure decreases that temperature must decrease as well.
I get what you said that increasing the number of molecules has no bearing on the kinetic energy of the particles, hence the temperature. That makes sense. However, Gay-Lussac is claiming temperature must change with pressure so I am guessing there is another mechanism that alters the KE of the molecules as the density thins out with altitude.
I need to go into this further when I have time. I have a feeling that molecules in a highly dense atmosphere interact in such a manner that the affect the velocity of each other, hence the KE.
I’m thinking of a pinball machine. You pull back the lever and hit the ball just hard enough to get it over the top and starting down between the bumpers. There are times between bumpers when the ball increases its velocity a great deal.
When molecules collide, they must contact first between the electrical fields of the outer shell electrons. There has to be a magnetic action as well. The electrons will repel each other and if the molecular density is high there’s a chance the molecules will bounce around much like a pinball.
I know that’s far out and I need to research it. However, if the molecular density is very low, the likelihood of those collisions is very low and somehow that seems to affect the temperature, according to Gay-Lussac.
BTW…I am not ignoring the overall problem. What you say about convective currents, radiation, and heat transfer is there too. I am not denying that in any way. It’s a very complex, chaotic system and I am simply trying to make a bit of sense of it without relying sheerly on the math and what is written on the subject.
I don’t have a problem being wrong.
Kristian, Gordon,
Radiative phenomena are at the origin of the thermal gradient. Convection only limits it.
When the heating of the surface is weak enough so that the purely radiative gradient is less than the adiabatic gradient, all the thermal fux is radiatively assured with the corresponding gradient. If the thermal gradient is partially maintained (it is often reversed in the lower layers) after sunset, it is not by inertia but because the radiative fux in the troposphere persists (the cold source does not vary between day and night, the cooling of the atmosphere continues).
phi….”Radiative phenomena are at the origin of the thermal gradient. Convection only limits it”.
In my reply to Kristian above, I am trying to establish a basis for applying the Ideal Gas Law to a static system, with the convective requirements of the Lapse rate super-imposed.
Let’s face it, the atmosphere is an extremely chaotic system and it would be virtually impossible to apply the IGL directly. However, I am guessing there are situations where convection is relatively absent and that a column in the atmosphere could be treated as a constant volume air parcel due to gravity acting like a piston in a cylinder.
If you had a beaker-like device in a lab fitted with a piston of significant weight so it could sit on a gas in the beaker and compress it slightly, I’d equate that to the atmosphere under the influence of gravity.
Let’s say the piston compresses the gas to 1/2 volume. Heat the beaker and the gas will expand, pushing against the piston, which should rise vertically.
I am trying to establish that P, V, and T are mutually proportional and that any gas under similar conditions must in some way obey the Ideal Gas Law.
OK…it’s overly simplified, but through the IGL, I see an explanation for temperature decreasing naturally with altitude and a possibility that the heating/cooling cycle between day and night related to solar energy could be accommodated by the IGL.
In other words, can the added heat each day be absorbed by the system through expansion and cooled at night through contraction?
I don’t know.
Gordon,
It pains me to read your struggle to explain the lapse rates in terms of Ideal Gas Laws. They need no defense. When is the atmosphere ever a static system? At best you could say the whole of it is a constant volume, but even that may be a stretch. Certainly nowhere is there a constant pressure or constant density block of air; pressure and density changes exponentially with altitude.
Can’t you be satisfied knowing that at any point in the atmosphere, you could calculate any one of the three variables–temperature, pressure, and density–knowing the other two?
chic…”It pains me to read your struggle to explain the lapse rates in terms of Ideal Gas Laws”.
Chic, science can be painful at times. ☺
Besides, I am not trying to explain the lapse rate using the IGL, I am trying to understand why the effect of gravity is being ignored by atmospheric physicists.
I am at a point in life where I am skeptical of a lot of science. I was raised on authority figures spouting science to me and it turned out many were outright lying. If I have questions these days on science, I persist till I get answers that make sense. I’m afraid you cannot get answers from pure math that make sense unless there is a subjective explanation with it.
I quoted a definition of the Environmental Lapse Rate to Kristian, that starts:
“The environmental lapse rate (ELR), is the rate of decrease of temperature with altitude in the stationary atmosphere at a given time and location”.
Why can the atmosphere not be stationary in places? I have experienced it in 40+ C temperatures and there was not a breath of wind at the surface. I have never felt the Sun that hot.
This was in a desert region where WV would be very low and the only air rising would be N2/O2. If it was rising, there was no cool air to replace it. And I wonder if hot air will rise through air that is just as hot.
I think the IGL can be applied in places even though I admit the atmosphere is so chaotic that it is unlikely. Still, we can regard the lapse rate as being built on top of a static system. At least, I can.
Gordon,
Discussing science on this blog is not science. To me, being in a lab doing science is fun, but reading what you write about IGL in the context of the atmosphere is painful. IGL came from controlled experiments with changes in some variables while others were kept constant. You can’t do that with an atmosphere where no variables can be kept constant.
IIUC, the environmental lapse rate is somewhere between a wet lapse rate with 100% humidity and a dry lapse rate 0% humidity. It is based on the standard atmosphere which is basically amounts to an average lapse rate. There is also a theoretical lapse rate derived from first principles to be -g/Cp. So which atmospheric physicists are ignoring the effect of gravity?
I do think there is confusion over what the lapse rate would be if there were no IR active gases in the atmosphere. Those arguments lead to impasses, because there is no experiment we can do on this Earth to prove one result or another.
“Why can the atmosphere not be stationary in places?”
Possibly there are stationary atmosphere conditions, most likely at night, at some time and locations. By averaging many you get the standard atmosphere.
“I think the IGL can be applied in places even though I admit the atmosphere is so chaotic that it is unlikely.”
The IGL is the starting point for deriving the theoretical lapse rate. Although the atmosphere is chaotic, the IGL still applies at every point in the atmosphere.
chic…”IGL came from controlled experiments with changes in some variables while others were kept constant. You cant do that with an atmosphere where no variables can be kept constant”.
The kinetic theory of gases was developed through statistical analysis although it was later proved in a lab. Quantum theory was developed by math and although some of it has been corroborated, much of it is still sci-fi.
Einstein developed many of his theories through thought-experiments and contemplation. I don’t think he was ever in a lab.
I get what you are saying but the alternative is to accept what you’re told from an authority figure. I suggest that science is about rejecting what does not make sense to you and researching till you find answers.
I am under no delusion that I will discover something new, that’s not what motivates me. Problems like those we are discussing about the atmosphere are complex but sometimes such complexity can be broken down into parts in an attempt to understand the whole.
I am fully aware that the atmosphere cannot be studied through the IGL alone, however, the IGL must apply where it can be applied.
I am claiming the frigid, lethal temperatures and low air pressure at the top of Everest, even in summer, have nothing to do with the lapse rate as defined. I think the IGL explains it far better.
Gay-Lussac….P1/T1 = P2/T2 says it all. We cam measure air pressure and temperature to see if they correspond in proportion. If temperature is driven by the lapse rate, they won’t correspond altogether, depending on location.
Gordon,
Come down off the mountain. What are you trying to prove there? The gas laws work the same everywhere. There is no “lapse rate as defined” when you don’t state what lapse rate you refer to.
“Gay-Lussac.P1/T1 = P2/T2 says it all.”
No it doesn’t. This relationship was discovered using a constant mass in a constant volume. While changing pressure, Gay-Lussac found the temperature changed proportionally. Or vice versa. That’s all. No way to apply that relationship to the atmosphere. How will you constrain the mass and volume?
chic…”Gay-Lussac.P1/T1 = P2/T2 says it all.
No it doesnt. This relationship was discovered using a constant mass in a constant volume. While changing pressure, Gay-Lussac found the temperature changed proportionally. Or vice versa. Thats all. No way to apply that relationship to the atmosphere. How will you constrain the mass and volume?”
************
Someone has to come down from the mountain.
Why is there no way to apply Gay-Lussac to the atmosphere??? Explain why the pressure at the top of Everest is 1/3 the pressure at sea level with temperatures commensurate with the drop in pressure.
The lapse rate theory cannot explain that. How does a rise of warm air parcels through a cooler atmosphere cause the top of Everest at 8848 metres to get as cold as -20C mid-summer when it’s +30 in Katmandu at 1400 metres?
Time to put on the thinking cap Chic.
What you guys are missing with the lapse rate theory is that it is a system riding on top of the pressure gradient produced by gravity. The pressure gradient is static while the lapse rate is a dynamic process that varies with location.
Besides, what Gay-Lussac promoted, along with other contributors to the IGL like Dalton, Avogadro, Boyle and Charles, was the study of how atoms interact to produce the effects noted in the IGL.
There has to be an explanations for Gay-Lussac’s equation, P1/T1 = P2/T2 as to why reducing the pressure requires a reduction in temperature. I have theorized in a very preliminary manner that the electrostatic forces between molecules in a dense gas have some kind of effect on the kinetic energy of the gas that diminishes with lowered density.
Gordon,
“The lapse rate theory cannot explain [why the pressure at the top of Everest is 1/3 the pressure at sea level with temperatures commensurate with the drop in pressure].”
If by lapse rate theory you mean L = -g/Cp, I think it does.
L = dT/dh = (253 – 303)/(8.848 – 1.4) = -6.7 K/km. That’s pretty darn close to the environmental lapse rate.
Let’s get back to Gay-Lussac:
“There has to be an explanations for Gay-Lussac’s equation, P1/T1 = P2/T2 as to why reducing the pressure requires a reduction in temperature.”
The law was discovered with a constant mass in a constant volume. Under those conditions, how would Gordon Robertson, walking in Gay-Lussac’s shoes, get the gases’ pressure to drop while measuring its temperature?
phi says, June 2, 2018 at 9:02 AM:
In the sense that it triggers convection, yes.
Mmm, yes and no.
What “purely radiative gradient”? There is no “purely radiative gradient”, phi. That is but a theoretical concept.
There is no “corresponding gradient”. Only in Manabe’s models. If anything, radiative cooling absent convection naturally tends to lower the gradient. Don’t let yourself be blinded by hypothetical talk, phi.
Kristian,
There is no “purely radiative gradient”
Since conduction is negligible, wherever the gradient is not the adiabatic gradient, it depends essentially on purely radiative phenomena.
Don’t let yourself be blinded by hypothetical talk, phi.
I would say simply that I do not see anything inconsistent in the theory of purely radiative transfers whereas the convective radiative model is clearly arbitrary.
Well, I should express this differently:
Since conduction is negligible, in absence of convection, the thermal gradient is mainly explained by radiative phenomena.
These situations are commonly observed when the heating of the surface is weak. Depending on the conditions, we observe locally a low gradient or a temperature inversion. All these local phenomena can be explained very well by purely radiative transfers.
Evaporation largely contributes to a non-adiabatic gradient. How is that purely radiative?
But the gradient itself, phi, the observed tropospheric temperature profile, the environmental lapse rate, is caused by the interaction of radiative and convective phenomena, noe just any ONE of the two.
Short-wave radiation from the Sun heats the surface. And long-wave radiation cools the troposphere to space. Heat IN, heat OUT. In between, convection (or, more generally, “atmospheric circulation”/the constant large-scale turnover of tropospheric air masses) is what actually creates, sets and maintains the observed tropospheric temperature profile. Heat THROUGH. Not radiation. Not heat in/heat out. And it (convection) does so as high as it goes, to the tropopause. Diurnal radiative low heating/high cooling simply provokes convection. It doesn’t itself create, set and maintain a temperature profile within the troposphere.
Again, there is no such thing as a “purely radiative gradient”. Not in the troposphere. It is not something we can observe anywhere within the troposphere. If anything at all, it is but a theoretical concept. In the troposphere. Because … convection.
Kristian,
In a general way, I am rather in agreement with what you write and especially on what pertains to thermodynamics.
A little less here. Inversions of temperatures have a purely radiative origin, convection can not be part of it. On the other hand, the vertical velocity in subsidence is on average very small, the adiabatic compression alone can not in any case suffice to explain the observed thermal gradient, the radiative cooling tends to dominate.
phi says, June 5, 2018 at 10:17 AM:
Well, yeah, radiative inversions do. Not advective ones, though …
But, there you go. Radiative inversions work somewhat like the stratosphere, where the negative convective temperature gradient is inverted.
Say WHAT!? This, my friend, you will have to substantiate.
Radiative cooling does NOT ITSELF create a tropospheric temperature gradient. It constitutes Earth’s heat loss to space. It does not constitute a heat flow THROUGH the troposphere. It merely helps (together with the differential solar heating of the surface) drive the large-scale tropospheric circulatory system. And IT, in turn, is what creates, sets and maintains the observed gradient, indeed very much based on the adiabatic process.
How could you suggest otherwise!?
I find this whole discussion really weird, I must say …
Kristian say, “If anything, radiative cooling absent convection naturally tends to lower the gradient. Don’t let yourself be blinded by hypothetical talk, phi.”
I agree with pretty much all of what you have written lately with Gordon about gas, but I am confused by your intentions here.
If we could limit convection but still allow radiation (perhaps some concentric layers of plastic wrap every few meters), then the lapse rate would increase significantly. This seems to be the opposite of what you are saying here.
tim…”I agree with pretty much all of what you have written lately with Gordon about gas, but I am confused by your intentions here”.
Then you disagree with Gay-Lussac that for gases, P1/T1 = P2/T2? Alternately, although gravity creates a pressure gradient, you think the lapse rate alone governs the decrease of temperature with altitude.
… or I disagree that the atmosphere is in a container with a fixed volume.
tim…” or I disagree that the atmosphere is in a container with a fixed volume”.
Therefore well-established gas laws do not apply?????
I might agree somewhat if gravity was not binding atmospheric gases to the surface as if they were in a container. At the latitude where I live, the planet is turning around 800 mph. That should mean 800 mph winds but there are none on a still day.
That’s how effectively atmospheric gases are bound to the surface by gravity. Everyone acknowledges that gravity stratifies the atmosphere into a pressure gradient but IGL should apply to that pressure gradient as if the gases were stratified in a container.
Gay-Lussac’s law of pressure–temperature states:
The pressure of a gas of fixed mass and fixed volume is directly proportional to the gas’s absolute temperature.
The atmosphere is not in a container of fixed volume. Gravity is not even CLOSE to “as if in a container of fixed volume”.
Tim Folkerts says, June 3, 2018 at 8:49 AM:
I’m referring to observations, not theory. That’s normally the difference between us, Tim.
Chic Bowdrie,
I did not specify it but I was thinking of convection with its latent heat component and adaibatic as generalized to moist adiabatic.
Kristian…”Air density in an atmosphere is a product of air pressure AND of air temperature. It naturally adjusts. Given a constant air pressure, the air density will drop proportionally as you increase the air temperature”.
*********
We need to examine this a bit closer. Density is the mass per unit volume. Therefore, to change air density you must increase the number of molecules or reduce the volume.
You are using the version of the IGL which is P = dRT
Written my way for a constant volume constant n it would be…
P = (n/V)RT
n/V = P/RT where n/V = density
I have written it this way for a reason, ‘n’ must change with altitude since there are less molecules per altitude as altitude increases. That’s why the pressure reduces with altitude.
I am suggesting that T is affected by P and n under such conditions, not the opposite.
However, there’s a fly in the ointment. The pressure reduction is due to gravity. To get the same effect in a lab we’d have to release gas from a container. In other words, we’d have to reduce n. Either than or increase the volume of the container.
There’s yet another fly, the atmosphere is not sitting there nicely in layers, as Chic has pointed out in frustration with my IGL pursuit.
There are high pressure regions and low pressure regions due to weather, but the keyword is ‘regions’. And how much are these localized regions changing pressure wrt to the change we can expect with altitude?
Is there an average pressure and if so, when the average applies, can we get back to our nice layers as in the pressure gradient? That’s what I am implying, there has to be an average through which we can apply the IGL in a ballpark manner.
Let’s face it, if air pressure changed significantly at sea level, we’d be in a lot of trouble. If the pressure reduced significantly due to rising hot air parcels we’d have trouble breathing on a hot day.
Even at 5000 feet in Denver, athletes notice a difficulty breathing before acclimatization. At 10,000 feet, people get headaches, and become lethargic. Any higher and an unacclimatized person can die from the effect.
A person dropped onto the top of Everest in normal clothing would quickly die, not only from a lack of oxygen but from hypothermia. Even at base camp, near 18,000 feet, people who are not acclimatized can suffer serious problems and need to be quickly evacuated to lower levels.
The lapse rate explains none of that.
This interesting article exposes a flaw in my IGL argument but it also exposes flaws in the arguments presented to counter my arguments.
Have not had the time to digest the article fully so I am likely not interpreting it correctly.
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/climate/pressure.html
The flaw in my argument is treating both n and V in the IGL as constants. I would have to apply V to a certain layer of altitude where n could be nearly constant. Therefore n varies with altitude due to gravity and that causes both P and T to decrease.
My Everest model appears to have cracks as well since the peak of Everest almost reaches the stratosphere. That in itself does not explain the drop in pressure/temperature between sea level, base camp, the South Col, and the peak.
The flaw in arguments presented is that reducing pressure has no effect on temperature. That is not the case and I am still trying to understand why at an atomic level.
Let’s remember that kinetic energy is dependent on both mass and velocity. You cannot ignore the mass.
Temperature is not simply the average kinetic energy of a molecule. Wiki defines it as follows:
“Temperature is a proportional measure of the average kinetic energy of the random motions of the constituent microscopic particles in a system (such as electrons, atoms, and molecules); based on the historical development of the kinetic theory of gases, but more rigorous definitions include all quantum states of matter”.
This definition is wrong, BTW, since it is mixing up two KE concepts. The KE within an atom is a measure of the electron energy. Internally, it doesn’t matter if the structure is an atom or a molecule, the KE is the KE of the electrons only.
It’s a different situation with an atom/molecule in linear translation. Then the mass of the entire atom/molecule comes into play and electrons are just part of that mass. However, the electrons surround the nucleus and must provide a buffer during collisions, therefore they may be transferring KE despite what some theorists claim. The buffer may also be affecting molecular velocities, hence translational KE.
Temperatures has to be a measure of the heat produced by ALL particles in the system, therefore total mass comes into play. Heat, as defined by Clausius, is the kinetic energy of a system and that has to be the average of the sum of all kinetic energies.
You cannot look at the average velocity of molecules without considering the overall total mass of the molecules. When temperature is determined it has to be based on the number of molecules as well as their average velocity.
That explains Gay-Lussac’s law of P1/T1 = P2/T2.
Of course, I stand to be corrected, and will gladly stand corrected if I get an intelligent, scientific response free of ad homs and the opinions (in their own minds) of self-apppointed authority figures.
Gordon,
Basically and in principle, all this is not that complicated and would not be so much discussed if climatologists had not all mixed up with their wobbly theory.
The lapse rate depends firstly on the hydrosatic equilibrium. That is to say : in the presence of air masses at very different temperatures, the dense and therefore the cold will be down and the hot up. The lapse rate is reversed. In the atmosphere, the limit of hydrostatic equilibrium is the adiabatic thermal gradient and any lower gradient than adiabatic or inverted is hyper-stable.
The thermodynamic equilibrium will then tend to isothermal by IR (or by conduction if there is no GHG).
In an atmosphere heated at the bottom and cooled in the mass by GHGs, we will have a temperature gradient, it is a tautology. The cause of this gradient is the joint existence of hot and cold sources. If the thermal flux is weak, the gradient will remain lower than adiabatic and will be purely radiative. Otherwise, convection will limit the gradient to its adiabatic value. GHG cooling in the mass is steady while bottom heating is highly variable. This results in very different situations, in particular and for simplicity, with or without convection.
The origin of the observed lapse rate is therefore a thermodynamic and not hydrostatic phenomenon.
Its average value depends both on the radiative properties of the atmosphere and convection.
The only real problem is the calculation of convection, perhaps unreachable forever.
phi,
Why do you continue to opine on unprovable points when Gordon is still having trouble grasping the well-known and non-controversial basics?
“The thermodynamic equilibrium will then tend to isothermal by IR (or by conduction if there is no GHG).”
This is not necessarily the case if an isentric condition is assumed instead of adiabatic.
“If the thermal flux is weak, the gradient will remain lower than adiabatic and will be purely radiative. Otherwise, convection will limit the gradient to its adiabatic value.”
You have been challenged at least twice about the falsity or inaccuracy of those statements. Why do you continue to obfuscate?
Chic Bowdrie,
Why do you continue to opine on unprovable points…
All that I have just explained is perfectly demonstrable and observed daily.
isentric condition
What is it?
You have been challenged at least twice about the falsity or inaccuracy of those statements.
???
phi,
“All that I have just explained is perfectly demonstrable and observed daily.”
A purely radiative atmosphere does not exist as Kristian has explained several times now.
Isentric should have been isentropic. There is the possibility that an atmosphere free of IR-active gases will maintain a temperature gradient, not isothermal. Where is isothermal demonstrable and observed daily?
Chic Bowdrie,
We do not have a purely radiative atmosphere but we have weather situations without convection. Especially in the inversions of winter high pressures.
Where is isothermal demonstrable and observed daily?
Any medium thermally insulated, unheated and on which no work is done tends to be isothermal. Yes, it’s daily observed. If you have a counterexample, I’m interested.
phi,
What you wrote here…
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-306071
“The thermodynamic equilibrium will then tend to isothermal by IR (or by conduction if there is no GHG).”
…is not demonstrable and doesn’t happen ever on this planet. There is no equilibrium, there ARE IR-active gases, and no isothermal conditions other than at transient levels in the tropopause and times of inversion. The latter are a result of warm air below meeting warmer air above. Not IR.
“Any medium thermally insulated, unheated and on which no work is done tends to be isothermal.”
So you were referring to a thermally insulated system which has no application to the atmosphere????
phi
YOU STATE: “The only real problem is the calculation of convection, perhaps unreachable forever.”
Maybe getting an actual measurement of the contribution of convection is unreachable, but not a calculation.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg/1024px-The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
In this graph. You can get measurements for UPIR, DWIR, Solar absorbed by atmosphere and latent heat from evaporation. These are guesses but they are based upon actual measured values at various locations.
You can do the addition. The atmosphere radiates a total of 340.3 Watts/m^2 back to the surface plus 239.9 W/m^2 out to space. In order to radiate this total of 580.2 W/m^2 it must have this much energy constantly entering the atmosphere (1st Law of Thermodynamics).
So you take the values you can get measurements for.
Amount absorbed from Sun: 77.1 W/m^2
Amount absorbed from UPIR: 398.2
Amount absorbed from latent heat after evaporation: 86.4
A total of 561.7
580.2 – 561.7 leaves another additional 18.5 W/m^2 contributed by convection (the chart has 18.4). So that is how you would get the contribution from convection. Eliminate all the values you can find and the remaining will be thermals. Conduction is not significant contributor (air is a super good insulator) that they do not include it.
Norman,
You mix everything. Your calculation mixes irradiance, energy and heat. This has no thermodynamic meaning.
That said, you are right, we can in principle deduce the value of the convective flow if we know the temperature gradient and we can calculate all the other contributions. But that does not advance us. The gradient is an unknown, it is affected by the modification of the radiative structure. The only solution is to actually calculate the convective flow, this is not done and is totally out of reach.
phi
Yes you can mix all energy together. That is how it works. Heat and work are different forms but they both can increase or decrease internal energy.
Irradiance is just a term for how much energy an object receives as a flux joules/sec-m^2.
Heat is a total amount of energy transferred, heat flow is the rate. Heat is in joules heat flow is in joules/sec.
I am not sure why you have to know the gradient. You know how much energy the atmosphere loses. Then just figure out how much energy you have to add to maintain the loss.
I still think it works and is valid per 1st Law.
Norman,
Perfect illustration of what leads the confusion between irradiance, energy and heat:
I am not sure why you have to know the gradient.
To know the surface temperature, for example!
The emission temperature depends on the incoming energy, for surface temperature, the knowledge of the gradient is essential.
The principle of the greenhouse effect is not based on a modification of the energy balance but on the modification of the temperature profile and singularly of the gradient.
phi
I would have to have more information on what you are claiming.
Can you link to something that goes into detail no your point.
YOU: “The principle of the greenhouse effect is not based on a modification of the energy balance but on the modification of the temperature profile and singularly of the gradient.:
The global energy budget graphic does not have a confusion. All energy flows are in watts/m^2. Therefore you can add and subtract.
Not sure about what you mean by this: “Perfect illustration of what leads the confusion between irradiance, energy and heat:”
All are energy fluxes, all are the same units. The direction of the energy flow is the significant factor. Is it adding or subtracting?
I guess I will wait for further explanation about your comment.
10:29am: How can the GHE be based on gradient when phi writes: “The gradient is an unknown..”
Known inputs to surface energy balance compute the change in surface temperature per Manabe & your Ramanathan/Coakley cite. As the global atm. opacity increases, so does the global surface temperature.
The gradient wavers all over the place as you write, globally it is unknown. Global energy balance surface and TOA works fine to understand beginning meteorology.
phi says, June 5, 2018 at 8:41 AM:
phi, please! Come off it! There is no “radiative structure” to “modify”. You’re living inside Manabe’s model world!
No convection, no large-scale tropospheric circulation, no negative tropospheric temperature gradient as observed. We wouldn’t even have a troposphere without air masses, constantly being heated by the (solar-heated) surface, pushing upward.
Kristian,
If the gradient is not an unknown, I wonder why we pretend not to know how to calculate it and why we use an empirical gradient in models.
You have an original theory, I do not. I limit myself to pointing out the inconsistency and arbitrariness in the quantitative theory of the greenhouse effect.
phi says, June 6, 2018 at 1:19 AM:
Ok, so you’re simply referring to those radiative-convective models of the Manabe kind …? Not your own thoughts?
Because you do know, of course, that in the REAL world, the tropospheric temperature gradient as observed has all to do with the relentless vertical mixing of the tropospheric air masses. And that there are indeed very good physical reasons why it’s not -17.6 K/km, or -1.3 K/km, or +2.4 K/km for that matter.
I have an original theory!? That’s news to me! What it is?
And you do it well.
Norman,
There is no difference in principle between the greenhouse effect and the effect of an insulation, in building for example.
So I suggest you read a Thermo textbook and see if insulation can be modeled by backconduction or backradition, if an insulation is comparable to an increase in heating. If not, try to understand why.
Otherwise, I wrote many messages on this thread, I explained in detail the origin of this permanent confusion between irradiance and heat, between heating and insulation. See especially here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-304614
phi, insulation IS comparable to an increase in heating when both result in increased temperatures.
For example, when you add house insulation and your fuel use/weather stays the same, your house increases in room temperature. With an increase in heating from your furnace, your house increases in room temperature. So comparable outcomes.
This should be no source of permanent confusion and would NOT be for sure if the use of the heat term from the 1800s was discouraged enough in meteorology. Using energy in joules is always more clear & precise.
phi
I agree with Ball4. If you insulate a room (with cold surroundings) it will reach a higher temperature if you add energy to the room (via fireplace, electric heater, steam heating etc) than would the room, with the same energy added but no insulation.
I went to your linked post and I am still not getting what your point is.
YOUR 1st point: “1. I have always been taught, even in professional relationships, to clearly distinguish between values reflecting different notions. So I hold these balance diagrams as at least defective.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg/1024px-The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg
It says on the graph, all values are fluxes in watts/m^2. What are the different notions? All are energy flows with the same units.
Also I do not know what you are trying to conclude.
YOU: “Conclusion: The diagrams representing backradiations without distinguishing them from heat fluxes are consistent with the theory of the greenhouse effect. Their inconsistency with thermodynamics signals the inconsistency of the greenhouse theory.”
I don’t know what your point is. I have read many textbooks on heat transfer. They all point out that the heat transfer is a NET flux of energy emitted by a surface minus the energy it receives from the surroundings. In the graphic the Earth in in a basic steady state. An imbalance is very small. There is no heat flow in the diagrams. There is not warming or cooling in the conditions presented. If you took the same graph 100 years ago and compared it with today you would see a difference but neither graph would have a heat flow. Equilibrium conditions do not have a heat flow, they have energy flows. So really I think you need to elaborate because I am not getting what you are saying.
Norman, Ball4,
I agree with Ball4.
I wrote :
So I suggest you read a Thermo textbook and see if insulation can be modeled by backconduction or backradition, if an insulation is comparable to an increase in heating.
I conclude that you have not read a manual and that you have probably never done a thermal calculation.
There is no heat flow in the diagrams.
There are two convective flows. For the incoming solar flux, I do not know, the difference is not significant.
I still point out that an insulation is characterized by its resistance to the passage of heat, typically given in W / (m3 * K). The flow of heat passing through it depends on the differences in temperature between these two faces. For simplicity and assuming that the temperature of the outer face is a given of the problem, the calculation of the ambient temperature depends distinctly on the total amount of heat removed (and thus the heating) and on the overall resistance to the passage of heat which is expressed by R = 1 / (Sum (1 / Ri)) where the Ri are the resistances of each element of the envelope.
The heat flux passing through a given element and the temperature gradients are therefore outputs and not inputs of the thermal calculation. This means exactly that backradiations are a consequence and not a cause of the greenhouse effect.
And I should have added that the envelope generally includes elements of different compositions and that the modification of a single component has an effect on the distribution of flows.
For example, when you add Ri and your fuel use/weather stays the same, your outer face increases in temperature. With an increase in heating from your furnace to your outer face, your outer face increases in temperature. So comparable outcomes.
This means exactly that backconductions from Ri are a cause of the outer face effect and the outer face temperature increase a consequence.
Ball4,
For example, when you add Ri and your fuel use/weather stays the same, your outer face increases in temperature.
Well no, it’s the opposite. The outer face decreases its temperature (because of the air boundary layer).
This is also one of the desired effects when isolating a building.
This is exactly the opposite of an increase in heating that actually has the effect of increasing the temperature of the outer face.
I do not see why you are insisting on a dead end.
The outer face decreases its temperature
Except in the particular case where the whole envelope is identical and where you increase the insulation everywhere uniformly. In this particular case only, the temperature of the outer face does not change at constant heating.
“The outer face decreases its temperature (because of the air boundary layer).”
phi, your view would mean when you put on a jacket that your outer face gets colder. Actually when you add Ri, your outer face gets warmer due the backconductions. You are the one confused by your own example.
Run the test right now. Put on a nice heavy coat (add Ri). Put on another layer, add more Ri, after a few minutes, your outer face will start to feel warmer, because, you know it IS warmer.
I do not see why you are insisting on a dead end.
In this particular case, the temperature of the outer face does change at constant heating.
Ball4,
So I misunderstood you. I’ve talked about the outer face of the insulation (assuming that the temperature of the outer face is a given) and you think apparently just at room temperature.
Whatever. You can see that the insulation can not be assimilated to heating since the temperature profiles obtained are different. The distribution of ambient temperatures is also different.
“and you think apparently just at room temperature.”
No, I’m assuming that the temperature of the outer face is a given of the problem.
I’m using the example of house insulation and putting on a jacket assuming that the temperature of the outer face is a given of the problem.
phi
I have read many heat transfer articles and I have done thermal calculations on this blog on numerous threads.
Not sure what you mean by your statement: “I conclude that you have not read a manual and that you have probably never done a thermal calculation.”
The flow of heat via conduction does have backconduction, that is why heat flow is based upon temperature differential with conduction.
The more energy the cooler surroundings have (compared with other cooler surrounding) the more they return to the higher energy molecules upon collision slowing the rate of heat transfer.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Elastischer_sto%C3%9F.gif
No backconduction. The cold object would be at absolute zero, it transfers no energy to the warmer in collison.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Elastischer_sto%C3%9F2.gif
Backconduction. As the energy of the colder molecules increase they return energy to the hotter particles upon collision.
Norman,
Not sure what you mean by your statement
The key element of a thermal calculation is the resistance to heat flow. I do not see how you could do without this concept to conduct a thermal calculation worthy of the name.
There is no difference of principle in thermodynamics between conduction and radiation, these two paths are subject to the same laws.
And the surface is not exposed to a body at 0K to radiate 396 W/m2 !!!
phi
I really am not sure what your points are. Insulation would act like a resistance to heat flow, conduction and radiant energy would not. If you had a super good conductor, say copper, it would not resist heat flow across it when you put it against a hotter object. But as the copper got hotter it would send energy back to the hot object via collisions (backconduction) the heat flow slows down even though the ability to conduct is still quite high, that did not change.
I really am clueless with you comment: “And the surface is not exposed to a body at 0K to radiate 396 W/m2 !!!”
What is that in reference to? I still haven’t got a clue of what your points are or why you feel I am missing conceptual ideas in treatment of thermodynamic problems?
Norman,
“But as the copper got hotter it would send energy back to the hot object via collisions (backconduction) the heat flow slows down even though the ability to conduct is still quite high, that did not change.”
If the heat source maintains constant power to the copper and the heat sink remains at the same temperature, the heat flow (from source to sink) will NOT slow down. The temperature gradient(s) will adjust to maintain the heat flow.
The flow will only slow down if you reduce the heat input rate.
Phi is right, the atmosphere works the same way.
Chic Bowdrie
I was reading your post and it seems as if you are describing the GHE.
YOU: “If the heat source maintains constant power to the copper and the heat sink remains at the same temperature, the heat flow (from source to sink) will NOT slow down. The temperature gradient(s) will adjust to maintain the heat flow.
The flow will only slow down if you reduce the heat input rate.”
Yes the temperature gradient will adjust to maintain heat flow. Exactly what the blue/green plate shows and also what the GHE is all about. If you add GHG to a planetary atmosphere you create a back radiation that would not be there which becomes an energy input to the surface. The surface adjusts by warming to the point it can maintain the heat flow.
My point with the copper was not with a continuous power source. You could have a hot object in an isolated system with a copper plate that will contact it. If the copper plate is very cold there will be a high heat flow from the hot object to the copper plate. The copper surface atoms interacting with the object have much less energy so return very little to the hot object and the heat flow is high. If the copper plate and the hot object are nearly the same temperature before you contact them, the heat flow from the hot object will be much lower. The copper atoms at the surface are returning almost as much energy as they receive during collision so the cooling rate of the hot object is much less.
No heat is transferred from cold to hot. What’s your point?
And no evidence that adding IR-active gases will make the planet warmer.
Norman,
“I dont know what your point is.”
His point is that energy diagrams mislead so badly, you don’t know what end is up.
“[Textbooks on heat transfer] all point out that the heat transfer is a NET flux of energy emitted by a surface minus the energy it receives from the surroundings.”
Solar radiation is heat transfer. That’s why textbooks on radiation have heat transfer in the title.
“There is no heat flow in the diagrams.”
Of course there is. Energy comes in as SW radiation and warms both the surface and the atmosphere. That’s heat that flows in and around the atmosphere eventually leaving (flowing out) by IR radiation.
“Equilibrium conditions do not have a heat flow, they have energy flows.”
That is a silly semantic argument which doesn’t apply because there is no equilibrium as long as the sun shines and the Earths rotates.
Chic Bowdrie
Thank you for you analysis. The diagrams on energy budget are not the same as daily energy exchange.
In the real world the Sun is a source of heat and does warm the ground during the day and the surface loses heat at night. All true.
But I disagree with you on the diagrams. They make perfect sense to me. They are average energy flows (in my diagram they cover a 10 year period and are based upon measured values)
and the system is in equilibrium. You have a sine wave fluctuation between day and night in a region but globally it is equilibrium, the two sine waves created by the day/night cycle cancel each other. You can get a global temperature by taking readings at various points and it is equilibrium. Look at Roy’s graphs. The greatest fluctuation over a 39 year period is 1.4 C. You had a low point of -0.5 C and an high point of 0.9 C above the zero point. In given regions you can have 10 to 20 C fluctuation between day and night cycles and even greater variance between summer and winter months. Globally the variation is very slight, the regional variations smooth out and are not evident. So I do believe you are not correct to attribute a large fluctuation to a region and conclude the global conditions are not in equilibrium. Not sure how you logically conclude that, it does not make sense to me. Not even a sematic issue, it is a reality issue.
Norman,
At best you could refer to the planet as being in a quasi-steady state or pseudo-equilibrium and even that would only be imaginary.
So go ahead and keep touting the virtues of a virtual equilibrium that exists only in your mind and keep on confusing yourself and others by explaining atmospheric physics in terms of average weather.
Chic Bowdrie
You seem to be correct. I did check up on the definitions. The correct term I should use is Steady State and not Equilibrium. Thank you for the correction
Here is the correct use of the terms. The Globe would not be in equilibrium because of the constant flow of energy through it. It would be in a Steady State with little variation in overall temperature, all the energy flows are balanced to produce a steady state condition. A slight imbalance in the steady state condition is producing some measurable warming.
HERE:
http://imechanica.org/node/14601
Norman says, June 5, 2018 at 4:50 PM:
But only some of them are HEAT FLUXES, Norm. Others are NOT. THAT’S the “different notions”.
This is truly where you get to show off your stubborn stupidity.
You simply do not understand the thermodynamic concept of heat. It’s amazing to behold.
But it gets worse/better:
His point is exactly what he is saying. “Back radiation” is not distinguished from real heat fluxes in these diagrams. This is at best confused, at worst willfully deceptive.
But since you absolutely do not get what a real heat flux is all about, you will never be able to understand his point, Norm.
Well, it sure doesn’t seem to have helped much.
The heat transfer between WHAT? Yes, a heat transfer between one specified thermodynamic system and another may be seen as the net (or simply the macroscopic quantity of) energy transferred between them simply by virtue of a temperature difference.
But you always have to DEFINE your systems first, Norm. You can’t just go making sweeping claims about heat being “the net energy”. The net energy of what, between what systems or regions!?
Of course there are!!! Are you seriously suggesting that the solar heat flux is not a heat flux!!!?? That it doesn’t heat the Earth!? Are you saying the latent and conductive (sensible) heat fluxes are not heat fluxes!!? That they don’t cool the surface and warm the atmosphere!?
I mean, Norm, it does you no good reading a textbook on some topic if you’re completely incapable of grasping what’s in it, the concepts being discussed …!
The ONLY heat flux relevant to the Earth system at large that is NOT depicted in those diagrams is the radiative heat flux from the surface up, the Net LW.
And THIS is what phi is pointing out.
*Facepalm*
The NET heat is zero, Norm. The Q_net. That’s the net flux at the top of the atmosphere (ToA) that everyone’s talking about. We are not in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. We are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, a relative “steady state”. Under such conditions, heat comes IN and heat goes OUT. Q_in and Q_out. But the incoming and the outgoing heats balance out. So the NET HEAT is zero. No change over time in the system’s content of internal energy [U].
Earth’s heat input is the (all-sky) “Absorbed Solar Radiation” at the ToA. The ASR. TSI minus reflected SW. That is, the Net SW. It is approximately 240 W/m^2, evened out globally and annually. This heat flux is reduced to ~165 W/m^2 at the surface.
Earth’s heat output is the (all-sky) “Outgoing Longwave Radiation” at the ToA. The OLR. The Net LW from Earth to space. It is currently somewhere between 0.5 and 1 W/m^2 smaller in magnitude than the incoming heat flux from the Sun, the ASR.
So there is at present a slightly positive heat imbalance at the boundary between Planet Earth and space (including the Sun), causing the Earth system to accumulate internal energy and warm:
Q_in > Q_out = +Q_net
Earth’s LW heat flux is much smaller (~52-53 W/m^2) leaving the surface than when leaving the planet altogether through the ToA (~239-239.5 W/m^2).
Kristian
YOU: “The heat transfer between WHAT? Yes, a heat transfer between one specified thermodynamic system and another may be seen as the net (or simply the macroscopic quantity of) energy transferred between them simply by virtue of a temperature difference”
Not the way it is described in textbooks. I have posted numerous links to you. I doubt I will waste time with more.
The heat transfer is for the surface you are looking at only. The surface is either losing heat, gaining heat or neither gaining nor losing heat. The heat transfer for a surface is not about what is going on outside of it. You only calculate for that surface, you need to calculate for each surface involved to get a heat flux for each surface, there is not heat flux that exists out there that can be measured. There are energy flows that can be measured. The heat flux must be calculated. As Ball4 keeps telling you, heat is the derived quantity that only has meaning with some surface you investigate.
I have also told you this many times but it flies over your head. If you have a sphere inside a hollow shell (to get a View Factor of one). If the two are at the same temperature you have zero heat flow, but you still have energy flows (macroscopic) away from each surface (the emitted energy) and toward each surface (macroscopic) that is absorbed by each. There is no heat flow here but there is plenty of energy flow. The heat flux is what is derived. Not that I expect you will ever understand it, it is what all the textbooks state. As I noted I have linked you to more than one.
Kristian
In a Steady State condition there is no actual heat flows. Nothing is changing temperature. You have energy flows.
The Earth’s surface has the same energy reaching it as it has leaving so it does not change in temperature (on a global scale). Hence the Earth’s surface has zero heat flow. If it had heat flow it would cool or warm accordingly. There is a slow heat flow with the Earth currently because it shows some warming.
With a steady state condition it makes little sense to describe a heat flow since there would not be one.
q=sigma X Area X (Energy emitted – energy absorbed) in steady state conditions the energy emitted equals the energy absorbed and this leaves a value of zero for energy imbalance and hence the heat flow is zero in these conditions.
I guess I can facepalm you on this one.
Norman,
Are you claiming an average of 240 Joules are not flowing through the atmosphere each second/m2 of surface area? Or that 240 joules are not heat, just energy of some form or other?
IOW, are you daft or just spouting semantic bs?
Kristian: “The NET heat is zero, Norm.” Meaning: the net net energy is zero, Norm.
Chic: “Or that 240 joules are not heat” Meaning: Or that 240 joules are not net energy.
Norman: “heat flow is zero in these conditions..I can facepalm (Kristian).” Meaning: net energy flow is zero in these conditions, facepalm.
Clearly Norman understands Clausius’ concept of heat fundamentally more correct than either Kristian or Chic. Heat is only a concept of man; enough net energy flow will burn your skin – that means more than a concept.
Norman is correct to facepalm both Kristian and Chic. I predict neither Kristian or Chic (or Gordon) will ever use Clausius’ concept of heat fundamentally correct so Norman’s entertaining facepalms will continue.
Dr. Spencer & E. Swanson have tried to improve (K,C,G) atm. physics understanding with actual testing to no avail. Nor will thermo. test results ever help as K,C,G have their agendas to protect.
Norm,
I am not here to discuss this matter with you. This case is already closed. You’re wrong. I am here to TELL you what a heat flux really is. I know this. You clearly don’t. But, of course, you just have to be more stubborn and more stupid about it.
Look, it’s so veeeery simple. Heat in nature spontaneously flows whenever there’s a ……. between systems or regions in some kind of thermal contact, be it conductive, convective or radiative.
Are you able to fill in that blank yourself? Those dots? When – under what circumstances – does heat flow? And when does it not flow? What is the requirement? The prerequisite? What is the thermodynamic definition of heat [Q], Norm?
And after you’ve (hopefully) been able to complete my sentence for me, then take a look at the world we’re living in and please answer these questions, if not for me, then at least for your own sake:
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the globally and annually averaged surface of the Earth and the globally and annually averaged air layer above it?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature gradient up through the globally and annually averaged troposphere, from the lowermost layer right on top of the surface to the uppermost layer at the tropopause?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the Sun and the Earth?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the Earth and space?
Answering these questions is all a person needs (even you, Norm) to understand how there are INDEED heat fluxes both within the Earth system, AND between the Earth and its surroundings. Even under steady-state conditions.
A “steady state” is simply a condition where none of the variable properties/state functions (like T and U) of the system in question vary over time. Which means its process functions (like the heat input and heat output) balance. None of them are GONE. None of them are zero. They’re all still there, very much operative. They just BALANCE OUT. The NET is zero.
An analogy is a bathtub with the drain and tap open at the same time. If the water leaving the tub through the drain does so at the same rate as the water from the tap enters the tub, then the state function known as the water’s volume [V] will remain unchanged.
And this situation is exactly equivalent to what happens at and below “steady-state” Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (ToA): ASR equals “water in”, OLR equals “water out”, Earth’s U (and T) equal “the water volume”.
The HEAT coming IN [Q_in] from the Sun, the ASR, the Net SW, is (more or less) balanced by the HEAT going OUT [Q_out] to space, the OLR, the Net LW; 240 W/m^2 in and 240 W/m^2 out. Which means the net of the two, the “balance”, ASR – OLR, is ~0 W/m^2.
The ASR and the OLR are both heat fluxes, Norm. That is not a matter of opinion. That’s just the way it IS. The Sun heats the Earth, and the Earth cools to space. Period.
And why? Because of TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES. The Sun is hotter than the Earth, and the Earth is warmer than space.
Norm,
I am not here to discuss this matter with you. This case is already closed. You’re wrong. I am here to TELL you what a heat flux really is. I know this. You clearly don’t. But, of course, you just have to be more stubborn and more stupid about it.
Look, it’s so very simple. Heat in nature spontaneously flows whenever there’s a … between systems or regions in some kind of thermal contact, be it conductive, convective or radiative.
Are you able to fill in that blank yourself? Those dots? When – under what circumstances – does heat flow? And when does it not flow? What is the requirement? The prerequisite? What is the thermodynamic definition of heat [Q], Norm?
And after you’ve (hopefully) been able to complete my sentence for me, then take a look at the world we’re living in and please answer these questions, if not for me, then at least for your own sake:
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the globally and annually averaged surface of the Earth and the globally and annually averaged air layer above it?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature gradient up through the globally and annually averaged troposphere, from the lowermost layer right on top of the surface to the uppermost layer at the tropopause?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the Sun and the Earth?
# Is there or isn’t there a temperature difference between the Earth and space?
Answering these questions is all a person needs (even you, Norm) to understand how there are INDEED heat fluxes both within the Earth system, AND between the Earth and its surroundings. Even under steady-state conditions.
A “steady state” is simply a condition where none of the variable properties/state functions (like T and U) of the system in question vary over time. Which means its process functions (like the heat input and heat output) balance. None of them are GONE. None of them are zero. They’re all still there, very much operative. They simply BALANCE OUT. The NET is zero.
An analogy is a bathtub with the drain and tap open at the same time. If the water leaving the tub through the drain does so at the same rate as the water from the tap enters the tub, then the state function known as the water’s volume [V] will remain unchanged.
And this situation is exactly equivalent to what happens at and below “steady-state” Earth’s top-of-atmosphere (ToA): ASR equals “water in”, OLR equals “water out”, Earth’s U (and T) equal “the water volume”.
The HEAT coming IN [Q_in] from the Sun, the ASR, the Net SW, is (more or less) balanced by the HEAT going OUT [Q_out] to space, the OLR, the Net LW; 240 W/m^2 in and 240 W/m^2 out. Which means the net of the two, the “balance”, ASR – OLR, is ~0 W/m^2.
The ASR and the OLR are both heat fluxes, Norm. That is not a matter of opinion. That’s just the way it IS. The Sun heats the Earth, and the Earth cools to space. Period.
And why? Because of TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES. The Sun is hotter than the Earth, and the Earth is warmer than space.
Norman says, June 6, 2018 at 4:58 PM:
There is no such thing as an “energy flow” in thermodynamics that is NOT either heat [Q] or work [W]. It is NOT a third thermodynamic transfer option. Not some kind of separate quantity in thermodynamics, somehow distinct from the other two. You’re just showing your ignorance and confusion, Norm.
Whenever you read the term “energy flow” or “energy transfer” in thermodynamics, it is a generic term. Both heat and work are flows/transfers of energy. But there are no transfers of energy in thermodynamics that aren’t either categorised as heat [Q] or as work [W]. 1st Law: ΔU = Q – W.
Either there are thermodynamic transfers of energy between two regions of the universe as heat or as work. Or there are no thermodynamic transfers of energy at all. Suggesting there’s a third option in between is a BS notion that obviously has you utterly confused.
What you’re talking about, Norm, is a “thermal equilibrium”. THAT’S when there are no heat flows. You know, because then there are no temperature differences!
In a steady state you have two (or more) balancing heat flows. STILL nothing is changing temperature. They BALANCE! The state of the system(s), though, is fundamentally different from a thermal equilibrium.
You need to read up on this, Norm. Just above you admitted, to Chic, you didn’t even know what a steady state really is. And now all of a sudden you apparently know all about it. Right. That’s why you’re such a pretender …!
My compliments Kristian, you are making your comments more clear by learning to use the heat term better but not yet perfectly clear:
“In a steady state you have two (or more) balancing heat flows.”
Not quite clear, in thermodynamic steady state you have two (or more) balancing energy flows. Not two (or more) balancing net energy flows.
Let’s see if Norman replies, if he can correctly facepalm any of your comments at 2:04pm, 2:10pm.
Kristian
I read through your posts and they do make sense. It is a semantic thing.
When you made the claim I am a pretender because I had a different understanding. I had thought the word equilibrium was similar to steady state but they are different. It does not make me a pretender. I am working to get the science correct. Many skeptics have scrambled and bad science, I will oppose their posts every time.
The confusion with me is in the concept of “heat” and “heat flow”.
My point would be more to do with heat or amount of heat transferred. No heat is transferred when a temperature does not change.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/firlaw.html
If there is no change in Internal Energy then the amount of heat transferred and work done is zero.
The atmosphere and surface are not changing in Quantity of Internal energy therefore no heat was transferred to either.
This does not mean that heat will not flow on a continuous basis. And you are correct with your heat terms of 53 W/m^2 heat flow from the surface to the atmosphere. I just don’t think it is that meaningful. What does it tell you? There is a flow of heat but no heat is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere.
The only thing that would matter is the NET heat flow, the rest really does not make much difference. The NET heat flow on the graphs is 0.6 W/m^2. The Surface is gaining this much energy and slowly warming and will continue to warm until there is no imbalance.
Also what can you determine from the 53 W/m^2 heat flux from surface to atmosphere? Why do you consider it to be important?
It will not indicated a surface temperature. I really only lets you know how much GHG effect you have. I supports the GHE, that is about all it has value for. Without GHG this heat flow would be much higher and the Surface would be much cooler.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/05/in-defense-of-the-term-greenouse-effect/#comment-306326
Homework for the troll:
Why is the constant Cp in the theoretical lapse rate -g/Cp called heat capacity and not “net energy” capacity?
Is internal energy the sum of work energy and “net energy” rather than work and heat?
What authority justifies you redefining heat as “net energy?”
“What authority justifies you redefining heat as “net energy?”
Laboratory work in thermodynamics.
No indestructible fluid formerly known as “heat” in the 1800s (see Lavoisier 1797) was ever found to exist, heat is merely a concept in the mind of man. If you, Kristian, Gordon insist on using the concept of heat with meaning equivalent to “net thermal energy” you will be less likely to err and Norman won’t be able to correctly facepalm your comments. It’s easy to check your comments against lab proven physics with that simple “net energy” substitution to identify if a comment has earned a Norman facepalm.
Thermodynamic internal (thermal) effects can be accurately described in terms of enthalpy: thermal energy transfer with no connotation to an indestructible fluid. Correctly heat capacity really is enthalpy capacity, latent heat of vaporization is really enthalpy of vaporization so forth.
The troll asserts himself as an authority on thermodynamics based on his lab work. I feel sorry for his employer.
The troll asserts the term heat went out in the 1800s despite countless later textbooks on heat transfer, many with heat in the title.
Sadly, the work of a troll is never done.
On the bright side, the discussion prompted a review of the distinction between heat and enthalpy. A change in enthalpy (dH) equals heat transfer (dQ) if, and only if, dp = 0 (no change in pressure). For macroscopic changes, Q (heat transfer) equals a change in enthalpy only for isobaric processes. That pretty much limits use of enthalpy to a specific altitude, not the whole atmosphere.
Very good, Chic, now you understand why enthalpy is correctly used in meteorology’s enthalpy of vaporization instead of latent heat of vaporization in the atm. & so forth. Congrat.s, that’s real progress on your part.
You also mentioned the error propagated in many texts when they really are about thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy transfer, Q with no net work and W with net work. It is unfortunate the heat language of which you write has erroneously come down to today unchanged from the 1800s when heat meant an indestructible fluid (Levoisier 1797). I say all definitions should be well founded on operations in the lab not on any text book titles, heat entity has not ever been found in the lab.
The best way to begin transitioning to use enthalpy is with lab work in calorimetric definitions in terms of thermodynamic internal energy, pressure and volume as you write. If you want to write clear comments, drop the heat term. If not, continue to write heat as a noun (never need to) & likely suffer Norman’s cxontinuing correct facepalms as does Kristian & Gordon.
In the “net energy” of the moment, the troll embellishes his balderdash with a flourish.
Let the face-palming begin!
Very interesting subject to be honest. I was just reading in-depth the importance of heated gloves now for the winter, but is that causing even more of a problem? Our problems in life are causing us to create more problems.
Came across this topic while trying to find research on actual greenhouses.
Can anyone help me answer the question what the influence of (many) greenhouses would be on the heat-island effect?
Does it store a lot of warmth which it emits later and therefore improves the urban heat-island effect? Or does it lower the effects because of reflection?
If anyone could give me insights on this or help me answer the question that would be of great help.