Home/BlogAs part of my exploration of different surface temperature datasets, I’m examining the relationship between average U.S. temperatures and other weather variables in NOAA’s Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) dataset. (I think I might have mistakenly called it “International” before, instead of “Integrated” Surface Hourly).
Anyway , one of the things that popped out of my analysis is related to our record warm March this year (2012). Connecting such an event to “global warming” would require either lazy thinking, jumping to conclusions, or evidence that the warmth was not caused by persistent southerly flow over an unusually large area for that time of year.
The U.S. is a pretty small place (about 2% of the Earth), and so a single high or low pressure area can cover most of the country. For example, if unusually persistent southerly flow sets up all month over most of the country, there will be unusual warmth. In that case we are talking about “weather”, not “climate change”.
Why do I say that? Because one of the basic concepts you learn in meteorology is “mass continuity”. If there is persistent and widespread southerly flow over the U.S., there must be (by mass continuity) the same amount of northerly flow elsewhere at the same latitude.
That means that our unusual warmth is matched by unusual coolness someplace else.
Well, guess what? It turns out that our record warm March was ALSO a record for southerly flow, averaged over the U.S. This is shown in the next plot, which comes from about 250 weather stations distributed across the Lower 48 (click for large version; heavy line is trailing 12 month average):
Weather records are broken on occasion, even without global warming. And here we see evidence that our March warmth was simply a chance fluctuation in weather patterns.
If you claim, “Well, maybe global warming caused the extra southerly flow!”, you then are also claiming (through mass continuity) that global warming ALSO caused extra northerly flow (with below normal temperatures) somewhere else.
And no matter what anyone has told you, global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather. It’s not in the physics. The fact that warming has been greatest in the Arctic means that the equator-to-pole temperature contrast has been reduced, which would mean less storminess and less North-South exchange of air masses — not more.
Short term variations will, of course, be weather. However, as mean temperatures change, the range of those short term variations will as well.
You might be interested in http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/Hansen_20120119_Temperature.pdf for a review of average temperature anomalies, from which the (local) variations will be based.
The entire world appears to continue warming. The March temperature extremes are, therefore, only to be expected as possible variations – given the change in mean temperatures.
“The entire world appears to continue warming.”
That depends on your source of data. According to RSS, warming stopped 15 years and 5 months ago. Mind you, CO2 has steadily climbed as the following clearly shows. Which data source shows any real warming over the last 10 years?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise
Werner,
You’ve got to stop this misrepresentation of the facts. You know full well that the Earth has not stopped warming over this past decade. This kind of unfactual nonsense doesn’t serve the cause of true scientific discussion.
There’s been no statistically significant warming over past decade. Not even according to CRUTEM4 which is not even representative for whole earth as it covers less than one third of it. Yes, you sure can find parts of the world which experienced statistically significant warming over that period. But that’s not the whole world.
Very interesting. I was wondering what it might be that caused the unusually warm March we’ve had.
KR says:
April 13, 2012 at 6:10 PM
Short term variations will, of course, be weather. However, as mean temperatures change, the range of those short term variations will as well.
I hear this mantra from alarmist all the time these days. But it ignores the fact that the world as a whole was quite cool when this sudden warming over the US (and Scandinavia, btw) happened. Temperatures are autocorrelated, but the alarmist argument would require that every day the temperature of the world is given by a normally distributed variable around an upwards trending mean, statistically independent of the temperature only hours before…
It is all Anthropocene weather now. You can no longer separate any single weather event out from the full context in which it is occurring…namely the highest greenhouse gas concentrations in at least a million years and a planet that is being rapidly transformed by homo sapiens.
‘Greenhouse gas’ – CO2 is not the only GHG around, water vapour if far more important. And there ain’t no records of that. Eemian was far warmer than holocene, perhaps it had more total GHGs.
The last time I checked Homo sapiens were a part of the natural world. So if Homo sapiens are the cause of warming, perhaps it is part of the natural processes. Maybe some of us should be classified as Homo insciens. Linnaeus would be proud.
Of course humans are part of the natural world, and of course any changes we we make would be part of “natural” processes, just as if you jump off a cliff without any means to counteract the effects of gravity, it will be natural for you to fall. The bigger issue is that now that we know we can affect climate, what will we do to manage this Anthropocene we have brought about?
Given the butterfly effect, I can argue that it’s all Entomocene weather now.
“R. Gates says:
April 14, 2012 at 6:56 AM
You know full well that the Earth has not stopped warming over this past decade.”
Here are my numbers for six different sets of data for the past decade. Note that Hadcrut3 and Hadsst2 only have the January numbers posted while the others have March. Nevertheless, the numbers of the slopes are as follows:
Hadsst2: slope = -0.00962834 per year
Hadcrut3: slope = -0.0101928 per year
Mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS: slope = -0.00408749 per year
RSS: slope = -0.00962233 per year
GISS: slope = 0.000743802 per year
UAH: slope = 0.000586749 per year
So of the above 6 numbers, four are negative and two are positive. For the two positive slopes, it would take 1340 and 1700 years to warm up by 1 C.
Do you consider the two positive numbers significant? If not, could I please have your numbers to prove what you are saying?
Werner Brozek says:
April 14, 2012 at 8:35 AM
Technically you are correct. If one accounts for high frequency forcings (ENSO, solar cycle, volcanoes) then it is reasonable to conclude that the earth has not stopped warming. Of course there could be lower frequency oscillations that also impact the short term trend.
“Hadsst2: slope = -0.00962834 per year
Hadcrut3: slope = -0.0101928 per year
Mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS: slope = -0.00408749 per year
RSS: slope = -0.00962233 per year
GISS: slope = 0.000743802 per year
UAH: slope = 0.000586749 per year”
That’s the trend, to claim warming has stopped you need to show the upper figure of uncertainty in the trend, not the trend itself.
Hadcrut3: -0.01C/year plus or minus what?
Werner is not “technically” correct, with or without discussion of the high frequency forcings (aka natural noise) displayed by ENSO, solar, volcanoes. Werner is making the same mistakes that is are so commonly made by those trying to cast doubt on the energy imbalance caused by the rapid increase of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. These mistakes (yes, there are several) are in some cases simply out of ignorance, or in other cases meant to cherry pick data to attempt to create doubt about what’s really going on. I do not know where Werner’s reasons rest, but either way, he’s making the same mistakes.
Let’s look a these mistakes in short detail.
1) His equating the “Earth” with what goes on in Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth, as a system, is of course far more than the atmosphere. So when you say the “Earth” hasn’t been warming over such and such a period, you’d better darn well not be talking about just the atmosphere. If you mean just atmosphere, or troposphere, or whatever portion of the Earth’s system you’re trying to refer to, then be scientifically accurate.
2) The warming of the Earth (as a system!), from the addition of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, is an issue of energy imbalance, and thus, if one wants to look at the energy imbalance of the Earth system, one ought to look at the largest part of the system which would and should display the most consistent signal with the least amount of short-term noise that might be subject to short-term natural variability. Furthermore, this ought to be the part of the system that has the greatest amount of energy. The atmosphere would NOT be the first choice in looking for such a signal as it is the opposite of all of these. It displays very high natural variability and has, relative to other parts of the Earth’s system, very low energy storage. The only about the atmosphere is that it is the relatively EASIEST part to measure, but it certainly is not the best.
3) When looking at the Earth as a system, using the broadest, most comprehensive measurement tools we have, measuring the most amount of energy that we can, that filters out much of the shorter-term noise, we see that the Earth has been gaining energy consistently for at least 40 years or longer. This measurement is of course ocean heat content, and the more of the ocean we measure (i.e. the deeper we go) the less natural noise there is and the more consistent is the very strong signal that the Earth’s energy system is gaining energy. The energy gained by the ocean is many magnitudes greater than what the entire atmosphere could gain, and as such, the atmosphere become nearly unimportant. It just so happens that we humans happen to live in the atmosphere and it is the easiest for us to measure and appears to affect us the most readily (though this is only an appearance).
In conclusion, whenever anyone says “the Earth” has cooled over the past decade, they need to be corrected or forced to clarify, in a very scientific way, exactly what they mean by “the Earth”. But by the broadest measures we have, the Earth, as a complete energy system, remains out of balance, as the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases caused by human activity continues to cause the Earth to accumulate more energy than is leaving back to space. This is the essence of a thermodynamic description of the Anthropocene.
Show me some numbers that contradict what he’s posted, such as you calculating the same thing, but showing the error bars are so large that it’s impossible to support those conclusions.
All I get from your essay is ‘blah blah blah’.
For some reason I was under the impression that the oceans were absorbing energy these last many years (being they cover 70% of the Earth’s surface) and now that the sun was in a low cycle, they were in the process of giving up energy (into the atmosphere). It seems like if we had 40 years of warming cycle energy stored (from high output Sun energy) that the oceans would have plenty to give back – I presume as water vapor and CO2? How is it that we are supposed to fight naturally released CO2, or the lack of absorption sinks for CO2 (such as the depletion of the Amazon rain forest)? Honestly it seems like a better course of action to combat CO2 (if that is the cause everyone believes it is) is to plant more trees and plants that are good at absorbing CO2 – no? Because honestly, it is starting to appear that the increase in CO2 has less to do with what MAN is producing, and more to do with what is not being absorbed naturally, or being pushed back into the atmosphere by other sources.
This fight to label CO2 as a pollutant, and eliminate cheap and affordable energy for the masses seems singularly counterproductive as a means to allow other nations in the third world to develop properly.
Yes, that is my point. Man cannot counteract gravity and Man cannot counteract the effects of so-called “global warming”. Man is not all-knowing even though he strives to be. Climate change has always been with us and the anthropogenic climate change “consensus” is dwindling.
In everyday life we all have opinions and tend to look for examples (data) to confirm them. This is not science. A scientist constructs a hypothesis and then tries to disprove it, in that a consensus can be formed. Further, a Consensus of the time in itself does not always stand, it can change. That is the nature of science. Unfortunately public policy opinions have driven and funded this science from the beginning and continue to do so. Hopefully, man will be wise enough to analyze the data observed while being apolitical. Let us hope Carl Linnaeus was right when he used the nomenclature of Homo sapiens to classify man.
“R. Gates says:
April 14, 2012 at 10:41 AM
or in other cases meant to cherry pick data”
You said “this past decade” in the earlier email. So I took the most recent 120 months of data from the various data sets. So it cannot be the time that I am cherry picking.
“The Earth, as a system, is of course far more than the atmosphere.” True, but did you notice that one of the six data sets was for sea surface temperatures where the slope was Hadsst2: slope = -0.00962834 per year?
“one ought to look at the largest part of the system” and “”the Earth has been gaining energy consistently for at least 40 years or longer”. So obviously you are talking about the deep ocean here, right? It appears as if you agree that the atmosphere and sea surface have not been warming over “this past decade” so we must look deeper. Fair enough. I realize the oceans can hold about 1000 times more heat than air. So let us assume the oceans were to warm up by 0.1 C, but assume further that this whole amount of heat then went into the air, the air would then warm up by about 100 C. However that simply cannot happen due to the laws of thermodynamics. Let us assume the deep ocean is now 3.0 C. If it then warmed by 0.1 C to 3.1 C, this extra heat would never make it to the air where the average temperature is about 15 C. Heat flows from hot to cold. So even if the deep ocean heated up a bit, what is the problem with that? Do you expect us to spend trillions of dollars to prevent the deep ocean from warming up a bit?
“But by the broadest measures we have, the Earth, as a complete energy system, remains out of balance” Perhaps it is “out of balance” by being too cold and needs to warm up a bit.
R. Gates says:
“When looking at the Earth as a system, using the broadest, most comprehensive measurement tools we have, measuring the most amount of energy that we can, that filters out much of the shorter-term noise, we see that the Earth has been gaining energy consistently for at least 40 years or longer. ”
Presumably you are referring to the fact that the OHC has been rising since about 1972, but I wouldn’t say “consistently”.
In fact, OHC has risen very little since 2003, compared to the previous 20 years, and in particular, the period 2001-2003. The 10 year trend in OHC has been declining since 2007 and at the end of 2011, it was at it’s lowest since 1995.
RGates, climate scientists have been making predictions about atmospheric temperatures, and used these measurements as evidence of global warming. Do you think this is an error?
You say you know global warming is still happening. How do you know this, beyond evidence of an energy imbalance. Where is the energy? It does not appear in the atmospheric temperatures or the ocean heat content measurements.
Do you think it is significant if Joe Romm loses his bet with Tom Fuller that the current decade will be warmer than the previous by .15C?
“And no matter what anyone has told you, global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather. It’s not in the physics.”
Dr Spencer, you’re either playing semantic games or just wrong. The literature is full of papers detailing barotropic and baroclinic changes due to climate change. Here are two good examples:
Impact of sea ice cover changes on the Northern
Hemisphere atmospheric winter circulation
Winter Northern Hemisphere weather patterns remember summer Arctic sea-ice extent
Since these changes will locally, or regionally, cause extended periods of warming or cooling it is nonsense on your part to say that global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather. Anything that causes the jetstream to slow down or stop will cause BOTH warmer and colder than normal weather. As you well know the increased energy/heat does not have to be distributed uniformly. Over short timescales global warming can easily be responsible for colder than normal weather in specific regions affected by changes in the jetstream.
Dr Spencer,
You may not be aware of the following article on “Open Mind”, to your article.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/roy-spencer-man-of-mystery/
It would be interesting to read your response.
Roy Spencer: “And no matter what anyone has told you, global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather. It’s not in the physics.”
Yes it is. Think about the gulf stream weakening or the jet stream changing behavior, both of which could happen in a warmer world. Or any other number of atmospheric or ocean circulation patterns behaving different. The change the average patterns of heat distribution will manifest in weather, with some places getting more warmer weather at the expense of others becoming colder.
Kevin & Amblin:
First of all, the strength of the jet stream is the *result* of the strength of the temperature contrast between air masses, so an unusually cold air mass would correspond to a *stronger* jet stream, not weaker.
Instead, we have seen the arctic warm more than the tropics. The coldest airmasses have warmed more than the warmest airmasses, on average. Through thermal wind consideration, this leads to a small decrease in the average strength of the jet stream.
Now, just through a chaotic changes in weather patterns from the PDO, AO, etc. there can be regions with warming or cooling, but the *radiative warming effect of more CO2* is always to warm all air masses.
This warming is superimposed upon normal climate variability, which means some regions could still cool, but they would cool less than they would have without extra CO2.
The cooling is in spite of AGW, not because of AGW.
Look at the IPCC projections of warming across different regions….99% of the Earth warms. To point to a spot that cools and say “that’s consistent with global warming theory” misses the point of AGW theory altogether.
That’s why I cringe when some people say both warming AND cooling are consistent with AGW. That would make AGW theory untestable because both warmer and cooler will occur even without AGW.
Dr Spencer – You *are* playing semantic games. You said, “global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather.”
Weather – not long-term climate.
“This warming is superimposed upon normal climate variability, which means some regions could still cool, but they would cool less than they would have without extra CO2.”
Cooler less than it might have been, but still below ‘normal’. You’ve tried another bait-and-switch here. Colder than normal weather is colder than normal weather. That it might have been even colder still is not the question.
Can global warming disrupt the jetstream? Yes.
Does disrupting the jetstream effect weather? Yes.
Is one of these effects colder than normal weather? Yes.
Does any of this contradict physics? No.
No one (that I know of) says global warming leads directly to lower global temperatures – that would be nonsense (and a strawman on your part). Global warming can cause outbreaks of extremely cold weather in localized regions – just as it can cause outbreaks of extremely warm weather.
hmmm. I would say you are the one who is play semantics here.
Genuine statement through current NASA employee …
“My son is a nuclear physicist with NASA and knows GHG theory is bogus and NASA distorts AGW data. BHO won’t allow Civil Servants to express skepticism. James Hanson is actual spokesman for NASA on GHG theory, picked by Al Gore and BHO”
“Kasuha says:
April 15, 2012 at 1:45 AM
There’s been no statistically significant warming over past decade. Not even according to CRUTEM4”
I agree and I wish to elaborate a bit on this point to prove it. (Sorry amblin, I do not know the uncertainty, but if even the MET office says warming has stopped for 15 years, that is good enough for me.)
Crutem4 is now on woodfortrees, but there is a slight problem. It only goes to the end of 2010. Mathematicians may wish to improve on my crude analysis, but for what it is worth, here is what I did. I took the slope of crutem3 from 2002 to December 2010 and found it to be -0.00200314. Then I found the slope from 2002 to January 2012, its latest value, and found it to be -.00793462. The drop for the additional 13 months was 0.00593. The slope of crutem4 from 2002 to December 2010 was 0.00585. So if I am allowed to make the assumption that when crutem4 is completely updated, that there would be a similar drop, there will be NO temperature change in land for the past decade.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:2000/plot/crutem4vgl/from:2002/trend/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2000/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2002/to:2011/trend/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2002/trend
Werner, a period of 10 years is far too short for a statistically significant trend determination.
Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022) shows that, if you can account for shorter term variations such as volcanic aerosols, solar cycle, and ENSO, it might be possible to determine a trend from a period as long as 11-12 years. I will note that the WoodForTrees data does not have such accounting for variation factors.
Santer et al 2011 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JD016263.shtml) found that for the RSS signal (tropospheric) that a _minimum_ of 17 years was required – that a decadal analysis has a Signal/Noise ratio of only 1!
So for any reasonable trend identification, you are going to need >17 years of data for tropospheric temps, somewhere on that order for surface temps, perhaps 20 years to be on the safe side. And if you look at that data, with enough information to actually determine a significant trend (http://tinyurl.com/72glw93), you see non-trivial warming in _all_ the temperature records. Especially in the land-only CRUTEM results.
“There’s been no statistically significant warming over past decade. Not even according to CRUTEM4” – Correct. You cannot, given the variations seen in the temperature record, identify any trends whatsoever from only a decade of data. Making claims from such short time periods is simply sophistry.
so, KR, since *10 years* isn’t enough to say anything significant about warming, you obviously would not use a single warm *month* or warm *year* to say anything about warming, would you?
Now, if you respond that RECORD warm months are “different”, then they should affect the 10-year trend. If they don’t, then there have not been enough of them to indicate warming.
You can’t have it both ways.
Indeed. Come’on KR, you’ve got to do better than this.
Dr. Spencer – I would certainly not use a single month for a trend calculation. Nor would I use a single extreme temperature.
In order to make any conclusions you need sufficient information, such as long-term statistics on record warm days versus record cold days (Meehl 2009, https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us – 2.04:1 ratio), or changes in long term averages (Hansen 2012 http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/Hansen_20120119_Temperature.pdf – increasing temperature anomalies).
Attributing a single warm month to global warming (and to nothing else) would be as silly as claiming a single cold winter disproved it. However, given the observed changes in mean temperatures, the distribution of monthly temperature ranges will shift as well – meaning that as warming continues, temperatures such as the previous March’s will become far more common.
An extreme March (extreme based on previous years) is simply far more likely to occur with global warming.
Yup KR, all these extreme more likely high temps have really happened. One look at the world record temps by continent tells me you are right. Oops:
Extreme Highest Temperatures
Africa 136 El Azizia, Libya 367 Sep 13 1922
North America 134 Death Valley, CA (Greenland Ranch) -178 Jul 10 1913
Asia 129 Tirat Tsvi, Israel -722 Jun 22 1942
Australia 128 Cloncurry, Queensland 622 Jan 16 1889
Europe 122 Seville, Spain 26 Aug 4 1881
South America 120 Rivadavia, Argentina 676 Dec 11 1905
Oceania 108 Tuguegarao, Philippines 72 Apr 29 1912
Antarctica 59 Vanda Station, Scott Coast 49 Jan 5 1974
“KR says:
April 15, 2012 at 10:27 AM
Werner, a period of 10 years is far too short for a statistically significant trend determination.”
I was initially responding to:
“R. Gates says:
April 14, 2012 at 6:56 AM
Werner,
You’ve got to stop this misrepresentation of the facts. You know full well that the Earth has not stopped warming over this past decade.”
He left me no choice but to respond with decade long slopes.
“a _minimum_ of 17 years was required”
The 15 years and 5 months of no warming shown below represents 185/204 = 90.7% of 17 years. So that flat slope line does not have to go much further to reach 17 years. But what would happen when it reaches that point?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise
Werner – I would have to consider your “15 years and 5 months” a wonderful demonstration of cherry-picking the longest possible subset of data (below statistical significance) that appears to support your point. 17 years is the absolute minimum time period for statistical significance – starting at an extrema such as the 1998 El Nino means that more data will be required.
As to “the warming has stopped over this past decade”, considering that >90% of the heat content of the climate is in the oceans, and that (according to http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ – 2000m and above) we’ve observed something like 5×10^22 Joules of heating in the ocean over that decade – well, the variations in the few percent of total heat content in the atmosphere is just the distracting wag of the tail on the dog. R. Gates is quite correct.
KR, you continue to ignore that the world as a whole was actually quite cool as the records were broken in the US.
Roy and others
When are you guys going to realise that you have to allow for 60 year natural cycles, so you need moving averages over 60 years, or, if over a shorter period, then you need to take an extra step and find the trend of the trend, rather like differentiating twice.
For example, see the plot at the foot of my Home page http://climate-change-theory.com based on sea surface temperatures since the year 1900.
The conclusion I draw from it is that, whilst the rate of warming was about 0.06 C / decade just over 100 years ago, it has now reduced to about 0.05 C / decade.
This is because of the longer-term 983 year (say, ~1,000 year) natural cycle of which most are aware. This cycle should hit a maximum within 50 to 200 years, and then experience about 500 years of cooling.
The effect of carbon dioxide is zero (0.0000..) even regarding the slowing of the overall cooling rate of the surface.
The following standard physics shows why the effect of carbon dioxide on surface temperatures is zero.
1. No solid, liquid or gas can radiate more than a perfect blackbody.
2. A gas will radiate certain frequencies only, but the intensity of each frequency will still be limited by the Planck function, which itself is a function of temperature. (S-B is derived from the integral of the Planck function.)
3. So, depending on the temperature of the region, carbon dioxide will emit at frequencies which may well be (and usually will be) off to one side or the other under a Planck curve – thus strongly attenuated.
4. Hence, over all temperatures in the atmosphere, the mean intensity of carbon dioxide radiation falls a long way short of a true blackbody. (Whereas a blackbody radiates with the full filled in area under the curve, CO2 has just a few thin lines, most of which are not near the top of the curve, but instead have lower intensity at the sides.)
5. Hence its emissivity must be very small. I suspect most likely less than 0.01.
6. When using standard S-B calculations to determine the effect on the rate of radiative cooling, you need to take into account both the temperature of the region from which the radiation comes, and the emissivity.
7. So, when such low figures for emissivity are used in the standard S-B calculations it is obvious that carbon dioxide can have very little effect.
8. Considering the fact that some radiation from the surface goes through the atmospheric window to space, the remaining radiative cooling is well under half (maybe under 30%) of all surface cooling processes.
9. The effect of carbon dioxide is absolutely minuscule and, even then, it only affects the cooling effect of radiation that is absorbed by itself in the atmosphere.
10. Various considerations (such as in the Appendix of my paper linked from my site) present very plausible reasons for other non-radiative cooling rates to increase. Thus the effect on overall cooling rates is most likely zero.
Kasuha says in part, April 15, 2012 at 1:45 AM:
“There’s been no statistically significant warming
over past decade.”
Not that I want to single-out that poster for saying
something that has been popular to say right after a
La Nina, especially a major or double-dip one.
Nowadays, lack of warming trend can also be said for
the past 15 years.
What I think is more honest: Pick a recent time
frame of a decade or more, during which linear trend
of ENSO, AMO and PDO are minimized. I seem to think
that from beginning of 1999 to beginning of 2012 is
a 13 year period with low linear trend in ENSO and
AMO, or low linear trend of ENSO and sum of AMO and
PDO. As a result, I think that 13-year time stretch
*may* be a fair one for finding a warming trend to
blame mostly on AGW.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and AGW does exist. The
question is, to what extent? I think not necessarily
to the extent claimed by many vocal advocates of its
existence, but exceeding zero.
As for one stab of mine for how much: I tried
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot
My input:
Data source: HadCRUT3 unadjusted global mean
Processing 1: From (time): 1999
Processing 2: To (time): 2012
Processing 3: Linear Trend (OLS)
Results: Increase from .3755 to .4325 in 13 years,
which is .044 degree/decade.
I try alternatively, data source their UAH one.
Results: Increase from .026 to .25 in 13 years,
which is .17 degree/decade. (Looks like the
2009-2010 El Nino was a recent major event of
spiking global lower troposphere temperature.)
Also: I change Step 3 from linesr trend to
offset by zero. Then, I estimate linear trend from
my eyeballs and my gut. I come-up-with a trend line
starting at .04, ending at .225, for increase of .175
degree in 13 years, for .135 degree/decade. This
still sounds high to me. From 1/1/1979 to 1/1/2012,
this UAH index increased from -.23 to +.23 in 33
years, which is .14 degree/decade. However, linear
trend in AMO was strongly upwards during that time
period, and I somewhat recall linear trend of ENSO
and PDO to be slightly upwards during this time.
So, I think AGW has recently been accomplishing
less than .14 degree C/K per decade, maybe as little
as .044 degree C/K per decade. Since effect of
increase of CO2 is considered logarhythmic even by
IPCC, I think there will be little, possibly no
increase in warming rate from these this century.
And for the next 20-23 years, I expect close to
zero warming, due to AMO and solar activity being
likely to be downsliding enough to counteract. I
expect PDO and ENSO linear trends to be slightly
downsloped in the next 20-23 years, but I am feeling uncertain there.
My “conclusion” so far: AGW is for real, but
probably to extent less than half claimed by many
vocal advocates of its existence.
It is considered a good practice in science, when you evaluate something, you evaluate it together with its uncertainity. Woodfortrees does not provide you uncertainity interval on trendlines it produces, neither does it work with uncertainity intervals on values it is processing. For it, world temperature is just a single value and trend is just a line. That’s where all sorts of cherry picking come from. When uncertainity is evaluated, pretty much any interval between 2000 and today tells you that nothing definitive can be said about the trend.
Also, saying “there is no trend over recent temperature record” does not automatically mean “global warming has stopped”. It just means “we cannot tell for sure global warming has not stopped”.
During 1970s there was global hysteria about ice age coming upon us. Now we perceive the 1940-1970 era as just a little hiccup in the middle of the warming slope. Maybe this is yet another such step. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t know.
“Donald L. Klipstein says:
April 15, 2012 at 9:55 PM
As a result, I think that 13-year time stretch
*may* be a fair one for finding a warming trend to
blame mostly on AGW.”
See the graph below and note the following and let me know if you think I am being unfair.
1. This last La Nina is NOT the warmest La Nina in the last 16 years.
2. The first flat line (slope = -0.000125181 per year) extends for a period of 15 years and 5 months since November 1996.
3. The first flat line starts and ends with a La Nina so there was no cherry picking here.
4. The second flat line starts in 2000.
5. CO2 went up steadily while the temperatures stayed flat.
6. If the right points are picked both before and after the huge El Nino of 1998, the slope line can be perfectly flat either way. That is because La Ninas around 1998 balance things out.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise/plot/rss/from:2000/trend
Dr. Spencer,
Yes, temperature in the US does not indicate global temperature since it is only 2% of earth’s surface area. But did it occur to you that the whole atmosphere contains less than 1% of earth’s surface heat? All weather stations measure air temperature. But around 95% of earth’s heat content is in the oceans.
It seems air temperature does not reflect global temperature either. IMO the better measure is sea level rise due to thermal expansion of seawater or the radiative energy imbalance at TOA. These are not direct thermometer readings. They measure heat flow that can be converted to an equivalent global temperature.
Dr. Strangelove says:
April 15, 2012 at 11:31 PM
See what the sea surface has been doing over the last 10 years and the last 15 years.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.08/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002.08/trend
As usual, Dr Strangelove uses strange “facts” and terminology.
I think you will find that the breakdown of thermal energy content is about …
90% oceans and sea ice
6% land surfaces and other ice
4% atmosphere (not 1% as you suggest.)
You talk about “heat content.” Nothing contains “heat” – I’ll leave it to you to look up physics definitions of “heat.”
Neither thermal expansion of seawater, nor radiative imbalance at TOA measure “heat flow” and nor can anything to do with TOA measurements accurately determine “equivalent global temperature.”
You cannot determine what the temperature of the air layer 1.5 to 2.0 metres above the ground (as used for climate measurements) should be without details on the acceleration due to gravity (which determines the adiabatic lapse rate,) the mean relative humidity (which affects the ALP,) solar radiative flux and several other factors, none having anything to do with carbon dioxide and its colleagues.
I am the first to agree (as you’ll easily see) that global temperatures ought to be weighted by thermal energy content, so sea level temperatures should be weighted something like 94% and land about 6% (these figures splitting the above 90% and 6%, but leaving out the 4% in the atmosphere.)
But your “expansion of seawater” involves just as much error in its measurement of sea levels as does sea surface temperature measurement. Furthermore, other processes such as ice formation and melting affect sea levels. Your TOA imbalance is normally measured at the tropopause I understand, so they leave out the stratosphere, mesosphere and the very hot thermosphere. These are not insignificant.
And there is no consideration of what thermal energy flows into and out of the surface, amounts which could be somewhat greater than is currently thought, because of gas flows at the ocean floor which get converted very quickly to liquids and are difficult to detect. The latest thinking is that there is considerable energy generation by fission in the core and mantle.
Overall, I suggest there is more value in monitoring terrestrial flow. This did increase significantly late last century, and, on a cumulative basis over thousands of days, variations could very easily account for observed natural climate cycles. I am not suggesting any specific mechanism involved, though regular cycles are most likely caused by something to do with planetary orbits.
Werner Brozek – “If the right points are picked both before and after the huge El Nino of 1998, the slope line can be perfectly flat either way. That is because La Ninas around 1998 balance things out.” (emphasis added)
In other words, it’s possible to cherry-pick an interval that shows the conclusion you wish, as long as you avoid using all of the data?
That’s not science, Werner – that’s sophistry.
What Heat Is and Is Not
“Thermal energy is actually a form of kinetic energy generated by the movement of particles at the atomic or molecular level: the greater the movement of these particles, the greater the thermal energy. Heat is internal thermal energy that flows from one body of matter to another—or, more specifically, from a system at a higher temperature to one at a lower temperature. Thus, temperature, like heat, requires a scientific definition quite different from its common meaning: temperature measures the average molecular kinetic energy of a system, and governs the direction of internal energy flow between them.
“Two systems at the same temperature are said to be in a state of thermal equilibrium. When this occurs, there is no exchange of heat. Though in common usage, “heat” is an expression of relative warmth or coldness, in physical terms, heat exists only in transfer between two systems. What people really mean by “heat” is the internal energy of a system—energy that is a property of that system rather than a property of transferred internal energy.” source
Terms like “heat content” and “latent heat” should never be used, because these are not measures of some supposed constant energy content. Potential energy and kinetic energy are interchangeable, so the KE in a parcel of air decreases as it rises and KE is converted to PE. Only KE is reflected in temperature measurements. The same happens as ocean currents and convection move water to different levels.
There is far more to it than TOA radiative energy imbalance, Dr Strangelove. Sorry if I stick to valid atmospheric physics, but that is my specialty and there is a need to communicate and think in precise terminology. Failure to do so has led to the confusion over AGW and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, when and when not to treat something as a blackbody, how emissivity and absorptivity vary with temperature and are not always the same, and many physical processes that affect climate.
“KR says:
April 16, 2012 at 6:59 AM
In other words, it’s possible to cherry-pick an interval that shows the conclusion you wish, as long as you avoid using all of the data?”
“KR says:
April 15, 2012 at 3:23 PM
starting at an extrema such as the 1998 El Nino means that more data will be required”
I beg to differ with your criticism. I believe it is me using ALL the data and not you. My point 3 in that previous response specifically said:
3. The first flat line starts and ends with a La Nina so there was NO cherry picking here.
In addition, the second line from 2000 also starts and ends with a La Nina.
See the graph again to demonstrate exactly that.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise/plot/rss/from:2000/trend
You seem to be so focused on the “extrema such as the 1998 El Nino” that you seem to miss the La Ninas on either side that effectively cancel out the 1998 El Nino.
Further to my post above, IF I wanted to cherry pick two slopes, I would have come up with the following:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1997.9/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise/plot/rss/from:2001.25/trend
So while the above downward slopes ARE cherry picked, the previous flat lines are NOT cherry picked in my opinion.
This should be pretty straightforward to look at. The earth has warmed .5C over the past 40 years. For simplicity ignore the spatial distribution of that and just say everywhere is .5C or 1F higher, and assume that entire warming is global warming related (which in itself is of course faulty though I think much of it, but certainly not all, is man-induced). Under those assumptions one would be left to assume that 1F of the heat wave’s 10-15F anomaly over the eastern US was global warming. So certainly global warming didn’t cause the heat wave, it would only be making it a bit worse.
You can’t look at a period as short as 40 years because there is a pronounced 60 year cycle for which there was about 30 years of warming leading up to 1998, and there is now to be 30 years of cooling from 1998. However, there is also a ~1000 year cycle which is still rising at about 0.05 C per decade but should reach a maximum within 50 to 200 years (which should be about 0.4 to 0.8 C higher than the present trend) followed by about 500 years of cooling.
Carbon dioxide has such low emissivity that is has absolutely no measureable effect on climate. The whole concept of using S-B calculations is based on integrating the Planck curve for a blackbody radiating at all frequencies under its Planck curve. So S-B gives that solid area. If you replace that solid area with a few thin spectral lines for CO2 you don’t have much area at all. And, furthermore, the main 15 micron radiation from CO2 is only at a maximum in the Planck curve when the temperature in the region is about -80 deg.C. You will only find such temperatures up near the mesopause, which is above the stratopause which itself is above tropopause which is taken to be the TOA. At normal troposphere temperatures, the 15 micron line is way out to the side of the Planck curve, and thus strongly attenuated. Need I say more? Well, I have in my paper linked from my site if you’re interested.
Doug Cotton said:
“Carbon dioxide has such low emissivity that is has absolutely no measureable effect on climate.”
____
When do you plan on getting the Nobel Prize for physics? Such an assertion as this, going against nearly a century of established physics and climate research should earn you such an award.
Of course, I doubt you have any proof of such, in fact, am quite certain of it and are just another quite confused but pompous skeptic spouting off the dribble they’ve picked up from their skeptical brethern.
How about discussing the reasons given in the rest of the post, or are you not capable?
I do have proof actually, but you would have to spend an hour or so studying my paper, which was reviewed by four peers before being published on seven sites and of course linked from my own site. There are also about 250 comments on a dedicated thread on tallbloke.
This statement:
““Carbon dioxide has such low emissivity that is has absolutely no measureable effect on climate.”
Besides being nonsense and having no scientific basis, is also simply not even framed in a meaningful way. The most important absorption and emission band for CO2 is just under 15 microns., which lines up well with the LW from he ground and where water vapor is not so strong. This area just under 15 microns is a real key to CO2’s potency as a greenhouse gas that definitely affects the climate. This talk of the “low emissivity” of CO2 is gibberish without some context to a specific wavelength.
PS
Yes, Gates, the early physicists (Boltzmann, Planck et al) were mistaken in their rather simplistic assumption that heat transfers compounded to yield a net heat transfer. This mistake has indeed carried through for a century or so, when now people like Prof Claes Johnson and the team of nearly 40 scientists of which I am a member now realise. Nature has a more complex physical mechanism which is described in our papers and enlarged upon in my posts on my tallbloke thread. However, that is a serious thread where physics is discussed in detail and hand-waving comments such as yours above are likely to be snipped.
Doug Cotton – The Galileo claim (everyone else is wrong, listen to me) requires two things to be supported:
– One, that everyone mocks your assertions.
– Two, that you are in fact correct in your claims.
Given that your assertions, which are contrary to any number of observations (and which would if true invalidate much of spectroscopy, black body/Planck law radiation, observed absorptivity, and both the first and second law of thermodynamics), perhaps, just perhaps, you should consider the possibility that you are coming to incorrect conclusions.
You seem to feel that you have suddenly (without a set of measurements, of observations, or quite frankly of theory, of numeric relationships) invalidated much of the last 150 years of science. Perhaps that is true. But perhaps… perhaps you have made some mistakes; that just possibly a great many very smart people have looked at the evidence and quite reasonably come up with different conclusions, ones that are better supported?
You’ve been banned from multiple forums. Pointed to volumes of data, theory, and observations that contradict your rather extreme conclusions – I’ve seen any number of the various blogs, forums, etc. Are you a genius several steps above anyone who’s worked in the field in the last 150 years? Or are you perhaps, just perhaps, mistaken? Can you honestly ask yourself that question?
It takes a good mind to come up with a new idea. It takes a strong mind, a great mind, to admit that they might, in fact, be mistaken… and to learn from that.
Yes, DJ Cotton is correct. For those who keep pointing to “150 years of science” allegedly arguing against the points Cotton has made, I can only assume they refer to the early conjectures made by Arrhenius a little over 100 years ago, which have been properly and consistently refuted by physicists for 100 years now. Only political activists can somehow manage to deny this science history.
Even Roger Revelle, near the end of his life, accepted the fact that atmospheric physics does not support the notion of man-made global warming from the burning of fossil fuel. Revelle was the one who helped give us the most scientific (and ONLY long-term, >60 yrs) measure of atmospheric CO2 beginning in 1958 – on the side of the active volcano Mauna Loa (the Scripps Observatory).
However, the internet has not yet caught up with real science. It is getting better, as more scientists are taking the time to set the record straight. But they are battling against unscrupulous individuals with ample funding and nearly unlimited time to “flood” the internet with their pseudo-science.
It takes ten to fifteen qualified scientists spending an hour or two per day to battle with one politically active AGW proponent — and that is just to “balance” the postings on the internet. Fortunately, real scientists outnumber the politically active scientists by just such a ratio. The number of AGW sycophants is greatly exceeded by ordinary, every day physicists, engineers, and otherwise learned individuals who understand enough about science to easily refute AGW “theory”. I put theory in quotations to draw attention to the fact that this alleged theory has no discernible, rational explanation, nor is it supported by any credible data or evidence.
The reader must take precautions to seek out the pedigree of his or her sources. Relying on sheer numbers of papers published in Science Journals is no longer sufficient, because billions of research dollars have been poured into generating what can only be termed “scientific propaganda” intended to bolster the AGW argument.
The best strategy is to look for the papers published by the alleged “expert” climatologists – those folks who have received the greatest share of public & private funding, and read what they’ve written for yourself.
I took my own advice and discovered folks like Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Michael Mann, and Dr. Phil Jones readily admitted they didn’t understand atmospheric physics very well (when pressed in private about the errors in their papers). To be fair, Dr. Spencer, Dr. Lindzen, and Dr. Wegman (who refuted Dr. Mann’s hockey stick graph) also have knowledge gaps, and will readily admit they do not know whether or not recent warming can be definitively assigned to mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. I doubt Dr. Spencer would describe himself as an atmospheric physicist.
But there ARE qualified atmospheric physicists who have published on this subject, and their papers can be found in the journals of atmospheric science prior to 1980, when this latest rash of CO2 warming idiocy reared its head again, thanks to the political activism of James Hansen.
Certainly, no one believes the UN’s IPCC is anything but a method of attempting to politically legitimize AGW pseudo-science, and impose drastic changes to national energy policies on a global scale?
Brozek,
HADSST2 data are from direct thermometer measurements of the upper layer of the oceans. They do not give an accurate picture because a lot of the heat is deep in the oceans. Sea level may be a better measure since no matter where the heat is in the ocean, it will affect the water volume through thermal expansion.
I will not reply to Cottonball. Anybody too ignorant to deny the existence or effect of downward longwave infrared radiation does not know what he’s talking about. Suffice it to say that the heat capacity of the oceans is 1,000 times greater than that of the atmosphere. Anybody with a basic understanding of physics can do the calculation himself.
KR and others
My assertions are not contrary to any observations whatsoever.
You must misunderstand them if you think so, but seeing that you have not explained your allegation, you leave me with no need to respond. There would probably be a response to whatever you are imagining in my peer-reviewed paper. But all you have written is hand-waving comments without a line of proof, let alone peer-review. You are very welcome to publish a peer-reviewed rebuttal of my paper. There was an attempt by Jeff Condon to which I replied as herein. Be prepared for the same kind of response if you don’t dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
Yes, the early physicists were mistaken in making a very simplistic assumption that there are heat transfers in each direction which can be compounded. That is not the case: there is only two-way radiation.
To assume otherwise would be to overturn the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT) which is far more established physics than their conjectures. If you disagree, my response is in the paper I wrote about just this topic.
You cannot explain what happens in a microwave oven if you assume that the energy in all radiation is converted to thermal energy within atoms. That does not happen for such LW radiation, and nor does it happen in the Earth’s surface for spontaneous LW (low energy) radiation from a cooler atmosphere.
If you claim that radiation from a cooler region of the atmosphere is able to warm a layer of water in a warmer lake just below the surface, then you are attempting to overturn somewhat more than 100 years of established physics. You have no empirical evidence of such happening, and nor have you any empirical evidence that any climate change has been due to anything but natural causes.
Why do you think there are now nearly 40 members of Principia Scientific International (including 4 or 5 professors, two climatologists any many with PhD’s) who all know that AGW is false?
Why do think that there is now evidence that there are current staff in NASA (let alone many retired ones who put pen to paper) who all know that AGW is a scam?
/b>
When did I deny the existence or effect of downward longwave radiation, Dr Strangelove?
I discuss such radiation and its effect in detail in my paper.
Doug Cotton – Lasers, microwave ovens, bolometer IR cameras (converting IR to heat, measuring the change in temperature of each pixel), simple heat lamps, high school measurements of energy contributions – versus your theories.
The temperature of any object is driven by the sum of all inputs (all photons in the radiative case, regardless of wavelength, as per absorptivity), versus the S-B emissivity of that object. A “cooler” object is still warmer than absolute zero, still radiates (as per it’s emissivity) – and the photons received by an object do not carry ID cards stating the temperature of the object emitting them.
Sorry – your theories are invalidated (and yes, I’ve read your PSI paper) – if your theories are contradicted by observations, it’s time for a new theory.
The sheer hubris to claim you are correct, and that the last 150 years of spectroscopy, thermal radiation, and quantum mechanics are wrong – it’s astounding. And not in a good way.
—
Readers – evaluate the evidence, judge as you see fit as to what evidence, math, and arguments hold up.
Doug Cotton – find another hobby.
Let’s take KR’s claim that assertions in my paper are contrary to “observed absorptivity.”
All such “observed apsorptivity” measurements are usually done with visible light as the source.
Nowhere in any published paper are there valid measurements made with a source that is cooler than the target.
Why? Because the SLoT dictates (as a direct corollary) that such absorptivity must be zero.
If you say otherwise, you are overturning far more than 100 years of established physics in the SLoT. Apply for your Nobel prize if you can prove that statement correct, KR.
You can rave on all you like about what is said on blog site comments. These do not even have the status of articles approved as posts for discussion by the blog owners, let alone peer-reviewed status.
How about writing such an article criticising my paper, assuming you don’t get a peer-reviewed paper published. Just give me right of reply, contrary to what Jeff Condon did when he deleted my post #999 of which you can read a screen capture here. Obviously it embarrassed him and he knew he could not respond in a cogent fashion, could you Jeff, if you read me here? So he deleted it and made up a weak excuse for banning me for life from his site. Good luck to him.
Lasers, microwave ovens, microbolometers and other IR thermometers and cameras all perform as would be expected by my hypothesis, as is explained in the FAQ’s in the Appendix to my paper, and in various posts I have made. In general they do not violate the SLoT because electrical energy is added. As I have explained, for example, a microbolometer’s sensor is not warmed by backradiation. Instead, its rate of cooling varies according to the temperature of the source, in total accord with standard physics and what I have been saying all along.
Not all radiation warms things – which is why a microwave oven does not warm or melt ice directly via atomic absorption, but only by conduction from warmed water molecules. Emissivity is not always equal to absorptivity – there are prerequisites for this to apply which you don’t appear to understand. Spectroscopy actually proves what is claimed by Prof Claes Johnson, myself and nearly 40 colleagues mentioned above. A warm gas in front does not absorb spontaneous radiation from a cooler object.
You have a lot to learn, but whether you choose to or not is no concern of mine.
So, I suppose ‘cool tropics paradox’ has been firmly disproved, haven’t it? Unless it was caused by something different than GW.
Doug Cotton – In case my previous comment does not pass moderation (as it consists of a group of links, often clipped in this forum), I would suggest doing a simple Google Scholar search on “blackbody absorption spectra ir”: you will see on IR absorption by stars (rather warm, mind you), the absorption spectra of CO, of CO2, etc, and in fact just gobs of data that matches the SB and Kirchoff laws relationships.
Of course, if you feel that your theories (with no numerical relationships, mind you),/em> supercede the ~23,000 peer-reviewed papers there, please – submit your work for review. I will await your evaluation by folks who spend their time looking at the evidence in the field.
Until then…
Moderator – my apologies, I failed to close an italic marker in my previous post… Please fix if desired.
Most flat islands and, to some extent, coastal regions of continents, tropical or otherwise, have climates which are very much governed by the surrounding ocean temperatures. Singapore is a good example, with temperatures always having daily minimum around 25 to 26 deg.C and maximum 31 to 32 deg.C every day of the year.
There is no effect on climate caused by carbon dioxide, for reasons explained in my paper.
KR
Of course I have read things like that in the extensive studies I have done on atmospheric physics.
But I am talking about absorptivity of radiation from a cold atmosphere, and I am not talking about stars which are indeed the closest thing we are likely to find to a blackbody – which thus obeys Kirchoff’s Law and radiates according to Planck’s distribution and S-B Law. Yes, you got the prerequisites right there. But carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a totally different kettle of fish.
As I explained, the early physicists were mistaken and, yes, thousands have been misled by their mistake. It was understandable, yet far too simplistic to really explain what happens in nature. Above all, the concept that there is transfer of heat in both directions leads to a violation of the SLoT for that which is assumed to transfer from cold to hot. There are no two ways about it. Only the radiated energy travels in each direction.
Doug Cotton – “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
I’m saddened, but clearly you are not willing to listen. Adieu.
Oh no – Doug Cotton has invaded this blog too?
Here’s a very nice post from “science of doom” that anyone tempted by the silly ideas of D Cotton and Claes Johnson et al could benefit from reading:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/31/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation-part-three/
Doug
We have spoken before, and yes I have read your paper and Claes Johnson’s
I must say I am singularly unimpressed.
You make the following statements in your paper:
“But does the radiation in each direction somehow cancel out to give a “net” radiative flux in the direction of the heat transfer, or are there still two distinct radiation beams? Or could there be a separate transfer of thermal energy in each direction leading to a net effect?”
You put this forward as if these are distinct and separate circumstances. When actually they are all one and the same thing. Each component in a system radiates energy and also absorbs energy. There is no sense of two flows some how cancelling out to produce a single ‘net’ flow. Rather there are always multiple flows. The ‘net’ concept is always the difference in magnitude between alternate flows, rather than some notion of a cancellation of one flow by the other.
To use an anolgy. If I have two tanks of water and two pumps. Pump 1 is pumping 100 litres a minute from Tank A to Tank B. And Pump 2 is pumping 90 litres a minute from Tank B to Tank A. The net flow is 10 litres a minute from Tank A to Tank B. But it is still made up of two separate flows.
Then later in your paper you make this statement:
“The Second Law must apply between any two points for each and every separate transfer of thermal energy at any given time.”
Doug, this is totally, completely and utterly WRONG. Your understanding of the 2nd Law is completely WRONG. So the arguments you make that certain types of energy flows violate the SLoT are wrong. Not because the flows don’t violate the SLoT! Because your understanding of the SLoT is fundamentally wrong.
The most basic statement of the SLoT is “The Entropy of a Closed System cannot decline”
Take this statement from Wikipedia about the nature of Entropy:
“There are two related definitions of entropy: the thermodynamic definition and the statistical mechanics definition. The thermodynamic definition was developed in the early 1850s by Rudolf Clausius and essentially describes how to measure the entropy of an isolated system in thermodynamic equilibrium. Importantly, it makes no reference to the microscopic nature of matter. The statistical definition was developed by Ludwig Boltzmann in the 1870s by analyzing the statistical behavior of the microscopic components of the system. Boltzmann showed that this definition of entropy was equivalent to the thermodynamic entropy to within a constant number which has since been known as Boltzmann’s constant. In summary, the thermodynamic definition of entropy provides the experimental definition of entropy, while the statistical definition of entropy extends the concept, providing an explanation and a deeper understanding of its nature.
Thermodynamic entropy is a non-conserved state function that is of great importance in the sciences of physics and chemistry.[4][5] Historically, the concept of entropy evolved in order to explain why some processes (permitted by conservation laws) occur spontaneously while their time reversals (also permitted by conservation laws) do not; systems tend to progress in the direction of increasing entropy.[6][7] For isolated systems, entropy never decreases.[5] This fact has several important consequences in science: first, it prohibits “perpetual motion” machines; and second, it implies the arrow of entropy has the same directionality as the arrow of time. Increases in entropy correspond to irreversible changes in a system, because some energy is expended as waste heat, limiting the amount of work a system can do.[4][8][8][9][10][11]
In statistical mechanics, entropy is a measure of the number of ways in which a system may be arranged, often taken to be a measure of “disorder” (the higher the entropy, the higher the disorder).[4][9][10][12][13][14][15] This definition describes the entropy as being proportional to the natural logarithm of the number of possible microscopic configurations of the individual atoms and molecules of the system (microstates) which could give rise to the observed macroscopic state (macrostate) of the system. The constant of proportionality is the Boltzmann constant.”
Read through this in detail Doug. Pay particular attention to how the words System and Closed are used.
The SLoT is fundamentally a statement about how a system behaves when it is isolated. If these twin requirements of system nature, and isolation do not apply, the SLoT does not apply.
So in your description of “any two points for each and every separate transfer of thermal energy at any given time”.
Are these two points a closed system or part of something larger. Are they a closed system? Do these points interact with any other ‘points’, meaning they are not closed. What time scale are you applying. What time and spatial scales are appropriate to applying the statistical calculations at the heart of the SLot.
If your answers to these questions aren’t right, your understanding of the SLoT is WRONG. Your whole thesis rests on whether the understanding of the SLoT that you put forward is actually correct.
Doug. Go read up on the statiistical mechannics that lies at the heart of our understanding of the SLoT. Because although the eraly statements of the SLoT weren’t statistically derived, from Boltsmann onwards they were. And your statement of what the SLoT does not agree with that basic derivation.
You are free to put forward a case for why Boltzmann and many people since are wrong. But you have to make the case for why they are wrong, not just claim it.
Of course electromagnetic energy is contained in radiation which can travel in any direction. Did I ever imply it was not? But energy flow is not heat flow, now is it?
Why doesn’t the energy radiated by your microwave oven get absorbed at the atomic level by ice cubes from your fridge, or the plastic containers you use that hardly warm at all? These things would get warm in the Sun, and the ice would melt. The oven can boil water much faster than the Sun, but ice and plastic only absorb solar radiation, not microwave radiation. And in 60 to 90 seconds a small quantity of water in one bowl will nearly boil, while ice in another bowl won’t get warmer or melt by atomic absorption, only by conduction.
What Prof Claes Johnson and over 30 of us who are members of PSI say, and what is in my paper peer reviewed by four of them, does explain what happens. But your conjecture using statistical mechanics based on false assumptions, fails to explain reality. Garbage in = garbage out, my friend. Go back to square one.
Your “post physics” ends up with totally different “results” from classical thermodynamics.
There is nothing wrong about the Clausius statement
“No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature.”
You need to prove (which you can’t) that two separate independent processes are one process in one “heat engine.” You are talking nonsense if you think they are. And you display very little understanding of how thermodynamics really works in the real world.
Anyway, let me have your answer about the microwave oven.
“If you claim, “Well, maybe global warming caused the extra southerly flow!”, you then are also claiming (through mass continuity) that global warming ALSO caused extra northerly flow (with below normal temperatures) somewhere else.”
So where are those below normal temperatures you think your hypothetical opponent would predict elsewhere?
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2012/march/032012globalmap.png
There is a small cool region near Ukraine. There is a warm patch over the Pacific and another warm patch over Europe. I see a pretty much normal global temperature pattern WITH AN ADDITIONAL huge warm spot. So the southerly winds created a hot spot without a corresponding cold spot. How can you have more warm and less cold? That pretty much sounds like the definition of “global warming”.
In fact, the interpretation seem to be that we have an unusual weather pattern that happens to be occurring when the global temperature is above average. It would seem that BOTH the short-term weather pattern AND the long-term climate pattern contribute to the US records.
“I see a pretty much normal global temperature pattern WITH AN ADDITIONAL huge warm spot.”
I see a pretty much normal global temperature pattern. Point.
You Americans just happen to be so self-centered that if you happen to have a warm spot over your heads you think it’s the end of the world.
Compare with february.
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2012/february/FEB2012map.png
Or january, or last december, or pretty much any winter temperature map, they’re all the same. Warm spots with five degrees anomaly are NORMAL. So are cold spots.
DR. SPENCER ,nees to brush up in basics.
His last paragraph is wrong. He says the fact the Arctic has warmed relative to the lower latitudes creats a lesser exhange in air masses,less storms. It is the opposite, Dr. Spencer.
The fact the Arctic has warmed relative to the lower latitudes means a more negative AO ,is more likely which means a GREATER exhange of air masses between the poles and the tropics. More storms.Basic stuff.
A colder pole relative to lower latitudes equates to a more +AO, a more zonal flow with a LESSER exchange of air masses between the poles and the the lower latitudes. Again basic stuff. less storms.
How he or anyone can make that statement is beyond me.
Here I am tying to reason with people and they don’t even have the basics correct. Or was it just worded wrong. I hope that is the case. If not he is 100% wrong in his statement.
A review of the causes and definitions of what a +AO versus a -AO is deeply needed. Enough said.
Interesting what does ‘our’ mean? especially as later you concede that the US is only a small part of the planet (you don’t say if seas are included or just land mass).
Who are you addressing when you refer to ‘our’? Americans? Like Americans can be addressed seperately and can be convinced, with the assumption that they won’t look elsewhere for evidence??
I sort of think that your blog is more about you Roy and your position than getting really serious about the subject you campaign on.
Here in the UK we are on the second dry winter and spring, with a RECORD third on the way. If you carry on with this silly game, ordinary people are going to ignore you even more than they do now.
Maybe instead of all this fantasy academic stuff (which you admit is driven by your love of American fantasy politics), you need to get out and about and witness global warming around the world, as it happens.
warm arctic, cold lower latitudes relative to arctic equla non zonal air flow. That is what I know and what is. -AO.
I WONDER WHAT HE WAS TRYING TO SAY.
I will reseve judgement, I must be miss understanding his point. This is to basic.
Salvatore you said:
“His last paragraph is wrong. He says the fact the Arctic has warmed relative to the lower latitudes creats a lesser exhange in air masses,less storms. It is the opposite, Dr. Spencer.
The fact the Arctic has warmed relative to the lower latitudes means a more negative AO ,is more likely which means a GREATER exhange of air masses between the poles and the tropics. More storms.Basic stuff.”
Are you sure about it? I’m not a meteorologist neither a climatologist, but the very basic physics tells me that a warmer Arctic means minor delta T (assuming the lower latitude temperature constant) then it should mean lesser air exchange .
Or not?
Where I’m wrong?
Have a great day.
Massimo
Espen and others
If you check that SoD thread you’ll see I’ve been there and, when I pointed out the errors, my posts were deleted, but are preserved as screen captures on my website.
SoD is seriously mistaken in thinking there are only three processes, reflection, transmission and absorption. Of course, if you’ve read my peer-reviewed paper linked from my site, you’d know about the fourth one.
No one has ever devised a process which violates the SLoT, so I doubt that you’ll be the first. When it comes to heat flow, frequency matters, not intensity.
Broadly speaking, for spontaneous emission intensity does not determine whether or not radiated energy is converted to thermal energy. The microwave oven has intensity far greater than the Sun would produce by shining through the oven door into the same volume. Yet, because of the low frequency of the microwave radiation, there is no atomic absorption and excitation leading to conversion to thermal energy in the normal manner, such as when the Sun warms similar objects. Many objects get warmer in the lower intensity sunlight than they do in the high intensity microwave radiation.
How about you discuss any other plausible explanation for this, before we take the discussion further. Obviously what Prof Claes Johnson and I are saying provides an explanation, but I’m wondering if you have an alternative one for this observed fact?
I think it would be better if we continued any further discussion on the tallbloke thread which has had 5,000 views now. Others may find our discussion interesting and, besides, it’s getting a bit quiet there now, as I seem to be the last man standing.
D. Cotton: Claes Johnson claims there are no IR photons. That’s so silly that it puts an immediate end to any need for me to discuss his or your work.
Why do you look down on people who question the existence of the Photon? Many have questioned it’s existence including Einstein and Planck who helped introduce the concept to begin with. Your statements seem at best snarky and probably petulant. The photon concept apparently helps explain certain phenomenon, but is nevertheless theoretical. Unless, you actually claim to have witnessed an individual photon which would raise many quantum mechanics questions in and of itself. In any case, quantum mechanics is a mental construct and accepting or rejecting it’s existence is not some litmus test of scientific rigor.
As Einstein said:
All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to answer the question, ‘What are light quanta?’ Of course today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.
— Albert Einstein
Are you likewise deluded?
Massimo, yes I am 100% sure of that. Just look up Arctic Oscillation ,and you will see I am correct.
I am now clarified , as to what Dr. Spencer was trying to convey. He was saying all things being equal, the greater the BASIC temperature difference is between the poles and equator, the more storms one will have. That I agree with ,in the basic big picture.
What I was saying ,is in order to mix the air between the poles and equator to a maximum, one needs a -AO, which is the result of upper troposheric /lower stratoshperic warming near the poles relative to the lower latitudes.
Of course the greater the contrast in the temperatures between the poles and equator to begin ,with the more effective the -AO would be.
A -AO is a less zonal atmospheric wind flow, which means polar air masses can be driven further south ,and tropical air masses can be brought up further north,when this type of pattern is present.
hum – April 17, 2012 at 7:20 AM
You’re making the error that Dr. Spencer asked about – using singular events rather than statistics. I recommend you read Meehl 2009, regarding the ratio of record highs to lows:
ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/US%20temp%20range%20Meehl%202009.pdf
That ratio has been increasing for the last half-century, and is currently about 2:1 record highs. Basic statistics indicate that (assuming, as a reasonable starting point, no asymmetric changes in variance) the average temperature has to be rising to show such a change (as per all of the temperature records).
And as the average temperatures rise, what were previously 2-sigma and 3-sigma extreme high events become more and more likely.
Espen and anyone else
Claes Johnson, myself and over 30 highly qualified members of PSI know that electromagnetic radiation (whatever it is made up of – photons or otherwise) does not automatically transfer thermal energy to the Earth’s surface.
In fact, only high frequency radiation from the Sun warms the surface, not any of the low frequency radiation which comes from the atmosphere.
If you think all low frequency radiation warms things, then think again, because the low frequency radiation in a microwave oven, despite its intensity being many times that of the Sun, does not warm everything it strikes, even though those same objects would be warmed in the Sun.
If and when you can explain why this is so with any other hypothesis than that put forward by Prof Claes Johnson, then this discussion can progress. I’m all ears.
Is it just me or is the signal not-normally distributed, but instead falls into several distinct, discrete levels? I see at least five or six of them. I know that human brain is tailored to see patterns, even when there ain’t any (this even gave birth to bs like technical ‘analysis’ of financial markets), so that’s why I ask if it really is there. Because if it is, the recent spike clearly doesn’t fall into any previous trend, and therefore cannot be considered just normal deviation. Could be a sign of a new trend of hypervariable weather or something.
Doug
The microwaves in an oven are emitted at very specific frequencies. These are tuned to match key resonant vibration frequencies of water molecules. The microwave oven is not radiating a broad spectrum. As such, their impact on other materials and other molecules is very very much less.
If Claes (and you) want to pursue your mathematical investigations, fine. However, understand that in questioning wave/particle duality as Claes has done, you are questioning our entire understanding of Qantum Mechanics for starters. You are questioning the validity of the Schroedinger Wave Eqn, Heisenbergs Uncertainty principle, our complete understanding of the quantisation explanation of emission and absorption spectra, the entire Electron Orbital model of atoms, electrons and electron shells; Pauli’s exclusion principle, much of Stellar Physics. How Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Reactors work. Quantum Tunnelling, Stimulated Emmission of radiation. The standard model of Quantum Mechanics, and our understanding of how and why sub-atomic particles exist and behave the way they do. Radioactive Decay and its rates. Quantum Tunnelling as applied to explaining how pesky little things called Transistors work – you know, those things that make the Internet and all our PC’s work.
And much more that a mere lowly Mechanical Engineer can’t even imagine.
THEN
You also have to explain the vast body of experimental and observational data on all this stuff, endless Double/Multi Slit experiments in all sorts of permutations, with all sorts of wave/particle combinations. And literally 100’s of 1000’s of other observations. For example, what is the neutrino flux rate from the Sun? And why is it that.
You thus need to construct a complete new theoretical basis for much of Physics, Chemistry, Spectroscopy, Astronomy and Cosmology, Stellar Physics and so on and so on and so on.
This is the task Claes has set himself. Because Wave/Particle Duality lies at the heart of all of our understanding of the physical world.
So you guys are like someone who has found a stray strand sticking out of a knitted jumper and think you can pull that strand out, just to ‘neaten things up a bit’. What you don’t seem to understand is that if you were to be successful in pulling that offending strand out, you would actually unravel the entire jumper. Its all or nothing.
So: I read Claes’ paper and it opens with a comment that Wave/Particle Duality is ‘schizophrenic’ and therefore presumably wrong – offending his aesthetic sensibilities in some way – and then follows within a couple of sentences with a reference to Climate Change!! Which is not in the least bit relevent as a primary focus when someone is embarking on rewriting much of 2oth Century Physics. Then he proceeds to put forward a description of ‘oscillators’ in a medium rather than drilling down to the fundamental physics of why Wave/Particle duality is wrong.
Sorry Doug. It just doesn’t cut much mustard.
Honest opinion. Claes is a crank! His field is Applied Mathematics. But he seems to have a personal set against W/P duality and Climate Change – two ideas only moderately connected. And his professional background certainly does not automatically give him the knowledge needed to evaluate this reliably. He may have educated himself but his ‘paper’ certainly doesn’t suggest this.
His ‘paper’ does not even remotely suggest that he understands the ramifications of what he is suggesting. If he can find an alternative explanation for much of 20th Century Physics, Chemistry, Cosmology, Stellar Mechanics, Semi-Conductor theory etc. AND can explain ALL of the the massive body of experimental evidence supporting the current science. AND can put forward testable predictions that could be used to compare his theory with current theory.
Then others could carry out those experiments to test his theory. But until then, it simply isn’t worth consideration.
There is a name for this sort of ‘disconnected from reality’ mathematical exercise. Its called Mathturbation.
So if Claes (and you) think there is merit in what you have to say. Demonstrate that! With full mathematical rigour, following all the consequences of this theory through all its ramifications across many domains of science. Explaining everything we already know and making testable predictions.
Feel free Doug. You guys might reinvent Science. But it is up to you to make the case. And, sorry, what you guys have written so far are comic books.
Well said, Glenn.
Glenn,
Interesting post. I just wanted to make a few points of clarification. You state:
“If Claes (and you) want to pursue your mathematical investigations, fine. However, understand that in questioning wave/particle duality as Claes has done, you are questioning our entire understanding of Qantum Mechanics for starters.”
While Claes clearly denies wave/particle duality, Doug apparently does not in that he has in many posts accepted the existence of photons. Doug defends Claes’s views especially concerning absorption and emission of radiation, but apparently separates himself from Claes in other areas.
You also appear disturbed that anyone might question your understanding of Quantum Mechanics. Why? That’s precisely how science advances. You further state:
“So you guys are like someone who has found a stray strand sticking out of a knitted jumper and think you can pull that strand out, just to ‘neaten things up a bit’. What you don’t seem to understand is that if you were to be successful in pulling that offending strand out, you would actually unravel the entire jumper. Its all or nothing.”
To be precise, they could only successfully pull out the offending strand if they provided the kind of rigorous mathematical and scientific analysis you say they have not done or by demonstrating contradictions in the existing theory. So why worry? If they did succeed in undoing our current understanding of Quantum Mechanics, they could only do so by presenting a better explanation for the observed phenomenon which should be what everyone is after. Don’t you agree?
“All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to answer the question, ‘What are light quanta?’ Of course today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.”
— Albert Einstein
Apparently, Einstein and many others were not completely satisfied with the existing “model” however successful it arguably may have been. If the very definition of what a photon is eludes even those who helped introduce the concept, how reliable are the various models and explanations of phenomenon that depend on it? Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle, the Schroedinger wave equation, etc. and Quantum Mechanics in general has only served scientists for a relatively short period of time. Gravity was viewed as a force for several hundred years due to Isaac Newton’s Law. Einstein had a different idea.
Claes does have a lot of explaining to do if he seeks to successfully change anyone’s mind, but I wouldn’t worry about the jumper.
A mind is only so good as the precision of it’s concepts. Good day.
Doug Cotton – I have to fully agree with Glenn Tamblyn, April 19, 2012 at 2:13 AM.
Your claims (and those of Claes Johnson) are so strong, so far-reaching in their implications, that if true it would upset the last 150 years of science and the technology based upon it. That’s an extraordinary claim. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
You have provided none of that. The sum total support for your theories are some word-smithing and a few analogies, based (apparently) upon your dislike of the implications of the existing science. I have seen not a single numerical calculation, nor a description of the _differences_ between your theories and what all the observations so far have directed us to, nor a single validating test of those differences.
Where’s your equivalent of the Michelson-Morley experiment? The deflection of stars near the sun, the precession of Mercury? Considering that several hundred years of observations have already validated current theories, and contradict yours, I would opine that your theories are disproved from the starting gate.
What you have proposed does not even live up to the term “Mathtrubation”, as you have presented no math. I would be a bit harsher – I consider your theories counter-factual wish fulfilling nonsense.
KR,
You stated:
“Your claims (and those of Claes Johnson) are so strong, so far-reaching in their implications, that if true it would upset the last 150 years of science and the technology based upon it. That’s an extraordinary claim. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
150 years ago would be the late 1860’s. Who presented Quantum Mechanic theories less than five years after the civil war? Hmm! Your sentiments are duly noted but your math seems to need work.
On my tallbloke thread “br1” argues like many climatologists, including Roy Spencer. In response I have just written the following …
Everyone:
Br1 continues to misinterpret what I say. I most certainly do not agree that increasing the radiation from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will warm the surface. That should be totally clear from my paper and any comment I have written above on that topic. It cannot transfer thermal energy to the surface and it does not slow the overall rate of cooling because other rates increase for reasons outlined in my paper, particularly Appendix Q.3 which is further supported on the ‘Explanation’ page of my website.
The exact quantification of the minuscule amount of slowing of only the radiative component of surface cooling would require data which is not available. But neither has the IPCC quantified any warming effect using any valid physics. Their assumption that their so-called greenhouse gases are solely responsible for a 33 degree rise of surface temperatures is absolutely ludicrous and a complete travesty of physics. It is the automatic adiabatic lapse rate which is totally responsible and the effect would be just the same, even if there were only nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, because this lapse rate is a function of the force of gravity acting through pressure.
I have pointed out why the effect of carbon dioxide is related to the intensity of just a few spectral lines compared with full blast complete Planck spectrum radiation from the surface. Add to that the fact that CO2 is only one molecule in over 2,500 and it is blatantly obvious that its effect is close enough to zero, even before considering the compensating effect. It is also, in total, less than 1% of the effect of all the water vapour which has more spectral lines, so that fact alone puts it in its place.
As to quantification, there is ample quantification of the adiabatic lapse rate in the literature. One needs only to Google it. This is the key parameter which determines how much warmer the surface is than the mean temperature of the whole Earth-plus-atmosphere system. This mean temperature cannot increase unless the intensity of solar radiation reaching the atmosphere and surface also increases, so you would have to turn up the Sun. That seems to be what br1 thinks we can do. …
His arguments are typical of those of scores of climatologists I have come across in recent times who pull out their first year physics formulas and apply them without regard to the prerequisites or prevailing conditions.
In his three plate example he talks about thermostatically controlled temperatures in plates. Well, if you turn up your thermostatically controlled electric hotplate on your stove, guess what – you need more power = more energy per second in order to maintain the new equilibrium. So when he claims his three plate experiment simulates the Sun / Earth system and he suddenly turns up the temperature of one plate, then that is equivalent to turning up the Sun. Where else could the extra power come from?
Then he wants to eliminate other heat transfer mechanisms purely because of the title of my paper. Well, in fact my paper does go on and apply the theory to atmospheric physics and so it also discusses related topics that go beyond the title. (How long would you like the title to be?) For example, in the Appendix it provides computational data deduced from climate records which shows that there has been no increase in the rate of warming in all the years since 1900. In fact, the underlying trend has decreased from about 0.06 C / decade around 1900 to 1930 to only 0.05 C / decade in recent decades. This is because the world is heading for another 1,000 year maximum, similar to the Roman and Medieval Warming Periods and many before that. If the world warmed at a mean rate of 0.06 C / decade, then it would warm by 3 C degrees in 500 years between the Little Ice Age and the approaching maximum of the current warming period. Is that in any way unrealistic or unbearable? How much more quantitative evidence would it be reasonable to expect showing that carbon dioxide has no effect?
Doug,
You stated:
“For example, in the Appendix it provides computational data deduced from climate records which shows that there has been no increase in the rate of warming in all the years since 1900. In fact, the underlying trend has decreased from about 0.06 C / decade around 1900 to 1930 to only 0.05 C / decade in recent decades. This is because the world is heading for another 1,000 year maximum, similar to the Roman and Medieval Warming Periods and many before that. If the world warmed at a mean rate of 0.06 C / decade, then it would warm by 3 C degrees in 500 years between the Little Ice Age and the approaching maximum of the current warming period.”
Do you really believe that the spotty surface thermometers and balloon data available prior to satellite measurements in 1979 is comprehensive and precise enough to meaningfully measure global temperatures accurately to within a fraction of a degree centigrade? By the way, current MSU/RSS satellite data indicates a .134 C/decade temperature increase since 1979 when global satellite temperature data became available, not .06 C / decade. Do you really further believe that temperature data prior to 1979 provides you with an accurate understanding of climate change spanning hundreds and thousands of years? Samuel Clemens expresses my reaction best.
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Mark Twain
Doug,
The MSU satellite temperature data referred to in my last post/response was for the lower troposphere.
Glenn and others
At no point in my paper do I find a need to dispute or even refer to a particle nature of photons. I’m sure we each agree that radiation does has a wave nature and all I need to discuss is resonance of waves.
Of course I know how a microwave oven warms liquid water molecules. My point is all about what is doesn’t warm and how it doesn’t produce absorption (capture) at the atomic level, not even in the water molecules. (For those who don’t know, the H2O molecules are “snapped” or flipped through 180 dgerees twice in synch with each passing wave, and this causes generation of heat by physical friction between molecules. The molecules in ice are too close to rotate, so there is no effect on ice. Likewise, the black metal plate in my microwave oven does not get warmed.) The fact is that LW radiation which is not reflected or transmitted is also not absorbed. There is a fourth process discussed, explained and quantified in the first five sections of my paper.
KR and others
There is only one issue in which I believe the early scientists were in error. Their mistake is understandable, but a better explanation is now available.
They have concentrated on two-way radiation examples, such as between two metal plates. Certainly we know that electromagnetic radiation transports radiated electromagnetic energy. And we also know that this energy is quite different from kinetic energy within molecules which gives us a temperature reading.
So, the SLoT talks about any “process” between two “regions” for which there is a “measurable” temperature. This is what physics has said for about 150 years, well before Einstein and Co.
These physicists assumed that we could treat two independent processes (radiation A to B and B to A) as if they were one process with a net result. They realised that we could not physically combine the energy in the radiation itself into a net effect, so they assumed the compounding was done by first converting the radiated energy to thermal energy in each target. Sure, it’s easy to then add the thermal energy to what was already there and get a net effect showing what does in fact happen.
However, the cold to hot transfer, if it does involve conversion to thermal energy in the hot target, would be an independent process which would violate the SLoT.
So Claes and I deduce that the SLoT can only be upheld if in fact the only actual physical heat transfer is from hot to cold. This means that the energy in the cold to hot radiation cannot be converted to thermal energy, only that in the hot to cold radiation. That in the cold to hot radiation must be scattered or in some way immediately re-emitted before it can be converted to thermal energy.
If you disagree with this then I suggest you are in effect throwing away the SLoT and 150 years of physics.
John says: April 19, 2012 at 5:32 PM
I’m actually being a bit conservative – spectroscopy began in the early 19th century. Infrared radiation was discovered, and published upon, in 1800 by William Herschel.
KR,
Thanks for the historical reminder, but no one disputed the existence of IR or the electromagnetic spectrum (for which you can thank to James Clerk Maxwell for the concept). Claes Johnson disputes the existence of photons. Photons were conceived of much later. Your math still doesn’t seem to add up.
Douglas Cotton says April 19, 2012 at 6:08 PM
“However, the cold to hot transfer, if it does involve conversion to thermal energy in the hot target, would be an independent process which would violate the SLoT.”
Readers, here is where DC falls off the proverbial cliff. The 2nd law of physics states that over time, entropy in a closed physical system will increase. This is a statistical law, a generalization of the sum of processes.
First, the Earth climate is an open system, not a closed one. Energy comes in from the sun, and ends up going out towards interstellar space.
But in more basic terms: More photons in, for example, a two plate system (one hot, one cold) will go from the hot plate to the cold plate. Net energy transfer will go toward the cold plate – hot plates simply radiate more energy as per the SB equation. However, individual photons from the cold plate will indeed move (transferring energy) to the hot plate – the cold plate will indeed radiate to some degree. While more energy total is going from the hot plate to the cold plate (net transfer), individual photons from the cold plate are indeed adding to the energy of that hot plate. And by the first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy, that means the hot plate will be warmer due to a nearby (somewhat colder) plate than it would be if it was only radiating off towards the much colder of interplanetary space.
DC is blatantly committing the Fallacy of Division (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division is a reasonable reference), assuming that because something is true of the whole, in this case of the statistics of radiative exchange, it is true of each individual photon. This is not true at all.
And again – no math, no experiments presented by DC, and (to be blunt) no accounting for evidence such as bolometers, or for that matter the difference in temperature between nights with and without clouds or water vapor (as in a desert) radiating some small amount of IR back to the ground. Logical fallacies directly contradicted by the evidence – DC, you are really only deceiving yourself.
Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) was considered the founder of thermodynamic theory, and after that he also introduced the concept of entropy in 1865. That was why I referred to about 150 years of physics. He would turn in his grave if he saw how it has been stretched to embrace the combination of two or more independent processes into some “net” event.
We are all well aware that forces can be compounded by vector addition. What do you feel is the mechanism by which opposing radiation is compounded? Does it happen in mid air, for example, or is the compounding really only carried out after its energy is converted to thermal energy in each target? We know we can add and subtract thermal energy and relate it to temperature, but is there any physical entity resulting from combining the energy in opposing radiation before it is converted to thermal energy? In the real world it is not just a one dimensional problem anyway, because radiation is coming and going at all different angles. Which radiation came first? Where does it all end? Which pairs of processes do we combine?
Now, what if we have one way radiation which is not balanced by radiation in the other direction? Suppose, for example, that some particular package of radiation originates in the atmosphere (using thermal energy from warm air, for example) and it strikes the surface of a lake. I presume you believe it could penetrate, say 1mm below the surface and warm that layer of water which was already warmer than the atmosphere from where it originated. If it did so, that warm water could rise to the surface, say a whole second later, and then evaporate, so there is no corresponding radiation back to the atmosphere. So, if the radiation did warm the water, why would that not be a violation of the SLoT?
I realise others have raised other points, but let’s just see first who says what about the key issue in this last paragraph above.
KR says:
The 2nd law of physics states that over time, entropy in a closed physical system will increase. Agree – an example of a closed system is one small region in the atmosphere and one small region on the surface,
This is a statistical law, a generalization of the sum of processes. Disagree. If processes are independent there is no forcing process requiring any process to respond to what happens in any other process. So your “sum of processes” is unable to be determined.
Net energy transfer will go toward the cold plate –
radiated electromagnetic energy transport is not the same as heat transfer, which involves transfer of thermal energy – pretty basic physics, my friend.
However, individual photons from the cold plate will indeed move (transferring energy) to the hot plate. No they won’t transfer thermal energy as that would violate the SLoT. You cannot prove your statement empirically.
the hot plate will be warmer due to a nearby (somewhat colder) plate than it would be if it was only radiating off towards the much colder of interplanetary space. Totally agree, because its radiative component of cooling is slower. But the atmosphere is not a metal plate – see earlier post 5:37pm.
DC is blatantly committing the Fallacy of Division No, you are committing the Fallacy of Combination.
And again – no math, all the math I need is in the paper and linked sources
no experiments presented by DC There are linked experiments by Prof Nahle, but there are no experiments by IPCC showing any warming due to backradiation.
bolometers, explained in the Appendix – in no way disprove what I say as they measure rates of cooling
difference in temperature between nights with and without clouds or water vapor (as in a desert) radiating some small amount of IR back to the ground. totally agree – all the water vapour slows radiative cooling of the surface far more than 100 times better than all the CO2 – but this is weather not climate, and it’s been happening this way for billions of years.
John and others
Did you take a look at the plot of 30 year temperature trend gradients in the Appendix, or at the foot of the Home page of my site?
I know it is based on sea surface temperatures only, but I have always argued that climate records should be weighted according to thermal energy content, and this would mean weighting oceans : land in the ratio of about 89 : 6. So I consider, in the absence of such weighted data, that SST is the best we can use.
Using only satellite info since 1979 might seem appropriate, but, given the obvious 60 year cycle in the plot to which I referred in my paper, 1979-2011 is just too short a period. If you study that plot I think you will agree that they seem to have blended the pre-1979 data pretty well.
Accuracy is not based on the error bars in individual readings. Taking averages and 30 year trends, then a trend of those trend gradients, all improves accuracy. Looking at the data, for example, we do see the latest rate of increase as being about 0.08 C / decade in SST, but the linear trend is clearly downwards and the last 30 years have been above the long-term trend because of the 60 year cycle, peaking as it did in 1998.
On my first site you will see a plot of US land temperatures which shows a very low rate of increase – just another rough indication that the last 120 years or so have not been anything unusual with any particularly faster rates of increase than the previous century for which there are some scarce records such as for Northern Ireland which would be strongly influenced by ocean current temperatures circulating worldwide.
So I agree that all this may not be completely definitive, but neither is it appropriate for the IPCC to use data from the early 1970’s (prior to satellite) without going further back and analysing and allowing for the obvious cycles. Of course we know Michael Mann was so worried about the 1000 year cycle that he tried to flatten it out into a hockey stick using tree ring data. At best, such data can only give information about daytime temperatures for land which is not too cold to grow trees.
Doug,
You stated:
“So I agree that all this may not be completely definitive, but neither is it appropriate for the IPCC to use data from the early 1970’s (prior to satellite) without going further back and analysing and allowing for the obvious cycles. Of course we know Michael Mann was so worried about the 1000 year cycle that he tried to flatten it out into a hockey stick using tree ring data. At best, such data can only give information about daytime temperatures for land which is not too cold to grow trees.”
Do you really believe that tree rings can provide you with useful temperature data? While they may provide more useful information than the pseudo-science of phrenology, a comprehensive, numerical climate record they are not. As to the IPCC they are a politically motivated group many of who’s members seek control of the world’s hydrocarbons for the alleged purpose of combating climate change. They seek such control despite the fact they have not presented any plan (nor can they) that the IPCC itself claims will significantly address let-alone solve the alleged climate change problem. Do you believe such a political group could be objective?
It seems the tactics of the IPCC and like minded politicians was best summed up by H.L. Mencken.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken
“The 2nd law of physics states that over time, entropy in a closed physical system will increase. Agree – an example of a closed system is one small region in the atmosphere and one small region on the surface”
That’s not the definition of a “closed system” – DC’s definition is gibberish. But… nothing will change his mind. Cranks will always be cranks.
That’s not intended as a definition of a closed system – it is (as I said) just an example. A closed system in thermodynamics can exchange energy as heat or work with its surrounds.
There is nothing wrong with the original Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which refers to two bodies. Such “bodies” can be small regions of the atmosphere and the surface.
Clausius statement
“No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature.”
My paper is about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Doug,
You stated:
“The 2nd law of physics states that over time, entropy in a closed physical system will increase. Agree – an example of a closed system is one small region in the atmosphere and one small region on the surface,”
You further stated in a different post:
“That’s not intended as a definition of a closed system – it is (as I said) just an example. A closed system in thermodynamics can exchange energy as heat or work with its surrounds.”
Your post also linked to a Wikepedia page that stated:
“In thermodynamics, a closed system can exchange energy (as heat or work), but not matter, with its surroundings. In contrast, an isolated system cannot exchange any of heat, work, or matter with the surroundings, while an open system can exchange all of heat, work and matter.”
Question: Can you identify “one small region” (other than a closed container like a can or jar) in the atmosphere that is incapable of exchanging matter (i.e. gas molecules) with it’s surroundings? Not to quibble, but it does not seem that you have not thought your statement through.
Please note for clarification, my understanding of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is that in any closed system the amount of energy unavailable for useful work (commonly called entropy) must always increase. Since we are concerned largely with processes that occur in our universe, comprised of space, time and matter, their is no need to mention that the system is “physical.” We were not discussing the “Spiritual” realm.
By the way I wish you and Claes Johnson the best of fortune in your attempts to explain phenomenon consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.
Will Nitschke– Agreed.
A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.
— Nature, 8 Nov 1906, 25/2
Clausius first stated the SLoT in 1850 and it has stood the test of time. It’s the IPCC and people like yourselves who are the “cranks” as dozens of scientists, not just those at PSI, now realise.
I can’t stop anyone continuing to believe the hoax, but the climate itself supports what we are saying, and never has supported the IPCC, now has it?
Even the fact that all the water vapour (with more spectral lines) has a potential effect on the rate of radiative cooling which is more than 100 times that of carbon dioxide ought to make you think.
John says April 19, 2012 at 11:14 PM – “Photons were conceived of much later. Your math still doesn’t seem to add up.”
Herschel demonstrated IR radiation and absorption in 1800. Carnot formulated an early version of the 2nd law of thermodynamics in 1824, and Clausius published the formal 2nd law in 1850. DC’s theories violate the observations of all three, in addition to denying quantum wave-particle duality.
Various readers (as Doug Cotton will never be convinced):
Failure to absorb incoming IR as per object absorptivity, as is required by DC on the basis of source temperature, violates the First law of thermodynamics.
On the Earth’s surface, the Stephan-Boltzmann relationship and surface IR emissivity of ~0.98 means that the surface radiates ~396 W/m^2 (measured, confirmed – that much IR energy is leaving). There’s an additional 80 W/m^2 leaving via latent heat (estimated from total precipitation), and ~17 W/m^2 from thermals. Total energy leaving is ~493 W/m^2.
Incoming we have ~161 W/m^2 solar and ~333 W/m^2 downwelling IR (again, measured, confirmed) from the atmosphere and clouds, or ~494 W/m^2 incoming energy. The difference between the incoming/outgoing is considered to be the source of the warming over the last half century or so – but for the purpose of this discussion a 0.2% difference is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that by current understandings input energy ~= output energy But by Doug Cotton’s theories, none of the downward IF will be absorbed by the earth, as the downwelling IR comes from a rather cooler atmosphere, and we would have an energy imbalance of -333 W/m^2! That’s three times as much energy leaving the surface as arriving.
So ask yourselves – if the Earth’s surface was, as per conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics, losing twice the energy of the sun every second of every day – wouldn’t we be rather noticeably cold?!?
This may be considered a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum disproof of Doug Cotton’s and Claes Johnson’s hypotheses. Enough said.
Adieu
During that March “heat-wave” I read in some British newspapers that the UK was warmer than some parts of the Sahara Desert. One cannot really ask for more proof than that. – If parts of the Sahara was cooler than The British Isles then there could be no “global” warming going on
Don’t feed the TROLLS.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/the-air-vent-on-moderation/
Hope the link works!
KR
You really demonstrate that you have absolutely no understanding of the resonant scattering process. How can scattered radiation (which is exactly the same energy-wise as reflected radiation) in any way what-so-ever violate the First Law? Do you seriously think that I would suggest any such thing? And, no, neither Herschel or anyone else demonstrated absorptivity when the source is cooler than the target.
Show me a link to any such experiment using radiation from a cold atmosphere and measuring how much is absorbed by a warmer surface. It is pointless your writing another word, because you have made a statement without a hint of proof.
John
Of course I don’t believe tree rings give reliable data, but of course the bright young Michael Mann tried to imply that they did – even before he had a PhD to his name.
There is no need to go beyond the Clausius statement relating to heat transfer. We can assume that there will be no other factors affecting entropy in this example, so why complicate things with the more general Second Law of Physics? I try to write in terms that the general public understands, and don’t see a need to confuse them with entropy statements.
Regarding the small region – it only has to be large enough for temperature to be measured, which might be as little as a few picograms according to calculations using statistical mechanics. Likewise the time slot being considered can be very short, so that no significant amount of matter transfers out of the “region” and even if it did it would be replaced so there is no significant net change of mass. (The reason for talking about mass is to avoid E=mc^2 type conversions.) Also, you could just consider two small objects (stones, clay marbles etc) and it is obvious that if the SLoT works for these then it will work for equivalent volumes of gas.
If you could ever show that there is a heat transfer from cold to hot anywhere, any time, then the process you would have found could be converted into a perpetual motion machine. Surely this is obvious, because it normally requires external energy to warm something (such as an electric jug warming water) so if you could do it with spontaneous backradiation and no external energy, what’s the limit to how much you could go on warming something? All you need is a two sided thin plate radiating out the other side into some heat tank. Make it a cube if you like radiating out of 5 sides into five heat tanks with only a sixth of the radiation going back to the atmosphere.
“A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.”,
Yes, as in KRANK
Funny that the model simulations shown here mostly show net radiative imbalance between +1% and -1%. Now go back and read the absurd figures KR talked about in his last post.
Douglas Cotton,
Do you actually think that the process of the atmosphere warming the ground through back radiation or through downwelling radition is the key issue in how increased greenhouse gases cause a net increase in energy in Earth’s energy system? This is so a wrong headed perspective but is sadly typical of many who don’t grasp or refuse to grasp the more important dynamics. Greenhouse gases alter thermal gradients, reducing the rate of energy flowing out of the Earth’s energy system back to space. There is no violation of any laws of thermodynamics, and in fact complete confirmation of them. Those thermal gradients that are altered are both within the atmosphere, but also at the boundary between ocean and atmosphere. Remember, net heat flows from ocean to atmosphere (obviously excluding the shortwave that comes from the sun through the atmosphere). With increases in greenhouse gases, energy flow from ocean to atmosphere is reduced, causing a heat gain in the ocean, which is exactly what we’ve seen over the past 40 or more years.
“Our Record warm March was not from Global Warming”
Well, actually it might have been. There is still an underlying long-term natural warming trend at the rate of about half a degree per century, for at most another two centuries before global cooling sets in for the other half of the ~1,000 natural cycle. This cycle appears to be controlled by mechanisms not yet understood, but apparently related to the orbit of Jupiter and possibly its eccentricity. We don’t have to understand the mechanism – we just observe it, rather like gravity was just observed at first.
Think about the type of project $100 million would pay for at low labour rates in a developing country: maybe a dam for more clean water, maybe a hospital or the annual running costs of one. How many lives could that save? Now think of 1,000 such projects. That’s what could be bought with the $100,000,000,0000 which has been promised for such countries every year from 2020.
Those who keep propagating what is the biggest hoax in the history of mankind serve no other purpose than, at the very most, to prevent slowing of the rate of radiative cooling each night by a few seconds. It won’t stop the surface still cooling more by other means – simple physics formulas prove that evaporation and diffusion rates increase if slow radiative cooling leaves a bigger temperature gap between the surface and adjoining air layers. So, overall, it will achieve nothing – nothing but the biggest waste of money in modern human history.
Before you continue propagating the hoax for which you have fallen because of a lack of solid understanding of atmospheric physics, take a look at what I have explained, and take a look at what it is that you hope to achieve – and the deaths you are contributing towards.
I’m sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but I have compassion for the human race and a love for our Creator Who has made it very clear to me that He is on total control of Earth’s climate. And if you mock me for having such knowledge, then you also mock your Creator who has communicated with mankind for thousands of years. One day, maybe over your dead body, you will discover that’s not a good idea.
R. Gates
Greenhouse gases alter thermal gradients, reducing the rate of energy flowing out of the Earth’s energy system back to space.
No they don’t. The adiabatic lapse rate is determined only by the force of gravity and relative humidity – basic physics, my friend.
Those thermal gradients that are altered are … also at the boundary between ocean and atmosphere.
Wrong again. There is normally a step down in temperature (eg 1 to 4 C degrees) at the surface/atmosphere interface, and this prevents diffusion of energy from the atmsophere to the surface.
There is no violation of any laws of thermodynamics,
Yes there would be if ever there were a (one-way) heat transfer from a cooler region of the atmosphere to the surface, as in examples in my paper.
With increases in greenhouse gases, energy flow from ocean to atmosphere is reduced, causing a heat gain in the ocean,
You can’t prove this, but I have disproved it with standard physics which you have not understood. If there were any minuscule effect, then water vapour would have at least 100 times the effect of CO2 because of its additional wavelengths in its emission.
which is exactly what we’ve seen over the past 40 or more years.
When you understand that there is an underlying ~1,000 year cycle, and also a superimposed 60 year cycle (evidence in my paper) then you should understand that what happens in 40 years is next to meaningless.
Keep killing people, R. Gates. I guess it’s your choice.
Doug Cotton,
Your post of April 21 at 10:12 tells me all I need to know about your perceptions of the universe and basis for reasoning. If your God is so loving and in complete control of Earth’s climate, then why does he cause droughts that cause children to suffer such horrible deaths? Is this how you would run a climate if you were a loving God? Sorry, but the notion of a God in charge of Earth’s climate is much different than my perception of reality, for how could I be more compassionate than this God who is supposedly in charge?
Your post of April 21 at 10:26 has so many wrong and self-contradictory statements that it is impossible to even begin to respond. I would at least suggest you take a look at this chart and related explanation:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6903/box/nature01088_bx1.html
Consider 100 billion carbon dioxide molecules clustered together as a small region of the gas at a typical atmospheric temperature of, say, -25 deg.C.
Can that region of gas radiate more than a true blackbody?
Hardly! The main spectral emission line which peaks at about -80 deg.C up in the mesosphere would be well off to one side of its Planck distribution. No particular line would be near the peak and there would be a lot of space unoccupied in the area under the Planck curve, unlike a true blackbody where the whole area would be filled in.
Now a true blackbody at -25 deg.C could indeed have a very small influence on some of the radiative cooling rate of the surface (which is 40 degrees warmer) though much would not be affected because nearly 30% of the radiation gets through the atmospheric window straight to space.
But how much effect is the carbon dioxide going to have compared with the small effect of a true blackbody?
And then, remember that only 1 in over 2,500 molecules is carbon dioxide anyway. And how many of them are due to mankind’s emission?
If you’d never heard of AGW, would you be convinced if I argued along these lines and tried to claim that, in effect, this slowing of just 25% of the total cooling rate of the Earth’s surface is going to cause a steeper adiabatic lapse rate – even though physics says that rate is a function of the force of gravity. If I put this forward as a new theory would you believe me?
How much longer are you going to be bluffed?
I am just a low level Environmental Engineer shouting out his two cents worth: I like to use empirical evidence to set the playing field. I would think that measuring total radiation both in and out at the TOA would be sufficient to determine imbalance. Is this not right?
Can such a measurement be made? And agreed to? And if there is more coming in than going out, doesn’t it make sense that the extra energy will contribute to incrreased temperatures in the atmosphere? That would then be “global warming”.
It would then be a metter of discovering answers to the following questions: who, what, when, where, why and how.
So, why have I not heard about the TOC radiative balance more often?
Just askin’
Because God loves, He also has to punish disobedience and disbelief in Himself – as you will find out if you still disbelieve at death. When the tsunami struck down the disbelieving Muslims in Indonesian, He saved thousands of Christians who had celebrated Christmas all day in the mountains and then decided to camp out up there overnight.
For the Earth to be suitable for human life, countless factors had to be just right. This is no coincidence. Even the Moon is necessary to stabilise wobble and thus climate. The core heat being generated (probably by fission) does in fact play an important role also in stabilising temperatures, as I explain here.
Statisticians have shown that the probability of the simplest life form developing just once in the whole of known space and in the whole of known time is of the order of 1 in 10^250 – so if you back evolution, then you back that kind of improbable event.
God knew we would need fossil fuels, and He designed an atmosphere that could handle the emissions without any effect whatsoever on climate. If you, or any reader, can’t see His hand in all this, then that’s sad – for you, because you stand condemned by a God Who will not be mocked – John 3:18.
See another site of mine. I do know what I am talking about.
JEC
There are measurements at TOA which generally vary between net positive flux of up to 0.5% and net negative flux also up to about -0.5% of total incident Solar flux. There are difficulties involved, because it really should be done simultaneously at numerous points all over the globe, day and night. And of course there are no records before the space age.
On a long term basis net TOA flux probably roughly correlates with temperatures, so you may as well just consider and analyse the natural cycles in temperature – such as 1,000 years and 60 year cycles, which fully explain all that has been observed. See the plot in the Appendix of my peer-reviewed paper.
Douglas Cotton says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:15 PM
Because God loves, He also has to punish disobedience and disbelief in Himself – as you will find out if you still disbelieve at death. When the tsunami struck down the disbelieving Muslims in Indonesian, He saved thousands of Christians…
_____
So your God is one who says: “Believe in me and do as I say, or you’ll suffer a horrible death”?
What a sad and small little God you have imagined for yourself. More selfish and Less loving than many humans I know. How small and mean spirited a God to create a universe of creatures with free-will, and then smash them down if they do not do your bidding.
Fortunately, there are other, more enlightened ways of looking at the nature of things…, including God.
Doug Cotton April 22, 2012 at 5:15 PM – Much is explained by your recent posts. You are arguing religion, not science. Belief, not evidence.
Data, observations; these therefore have no place in your belief oriented worldview – and thus you have no place in a discussion of such evidence on its own terms. Belief in your conclusions regarding the science is no measure of the strength of the evidence, but rather of the strength of your preconceptions.
My peer-reviewed paper is based purely on atmospheric physics which I have studied extensively.
My conclusions are then backed up with climate trend analysis (in the Appendix) which confirms that there has been no effect due to carbon dioxide.
The physical processes discussed regarding radiative heat transfer are supported with linked computations by Claes Johnson, a professor of applied mathematics.
There are further examples of empirical evidence supporting what both he an I say that LW radiation does not always warm things – such as in a microwave oven.
Now show me what you believe to be evidence of any effect due to carbon dioxide, and then look up the Appendix of my paper where you will probably find that I have already responded to your claims.
R Gates:
I gave you the reference: John 3:18. Read also Jeremiah 21:12 or some of these.
Mr. Cotton,
I respect and will defend your right to have whatever religious beliefs you want. If they work for you and allow you to make some sense of the universe and your place in it, then good for you. But the truths which I value and hold dear are not based on belief, but like gravity itself, are for everyone, everywhere, at all times. In the universe I inhabit, if a tsunami kills hundreds of thousands of people, there is no God that is doing it out of vengence, or becasue of humans failing to believe in “him”, but rather it is a sign of a restless and dynamic planet which is part of a restless and dynamic universe.
PS – R Gates:
If you feel you have a more “enlightened” way of looking at God than His Son who said this about the fire of hell, then your hubris will be your condemnation to such.
But this is off topic, so if you or anyone wishes to read more, there are links from my site douglascotton.com and my email address.
I don’t think this is off topic at all, particularly at this site. It is very telling to hear Mr. Cotton’s theory about how God saved Christians and let the muslims die. It is just as valid as his theory of radiative transfer and backed by the same level of evidence.
But Mr. Cotton, you have fallen for an even bigger hoax than global climate change. The family tomb of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, plus the wife, brother (see Mark(6:3)), and son of Jesus was found in the 1980s. There are peer reviewed papers about it. So neither Mary nor Jesus ascended to heaven. And just like in science, once one fact is shown wrong, the whole theory comes down. Besides, Muhammad set all this straight 1400 years ago. The Koran is more accurate than the new testament, as anyone who has read both knows. If you have questions or doubts, they are probably already addressed in the Koran, so please read it before attempting to argue more about God and his plans.
Yes, god punishes. I believe that Doug Cotton was sent by god to punish people with unshakeable scientific discipline.
Since everyone seems to be into playing with impeded plotting tools at WTF.org
perhaps it would be more instructive to look at how rate of change of CO2 relates to temperature.
The close correlation between T and d/dT(CO2) shows who is driving.
The rate of out-gassing of CO2 from the ocean is a function of temperature difference from the equilibrium state. Since the reservoir is huge short term d/dt of CO2 conc will be proportional to temperature variations if it is the dominant process.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/derivative:1/mean:12/normalise
It is.
“God knew we would need fossil fuels, and He designed an atmosphere that could handle the emissions without any effect whatsoever on climate. ”
Damn, and I’ve been wasting the last years trying to find out if the data showed whether there was any warming and whether it presented any danger for God’s creation. And all the time it was that simple.
If CO2 was a danger to HIS creation HE would not have made it.
I have to admit I find that line of reasoning slightly more convincing than your “peer reviewed paper”.
Referring people to the gospel of Matthiew beats the hell out of trying to explain the science (if you’ll forgive the expression).
I’ve done the analysis of temperatures for you, using data since the year 1900. If you don’t like reading it in the Appendix of my paper, then it’s also at the foot of my Home page. It’s quite simple actually. There’s a 1,000 year natural cycle that’s currently increasing at 0.05 C / decade (as shown on the plot linked above) and there’s a superimposed 60 year cycle which had its last maximum around 1998-2000. As both were rising simultaneously in the last 30 years of last century, the IPCC used the apparent trend to ring alarm bells. Now of course the 60 year trend is declining, offset mostly by the rising trend of the 1,000 year cycle. The latter may contribute 0.3 to 1.0 degree before its maximum within the next 50 to 200 years. After that, 500 years of cooling should begin.
If P Solar wishes to call God a liar, that’s between him and Him. Christians do not believe Mary ascended as Jesus did. And, contrary to the singular “brother” quoted by Solar, Jesus had four brothers, James, Joses, Judas and Simon, some of whom no doubt had their own children. Solar seems to think a small group of “peers” with an obvious motive can somehow distinguish the bodies of brothers and their children born nearly 2,000 years earlier. Maybe such “peers” might like to look into the probability of about 300 prophecies in the Old Testament coming true in the New Testament.
Christians have a personal knowledge of the living Christ and have personal communication with Him. Those who don’t believe Him are calling Him a liar to their own peril. If that were so, then indeed He would rank as the greatest hoax the World has ever known, and AGW would be only the second greatest hoax. (There, I got back onto the topic.)
P Solar said I’ve been wasting the last years and, yes, you have been if you thought there is some connection with carbon dioxide, rather than with planetary orbits or other natural cycles beyond the control of mankind.
Instead, you should have been looking at atmospheric physics. Again, it’s quite simple. No warming of the surface and the surface layer of the atmosphere can occur unless there is additional thermal energy from somewhere. You cannot get additional energy from the Sun, and you cannot alter the adiabatic lapse rate which determines the gradient, and thus the surface temperature, because the ALR is a function of the force of gravity acting through pressure.
Radiation from the atmosphere cannot transfer additional thermal energy to the surface, it can only slow down a portion of the cooling rate, that portion being less than 30%. But radiation from carbon dioxide has only a minuscule effect anyway because of its limited spectral lines as I explained in this post above.
Physics also tells us (with exact equations for quantification) that, if the radiative rate of cooling slowed down, there would be a bigger temperature gap at the surface/atmosphere interface, and so evaporative cooling and diffusion rates would increase to compensate, so there would be no effect at all on the overall rate of cooling. This is further supported by the fact that the level of Solar flux and the force of gravity acting on the ALR are going to ensure stability of climate.
Doug,
You state in your writing (Radiated Energy and The Second Law of Thermodynamics):
“Such a hypothesis requires the assumption that the portion of radiation from the warmer body which is represented by the area under the curve for the cooler one is all “rejected” by some physical process, and is thus not converted to thermal energy. An equivalent radiative flux from the cooler body to the warmer one is also not converted to thermal energy, but it does limit the amount by which the temperature of the warmer one can fall until both are at the same temperature. Obviously, if the warmer body’s temperature were to fall below the cooler one, then the heat transfer reverses direction, because the latter would then be warmer.”
You further state:
“The radiation which is scattered may well strike another target which is cooler again, and so a similar split of its energy could occur. If instead it meets a warmer target, possibly the Earth’s surface, it will just undergo resonant scattering without leaving any energy behind.”
If as you claim energy (or radiative flux) from the cooler body to the warmer body is not converted to thermal energy, but “limits” the amount by which the temperature of the warmer body can fall and if as you further claim the energy undergoes resonant scattering without leaving any energy behind where does the energy/information come from to “limit” the amount by which the temperature of the warmer body can fall. Your statements suggest a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. If their is no violation, please explain where the energy/information comes from to “limit” the amount by which the temperature of the warmer body can fall. It apparently cannot come from energy emanating from the cooler body since as you claimed that energy underwent resonant scattering without leaving any energy behind.
Thanks for any help you can provide in clearing up this apparent contradiction in your reasoning.
Doug,
I apologize for my improper punctuation in my above post. My question should have had a question mark.
If as you claim energy (or radiative flux) from the cooler body to the warmer body is not converted to thermal energy, but “limits” the amount by which the temperature of the warmer body can fall and if as you further claim the energy undergoes resonant scattering without leaving any energy behind where does the energy/information come from to “limit” the amount by which the temperature of the warmer body can fall?
John
There is much more detail already explaining the process on the tallbloke thread about my paper. Serious discussion on this would be better there, and I could link you to previous posts among over 250 posts on the subject there.
Briefly, the incident radiation supplies electromagnetic energy (not thermal energy) which is instantly used by the target for the corresponding component of its own quota of radiation at the same frequency (as per its Planck distribution) and so the target does not have to use its own supply of thermal energy for that particular radiation. Hence the target cools more slowly by radiation.
However, carbon dioxide does not have anywhere near the effect of a blackbody because CO2 has limited frequencies. And non-radiative cooling processes will accelerate to compensate in the case of Earth’s climate system, even if the compensation is a few hours later towards the end of the night, for example.
Thanks Doug,
Your explanation is similar to one I thought you might make. The problem is that it means the quote I had taken from Radiated Energy and The Second Law of Thermodynamics is false. To repeat, you state:
“The radiation which is scattered may well strike another target which is cooler again, and so a similar split of its energy could occur. If instead it meets a warmer target, possibly the Earth’s surface, it will just undergo resonant scattering without leaving any energy behind.”
Clearly electromagnetic energy is left behind according to your explanation. Statements such as the one I quoted may lead some like KR to conclude you violate the First Law of Thermodynamics. In addition, if the incident radiation looses electromagnetic energy upon contact with the warmer target then the resulting scattered energy must be effected, but I do not recall that you provided any explanation as to what the effect might be other than directional.
Thanks for the explanation. However, I believe your views regarding the processes involved need further explanation and clarity.
John
Maybe you don’t quite understand the process. The radiation which corresponds to the area under the Planck curve for the cooler object resonates both ways and, when it strikes a warmer target it supplies EM energy for the component of its radiation which matches that of the cooler body. The scattering is “pseudo scattering” because it is really new radiation coming out.
When radiation from a warmer source strikes a cooler target, the component that corresponds to the area between the Planck curves cannot resonate and so its energy becomes additional thermal energy which warms the target. The rest of the radiation from the warmer body is the component that resonates and supplies energy for all the radiation of the cooler body. So just the energy corresponding to the area between the Plamck curves is deposited in the target as thermal energy – which agrees with standard physics calculations and empirical results. There is certainly no violation of either First or Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
Hi Doug,
My last post was not concerned with the 1st or 2nd law of thermodynamics but a much older law of logic known by the ancient Greeks. To reiterate. energy is left behind when radiation from a colder object contacts a warmer one as you have admitted but in apparent contradiction to your statement I quoted in the previous post. You appear to contradict yourself again in your last post when you stated:
“The radiation which corresponds to the area under the Planck curve for the cooler object resonates both ways and, when it strikes a warmer target it supplies EM energy for the component of its radiation which matches that of the cooler body. The scattering is “pseudo scattering” because it is really new radiation coming out.”
Really? In another post you stated:
“The resonating (resonant scattering) process does not require specific heat capacity because the energy that is re-radiated never became thermal energy. Individual atoms are just as capable of doing this radiating as are atoms in molecules of pure gases. There will be of course a statistical distribution involved.”
These two statements as they stand contradict one another. Either the warmer object emits “new” radiation after absorbing energy from the colder object or it “re-radiates” the same energy it receives. I’m seeking clarity not agreement. Please explain the process more clearly. Thanks.
P.S. – I find much of what you write informative, but I still have difficulty with your explanations and/or wording.
Doug,
In regards to my last post where I stated:
“To reiterate. energy is left behind when radiation from a colder object contacts a warmer one as you have admitted but in apparent contradiction to your statement I quoted in the previous post.”
Please note that I understand there to be no real contradiction only an apparent one.
However, the proceeding examples I provided in my last post I would like an explanation for.
Thanks.
Climatologists are ignoring physics that dates back to Clausius’ statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in 1850. Their conjectures provide no explanation whatsoever as to how one-way radiation (in an independent process) only transfers heat when the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT) says it can, namely if it is travelling from hot to cold objects. You cannot assume there will be some compensating radiation the other way and, even if there were, you cannot combine two independent processes into one. Clausius spoke of a single “process” and his statement has stood the test of time ever since. But now “post physics” is trying to overturn it by …
(a) Claiming that it is OK to excuse a violation of the SLoT by assuming a subsequent process can combine to give a net effect. (That is like parking your car for 80 minutes in a one hour spot, then assuming you won’t break the law if you then park it for only 20 minutes in another one hour spot so that your average time was 50 minutes.)
(b) Thinking only of individual photons and ignoring the fact that the radiation is made up of a range of frequencies as is well documented in the physics relating to Planck distributions. Corresponding frequencies in the source and target can and do resonate without having their EM energy converted to thermal energy.
Climatologists have absolutely no empirical proof of …
(a) Any one-way radiation (such as from the atmosphere to a sub-surface layer of a lake) actually transferring heat.
(b) Any significant effect on the rate of radiative cooling due to radiation from CO2
(c) Any proof that the cooling effect due to absorption by CO2 of incident IR solar radiation is less than any warming effect
(d) Any measure of absorptivity by any object which is warmer than the source of spontaneous emission.
(e) Any empirical proof of any global warming that is over and above what could easily have been predicted and attributed to long-term (~1,000 year) natural climate cycles.
To cap it all, climatologists admit that a photon has an associated wavelength (because they qualify it with a wavelength in microns) and yet they then try to say that there is no associated brightness temperature. Yet basic physics in the form of Wien’s Displacement Law clearly states that the absolute temperature of the source is proportional to the peak frequency in the Planck curve associated with the radiation.
I never said one single photon provides this information, or that one single molecule determines the temperature of a region. But the SLoT was never applicable to one photon or one molecule. It does however apply to quite small regions which may have total mass of only a few picograms, so it certainly applies to climate.
Climatologists seem to believe, as a commenter on another thread said, “Absorption (or reflection or transmission) depends on individual photons interacting with individual molecules.”
This is very clearly simply incorrect in the case of radiation in a microwave oven, for example. The heating of water molecules has nothing to do with individual photons. It has to do entirely with passing waves of radiation. The water molecules flip through 180 degrees as each half wave passes. That is, they make a complete rotation as they resonate with every full wave.
In similar fashion, there are “resonators” (which Prof Claes Johnson refers to) which cause resonance between incident radiation with frequencies which match the frequencies which the target itself is about to radiate. If two objects are at the same temperature, all radiation between them (each way) merely resonates like this and none of its energy is converted to thermal energy. Maybe you need to think of photons as being like drops of water which merge together into waves in the ocean. You can’t ignore the waves.
Because radiation travels one-way quite independently of any opposing radiation, every passage of (one way) radiation must obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT). We cannot assume that one lot of radiation “knows” there will be compensating heat transfer (some not even by radiation) the other way. That would be like water running up a hill because it knows it will run further down the other side. Yet that is what “post physics” tries to get us to accept when it talks about “net” flows!
The only way the SLoT can be obeyed is if the EM energy is not converted to thermal energy when the source is colder than the target. This is a perfectly logical deduction and what is observed when predominantly one way radiation occurs, such as in a microwave oven. It cannot be explained in any other way. It would be ludicrous to assume that absorptivity of water molecules was high just for a limited range of very low frequency radiation, not for radiation with frequencies either side. Reflection would have to vary in the opposite way, and there seems no reason for such. And if it were so for water, why not ice or numerous other materials? If is far more likely that nature obeys a simple rule of not converting the energy of radiation from a cooler source (or radiation with frequencies equivalent to a cooler source) because this also explains how nature observes the SLoT.
The importance of this is discussed in the final Q.7 in the FAQ’s in the Appendix of my paper. Briefly, it explains why radiation from carbon dioxide can only affect that component of surface cooling which results from radiation which does not get through to space, but is absorbed by the atmosphere. This component is less than 30% of all surface cooling for a start. But CO2’s effect is far, far less than a blackbody because it emits only a very limited range of frequencies which can resonate, compared with a blackbody or even a water vapour molecule. It is highly likely that the cooling effects of CO2 (discussed in Section 6) far outweigh the warming effect due to slowing radiative surface cooling.
Just to emphasise what Cotton is saying, I have refined my description as to why ‘back radiation’ is imaginary. I am now as certain as I can be that the origin of this Perpetual Motion Machine is Meteorology which imagines ‘downwelling IR’ is from an energy source.
It’s the lack of formal radiation physics, also lacking in much Physics’ education nowadays [Planck never finished it]. The Met guys imagine that a pyrgeometer measures an energy source. In reality it’s an artefact of the measurement.
It’s easy to prove; put two radiometers back to back with no temperature gradient and the difference signal is zero. Take one radiometer away and the shielding at the back of the detector stops the Prevost Exchange signal from the other direction nullifying the signal.
So, these poor saps imagine that there is a real energy source in the sky – the ‘Sky Dragon’. All the climate models need to be reconstructed – sorry folks but that’s science for you! The net result is that the IPCC has exaggerated AGW by at least an order of magnitude.
Yes, basically instruments can measure one of …
(1) frequency of radiation, for which the peak is proportional to absolute temperatuure – hence the temperature of a star can be determined
(2) rate of warming, such as by solar radiation
(3) rate of cooling, such as when a microbolometer is pointed to cool targets in the atmosphere.
So, we can determine the temperature of some cloud or region of the atmosphere with an instrument on the ground. So what? We could also have sent a thermometer up in a balloon. Temperature does not tell you anything about the intensity of the radiation unless you know the emissivity of the source. Single gases like CO2 must have very low emissivity because they emit in just a limited range of frequencies and so have just a few spectral lines. So radiation from CO2 must be very limited.
Furthermore, even if the radiative flux is determined, that tells us nothing about whether or not thermal energy will be transferred from the atmosphere to the surface. What does tell us is the Second Law of Thermodynamics which, as I said above, must apply for any single one-way process, not some combination of processes. You cannot assume that there will always be more radiation from the surface back to the atmosphere just because the surface is warmer. The surface is not a blackbody because it can and does lose more of its thermal energy by non-radiative processes. In any event, any subsequent cooling process does not “allow” an independent prior warming process by radiation from the atmosphere to the surface.
The reason physicists study the two metal plate experiment is to determine the effect of a cooler plate on the radiative cooling of the warmer plate. Yes, there is an effect and the calculations are correct, but the calculations do not represent any actual physical heat transfer in each direction. As I explain in my paper, what the calculations yield is represents only the one-way heat transfer from hot to cold, because there is no heat transfer from cold to hot.
In Section 6 of my paper I refer to the cooling effect of carbon dioxide due to its absorption of infra-red radiation from the Sun in the 2 micron range. It would appear from this article that much of this absorption is taking place in the stratosphere where temperatures increase in synch with solar radiation intensity.
There is little water vapour in the stratosphere, so most of the warming must be due to absorption of solar radiation, and perhaps most of this is due to carbon dioxide. With the solar perihelion being around January 3, we in the Southern Hemisphere can probably be grateful that carbon dioxide would appear to be preventing our summer months getting quite as hot as they might otherwise have done. Put away that C tax, Australia!
Roy asserts it as “fact” that the Arctic is warming fastest … I quote “The fact that warming has been greatest in the Arctic means … “
Well it’s not a fact, Roy. If you were to calculate trends in 60 year moving averages (removing the effect of the 60 year cycle) you would see that is not the case. Temperatures were quite high there in the 1930’s and 1940’s and there was a steep rise prior to that.
Northerm Ireland, not far below the Arctic, has one of the longest known temperature records since the 18th century, and the rise is very close to linear in all that time.
There are plots confirming what I am saying on my Home page.
Just as a microwave oven does not directly warm or melt ice cubes (only by conduction from warmed water) so also low frequency radiation from the colder atmosphere does not warm or melt the ice in the Arctic.
The claim that the record warm March was caused only by a southerly flow of air, not global warming, is a strawman. Global warming doesn’t so much “cause” heat waves as much as it intensifies them.
Dr. Spencer says because the record warmth in the U.S. was caused just by a southerly flow of air, cold anomalies resulting from a corresponding northerly flow of air elsewhere balanced the warm anomalies in the U.S. That was not the case. As illustrated in this global temperature map, Alaska and eastern Siberia were cooler than normal, but the magnitude of these cold anomalies was weak compared to the extreme warmth in North America. America.http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=3&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=03&year1=2012&year2=2012&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
The fingerprint of global warming in the record warm March is easily visible looking at a global map of the previous warmest March on record in the U.S. in 1910. In this case there were counterbalancing cold anomalies elsewhere in the northern hemisphere sufficient to offset the record warmth in the U.S., unlike March 2012. This shows that global warming has already made such warm events more likely.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=3&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=03&year1=1910&year2=1910&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Check the relative size of Alaska and Siberia compared to the warm areas of the US in March. Some geography is in order.
We are everlastingly grateful to you, Doug Cotton, for reinventing the science of thermodynamics. We have been living in ignorance, thinking that everything with a temperature above absolute zero radiates thermal energy, but now we see the light, but only because it comes from the sun which is hotter than we are.
R Gates says “the highest greenhouse gases in at least a million years” 14 April. The Camrian era had CO2 levels at least 20 times higher than today. Also the Ordividian era had CO2 levels at least 10 times todays level. (see C R Scotese, Professor of Geology University of Texas
http://www.geocraft.com click on articles, then click on climate and carboniferous period, then see Global temperature and CO2 over geological time diagram for full proof! Also at least 97 percent of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from natural sources such as de-gassing from the oceans. any carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lasts no more than 5 years at the most. Countless experiments using carbon 14 have proved this. Indeed any good high school physics student would know this but apparently R Gates does not.