Home/BlogI missed Thursday’s solar eclipse due to clouds, but here’s a sunset time lapse video I created from last evening which clearly shows sunspot 2192, the largest sunspot group in 18 years. This was taken 1 hour after the sunspot released an X-class solar flare:
Sunset time lapse with giant sunspot 2192 from Roy Spencer on Vimeo.
Stunning!
Nice 🙂
I want to have go too! – How many frames did you take, what did you use to join them into the video?
2198=2^4*(2^7+3^2)*1^100
Lots of power(s) there.
Interesting that you do not see the CME.
http://www.solarham.net/cmewatch2.htm
Roy:
All climate change is natural and, yes, solar activity plays a major part, and it appears to be regulated by planetary orbits.
Below is a critically important summary in this copy of a comment I have just posted in response to weak and incorrect arguments by Jeff Conlon (JeffID) of the Air Vent …
The underlying assumption is surely that your two imaginary planets (one with N2 and one with CO2) receive the same flux of solar radiation at the very top of their exospheres (before albedo reductions) or, in other words, that they are the same distance from the same Sun.
The fact that rock and most substances on a solid planet’s surface (without water) have emissivity somewhat less than 1.00 (and that of water) means that an assumed mean emissivity of 0.83 is not unreasonable. Yes clouds, water, ice and snow also reflect more, so both these points are relevant regarding surface temperature.
So, the reduction in mean emissivity and the reduced albedo and reflection by the surface on a rocky planet could fully explain a temperature equivalent to Earth’s existing surface temperature without any need for any assumed carbon dioxide warming or any need for additional thermal energy to be delivered into to surface from a colder atmosphere, supposedly helping the Sun to raise the surface temperature each morning, which (as I explained to you Jeff in 2011 and in my March 2012 paper) would be a violation of the Second Law which applies to every independent process anywhere, including one-way radiation. In any event, an atmosphere cannot deliver more thermal energy out of its base than it received at the top, as is implicit in the K-T, NASA and IPCC energy diagrams which imply radiation always transfers thermal energy wherever it strikes something, which it doesn’t always do.
Now, Jeff, you have an example of a carbon dioxide atmosphere on Venus, and that carbon dioxide ends up holding over 97% of the energy delivered by incident solar radiation that’s not reflected. So this energy is in the carbon dioxide molecules rather than the surface. In other words, the solar radiation reaching the surface of a planet with a carbon dioxide atmosphere is considerably reduced by the time it reaches the surface. (Carbon dioxide absorbs solar radiation mostly in the 2.1 micron band.) Once again I have empirical evidence on my side in that Russian probes dropped to the Venus surface made measurements from which they deduced that the mean solar flux there was between a mere 10 and 20W/m^2 and that was for only the sunlit side.
You wrote more garbage when you said: “IF the AVERAGE emission altitude increases at all (even an inch) from N2 to a CO2 atmosphere, and your gradient is non-zero, meaning anything more than zero, then the surface temperature will be warmer in the CO2 planet.” It seems you need a geometry lesson, Jeff, because, as I have explained numerous times, radiating molecules radiate between themselves and reduced the temperature gradient. Once again, empirical evidence (which I have given in previous comments) proves that the gravitationally induced temperature gradient is reduced by the temperature-levelling effect of radiation. So the temperature plot drops a little at the surface and its gradient is reduced in magnitude. Sorry, Jeff, that’s not a warming effect at the surface.
Radiating molecules reduce the magnitude of the temperature gradient (aka “lapse rate”) …
(1) by about 35% on Earth (mostly by water vapour and a very little by carbon dioxide etc) as is well known
(2) by about 20% to 25% (by my calculations) on Venus by carbon dioxide
(3) By about 5% (by my calculations) on Uranus by a sprinkling of methane
Now the fact is that we live on a planet with water vapour, and that’s the planet we are concerned about. If we find (as I did) from empirical evidence that water vapour cools by about 4 degrees for each 1% in the atmosphere rather than warms by more than 10 degrees for each 1% (as the IPCC implies) then the whole greenhouse conjecture is smashed as there is no reason to assume carbon dioxide would do the opposite of water, and even if it did, there would then be a larger negative feedback from additional water vapour if the IPCC are right about CO2 increasing WV..
Water vapour leads to lower supported surface temperatures because ….
(a) It reduces the magnitude of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient (just like carbon dioxide and methane do) and that causes the temperature profile to rotate downwards at the surface end, lowering the temperature supported by the base of the troposphere which is due to that gravitationally-induced temperature gradient.
(2) It increases the albedo through cloud formation as well as reflection from water, snow and ice surfaces
(3) It increases the mean emissivity of the Earth+atmosphere system, thus allowing the Earth to have radiative equilibrium with the Sun at a lower temperature than would a rocky Earth.
In the interests of science, even though it may bring down Jeff Conlon and his “Air Vent” (and hopefully one day the IPCC) this comment is being posted on several large climate blogs.
If anyone wishes to debate or enquire about my hypothesis (which is a whole new paradigm) there’s my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” on Amazon to read first.
Doug, since you always quote yourself, I will do the same.
“… it seems you are saying (or implying) that gravity affects the velocity of the gas particles (i.e. the ensemble’s temperature). My counter is that if I had a weightless, rigid, insulated box containing a fixed quantity of air at some pressure and temperature at infinity (no gravity) and lowered it to the surface of our planet (1 g of gravity), the change in PE was absorbed externally by the crane that lowered the box (or by the buckling of the earth and box in the crash if dropped). Like height and velocity, PE and KE have to be relative to something. In this case for the particles in the box, it is the box [i.e. the ensemble of particles in the box]. The net PE of the particles in the box did not change. If they shifted within the box, then the increase in one part was offset by a decrease in another part for no net change. Likewise, if you want to talk about particle ballistics inside the box, a particle that loses PE to KE recovers the PE again on the downward path – for no net change in PE. And no change in KE (temperature) since this process is adiabatic.
The application or change in gravity by itself does not modify temperature within the box (or anywhere else). Something else has to occur (e.g. the box gets smaller).”
If you still think there is something happening in the box that is converting particle PE to KE, make the box height on the order of the particles’ mean free path. Since it is insulating, its walls are perfectly elastic, and there is still an ensemble that has an average PE and KE (temperature). I don’t think you can pinpoint any spooky process that is converting net PE to net KE and vice versa.
Please sent the $5K to a charity in Oz and get yourself a tax break.
Your thought experiment is irrelevant. If you don’t think that a stone falling in a gravitational field can gain kinetic energy then I suggest you read up on school boy physics. The KE of a molecule is relative to the temperature at absolute zero. Physicists measure gravitational PE relative to infinity, but it doesn’t matter as we consider only the change.
When you can explain how the necessary thermal energy gets to the base of the tropospheres of Uranus, Venus and Earth (as only myself and one other researcher has correctly explained in any publication, to my knowledge) then I may start to respect your imaginings.
Doug, the idealized experiment separates the change in gravity for any increase in pressure (the box is rigid). The application of gravity alone does not change the temperature of the gas in the box. You need to change the pressure as well. And there is existing physics for that (ideal gas law, etc.). Your “gravito-thermal effect” is a misinterpretation by either Josef Loschmidt or yourself. Either way, it’s junk science.
Make it a good charity.
Oops. …the change in gravity FROM any increase in pressure…
The gravity alone does change the temperature in the box, jimc.
But the gradient in the box is also -g/Cp which is about 10C/Km in dry air in earth’s troposphere, so if the box is 1m high the temperature difference in dry air inside the box would be 10/1000C = 0.01C with the top being 0.01C cooler than the temperature at the base of the box. Josef Loschmidt was quite a brilliant physicist, by the way, and the first to estimate accurately the size of air molecules. Do you wish to pit your understanding of thermodynamic equilibrium against his, or mine for that matter? If so, start with your explanation rather than assertive statements. If I make such statements I have supported them with precise physics backed up with empirical data in my book.
I just showed you that gravity change alone does not change the temperature in the box.
jimc is a beggar for punishment:
I have shown with valid proof spanning three chapters of my book and supported by evidence that water vapour cools in a comprehensive study in the Appendix of that book, that the process described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that there is a propensity to maximise entropy and, in so doing, to reach the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. This is how the density gradient forms and the temperature gradient forms at the same time, as has also been proven in over 800 experiments this century using well insulated sealed cylinders rather like your box.
As I requested, if you wish to make assertive statements like yours above, then provide proof that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium can exist in a force field and yet have isothermal conditions and thus unbalanced energy potentials which of course would not be the state of maximum entropy. In other words, what you propose would need the Second Law not to work and would need homogeneous density as well.
And, by the way, a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube does not have isothermal conditions in a centrifugal force field – not by a long shot. Its temperature gradient is also the acceleration due to the force field divided by the weighted mean specific heat of the gases passing through it. Funny how the Second Law is valid everywhere, now isn’t it jimc?
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.“
—Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)
Sorry Doug, like I just wrote to Geoff, you’re getting too incoherent for me to even compose a response. You respond with bluster, accusations, and random changes of subject when I propose a concrete example for discussion.
Your “example” got all the “discussion” it warranted: I repeat: “But the (temperature) gradient in the box is also -g/Cp “
Now how about you discuss my empirical study that proves water vapour cools in the real world? (See Appendix of my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All.”)
Sorry to hear you don’t understand thermodynamics. That’s why people like yourself become so gullible and lap up the IPCC garbage regardless of the Second Law which causes the density gradient in the first place – oh, and the temperature gradient also. And there’s $5,000 on the table if you’re first in the world to prove the content of my book substantially incorrect.
You have no clue jimc about thermodynamic equilibrium and the resulting corollaries we can deduce with valid physics.
Gravity forms the density and temperature gradients: pressure is merely a corollary thereof being proportional to the product of density and temperature. High pressure does not maintain high temperatures in your car tyres or any troposphere. It is high density and high temperature that maintains high pressure as the “Kinetic Theory of Gases” in physics makes quite clear.
While I have it in my clipboard, this comment just written to to Jeff Conlon on his Air Vent is relevant ….
(Roy, some of this could also apply to yourself … )
You came so close Jeff when you recognised that it is gravity that forms the temperature gradient, jacking up the surface temperature, and it is not back radiation doing so. You just needed to understand the “heat creep” process in my book, such as this physics educator realised I was right about …
“Doug Cotton shows how simple thermodynamic physics implies that the gravitational field of a planet will establish a thermal gradient in its atmosphere. The thermal gradient, a basic property of a planet, can be used to determine the temperatures of its atmosphere, surface and sub-surface regions. The interesting concept of “heat creep” applied to diagrams of the thermal gradient is used to explain the effect of solar radiation on the temperature of a planet. The thermal gradient shows that the observed temperatures of the Earth are determined by natural processes and not by back radiation warming from greenhouse gases. Evidence is presented to show that greenhouse gases cool the Earth and do not warm it.”
John Turner B.Sc.;Dip.Ed.;M.Ed.(Hons);Grad.Dip.Ed.Studies (retired physics educator)
Next year Jeff I’ll set up a website responding to all the false physics still being promulgated in “luke” websites like yours, quoting posts like this and leaving valid criticism of the false points where the world can see without the deleting by Anthony Watts, Judith Curry and yourself. I respect Roy Spencer, who doesn’t delete my comments, even though he still is gullible (like yourself) to accepting the IPCC higher radiating altitude cum back radiation false physics.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that there shall be a density gradient in a force field.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics also dictates that there shall be a temperature gradient in a force field, which we see in a Ranque Hilsch vortex tube and every planet’s troposphere.
You, Jeff, just have to come to grips with why that gradient enables the “heat creep” process that does what back radiation was incorrectly assumed to do – it helps the Sun to keep us warm. You know where to read about it.
If the Earth had no greenhouse gases in its atmosphere and thus no water, no vegetation, in fact nothing but rocks which would probably have mean emissivity of about 0.80, guess what its surface temperature would be.
The surface would receive all the solar radiation, there being no reflection by clouds or oceans and no absorption of incident solar radiation in the atmosphere.
Approximating the Earth to a flat disc receiving a quarter of the solar radiation 24 hours a day (as the IPCC guys do) we get about 315W/m^2 and using our trusty on line Stefan Boltzmann calculator (easily found with Google) we get about 288.7K which is slightly hotter than the existing assumed mean temperature with all that water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and their “polluting” colleagues.
Roy and others:
This is still on topic, because solar radiation (and possibly associated cosmic ray flux) is the main process that regulates what are purely natural climate cycles on Earth. Carbon dioxide sensitivity is 0.0C to one decimal place, and the reason for that can only be understood if you understand what really supplies the required thermal energy to the base of a planet’s troposphere and into any surface there. That is not radiation from a colder troposphere.
Glenn Tamblyn wrote on JeffID’s “The Air Vent” blog “Energy transfer through atmospheric mixing Doug. Hot air rises, cool air falls, conservation of mass is an absolutely brutal task master.
If there is energy above and vertical mixing occurs this can transport energy lower. Fluid mechanics is the dominant mode of heat transport within most fluids.”
The whole concept of fluid dynamics relates to what physicists call “forced convection” that being mass energy transfer forced by an external energy source such as wind.
But to really understand the underlying thermodynamics we have to consider an ideal troposphere without any such wind and without a surface and with solar radiation only being absorbed near its top because such incident radiation is strongly attenuated by absorption in the atmosphere by radiating (and absorbing) molecules like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane etc.
The nominal troposphere of Uranus provides the best example in our Solar System of such an ideal troposphere, and its temperature is about 60K at the top and 320K at the base of that troposphere (350Km below) where there is no surface.
We must consider the difference between night and day. At night (on the dark side) there will obviously be energy loss to space, and that is radiated from the uppermost layers of the troposphere. The whole troposphere cools by non-radiative heat transfer towards the top, and the thermal gradient in the troposphere remains the same, while the temperature profile drops a little at all altitudes. On Venus this drop is about 5 degrees.
What actually happens during this cooling? Well there is indeed upward non-radiative heat transfer by molecular collision (and some diffusion) upwards. This causes some expansion purely because some net movement of molecules occurs upwards to less dense regions. The expansion itself is not what causes the cooling. It is the internal loss of translational kinetic energy as molecules rise and gain gravitational potential energy in lieu.
The troposphere is “ideal” and so what happens in one location happens all over that dark hemisphere and all net molecular movement (due to kinetic energy transfers in collisions) is upwards. So the height of the troposphere must increase slightly.
Now, by day the reverse happens. The troposphere is warmed at the top, but because the temperature gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, some thermal energy transfers downwards by non-radiative heat transfer (not forced convection) away from the new source of slightly warmed air – perhaps 61K on the sunlit side instead of 59K on the dark side, for example. The downward transfer of energy absorbed at the top is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium with its associated temperature gradient. In short, the process is the reverse of the night time process as far as non-radiative heat transfer processes are involved, and of course the height of the troposphere lowers during the day, so there is no gain or loss of mass.
Radiation cannot transfer thermal energy from cold to hot, but non-radiative processes can do so in a gravitational field, and that is a major breakthrough in 21st century physics pertaining to our understanding of energy transfers and temperatures in planetary tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores throughout the Solar System and no doubt beyond.
We will see it again. Is it more than a 2 rotation spot?
Jimc wants more discussion of his thought experiment, so now I have time to answer point by point …
“Doug, the idealized experiment separates the change in gravity for any increase in pressure (the box is rigid). The application of gravity alone does not change the temperature of the gas in the box.
Yes it does as it acts on molecules in free flight between collisions, exchanging molecular KE and molecular gravitational PE as the molecules dart about at speeds around 1,800 Km/hour.
“You need to change the pressure as well.
No I don’t. Pressure is proportional to the product of density and temperature by the IGL. Pressure is the dependent variable – the density and temperature are the independent variables. You have been sucked in by climatology false fissics.
“And there is existing physics for that (ideal gas law, etc.).
Yes I just quoted it above. The IGL is derived from Kinetic Theory, just as is the temperature gradient.
“Your “gravito-thermal effect” is a misinterpretation by either Josef Loschmidt or yourself.
No it’s not and you can’t prove your point in the face of all the empirical evidence and the unchallenged validity of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which I doubt you could even quote, let alone understand all there is regarding thermodynamic equilibrium, which is not changing the subject.
“Either way, it’s junk science.”
The IPCC’s is the junk science, not mine which stands up to empirical testing.
Doug can you just for once stick to the topic of the thread? It is about a time-lapse of the sun with a huge sunspot. Just make a comment on what you think of Dr. Spencer’s hobby of time-lapse photography.
Please?
Yep, and I’m replying to jimc October 28: 6:57pm and 7:21pm above.
This post is talking about the largest sunspot activity in 18 years, and sunspots and other solar activity are what control climate for the reasons I’ve explained in these comments. But for a more detailed explanation pertaining to the Second Law of Thermodynamics readers may follow the discussion on the thread about the Second Law – http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/ode-to-misinterpretations-of-the-second-law/#comment-154037
And, Norman, wherever I see ongoing promulgation of the totally false physics originally dreamt up by James Hansen et al, whether it be in comments like jimc’s or posts by Roy, Judith Curry, PSI authors, Jeff Condon, Robert Brown or whoever I will expose it on the climate threads where they attempt to mislead thepublic or, at best, do so through ignorance because I do recognise that most people don’t have a clue about thermodynamics, and without understanding thermodynamic equilibrium no one can understand energy flows and temperatures on Earth or any planet.
Doug you still should develop the standard of blog conduct and stick to the topic of the thread. In your opinion or your current belief state you feel this righteous duty to expose what you believe are attempts to mislead the public. In this thread Roy Spencer merely did a time elapse of the sun. That is the topic of this thread. He did not bring up a thermodynamic discussion. If he was talking about the second law and how it works you can post your material on that thread. Each of your posts should have some connection with what the author of the blog is bringing up. You derail the thread and maybe pull in some newbie.
Thanks, Dr. Spencer. Great video!