Home/BlogThe NASA CERES project has updated their EBAF-TOA Edition 2.8 radiative flux dataset through March of 2015, which now extends the global CERES record to just over 15 years (since March 2000, starting with NASA’s Terra satellite). This allows us to get an update of how the radiative budget of the Earth responds to surface temperature variations, which is what determines climate sensitivity and thus how much warming (and associated climate change) we can expect from a given amount of radiative forcing (assuming the forcing-feedback paradigm is sufficiently valid for the climate system).
For those who are familiar with my work, I have a strong (and published) opinion on estimating feedback from observed variations in global radiative flux and surface temperature. Dick Lindzen and his co-authors have published on the same issue, and agree with me:
Specifically,
Time-varying radiative forcing in the climate system (e.g. due to increasing CO2, volcanic eruptions, and natural cloud variations) corrupt the determination of radiative feedback.
This is the “cause-versus-effect” issue I have been harping on for years, and discussed extensively in my book, The Great Global Warming Blunder. It is almost trivially simple to demonstrate (e.g. published here, despite the resignation of that journal’s editor [forced by Kevin Trenberth?] for allowing such a sacrilegious thing to be published).
It is also the reason why the diagnosis of feedbacks from the CMIP5 climate models is done using one of two methods that are outside the normal running of those models: either (1) running with an instantaneous and constant large radiative forcing (4XCO2)….so that the resulting radiative changes are then almost all feedback in response to a substantial temperature change being caused by the (constant) radiative forcing; or (2) running a model with a fixed and elevated surface temperature to measure how much the radiative budget of the modeled climate system changes (less optimum because it’s not radiative forcing like global warming, and the resulting model changes are not allowed to alter the surface temperature).
If you try to do it with any climate model in its normal operating mode (which has time-varying radiative forcing), you will almost always get an underestimate of the real feedback operating in the model (and thus an over-estimate of climate sensitivity). We showed this in our Remote Sensing paper. So why would anyone expect anything different using data from the real climate system, as (for example) Andy Dessler has done for cloud feedbacks?
(It is possible *IF* you know the time history of the radiative forcing imposed upon the model, and subtract it out from the model radiative fluxes. That information was not archived for CMIP3, and I don’t know whether it is archived for the CMIP5 model runs).
But what we have in the real climate system is some unknown mixture of radiative forcing(s) and feedback — with the non-feedback radiative variations de-correlating the relationship between radiative feedback and temperature. Thus, diagnosing feedback by comparing observed radiative flux variations to observed surface temperature variations is error-prone…and usually in the direction of high climate sensitivity. (This is because “radiative forcing noise” in the data pushes the regression slope toward zero, which would erroneously indicate a borderline unstable climate system.)
What is necessary is to have non-radiative forced variations in global-average surface temperature sufficiently large that they partly overcome the noise in the data. The largest single source of this non-radiative forcing is El Nino/La Nina, which correspond to a global-average weakening/strengthening of the overturning of the ocean.
It turns out that beating down noise (both measurement and geophysical) can be accomplished somewhat with time-averaging, so 3-monthly to annual averages can be used….whatever leads to the highest correlations.
Also, a time lag of 1 to 4 months is usually necessary because most of the net radiative feedback comes from the atmospheric response to a surface temperature change, which takes time to develop. Again, the optimum time lag is that which provides the highest correlation, and seems to be the longest (up to 4 months) with El Nino and La Nina events.
Anyway, here is the result for 15 years of annual CERES net radiative flux variations and HadCRUT4 surface temperature variations, with the radiative flux lagged 4 months after temperature:
Fig. 1. Global, annual area averages of CERES-measured Net radiative flux variations against surface temperature variations from HadCRUT4, with a 4 month time lag to maximize correlation (flux after temperature).
Coincidentally, the 1.3 deg. C best estimate for the climate sensitivity from this graph is the same as we got with our 1D forcing-feedback-mixing climate model, and as I recently got with a simplified model that stores energy in the deep ocean at the observed rate (0.2 W/m2 average since the 1950s).
Again, the remaining radiative forcing in the 15 years of data causes decorrelation and (almost always) an underestimate of the feedback parameter (and overestimate of climate sensitivity). So, the real sensitivity might be well below 1.3 deg. C, as Lindzen believes. The inherent problem in diagnosing feedbacks from observational data is one which I am absolutely sure exists — and it is one which is largely ignored. Most of the “experts” who are part of the scientific consensus aren’t even aware of it, which shows how a small obscure issue can change our perception of how sensitive the climate system is.
This is also just one example of why hundreds (or even thousands) of “experts” agreeing on something as complex as climate change really doesn’t mean anything. It’s just group think in an echo chamber riding on a bandwagon.
Now, one can legitimately argue that the relationship in the above graph is still noisy, and so remains uncertain. But this is the most important piece of information we have to observationally determine how the real climate system responds radiatively to surface temperature changes, which then determines how big a problem global warming might be.
It’s clear that the climate models can be programmed to get just about any climate sensitivity one wants…currently covering a range of about a factor of 3! So, at some point we need to listen to what Mother Nature is telling us. And the above graph tells us that the climate system appears to be more stable than the experts believe.
Thank you for this information. Hope your peers in the field consider it.
Very eloquent analysis (not that I really understand it yet), and very good news. Plus, I can’t believe we will not have developed fusion power before 2 x CO2.
Fusion power is much further away than just trying to control the reaction. Even if/when that problem is solved, the problem of recovering the heat without creating massive amounts of radioactive waste will be very difficult. The reaction products (particles) have very high energy and therefore create unstable isotopes when captured. This is the real problem that currently has no answer.
Tim S
Have you heard about Bussard fusion reactor? In theory you can use it to fuse a proton to a boron nuclei with the result of two helium nuclei and zero neutrons. No radioactive particles given off, just energy.
Here is a link if you are interested.
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2014/06/10/bussards-polywell-fusion-passes-a-major-test/
“…fusion reactor…”
For what it is worth…
I recall the obituary, about ten years ago, of a VERY eminent mathematician and engineer (his name escapes me) who was a professor at Cambridge University. The obituary stated that for the last twenty years of his lfe he had been shunned by industry because he had published a paper proving that the equations used in plasma physics for designing magnetic-containment bottles were – wrong.
I also remember seeing a newspaper hoarding in 1952 which shouted
“BRITISH SCIENTISTS HARNESS THE POWER OF THE SUN!!”
referring to the “Zeta experiments”.
Promises, promises.
This group is well on their way to a small fusion reactor:
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/
and the field of cold fusion is showing lots of promise in the last two years.
I think there will be truly dense energy options to fossil fuels before 2050 that will replace them over time as their cost and dependability grow and fossil fuel gets more expensive.
Roy says:
“The largest single source of this non-radiative forcing is El Nino/La Nina,which corresponds to a global-average weakening of the overturning of the oceans”
####
Well put and succinct. Many who study climate issues (and even posting articles on the web on this subject) do not grasp this basic fact.
Correction:
“weakening/strengthening”
How will the findings of this paper effect your conclusions
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/new-paper-finds-greenhouse-gases.html
@Kevin Herle …from your link…”shortwave [solar] radiation is a strong positive feedback at low surface temperatures but weakens at higher temperatures, and longwave radiation [from greenhouse gases] is a negative feedback at low temperatures [295K or 15C], but becomes a positive feedback for temperatures greater than 295–300 K [current Earth temperature is 288K or 15C]”.
Besides, there is no need for anyone to prove GHGs cannot warm the surface. It was done a long time ago, and rather elegantly.
It’s plain that the authors are using the term ‘positive feedback’ incorrectly. Solar energy cannot represent a positive feedback and GHGs can only represent one in a system wrt to the Earth’s surface, which warmed them.
In physics, positive feedback can refer to the sign of a feedback voltage, as in a servo mechanism, or as a portion of the output signal of an amplifier fed back to the input ‘in phase’ with the input signal. It doesn’t have to be an electronic amplifier but a process for creating gain is required.
The first definition does not apply to the atmosphere so we are looking at the 2nd definition.
One version of the AGW theory suggests that infrared energy from the Earth’s surface is absorbed by GHG molecules in their covalent bonds, raising the kinetic energy in those bonds, hence the heat of the molecule. The heat of the collective GHG molecules is then theorized to be radiated back to the surface via IR, theoretically raising the surface temperature.
When the surface temperature rises, it is further theorized that it evapourates more water vapour, which is a principle greenhouse gas. With more GHGs in the atmosphere, it is theorized that more IR will be back-radiated to the surface.
That process could be related to positive feedback if the system is regarded as an amplifier, with a portion of the GHG heat transferred back to the surface in such a manner that it warms the surface to a temperature higher than it is warmed by solar radiation alone.
There is one major problem with the model. There is no amplifier. It is supposed that radiation fed back from GHGs in the atmosphere can raise surface temperature beyond what it is warmed by solar energy, but that is pure science fiction that comes from a disingenuous application of infrared theory.
Roy and many others don’t like to hear this but such a super-warming of the surface is a contradiction of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. GHGs in the atmosphere exist at a cooler temperature than the surface temperature which warmed them via IR. The 2nd Law states emphatically that heat cannot be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body, without compensation.
We can do that in a refrigerator through compensation, the compensation coming from external power that drives a compressor that compresses special refrigerants which can absorb heat in their compressed state, releasing it later in an expanded state. Since work and heat are equivalent, you can apply external work to a system and compensate for heat. No such system of compensation is available in the atmosphere.
At your link, there is a very interesting article on why the cooler atmosphere cannot warm the warmer surface. The author claims, using statistical mechanics, that the required states are not present for energy from lower intensity, lower frequency IR to add energy to higher intensity, higher frequency atoms/molecules in the surface.
That was stated differently by Bohr. He claimed that in order for external energy to raise electrons in an atomic shell to a higher energy state, the applied energy required a specific intensity and frequency.
A body with a higher kinetic energy state has the electrons in it’s orbital shells at a higher energy level than a body at a lower average kinetic energy. Since kinetic energy and heat are one and the same, it becomes obvious that the electrons in the orbital shells of a hotter body exist at a higher energy level than the electrons in the shells of a cooler body.
The IR from a cooler body does not have the required intensity and frequency to affect the electrons in the atomic energy states of a warmer body.
Clausius did not know about statistical mechanics or Bohr’s work, which came about 70 years after he wrote the 2nd Law. Although he knew about atoms, and included the internal energies related to them in some of his equations, he claimed the internal processes were not required to determine heat transfer since that could be done by observing the work done or input externally.
He determined based on external measurements that heat could not be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body without compensation and it took later quantum theory to tell us why.
People who argue against this fundamental tenet of thermodynamics are doing so using a misunderstanding of the difference between infrared energy and heat. IR is free to travel anywhere it likes, even between bodies with different temperatures in proximity. Heat transfer is not, it is restricted to one direction, from hot to cold, without compensation.
The mistake made is the presumption that IR from a cooler body can be added to the energy in a warmer body to increase it’s kinetic energy, hence it’s heat/temperature.
There are scientists today who speak about electromagnetic energy as if it’s a force that comes from nowhere. As a result, they apply associated radiation formulae blindly, reaching absurd conclusions. That absurdity is the basis of of the anthropogenic warming theory.
EM is generated by atomic structures. Light is generated by atomic structures, more specifically by the transitions of electrons in atomic orbits from a higher level to a lower level. EM can also be absorbed by atomic structures, raising electron energy in bonds and orbits to higher energy states.
When you apply radiation formulae you need to understand the physical basis of it because applying it blindly leads to nonsense.
You can’t do math blindly in complex situations without understanding its derivation. People need to understand the meaning of positive feedback and the physical basis behind it. Same with heat transfer.
Gordon Robertson:
Thanks for your discussion above.
What about the case of an IR photon, emitted by say, a water vapor molecule and incident on the surface of water; could not this photon find a water molecule at a state of energy low enough to accept the photon?
mpainter, you ask:
“What about the case of an IR photon, emitted by say, a water vapor molecule and incident on the surface of water; could not this photon find a water molecule at a state of energy low enough to accept the photon?”
An individual photon can go wherever it likes. The retraints of the Laws of Thermodynamics do not apply to it. However, a heat flux can not go wherever it likes.
The boundary between the microscopic (quantum) and the macroscopic realms is marked by the so-called Thermodynamic Limit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_limit
If you want to track down individual photons, be prepared to follow them also from cold objects to hot, emitted by the cold one, absorbed by the hot one.
If, however, you prefer to track heat fluxes, then you will soon note how these will never (!!) move spontaneously from cold to hot, because such movement is strictly prohibited by the Laws of Thermodynamics.
The thing is, a heat flux (like a radiant one) is the macroscopic (probabilistic) average of a gazillion photon trajectories spreading out through some part of space in every direction imaginable. It is impossible to physically pick one of these trajectories and follow it from source to sink. All we can do is construct mental models to conceptually describe the flight of a photon or of a group of them. The only thing we can actually ever observe, though, as in physically detect, is the macroscopic, probabilistic average of all of them, the actual transfer of energy, the RADIANT HEAT FLUX.
@Kristian…I included a link in my last reply in which Michael Mann took a shot at Judith Curry. Here’s another one in which Judith Curry, a co-author on the BEST study, claims the conclusions by principle author Muller were based on fabricated data.
http://junkscience.com/2011/10/29/muller-accused-by-colleague-of-hiding-data/
@mpainter “What about the case of an IR photon, emitted by say, a water vapor molecule and incident on the surface of water; could not this photon find a water molecule at a state of energy low enough to accept the photon?”
As far as your question is concerned, I don’t think it can be answered. Your question lies in the domain of statistical mechanics which deals in probabilities. Planck said in a book on the subject that the science cannot be visualized. There is simply no way to follow a single photon, or fraction of a wave packet, to see how it interacts with matter.
See the chapter titled FUNDAMENTAL DEFINITIONS AND LAWS. HYPOTHESIS OF QUANTA. It shows in the Adobe Reader as page 133 (147 of 289). It goes right into the basis of statistical mechanics in a way that can be understood.
If the link does not work, look for it on Google under “theory of heat radiation gutenberg” (no quotation marks). It should take you to a page where you have options for the download.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40030/40030-pdf.pdf
Planck shows how entropy was related to probability. Don’t be freaked out by entropy. It is nothing more than the sum (integral) of an infintesimal change in heat (dq) divided by the temperature (T) at which the change took place.
So you are summing the individual dq/T’s in a heat cycle. dq can refer to heat being transferred out of an object or into an object. Throughout a heat cycle, both dq and T will change.
If the cycle returns to where it began, it is reversible, and the sum of dq/T = 0. Otherwise, dq/T has to be positive. Most processes are +ve and described as chaotic. Therefore entropy has been described as a tendency toward chaos. Although Clausius intended it to be used wrt to heat processes it has been adapted into other processes as unrelated as economics.
I think Planck is implying a negative entropy related to quanta but I skimmed that part and may have taken it wrong.
Planck considers a flowing gas which has macro qualities that allow heat transfer to be calculated. However, at an atomic level, the gas molecules exhibit chaotic behavior and there is no way to define the system based on that chaos. Therefore, probability was introduced that considers the probability of describing the micro states in which individual gas molecules MIGHT exist.
For that reason, there is no way to visualize the system at an atomic level therefore your question cannot be answered. However, at a macro level the heat transfer can be explained, and measured.
I need to be clear that I am no expert in statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, nor in the theory of electromagnetic energy. I am just like you, asking questions.
What I have gathered in these subjects I have done by reading the experts and taking university classes in physics and engineering. I admit that my translations may be wanting.
With regard to photons in general, Einstein stated late in his life that no one knew whether EM existed as a wave or as individual particles (photons). He added that some thought they knew, but that they were wrong.
Based on that alone, we have no idea if photons exist. They are defined as having momentum but no mass and that’s a contradiction to anyone who has studied that momentum = mass x velocity. Physicist/ meteorologist Craig Bohren pointed out that momentum is actually a phenomenon, and as such, does not have to obey the man-made law of mv.
For all we know, there is no such entity as an IR photon. It is impossible to verify them at the atomic level and the notion of a particle of EM was defined in order to facilitate visualization, the math, and the quantum energy level in atomic structures.
If you have a molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere emitting IR from its covalent bonds, does it do it as a continuous spherical wave shell or as a multitude of photons dispersed over a sphere? Either way, the wave/photon array is only interested in dispersing through space, and if a nearby warmer/cooler body is present, the rays are bound to be intercepted by the body.
Radiation theorists have suggested that because the IR rays from a body at a cooler temperature intercept the atoms/molecules of a hotter body, that the hotter body MUST absorb them, raising the temperature of the hotter body.
There is no proof for that, in fact, wrt thermodynamics, it contradicts the 2nd law. The insinuation implies that heat must be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer body, without compensation, simply because IR from a cooler body has been intercepted by a warmer body.
Gordon, Kristian,thanks for your responses. I am mildly astonished that EM studies have made so little progress toward a more concrete understanding in this corner of science, during the last century. It all happens on a scale too small or too obscure to observe, I suppose.
@mpainter …”I am mildly astonished that EM studies have made so little progress toward a more concrete understanding in this corner of science, during the last century”.
If you go back to about 1925, when Schrodinger was putting out some pretty heady stuff in quantum theory, around that time there was a split between quantum scientist who wanted to stay in the arena of real physics, like Schrodinger, and those who were willing to dabble in more esoteric views, like Bohr, based on damn the physics let’s play with the math.
The stuff Schrodinger was putting out, like the wave equation, was contradictory enough to real physics but he did not want to lose tract of the reality upon which physics has always been based. Others were willing to abandon that reality, as well as the observer, and move into esoteric, sci-fi stuff.
Since that time, the esoteric side has held sway, producing theories like entanglement theory which suggests matter can exist in different states simultaneously, like being in one place and having an action in another. Both Schrodinger and Einstein questioned such science.
IMHO, that’s the reason studies of EM theory and other physics has been stalled. David Bohm, another quantum expert, claimed both Newtonian physics and quantum physics had reached the ends of their respective roads and that we’d need to go in a different direction (I presume he said that in reference to atomic theory). Thus far, that movement has been stalled by the current, well-entrenched, esoteric quantum theory paradigm.
If you read through that book I linked to by Planck, he explains a lot of the problems. In chapter one he refers to IR as heat rays and he makes it clear in radiation theory that an individual ray, or photon, can never be considered alone. It makes no sense because it cannot be be measured. Only mean values of radiation over a finite area can be measured.
In a later chapter, he makes it clear humans invented time, and they invented measures like metres by sub-dividing the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. Humans also defined density by basing it on the weight/unit volume of water at a certain temperature and defined atmospheric pressure at a certain altitude.
In science, people tend to confuse a pseudo-reality that originated in the human mind as a definition with real phenomena that makes up the real world. By that, I mean the planet that would be left if all humans were removed.
Concepts like space-time curvature are strictly human illusions that have no existence outside the human mind. Time dilation is a product of the human mind. So, is much of quantum theory.
We really need to take a step back in science and address the illusions inherent in the human mind. Thought experiments are products of that illusion process and some may be helpful, but some are completely misleading.
For example, one of the iconic thought experiments in relativity theory is the twin paradox. In that experiment, one of a set of twins leaves Earth on a rocket ship at the speed of light. When he returns 40 years later, his twin on Earth has aged but he has not. The implication is that traveling at the speed of light somehow affects aging.
That how screwed up the human mind can get in science. The mind invented time, applied it to an equation, then turned the equation around so that time can dilate based on the speed of light.
That thought experiment is absolute rubbish but you can’t see it until you become aware of how the human mind creates illusions. The illusion is that time exists as a real dimension and is related to aging. Time itself is an illusion created by the mind, whereas real aging takes place through biochemical processes in human cells with time having no effect on the process.
As long as we are saddled by the inadequacies of the human mind we are going to get stalled in paradigms, sometimes for decades and centuries. Right now we are stalled in a major paradigm in climate science that claims atmospheric temperatures are sensitive to CO2. The data says otherwise but entrenched paradigms tend to resist fact no matter how clear it is.
One thing you may have noticed is how emotional people can get when their paradigm is challenged. That emotion resists change and is the underlying reason we are not moving physics in directions it needs to be moved.
It’s absolutely harmless for people to work on science that makes no sense to others but I am sure Roy and John Christy can attest to how much resistance there is presented to them by people who want them to stop challenging the popular paradigm.
I’m just glad Roy and John have the guts and integrity to carry on.
Nicely put, Gordon 🙂
You say: “One thing you may have noticed is how emotional people can get when their paradigm is challenged. That emotion resists change and is the underlying reason we are not moving physics in directions it needs to be moved.”
Here’s Dr. Leon Festinger (the guy who described the profound human psychological phenomenon known as “cognitive dissonance”) explaining the warmist mindset (not directly, but what he says applies to them pretty well):
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.
We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.
But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong. What will happen?
The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.”
@Kristian “The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.” [Dr. Leon Festinger ….from Kristian]
I took a seminar in awareness circa 1985 and since then I have stopped believing anything. Belief is not necessary, it’s no different than claiming you don’t know but that you think you do anyway. If you had the proof, it would not be a belief.
Having said that, I have not abandoned the natural feeling with which we are born that something is going on that we don’t know about. I think there is something deliciously mysterious in the universe, I just have no proof it is there.
The evidence is all around us, however. EM is composed of a theoretical infinite number of frequencies of radiation but it contains no colour. The human eye is designed to receive frequencies of EM in a certain range and add colour to the frequencies in that range. It’s an absolutely amazing system that some people, probably the majority, insist happened through a fluke covalent bonding, beginning with 5 basic elements in primeval muds.
That’s the simple part. The brain then has to process an image that has been turned upside down and inverted by the lens, with added colour and grey scale shading by the retina, then give it meaning while projecting it instantly back out to where the image was seen.
Since I stopped believing anything, I am now free to consider that such a chance occurrence, that lead to the human eye being able to see EM in colour, is very highly unlikely due to chance. I have no proof to back that, just a hunch. However, I am enjoying the freedom to do that while embracing science.
Science is a structured way of studying real phenomena, it is not intended to deny the existence of anything that has not be proved.
Abandoning belief does not have to mean being an atheist. Isaac Newton was a scientist likely not prone to belief without rigorous proof yet he had a strong relationship with God. Religious historian, Elaine Pagels, has claimed many religious people today are turning away from belief and turning to asking questions. They still have faith, they are turning to asking questions about their faith rather than blindly accepting it through belief.
I think there’s a difference between outright belief and ‘believing in’ something. You can believe in something without having an outright believe that it’s true. For example, Jesus stood for helping the poor and the disenfranchized. I believe in what he stood for without believing anything that has been written about him by humans. I live with the questions.
That does not mean I disbelieve what has been written either.
As the statement states above, from Dr. Festinger, when people get caught in belief systems, they trap themselves into being right. When you believe something, there’s no way out. On the other hand, if you treat everything as a question, there is room to maneuver, and to escape, if you see the proverbial light.
Admittedly, I can get emotional about issues in science but it’s not about the facts, it’s about the arrogance of people defending a position. I read a well-written article by Roy on evolution, in which he claimed it is a faith-based science. I think he’s right. I’ve had many a good brawl in forums over that stance from people hurling ad homs and little or no fact.
The warmists have trapped themselves in their belief system. Of course, they claim the same about skeptics. However, I don’t believe what I am saying in my skepticism to be true. My thoughts on it are dynamic and they are questions.
The thing that struck me above all reading the Climategate emails was the pettiness and immaturity of top IPCC climate scientists. Two of them, Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth, are partnered as Coordinating Lead Authors at IPCC reviews. Jones bragged in one email that he and ‘Kevin’ would see to it that skeptical papers, such as a paper by John Christy et al, which was discussed in the emails, would not make it into the IPCC review.
In another email, Trenberth admitted the warming had stopped, then back-pedaled as fast as he could once the emails were revealed. Michael Mann, of Hockey Stick fame, was seen in the emails to be hounding climate journals not to publish papers from skeptics.
In another email, Jones, the Coordinating Lead Author, bragged that he had applied Mike’s Nature Trick to temperatures in the 1940s that were showing warming. Turned out the trick was invented by Mann to clip of declining temperatures in tree ring proxies, the basis of the hockey stick data, replacing the cooling data with real warming data.
Mann runs the realclimate warmist site with Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS. When The Trick was revealed in the Climategate scandal, realclimate quickly spun it as a harmless reference used by the boys. In another email, in Climategate II, Mann ranted about ‘the cause’ with reference to skeptical comments from Judith Curry. He claimed to have ‘given up on her’.
http://junkscience.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0-mann-says-curry-not-helping-the-cause/
I have considered that these people are just plain dishonest but I think they’re immersed in a strong belief system that has no place in objective science.
John Christy related a story in which he took UAH data to a modeler only to be rebuffed. The modeler claimed he did not care, he thought his model was right despite the satellite data. The late Stephen Schneider, a modeler, thinking out loud, claimed there were times when he did not know whether to believe his model.
Of course, he was the one who hinted it might be OK for a scientist to lie in order to further a paradigm. He put it as a question, asking whether it would be alright to lie, then finished with a hope that it would not be necessary. Nevertheless, he did lay it out that lying about science was a possibility, when required.
For me, it is never an option if you are serious about science.
Gordon: Noteworthy clarity and logic applied to perhaps “a stall” in the direction(s) or advancement in the various areas of physics. (forgive my memory as it’s cloudy these days) I am reminded of my perception of the lack of definition of an electron where our current definition is based on a point charge brought in from infinity… and then we measure it’s effects on the electron. Really? My whole carrier in electrical engineering is based on not defining something; however, needing an interactive force to operate on that item? There is just so much we don’t know.
@Mark Douglas…”…I am reminded of my perception of the lack of definition of an electron where our current definition is based on a point charge brought in from infinity…”
I am reminded of Richard Feynman’s comment on quantum theory, that it works, but that no one knows why. I think that comment applies to much of electrical engineering.
Before returning to study EE as a mature student I had worked as an electronics technician and become used to electrical current flowing from negative to positive. I had been forewarned that in EE they presume current flows from positive to negative, based on a mysterious positive ‘test’ charge that some believe has mass.
In semiconductor theory, we were introduced to the ‘hole’ which is actually a reference to the theoretical space left in the lattice of silicon when an electron moves on to fill another vacant hole in the valence band of a silicon atom. It was insinuated that the hole had mass, but Shockley, who coined the term, claimed a hole has no reality, that it was invented to bring clarity to electron movement in p-type silicon, where it is classified as a minority carrier.
It’s absolute madness referring to holes as the majority carriers in a slab of p-type silicon, but that is taught in EE classes with impunity.
I studied thermionic emission as a technician in the bad old days of vacuum tubes. The basis of tube theory is that electrons are burned off a tungsten filament by running a current through the filament, much like a normal incandescent light bulb. The boiled off electrons form a space charge (cloud of electrons) around the filament.
In cases where the filament is the cathode (many tubes have a separate cylinder around the filament for the cathode) and the tube is a diode, it has a plate, which is another cylinder around the heater or the cathode. A voltage of around 400 volts is applied to the plate and that draws the electrons in the space charge toward it.
Diode theory is clear that current can only flow in one direction through it (there is a tiny reverse leakage current in semiconductor diodes), from negative to positive. Using EE theory, positive charges from the plate would be attracted to the electron space charge around the filament, but what good would that do? The +ve charges are only attracted to the electrons, they do not recombine with them.
In a cathode ray tube in a colour television, electrons are accelerated from a cathode by 40,000 volts applied to a plate (anode) within the glass toward the front of the tube. The electron beam, and it is a beam of electrons, is focused using electromagnet coils on the neck of the tube, onto tiny coloured (red, green, blue) phosphor on the face of the tube. The beam has to be dynamically re-focused as it sweeps across the beam. The electrons are swept by an electromagnetic yoke that fits near the connection of the tube neck to the sloping part of the tube.
EE theory would have us believe that it is in fact positive charges leaving the tiny coloured dots on the screen face traveling to the cathode. But how do the positive charges get focused, and how do they sweep across the face of the screen?
I am afraid that much of the theory taught in EE classes is science-fiction. However, the theory does work, and it works well. As long as it works, no one seems to care about the underlying theory.
Honestly Gordon I think there is a lot of luck in marring-up the various mathematics to describe the physical events around us. I am not sure how much analog filtering you did (even theoretical); however, I have concluded this is sort of a “black art” in the sense that you dabble till stuff works. it’s really quite humorous. You play with all the parameters till you finally get the cut-off you are looking for and tolerate the ripple in the stop and pass-band. Anyway… it goes on and on… for the 27 years working in embedded systems I usually show-up to customers with complex dedicated O/Ss running and switching network packets and if something is needed to be debugged, we hook-up another embedded system controlled by a Linux workstation… and then somehow by the grace of God get it working, my comment has been “dude… it’s a wonder any of this crap even works…” oh well the world somehow works.
Gordon, you misunderstand the atmospheric greenhouse effect. It is true that the 2nd law prevents heat transfer from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface, but that is not what is happening to raise the surface temperature. There is energy transfer from the atmosphere to the surface, but it is smaller than the energy transfer from the surface up, and the radiation law actually uses the difference of the up minus down to get the net energy transfer, which drives the heat transfer. In order to radiate from the surface the required absorbed solar energy (the only source of net input energy), the surface has to increase temperature to compensate for absorbed back energy. Thus the absorbing gases act like a radiation insulation layer. The actual full process is more complicated, including evaporation of surface water, conduction and convection of the atmosphere, and the lapse rate of the atmosphere, but the simple argument of the 2nd law preventing back heat transfer is bogus. There is no back heat transfer, but there is back radiation that is absorbed.
@Leonard Weinstein…”There is energy transfer from the atmosphere to the surface, but it is smaller than the energy transfer from the surface up, and the radiation law actually uses the difference of the up minus down to get the net energy transfer, which drives the heat transfer”.
Thanks for comment, Leonard. You don’t supply proof that back-radiated energy is absorbed by the surface and that it raises surface temperature. You are quoting the net energy balance theory that has no proof in science.
The notion of net energy balance is vague, as stated by Gerlich and Tscheuschner in their paper critiquing the greenhouse effect and AGW. Both work in the field of thermodynamics and they make it clear that the so called net energy balance cannot be applied to heat transfer. In their paper they state that heat is kinetic energy.
I understand that a relationship exists between absorbed IR and heat but not all IR is absorbed, only IR with a specific intensity and frequency.
Net energy transfer, if it existed, would apply to the 1st Law, which is about conservation of energy, whereas heat applies only to the 2nd Law. The 2nd law was developed by Clausius to negate condition allowed by the 1st law that could lead to perpetual motion.
Think about it. Net energy transfer is a reference to infrared electromagnetic energy, not heat, which is thermal energy. IR can flow between bodies of different temperature in both directions but heat cannot be transferred in both direction. You can’t sum IR transfer and claim it is heat because heat can only be transferred one way without compensation.
Electromagnetic energy is not thermal energy. They have different properties. EM is comprised of a theoretical infinite number of frequencies of electromagnetic energy, which is comprised of an electric field perpendicular to a magnetic field. EM contains no heat. It has a colour temperature such as infrared and ultraviolet but that temperature is only an equivalent temperature one might see in metal heated to equivalent temperatures, not an actual temperature representing heat in the EM.
Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms in a gas, liquid, or solid. Some definitions you’ll see on the net try to dissociate heat from it’s physical reality, making it appear to be a vague reference to an energy transfer (energy in motion). However, heat has a reality as described by Clausius and Planck.
At one time, heat was thought to be a substance that flowed but now we know it is energy, and energy takes different forms and has no description. Electromagnetic energy and thermal energy are not the same kind of energy even though they are both related to atomic processes.
Clausius described heat in a solid substance as the degree of vibration of atoms in their lattices, represented by the average kinetic energy of the atoms. He claimed that when that substance was heated, it increased the mean free path of the atoms bound in their lattices, therefore heat and kinetic energy of atoms/molecules are equivalent, just as work and heat are equivalent. He claimed further that the work done by the atoms in their vibrations is equivalent to heat.
Both EM and the kinetic energy representing thermal energy are related to atomic structure. EM (as IR) is emitted when an electron in an orbital drops to a lower energy level. When it is absorbed, it raises an electron to a higher energy level. The rise in energy level is equivalent to a rise in kinetic energy, hence heat.
In molecules like GHGs that absorb infrared energy, the IR is absorbed into the covalent bonds. That raises the kinetic energy in the bond, hence the KE and the heat.
The AGW theory describes a situation in which short wavelength solar energy is absorbed by the surface, warming it. All substances emit infrared energy, even ice, and when the surface warms, it emits IR of a higher intensity and frequency than what it emits at a lower temperature. The radiated IR flux from the entire planet is emitted into the atmosphere, contacting molecules like GHGs that absorb it.
The emission of the IR flux from the surface cools the surface and as the IR spreads out from the surface it dissipates in intensity. The surface cools because the electrons in the atoms that comprise it drop to lower energy states as the IR is emitted. A lower energy state produces a lower kinetic energy hence a lower heat.
The surface would continue to cool to the absolute zero K of space were it not replenished by solar energy. The solar energy returns the electrons in surface atoms to a higher energy state. Therefore a balance is maintained between the incoming EM from the Sun and the lower intensity, lower frequency IR emitted by the surface.
The point to note is that the GHG molecules, which represent no more than 1% of atmospheric gases, absorb the dissipated higher intensity, higher frequency IR, which raises their KE and warms them. However, they are already at temperatures lower than surface temperatures and any IR they re-radiate will be at a lower intensity and frequency than the originally radiated IR flux.
In their original heat budget graph, Kiehle-Trenberth showed as much IR being back-radiated from GHGs in the atmosphere as what was radiated by the surface. That is simply not possible when you consider the humungous amount of IR flux radiated from every nook and cranny in the Earth’s surface and the pithy amount of GHG molecules in the atmosphere able to absorb the surface energy.
Recent versions of the graph have omitted back-radiation but I am afraid the net radiation balance theory was based on the erroneous earlier version.
Furthermore, the GHGs radiate isotropically and only a fraction of the energy they re-radiate will reach the surface. Any down-dwelling energy would have to be absorbed (in order to raise surface temperatures)by electrons in surface atoms already at a higher temperature with raised energy levels in their orbital shells.
According to Bohr, that IR cannot be absorbed unless it has a specific intensity and frequency, and this is where the 2nd law comes in. It states clearly that heat can only be transferred from a warmer body to a cooler body without compensation. There is no compensation, therefore down-dwelling IR from a cooler body cannot be absorbed since it lacks the requisite intensity and frequency. That satisfies the 2nd law…back-radiation has no effect.
Why should it? The electrons in the warmer surface atoms are already at a higher energy level in their orbitals. Why should lower intensity, lower frequency IR be able to raise them to an even higher energy level? If that was the case, we’d have an exponential rise in electron energy levels.
I don’t know enough about atomic theory to be precise about this but the theory I have expressed is based on decades of electronics theory and practice, which goes reasonably deeply into atomic theory. I welcome input even if it is negative.
The idea that down-dwelling IR from cooler GHGs has to be absorbed by the surface is based on a faulty understanding of atomic theory. Many people studying radiation get caught up in the theories of Kircheoff and Boltzmann, but their theories were related to theoretical blackbodies which are better modeled by stars.
IR radiated isotropically is not aimed at raising temperatures in any matter it contacts, it is simply radiating. If some of it reaches the surface, there is no law that claims it must be absorbed in such a manner as to raise the temperature of the surface.
The radiative laws to which you refer apply to theoretical blackbodies that can be roughly modeled by stars. Stars are very hot, independent heat sources and that is a far different scenario than the Earth’s surface warming dependent GHGs existing in a cooler atmosphere.
The 2nd law is not bogus in that scenario. It is simply saying you can’t transfer heat to the atmosphere and have that same heat transferred back, without amplification, so as to raise surface temperature. One of the advocates of that theory, Stephan Ramstorf, claims the back-radiated energy can be added to solar energy.
There is a time/energy difference in such a scenario not to mention that it represent perpetual motion. For one, solar energy is represented by frequencies further up the EM spectrum that are far more intense than back-radiated IR, that has a much lower intensity and frequency. They could not be added effectively in such a manner as to raise surface temperatures beyond what solar energy warms the surface.
Furthermore, The energy that heats the surface occurred timewise before the back-radiated energy that is supposedly being added to it to raise the surface temperature. The backradiated energy has to make up for the loss in surface temperature that created it before it can super-warm the surface.
When the Earth rotates in the evening, hiding the Sun below the horizon, can you feel the back-radiation? Does it warm your skin to a temperature higher than what your skin might feel inside the house after a warm day? Seems to me we go outside to cool down at night.
Any warmth you are feeling in the evening after the Sun disappears beyond the horizon, is ambient temperature coming from ALL air molecules. Plus any heat transferred from the environment warmed previously by the Sun.
Leonard,
Thanks for your comment. Yours is the standard GHE explanation.
I assume that you adhere to the principles demonstrated in the energy budget diagrams that show, say, 324 W/square meter of radiation absorbed by the earths’s surface. This has been thoroughly debated and explored at this blog recently.
I challenge such a view on the basis that there is no evaporation attributable to such energy; that all evaporation is fully accounted for by insolation; yet, by the fundamentals of radiative physics, such an energy flux incident on the ocean’s surface (324 W/square meter) should more than double the evaporation totals that we measure (via precipitation totals).
Thus the whole of AGW falls like a house of cards because the fundamentals of physics are not fulfilled and the energy diagrams are shown to be egregious.
mpainter, you say:
“(…) by the fundamentals of radiative physics, such an energy flux incident on the ocean’s surface (324 W/square meter) should more than double the evaporation totals that we measure (via precipitation totals).”
Only if it raises its temperature. And only according to the extent with which the tempeture rises. You seem to be forgetting that concurrently with the 324 W/m^2 atmospheric ‘flux’ welling down, there’s a 390 W/m^2 surface ‘flux’ welling up. In other words, there is no gain of ‘radiant energy’ at the surface at all. There is LOSS. The surface COOLS radiatively to the atmosphere above. The 324 W/m^2 ‘flux’ is merely ONE (the smaller) part of a conceptual two-way heat transfer between the surface and the atmosphere, and only the NET of the two would have the power to create any thermodynamic effects, be it heating and/or induced evaporation (all else being equal, you need heating before an increase in evaporation can come about).
Well, the net of the two is ALWAYS (globally) up, so there can be no evaporation caused by the radiative exchange between global surface and the global atmosphere above. The only radiation that can provoke evaporation is that coming in from the Sun …
Kristian,
In my view it is absurd to posit a flux of say,324 W/ sq m of LWIR incident on the surface of the ocean without a consequent increase in kinetic energy of the water molecules at the interface (or within a few microns of the interface), which increase must inevitably mean an increase in evaporation. More later.
mpainter,
The only “absurd” thing about it is treating this mathematically constructed, purely conceptual, potential 324 W/m^2 ‘radiant flux’ down from the atmosphere as a distinct, independent, separate, thermodynamically (macroscopically) operating energy transfer to the surface, an extra, additional input next to the solar one. As if it were a second regular heat flux.
That’s what’s absurd.
The only thing we can ever physically detect (observe) in a heat transfer is … the HEAT. All else is conjecture and mental models. The heat is the only real transfer of energy in a thermal process. And it always moves spontaneously ONE way only: from hot to cold. And that’s it. The hot system gets cooler, the cold system gets warmer.
Kristian,
Well then we essentially agree.
I would point out that latent heat loss from the ocean averages some 70 W/sq m. Using an avg. of 390 W/sq m as the total energy flux from the ocean surface leaves 320W/sq m that is necessarily emitted as LWIR. This is impossible. The energy budget diagrams are absurd.
@mpainter…”In my view it is absurd to posit a flux of say,324 W/ sq m of LWIR incident on the surface of the ocean without a consequent increase in kinetic energy of the water molecules at the interface”
There is no reason why any old IR incident on the ocean should raise the KE of water molecules. In an extreme case, does IR from an iceberg floating in a 40 C ocean raise the temperature of the ocean in the vicinity?
If not, why? To answer that, you need to go down to the atomic level and see what is going on. The IR radiated from ice has neither the intensity nor the frequency to raise the KE in electrons orbiting the atoms making up the hydrogen and oxygen in the water molecule at 40C. Nor does it have the ability to raise the KE in the molecular bonds between hydrogen and oxygen.
Bohr stated that in order to raise the energy level of electrons in the bonds, which manifests as a rise in KE, hence heat, the incident EM must have a specific frequency and intensity.
I am guessing that any IR not meeting that criteria has no effect on the water.
We have been mislead by radiation theorists apply Boltzmann and Kircheoff equations inappropriately. We know that water absorbs microwave energy since it boils in a microwave. However, the intensity of the microwaves is close to 1500 watts.
Leonard,
Try and read through what exactly it is you’re writing.
You say: “In order to radiate from the surface the required absorbed solar energy (the only source of net input energy), the surface has to increase temperature to compensate for absorbed back energy.” And: “There is no back heat transfer, but there is back radiation that is absorbed.”
So exactly how is the temperature of the surface raised in this (“back radiation”) mental model of yours? Specifically what energy absorbed raises the surface temperature?
It is not the energy in from the Sun, because that is of course free to radiate back out again; nothing’s stopping it (all temp and emissivity). No, rather, it’s the “back-fed” energy from the cooler atmosphere, the surface’s heat sink, that directly effectuates the temperature rise of its own heat source, by increasing its internal energy in absolute (not in relative) terms.
This is how it looks:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
(Derived from Stephens et al. 2012.)
You don’t call the “back radiation flux” heat. Of course you don’t. But you do treat it as if it were heat, an extra heat input to the surface, next to and equivalent to the solar flux. Because you expect it to give the exact same direct result as the solar flux does. And the solar flux is most certainly a heat input to the surface.
If you transfer energy from one system to another and this energy directly and all by itself increases the internal energy and thereby raises the temperature of the receiving system upon absorption, then you have transferred HEAT (if not ‘work’). A temperature rise is a positive thermodynamic effect, Leonard. In your scenario it is the “back radiation” and nothing else that raises the temperature of the surface beyond a pure solar radiative equilibrium. There’s no way around it. You have transferred HEAT from the cool atmosphere to the warm surface.
Yes, you have also transferred heat from the surface to the atmosphere, and more so than the other way around. But that only means you have a two-way heat transfer in one, with only the NET HEAT moving up from the surface. Which is just silly. You have warming at both ends of your heat transfer. Which violates the laws of thermodynamics.
This problem, however, lies only in your “back radiation” EXPLANATION, not in the warming EFFECT described. There ARE two heat transfers going on at the same time, after all, and this circumstance is what creates the extra warming. BUT (!!!), it is significantly the energy in from the SUN that accumulates at the surface (by not being able to escape it as easily as before), increasing its internal energy and thereby raising its temperature. You cannot have the ‘cold’ sink energy return and warm the “working body” some more. It will always be the ‘hot’ source energy feeding it, warming it.
See this response.
Yes Gordon ….
The AGW crowd “carry around equations and formulas in their heads, but completely forget, or never did understand, the assumptions and prerequisites for computations based on such to be applicable.”
Watch https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-TXYe4rJp0xmbBh51AD8jptu34LAJc-b
Hadn’t seen that paper…looks interesting.
Roy….Not sure if you’ve seen this, but an amazing lecture from March 7th 2015 of Murry Salby quantifying and differentiating between Natural emissions of CO2 vs Anthropogenic emissions of CO2, thereby demonstrating the insignificant human component:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCya4LilBZ8
Dr. Spencer,
You wrote: “The inherent problem in diagnosing feedbacks from observational data is one which I am absolutely sure exists”.
I have to agree with that. But I think there are several problems. One, that you refer to, is to effect of noise. Another is the issue of averaging; won’t that often mess up a regression analysis? A third is the variability of time constants in the system, so that a single time lag is likely not appropriate.
So why should I trust your estimate of 1.3 K for sensitivity. Is there some reason that we should expect the errors to be in the same direction, so that your estimate would be an upper bound?
My list of the top 5 empirical findings that go to refute model results is:
1. The Pause (first and foremost)
2. The outgoing radiation business (Spencer and Lindzen) shows feedbacks add to near zero
3. Inability to account for early 20th century warming (1910-1940)
4. Correlations of temperature with patterns of internal variability (PDO, AMO, etc) and solar variability
5. Weak warming over the 20th century that requires large aerosols to “save” high climate sensitivity values.
I would add the behavior of those involved, so it starts with
Climategate.
And that they attempting to predict decades into the future [indicates insanity].
Denial of the Little Ice Age.
Accompanying this failure to understand what causes cooling, particularly since cooling is a greater public concern that warming.
Behavior is important as idiots can’t do science. A million monkeys can’t write Shakespeare.
And the evident of utter lack of scientific progress.
“the utter lack of scientific progress.”
####
You write the truth.
When scientists devote themselves to shoveling manure in the attempt to shore up egregious science, the field gets set back.
It is also a modern day witch hunt, with daemon CO2 cast in the role of witch. These manure shovelers imagine themselves to be saving the world.
We need scientists to have scientific progress. Too many students are being directed away from science and engineering in our universities and shoveled into english, history and law majors as if that will produce enough income to pay for expensive educations. The result is a shortage of scientists and engineers and an immigration system that prevents the U.S. from importing enough of them from overseas to even begin filling vacant positions.
Scientific progress will only occur when we start turning out tens of thousands of young, bright, inquiring minds every year into all fields of science and technology. Only new minds will produce new thoughts. In other words, the Dr. Spencers across many fields aren’t able to reproduce themselves fast enough to really push scientific frontiers.
What we have now is an aging population of scientists concerned about insuring a nice retirement for themselves and basking in the light of old discoveries. Only the young will pick up the torch and run with it for the sheer joy of discovery. And yes, there are exceptions. I have purposely applied a rather broad brush to make a point,
I would add…the blind faith placed in policies to regulate and control CO2 (eg. California cap & trade scheme) in order to regulate, control, reverse climate change. There is zero scientific evidence that these political schemes have any measureable impact on severe weather, SLR, and global temperature. These schemes do nothing. Nothing. Blind Faith.
Hi Dr.Roy Spencer,
The climate system should prove on average far more stable than the minds of climate “experts.” If it bleeds it leads and few will sacrifice desired hydrocarbons unless phantasmic visions of pending doom fill the brains of the paranoid masses. Cash from climate chaos remains the method of choice by the IPCC and wannabe global dictators.
Have a great day!
What about the PDO? I know you are limited by the data available, but given the frequency of the PDO (by definition a decadal cycle) and its importance in global temperature and perhaps other variables in the radiative budget, do you think there could be dificulty defining this relationship from only 15 yrs of data during mostly negative pdo conditions? For example, it appears from hadcrut4 and pdo data that from 1945ish to 1980ish the negative PDO slowed warming making a super hiatus in the had crut 4 global temp data. Then during the positive phase from about 1980 to about 1998 the temp increased abruptly (climaxing in a huge el nino). 2000 to 2015 was dominantly a negative PDO phase. It seems the relationship is defined from the surface temperature (and probably cloud cover too) for only a portion of a dominant cycle in global climate. It will be exciting once there is a complete cycle with positive PDO representation. Another way to ask this is does the data define sensitivity during a temp hiatus and a warming phase could be different?
Either way like always learning and thinking from the post.
Radiation doesn’t “force” surface temperatures, Roy.
If it did then rain forests would be more than 50 degrees hotter than regions with only a quarter as much water vapor above them.
The Sun’s direct radiation does not account for the surface temperature being what it is. Back radiation cannot increase the temperature that the Solar radiation can achieve.
I told you two years ago that radiation into a planet’s surface is not the primary determinant of the temperature of that surface. You laughed, but one day you will be very red-faced.
The surface temperature is maintained by the process of entropy maximization which the Second Law of Thermodynamics tell us will happen. It’s all here.
Why the hell do you keep “promoting” the IPCC radiative forcing garbage?
Are you suggesting Roy will get a red face from too much solar radiation?
That would be the result of carelessly not applying sun lotion.
COTTON TROLL
The doctor keeps promoting radiative forcing because it is physical fact.
By the way, I demonstrated months ago that your “heat creep” was dependent on a rotation of the gravitational frame which would result in a reduction of the potential energy of the atmosphere, negating the entire model. Where’s my AUD 5000?
I’ll leave you with a puzzle: If, as you contend, a photon from lower temperature matter cannot be absorbed by higher temperature matter, how can an IR laser burn through centimeters of metal? In your universe, the absorption would cease as soon as the metal atoms reached the temperature of the laser and the incident area would simply maintain that temperature, continuously distributing energy by conduction until the entire piece reached that temperature. At which point, what…the photons start reflecting or simply magically disappear?
Doug might say:
The photons convene a meeting and decide what to do. The consensus is that they should flee to the nearest human face in order to make it red. Even better if it is Roy’s face.
No Slipstick – “heat creep” is dependent upon entropy maximization – nothing else – just as the Second Law says.
Besides, the existence of heat creep has been demonstrated in experiments with centrifugal force, so you need to catch up on your reading.
If radiative forcing were a reality, then some regions in the tropics could reach temperatures over 90°C if you add the back radiation to the solar radiation in S-B calculations – it’s not hard to understand, Slipstick.
COTTON TROLL
Your question about lasers was answered in the Appendix of my 2012 paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” and of course laser radiation is not spontaneous black body radiation anyway.
Doug,
Do you mean the photons somehow know from whence they originated?
Two photons meet:
“I come from a laser” says one.
“I was spontaneously conceived by a black body” says the other.
The first one says: “Let’s go into that bar for a drink?”
The second one says: “Sorry, I cannot go in. The temperature there is too high and my parent is far too cool.”
Dr No,
A much superior response than mine; I wish I’d seen it before I posted. Thank you for the chuckle.
What I mean, Dr No, is very clear in the paper about radiated energy linked at the foot of the “Evidence” page here. And if I were wrong you’d probably die on a clear day in the tropics.
Stop wasting my time with your juvenile comments, especially when you haven’t a clue about radiative heat transfer – a subject that has been my specialty, together with thermodynamics, for years.
I mean the same as Prof Johnson meant. I suggest you publish your own refutation of his computations here because he is only a professor of Applied Mathematics and I’m sure you know better than him, Dr Know-all. /sarc
Your contention that the photon from a laser is somehow fundamentally different from that emitted by a black body is, to use the vernacular, ridiculous crap. A photon carries no information other than its energy (frequency/wavelength) and vector.
Then publish your own paper refuting mine on Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the work of Prof Johnson, professor of Applied Mathematics. You are also apparently disbelieving of the work of Nobel Prize winner Max Planck. Well, good luck with your disbelieving if it keeps you feeling good about doing something to save the planet. Just like my dipstick, Slipstick, makes me feel good knowing the car has enough oil in it. The difference is though that my belief is based on fact. The fact is that water vapor cools. You, it seems, like to believe in the fantasy that so-called “greenhouse gases” like water vapor put out such magical radiation that you can ignore everything to do with maximizing entropy and live in a world where entropy decreases because the IPCC & Co said as much.
I hate to remind you Doug – but you have never, nor will ever, publish anything in a peer-reviewed journal.
I know you see yourself as a misunderstood legend but, truthfully, none of your ramblings make any sense whatsoever to anybody.
Why don’t you take up another more productive hobby?
Mr. Cotton, it would be ludicrous for me to write a paper restating more than 100 years of quantum theory, theory of which you clearly have very little comprehension. The fact that you’ve heard of Max Planck is not evidence that you understand his work. Rather, it is required that you provide some evidence or a well reasoned and supported hypothesis that the absorption of a photon by matter is dependent on the relative temperatures of the source and receiver of a photon. Simply stating a conjecture is not science.
Tell me, how do you discern the temperature of a photon source from the E=hv (yes, wrong characters, but inserting the correct ones is not worth the effort) and direction of an individual photon?
“But the Second Law…”, I hear you cry. The Second Law is a macro effect; it does not apply to individual quantum events and that is indisputable fact demonstrated throughout the literature. By the way, the same is true for entropy; local violations are a physical fact. Your entire model is based on an array of beliefs that are categorically false and physics more than a century old. If your beliefs are true, by what mechanism is the “Law” enforced at the quantum level?
By the way, you never did answer the question as to what, in your universe, happens to photons that are “rejected” by matter because they are from a warmer source.
Where’s my AUD5000?
^that should been “cooler source”.
You also Slipstick can read this comment above as it applies equally to yourself.
Yes indeed, “the absorption of a photon by matter is dependent on the relative temperatures of the source and receiver of a photon.”
That’s been proven computationally by Claes Johnson, Professor of Applied Mathematics. There are several documents that he has written, such as http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/mathematics-of-blackbody-radiation.html
Radiation from the cooler source has a Planck function which is fully contained within the Planck function of the warmer target. The common frequencies and intensities represented by the area under the “cooler” Planck function resonate in the warmer target (with incident radiation being immediately re-emitted as part of the target’s quota under its Planck function) and none of the electro-magnetic energy in the incident radiation is ever converted to thermal (kinetic) energy in the target. For a warmer source, what is thermalized in the target is represented by the area between the Planck functions, and that result (mathematically) is what physicists have known for years in the classic two-parallel-plate examples easily found in physics texts.
Note also that, when talking about a source being “warmer” or “cooler” I am talking about its effective radiating temperature after attenuation due to both distance and atmospheric reflection and absorption. For example, if the solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface is 168W/m^2 then that is the equivalent of radiation from a very close iceberg that is at a temperature of -41°C. Only where the incident solar radiation is above 390W/m^2 (say, in or near the tropics around noon on a clear day) will an existing temperature of 15°C be raised by that direct solar radiation. That’s because the Sun’s radiation is then equivalent to that from a very close blackbody that is at a temperature above 15°C. Of course in a place like Singapore, the minimum daily temperature is about 25°C every day of the year, so the solar radiation would have to be above about 450W/m^2. It may well be that in the middle of a clear day, but not on cloudy days. It probably would not reach the level of 490W/m^2 needed for 32°C however, and nor is the surface a perfect blackbody either, because it reflects about 6%. But the temperature still rises to 31°C or 32°C every day of the year in Singapore, regardless of how much cloud cover there is. That’s because “heat creep” is doing it, not solar radiation.
“By the way, you never did answer the question as to what, in your universe, happens to photons that are “rejected” by matter because they are from a warmer source.”
Firstly, for 100% rejection you mean a “cooler” source, although some from a warmer source are also pseudo-scattered.
Yes I did answer – back in March 2012 when I published “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” and I’ve also repeated the explanation in another comment here today – just search “resonates” to find that comment.
There’s ample evidence for what I say: your microwave oven does not warm those plastic dishes you use in it; SW radio waves are not absorbed by the surface or the clouds as they can make their way around the globe; back radiation is known not to penetrate warmer water surfaces.
Here’s the link to that comment.
You write: ” it is required that you provide some evidence or a well reasoned and supported hypothesis that the absorption of a photon by matter is dependent on the relative temperatures of the source and receiver of a photon.”
Yes well Prof Johnson and I did just that in our published work back in 2012 here and here.
See also Prof Johnson’s paper here from which I quote …
A blackbody acts like a transformer of radiation which absorbs high-frequency radiation and emits low-frequency radiation. The temperature of the blackbody determines a cut-off frequency for the emission, which increases linearly with the temperature: The warmer the blackbody is, the higher frequencies it can and will emit. Thus only frequencies below cut-off are emitted, while all frequencies are being absorbed.
A blackbody thus can be seen as a system of resonators with different eigen-frequencies which are excited by incoming radiation and then emit radiation. An ideal blackbody absorbs all incoming radiation and re-emits all absorbed radiation below cut-off.
Conservation of energy requires absorbed frequencies above cut-off to be stored in some form, more precisely as heat energy thus increasing the temperature of the blackbody.
As a transformer of radiation a blackbody thus acts in a very simple way: it absorbs all radiation, emits absorbed frequencies below cut-off, and uses absorbed frequencies above cut-off to increase its temperature.
And as for Laser radiation being different – well, frankly you could have looked this up yourself … I quote:
Lasers are more than just powerful flashlights. The difference between ordinary light and laser light is like the difference between ripples in your bathtub and huge waves on the sea. You’ve probably noticed that if you move your hands back and forth in the bathtub you can make quite strong waves. If you keep moving your hands in step with the waves you make, the waves get bigger and bigger. Imagine doing this a few million times in the open ocean. Before long, you’d have mountainous waves towering over your head!
A laser does something similar with light waves. It starts off with weak light and keeps adding more and more energy so the light waves become ever more concentrated. The “white” light produced by an ordinary flashlight contains many different light rays of different wavelengths that are out of step with one another (scientifically, that’s known as “incoherent”). But in a laser, all the light rays have the same wavelength and they are coherent (absolutely in step). This is what makes laser light such a powerful concentration of energy.
It is because laser photons are “in step” that two or more arrive simultaneously and that is more than the target can handle in the resonating process normally evident when there is full spectrum random spontaneous radiation from a blackbody incident upon it. The additional photon(s) in the laser radiation do indeed have their electromagnetic energy converted to thermal energy. This is why you need to understand the process of resonant (or pseudo) scattering and how and why it happens.
I demonstrated in this comment the reality of heat creep.
The radiation from a laser is not spontaneous – it requires an input of electrical energy to create it. There is more on this issue, answering your question over three years ago in the Appendix of my March 2012 paper linked from the “Evidence” page at http://climate-change-theory.com
You might like to consider why the low-frequency, low energy photons in the somewhat intense radiation in your microwave oven do not warm the plastic bowls, though those same bowls can be warmed in the Sun.
The mention of a laser, as somehow verifying “back-radiation”, is ludicrous. First, as mentioned on another comment thread, lasers do not exist in the atmosphere. The acronym contains the letter “a”, which stands for “amplification”. (Slip needs to look up “coherent light”.)
So, comparing lasers to back-radiation is not just as bad as “apples to oranges”. It is like comparing apples to M1A1 tanks!
For Warmers to continually cling to such failed science only indicates their desperation.
Dr. Spencer:
Like your previous discussions of the subject, I find this one compelling. However, I do have a couple rather-secondary questions about the method.
First, I want to echo one (but not the others) of Mike M’s questions. Why not just use the raw data without (further) averaging? Sure, you get less correlation that way, but there will still be a maximum correlation at some lag, you’ll still get a slope, and you won’t have suffered the information loss that averaging inflicts.
Second, although you don’t say so, your “lag” appears to be a mere time translation: you cross-correlate the radiation imbalance with what the temperature was some number of months before. You are therefore limited in your choices of lag to integral multiples of the time step.
Since your simple-model approach assumes a one-box linear model dy/dt = (x – y / tau) A, why not cross-correlate the radiation imbalance with the output of that model instead of with a delayed version of the model’s input? In essence, you could cross-correlate the imbalance with a low-pass-filtered version of the (temperature) input (with appropriate adjustment for the fact that the time quantization is relatively coarse with respect to the expected time constant).
Specifically, you could use the following approach:
If x is the temperature anomaly, delta_t is the raw data’s time quantization (e.g., one month), tau is the assumed time constant, and r = delta_t / tau is therefore a decay factor, then the filter-output average y_avg for a given delta_t-long time interval is given by
y_avg = x + (y_0 – x)[1 – exp(-r)] / r,
where y_0 is a instantaneous filter output value assumed for the beginning of the given delta_t-long time interval, and the instantaneous value y_0′ assumed for the beginning of the next time interval is given by
y_0′ = x + (y_0 – x)[1 – exp(-r)].
For each time interval, that is, y_avg is what the average of a single-pole low-pass filter would be if the stimulus x were a respective constant value throughout that interval. It is the y_avg values rather than delayed values of x that you’d cross-correlate with the radiation imbalances.
That approach would enable you to pick fractional delays and potentially increase the resultant correlation. Also it avoids the time translation, which seems theoretically questionable.
Please define what you mean by global annual average temperature variations.
I thought it would be the calendar year HadCRUT4.3 global anomaly of a year less that of the previous year. This would produce 15 data points, the same number you have but the values do not match the temperatures shown in your graph, and the last year would be only 3 months. So I though perhaps you meant years March thru February HadCRUT4.3 global anomaly less that of the previous year. But that would produce only 14 data point, and they don’t match your temperature values. And it doesn’t seem to be the global annual temperatures less the average of the total time period. Sorry if I missed something obvious!
Roy, your method for correlating Earth’s “radiative budget” with its “sfc temp variations” to somehow determine “climate sensitivity” uses NET radiation at the ToA. Considering how the solar heat actually travels through the Earth system, this seems like a backward approach to the problem. I can’t see what useful results or insights it could provide, concerning real lags between radiation and temperatures, real causes and real effects.
The “net ToA radiation”, after all, has two components: 1) the incoming SW (from the Sun), and 2) the outgoing LW (from the Earth).
To get a proper overview of how the Earth system and the radiative processes work and respond, you need to keep these two components strictly apart, seeing how the one (the former) is a direct ’cause’ of change and the other (the latter) a direct ‘effect’ of (a response to) change.
THE SOLAR HEAT CYCLE (diurnal/annual):
The solar SW enters the Earth system > the Earth system absorbs the SW as heat > temperatures go up > the warmer Earth system responds by emitting more LW > the LW goes out to space through the ToA as heat > temperatures go down.
HEAT IN = HEAT OUT. Temps UP > Temps DOWN.
Here’s “net SW” in through the ToA vs. tropospheric temps:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/tlt-vs-net-sw.png
The correlation is far from perfect, but this is quite expected, because there is hardly any direct warming response between incoming SW and the largely transparent troposphere. The troposphere is rather mostly warmed from below, by surface processes, effectively oceanic ones. Still, there’s a fairly distinct lead-lag pattern to be discerned, where the tropospheric temps lag the incoming SW by 1-4 months, centred around 2-3.
The “OLR” out through the ToA vs. tropospheric temps:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/tlt-vs-olr.png
The correlation here is, as you can see, much tighter. Again, as would be expected, because OLR at the ToA is to a large extent a direct radiative effect of tropospheric temps. The surface is warmed by the Sun, responds and cools back by dumping its surplus energy into the troposphere as heat, mostly via evaporation/condensation, in turn warming the troposphere (tropospheric temps ‘always’ lag surface temps). The troposphere finally radiates Earth’s acquired heat from the Sun back out to space, cooling back down. We see this as the OLR through the ToA.
If you look carefully at the graph above, you will see that the red OLR curve lags the blue tropospheric temp curve by 0-1 months.
What is most interesting here, though, is that there is no hint anywhere of an “enhanced greenhouse effect” in operation. The OLR curve simply follows obediently the general lead of the tropospheric temp curve from 2000 to 2015, the only noteworthy deviations occurring in 2008 and 2010, caused by well-understood, ENSO-related cloud processes. And even here there is no permanent divergence created; the OLR curve soon falls back in line.
This analysis and that of the last article strike me as a bit premature, given the El Nino event that is developing, which, so far, looks to be only slightly weaker than the ’97/’98 event. That event and the subsequent extended La Nina concluded with a shift in the neighborhood of +0.25 deg C in the tropospheric temperature record.
Kristian, the post above was intended as a comment on the blog article, not your post. Operator error; my apologies.
Slipstick:
do I understand you to say that the ’98-99 ENSO was the cause and the 2000-2002 temperature jump the effect? And that you expect a repetition of that?
Or did you mean elsewise?
Not necessarily an immediate cause-effect relationship, but I believe the huge dump of energy from the ocean into the troposphere raised energy throughout the climate system, eventually resulting in a bump in average temperatures. Yes, I do expect a similar effect following this cycle, although the magnitude is, as yet, uncertain. I see this event as a test of my personal conceptual (I’m not a climate scientist and I don’t have access to supercomputers) model of the climate system. If, in the next 4 years, there is no bump in temperatures throughout the climate, proportional to whatever intensity this El Nino eventually exhibits, and there is no countering factor, such as Pinatubo-scale vulcanism, then I need to rethink my model.
Hmmmm, a “huge dump of energy from the ocean into the atmosphere”, is that not backwards? I mean, the atmosphere is supposed to warm the oceans, according to AGW hypothesis. How is that silly ocean going to warm if it keeps dumping energy into the atmosphere?
After all, ARGO data shows zillions of joules is being dumped annually from the atmosphere into the ocean, does it not?
So, my friend, I’m afraid the time to re-examine your views is now, that is, if you don’t want to stray too far from the fold.
Indeed, the oceans absorb “zillions” of joules, storing that energy at depth, until circulation brings a pocket of warm water to the surface, which is then, because of the temperature difference, coupled back into the troposphere. The occasions when this occurs over a large area of the equatorial Pacific are referred to as El Nino and are clearly identifiable in the sea and tropospheric temperature records.
Slipstick,
I think that instead of “coupled” back into the atmosphere you must mean “copulated” because, after all, we don’t want that nasty heat, do we? I mean, isn’t that why we see all the fuss and bother and the AGW bleating, because we don’t want any more of that nasty heat? So, we are getting “copulated” by the ocean, which is supposed to keep all those zillions of joules tucked away in its bowels and _not_ be burping “pockets of warm water” at us. Damn the ocean.
By the way, Slipstick, your “pockets of warm water” at any significant depth in the ocean are very rarely actually warmer than the thin surface layer above them. Show me some evidence in real temperature measurements that you can link me to where temperatures in the thermocline are hotter than the surface. My understanding is that, when an El Niño starts, the warmer water comes in horizontally from other warmer regions on the globe.
This link may help.
No, we don’t want the heat, but California can certainly use the rain this pattern will produce.
“but California can certainly use the rain this pattern will produce”
####
Im-Possible. Everyone knows that global warming means more drought, not less drought. Repeat: Im-Possible.
That is incorrect. Global warming means more energy in the system and greater, more frequent extremes: longer droughts, more intense precipitation events, hotter temperature extremes, etc.; all of which have been increasing over the last quarter century or so. Multiple “once in a century” events occurring around the globe every year indicate that something is changing.
Slipstick says:
####
Let’s see, I’m not sure what he says, exactly. He seems to be saying that global warming will make it hotter and colder both (“greater and more frequent temperature extremes”), wetter and drier both (“longer droughts, more intense precipitation events”), more tornadoes (for example, like in Panama, where it is warm all of the time), and more blizzards, too, because of the increase in extreme weather events.
So that means that the drought in California will end in “extreme precipitation”. Poor, unhappy California.
Slipstick: I’m glad we agree that there is still long-term global warming, albeit completely natural and not man-made. It’s due to end in the next 100 years or so before about 500 years of long-term natural cooling starts. It’s all in the planets … see this graphic.
mpainter,
I said nothing about record cold, blizzards, or tornadoes.
In fact, record high temperatures events are currently occurring at about twice the rate of record low temperature events globally; a ratio that has been increasing for the last couple of decades.
As to blizzards, I haven’t paid that much mind, but the two largest snowfalls on record in my area occurred in the last ten years.
Funny you should mention California, since Los Angeles, with weather records dating back to 1877, experienced rainfall this week that set an all time high for the month of July. Flash flooding from the storm system washed out a bridge on Interstate 10 about 50 miles from the Arizona border and closed the highway for the next several weeks. By the way, San Diego had a record rainfall that resulted in flooding in May. And did you happen to read anything about rain in Texas in May? That was the wettest month in the state’s history, with at least 19 deaths and damages in excess of US$100 million; I’d call that extreme.
Slipstick,
Your statement: “all of which have been increasing over the last quarter century or so. Multiple “once in a century” events occurring around the globe every year indicate that something is changing.”
Do you have supporting evidence of these events increasing? Are there really more “once in a century” events or is our coverage of the world much better than at any previous time.
Have you ever looked at historical extreme weather to base these opinions upon.
I was debating these conclusions on Skeptical Science a couple of years ago and looking into their claims and found there was plenty of severe extreme weather in the past and I am not at all certain anything other than reporting events is increasing. They did ban me from their sight for opposing this view.
Here is one link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/9677724/Droughts-steady-since-1950s.html
Another one:
http://farmersalmanac.com/weather/2007/12/21/top-eleven-most-memorable-weather-events/
Norman,
Of course there have always been, and always will be, extreme weather events unrelated to climate change. The current drought in California, hopefully soon to end, is a good example. The drought appears to be the result of an unusual high pressure ridge that parked over the coast, blocking the normal storm patterns. In a system as complex and chaotic as Earth’s climate, who’s to say whether that ridge would have arisen with or without global warming? It is simply speculation to claim one or the other.
However, there is no doubt that extreme heat and precipitation events are increasing globally; there is a plethora of evidence for that. It stands to reason that if precipitation is up substantially in some regions, other regions are losing, at least until Greenland and the poles melt (*wink*).
The Nature paper cited in the Telegraph article you referenced appears to be primarily about drought modeling methodology. A paper published three months earlier, also in Nature, which used temperature, precipitation, and stream flow data to measure aridity 1923 through 2010 appears, from the abstract, to conclude that drought has increased as predicted by the models through that time. Take your pick. Unfortunately, I don’t subscribe to Nature and, because of the website paywall, I was unable to read either paper, so I really can’t comment.
“However, there is no doubt that extreme heat and precipitation events are increasing globally; there is a plethora of evidence for that.”
Mmmmmm.
I’d say there’s a plethora of media attention given to such, somewhat more than back in the 60’s, as best I can remember from those times. Ever heard of selective journalism? The whole of the south east of Australia has been experiencing the coldest weather for four or more decades – but I doubt that you heard about that over there.
Why measure climate sensitivity relative to HadCRUT4? (I would not anticipate great variation when other temperature records are used, but it seems worthwhile to check out other temperature records for the 2000-2015 time period.)
Part of understanding climate change comes from discovering what does NOT cause it.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been higher than now (usually several times higher) for most of the existence of earth. At least 150 ppmv is required for life as we know it. If CO2 was a forcing on average global temperature, mathematics requires the effect would be cumulative and we wouldn’t be here to fuss over it.
Mr. Pangburn,
Your conclusion is not valid since it is based on partial truths. You are ignoring massive meteor impact and vulcanism events that, in effect, “reset” the ecology and climate several times over the eons.
The conclusion is based on CO2 always being more than 150 ppmv and average global temperature not responding to the time-integral of CO2 level (or a function thereof). Which of these do you perceive to be wrong?
What does not cause climate change is the imaginary process of “radiative forcing” which cannot provide thermal energy to the surface and help the Sun to raise the temperature because its own direct radiation is insufficient.
It also helps our understanding as to why the greenhouse conjecture is false if we understand what is correct physics that explains all planetary tropospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures – as in my website and linked papers here where over 10,000 have visited this year.
Your physics may be correct in some parallel universe, but they do not apply in this one. As Dr. No suggested, you need to find a more productive hobby.
See also this comment about your misunderstanding, Slipstick of what happens in an El Niño. It seems your dipstick into the ocean slipped.
For once, you are correct. My earlier post was overly simplistic, but I was not inclined to post a long explanation of the process. I should have considered a link to explanatory material as you did.
No Slipstick – what I have presented in my papers, book, website and video is correct, and it is confirmed by copious empirical evidence – which I have also documented. You need to start with the evidence in the centrifuge machines for example – produce something to the contrary – explain why they can’t produce 1K temperatures when in fact they do in the real world – explain why water vapor does whatever you think it does and then back up your claim with a comprehensive study such as I have done.
By the way, Slipstick, it’s about time you matured scientifically and provide evidence as distinct from assertive statements like “Your physics may be correct in some parallel universe, but they do not apply in this one.”. (“Physics” by the way, is not plural.)
I have provided a multitude of arguments based on the actual physics that applies in this universe and you have chosen to ignore every question posed to you. Pardon the previous grammatical error.
Then link me to your comments with unanswered questions. That surely would be the obvious thing to do. I bet they are already answered anyway (even if indirectly) in my published papers, my website, my climate video and/or my book. I understand the relevant physics pertaining to entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, whereas you don’t.
You need to learn what entropy is. See my comment above that reads (and I repeat) …
… when talking about a source being “warmer” or “cooler” I am talking about its effective radiating temperature after attenuation due to both distance and atmospheric reflection and absorption. For example, if the solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface is 168W/m^2 then that is the equivalent of radiation from a very close iceberg that is at a temperature of -41°C. Only where the incident solar radiation is above 390W/m^2 (say, in or near the tropics around noon on a clear day) will an existing temperature of 15°C be raised by that direct solar radiation. That’s because the Sun’s radiation is then equivalent to that from a very close blackbody that is at a temperature above 15°C. Of course in a place like Singapore, the minimum daily temperature is about 25°C every day of the year, so the solar radiation would have to be above about 450W/m^2. It may well be that in the middle of a clear day, but not on cloudy days. It probably would not reach the level of 490W/m^2 needed for 32°C however, and nor is the surface a perfect blackbody either, because it reflects about 6%. But the temperature still rises to 31°C or 32°C every day of the year in Singapore, regardless of how much cloud cover there is. That’s because “heat creep” is doing it, not solar radiation
PS: Singapore is in our Universe
Mr Cotton,
I’ve grown weary of “turning the crank”. Be well.
Well Mr Anonymous Slipstick, I think you’ll find all the answers you need in about nine of my comments starting here and/or in the linked documents and comments. You need to learn a little 21st Century Physics, my friend, because your understanding is about as out-of-date as the “crank” you refer to on your old car.
Well I haven’t grown weary of explaining the correct physics and demolishing the greatest fraudulent hoax the world’s politicians have ever been gullible enough to believe.
The $5,000 reward is still on offer for proving my physics based on the Second Law to be incorrect and producing a study with opposite results to mine in my 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
You, Slipstick, have never ever quoted a single sentence from that paper and proved it wrong – and nor has anyone else to my knowledge. But if there is such a comment posted on any climate blog, then link me too it.
Gentlemen,
I always enjoy reading the comments – thank you all. Beyond that, I find the idea that 15 or 30 or 100 years of records provides enough data to define weather/climate patterns amusing, considering the relative length of the Quaternary Period, which itself is short.
What Dr. Spencer reiterates in various forms is this lack of knowledge, but those who proclaim mankind as the enemy of Gaia are not interested. They are only interested in control over their fellow humans and use any excuse to enlarge that control. So arguing facts is wasted effort, as those seeking control use propaganda methods to support their efforts. Fortunately, politics moves slowly, and in our somewhat democratic nation, getting the people to approve of economically destructive policies is not so easy as the pliant press would wish.
Most of us realize weather changes from year to year as much as it does from day to day, that droughts occur and floods occur etc. That a summer of high temperatures is to be expected occasionally and that the mad scientists cannot control the weather and to make men suffer from economic decisions said to do so is misguided at best, destructive at worst.
But those who advocate these policies are not interested in facts, but in assuaging their religious beliefs and, no different than ISIS, will destroy those who oppose them.
Again, I hope Salvatore is wrong, but expect him to be proven correct in my lifetime.
Lewis Guignard
Crouse, NC
Roy,
The loops! Show us the loops! It’s because the feed-backs act with different delays that the data is all over the place! Just like any system governed by overall negative feedback – like our climate – it responds to signals (forcing) with ringing and oscillations. It’s not just noise but it’s difficult to correlate with forcing. Our whole history back through the ice ages shows these gyrations so why is it so difficult to accept?
Don’t worry, Lewis or Jim – or Roy:
The “physics” of “radiative forcing” is totally incorrect. What really happens is explained at http://climate-change-theory.com and I’m right in the development therein that is soundly based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
All climate change is natural and, just as it cooled after the Medieval Warming Period, so will it cool for nearly 500 years after the current warming period, starting within the next 100 years – maybe as soon as the 2030’s. It is gravity which traps thermal energy over the life of all planets, not carbon dioxide or water vapor which both cool rather than warm. I know my physics – trust me!
Why “heat creep” explains all
The flux of radiation is attenuated as the radiation spreads out from a source like the Sun. The fact is that a mean of only about 168W/m^2 of solar radiation strikes the Earth’s surface, and probably less than 20W/m^2 strikes the surface of Venus. Such levels are far too low to “explain” the existing surface temperatures on these planets. So “heat creep” has to be supplying the missing (required) energy.
To understand why “heat creep” happens we have to understand entropy. The word “entropy” has a totally different meaning to “energy.” Entropy can be considered as a measure of progress towards thermodynamic equilibrium. What always happens in an isolated system is that there is a propensity for entropy to approach a maximum, and to do so by the fastest possible route. When that maximum is attained we have thermodynamic equilibrium, and in a gravitational field (or any force field) that state exhibits both a non-zero density gradient and a non-zero temperature gradient as I have shown in my 2013 paper and my book, both linked from my website here.
In that state of thermodynamic equilibrium there is no further transfer of net energy or mass across any internal boundary within an isolated system. So the temperature and density gradients are stable and exist without further internal energy or mass transfers on a macro scale.
That’s what you need to understand, because entropy maximization is what drives and determines the direction of natural convective heat transfer which, by definition, includes diffusion and does not get driven by any external force or input of energy from an external source.
Entropy maximization can transfer thermal (kinetic) energy in any direction in various circumstances, depending upon, and only upon entropy increasing and never decreasing in an isolated system. So a disturbance to thermodynamic equilibrium has a subsequent consequence that depends upon the propensity for the system to regain thermodynamic equilibrium, or at least approach such until there is a subsequent disturbance. This can and does sometimes entail downward transfers of kinetic energy via molecular collisions, namely “heat creep” for short.
Yes Kristian, clearly explained and correct for radiation, but ultimately what happens spontaneously in an isolated system is determined by the propensity for entropy to increase. It can be misleading to talk about the direction of heat transfer in natural convective heat transfer, as you should have learnt from my discussion of the “heat creep” process in comments above and at http://climate-change-theory.com
Mpainter:
You wrote: “I am mildly astonished that EM studies have made so little progress toward a more concrete understanding in this corner of science, during the last century.”
In regard to so-called “radiative forcing” there is no progress because it is altogether the wrong paradigm to be considering in regard to planetary surface temperatures. Such temperatures are not primarily determined by the input of radiation. Hansen and the IPCC etc try to make it work by adding back radiation flux to solar flux in Stefan Boltzmann calculations, but, as you should know, we can’t do that. The Sun’s direct radiation into the surface of Earth (about 168W/m^2 on average) or Venus (<20W/m^2) cannot explain the surface temperatures.
What does explain all planetary surface temperatures (and other temperatures in troposphere, mantles and cores) is what is in my hypothesis explained here: http://climate-change-theory.com and based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There is copious evidence to support that hypothesis.
Hi Doug,
You were really making some good points earlier (up thread), but then you went and blew it with the 168 W/m^2 figure again. Of course 168 W/m^2 cannot explain Earth’s average surface temperature, because the value is the “mean”, not the actual. You are still using (attempting to use) the S-B equation erroneously.
You’re making progress, but you’re not there yet. Sorry.
You are just hand-waving, geran, in a pathetically and blatantly obvious way, easily seen right through.
The IPCC are wrong in adding 324W/m^2 of back radiation to get the “right” result in S-B calculations.
Maybe you would like to tell silent readers that 20W/m^2 of solar radiation reaching the Venus surface is also “the mean not the actual” and that the actual is a massive 16,000W/m^2 to 20,000W/m^2 (far more than the Sun delivers into the top of the Venus atmosphere) that being what Stefan Boltzmann calculations tell us corresponds with temperatures like the 735K observed for the Venus surface after non-radiative heat losses.
Likewise the Earth would need an actual mean of over 490W/m^2 and you ain’t going to convert an actual mean of 168W/m^2 into a mean or actual flux roughly three times as great. Only the IPCC can do that by adding about twice as much back radiation (324W/m^2) as the Sun’s mean radiation of 168W/m^2 into the surface. But we can’t do that.
The percentage of the Earth’s surface which, at any one time, is receiving around 490W/m^2 (from which it simultaneously loses over 100W/m^2 by non-radiative processes) is a very small percentage indeed where there is no cloud cover and the Sun is almost directly overhead. So you don’t get a global average temperature from the radiation level experienced in only a very small percentage of the whole global surface. No one pulls wool over Cotton’s eyes my friend.
Sorry, wrong again.
Look, I’m not trying to collect your “award” money. Keep it. I’m trying to undo your confusion so that you do not confuse others. I’m sorry if you made a mistake in your book. Just publish an “errata”. It’s done all the time. No harm, no foul.
You cannot use the S-B equation based on average, or, ahem, “adjusted” values. You must use the actual flux hitting a surface.
That’s the “LAW”.
I don’t dispute for one moment that the calculation should really be done with integration over the whole surface, but you also have to take many other factors into account, especially the simultaneous heat losses by non-radiative processes and the retention of heat at night.
What I have correctly pointed out is that “using the actual flux” still gives lower temperatures than S-B calculations give at noon on a clear day. I gave Singapore as an example – it could also receive around 1,000W/m^2 probably for many days in two annual periods when the Sun passes nearly directly overhead. BUT the temperature achieved by such radiation never exceeds 32°C. I have shown you why, because even when the Sun passes directly overhead at around noon, the angle of inclination that day averages around 45° and so the integration for that day is going to give results roughly averaging about the temperature for (1000.sin45°)W/m^2.
And even that is overstated because you need to deduct over 100W/m^2 for the simultaneous heat losses by non-radiative processes. Even the IPCC & Co recognized the need to deduct 102 from 492 to get 390W/m^2 which gave them 15°C.
All you do is waffle and hand-wave, Ball4, without taking out your pencil and figuring it out with realistic data. You thought your little Desert Rock example had me proven wrong, but it was you who did not even bother to work it out before you put your foot in it. There was nothing at all surprising to me in it, and I compared it with Singapore where I have stayed twice and studied relevant data.
Finally, I say to you, how on Venus do you think you are going to explain a mean of 20W/m^2 – even a maximum of 100W/m^2 solar radiation reaching the surface – supposedly supporting temperatures over 450°C?
Physics doesn’t work differently on Venus. I use the same physics for Earth, Venus, Uranus, Neptune and others to get temperatures which correspond with reality. Using back radiation added to solar radiation is incorrect and could only “fluke” a close result at best, and only for Earth. But whatever it does, it is incorrect use of physics, because back radiation cannot violate the Second Law and thus does not transfer thermal energy into a warmer surface.
Your talk about not using values of radiation adjusted by multiplying by the sine of the angle of incidence is misguided. The actual flux on a flat surface from radiation at a 45° angle IS only the flux that would be received from the Sun directly overhead multiplied by sin45° as is easily understood with school-boy trigonometry and geometry.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the Stefan-Boltzmann physics which tells you that the Sun will instantaneously achieve the maximum temperature, or even do so in an hour or two around midday. All matter takes time to rise in temperature, and the Stefan Boltzmann calculations actually assume that equilibrium has been achieved, but only achieved over a finite time – arguably even infinite time. My kettle takes a while to boil.
So what I am saying is that real world examples like Desert Rock and Singapore show us that 1000W/m^2 may well only cause a maximum temperature around 30°C to 40°C. Now common sense tells you that 390W/m^2 would not achieve 15°C maximum either, but somewhat less than that. You can integrate over the whole surface (including regions near the poles) and the mean will indeed be roughly in the vicinity of 168W/m^2 less 102W/m^2 (i.e. 66W/m^2) for non-radiative losses. In contrast you would need uniform solar flux on a flat disc of about 492W/m^2 day and night to achieve a uniform 15°C temperature at best. Your oceans would also need to be covered in something like black asphalt so that much of the solar radiation did not just warm the colder regions down in the thermocline.
And, Ball4, in case you are not aware, the figure of 168W/m^2 is a reasonably accurate actual mean radiative flux received over the whole globe. It is only the temperature calculations that cannot be assumed to correspond in such a way that average flux gives average temperature. That of course is because of the T^4 relationship in S-B calculations. This mean flux of 168W/m^2 is based on the relative area of the sphere and an orthogonal circle through which the relevant radiation passed. Thus it automatically adjusts for the sine of the angle of incidence and does not require a further adjustment.
Whatever the input radiative flux is, you do still always need to “adjust” for simultaneous heat losses by non-radiative processes.
But all the integration and modelling you may do, will never turn the effect of a mean of 168W/m^2 into a mean surface temperature anywhere near 15°C.
Suppose we drive a vehicle up and over a hill following a curved road. We need extra energy going up the hill, and less going down. But when a ship sails across a curved ocean surface no such considerations apply because the surface is in a state of (near) mechanical equilibrium formed by gravity.
So it is when going from cooler temperatures in a planet’s troposphere to a warmer surface. Thermal energy just “flows” over the sloping thermal plane in the troposphere because that slope represents the state of thermodynamic equilibrium in the gravitational field.
I know it’s hard to imagine why, but it is a reality echoed in vortex tubes and other experiments with centrifugal force. And it can be explained by entropy maximization, which is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is all about. That’s the reason the surface warms, even on a cloudy morning.
For more detail visit http://climate-change-theory.com
The plain fact is, that anyone who believes in the IPCC “radiative forcing” guesswork MUST have to believe that back radiation flux can be added to Solar flux and the total used in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to get the surface temperature. There’s no avoiding the fact that they calculate it that way: it’s staring you in the face in energy budget diagrams like that at the foot of the page where I explain the errors by Postma and Co at Principia Scientific here.
Roy Spencer tries to have a foot in both camps:
On the one hand he does not agree with the adding of back radiation to the solar flux, proving that back radiation slows that portion of surface cooling which is by radiation but does not raise the surface temperature directly.
On the other hand, he thinks the Sun’s direct radiation (with a mean of 168W/m^2) can raise the surface temperature in the first place. But that’s not what does it, as I have explained here.
You see, although 168W/m^2 is an average, there are some places on a very small percentage of the Earth’s surface which can receive in the vicinity of 600W/m^2 to 650W/m^2. Well 650W/m^2 does give us about 55°C which is possible. BUT, if you now add the back radiation flux (as the IPCC et al insist we can) you get a flux probably over 1000W/m^2 because the back radiation in such regions would be greater than the mean of 324W/m^2. And your problem is that 1,000W/m^2 has a black body temperature around 91°C, and even that 1000 is probably underestimated, because they say the mean back radiation is twice the mean solar radiation. So let’s try 600W/m^2 of solar and 1200W/m^2 of back radiation, but deduct perhaps 300W/m^2 for non-raiative losses. That gives us a net of 1500W/m^2 and a black body temperature of 130°C. In contrast, 600W/m^2 of solar radiation gives around 48°C when we calculate the correct way. Take your pick – you can’t be in both camps at once. If you use a particular algorithm to calculate a mean, then you are assuming the same algorithm is used for all the individual calculations for surface temperatures everywhere.
Doug 8:00pm – On 7/23/2015, at about high noon, at Desert Rock, NV., the solar SW was about 1,000 W/m^2 and DW LW was about 400 W/m^2, both rounded. The near surface air temperature was around 31C, rounded around high noon. How do you account for that? Seems nature does not agree with your assessment of near surface T should be around 130C or even around your 48C. What have you missed?
There’s not enough time in the day for the solar radiation to achieve a higher temperature, especially at an altitude of over 1000 meters as at Desert Rock. Much of the surface there would not be like a huge flat region that is orthogonal to the insolation at noon, and so, just as at the top of Mt Everest, the insolation mostly strikes the actual surface at an acute angle. If we adjust for altitude the temperature at the surface would be around 40°C anyway. To adjust for the acute angle we multiply the flux by the sine of the angle of incidence between the surface (which may not be horizontal) and the radiation.
It all supports what I say that the Sun’s direct radiation in the real world does not support the calculated mean temperatures if that’s the best that 1,000W/m^2 can achieve. I didn’t say the temperature would really be 130°C because I quite clearly told you that the back radiation should not be added. That is the huge mistake made by James Hansen et al.
What you perhaps don’t realize was that I was talking about maximum (theoretical) temperatures for a black body that had been receiving constant radiative flux at those levels. Because flux has to be adjusted by multiplying by the sine of the angle of incidence from the horizon, it is nothing like 1000W/m^2 all day long.
And so you very clearly support what I say, namely that the Sun’s direct radiation into the surface does not have a hope of supporting the observed surface temperatures if that is all that 1000W/m^2 can achieve, albeit it at an altitude of 1,000 meters – which you didn’t mention.
So a region receiving the mean solar flux of 168W/m^2 would be “warmed” by that radiation only to a somewhat colder temperature than -41°C. Furthermore, the Venus surface would be far colder again because it receives less than 10% of the solar radiation that Earth’s surface receives.
You’re going out backwards, Ball4.
Next time try to understand my hypothesis before you put your foot in it again. It’s a correct hypothesis and the only correct hypothesis dealing with such matters, because it is the only one based on and obeying the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, and you can’t prove me wrong on that point.
And so, Ball4, if anyone thinks the AGW crowd are correct in saying that back radiation should be added to solar radiation in Stefan Boltzmann calculations, then they have much more explaining to do when dealing with 1,400W/m^2 at Desert Rock, rather than 1,000W/m^2.
Let’s look at some calculations shall we:
Assume surface reflection 6% – gives us about 940W/m^2. Assume average angle of incidence 45° over the course of the day (remembering that much of a rocky surface is not horizontal and nor is the Sun directly overhead all day) so we divide by the square root of 2 (multiply by sin 45°) and get about 660W/m^2. Now we deduct the simultaneous heat loss by non-radiative processes. That loss is 102W/m^2 (according to NASA et al) for a mean temperature of 15°C, and probably at least 160W/m^2 for temperatures around 31°C where the air just above would be somewhat colder in dry conditions. That gets us down to about 500W/m^2 for which the blackbody temperature would be 33°C which is close enough given the rounding in your 1,000 figure.
BUT, for anyone maintaining that the back radiation of, as you say, 400W/m^2 should be added to the 500W/m^2 then we get (for 900W/m^2) a black body temperature of 82°C which supports my point very nicely thanks.
Hence we have a clear indication that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is right for radiation and the back radiation should NOT be added to the solar radiation when using S-B calculations for surface temperatures. Hence we have strong support for the contention that James Hansen and the IPCC crowd are wrong in a very significant way.
Now if any reader thinks that this example supports the contention that direct solar radiation can explain the Earth’s mean surface temperature, then I need to point out that Ball4’s cherry-picked desert example is far from the norm when considering the whole surface of the Earth.
Furthermore, it could still be the supporting temperature in the base of the troposphere that is what really accounts for the observed 31°C temperature. For example, in Singapore every day of the year has a maximum of 31°C or 32°C and a minimum of 25°C or 26°C. (Check me out over the next year.) So, regardless of whether the Sun passes directly overhead (as it does twice a year) or not, and regardless of the extent of cloud cover if any, the Sun’s direct radiation appears to make no difference to the 6 degrees or so of warming each day in Singapore. I can explain that, but can you?
Desert Rock and Singapore are in the tropics and so, twice a year, receive the maximum solar radiation when the Sun passes directly overhead, which it does not do outside the tropics. Alice Springs in Australia is very close to the border of the tropics, but I’ve been there in 43°C heat, and above 40°C temperatures are very common there in Summer. Why does Alice Springs get hotter than Singapore? In general the reason is that, as water vapor levels increase we see a reduction in the daily mean minimum and maximum temperatures, as my study indicated. The temperature profile becomes steeper in drier regions and rotates such that the supporting temperature near the surface must rise. This is of course the opposite of what the IPCC says will happen, for they think the greenhouse gas water vapor warms.
Actually, after writing the above I looked up some data here on Desert Rock because I was surprised it was not as hot as Alice Springs. It is actually not in the tropics (latitude 36°37’N) and its mean maximum temperature in July is about 37°C. So the mean angle of incidence of the Sun during the day would be a little less than the 45° I used and the 31°C temperature Ball4 cherry-picked was somewhat lower than the mean maximum for this time of the year. So I’d say we have no trouble explaining why radiation getting up to 1,000W/m^2 would not make the surface hotter than is observed with the mean maximum being 37°C rather than Ball4’s 31°C. But if you added another 400W/m^2 of backradiation you sure would get much hotter results.
It’s after 12:30am here so I’ll be brief. You could save me time if you read my papers which contain responses to many points raised above – responses written two or three years ago. The key point is that increasing water vapor lowers the effective radiating temperature by increasing cloud cover and thus increasing albedo. It also causes the temperature profile to rotate downwards at the surface end as inter-molecular radiation reduces the magnitude of the gradient.
With water vapor causing cooler surface temperatures (for the above two reasons) you have already completely demolished the radiative greenhouse conjecture.
Carbon dioxide does the same as water vapor. I calculated in a blog comment (I think on The Air Vent about a year ago) that any raising of the radiating altitude by CO2 would be by less than a meter. In fact, as explained in my paper, it won’t even happen, because it depends upon the whole concept of radiative forcing being correct. But that concept is refuted by the fact that water vapor cools. Such cooling also wipes out (in fact reverses) the feedback effect due to water vapor.
I have also explained in my 2013 paper that the whole concept of a radiating altitude is at best very misleading. There is a pivoting altitude about which the thermal profile rotates, but it is not as high as 5Km (maybe less than 4Km) because it is the altitude which is such that, when the thermal profile rotates about that altitude, radiative balance is maintained with the incident solar radiation. That always happens, folks, simply because the whole Earth+atmosphere system acts like a blackbody. Any small discrepancy at TOA is usually in the range ±0.4% and is the result of natural warming or cooling, not the cause.
PS: Now all of you would do well to go and really study the “heat creep” diagrams here and you’ll see that any new thermal energy absorbed anywhere in the troposphere for any reason (or released from latent heat) spreads out in such a way as to repair the temporary distortion it caused in the thermal profile. In other words, in calm conditions (basically in an isolated system) the temperature gradient (and density gradient) have a propensity to form because entropy is being maximized – just as the Law of Entropy (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) says will happen. It all happens at the molecular level.
Sorry typo at 1.00am here now: Link should be:
Now all of you would do well to go and really study the “heat creep” diagrams here …
So, Roy and others, there is no radiative forcing that raises any planet’s surface temperature, and so there is no (warming) “sensitivity” associated with any IR-active gas, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane etc.
All individual passages (pencils) of radiation only ever cause entropy to increase. The transfer of thermal energy is represented by the area between the Planck curves of the emitter and the target. The radiation represented by the Planck curve that has the smaller area resonates in the target body and that electro-magnetic energy is never thermalized in that target. Instead it becomes part of that target’s own “quota” of emitted radiation as per its Planck curve. All this was in my 2012 paper on radiated energy, which is linked at the foot of this page.
So the energy in all radiation from the surface and the atmosphere eventually makes its way to space. A planetary system in our Solar System (any solid region plus its atmosphere) always acts like a black body in that it always re-emits very nearly the same energy that it received from the Sun. (The only exceptions are contracting gas planets that are converting some gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy. This is not happening for planets like Earth, Venus and Uranus with solid cores.)
Top of atmosphere (TOA) measurements for Earth have never proved otherwise. Such measurements have error bars of about 0.5% for both the measurement of incident radiation and that of outgoing radiation. Yet the difference is rarely outside the range ±0.4% and so there is no compelling evidence that the difference is positive or negative. It essence we learn nothing more than the temperature records tell us. If Roy Spencer’s temperature charts tell us there has been net cooling since the peak in 1998, then there has been a net loss of energy over that period. Natural warming and cooling is the cause not the result of TOA imbalance.
Now, the IR-active gases can alter the temperature gradient in a planet’s troposphere, and they do that by transferring thermal energy only from lower warmer regions to higher cooler regions or to Space. This causes the whole thermal profile to rotate about a pivoting altitude and become lower at the surface end. That altitude is such that the rotation does not affect the overall total radiation back to space, and we know this because the whole system acts like a black body and radiative balance at TOA is never out by much.
Increasing IR-active percentages also has a minor cooling effect by lowering the pivoting altitude. Because the troposphere is more dense below that altitude there will be more radiation from below it if the percentage of an IR-active gas increases. Water vapor has a third cooling effect in that increases probably lead to greater cloud cover and thus increased albedo. This may not always be the case, though, if cloud formation is also affected by cosmic rays.
Overall, the main effect of water vapor is of the order of about 10 to 15 degrees of cooling (by my estimates) due to the less steep temperature gradient. The “dry” temperature gradient is formed at the molecular level in any force field such as gravity or centrifugal force, and then water vapor and to a much smaller extent CO2 etc lower the supporting temperature at the base of the troposphere.
That leaves us with the question as to how the surface acquires the necessary thermal energy to support the observed temperatures. The Sun’s direct radiation to the surface is nowhere near enough to supply all that is needed. To answer the question we need a solid understanding of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is all about entropy maximization, not about heat transfers. This explanation you can read at http://climate-change-theory.com where over 10,000 others have visited this year.
Mr. Cotton,
My offer, repeated below, still holds. The direct measurements confirm exactly what the 100+ years of
scientific research concludes (and even Dr. Roy admits
is true). I am putting up 10,000 dollars if you can
provide reproducible experimental evidence that the
the results are incorrect. Semantics and personal opinion do not constitute proof.
L. Morgan PhD
P.S. Any argument involving Prof. Claes Johnson has no merit. Prof. Johnson officially announced his departure from serious scientific inquiry with his 2006 paper claiming to resolve (in one paper!) four famous outstanding problems in fluid dynamics (he in fact resolved 0 of 4). His scientific rigor subsequently has dropped markedly since 2006.
Doug Cotton:
I will make you an even better wager. I will give you $10,000 if you can prove that the
direct measurements of the greenhouse effect are wrong.
You can start with a ground based measurement, such as
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
and then move on to satellites:
http://tes.jpl.nasa.gov/uploadedfiles/WordenSatellite2008.pdf
(I just picked one, there actually are many)
All you need to do is provide your own experimental evidence
that refutes every one of the multiple sources of direct confirmation of the greenhouse effect and I will gladly give you $10,000.
They are not measuring any “greenhouse effect” – they are measuring radiative flux from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and they get fairly predictable results, increasing as the percentage of carbon dioxide increases. So what? Show me valid proof that such will lead to more thermal energy entering the surface each sunny morning so as to make the maximum temperature that day hotter.
L Morgan,
You are a sucker for junk science. The Feldman paper is merely a Keeling curve with (from the abstract) “thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations” meaning that they have cooked up some temperature data.
You have come to the wrong place to peddle that kind of garbage.
L Morgan
For a start you don’t give much detail as to your identity, no doubt ensuring it would be next to impossible to chase you up for that $10,000.
The so-called “greenhouse effect” depends entirely upon the assumption that the most prolific greenhouse gas water vapor (WV) does most of 33 degrees of warming. That’s just an average, and the mean concentration is, I think, between 1% and 1.5% in the troposphere. But it does vary in a range from about 1% to 4%. So, if carbon dioxide is supposed to have a sensitivity based on its concentration (currently about 1 molecule in 2,500 other air molecules) then so too should water vapor. Let’s say 1% WV causes 20 degrees of warming, based on the IPCC conjecture. I won’t argue if you want other figures in the range 20±8 degrees. If a rain forest has 4% WV above it we thus expect about 80 degrees of warming – maybe 80±30 say. And a dry region with 1% would be warmed 20±8 degrees.
Now my “experiment” has already been done and written up over two years ago in the Appendix of my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” where you can see the methodology explained and the raw data. And of course the experiment is repeatable – you could do it yourself. And so if you can’t get figures like the above 80±30 degrees of warming making rain forests (with 4% WV) perhaps 60±40 degrees hotter than drier regions (with 1% WV) at similar latitude and altitude, then you have proven, as I did, that there is something seriously wrong with the greenhouse conjecture.
Now what you could do is deposit the $10,000 in PayPal account and give me the PP address. I’ll then send a PP request for payment and we’ll both be able to confirm to all the silent readers that the $10,000 has been paid. Think of it as paying me for some of the thousands of hours I’ve spent of my own unpaid time researching all this and explaining it to thousands of others.
Dear Doug,
You haven’t done the slightest thing to disprove the experimental results I mentioned. These results are in direct contradiction to your theories that you repeat ad naseum every chance you get. You can’t just talk away direct experimental measurement of the green house effect. The $10,000 offer still stands.
LM
You haven’t done a single study of temperature/precipitation records to prove the AGW case claiming water vapor warms. I’ve shown evidence of it cooling.
You haven’t done a single thing to prove wrong the experiments with centrifugal force which support my hypothesis in that they exhibit radial heat flow from cold to hot, just as happens in every planetary troposphere because of gravity.
You haven’t disproved the 21st century physics which now can explain how every single one-way pencil of radiation obeys the Second Law.
You haven’t explained how you think the Sun’s direct radiation could possibly account for the surface temperature.
So, like the IPCC, you incorrectly add back radiation to solar radiation, and I have explained in other comments why you can’t do that and why doing so gives ridiculous results like 90°C temperatures in the tropics.
Measuring the flux from carbon dioxide does nothing more than tell you roughly how much there is in the atmosphere.
Measuring from TOA what is absorbed by carbon dioxide tells you nothing about how that energy might well be escaping via water vapor molecules.
No TOA measurements have proved that there has been any net build up of thermal energy since the peak temperatures of 1998. The error bars in those measurements are too great.
Roy,
I have a query about your analysis:
Is it legitimate to use lagged quantities when the equation used to define sensitivity refers to CONCURRENT values?
Should’nt each annual average flux value be compared with the averaged temperature over the SAME 12 months? (ditto for any other time period)
i.e. The existence of any lagged relationship between the quantities is not relevant to the analysis.
I am not sure how this affects your derived sensitivity values but it could be important.
Dr No
Well, thanks at least for putting in the effort to explain your understanding of the processes, Doug, from the perspective of Physics.
I recall a few years ago, when I first began expressing my own skepticism on the issue of AGW, I occasionally received a rebuttal along the lines, “If AGW is a hoax, don’t you think some bright climatologist would stand out from the crowd and prove that it is a hoax, and thus get himself awarded a Nobel Prize?”
My response to such comments was that I thought the issue was far too complex for any group of scientists, let alone any individual scientist, to prove the case either for, or against the reality of AGW.
My understanding of the ‘methodology of science’, which has been so successful in its application over the years, is the principle of being able to repeat ‘controlled’ experiments under various conditions, altering just one factor at a time, and observing its effect. When the results are consistent with what has been predicted, after numerous experiments, and after all attempts to ‘fasify’ the hypothesis have failed, then we have a ‘theory’ which we can be fairly certain is at least provisionally true until someone discovers a new set of circumstances that are not in accord with the predictions.
When such controlled experiments cannot be conducted because of the enormous complexity of the circumstances, and/or the lack of time available, because the predictions of the hypothesis exceed a human lifespan, then we simply cannot be certain. The hypothesis must remain a hypothesis.
By the way, I’ve never held the view that the ‘hypothesis’ that CO2 might contribute toward global warming, is a hoax. It’s the certainty on the issue which is the hoax.
Unfortunately, people seem to need certainty in their lives, hence the existence of religions. One of the great attractions of conferring certainty on the AGW hypothesis, is that politicians and their electorates can get the illusion that they are ‘in charge’, whenever they make the move toward renewable energy. It gives them a purpose. The idea that we can control the climate simply by refraining from emitting CO2, represents a seductive sense of power over our environment and future circumstances.
I would back the degree of “certainty” afforded to the Second Law of Thermodynamics against anything else in science. That law reigns supreme, and that’s what I have developed my hypothesis from. Of course I don’t dare call it a theory.
If you can fault the development, pinpointing any error, then you’re half way to the $5,000 reward. The evidence I present is most certainly repeatable and the experiments with vortex tubes and centrifuge machines have already been done many times. What more do you want in the way of evidence after you’ve studied my website, papers, book and video?
So why not repeat the study I did using similar methodology but perhaps a different 15 locations? It will take you less than a day to do so.
Doug Cotton says:
July 26, 2015 at 3:44 AM
“I would back the degree of “certainty” afforded to the Second Law of Thermodynamics against anything else in science. That law reigns supreme, and that’s what I have developed my hypothesis from. Of course I don’t dare call it a theory.”
Doug,
It’s very comforting to be certain, isn’t it! (wink)
As I understand, the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to a ‘closed system’. Is the Earth and its atmosphere really a closed system?
What about the influence of the things that you don’t know about? Our theories of Physics imply that approximately 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is unknown, undetectable and completely invisible. We call it Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It supposedly pervades the whole universe in varying concentrations.
How can you be so sure of your so-called ‘laws of Physics’ when you are totally ignorant of most of the stuff that surrounds you?
No, Vince, some say the Second Law applies to an isolated system, but no-one should say it only applies in a closed system. In fact it applies to “every natural thermodynamic process” according to Wikipedia here, though I would omit the word “thermodynamic” and add “or combination of dependent natural processes.” It does not apply to a combination of independent processes, and that is the huge mistake in James Hansen’s thinking – used to “excuse” the false claims about back radiation. Because it must apply to every natural process (such as a single pencil of radiation between two points) the assumption that it only needs to apply to the net effect of some combination of independent processes is incorrect.
There is no need to consider the system in which the process occurs. If there is energy loss or input for that system, then those gains or losses are merely other processes, each and every one obeying the law of entropy. This site is interesting: http://entropylaw.com I think you’ll find.
We consider what would happen in an “ideal” column of the troposphere and we compare computations from the hypothesis thus developed with data from various planets and get a rough idea that the probability of being wrong is infinitesimal, though never zero of course. If you insisted on zero, then there would be no medicine and no science and certainly no grounds for concern over carbon dioxide anyway.
“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)
See this comment.
Well said Kristian.
Worth repeating and endorsing – because it is the very crux of the hoax …
“You don’t call the “back radiation flux” heat. Of course you don’t. But you do treat it as if it were heat, an extra heat input to the surface, next to and equivalent to the solar flux. Because you expect it to give the exact same direct result as the solar flux does. And the solar flux is most certainly a heat input to the surface.”
Yes indeed. There is simply no other way to interpret those energy diagrams that have bluffed the world.
What back radiation does NOT supply, the non-radiative process, obeying the Second Law of Thermodynamics and explained in the greatest of detail in my website, paper, video and book, DOES as it supplies that missing energy, as MUST happen … see http://climate-change-theory.com
But Kristian, the solar flux is only raising the temperature for a very small portion of the globe. Work out what 168W/m^2 can do on average. Even where there could be around 1,000W/m^2 when the Sun is above Singapore, the maximum never exceeds about 31°C. Perhaps a black asphalt road there gets hotter, but not the overall temperature, because the day isn’t long enough. On Venus the solar radiation can only raise temperatures mostly in the upper troposphere where the existing temperatures are less than about 400K. It has no hope of warming the surface from 732K to 737K with its direct radiation, now does it? But a location on the Equator of Venus does warm by about 5 degrees over the course of four months of sunlight, to compensate for the inevitable cooling the night before. Why is it so? Answer: you know where.
Doug Cotton,
You keep it up don’t you. Reality? What is that?
“But a location on the Equator of Venus does warm by about 5 degrees over the course of four months of sunlight, to compensate for the inevitable cooling the night before. Why is it so? Answer: you know where.”
The question you ask “Why is it so?” Why is it so when I can link you to actual articles that refute your claim you keep making it over and over. You will not prove this claim but act as if it is a reality. Sad thing is you have the power to convince some people (usually those that have limited science background and will not research your false claims).
As long as you continue to make false statements and act as if they are facts I will call you out on them (provided Roy Spencer does not tire of 1000 post threads on the same topic over and over with little or not change and start deleting my counter comments).
I am sure your posts of three years ago are the same as today and will be the same tomorrow and and the following year with the same unproven statements and twisted facts.
1. Prove that a location on the Equator of Venus does not cool during 4 months of darkness – that is, prove that the Venus atmosphere is a 100.000000000…% perfect insulator.
2. If you can’t prove that no cooling would occur, then prove that the whole planet has thus been cooling (using available data from the last few decades) because you claim that location does not warm back up again when it comes around to the sunlit side.
3. Whatever you “prove” above, now prove, using valid physics, that there is sufficient input of thermal energy into the surface to maintain the existing temperatures (732K to 737K) which have been measured, and describe the physical process whereby that energy gets there.
(Don’t crib the answer from my paper – find it somewhere else or work it out yourself – as I have with a few thousand hours of study, research and thinking – because it isn’t in any other world literature to my knowledge.)
Doug Cotton,
I have sent you links about the surface of Venus. The claim they make is the equator surface does not change more than 1 K (if even that). That is my proof. You have zero proof of your statement except what you BELIEVE will happen. You are peddling a religion and not science. You want people to believe your statements without proof, without evidence and against existing evidence (existing evidence claims Venus does not warm or cool 5 C on the equator from day to night. The dinural range is 1 C or less for Venus.
Back radiation can explain why Venus is so hot. You are a one way thinker. You only can think of how much energy enters a system and that is how you determine its ultimate surface temperature. If only one watt/m^2 was being added to a system it would still warm.
Net radiation flow is what you do not understand so it is impossible to prove any point to you since you do not grasp this. Only energy received matters to you not rate of loss. You have to look at NET radiation! If Venus surface only receives 17 watts/m^2 but loses 5 it will still continue to heat.
See comment below in reply. And no, I don’t expect people to believe me without evidence. That’s why I studied and wrote extensively about a range of different forms of evidence that all support my hypothesis.
You have shown your true colors in that your belief system is based on the IPCC garbage that the energy in back radiation can be thermalized in a warmer surface. I have no intention of re-writing my 2012 paper on that very topic in a comment like this. No one has published a valid refutation of that paper, so be the first.
PS:
The articles you link are NOT talking about what happens to a location on the Venus surface as it passes through sunlight and darkness. They are talking about mean temperatures on the dark side compared with mean temperatures on the sunlit side. Of course these are about the same. Think of a sine curve – the means in each 180° section between nodes (maximum or minimum) are the same.
Do you, at a particular location on Earth, experience no warming by day or cooling by night? If all the “greenhouse” garbage were true, then would not the Venus surface warm by day with all the backradiation and solar radiation obviously increasing by day? You score an own goal.
Well Norman, see this comment. It’s different.
Doug Cotton
Look at this graph. Global map of annual solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation#/media/File:SolarGIS-Solar-map-World-map-en.png
Now look at this map of global preciptiation:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~martins/climate_water/slides/global_precip1.gif
Can you possibly make a reasoned connection between these two maps?
Locations that have lots of moisture receive a lot less sunlight energy at their surfaces. When you do your moisture vs temperature study also include the amount of solar energy each location receives. From my simple study wet and dry locations would be the same temp if they received the same amount of incoming solar energy. But since wet air carries more energy the wet area would actually be more energetic than the dry one.
There’s nothing surprising in that Norman. But when are you going to discuss the process of entropy maximization that I have explained, which has nothing to do with the level of solar radiation reaching the surface of any planet? On Venus that averages less than a tenth of what Earth receives. At the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of the planet Uranus there is no solar radiation getting through to that level, but it’s far hotter there than in the methane layer that’s absorbing most of the 4W/m^2 of insolation reaching the top of the Uranus atmosphere. You can read about it here and edit any information you can prove wrong.
SOLAR RADIATION INTO A PLANET’S SURFACE IS NOT THE PRIMARY DETERMINANT OF THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE. NOR IS BACK RADIATION.
Do you get it yet, Norman – and Roy?
Doug Cotton says:
July 26, 2015 at 3:44 AM
“I would back the degree of “certainty” afforded to the Second Law of Thermodynamics against anything else in science. That law reigns supreme, and that’s what I have developed my hypothesis from. Of course I don’t dare call it a theory.”
Doug,
It’s very comforting to be certain, isn’t it! (wink)
As I understand, the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to a ‘closed system’. Is the Earth and its atmosphere really a closed system?
What about the influence of the things that you don’t know about? Our theories of Physics imply that approximately 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is unknown, undetectable and completely invisible. We call it Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It supposedly pervades the whole universe in varying concentrations.
How can you be so sure of your so-called ‘laws of Physics’ when you are totally ignorant of most of the stuff that surrounds you?
See my reply in this comment.
Good, Norman, well if the Venus surface cools 1 degree in 4 months of darkness and, as you claim, does not warm back up by one degree in the sunlit hours, then the whole planets is cooling by quite a few degrees even in a mere century or so, according to you.
How can back radiation “explain” ANY warming of the Venus surface – even one degree, Norman? Go and learn about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I have written two papers about it. You are peddling false physics.
This statement of yours, Norman “If only one watt/m^2 was being added to a system it would still warm” is utter crap and shows no understanding of the Stefan Boltzmann calculations or of black body radiation. Even 20W/m^2 of solar radiation reaching the Venus surface cannot raise the temperature above a very cold -136 degrees C.
Doug Cotton,
Your reply: “This statement of yours, Norman “If only one watt/m^2 was being added to a system it would still warm” is utter crap and shows no understanding of the Stefan Boltzmann calculations or of black body radiation.”
No Doug, it is you that have zero understanding of energy or physics of any kind. It is why you won’t listen to people who have actually studied University level thermodynamics (like Curt Wilson). You don’t understand physics or energy at all.
The one watt is a NET energy gain. Do you comprehend such thingss. Can you grasp these things or are they beyond you?
If you had one watt of energy (NET) gain added to any system it will warm up. You can have 16000 watts added but if you have 15999 leaving you will only add one watt to the system. You are not working to understand NET energy transfer and are stuck somewhere in limbo with some goofy understanding.
Wake up and learn. You are wrong and until you can understand this you waste everyone’s time posting garbage physics on Roy Spencer’s blog.
I’ve taught university level physics for about 50 years, and marked university assignments, young Norman. See today’s blog comment below which will soon be on several other climate websites.
I pity your students.
If you, Norman, still think you can add back radiation to solar radiation and treat it all in the same way after you’ve read today’s blog comment below, then spend some time really studying what I wrote in my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” that was published on several websites in March 2012 and is linked from the ‘Evidence’ page at http://climate-change-theory.com because, in all your descanting, you don’t even so much as distinguish between electro-magnetic energy in radiation, and kinetic energy in moving molecules.
Then, if you disagree and you think there would be places on Earth over 90°C because you think, like James Hansen, that you can add the back radiation, then publish a refutation of my paper, because no one else has done so, to my knowledge.
You might as well refute the Stefan-Boltzmann equation in the process, oh, and all the work of Max Planck. And of course you can prove wrong the computations published by Claes Johnson, Professor of Applied Mathematics on which the above paper of mine was based, extending his work into new 21st Century Physics.
The word “watt” is a measure of power, not energy, young Norman. If you want to raise the temperature of a body you have to raise the mean molecular kinetic energy, otherwise referred to as thermal energy. Back radiation does not deliver thermal energy into a warmer planetary surface – not one little bit. In most regions of the globe direct solar radiation does not do that on Earth either, and not at all on Venus. You think in the wrong paradigm altogether – just like James Hansen, Roy Spencer and the AGW crowd – you think radiation explains all, and it doesn’t.
Now read the two new comments below and go and learn about the 21st Century New Paradigm in Climate Change Science that I first explained about three years ago.
Doug 5:02pm: “..still think you can add back radiation..”
Yes, as proven by Dr. Spencer’s real world test 6/30 when the cirrus water ice shows up at 1:30am.
“..if you disagree and you think there would be places on Earth over 90°C..
Disagree & nope, as proven by the high Noon measurements at Desert Rock, Nv.
“..computations published by Claes Johnson, Professor of Applied Mathematics…”
Computations only, no test backing them. The 1898 famous tests show a different result.
5:57pm: “Back radiation does not deliver thermal energy into a warmer planetary surface ..”
Back radiation does just so as proven by 1st law & Dr. Spencer’s real world test 6/30 when the cirrus water ice shows up at 1:30am.
Doug needs to issue corrigenda to the work 3 years ago as proven by Dr. Spencer’s real world test 6/30 when the cirrus water ice shows up at 1:30am & the Desert Rock measurements, no sense reading it until that happens – to align with real world test.
“Back radiation does not deliver thermal energy into a warmer planetary surface – not one little bit.”
All radiation carries energy. When radiation is absorbed by another body, its energy is absorbed, raising the body’s temperature. This happens regardless of any temperature differences between the emitting and receiving bodies.
Radiation from a cooler scource is not thermalized in a warmer target because it merely resonates.
See my “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” because I know what I’m talking about, and you don’t have a clue as to how radiation works. You could learn heaps from that 2012 paper of mine.
“Radiation from a cooler scource is not thermalized in a warmer target because it merely resonates.”
That is gobbleygook.
Where does the energy-carrying radiation from cooler source end up? Does it do a U-turn and go back to its source?
OT,on a different Ceres.
http://m.space.com/30054-dwarf-planet-ceres-bright-spots-atmosphere.html
I keep looking at water vapor distribution as shown e.g. http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/eaus/wv-animated.gif
CO2 is fairly well mixed so using an average concentration to compute it’s GHG effect makes sense to me. But water vapor is NOT well mixed so using an average concentration for water vapor makes no sense at all. The net forcing of an area of very dry air plus that of an equal area of very “wet” air is going to be far less in reality than any modeled forcing using the average water vapor of those two applied over an equivalent area. It is a non-linear effect so the actual has to be less.
So what am I missing? How is the variability of water vapor forcing treated in GCM’s?
Even early models by Manabe et al found their models gave realistic distributions and flows of water vapor in the atmosphere.
For how water vapor is treated in at least one atmospheric model, see:
“Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 3.0),” NCAR Technical Note NCAR/TN–464+STR, June 2004.
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/description.pdf
especially Chapter 4.
Thanks for the link. They put up a video of the circulation modeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0mupl4FZsQ that looks pretty impressive so they certainly have improved their approach quite a lot in that regard.
However I was unable to ascertain that they have accounted for how albedo above the large concentrations of water vapor – that which convected upwards and condensing into clouds at or near noon time – negates the effectiveness of that amount of WV as a GHG given that the surface below is in a shadow. I know when I’m on the beach and a cumulus cloud blocks the sun that the affect on me is immediate and I’m suddenly radiating far less LWR back toward the sky.
“group think in an echo chamber riding on a bandwagon”… Love it!
James Hansen (and subsequent the whole AGW crowd) originally applied an algorithm which added back radiation to solar radiation (treating each the same) and used it in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations, showing that 390W/m^2 yields a black body temperature of 288K which is about 15°C, thought to be the mean surface temperature for the whole globe.
But nature always treats every single pencil of radiation such that it obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics and some of the electro-magnetic energy is only converted to thermal (kinetic) energy in a target that has a lower Planck curve than the effective Planck curve of the source after any attenuation due to distance, reflection or absorption. The Sun’s mean effective radiation is like that of an extremely close black body that is at a very cold -41°C and Hansen realized its direct radiation to the surface could never explain the surface temperature. Such is even more obvious on Venus. Even at Earth’s Equator the mean solar radiation over 24 hours is only around 214W/m^2 for which the black body temperature is about -25°C.
Now, if you calculate a mean temperature using Hansen’s algorithm of adding back radiation into the calculations, then it is implicit that you are applying that algorithm to every location on the globe and determining a mean of all the temperatures thus calculated. You can see that the algorithm is incorrect, because there are regions on the planet which, on a clear day at noon in the tropics, receive over 800W/m^2 – maybe even 1,000W/m^2 of direct solar radiation. If you then add back radiation (probably far greater than the mean of 324W/m^2 in these locations) you get totally unrealistic temperatures often over 90°C. So it’s obviously wrong to do so, and physics confirms this.
Hence, because you can’t add back radiation you can’t deduce that the back radiation from increasing levels of carbon dioxide will cause warming. Furthermore, you have to go looking for a completely different algorithm – a wholly different paradigm, and you find that when you come to understand the process of entropy maximization, which is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is all about.
This is continued on my website: http://climate-change-theory.com
(continued)
Whilst we have to admit that the Sun’s direct radiation into the surfaces of planets like Earth and Venus is obviously insufficient to explain the observed temperatures, we do know that these planetary surfaces rise in temperature on the sunlit side and inevitably cool a little on the dark side. So we can deduce that the warming has something to do with the Sun.
However, for a temperature to rise there must be a net gain of mean molecular kinetic energy, which we will refer to as thermal energy. This can, and does come mostly via molecular collisions between the atmospheric molecules and the solid surface molecules.
But where does the new energy come from in the first place?
When we apply Stefan-Boltzmann calculations we see that the Sun’s direct radiation can usually only raise the temperature of IR-absorbing molecules in the upper atmosphere where the temperatures are low enough for this to happen.
In school-boy physics you probably learnt that heat only transfers from warmer sources to cooler targets. So you will be surprised to learn that there are exceptions to this rule when there is an external force field like gravity. That is because the Second Law of Thermodynamics is really about entropy maximization, and entropy changes when molecular gravitational potential energy changes.
This process has been described in my paper, website and book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” and there’s not space to elaborate here, save to say that this is indeed the new paradigm that James Hansen was not experienced enough to even contemplate.
Mr. Cotton,
Like most arguments based on unfounded beliefs, your attempt at denial of the so-called “greenhouse effect” with the statement “Back radiation does not deliver thermal energy into a warmer planetary surface – not one little bit” collapses under the weight of just a modicum of critical thought. Even if your inappropriate application of 19th Century thermodynamic theory was true, it is of no consequence in regards to reality, because the Earth is not a perfectly smooth spheroid with a uniform temperature distribution. Nor are the Earth’s water, which covers 70% of the planet’s surface, and atmosphere a static stack of billiard balls; they move, as wind and wave and circulation and current.
The air heated by the morning desert sun moves along the still-shaded mountainside where it, in accordance with the Laws of Thermodynamics, is free to, in fact must, transmit its joulian cargo to the cool rockface. (You might also want to reflect on the fact that, as those hot air molecules move up the gravitational well, they cool by releasing photons). A tropical front saunters up the east coast of North America to warm the frigid and continuously circulating North Atlantic. That large black boulder on the beach heats the air that passes over it to well above the temperature of the cool Pacific waves. I could go on, but I would hope you get the point; even if a molecule can magically discern the temperature of a photon’s source, perhaps by some sort of quantum entanglement that arises when a photon is released or impinges, there is a multitude of circumstances where the molecules of the atmosphere are warmer than those of the surface and that pesky back radiation returns to the earth or sea.
Your enormous edifice of egregious error based on fundamentally flawed fantasy physics (I do so enjoy alliteration) does not reflect reality and, so, does not even qualify as valid conjecture, let alone theory. As Dr. No recently suggested, you need find another hobby.
Where’s my AUD5000?
Sorry, but you simply can’t calculate climate sensitivity from the historical data, because we do not have the needed data on aerosols. You actually need more then just total aerosol emissions, you need them as a function of latitude, because their reflection of sunlight is a function of latitude. And they drift.
Doug Cotton,
I think I am getting close to where you made the wrong turn in your thinking. Hoping this post helps you discover it so you can get back on the “reality highway” instead of the bumping road of make up stuff as you go.
You posted a list of Stefan-Boltzmann figures.
It is correct if you have a black-body and a radiation source of 1366 watts/m^2 the temperature of the black-body will reach a temperature of 120.8 C (a little higher than the moon temp will reach since the moon does reflect some incoming radiation). It will reach this temperature because at 120.8 C it is radiating energy away at the rate of 1366 watts/m^2. It is the equilibrium temperature of the black-body system.
You understand that fairly well. So where did you go wrong?
You think this is the hottest the black-body can get but that is where you missed the whole thing and why you cannot understand Venus and need to make up a physics that is not real (heat creep which only exists in your mind but no evidence of such exists in reality). If you restrict the outflow of the radiation leaving the surface yet allow the same energy as before to reach it (say a type of one-way mirror…it allows most the energy in but restricts energy leaving and reflects it back to the surface).
So with this restriction of energy out but same energy in. For calculation purposes we will have this radiation restricter only allow 50% of the energy that strikes its inner surface to leave, the rest will return to the surface.
With this setup the surface will have to emit 2732 watts/m^2 to allow 1366 watts/m^2 out (which now once again balances the incoming energy).
Now to help you follow what is going on I will restate. You have incoming radiation of 1366 watts/m^2. This is what the radiation flux is at the top of the radiation restricter. All this energy passes through to the surface adding energy there as it is absorbed by the surface heating it up. When the surface reaches 120.8 C it radiates at 1366 watts/m^2. This radiation moves up to the restricter and only half goes through, the rest is redirected to the surface. So now you have an energy imbalance, you have 1366 watts/m^2 going in but only 683 watts/m^2 leaving the system.
The surface will now continue to get hotter (but the redirected energy is NEVER higher energy than the surface). The surface will warm until the outgoing radiation is equal to the incoming radiation. To get 1366 watts/m^2 to go through a restricter that only allows 50% of the energy through it in that direction the surface has to be emitting 2732 watts/m^2. What would the surface temperature be? 195.36 C is the correct answer.
The Stefan-Boltzmann radiation black-body apply to a system where nothing restricts the outflow of radiation. Once something restricts outflow of energy, more energy will remain in the system and the temperature will rise.
Not one of the alternative explanations (yours or the massive atmosphere) can explain what happens to the 16000 watts/m^2 given off by Venus surface. This is real energy being emitted by the surface. It does not go out of the atmosphere of Venus. You can measure the puny radiation being emitted from Venus from it TOA and it is not 16000 watts/m^2. Venus would be a very bright infrared object in the sky if such were the case (which it is not). The best of all explanations is that a combination of Carbon Dioxide and bright shiny clouds are redirecting almost all the surface energy back down. That is why the dinural range is less than 1 C. It is not solar energy warming the surface at this point. The hot surface radiates into the Venus atmosphere, the atmosphere redirects a significant amount of radiation back to the surface.
Hi Norman,
“The hot surface radiates into the Venus atmosphere, the atmosphere redirects a significant amount of radiation back to the surface.”
I agree, but what I can’t explain is why is not taken in account the (IMHO) huge energy exchange required at the ground interface to keep the atmospheric molecule up there.
Without temperature there are no gasses at all, any atmosphere exist because there is matter that at certain temperature disgregate at molecular level and becoming gas allow to those molecules to be fired away from the surface for a while, until the gravity force return them back to the ground.
Why do you assume that the whole 16000 watts/m^2 are due to back -radiation only?
Isn’t the work done by the surface that throw up the molecules because of its temperature, returned back to the ground in the form of energy when the molecules fall down and impact the ground later?
Isn’t that the same (but more consistent in my opinion) of the work done by the GHGs?
Have a great day.
Massimo
Hi Massimo PORZIO
Once an atmosphere is established most the molecules in the gas state will collide with each other in almost perfectly elastic collisions (at least the gases like N2 and O2) and will exchange energy but not lose any. Also gas molecules in the lower atmosphere are not so free to move up or down. They can only move a tiny distance before meeting another molecule and their direction changes along with their energy state.
The only molecules that will respond to the surface of a planet are the thin layer above the surface. They will gain or lose energy as they hit the solid material of the planet.
They do not shoot high up and then fall down like a ball or a bullet. The ones close to the surface will either gain or lose energy in their interaction with that surface (depending upon if the surface is warmer or cooler than the air at the time). I hope that my explanation helps a little.
Have a wonderful day.
uhmmm…
So in your point of view, don’t the molecules of the very first layers pass some (most) of their energy to the ones above?
In my vision of why the atmosphere is up there, there are gazillions of energy exchanges between molecules that are all triggered by the surface.
No energy at the surface, no atmosphere at all (let me exclude for a moment the energy absorbed by radiation, from the ground and directly from the the Sun, imagine a non ghg atmosphere).
IMHO it’s exactly because of their almost completely elastic bouncing, that their energy is shared in the whole atmosphere and all that energy is finally and completely returned to the ground by their moving under the influence of the gravity force vector.
Always in my opinion, if there weren’t the energy exchanges at the ground interface the whole atmospheric process of moving molecules should configure a perpetual motion. That is, removing the incoming energy from the Sun, the atmosphere should stay there anyways despite there is no more energy to throw the molecules away from the ground (always let me imagine an atmosphere made of non radiative gasses).
In my opinion, I see no difference from this energy exchange process and the GHGs effect one, except that in the GHGs effect the quantity of energy is quantized by the number of radiative molecules independently by the temperature of the ground, while in the molecules “firing up” process the energy exchanged is a direct function of the ground temperature.
Don’t you agree?
Have a nice day.
Massimo
And geran told you also Norman that you are completely wrong.
Go and read my 2012 paper on radiation here.
Radiation simply doesn’t work the way James Hansen bluffed you into thinking.
Nope Norman!
Your thinking is wrong. Your example would be creating energy our of thin air! (Just as the GHE theory requires.) If you can’t see that from the math, try doing an actual experiment. It won’t work!
The large energy difference comes from a small difference accumulated over time.
geran wrote:
“Your example would be creating energy our of thin air! (Just as the GHE theory requires.)”
The greenhouse effect conserves energy. Of course.
See this diagram for how energy balances:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Figure1.png
Oh, I see, the GHE conserves energy, but it produces energy, but it doesn’t violate the 2LoT, but it produces energy, but it doesn’t, but it does….
(Hint to Davy: “Radiative forcing” has units of “Watts/square meter”.)
“If you restrict the outflow of the radiation leaving the surface yet allow the same energy as before to reach it (say a type of one-way mirror…it allows most the energy in but restricts energy leaving and reflects it back to the surface).”
Stop your assertive statements: prove what you say using entropy equations – if you can.
Norman wrote:
“You can measure the puny radiation being emitted from Venus from it TOA and it is not 16000 watts/m^2.”
Very good point. Any model of a planet’s climate must account for the difference in its surface emissions and the radiation leaving the top of its atmosphere. Venus is a stark example.
geran,
Since you claim I am wrong and the example I gave would create energy out of thin air then please explain why you think this. There is a constant source of energy in what I wrote. The surface is constantly receiving an input of 1366 watts/m^2. There is a continuous source of incoming energy. If you restrict energy out you are not creating energy. But if less energy is allowed to leave you will increase the amount of energy in the system if you keep adding it.
Maybe you don’t understand so I will give an example that should be quite clear to you. You have a tub of water. You are filling it at the rate of 1 gallon a minute. You have a drain that at a certain level will drain at one gallon a minute (say half full). So now you have this equilibrium state of your tank at half full. You are adding a gallon a minute rate and draining at the same rate.
Okay now, pinch of the drain so you are only draining 1/2 a gallon a minute what happens to your tank level? Will it fill more than it was? Now say the tank has to fill all the way for the drain line to have enough pressure to go back to draining at the rate of 1 gallon a minute. The tank fills up and now you have a new equilibrium. Did you create water from thin air?
I have strong doubts you will ever be able to understand it. That is fine, all people are not designed to understand science. You will probably argue your points on climate sights forever but you will NEVER take a Univiersity level physics class.
I can keep trying to help your faulty thinking but as far as I have seen it is a grand waste of effort.
You probably won’t actually read what I have written or take the time to even slightly understand the concept. I have responded to your posts before and can tell you have little science education but think you understand it correctly. Great for you I am glad you are changing physics. Too bad the rest of the science world will never follow you.
Norman, you just continue to confuse yourself more and more. The irrelevant examples don’t prove anything, except your lack of understanding.
Here’s an example that easily disproves your beliefs. Consider a hallway in a house. The hallway has bare walls. Hang a large mirror on the other wall.
In your belief system, the IR from the first wall will reflect off the mirror and heat the first wall. That new energy will reflect again, and again, and again, until the wall catches fire.
But, that is what you believe!
geran,
In your example, you are ignoring imperfections in the mirrors, the walls and air of the hall, the construction of the house, the environment around the house, statistical quantum effects, etc. If those are the conditions of the experiment, then there is no energy input into the system and the photons simply bounce back and forth at equilibrium.
No, Slip, you are ignoring that in a “thought experiment” everything is ideal. But, you are somewhat on the right track, as you indicate the reflected photons can not heat the emitting surface.
This simple example ruins it for the “gassers”. A mirror cannot increase the temperature of the emitting surface. Back-radiation can not, in toto, increase Earth’s surface temperature (the GHE).
geran,
If the conditions of your experiment are ideal, you cannot apply your results to the real world, since the real world is not ideal. This is why every analog machine or circuit is designed with adjustment mechanisms of some kind, an operating range that far exceeds any conditions that the machine is likely to encounter, or a failure rate expectation. The only thing that approaches ideal is a purely digital mechanism and, even then, failures occur.
Thought experiments with ideal conditions are only useful as a guide to determine the matter, processes, and parameters, and, possibly, the ranges of those parameters, that you should consider when modeling the real world.
“Thought experiments with ideal conditions are only useful as a guide to determine the matter, processes, and parameters, and, possibly, the ranges of those parameters, that you should consider when modeling the real world.”
_______
Eggggsactly!
geran wrote:
“Back-radiation can not, in toto, increase Earth’s surface temperature (the GHE).
It sure does. Where else do you expect the downwelling longwave radiation to go?
David asks:”where else do you expect the downwelling longwave radiation to go?”
###
Into evaporation.
“It sure does.”
—-
So in your “belief system”, you can boil water with enough ice cubes?
Where else do you expect the downwelling longwave radiation to go?
—–
Does your “belief system” not allow electromagnetic radiation to be reflected?
Painter wrote:
“Into evaporation.”
How much energy leaves the Earth’s surface due to evaporation?
Be sure to cite your source.
geran says:
“Does your “belief system” not allow electromagnetic radiation to be reflected?”
Of course some energy is reflected. See the energy balance diagram I’ve been linking to:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Figure1.png
“So in your “belief system”, you can boil water with enough ice cubes?”
Good lord, you have a very poor understanding of physics.
Energy is exchanged until the system comes to equilibrium.
I doubt ice cubes can ever deliver enough energy to boil water, even if you surround the water with it. But GHGs can cause an ocean to boil. See: Venus.
Where do you think the IR energy of the ice cubes goes, anyway?
Back radiation===> evaporation, right?
That is AGW, right David? DWLWIR absorbed at the ocean surface, right? 330 W/sq m, right, David?
Or does it just warm the upper 3 microns of the sea surface without causing evaporation? Because that is where it is absorbed. Right, David?
Davy says: “I doubt ice cubes can ever deliver enough energy to boil water, even if you surround the water with it.”
_______
Well, there you go, Davy! There’s your perfect experiment to help prove GHE. And, it sounds like you could perform it for much less than a billion dollars.
If a few ice cubes won’t “deliver enough energy”, just get several truck loads of ice and pile them on a bucket of water at 70ºF.
When the water in the bucket boils, give us a call….
(You see, interested readers, the “climate clowns” actually believe low energy IR is a “heat source”. They actually believe it could boil water. That is why they believe it can “heat the planet”.)
geran wrote:
“In your belief system, the IR from the first wall will reflect off the mirror and heat the first wall. That new energy will reflect again, and again, and again, until the wall catches fire.”
We call this a “laser.”
Obviously you know nothing about lasers.
Funny — I spent a year as an editor as Laser Focus World magazine.
How exactly do you think lasers work?
They generate coherent waveforms in cavities bounded by mirrors.
This is in no way controversial.
Davy, the hallway example mentioned has no way of producing “coherent” light. Your editing days must have been hilarious.
geran,
Your thought process has flaws you are unwilling to discover. One question. It is most obvious you have never taken a higher level physics class but did you even take physics in high school. I somewhat doubt it from your mindless comments. They really do demonstrate your complete lack of any science understanding. It is funny you think you are being really clever and bright with your posts but they really sound like a high school boy commenting.
My belief says absolutley the opposite of what you are claiming I am saying and it is because of your intentional desire not to understand. You would be less annoying if you actually understood what a person was saying and then responded in an intelligent fashion (something beyond your limited ability).
The mirror will not warm the wall and my example has nothing to do with this. If you add energy to the system you will have a warming wall. What you really do not grasp at all is the walls are all radiating in your hallway example. A mirror is not doing anything the walls are not already doing. They are warm and radiate back and forth to each other until energy leaves the system on the opposite sides.
You will not understand that anyway you do not have enough science background to grasp it.
You want real experimental proof of my claim. My house in winter is 70 F and outside it may be -10 F. My house is warm, does that mean it is creating energy from nothing? If I remove all the insulation will my housse be as warm ith the same energy input? You will not answer these in an intelligent fashion. Too bad you don’t go to school and study, you might then contribute some ideas of value. Now you remind me of a smirking chimp on a keyboard that hasn’t got a clue of what he is typing he just does it.
Gee Norman, you sure attempt to sling a lot of insults. (Feel any better, now?)
So, have you changed your belief system? I don’t read all of your comments, so if you’ve changed, that’s good. The last I knew, you believed in the greenhouse effect. That’s the false concept I’m trying to help you to reject.
geran,
No the insults do not make me feel better and I would rather not display such behavior.
Mine is not a “belief system” but a scientific view. It can still be wrong but it is not a belief.
Question for you. Did you even take a physics class in high school?
Another question. You believe GHE is a “false” concept based upon your very limited understanding of physics (which is not an insult but an observation which if you answer my question it will be confirmed). Why would not radiating gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane not radiate energy downward? What would stop this? First do you accept that these gases are able to absorb certain wavelengths of Infrared radiation? If not then I will have to wait on the remainder of this post. Doesn’t matter much anyway since you profess not to read my posts anyway (unless I insult you).
If you are “scientific” Norman, then read some real 21st Century physics like this paper on radiation and learn, learn, learn, because you sure need to.
EVERY ONE-WAY PENCIL OF RADIATION OBEYS THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS, THAT LAW APPLYING TO EVERY NATURAL PROCESS IN NATURE NO MATTER HOW SIMPLE OR ELEMENTARY THAT PROCESS MAY BE. IT DOES NOT APPLY TO THE NET RESULT OF SEVERAL INDEPENDENT PROCESSES – ONLY TO THE NET RESULT OF EITHER ONE PROCESS OR SEVERAL DEPENDENT PROCESSES – NEVER, EVER, EVER SHOULD YOU ASSUME IT MUST APPLY TO THE NET RESULT OF INDEPENDENT PROCESSES. THE JUG DOESN’T BOIL BECAUSE YOUR COFFEE WENT COLD.
Of course they “radiate [electro magnetic] energy downward” Norman. And the radiation undergoes resonant scattering, or “pseudo scattering” as physicists now call it. This is 21st century physics you need to catch up on Norman.
You could have read why there is absolutely no transfer of thermal energy into a warmer target by such radiation in my peer-reviewed paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” Norman. Yes that’s a link. Click it and spend an hour studying how radiation obeys the Second Law, a fact which you ignore.
“And the radiation undergoes resonant scattering, or “pseudo scattering” as physicists now call it.”
More gobbleygook.
While scattering does have implications for the atmospheric physics, the greenhouse effect is mostly from absorption and emission.
What ultimately matters is where the energy is deposited.
Yes.
Gases would not not radiate in all directions. (I also learned about double negatives in HS.)
Absolute zero.
Yes.
Okay, so you believe in the GHE, but you believe it is not a “belief system” but a “scientific view”. So, here is your chance to really teach me something, with all the science you know. I’m sure you’ve seen this equation before:
∆F = 5.35ln(C/Co) Watts/sq. meter
It is of course the “scientific” basis for the GHE. The only trouble is that most “believers” just accept the equation without question. But the folks that follow the “scientific method” have searched for the mathematical/scientific derivation for the equation (sometimes call “proof”). The “proof” for the equation appears to somehow be lost.
Perhaps you could share this “proof”, since it is not your belief system, and you know so much science.
Thanks.
geran,
If you think the equation you cited is the “”scientific” basis” for the so-called GHE, you should do some reading on what “scientific basis” means. You should also investigate the difference between a derivation and a proof.
If you are truly interested in the scientific basis for the so-called “greenhouse effect”, I strongly recommend you visit the IPCC Working Group I website and download their reports, which are freely available. Radiative forcing is covered in great detail in Chapter 8 of the full report and there is an extensive list of references for further investigation.
Yes and all the references to radiative forcing assume you can add back radiation to solar radiation in order to explain a planet’s surface temperature. That’s what they think they can do to explain the 732K to 737K rise in the Venus surface temperature that is actually the result of thermal energy supplied by natural convective heat transfer, not radiation. That’s what we can deduce from correct physics. And you can’t prove me wrong. Just try after you’ve read what is at http://climate-change-theory.com and both of the papers linked from the ‘Evidence’ page. Sadly you are very brainwashed and gullible to absorbing the IPCC garbage science.
“Yes and all the references to radiative forcing assume you can add back radiation to solar radiation in order to explain a planet’s surface temperature.”
This is called the “superposition principle” — it is a consequence of Maxwell’s laws, which are linear in the field variables.
Slip, if you believe your two paragraphs (above) contribute anything constructive, you should look up “obfuscate” and “bloviate”.
Oh, and I’ve researched “Chapter 8”. It’s a perfect example of pseudoscience.
You didn’t address the question asked of you: why doesn’t radiation go in all directions?
???
Who asked me that? Surely you’re not confused by Norman’s “double negative”, what with all
your “editing days”.
geran wrote:
“Gases would not not radiate in all directions. (I also learned about double negatives in HS.)”
They will, if (as usual) the molecules are oriented in random directions.
Consider a mass of chlorine gas. Are there only some angles from which you can see it?
geran wrote:
“But the folks that follow the “scientific method” have searched for the mathematical/scientific derivation for the equation (sometimes call “proof”).”
It comes from curve-fitting.
Here is a recent paper that extends it to higher CO2 values:
“Radiative forcing at high concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases,” Brendan Byrne and C. Goldblatt, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13 2014.
I reproduced their equations here:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-if-co2-gets-really-high-say-1000.html
“Curve-fitting” is only an attempt at empirical evidence. You would need years of future temps vs CO2 to verify the attempted evidence. Then, you would need to prove the link (causation).
It ain’t gonna happen, because the atmosphere does not warm the Earth.
““Curve-fitting” is only an attempt at empirical evidence. You would need years of future temps vs CO2 to verify the attempted evidence.”
You need a model that summarizes theoretical results.
That’s where the ln(C/C0) equation comes from, and the equations in the paper I pointed out to you come from.
They are model results. But observations have shown they closely track observations.
“They are model results. But observations have shown they closely track observations.”
_________
Nope!
“Nope!”
Prove it. This result clearly shows otherwise:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/07/gistemp-only-004c-behind-models.html
I don’t have to prove GHE doesn’t work, the “climate scientists” MUST prove it does.
It’s the old “Null Hypothesis” thingy. (The last 20 years is doing a fairly good job of disproving the GHE garbage, anyway.)
Oh, and the “climate scientists” need to produce their “proof” on their own time and money. They’ve wasted too much public money chasing pseudoscience already.
“…because the atmosphere does not warm the Earth.”
Like all objects, the atmosphere radiates.
Like all radiation, that radiation carries energy.
Where does that energy go?
(Davy, this is top secret information. I hope you will not tell anyone. Use all methods to preserve confidentiality.)
Earth’s atmosphere radiates excess energy to space.
(Now, destroy your hard drive.)
“Earth’s atmosphere radiates excess energy to space.”
Prove it.
You would have to have a solid background in physics, especially in the areas of thermodynamics, heat transfer, quantum physics, and the Gas Laws, to understand the proof.
But, in simple terms, the Earth receives much more energy from the Sun than it can use. Numerous systems work together to “reject” this extra energy, as needed. Albedo is just one. Evaporation and cloud formation should be obvious to you. The atmosphere, obeying the Gas Laws, expands to release (radiate) more energy , as needed.
Minute traces of CO2 CANNOT raise Earth’s temperature. Atmospheric CO2 is NOT a “heat source”. (It brings no new energy into the system.) Even if mankind could figure out some way to heat the planet, the atmospheric response would swamp the effort.
You have been misled.
geran,
Glad you took some physics classes.
You state: ‘Gases would not not radiate in all directions.”
Interesting statement. So why wouldn’t they radiate in all directions? Is this based upon some empirical scientific data or is this your own expert opinion?
Thanks and have a pleasant day!
On the equation you post I think that is what this thread is about. the search for some evidence to support climate sensitivity. I have not done much research on this equation.
Norman, did you not understand “double negative”? Did you not understand that I was satirizing your usage of such, in your poorly phrased question?—“Why would not radiating gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane not radiate energy downward?”
Do I have to explain EVERYTHING? I even mentioned “double negative” in parenthesis, as a hint. Sheesh!
And, I chuckled at your response to my rhetorical request for “proof” of the GHE equation—“I have not done much research on this equation.”
Well, if you ever do the research, you will learn that there is NO “derivation” or “proof” for the GHE equation. Translation: There is NO science behind the GHE. The “GHE” is a “belief system”, it is NOT science. In a free society, you get to believe whatever you want to believe, but you should know that the GHE is NOT science.
Here’s an analogy to the pseudoscience of the GHE: A cult leader sees a bird on a telephone pole. The next day it rains. So, the cult leader concludes that when a bird sits on a telephone pole, it will rain the next day. His followers then believe the cult leader can predict rain. It doesn’t matter how many times future predictions are wrong, the followers continue to believe.
The IPCC GHE/CO2/AGW nonsense is a “belief system”, not science.
geran wrote:
“The “GHE” is a “belief system”, it is NOT science.”
Several groups have measured the change in the greenhouse effect:
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339–343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Press release: “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
“Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
David,
Your Feldmann paper is merely another Keeling curve with some cooked-up temperature data, according to the abstract. You have posted this link about 14 times and you have never attempted to explain how the paper proves the GHE. In fact, it is just more smoke and mirrors from the AGW zealots.
Painter: Did you actually read the Feldman et al paper?
Or are you accusing them of fraud based only on the abstract?
David,
I have not read the paper. Why don’t you post a link that is not a paywall? But I don’t need to read the paper to sniff smoke and mirrors; the monkey is on your back to explain how the paper demonstrates a GHE.
Here is what I suspect: they have jiggered the temperature difference between a La Nina year (2000) and an El Nino year (2010). This is the “total radiative forcing” referred to in the abstract I suspect. They then slice this “forcing” via their “computations” and tack it to a Keeling curve.
Furthermore, I think you know this is how the trick was done, assuming that you have read the paper.
But maybe you haven’t, because it is paywalled.
Painter wrote:
“I have not read the paper.”
Enough said. You haven’t read the paper, but accuse the authors of fraud and dismiss their results.
Nothing could better capture the mindset of a climate change denier than this.
Thank you. (Really.)
Still nothing but a paywall, David? That paywall is the only support the paper has.
How about linking to the paper, David. Surely you have a copy, yourself.
Painter: Go to your local library.
And I linked to the paper. I’ll link to it again:
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339–343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Press release: “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Painter wrote:
“Surely you have a copy, yourself.”
Yes, I do. That’s why I know what it says. And how I did the background research for this:
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/07/from-warming-estimates-to-measurements/
Well, David, did surface temperatures of the study period (2000-2010) increase at both of these locations?
Because if there were no temperature increase, then there was no greenhouse _effect_.
How about that..still no proof of the greenhouse effect.
Surely $20 billion dollars per year can buy more than just these 4 “studies”.
Hint: If the GHE were REAL, there would be no need to adjust historical temperatures. Or the need for endless “research” trying to find “evidence” of it.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
geran says:
“Hint: If the GHE were REAL, there would be no need to adjust historical temperatures.”
What a complete misunderstanding of the temperature records.
Raw data must be adjusted for many reasons. UAH does this for issues like satellite drift. Surface models do it for known biases, like stations moves, replacements, time of day observation, etc.
None of it has the slightest thing to do with the greenhouse effect. (snort.)
Davy, when you don’t have the facts on your side, just go with your opinion. That way you can always convince yourself that you’re right!
geran: Your reply was completely off topic.
I’ll assume that means you don’t have a meaningful reply on the subject.
Davy, “assumptions” are nothing new for you.
geran: I asked you a serious question. I expect a real reply.
Okay, Davy, I’ll play.
What was this “serious question”?
Adjustments — by NOAA, by UAH, by GISTEMP, by RSS — correct for biases in the raw data.
How would you correct for these biases?
First, it must be proved, even to skeptics, that the only “bias” is in the instrumentation. There is far too much “bias” in the “adjusters”. Until the corruption is removed from institutions, only raw data should be used. People, not institutions, are then free to “massage” the data all they want, but everyone has the REAL, unadjusted data.
Second, if a device/sensor has a known, repeating bias, it should be replaced. Often test equipment will have “drift”. In lab experiments, this drift is periodically adjusted using calibrated equipment (standards). The adjustments are documented.
In general, if there are enough sensors, and the design of the sensors is adequate, the “drifts” should cancel. Example: 1000 sensors total, with 500 reading slightly high, and 500 reading slightly low.
Proper data collection is a well-established science. It involves strict adherence to rules. Climate “scientists” appear to prefer their own rules.
geran,
Sorry I missed you clever humor in the double negative. But since you accept that radiating gas will radiate in all directions it will already indicate that even to you GHE is indeed a science.
The debate would be on the extent of the GHE not its existence. The equation for determining the effect of more Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that you posted is one attempt to find the extent. It is still science (science can still be wrong, it is the process involved that would make it a science). Scientists can derive equations based upon well established physics. The equation may not work but it is not a belief system. It only becomes a belief system when the non working equation is accepted even though it is not predicting anything similar to the bird on telephone pole example you gave.
Carbon Dioxide molecules in the air absorb upwelling radiation from the surface (at least some of it). They can reemit this absorbed radiation in any random direction so at least 50% can return to the Earth’s surface. So some GHE will automatically exist.
Well Norman, you have “non-working” equations wherein the IPCC adds back radiation to solar radiation and “explains” the mean surface temperature. Trouble is, it ain’t “explaining” why the tropics aren’t getting up to 90°C with their double counting of radiation. That’s the way they “explain” it Norman: you can’t escape that – it’s all there in those energy budget diagrams, and it’s all wrong.
As for yourself and your dream world in which solar radiation from the Sun (which is just like that from a nearby iceberg at -41°C) will, according to you, none-the-less warm the Earth’s surface to more than 50 degrees above its own effective temperature because 1 molecule in 2,500 is slowing the rate of radiative cooling of that surface, as if the surface had no other way to cool, Norman.
Or is it the water vapor, Norman? You can’t escape that fact either that the IPCC claims water vapor is doing nearly all of 33 degrees of warming, despite it creating clouds. Oh, and by the way, Pierrehumbert forgot about the clouds because he said the radiating temperature would be 255K without GHG like WV and so without clouds. Sadly he forgot that those clouds cause two-thirds of the 30% albedo that he used in his calculations – you can see it there in his book – that 0.7 figure multiplying the Solar constant. It’s all there staring you in the face, Norman: wrong calculations in the “Gold Standard of Climatology” and radiation figures adding to that 390W/m^2 that “explains” the 15°C surface temperature. You are just so gullible Norman, believing all that IPCC garbage originating from James Hansen who to this day has no clue about entropy maximization.
So, Norman, when you actually discuss the physics I have presented that is a corollary of the Second Law of Thermo, rather than red herrings like the temperatures on Uranus, then you will learn a lot from a sensible scientific discussion of the hypothesis, which I’m quite prepared to have with you or anyone who wants to read this breakthrough in the climate debate, because that’s what it is, whether you like it or not.
“Oh, and by the way, Pierrehumbert forgot about the clouds because he said the radiating temperature would be 255K without GHG like WV and so without clouds.”
1) Pierrehumbert made it clear this was a first approximate, zero-dimensional calculation.
2) At the calculated surface temperature of 255 K, most of the water and water vapor in the atmosphere would freeze out. Hence, few clouds.
The 255K is not the surface temperature – it is the existing effective radiating temperature of the whole surface+atmosphere system with current concentrations of water vapor. It is determined after deducting albedo of 30% applied to the mean solar constant, that figure including 20% reflected by clouds. Without water vapor (ie no water on the planet) he should have used about 10% albedo. That gives a flux of about 342*0.9 = 307.8W/m^2 for which the black body temperature would be 271.4K so, however you look at it, the introduction of water onto the planet has not made the surface most of 33 degrees warmer.
“or which the black body temperature would be 271.4K”
That’s -2 C. Water droplets would freeze out of the atmosphere, and there’d be few if any clouds.
Because atmospheric gases radiate IR, that is “proof” of the GHE??? REALLY?
Norman, EVERYTHING radiates IR. That fact proves NOTHING about the GHE. You are really grasping at straws.
You have no proof of the GHE. You rely on the “crowd”. The “crowd” does your thinking for you. You just “copy/paste” (regurgitate what they feed you.). The fact that you “believe” there is proof, when you have not seen it, or cannot produce it, indicates GHE is your “belief system”. You admit that you have not researched it. You just drank the “kool-aid” and now you believe. Your adherence to the cult mentality explains your reliance on insults as your debate mechanism.
geran,
I think we may have to slow down and discuss terms. What do you defined GHE to be? This would greatly help in me working to understand your current viewpoint.
To clarify what I am claiming it to be. Atmopspheric gases abosrb radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface. They reradiate this energy in all directions so some will return to the Earth slowing down the cooling rate of the surface which, with a constant input of solar energy, will lead to a higher equilibrium temperature.
Proof is in a warm house in the winter (via insulation slowing down the cooling rate). Or you can do this today if you wish. Leave the car windows closed on a sunny day and measure the temp inside then open the windows the following day and get an equilibrium temperature and see if there is a difference. The closed windows prevent energy from leaving the system and the car with windows up will be warmer even though both situations receive the same input of energy.
If you accept atmospheric gases radiate in all directions you have no choice but to accept GHE.
“What do you defined GHE to be?”
______
The GHE, as defined by the IPCC, does not exist. It is a “belief system” that has no valid science behind it. It is the famous “cargo cult science”.
The “believers” accept anything as proof that it is true, just as you try to claim omnidirectional photon emission is “proof”. Your home insulation is “proof”. Probably the Moon is somehow “proof”, to you. Maybe even your dog “proves” the GHE. In fact, in your mind, is there anything that is NOT “proof” of the GHE?
So, what YOU really need to do is “slow down” and reread this comment thread. See if you can learn how stupid it makes you appear. I have no desire to make you look stupid, you seem to be the one motivated in that direction.
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339–343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Press release: “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
David A,
I fail to see how your oft-cited (by you) Feldmann paper shows a GHE. I see a Keeling curve (so what) and a dubious curve that was (according to the abstract) derived via theoretical computations i.e., more smoke and mirrors from the AGW types.
Have you read this? If you have, can you explain how this shows the GHE?
“I fail to see how your oft-cited (by you) Feldmann paper shows a GHE.”
It shows the increase in the GHE from CO2 over the time period 2000-2010. See their Figure 2b for their measurements.
David A says, July 29, 2015 at 3:10 PM:
“It shows the increase in the GHE from CO2 over the time period 2000-2010.”
No, David. Feldman et al. showed an increase in IR in the CO2 bands over 10-11 years at two specific points of the Earth’s global surface.
At the same time, from 2000 till 2014/15, total atmospheric DWLWIR to the global surface followed a downward trend according to CERES (calibrated also against ARM data):
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/ceres_ebaf-surface_ed2-8_areaaveragetimeseries_deseasonalized_surface_longwave_flux_down-all-sky_032000to092014-2.png
So, according to your interpretation above, the total “GHE” has weakened since 2000. In spite of a significant rise in atmospheric CO2. And in atmospheric WV and cloud cover.
Also, David, how exactly did Feldman et al. show that the increased IR in the CO2 bands had actually caused the surface in these two localities to warm?
That’s the hypothesized GHE, after all, not the IR itself. The induced warming of the surface is the effect, the IR just the mechanism.
Greenhouse _effect_ vs greenhouse _mechanism_
Good point Kristian. It is only the effect that counts i.e., the increase in the global temperature anomaly.
.
Yes Norman – geran is right. You contribute nothing here – certainly nothing that geran and I don’t already know about what is in the IPCC garbage. Do you seriously think either of us “went into battle” without studying such stuff years ago?
Now, Norman, I suggest you start discussing the physics which I have presented at http://climate-change-theory.com which I’ve also summarized in two longish comment below.
All your insults and assertive statements are water off a duck’s back for both geran and myself. The same goes for Slip’s comments.
Unless and until you start discussing how entropy is maximized by minimizing potentials, and why or why not you think what I say will happen when those potentials are minimized, then I’m simply not interested in discussing the old 20th century paradigm of GH radiative forcing, because radiation just doesn’t work like that.
Photons are not like little hand-grenades delivering thermal energy into everything they collide with.
Radiation just doesn’t work like that, Norman. Nature has a way (involving resonance) which ensures it doesn’t – because if it did, entropy would decrease in any one-way radiation process from cold to hot – and the Second Law is never violated Norman – I hope we at least agree on that. Remember I’ve written two lengthy papers on the Second Law of Thermodynamics which has been my main area of specialized study for several years now. You are the student, Norman.
“Photons are not like little hand-grenades delivering thermal energy into everything they collide with.”
You should have told Einstein, who won a Nobel Prize in physics for exactly this discovery (his explanation of the photoelectric effect).
The photoelectric effect is brought about by radiation from a source that is effectively hotter than the target. You don’t get it happening at night from back radiation. Radiation (every single one-way pencil of it) only has some of its electro-magnetic energy converted to molecular kinetic energy (ie thermal energy) in a target whose existing radiation Planck function is less than the effective attenuated Planck function of the source. The heat transfer is related to the area between the respective Planck functions, as is well known in engineering circles, where such calculations have been done for many decades using the difference between the integrals of the Planck functions, that is, the Stefan-Boltmann calculations. If the target is effectively hotter, then the only heat transfer is out of the target. Then the incident back radiation can only slow down the radiative cooling of the target surface – it can never raise the temperature of the target. Nor can it ever affect the rates of cooling by other processes such as evaporation and sensible heat transfers like conduction and natural convective heat transfer, which are by molecular collision only.
Doug Cotton says:
“The photoelectric effect is brought about by radiation from a source that is effectively hotter than the target.”
Where exactly did Einstein say that?
No answer, Doug?
For more detail regarding the above response you could of course read my comprehensive paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” which was published on several websites in March 2012 and was ground-breaking at the time. I called the process “resonant scattering” back then, and now physicists refer to it as “pseudo scattering” – but whatever you call it, it happens, and that is how nature ensures that every one-way pencil of radiation obeys the Second Law and never, ever causes a heat transfer from cold to hot. Every such process is an independent event, never dictating what any future event should be. In other words, if the radiated energy were converted to thermal energy in the warmer surface, then the new thermal energy could escape in any way, not necessary radiation and not necessarily simultaneously. In contrast, pseudo scattering happens instantly and is somewhat like reflection energy-wise in that it does not raise the temperature of the target one iota.
All of the above is not relevant to my 2013 hypothesis pertaining to entropy maximization. You guys can argue all you like about Earth, but you haven’t a hope of explaining the surface temperature on Venus without applying my hypothesis, and nor do you have a hope of proving that hypothesis wrong with correct physics, because it is derived from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. No discussion pertaining only to radiation will ever prove it wrong, because you are thinking in a totally different and inapplicable 20th century paradigm.
Doug: I don’t read the things published by your vanity press.
Publish your work somewhere decent, and I’ll have a look.
By what mechanism does a molecule, say in a CCD array, receiving a photon, say from a star 100 ly distant, discern the temperature of the emitting molecule? Note that, in this case, the photon would have been emitted 100 years ago.
By what mechanism does a molecule which absorbs photons of a given wavelength, as long as the emitting molecule is hotter of course, now become a “pseudoscatter”?
What physical evidence of these mechanisms can you provide?
To all of you, Roy included:
All that you need to understand is that, along the radius of a centrifuge machine there is a force which acts on molecules in the same way that gravity does. Molecules near the center of the machine (or the vortex tube) have more potential energy than those at the circumference – just like molecules higher up in the troposphere. The molecules in the center of the centrifuge machine or the vortex tube get cooler, because their thermal energy (“heat” to you) has moved from cooler to warmer regions at the circumference.
But each molecule in the troposphere has heaps of kinetic energy as it darts about between collisions at speeds around 1,750 Km/hr, slowing down to around 1,400 Km/hr in the upper troposphere. If they happen to move downward between collisions they gain KE (which is equivalent to warming) and (if you read my paper) you should realize that a stable density gradient forms (when entropy is maximized) and that stable state necessarily has a stable temperature gradient.
The density gradient and the temperature gradient form (and get repaired) simultaneously as entropy is maximized – just as the Second Law says will tend to happen.
What follows is that there is no need to explain why the surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus are hotter that the radiating temperatures found up in their tropospheres with imaginary “radiative forcing” – it just happens because the Second Law of Thermodynamics tell us there will be a propensity for entropy to be maximized.
If you want to learn more about entropy maximization, this guy has explained it well at http://entropylaw.com and he discusses the advances in understanding of the Second Law in these last 30 years or so.
and for those who are too lazy to read http://entropylaw.com I’ll quote a bit …
So whereas the first law expresses that which remains the same, or is time-symmetric, in all real-world processes the second law expresses that which changes and motivates the change, the fundamental time-asymmetry, in all real-world process. Clausius coined the term “entropy” to refer to the dissipated potential and the second law, in its most general form, states that the world acts spontaneously to minimize potentials (or equivalently maximize entropy), and with this, active end-directedness or time-asymmetry was, for the first time, given a universal physical basis. The balance equation of the second law, expressed as S > 0, says that in all natural processes the entropy of the world always increases, and thus whereas with the first law there is no time, and the past, present, and future are indistinguishable, the second law, with its one-way flow, introduces the basis for telling the difference.
The process involving diffusion and natural convective heat transfer (for which I coined the word “heat creep” for that portion which goes up the thermal profile) is a process which is restoring maximum entropy after it has been disturbed. The disturbance is typically the absorption of new thermal energy in the upper troposphere each morning.
Whether you realize it or not, the Sun’s radiation in the middle of the troposphere is roughly equivalent to 255K (-18°C) and so it can only raise the temperature of cooler regions that are (mostly) in the upper troposphere and above. So that’s where most of the Sun’s energy is delivered, not usually in radiation that reaches the surface. Some, yes, in the tropics around noon on a clear day, but not much by radiation to the surface – and none at all on Venus.
So the mechanism which supplies most of the required thermal energy to a planet’s surface is not direct radiation, nor back radiation, but the non-radiative process “heat creep” which supports the surface temperature because of the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient. That is what slows and stops the cooling in the early pre-dawn hours, and that is what you all need to come to grips with.
You have no valid arguments that can prove me wrong on this – try me!
Doug 6:12am: Persists in being incorrect after being proven wrong by real world test: ”You have no valid arguments that can prove me wrong on this – try me!”
Dr. Spencer real world test posted 6/30/15 is a valid demonstration that proves Doug is wrong since the back radiation from the cirrus arriving at 1:30am and thereafter adds energy incident on the cooling water that affects its thermometer measured temperature causing the black line to trend down instead of continuing up even faster as Doug insists it should. Perfect Dr. Feynman level proof Doug is wrong: Dr. Spencer made a learned guess proven right by fundamental valid argument/analysis and proper real world test.
Doug has no such proper fundamental analysis and test. Doug’s written word needs corrigenda.
–Dr. Spencer real world test posted 6/30/15 is a valid demonstration that proves Doug is wrong since the back radiation from the cirrus arriving at 1:30am and thereafter adds energy incident on the cooling water that affects its thermometer measured temperature causing the black line to trend down instead of continuing up even faster as Doug insists it should. Perfect Dr. Feynman level proof Doug is wrong: Dr. Spencer made a learned guess proven right by fundamental valid argument/analysis and proper real world test. —
It seems to me that clouds tend to reduce night time cooling, though some cirrus clouds having some measurable effect is interesting possibility.
I was not under the impression that Doug thought cloud at night would cause temperature to fall more rapidly.
But clouds aren’t gases, but rather of comprised of water droplets and/or frozen particles of ice.
But lower and heavier cloud cover will prevent lakes from freezing when compared to same starting temperature and the skies were clear at night.
Another aspect about clouds is they could be quite reflective. And can gain heat from latent heat of condensation- which process of actual warming vs preventing
heat loss.
It proves nothing what-so-ever about my hypothesis that is developed from the Second Law of Thermodynamics and is based on the process of entropy maximization – nothing to do with radiation.
How are you going to explain the fact that the temperatures at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of the planet Uranus are hotter than Earth’s surface with your old and incorrect 20th century GH radiative forcing conjecture?
Go and read real physics in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” and find out what’s really happening.
For a brief summary visit http://climate-change-theory.com where you’ll read about more recent experiments with centrifugal force that confirm empirically the existence of the “heat creep” process.
Doug – Dr. Spencer’s test is in accord with 2LOT, it is your writings that fail 2LOT as demonstrated by his real world test. Like Dr. Feynman writes, if your hypothesis is proven wrong by test, that hypothesis is incorrect, no hope for it. Get busy issuing the necessary corrigenda to your writings, there is no one going to believe or even read them now until you do, there is no alternative, your science is faulty as proven by that 6/30 test.
Uranus & Venus are fully explained by that 6/30 test too. It is easy to see you need to issue corrigenda as proven by real world test, your heat creep is faulty. Get busy.
You see, we humans are very susceptible to being persuaded that the Sun’s radiation can warm the Earth’s surface to observed mean temperatures. We remember those warm sunny and calm summer days when we soaked up the Sun’s rays on the beach and possibly got sunburn after an hour or so. But the human body “feels” water at 44°C to be very hot in a bath, for example, even though the temperature of one’s outer skin has only been raised about 5 degrees. Yes, in some instances around the middle of a clear Summer’s day the Sun can manage to warm that same thin layer of skin a few degrees, partly because your blood circulation has already got it to over 39°C and there’s time to warm it a little more. But that does not mean the grassy bank and top layer of soil has been warmed to 44°C, unless perhaps the ambient temperature is around that mark – a relatively rare event.
So, although Stefan Boltzmann calculations tell us that the Sun’s radiation could achieve a temperature like that, it could only do so after a long period of time. It does have enough time to raise a small portion of the Moon’s surface to around 123°C, which agrees with S-B calculations, but that’s with about twice as much radiative flux as Earth’s surface receives, and over a much longer time on the Moon because of its slow rotation.
None-the-less, we can “explain” some of the hottest temperatures around 50°C or a little more because we know that a succession of hot days in an inland low lying region can indeed lead to some heat build up so that the Sun gets a flying start the next morning. But it will never take the maximum above that of a black body receiving constant radiation of the same level over a long period. Furthermore, you cannot add back radiation in your S-B calculations because it is not delivering thermal energy to the surface. And that’s how the IPCC bluff you by convincing you that all radiation is the same and does the same and can build up temperatures indefinitely. It can’t. It is impossible to create one-way heat filters with a few IR-active molecules making up less than 2% of the atmosphere, and it is impossible to stop radiation being reflected and pseudo-scattered, with neither of these processes delivering thermal energy into the target. Furthermore, back radiation has no effect at all on the rate of cooling by evaporation and sensible heat transfers via molecular collisions.
And that, friends, is why the only correct explanation as to the required thermal energy supply to a planet’s surface (and below any surface) is the process involving entropy maximization in the troposphere, outer crust and mantle, that I have explained for the first time in world literature, and summarized at http://climate-change-theory.com along with a variety of supporting evidence.
If you want to work out the mean and maximum temperatures that the Sun could achieve this gives a reasonable idea. It’s nearly 1.00am here so I won’t do the calculations myself just now.
Consider each 10 degrees of latitude on March 21st or September 21st or the exact day when the Sun traverses along the Equator.
Work out the mean solar flux during 12 hours of sunlight at each latitude from North Pole to South Pole. Divide the global mean flux of about 336W/m^2 (over 12 hours on the sunlit hemisphere, assumed applicable for 45° latitude) by sin 45° (ie, multiply by the square root of two) to get the mean daytime flux at the Equator. Then multiply that by the cosine of the latitude to get the mean daytime flux at other latitudes. The maximum flux at noon would be about the mean multiplied by the square root of two, because the mean is for an average angle of inclination of 45° during the 12 hours. However, the calculated value using the noon value would not be achieved due to lack of sufficient time.
Realistically we know that on a clear day the Sun only achieves a maximum by early afternoon, not midday. If it does so by 2.00pm then, even where it was directly overhead at noon, it will then be at an angle of 60° to the horizon, so you should multiply the radiation by sin 60° and if you apply that algorithm to all the latitudes, as well as multiplying by the cosine of the latitude you will find that the mean temperature of all your calculations well below 15°C – but that is only the daytime maximum. What about the nightly minimum? Climate records are based on the average of the two. You don’t have a hope of explaining a global 24 hour mean of 15°C from direct solar radiation. After all, you are dealing with a mean of 168W/m^2 which has a black body temperature of -41°C. You can’t even use black body temperatures anyway because the surface reflects some radiation and the surface (including the oceans) is not covered in black asphalt. Our surface is nothing like the Moon’s surface, but even the Moon, with twice the incident radiation, has a mean temperature that is sub-zero.
In a nutshell, the Sun’s direct radiation cannot warm the Earth’s surface to the existing temperatures, and nor can it do so on Venus. Hence, even where back radiation slows the portion of surface cooling that is by radiation (not the other cooling) I ask, from what temperature in the first place? Hansen thought he could explain it by adding back radiation flux to solar flux, as the energy diagrams show, but radiation doesn’t work that way. Only my “heat creep” hypothesis can explain all temperatures on all planets, even down to their cores.
Mr. Cotton,
Mr. Cotton,
Apparently you missed this, so I will repost an edited version.
Even if your inappropriate application of 19th Century thermodynamic theory is true, it is of no consequence in regards to the reality of radiative forcing, because the Earth is not a perfectly smooth spheroid with a uniform temperature distribution. Nor are the Earth’s water, which covers 70% of the planet’s surface, and atmosphere a static stack of billiard balls; they move, as wind and wave and circulation and current.
The air heated by the morning desert sun moves along the still-shaded mountainside where it, in accordance with the Laws of Thermodynamics, is free to, in fact must, transmit its joulian cargo to the cool rockface. (You might also want to reflect on the fact that, as those hot air molecules move up the gravitational well, they cool by releasing photons). A tropical front saunters up the east coast of North America to warm the frigid and continuously circulating North Atlantic. That large black boulder on the beach heats the air that passes over it to well above the temperature of the cool Pacific waves. I could go on, but I would hope you get the point; even if a molecule can magically discern the temperature of a photon’s source, perhaps by some sort of quantum entanglement that arises when a photon is released or impinges, there is a multitude of circumstances where the molecules of the atmosphere are warmer than those of the surface and that pesky back radiation returns to the earth or sea.
My hypothesis is all about when molecules in the air can indeed transfer thermal energy (by molecular collision) to the surface or, by their very close, though cooler, temperature can slow the rate of non-radiative cooling which depends on the temperature gap, thus “supporting” the minimum nightly temperature, as we see in Singapore for example.
You should read my hypothesis some day, because you display no understanding of entropy maximization which comes about by minimizing unbalanced energy potentials.
Furthermore, molecules in a warmer surface most certainly do discern whether incident radiation has a frequent and intensity that merely resonates with them – that was all explained in my 2012 paper on Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Unless you now discuss the physics in both my papers, I am not interested in your 20th century GH radiative forcing conjecture, about which I probably know more than yourself regarding what is claimed and what is in Pierrehumbert’s writings. My papers are linked on the ‘Evidence’ page at http://climate-change-theory.com and my hypothesis is supported by such evidence.
Typo: frequent s/be frequency
“Furthermore, molecules in a warmer surface most certainly do discern whether incident radiation has a frequent and intensity that merely resonates with them”
Discern?
How?
What information is carried by the incident radiation, and how do warmer surfaces process this information in order to decide whether to receive the incoming energy or now?????
I’ve told you that the reason is explained in my 2012 paper. It takes several pages to explain what physicists in the 21st century now realize happens. The paper cites sources with the computations that prove my point. I’m not interested in your blurb about pal-reviewed journals – either read my website, papers or book, or watch my 10 minute video – all are linked from http://climate-change-theory.com visited by over 10,500 so far this year. I couldn’t care less whether or not you want to learn about these developments in physics that enable explanation of all planetary temperature data even down to the core. I’m here to teach those silent readers who are interested, and yours and Norman’s assertive statements prove nothing regarding the validity of the hypothesis in my 2013 paper, which neither of you have studied or even referred to.
Doug: I once tried to read one of your vanity publications.
It was meaningless gobblygook, on par with what you publish here.
What information is carried by the incident radiation, and how do warmer surfaces process this information in order to decide whether to receive the incoming energy or now?????
Go and generate electricity with your solar panels at night, Slipstick. After all, the back radiation is still there (as measurements at night show) and it’s nearly twice as intense as the solar radiation by day. See if the molecules in your panels “discern” anything different about those photons.
Doug Cotton,
Once again you totally display your ignorance. Will you at least read up on things before posting your mindless crap trying to sound like you know something. IR radiation will not knock electrons free from the metal surface, it causes vibrations of the molecular bonds why don’t you know this? You need the high energy visible light (that works in the moving of electrons) to get an electron to get knocked free from the metal lattice. Also back radiation is diffuse like a fog, you can’t concentrate it like solar energy to get useful energy from it.
No, IR radiation from a colder source does not add kinetic energy (causing vibrational KE or translational KE or rotational KE to increase) in the molecules in a warmer target. It merely resonates and each photon temporarily raises an electron through one or more quantum energy states, whereupon the electron immediately drops back to its initial state and thus emits an identical photon to the one the atom received. Hence it looks like the original radiation has been scattered (rather like diffuse reflection) and that’s why physicists in the 21st century have been calling the process “pseudo scattering” and that’s all in my 2012 paper. At no stage is the electro-magnetic energy converted to physical kinetic energy, and so there is no heat transfer and so the Second Law is obeyed.
I have explained over and over, Norman, that back radiation from a cooler region can only slow that portion of the cooling of a warmer surface which is itself cooling by radiation. It has no effect on cooling by evaporation or sensible heat transfer processes like conduction and natural convective heat transfer by molecular collisions. The reason it slows radiative cooling is because the pseudo scattering process takes the part of some of the target’s “quota” of radiation. Hence the target does not have to convert as much of its own kinetic energy into electro-magnetic energy. It’s not hard to understand and you could have read it in my 2012 paper.
Now, back to your drawing board and show me your calculations explaining how you think solar radiation alone (less non-radiative heat losses) explains the maximum surface temperature at the Equator on March 21st.
How exactly does radiation from a colder source know to “cause vibrations” (more gobbleygook) and not be deposited in the receiving body?
My calculations below, Norman, show that the solar radiation (after attenuation) is effectively colder than typical maximum temperatures found in equatorial deserts around 2.00pm when the Sun has just passed directly overhead on about March 21st or September 21st. You can read below how, when you multiply by sin 60° to adjust for the radiation at 2.00pm you get about 20°C – far colder than reality, because reality depends on the “heat creep” process which we know from the Second Law of Thermodynamics must happen.
You’ve never even discussed the development of my hypothesis from the Second Law, Norman, so how the hell do you think your assertive statements that it is wrong are going to ring true with me or anyone?
David A:
What happens is explained in my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” which I have no intention of re-writing here.
Doug: Why are you afraid to submit your claims to real peer reviewed journals?
No one is interested in your vanity press.
No one is interested in what you write here smart David because you can’t answer the simple question I have put to you, now can you? This thread is apparently your “vanity” press, Mr anonymous A, as you have written no papers at all.
Doug, you write gobbleygook.
I will put my qualifications up against yours any day. Let me know when you’re ready.
And why haven’t you submitted your claims to a real journal?
geran,
You say you want proof of the GHE. Ball4 on the earlier thread sent me a link to this website.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/surf_check.php
I made a graph from the primary page;
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html
All the values for the graphs come from actual instrumentation and are not calculated values:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/instruments.html
If you reject all proof of the GHE it will be impossible to convince you of anything but then who is the actual “cult minded mindless follower”? It is really hard to continue to claim there is no evidence of a GHE when it is clearly available to anyone who wants it. I provided you links to make it easy.
Analyze the graph of data I linked you to. Doug Cotton should study it as well it totally shows he is wrong in what he thinks is going on.
Notice the NET IR is always negative. The IR is not directly warming the surface but it is definitely slowing down the cooling. With GHE you lose about 150 watts/m^2. Without GHE you would lose energy at the rate of around 400 watts/m^2 at least until the surface cooled enough to slow the radiation loss. The graph also shows why Doug’s understanding of daytime GHE is flawed. The Downwelling IR does not increase much during the day but the upwelling IR does go up a lot as the ground warms so the net energy loss of IR increases during the day. You can also see clearly that sunlight is the cause of the temperature increase and not an invalid “heat creep” idea that is untested, unverified and has no supporting physics.
geran can you even think that you possibly took a wrong turn in how you understand global energy system? You want all the scientists studying the field to admit they are wrong (even though they have actual measurements to back up their thinking) but you will not consider the possibility you are really on the wrong track and moving further away from reality.
No you can’t “easily see” that solar radiation can explain the surface temperature, but you can see that “heat creep” explains it for all planets. Where would you be with your sunlight calculations at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus where there’s no solar radiation or surface?
I have proved my point in calculations in another comment here. Where are your calculations?
“Heat creep.” More gobblygook.
You still haven’t proved my derivation from the Second Law of Thermodynamics wrong, now have you smart David?
You still want to add back radiation to solar radiation (because the IPCC told you that you could) now don’t you, but you can’t explain why the Equatorial deserts thus don’t reach 80°C like your calculations would say they should when you attribute warming to back radiation, now can you smart David?
Doug: I’m not about to try and read any more of your pseudoscientific vanity papers. If you publish then in a real journal, let me know. Until then I will assume you are too afraid to do so.
“You still want to add back radiation to solar radiation (because the IPCC told you that you could) now don’t you”
Answered above — Maxwell’s equations are linear in the field variables. That implies they can be added together.
Norman, your links are not evidence of anything except what you want to see.
Let me give you another analogy:
Suppose someone, let’s name him “Jim”, told you they could predict the stock market, with 100% accuracy. “Jim” wants you to invest your entire net worth with him.
Would you jump in, or would you ask for some proof?
I know you like to just jump in without checking things (as you did with the GHE equation) but let’s assume THIS time, you wanted more proof.
So, as proof, “Jim” provides links to historical stock market charts and prices.
Boy, you’d be safe to jump in now, huh? He has links to years of stock market charts. He can overload you with data.
But, if you believe all his charts prove he can predict future markets, well then, you might make a good client….
geran,
You are as cult minded and as closed minded as what you perceive AGW proponents. One huge difference is that you rely completely upon your infallible thinking ability. The climate scientists actually are trying to get data and information with real instruments.
Since your mind is so closed there is nothing I could provide to “prove” GHE. You already accept it when you admit radiating gases send radiation back to the Earth’s surface.
Your post about the stock market predictions really is quite pointless as far as proof or evidence go. I think you are linking it somehow to climate models which I am not a fan of.
I think you are so closed minded that you do not see various degrees in the Climate debate. I could be wrong but it is either there is zero GHE or you have to accept everything the climate world is saying. Roy Spencer does accept GHE. He is questioning the climate sensitivity issue.
You make statements but what do they mean?
You: “Norman, your links are not evidence of anything except what you want to see.”
Exactly what does your statement mean? So actual measurements are not evidence? But every word that you type on the internet is solid? What experiments have you performed to challenge the results of the instrumentation in the link? None and you won’t.
Basically there is no evidence or reasoning or logic that will convince you. You believe what you need to believe.
Hilarious!
In your belief, I’m the one with the “closed mind”, yet I had to teach you about the GHE equation, what a “double negative” is, and now it appears I have to explain the “stock market data” analogy to you.
Hilarious!
geran,
I know about the GHE equation I said I never studied it. You always go off on some tangent but never really address science. Admit you never did study physics at any level except maybe google once in a while. I know what a double negative is I just did not realize I had put one in.
I notice you like to use your “pet phrase” “Hilarious” often but your posts really lack any science, any real debate about GHE. You are not really interested in scientific discovery, you just come here to amuse yourself with clever comments. Everyone has a purpose in life, you like comedy but are it seems highly unlikely you have any inkling for science or trying to figure it out.
Have fun and enjoy yourself on your posts. Since it is obvious you don’t want to really work to understand science why continue to talk about it. Lets just crack jokes and see if we can out clever each other.
“Lets just crack jokes and see if we can out clever each other.”
_________
You’ve got too much of a head start. That’s why I say, so often, how hilarious
you are. I couldn’t hope to catch up.
And, you, Norman – well you’re a 20°C Equatorial desert temperature man because at least, unlike David who’s an 80°C* guy, you at least know you can’t add backradiation to solar radiation in S-B calculations. You even worked out (on the other thread) what the 28°C ocean would emit, but I replied there that nowhere on the planet is there a mean (24 hour) input of thermal energy from the Sun that can supply 456W/m^2 of warming solar energy that gets the ocean to that temperature in the first place, especially when it would also have to supply at least an extra 102W/m^2 to compensate for simultaneous heat losses by evaporation, conduction and convection.
* the 20°C and 80°C are calculated in another comment I wrote here today.
Doug: The zero-dimensional model does not apply to deserts. It doesn’t apply to any landscapes at all — because it is 0-dimensional.
So your comment makes no sense. It is unfortunate you didn’t understand this basic fact beforehand.
Sorry to interject, but this is patently wrong, Norman:
“All the values for the graphs come from actual instrumentation and are not calculated values”
The values are strictly calculated. By the instrument itself. If you read how a pyrgeometer works, you will understand.
You cannot separately measure/detect the DWLWIR or UWLWIR ‘fluxes’ inside a heat transfer process, Norman. That’s physically impossible. You ONLY EVER measure/detect the ‘net’ of the two, the actual, unidirectional radiant heat.
The calculation of the DWLWIR and UWLWIR values is based conceptually on the two-stream approximation of radiative transfer. You will always need to know the temperature of your sensor in order to be able to compute the two.
So what do we find:
Firstly at the Equator the Sun’s radiation (alone without back radiation) may appear to be sufficient to raise the temperature above the supported minimum temperature that is around 26°C as in Singapore. If we take 48% of the solar constant (allowing for albedo and atmospheric absorption) and multiply by sin 60° and use the result in S-B calculations we get a realistic maximum of 44°C. (It could be more on clear days and less on cloudy days.) However, we have forgotten to deduct the simultaneous losses by non-radiative processes which have a global mean of 102W/m^2, but would be somewhat more at the Equator, maybe 150W/m^2. That brings the calculated temperature down to about 20°C.
What we deduce is that it would be totally incorrect to then add back radiation in our S-B calculations, as the IPCC does do when working with the mean of 168W/m^2 for solar radiation.
That back radiation (with a mean of 324W/m^2) is more than triple the non-radiative losses, and so could easily be 450W/m^2 at the Equator. That brings our temperature back up to nearly 80°C at 2.00pm on an average day, and above 90°C on a clear day. Neither the 20°C nor the 80°C is realistic. You can do similar calculations for other latitudes, but it’s obviously all wrong.
This example clearly shows why Joseph Postma at Principia Scientific is wrong in assuming the Sun’s direct radiation into the surface can alone “explain” the observed temperatures. As a result, all the PSI articles based on Postma’s wrong assumptions are also wrong. Radiation does not explain planetary surface temperatures.
Sorry to tell you, Doug, but we think Postma is just as much of a crackpot as you are.
You still can’t produce calculations showing vastly different results than either the 20°C or 80°C results in my comment above, now can you smart David?
Doug, you are clearly a quack. That’s why I don’t try to reproduce any of your claims. Why don’t your publish somewhere decent? (And why are you afraid to answer this question?)
I would not give my work to GH-biased journals in a pink fit. They don’t deserve to get their hands on such ground-breaking work. I self-published my book at a cost of $3,000 putting my money where my mouth is, and for altruistic reasons.
Your excuses will not impress silent readers. Show them you can think about the dilemma I have shown you regarding equatorial surface temperatures. I’m sure many of them can follow my calculations. Perhaps you don’t know enough physics to do so. Well you can easily find a Stefan Boltzmann calculator on line at tutor.com so use it, my friend, because you are just acting like someone who’s been brainwashed by climatology lecturers.
Doug Cotton,
Actual measured values of radiation flux.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/surf_check.php
I do not know if this link will show up, it did not with geran’s post (it also shows he did not really look at the links just responded as if he had and mindlessly attacked them like a drone robot programmed by someone).
I will post this and see if it shows up.
Doug Cotton,
The plotted graph will not link so I will send you the page that allows you to generate a graph.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html
Click the boxes Direct-Normal solar
Downwelling IR
Upwelling Ir
Infrared Net
Air temperature and plot a graph.
This will show you what is really going on based upon actual measurements.
If you take the time to make a plot you will see the downwelling IR does not increase much during the day and the NET IR radiation is even more negative. That is because the surface is emitting much more radiation as the sun warms the surface. So this shows the GHE will not make a super hot surface as you speculate. As the surface warms it radiates much more but the downwelling radiation only goes up a bit so the net IR is more negative and adds less than you would have people believe.
Anyway try the graph and you can go to the different areas allowed to see what results you get.
How about you take the time to do some calculations yourself, smart Norman, and study my comments such as that below?
Doug Cotton,
I have already done calculations for you in the past. One was on Uranus’s inner temperature and also the Earth’s. You really don’t care about this so why are you asking for it now?
Why do you need to calculate when you can have actual measurements that incorporate multiple things going on with energy exchange. I would tend to favor real measurements as opposed to calculated.
In your studies did you ever take a Chemistry class. In such studies they have the calculated result of some atomic situation, it is close but the measurements are a little different.
Did you even look at the link and make a plot of the data or are you blowing smoke?? Check the link, then discuss.
“That is because the surface is emitting much more radiation as the sun warms the surface.”
You don’t say, Norman!
It also requires a much greater input of thermal energy than the Sun’s direct radiation supplies, but far less than David A would calculate when he adds back radiation. Neither you nor he get the right answers, Norman. It’s all there in your last comment on the previous thread. You proved for yourself that the radiation from the 28°C surface was in fact far more than the Sun’s direct radiation can supply after deducting the simultaneous losses by non-radiative cooling processes. To get realistic temperatures for oceans you have to consider the mean solar input over 24 hours, and, even if the ocean were covered in black asphalt, the solar radiation would not be sufficient to explain the observed temperatures like your 28°C. In practice only a small percentage of the solar radiation is absorbed in the thin surface layer of the ocean through which most of that radiation passes. It may only be strong enough to raise the temperature of deeper regions colder than 10°C and any small warming down in the thermocline can’t increase the 28°C surface temperature.
SO THIS IS WHY JAMES HANSEN, JOSEPH POSTMA, IPCC & CO ARE ALL WRONG:
The energy diagrams show a net total input of “energy” (of undefined type) into the surface as being 390W/m^2 and to get that figure they have included 324W/m^2 of backradiation.
Yes that 390W/m^2 is the right flux that would indeed explain how a perfect black body would be at a temperature of 15°C.
But, if we do the same calculations using flux figures for an equatorial desert where and when the Sun passes directly overhead twice a year, then we get temperatures above 80°C, maybe >90°C.
So, at least for such deserts, we know the real temperature is a lot less than the IPCC computational method yields.
But those temperatures do contribute to the mean. Furthermore, we also get temperatures way above reality when we do similar calculations for latitudes like 20° or 30°C as well. So the mean temperature could not possibly be as much as 15°C when we know the calculations just don’t work in the tropics and nearby regions.
Of course the reason they don’t work is because back radiation does not have its energy converted to thermal energy in a warmer surface.
But, without back radiation in the calculations the results go the other way and are far too cold, getting maximums like only 20°C for equatorial deserts.
And that’s why you’ll never get realistic results with radiation calculations. The whole paradigm is the wrong one altogether. What is the right paradigm which does get the right and realistic temperatures, not only for Earth, but all planets, is explained here.
When can we expect to see your work in a real science journal? What are you waiting for?
“Of course the reason they don’t work is because back radiation does not have its energy converted to thermal energy in a warmer surface.”
Then, were does this energy go?
“But, if we do the same calculations using flux figures for an equatorial desert where and when the Sun passes directly overhead twice a year, then we get temperatures above 80°C, maybe >90°C.”
Doug: The 390 W/m2 calculate you refer to is a first approximation, zero-dimensional model.
There are no deserts in a zero-dimensional model. There is no landscape at all.
You are misapplying the model to a place it was never intended to go.
This is typical of the kind of crap you try to pull on this site multiple times a day.
I am doing nothing of the kind. A small region of a desert on the Equator with the Sun passing directly overhead is a close approximation to a flat surface. At noon on a clear day it could well be receiving even 800W/m^2 or more of orthogonal solar radiation plus maybe 500W/m^2 of back radiation. A total of 1300W/m^2 has a black body temperature of 389K (116°C) and yet that would count as 116°C when contributing the the IPCC’s calculation using 390W/M^2 to get a mean of 15°C. They want backradiation to be counted when working out their mean, but they ignore what results that gives in the tropics – results that are implicitly accepted as contributing to the mean. Back radiation does not penetrate water: strong solar radiation does, by quite a few meters. No difference you say? You really do have no understanding of this 21st century discovery about radiation and how and when it does or does not transfer thermal energy. It’s also slipped Slip’s notice.
Mr. Cotton,
By what process does a molecule, say, in my retina, receiving a photon, say, from a star 100 ly distant, discern the temperature of the emitting molecule? Note that, in this case, the photon would have been emitted 100 years ago and the temperature of the emitting molecule on the surface of the star will have almost certainly be different (likely it is now quite cold since it was probably ejected from the star’s surface soon after the photon was emitted); also, the receiving molecule will have almost certainly not been along the vector of the photon when it was emitted. And, since we are talking about a star, there is probably a bit of redshift or blueshift involved, due to the star’s motion.
By what process does a molecule switch from being an absorber of photons of a given wavelength to a “pseudoscatterer”?
Do you have any evidence for these processes beyond conjecture?
Great question. (Also asked above.) Don’t expect an answer from you know who.
Yes, no doubt he will go and tell me to read his paper describing “resonance” again.
“Do you have any evidence for these processes”
Yes, water molecules accept and absorb strong solar radiation and pseudo scatter back radiation. See comment below on that.
Mr. Cotton,
I’ve reread your “resonance” conjecture in your self-published paper, again, several times, and it still defies logic.
How does the single electron in a hydrogen atom “remember” the spectrum with which it is being excited?
How does a molecule being bombarded with photons from millions of other molecules, all in motion, know which other molecule is the source of a particular photon?
Suppose I have a 5,000 deg K photon source and pass its photons through an IR filter. Will the 4900 K receiving molecule “pseudoscatter” those photons because the peak of the spectrum is now too cold?
The Second Law applies to radiation, like all quantum events, as a statistical effect. On average, a hotter molecule will emit more, and more energetic, photons than a colder one. Also, any imbalance in entropy that might arise will be small. The energy of the electrons in an atom cannot “build up”. When an electron is excited out of its ground state, out pops a photon and all is put to rights again.
In you conjecture, you state outright that the temperature of an emitting molecule cannot be determined from a single photon. Well, if there is no temperature information in a single photon there is no temperature information in a quadrillion photons, since each is a discrete quantum event. In fact, conveying or discerning that information would be a violation of the uncertainty principle and, by extension, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Information is energy. Do a little investigation on Quantum Thermodynamics.
Absolutely nothing – I repeat NOTHING in my hypothesis violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics and you can’t prove it does. The whole hypothesis is developed from that law, so how could it violate such?
Yes, you’re starting to make my blood curdle with your assertive statements that show not the slightest knowledge of what the “heat creep” hypothesis is all about and how it is derived. It’s time you put on your thinking cap or I will keep showing silent readers how you have failed in your understanding of maximum entropy production (MEP) as here.
Blimey, you can’t even get it the right way around: you wrote “When an electron is excited out of its ground state, out pops a photon and all is put to rights again.” (LOL)
I will keep exposing your false physics my friend as long as you keep it up.
Obviously, that was a jocular simplification.
Then you wrote: “if there is no temperature information in a single photon there is no temperature information in a quadrillion photons,”
LOL – you have not the vaguest understanding of statistical mechanics. Next thing you’ll say is there’s no temperature info in a quadrillion molecules.
Go and study the mathematical computations here and try to prove this Professor of Applied Mathematics to be wrong.
If back radiation penetrated a warmer water surface (which it doesn’t) and if it warmed a small region (say a 1cm cube) which is 2cm below the surface then that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The extra thermal energy could hang around for seconds or even months in the water. The process was completed as soon as the radiated energy became thermal (kinetic) energy, and such a process would have violated the Second Law. That’s blatantly obvious, but nature has a way of ensuring it can’t happen.
Even Roy knows back radiation does not penetrate water. So the water molecules can tell the difference, allowing solar radiation to penetrate the surface, but pseudo scattering the back radiation. You won’t find any experiments measuring back radiation reaching below a warmer water surface. Unless you can produce such, you’re finished.
Hi Slipstick,
You continue it seems to ask the same question Max Planck answered early in the last century. The temperature of the emitter determines the frequency of emitted radiation. Therefore, given the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics the same radiation and frequency cannot increase the temperature of a cooler absorbing object above that of the emitter. Please don’t waste the time of sentient readers with inapplicable tales of coherent radiation like apparently so many propagandists have on Roy’s blog. Aside from the obvious fact that work has to be added to a system to produce coherent radiation such emitted spectra run parallel, congruent and closely aligned allowing enormous amplification of energy at the atomic/molecular level. If you need further clarification let me know.
Have a great day!
Hi Slipstick,
One other thing you may consider in regards to coherent radiation. Coherent radiation has much greater amplitude and the energy density of an EM wave is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the electric or magnetic field.
Have a great day@
It’s not about single photons – it’s about radiation with a Planck spectrum – it’s about what happens on a macro scale – because that’s when the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies. Surely you know that! There is most certainly temperature information in the Planck spectrum. Go and read about Wien’s Displacement Law.
Then explain why you think the IPCC includes backradiation when calculating the mean surface temperature of 15°C even though it is blatantly obvious that you can’t include back radiation in typical sunny tropical regions, because if you did you would get temperatures above 80°C.
How can you be so gullible as to believe the IPCC when they churn out such rubbish and try to make out that water vapor causes the Earth’s surface to be most of that “33 degrees” hotter? Are rain forests (with 4% WV) more than 50 degrees hotter than drier regions (with 1% WV) at similar latitudes and altitudes? That’s what the IPCC wants you to believe. What do you say the “sensitivity” for each 1% of WV should be? Does it warm or cool? If it cools, as my study showed, then that smashes the greenhouse.
Frankly my blood curdles when I see such totally invalid physics, so easily faulted, being thrust upon politicians. Fortunately, perhaps partly because I email over 100 Australia politicians regularly, Australia may be leading the world in gradual rejection of the whole hoax.
And finally, the hypothesis is not about radiation, so the above discussion about such is irrelevant in regards to what really determines the temperatures of planetary tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores.
Doug – “..explain why you think the IPCC includes backradiation when calculating the mean surface temperature of 15°C..”
Due to 1st law and Dr. Spencer’s 6/30 test which demonstrates the inclusion of backradiation is necessary.
“..it is blatantly obvious that you can’t include back radiation in typical sunny tropical regions, because if you did you would get temperatures above 80°C.”
Not so obvious when even Doug attempted to show 80C is wrong as when shown Desert Rock only got to around 31C at high Noon above (search on Desert Rock).
Dr. Spencer’s test is in accord with 2LOT, it is Doug’s writings that fail 2LOT as demonstrated by that real world test. Like Dr. Feynman writes, if your hypothesis is proven wrong by test, that hypothesis is incorrect, no hope for it. Get busy issuing the necessary corrigenda to your writings, there is no one going to believe or even read them now until you do, there is no alternative, Doug’s science is faulty as proven by that 6/30 test.
Uranus & Venus are explained by that 6/30 test too. It is easy to see Doug needs to issue corrigenda as proven by real world test, Doug’s heat creep adds nothing. Get busy.
Hi Ball4,
Roy’s test does not prove that back radiation caused the tank water covered by the white sheet to cool slower than the uncovered tank water since the same sheet may have blocked descending cold air from impacting the tank water and conveying energy away. Further, even if the sheet covered tank water cooled at a slower rate due to back radiation it in no way explains how Venus can have increased its surface temperature by several multiples and have it’s radiative flux at the surface apparently exceed by an order of magnitude the direct solar radiation absorbed by the same surface and by several multiples the direct solar radiation impinging the planet.
Have a great day!
JohnKl “..may have blocked..”
Speculation. Anyway that’s not the main result for Doug, the water ice added backradiation caused the black line to trend down when the radiation from the high cirrus was added to the mix, just like 1st law and NOAA ESRL shows when clouds pass by and are easily detected, it is not a singular experiment that a cold draft could have foiled. Doug’s theory, and no back radiation, would have resulted in the black line trending up and it didn’t.
Hi Ball4,
Since multiple lines of causation exist for tank water temps any claim as to causation remains SPECULATIVE. Btw, I don’t deny that water absorbs IR and don’t have a problem with Kirkoff’s Law and/or the 2nd LOTD, I’m simply relating what I believe the experiment illustrates.
Have a great day!
You can read about how and why back radiation slows that portion of surface cooling which is itself by radiation in several places in my papers etc.
Unless you read and understand “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” (or my website or book) you may think I’ve scored an own goal.
As for claiming we have to add backradiation because of energy conservation – well – maybe you should add reflection as well and say it warms the surface and then comes back out again as radiation. Much the same kind of absurd claim. If its pseudo scattered that’s where the energy went, scatter brain!
Doug – “As for claiming we have to add backradiation because of energy conservation..”
It is not a claim, this is observation shown by Dr. Spencer’s test which included nature’s proper amount of reflection. No such test has ever confirmed pseudoscattering. The surface of Dr. Spencer’s water reflected, absorbed and transmitted, evaporated the natural amount of incident radiation, none was pseudoscattered, that is just plain nonsense.
I have read Doug’s writing and pinpointed the errors for you in the past on this site Doug, only needs to be done once.
Your understanding of physics such as entropy maximization is sadly lacking, Ball4.
If you think you can add backradiation to solar radiation, you still don’t get a mean (spherical) surface temperature anywhere near as high as 15°C (because of the T^4 relationship) but you do get temperatures above 90°C in the tropics with your totally incorrect paradigm.
Furthermore, planetary surface temperatures rise by day (compensating for cooling by night) and temperatures only rise if there is a net input of thermal energy. A net input by radiation from the colder troposphere is impossible. The only possible input like that comes as a result of entropy maximization, about which you have no correct understanding.
You could start at http://entropylaw.com but you have a long way to go unless you read the result of much study and thought that’s already explained at http://climate-change-theory.com and in the linked papers, video and book.
Doug 4:42pm: “If you think you can add backradiation to solar radiation….you do get temperatures above 90°C in the tropics with your totally incorrect paradigm.”
Only in Doug’s imagination & incorrect writings, not in real nature.
On August 4th, in Desert Rock, Nv. at high Noon, the DW SW IR was about 1100 W/m^2, and the DW LW IR was about 400 W/m^2, rounded, total 1400 and the air temperature was only about 35.5C not 90C Doug, you are very confused & need to issue corrigenda for your incorrect writings. Get with it man, no one should refer to your writings until you correct them to test results.
“..planetary surface temperatures rise by day..”
Yep, at dawn the sun comes up. Shown by NOAA ESRL on Earth every dawn.
“A net input by radiation from the colder troposphere is impossible.”
You finally wrote this correctly! Congrat.s on the progress Doug. Now you agree with Dr. Spencer’s 6/30/15 test. Please update your writings from 3or4 years ago to agree with this new statement, lay out the corrigenda immediately, don’t waste time Doug. I’m not referencing your link until you claim to have done this.
Go back to this comment, anonymous Ball4.
Mr. Cotton,
“It’s not about single photons – it’s about radiation with a Planck spectrum – it’s about what happens on a macro scale –”,
which is what I’ve been saying all along. Your application of the classical Second Law to discrete quantum events is wholly inappropriate. Photons do not have a temperature. Heat is not “carried” by photons; it is the effect of the photons’ electromagnetic energy on matter. Oh, and by the way, atmospheric gas molecules at tropospheric temperatures do not emit blackbody radiation.
Since your conjecture is unable to answer, and you are unwilling to even acknowledge, any of my questions, all relatively simple, realistic consequences of that conjecture, what you have constructed is useless as a model of the real world.
A small edit:
Heat is not “carried” by photons; it is the effect of the photons’ electromagnetic energy on matter, in accordance with quantum, not classical, physics.
Hi Slipstick,
Thank you for the clarification regarding your perception of EM radiation. From what I can tell the term “photon” clarifies nothing.
Have a great day!
“Heat is not “carried” by photons; it is the effect of the photons’ electromagnetic energy on matter,”
Photons carry energy. Heat is the transfer of energy.
THE FINAL LESSON IN THE PHYSICS OF HEAT TRANSFER
Slip writes: “Heat is not “carried” by photons; it is the effect of the photons’ electromagnetic energy on matter, in accordance with quantum, not classical, physics.”
That is not a very precise statement. Heat is the (effective) transfer of thermal (kinetic) energy. For radiation, thermal (kinetic) energy is converted to electro-magnetic (EM) energy in the source, some of which EM energy may or may not be converted to thermal energy in the target, thus sometimes giving the impression that thermal energy has been transferred from source to target.
This is a unique one-way process which, on the macro scale, must be accompanied by no reduction in entropy, as per the Second Law. There is no justification for combining two or more such independent processes and claiming all is OK if entropy just increases overall: water does not flow up one side of a mountain because it flows further down on the other side. The Second Law tells us that cannot happen. The Second Law, you say? Yes, the Second Law is about entropy maximization, not heat transfer. The latter is just a corollary that only always applies in a horizontal plane.
In non-radiative processes such as natural convective heat transfer (which, to a physicist, includes diffusion) the kinetic energy is transferred in molecular collisions which, on a macro scale, have a net effect of (always) increasing entropy.
Likewise, with every single one-way passage of radiation (on a macro scale) entropy will never decrease on a macro scale.
To explain this with quantum mechanics you actually need a comprehensive understanding as to exactly how the energy in electro-magnetic radiation is internally converted – some of it to electron energy (that is, an electron is raised through one or more energy states) and sometimes the rest of it is somehow converted to kinetic energy in the atom or the whole molecule where applicable. I doubt that this complicate conversion process is in fact really well understood by anyone.
However, it is empirically shown that the kinetic energy is actually not from the additional electron energy, but from an “overflow” of energy that cannot resonate because it exceeds the capacity of the electrons in the target (which is cooler) to accept on a quantum basis, simply because it does not correspond with the energy that matches quantum steps that are available in the target.
Where some of the incident radiation does in fact match such quantum steps, then it merely temporarily raises an electron through one or more energy states, and then the electron falls back emitting an identical photon which, in fact, is treated as part of the target’s own “quota” of radiation under its Planck curve. All bodies, including gases, have an “outline” enveloping Planck function even though not all frequencies are present in their radiation. So, sure, it’s not black body radiation because the area under the Planck curve is not all “filled in” but it does have an effective temperature based on the modal frequency of the enveloping Planck function, as per Wien’s Displacement Theorem.
Hi Slipstick,
Your claim regarding the 2nd LOTD and quantum events appears vague and at best an assertion. EM waves are energy and energy can sometimes increase the temperature of an absorbing body.
Have a great day?
Indeed, JohnKL, the EM energy can raise the temperature of an absorbing body. My point is that the classical 2LOT is a consequence of quantum effects, not the other way round.
Go back to this comment.
“Heat is not “carried” by photons; it is the effect of the photons’ electromagnetic energy on matter.”
Yes, well, actually “heat” is thermal energy being transferred and there’s absolutely no transfer and no effect on target matter when the effective (attenuated) Planck function for the radiation is fully contained within the area under the Planck function of the target. The heat transfer is the other way, and is represented by the area between the Planck functions, as any engineer should know.
You really do need to catch up on this 21st century understanding regarding radiated energy and when it does or does not get converted to thermal (kinetic) energy in a target. See my comments below.
And just in case your understanding is limited, the raising of an electron between quantum energy states does NOT correspond to conversion of electro-magnetic energy in radiation to kinetic energy in the target. And so it is not a heat transfer of any kind. It merely temporarily raises electron energy, and electron energy has nothing to do with temperature or kinetic energy. It is a complicated internal process to convert electron energy to kinetic energy or vice versa. The energy has to be in the form of electron energy before a photon can be emitted, and that happens when the electron energy drops down one or more quantum energy levels. Resonance occurs when the added electron energy is immediately converted to a new emitted photon. At no stage is the electron energy converted to kinetic energy, and so there is no conversion to thermal energy and no heat transfer that would otherwise, on a macro scale, violate the second law. And if there were conversion to KE for one photon, then it could and would happen for many photons and there would be heat transfer on a macro scale, which is against the law. It is only photons from an effectively hotter source that do NOT resonate and thus have their energy converted to thermal energy, but only in a cooler target. So go jump – because that’s all the electrons do – jump up and down in resonance.
Whilst radiation from gases is of course restricted to certain spectral lines (and thus not black body radiation) the intensity of the lines is such that there is an enveloping Planck function which acts as a limit for the intensity at each frequency. The modal frequency in that “outline” Planck function is proportional to the temperature as per Wien’s Displacement Theorem.
Photons have a frequency proportional to their energy, as you should know. Any “macro group” of photons in any pencil of spontaneous radiation from some finite source have a frequency distribution which gives us the “outline” of the Planck function and hence the temperature of the source.
There’s more detail in this comment.
“Oh, and by the way, atmospheric gas molecules at tropospheric temperatures do not emit blackbody radiation.”
In the infrared, the atmosphere is indeed close to a blackbody. Here’s the proof:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
It doesn’t matter – it is the enveloping Planck function (whether or not all frequencies are “filled in” under that curve) which determines the effective temperature of any source of natural radiation.
However, the impact on the rate of radiative cooling of a warmer body will be less if not all frequencies are present, as is the case for the fairly limited number of key gases in the atmosphere.
In particular, the radiation from carbon dioxide is like a picket fence with most of its pickets missing, standing up against the torrent of full spectrum (and higher intensity) radiation from the warmer surface.
See this comment.
Go back to this comment which probably slipped your attention, Slip. It fits you too Slip.
Slip writes: “Your application of the classical Second Law to discrete quantum events is wholly inappropriate.”
I make no such application of the Second Law in my hypothesis. I consider the diminishing of unbalanced energy potentials, which corresponds with the propensity for a natural system to move towards maximum entropy, namely thermodynamic equilibrium, on a macro scale. Again I recommend you read http://entropylaw.com which is not a site of mine by the way.
I am sick and tired of people like yourself who think they can imagine what my hypothesis is all about without deigning to read the website or the linked paper on Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures. In fact I’m thinking of doing a new youtube video discussing the kind of comments you make, perhaps showing them with your name, and pointing out the tactics of warmists who diverge as far as they can from actually discussing the relevant thermodynamics.
How are you going to explain core temperatures with radiation, for example, or the warming of a planet’s surface each morning, even with thick cloud cover here on Earth?
Neither direct radiation from the Sun, nor the sum of such radiation and radiation from the colder atmosphere can possibly “explain” the mean surface temperature for Earth. And if radiation is not what gets it to the observed temperatures, then the slowing of radiative cooling by back radiation, whilst it can be significant after a warm, clear day perhaps in the tropics, is irrelevant in so far as daily minimum temperatures and global mean temperatures are concerned.
When I have been helping my physics students these last 50 years or so, I teach by encouraging them to think. However, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him think.
If you were to read very carefully my website (visited by over 10,550 so far this year) and study the “heat creep” diagrams, coming to grips with why the axes are drawn at angles and why the sloping line represents the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, then maybe the penny would drop and you’d realize why radiation has very little to do with planetary surface temperatures. But if you don’t take the trouble to study and think about it, then you will remain bluffed by James Hansen’s fictitious fiddled fissics.
One of you thinks that back radiation should be included in S-B calculations and the other disagrees. If you don’t include it you get temperatures that are way too low, and if you do include it your temperatures are way too high.
If you want to understand radiation, once again you need to really study thee first few sections of my 2012 paper. All radiation has a frequency distribution. Frequencies that are common to two bodies merely resonate, some physicists saying that standing waves are formed. If a photon “finds” an atom the same as one that emitted it (and thus with the same quantum energy levels) then the receiving atom does not have to convert its own kinetic energy, using that energy to raise an electron through one or more quantum energy states: instead the target uses the energy in the incident photon to do so. Then it emits an identical photon which “counts” as a part of its own “quota” of radiation as per the target’s Planck function.
Suppose we simplify two “opposing” Planck functions from a warmer and a cooler body like this …
Warmer body has these numbers of photons emitted with the energy levels shown:
1 x 17
2 x 16
3 x 15
2 x 14
1 x 13
The cooler body has …
1 x 15
2 x 14
1 x 13
The heat transfer is represented by the area between the Planck curves because that is the radiation which does not resonate. What does resonate is 1 x 15, 2 x 14, 1 x 13. The energy transferred (one way only) is (as engineers always calculate) the difference between the areas (integrals) namely 1 x 17, 2 x 16, 2 x 15.
Hi Doug Cotton,
Heat creep only accounts for how energy can in part be conserved but you take for granted the energy requisite to sustain a Venusian atmosphere 100 times more massive than the Earth’s atmosphere even though the entire mass of Venus is only 80 percent that of the Earth’s. Internal energy must be added to the mix since volcanic gasses comprise virtually the entire atmosphere.
If you Think planetary internal energy seems too small to account for emitted energy, remember that both Saturn and Jupiter emit greater amounts of energy that we receive from the Sun. Jupiter emits 1.6 times more energy than it receives from the Sun and Saturn emits two times more energy than it receives from the Sun.
Have a great day!
Hi Doug Cotton,
Btw Jupiter and Saturn maintain steady temperatures over time despite emitting more energy than they receive from the sun.
Have a great day!
Read my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” linked from the ‘Evidence’ page at http://climate-change-theory.com
Saturn and Jupiter emit more because they are gaseous planets that are collapsing and thus there is a net conversion of gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy.
Uranus is not contracting, not emitting significantly more than it absorbs, doesn’t have solar radiation reaching the base of its 350Km high nominal troposphere, doesn’t have a surface there either, but is hotter there than Earth’s surface despite being about 30 times further from the Sun.
Heat creep, my friend.
To see why direct solar radiation cannot possibly explain Earth’s surface temperature consider the following:
A square has the greatest area of all rectangles with any given perimeter. For example, for perimeter 20 a square 5 x 5 has area 25, but a rectangle 2 x 8 has area 16.
Likewise, because of the T^4 relationship in S-B, for any given mean flux you get the greatest mean temperature if that flux is uniform over the whole area. For example, a mean flux of 390W/m^2 has BB temperature 288.0K which is about 15°C. But if, with the same mean flux, we have half the area getting 690W/m^2 and half getting 90W/m^2 (same mean) then the BB temperatures are 332.1K and 199.6K these having a mean of 265.9K which is colder than -7°C. That kind of variation is not unrealistic for Earth.
We do know that the whole of Earth’s surface does indeed have a mean solar flux of about 168W/m^2 actually entering the surface. You can’t argue that it is wildly different from that figure. The BB temperature for that is 233.3K which is -40°C. So, because we also know the flux varies considerably, the mean temperature that could be achieved by direct solar radiation would be somewhat colder than -40°C.
Furthermore, we didn’t even deduct heat losses by simultaneous non-radiative processes in those calculations. We should do this, as Hansen realized. But he tried to fiddle the books by adding 324W/m^2 of back radiation to get a net of 390W/m^2 that gives 15°C as above. However, even that doesn’t give the right 15°C mean temperature because there is huge variation over the Earth’s surface and the resulting mean temperature could well be below zero.
So, as I keep telling you, radiation into a planet’s surface is not the primary determinant of its temperature, and so back radiation from carbon dioxide does not affect temperature in any significant way. The only correct physics which explains all planetary temperatures is contained in my hypothesis which also explains, for the first time in world literature, the necessary heat transfers involved.
Norman:
Thanks for that NOAA ESRL reference. Looked at graphs for a few dates for Table Mountain and what strikes me is that despite a much higher upwelling radiation during the day the down-welling radiation stays reasonably static (by eye on small graphs).
I would have expected more of a change with (I assume) more absolute moisture in the air during the hotter day time (it is clearer on the less noisy graphs).
Re Dr Spencer’s experiment earlier I’m not sure what he was observing. I have seen TonyB make a similar comment about ice on the road and needing to be attentive for Cirrus cloud. I know nothing about clouds but it seems to me that a possibility includes the actual formation of that cloud (ie it is not simply drifting overhead) and the latent heat effect where the underside is much warmer. Is it this effect?
Putting a shield over water bath would simply stop this.
Equally I have heard that cars under say trees (physical barrier) don’t develop ice or frost compared to a car open to the atmosphere when conditions suit.
A more pertinent experiment would involve testing CO2 itself. In my rough calcs all the CO2 in air would equate to a bottom layer of around 2.5 metre high at ground level of pure CO2. So, why not test for CO2 with IR transparent boxes say 2 metres tall; fill some with CO2 and others simply air.
The boxes would need to be elevated like the aluminium shield but that would not be too difficult. I accept the interaction will be somewhat different for this high a conc of CO2 as opposed to the air but it will be indicative. Should be interesting.
On a separate matter I am not sure why you are arguing with Doug on the back radiation effect. We agreed in another post that the actual sums end up the same. All he is saying is that some of the radiation is not absorbed but pseudo scattered which is the same as the body itself radiating that component in all directions. Take your pick as he does not claim an actual effective difference.
The difference is that you can’t count the backradiation, adding it to solar radiation, when estimating temperature using Stefan Boltzmann calculations, because the back radiation is not thermalized. Hence James Hansen was wrong in using back radiation flux that way, and so the whole GH radiative forcing conjecture collapses.
“…because the back radiation is not thermalized.”
Cany you explain, then, how backradiation has been measured?
“Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate,” W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006
https://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf
Go to this comment for my response.
tonyM: For more detail regarding the “difference” read Q.7 in the Appendix of my 2012 paper here.
Doug:
Please be realistic. The calculations involve a two way S-B relationship. The net effect is exactly the same. You cannot show otherwise and end up not even splitting hairs.
I have no interest in Hansen’s calculations as it is not relevant; argue that with him. Engineers do the calcs and certainly take into account the back radiation in their transfers. Scientists do likewise. There is not one iota of practical difference to your version.
No they don’t involve a two-way transfer of thermal energy. The one-way transfer of thermal energy comes from the radiation which cannot resonate, it being represented by the area between the Planck curves as is well known and empirically tested.
Go and read the cited paper with comprehensive computations that I linked from my 2012 paper on Radiated Energy.
Doug,
you can certainly try one’s patience. I understand what you are talking about but in practical terms it does not matter for it can never be shown to create a difference in heat transfer.
There is not one application or experiment you can show which results in a different outcome. If you believe I am wrong then show it.
Go to this comment and try to read and understand – with patience – if you want to extend your knowledge.
“The one-way transfer of thermal energy comes from the radiation which cannot resonate”
Where are the equations describing this lack of “resonate?”
How does the thermal energy know not to “resonate,” whatever that means? Does it send out a little scouting party?
There is not always a corresponding reverse pencil of radiation for every pencil of radiation going the other way. The two-plate experiments, and imaginary black bodies are not the real world where, if electro-magnetic energy were converted to thermal energy it could “escape” by other heat transfer mechanisms, this meaning that, if a one-way pencil did transfer thermal energy to a warmer target, there would indeed be a violation of the Second Law.
The “difference” is that we can NOT add one-way flux from the atmosphere to the surface (about 324W/m^2) to the Solar radiation (about 168W/m^2) and use the total in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations (less non-radiative losses of 102W/m^2) to (supposedly) confirm everything works by radiation because we get the “right” answer of 15°C as a mean surface temperature using a (net) mean of 390W/m^2.
Even if there really were a mean of 390W/m^2 from a much brighter or closer Sun, it would still barely raise the mean surface temperature of a spherical Earth to perhaps just over 0°C because of the T^4 relationship.
But the IPCC & Co.(courtesy James Hansen, originally) does just that – as in the energy diagrams and computer models – and they treat the Earth as if it were flat, because a mean of 390W/m^2 would only achieve 15°C in a flat black body orthogonal to the radiation vector.
So, because we can’t count back radiation (as there is no one way transfer of heat into the surface) then we know that radiation is not what determines the planet’s surface temperature. The Sun can’t make it hot enough in the first place, so the rate of cooling is irrelevant.
No the net effect is not the same. I showed that in Q.7 in the Appendix of my paper that was published on several websites in 2012, and besides, it is totally wrong to include backradiation in S-B calculations – and it doesn’t even explain mean surface temperatures being above freezing point anyway, as I have also shown in the comment that starts with comparing squares and rectangles.
NONE OF YOU CAN EXPLAIN SURFACE TEMPERATURES WITH OR WITHOUT INCLUDING BACK RADIATION IN S-B CALCULATIONS.
Doug – The surface temperatures of Earth, Venus and Mars are easily explained by including back radiation which Dr. Spencer’s 6/30 test demonstrated for you, any intro. atm. thermo. text will show you the calculations.
Hi Ball4,
At best Roy designed his experiment to show that back radiation slowed the rate of cooling of some tank water. Nowhere does it seem he even attempts to illustrate how back radiation can INCREASE Venusian surface temps above and beyond that of Mercury and the surface radiation flux orders of magnitude above the direct solar radiation impinging the surface. You keep asserting that you can. Please do so the facts don’t seem to match your rhetoric.
Have a great day!
— Ball4 says:
July 31, 2015 at 8:14 AM
Doug – The surface temperatures of Earth, Venus and Mars are easily explained by including back radiation which Dr. Spencer’s 6/30 test demonstrated for you, any intro. atm. thermo. text will show you the calculations.–
Mars does not get much of greenhouse effect- despite having 210 ppm of water vapor and 28 times more CO2 per square meter
than Earth.
Venus is all about it’s clouds.
The yellowish though transparent droplets of acid which are the clouds of Venus, reflect 70% of the sunlight. Or at least this opinion that many share- or part of why Venus is such bright object in the sky.
So got about 2600 watt per square meter, and 70% is 1820 watts per square meter. Or 2600 minus 1820 is 780 watts per square meter.
[This close to how much Mars can absorb, the average Mars is about 600 watts, but when Mars is closer the the Sun, it’s about 700 watts per square meter.]
Now many people imagine Earth clouds reflect about 30%, this is not true, but if thought that was correct, and compared it, 1360 times .3 is 408 watts per square meter and
1360 minus 408 is 952 watts which is not reflected by clouds.
As for averaging 952 divided by 4 is 238 watts per square meter of entire earth.
With Venus if did the same: 780 divide by 4, one gets 195 watts averaged over entire surface.
With Earth the sunlight passes thru the clouds and atmosphere and can reflect off the the earth surface.
And at certain angles one can get a lot of sunlight reflected off the earth surface. Glint as in:
“Feast your eyes on this majestic image of Saturn’s moon Titan, which shows the sun shining off its north polar seas.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/11/04/titan-nasa-cassini-photo/18453261/
Would happen on Venus.
Titan has pretty massive atmosphere and at Saturn distance from sun is 52 watt per square meter {SMAD third edition].
So glint happen with TOA of 52 watts, but would not get glint from Venus surface. Even were there was a break in Venus massive clouds.
To summarize the surface of Venus can not be heated by sunlight, what is heated by sunlight is the Venusian clouds.
Ball4.
JohnKl has already refuted your claim that back radiation can help to raise the surface temperature of the Venus surface over the course of its 4 months of sunlight, thus compensating for the inevitable cooling at night.
You could also read this comment and the one above it. You talk nonsense. Where are your calculations for a spherical Earth that explain its mean surface temperature? I have done such, and also for Venus and, in particular, for the base of the 350Km high troposphere of Uranus where it’s about 320K, but where there’s no solar radiation, no surface, no cooling off of the core and no internal energy generation.
Only the process of entropy maximization can explain that 320K temperature (quite accurately in fact) and all planetary temperature data above and even below any surface.
Your understanding of the thermodynamics involved leaves a lot to be desired, and a lot of data to explain, Ball4. I’ve wasted enough of my time on your assertive statements which JohnKl has also pointed out are incorrect.
To put it bluntly, you are very gullible to lapping up the garbage dished out by the infant science of climatology.
Go to this comment, Ball4.
Doug 6:18pm: “JohnKl has already refuted your claim that back radiation can help to raise the surface temperature..”
Thanks for pointing that out Doug, JohnKl doesn’t refer to a test or analysis supporting his hypothesis so I find no viable refutation as Dr. Spencer showed falsifying some of Doug’s hypotheses. Dr. Spencer’s test shows the added radiation from the cirrus the same as the added radiation from Venus clouds and optically thick atmosphere affect the near surface energy balance & temperature. Venus has no true window greater than 3microns so a good text book will show you and JohnKl the RTM analysis developed from test that can be used to iterate the layer by layer balances until converging on a Venus surface temp. ~732K. This is introductory textbook stuff nowadays.
“Where are your calculations for a spherical Earth that explain its mean surface temperature?”
From text books, again, by 1LOT at earth surface after KT97, all the KT97 surface arrows add up to 288K:
(235+78+24)in – (390+78+24-155)out = 235in – 235out = balanced at surface w/Tmedian=288K (the 390), 255K at TOA (the 235).
“Only the process of entropy maximization can explain that Uranus 320K…”
RTM using 1LOT will do so, look in a good text book for the test, analysis and explanation. I am not gullible enough to go to Doug’s site again until the required corrigenda are issued lining his corrected hypotheses up with Dr. Spencer’s 6/30/2015 test.
You, Ball4, cannot explain how planetary surface temperatures rise by day (compensating for inevitable cooling at night) because all the radiation between the surface and atmosphere is merely transferring thermal energy out of the surface. The solar radiation is all the radiation that’s left, and it is not sufficient by a long shot.
The whole paradigm which assumes radiation explains planetary surface temperatures is totally incorrect – not in the right ball park at all.
Never have you presented correct Stefan Boltzmann calculations, Ball4, for variable flux in different locations that is somehow supposedly explaining Earth’s mean surface temperature, let alone that for Venus.
Your nonsense about back radiation helping the Sun to raise the temperature just shows how pathetically gullible you are to lapping up the IPCC garbage, Ball4.
There’s details as to how to submit a claim for the $5,000 reward for proving me wrong in this comment.
Doug 5:54am: “You, Ball4, cannot explain how planetary surface temperatures rise by day (compensating for inevitable cooling at night)..”
The sun comes up. There’s explanation proof in testing conducted every day here on Earth right here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html
Click the date to August 10, 2015. Click on Desert Rock, click on down welling solar & DW IR, click on air temperature. Click plot data.
Overnight the steady backradiation (DW IR) slows the fairly continuous cooling and you can see the passing clouds being detected as in Dr. Spencer’s 6/30 test. When the sun comes up, the “sufficient” equiv. of 2x 100watt bulbs are turned on every hour until a total of 10 100watt bulbs are on for every square meter Doug. Imagine how hot they get and you can see the air temperature rise substantially and even on cloudy days see the clouds detected. Then the bulbs start getting turned off in the afternoon slowing the air temperature rise until it starts cooling again after dark.
“The whole paradigm which assumes radiation explains planetary surface temperatures is totally incorrect – not in the right ball park at all.”
Doug is proven wrong by these daily observations.
“Never have you presented correct Stefan Boltzmann calculations, Ball4,”
Doug is easily proven wrong, again, just see the preceding comment 7:42pm, google stefan boltzmann calculator, enter emissivity .99, area 1, radiation energy 390, x in the T box and find x=288.7K just as I wrote at 7:42pm. Now try x in radiation energy and T=255K, find x=235, again exactly as I wrote.
“Your nonsense about back radiation helping the Sun to raise the temperature..”
Ridiculous straw man, the backradiation can’t raise warmer surface temperature as shown by test, it just slows the cooling as even Doug agreed when faced with Dr. Spencer’s test and pointed to excerpts in his previous writing supporting that physics.
Appears the $5,000 is a hoax as much of Doug’s writing is proven wrong by multiple tests. Yet more belated corrigenda needed for Doug’s site. Not going to Doug’s site again until all the required corrigenda are issued to line up with real world test nor should any other wary reader.
Doug: Your “paper” wasn’t “published” anywhere. Vanity sites don’t count.
Why not submit your astonishing, game-changing work to a real journal so the entire world can slap their foreheads and say, “But of course!”
And TonyM it reflects on yourself if you’re not interested in how Hansen added backradiation to solar radiation and used the total (after deducting non-radiative losses) to “determine” Earth’s mean surface temperature.
That’s what started the whole GH hoax. That’s where it was wrong at Square One.
Calculations using S-B are simply determining the area between the two Planck curves for, as I hope you know, S-B is based on the integral of the Planck function. Doing the calculations in no way “proves” there is a two-way transfer of thermal energy.
Again I say, read my paper on Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics linked from http://climate-change-theory.com visited by over 10,550 this year.
When is this going to be published in a real journal?
And when do you expect your Nobel Prize to come through?
Go back to this comment, DavidA as it applies to you also.
And of course, where Hansen’s fictitious fiddled fissics is wrong is that, when considering radiation between the surface and the atmosphere, rather than recogniZe that such is cooling the surface, he takes just the back radiation, totally ignoring the outward radiation FROM the surface, and he uses that backradiation in his Stefan Boltzmann calculations just as if the backradiation is supplying thermal energy to help the Sun raise the surface temperature, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE RADIATED HEAT TRANSFERS OUT OF THE SURFACE.
Boy oh boy!
If any reader can’t see that’s wrong then they’d better go back to secondary school.
You can NEVER, EVER, EVER explain the mean temperatures of the surfaces of Earth or Venus by using measurements of radiation of any form into the surface. Even Hansen’s added back radiation is actually still insufficient, and the Sun’s radiation absorbed by the surface is way to little.
SURFACE WARMING JUST DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY – THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE CAN RISE EACH MORNING EVEN IN CALM CONDITIONS WITH THICK CLOUD COVER FOR SEVERAL DAYS BLOCKING VIRTUALLY ALL SOLAR RADIATION TO THE SURFACE. THINK ON THAT! THINK!
Doug – “You can NEVER, EVER, EVER explain the mean temperatures of the surfaces of Earth or Venus by using measurements of radiation of any form into the surface.”
Dr. Spencer’s test shows this is wrong, the black line trended down not up as Doug writes it should have. RTM actually can do this within measuring thermometer equipment confidence intervals, just as the test demonstrates.
Go back to this comment, Ball4.
Mr. Cotton,
“THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE CAN RISE EACH MORNING EVEN IN CALM CONDITIONS WITH THICK CLOUD COVER FOR SEVERAL DAYS BLOCKING VIRTUALLY ALL SOLAR RADIATION TO THE SURFACE.”
Yes, because a fair fraction of the solar radiation that is not reflected by the clouds is absorbed and then radiates and re-radiates down through the clouds to the surface. That is in addition to the IR radiation from the surface that is absorbed by the clouds and then re-radiated back towards the surface, which slows the cooling of the surface.
“…which slows the cooling of the surface.”
___________
So Slip, does that mean you are no longer a “Warmist”, you are now a “Slow-Coolist”?
(I’m going to miss “Climate Comedy” when the hoax is fully understood by everyone.)
I prefer the appellations “Pragmatist” or “Realist”.
Not “hero”? After all, aren’t Warmists (Slow Coolists) trying to save the planet?
How about this: You’re a pragmatic, realistic, hero, with a halo.
Now, that’s funny!
Since the mass and temperature of the surface is greater than that of the clouds, it will, necessarily, radiate at a rate greater than that of the clouds. Whether you see this as warming or slow-cooling is, in this case, simply a matter of semantics; thermodynamically, it’s the same.
So, when you put an ice cube in a cup of hot coffee, are you “slowing the rate of cooling”?
(Tangled in your pseudoscience again? Call 1-800-THERMODynamics. First minute is free.)
Since I anticipated some attempt to misrepresent or misconstrue what I wrote, relevance fallacies, such as straw men and ignoratio elenchi, and the ad hominem, of which you seem so very fond, being your usual methods of argument, I specifically included the phrase “in this case” in my previous reply.
“…in this case…”
_________
Okay, so now you are saying “sometimes”.
No longer a “warmist”, no longer a “Slow-Coolist, now a “Sometimes Slow-Coolist”. At least you’re “evolving” in the right direction.
And, about the other stuff, you bring the ridicule on yourself. Go upthread and notice how you jumped in, seemingly “asking for it”. So, don’t try to now play the innocent, downtrodden, “do-gooder” that is soooo abused.
Slip, old buddy, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen”.
Hi Doug Cotton,
Your point regarding back radiation proves correct on a moments reflection and I’ve considered it myself. All motion occurs in time including radiative flux. The CAGW faux physicists demand atmospheric back radiation be added to S-B calculations to account for all radiative inputs in any given infinitesimal time period in order to calculate surface temperatures. Yet they then proceed to ignore surface emissions during the same interval especially it seems if emissions exceed the backradiation input. Pretty slimy but typical propaganda tactics.
Have a great day!
“Yet they then proceed to ignore surface emissions during the same interval especially it seems if emissions exceed the backradiation input.”
Poppycock. Please read any textbook on climate science. I recomment
Raymond Pierrehumbert, “Principles of Planetary Climate,” (2011)
especially Chapter 4.
Hi David A,
Personally, I don’t know nor claim at this point that Pierre H is a faux physicist, but if anyone claims that radiation from a cool source can increase the temperature of a warmer one they definitely meet the definition.
Have a great day!
Doug,
For the gazillionth time, the GHE is not driven by the amount of downward LW the atmosphere passes to the surface. The underlying mechanism is radiative resistance to outer space cooling.
Yes, that is more reasonable.
But the radiative resistance does not equal 33 K, it might be more than 10 K.
And if count droplet of water which are clouds, maybe about
15 K.
And CO2 total effect is 5 C or less.
Wiki, re, greenhouse Effect:
By their percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect on Earth the four major gases are:
water vapor, 36–70%
carbon dioxide, 9–26%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
So 9–26% of 33 is 2.97 to 8.56 K
So I would say it’s not 6, 7, 8, or 9 K and
could around 3 or 4 or less. And has not special ability
to increase water vapor. And certainly don’t believe that
without CO2, earth would be -18 C. Without CO2, life could not exist, but CO2 is not the control knob in terms of global average temperature. Btw the control knob is ocean surface temperature, specifically tropical ocean surface temperature.
And average ocean temperature is directly relate to average global air temperature. So if earth average air temperature is in range of 5 to 30 C, it’s all about the average temperature of the entire ocean.
Or for average global temperature of 15 C, with average ocean of 3 to 4 C that about as high as you going to get, or a range of say 10 to 16 C. Or for Earth to have stable temperature of 20 C, one needs increase of about 5 C to the average ocean temperature- which is not going to happen within couple thousand years.
Hi gbaikie,
The 10k radiative resistance you mentioned seems much closer to Claes Johnson’s figure than Roy’s 33k. Keep in mind only ~40 w/m^2 apparently radiates directly from the Earth’s surface to space. Since the Earth only absorbs about 240 w/m^2 that leaves a very small aperture for for increasing atmospheric co2 and such gasses to close.
Have a great day!
–The 10k radiative resistance you mentioned seems much closer to Claes Johnson’s figure than Roy’s 33k.–
Only person, I think I can recall who mentioned it is Lindzen.
And I think said it’s probably about 1/3 of the 33 or maybe he said it’s probably at least 1/3 of 33.
Though I can’t think of anyone who said how much 400 ppm of CO2 would warm earth.
I think it’s around 3 C, maybe.
I think if it was more than 5 C, we could actually measure it’s effect.
I am not willing to rule out possibility that 400 ppm might cause as much as 3 C of warming.
And this is partially why I think we could have as much about 1 C rise in global temperature by around 2100.
Or if CO2 doesn’t have warm, it’s unlikely we would have as much as .5 C rise by 2100.
Generally I think the pause will continue for about another 10 years, then we could a small [measurable] decline, which may last a decade or 2- or barely long enough to call it a trend in cooling.
And I would guess that in about 20 more years, we might have measured what the warming or no warming from CO2 actually is.
And part of why, this is the case is because we measuring the deep ocean temperature, and once we get this nailed down, one can figure out what effects of CO2 are.
So I think CO2 which is at 400 ppm concentration is within the range of the effect of UHI effect upon global temperature [somewhere near zero in terms of measuring it’s global effect] to as high as 3 C, and I think it’s very unlikely it’s 5 C or more.
Or it’s 3 C with range/error bar of +1/-3
I like to hear what other think is the highest possible amount warming from 400 ppm CO2 [that they consider is not delusional/hysterical]. And they can also include the lowest which they think is plausible.
Hi gbaikie,
It seems I may have misunderstood your claim. The 10 deg C figure I mentioned referred to Claes model claiming all the ghg’s can raise temps ~10+ deg C.
Have a great day!
Nope. Here’s the science:
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature,” Lacis et al, Science (15 October 2010) Vol. 330 no. 6002 pp. 356-359
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html
Nope. That’s “bought-and-paid-for” pseudoscience.
“But the radiative resistance does not equal 33 K,”
Yes, it does equal about +33C or +150 W/m^2 of net surface gain.
RW, is that your “belief”, or do you have an equation, or two, to verify?
So Sunlight is 1360 watts and about 400 watts is reflected leaving about 960 watt. And spread this heat around the world
it averages about 240 watts.
And the 150 watts is averaged around the world in comparison
to sunlight it would like 150 times 4, 600 watts of energy
which is not reflected like the sunlight is.
Now if don’t average the sunlight and look at where most of sunlight goes, most of sunlight goes to the tropics- so something like 300 watt or more and rest of world receives less than the 240 average.
And this 150 watt isn’t uniform and must vary around world, where is most of this 150 watts of “warming effect” mostly occurring- tropics, temperate, polar?
Anyone who has been following this useless, but amusing, debate, may have noticed that I’ve been applying a bit of a critical thinking to the conjectures, for which I have been unable to find a shred of physical evidence, not even a badly constructed experiment, of a person who shall remain nameless. I keep an open mind and if something is a well-supported, more robust explanation for the universe we know, I will embrace it; so I research many lines of thought with which I may initially disagree. (The conjectures in question, by the way, have no support at all that I’ve been able to find and were destroyed with just a few minutes of thought.) But a consequence of one of the conjectures gave me a chuckle, and, for lack of a better place to share it, I thought I’d post it here.
The conjecture is that a photon emitted by cold matter cannot be absorbed by warmer matter. There are a number of methods, laser traps, spin gradient demagnetization, and so on, for producing ultra-cold atoms, even to less than 1 mK, for experimental purposes. In the final step of these methods, the atom releases a single photon to shed some of what little energy is left. I picture this poor, lonely photon, wandering the universe forever in a hopeless search for an atom colder than its source on which to alight (OK, lame pun). Kind of brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it? But, don’t be sad. Since the photon is moving at the speed of light, from its point of view, no time passes. Wave (OK, another lame pun, sorry) to it as it passes.
Slipstick,
I applaud your patience. I devoted myself to the 06/30 thread, but it was completely in vain. I showed multiple theoretical reasons, ran some experiments, and quantitatively detailed their problems. Many of the things I did were at their request, yet ignored or handwaved away using proof by assertion. Norman and Ball4 put in a lot of effort on the 07/14 thread and I jumped in to try at the end, but I just don’t think these guys capable of even considering themselves incorrect.
But your example was fun to consider. I came up with one myself on the 06/30 thread and will repost it here for your amusement:
Here’s one: room-temp LED lighting. According to their understanding, I should not be able to see light from an LED until the LED reaches 37 C because otherwise my eye would be absorbing a photon from a source that is colder than the eye, which is purportedly in violation to the 2nd law. So I’d see nothing from the LED until it was raised to ~37 C and the BAM, I can see the full intensity.
Interestingly, many of their arguments are actually in conflict with others’ on their side, but it seems that as long as they agree that the GHE doesn’t exist then they don’t worry about the inconsistencies. For instance, one of them basically says the back radiation doesn’t ever get emitted in the direction of a colder object because of the thermodynamic limit (this is different than e.g. Doug’s argument). That one’s really fun to imagine because that would mean the source photons can actually see into the future…for instance, colder stars would have to know that our sun would be in the direction of those photons and not shoot them that way. But they’d have to be all knowing and shoot them properly in the tiny little angles where there’s going to be something move in between that star and the sun (planets for instance, but also even dust!)
The small things are good for a laugh, but overall it’s just sad.
-Scott
Scott says, July 31, 2015 at 11:55 PM:
“Here’s one: room-temp LED lighting. According to their understanding, I should not be able to see light from an LED until the LED reaches 37 C because otherwise my eye would be absorbing a photon from a source that is colder than the eye, which is purportedly in violation to the 2nd law. So I’d see nothing from the LED until it was raised to ~37 C and the BAM, I can see the full intensity.”
and
“For instance, one of them basically says the back radiation doesn’t ever get emitted in the direction of a colder object because of the thermodynamic limit (this is different than e.g. Doug’s argument). That one’s really fun to imagine because that would mean the source photons can actually see into the future…for instance, colder stars would have to know that our sun would be in the direction of those photons and not shoot them that way. But they’d have to be all knowing and shoot them properly in the tiny little angles where there’s going to be something move in between that star and the sun (planets for instance, but also even dust!)”
*Eye roll*
Scott, it’s hard to tell from your silly and obvious misrepresentations of what people who disagree with you are actually saying whether you’re just a sorry-ass troll who does his best to throw off any discussion he perceives as unfavorable, or you’re just actually as obtuse as you appear.
You have shown that you don’t understand what the “thermodynamic limit” represents and that individual ‘photons’ (nothing but a concept of quantum theory) are not themselves capable of generating any temperature (thermodynamic) effects. Still you insist on discussing what these conceptual entities would or might know and choose to do on an individual basis, as if such speculation would somehow prove a thermodynamic point.
We don’t track separate ‘photons’, Scott. We track fluxes (thermodynamic transfers) of radiant energy. To see what’s causing a system’s change in temperature.
Given that photons are the energy carriers in radiative transfer, there’s no difference in the two and so you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Call me obtuse or call me a troll, that doesn’t change anything. Given that you have yet to specify how what I’ve said is a misrepresentation, I’m not sure what you’re trying to show. However, what you are showing is how little you understand how the world works. I littered 06/30 thread with theory, quantitative experimental evidence, and qualitative examples of how people were wrong. All I got were bizarre responses and people complaining about my trolling and misrepresentation while not realizing their hypocrisy.
And it doesn’t even matter if photons exist. If I can see a cold LED, it has transferred energy to me regardless.
-Scott
Scott, do you know how a LED works? Is the light thermally generated? What frequencies/wavelengths does its light have?
Do you ‘see’ the temperature of the light or its frequency/wavelength? Are our eyes even capable of ‘seeing’ light waves at 37 degrees Celsius?
So what are our eyes actually seeing when we see the LED?
Since you obviously haven’t bothered to think through these questions before you constructed your straw man, it’s very obvious that you don’t really care whether you represent your opponent’s view correctly or not.
That’s why I consider you a troll.
How is thermally generated light different than any other source of light? If there is no transfer of energy, then how can our eyes see it? Is retinal just a imaginary chemical made up to trick people into believing into GHGs? No, clearly there is a transfer of energy. And if you don’t believe that light has a particle nature, then tough. The world works as it does and you clearly are incapable of comprehending it. The rest of us will continue engineering systems based on real physical laws and you can keep imagining that we’re wrong.
Well this is tough. I just keep assuming you’re smarter than you actually are and represent your views based on that. Then you go and prove me wrong and show me your views are even more twisted. But as far as misconstruing opponents’ views, pot meet kettle, because I do think through your views, they just end up more asinine than I realized.
And that’s why I consider you an idiot [ad hom alert oh my!]
Have a good day,
-Scott
Poor Scott. He does not understand that atmospheric CO2 does NOT radiate anything other than thermally dependent photos.
(He must be another one of those “laser” guys.)
geran,
Thanks for correcting me. I was under the impression photons didn’t exist. Also, I’m certainly willing to embrace the “laser guy” label. Given that none of your mechanisms ever address why a laser won’t work, post hoc handwaving aside, it’s not an issue.
-Scott
Scott is indeed one of those laser guys, claiming that his CO2 laser proves that DWLWIR WARMS THE OCEAN
I never said that, please link to where you think I did. I did the laser experiment to show that IR can heat water from above, which was answering the exact question of the OP…just look at its title.
Of course, since no one can give a quantitative mechanism that eliminates lasers from their model, the natural extension is that DWLWIR heats the ocean. But that’s your shortcoming, not my assertion.
-Scott
Scott says, August 1, 2015 at 10:12 AM:
“How is thermally generated light different than any other source of light?”
It’s not. However, do you know of the concept of “colour temperature”? It has to do with photon frequency/EM wavelength. LEDs work by that principle. Read about it.
“If there is no transfer of energy, then how can our eyes see it?”
There IS a transfer of energy. That is why our eyes can see it. Duh! Again: frequency/wavelength; colour temperature. The LED working principle. Think it through.
“I just keep assuming you’re smarter than you actually are and represent your views based on that. Then you go and prove me wrong and show me your views are even more twisted. But as far as misconstruing opponents’ views, pot meet kettle, because I do think through your views, they just end up more asinine than I realized.
And that’s why I consider you an idiot [ad hom alert oh my!]”
Hahaha! Scott, you very obviously didn’t even understand what my questions were for. You still don’t. I asked them to see whether you possess any basic knowledge on the subject at hand or not. You evidently don’t. If you did, you would’ve gotten my point immediately.
Yeah, a good day to you too, Scott.
Scott says, August 2, 2015 at 8:13 AM:
“Of course, since no one can give a quantitative mechanism that eliminates lasers from their model, the natural extension is that DWLWIR heats the ocean.”
So now we’re back to the DWLWIR actually heating the ocean surface. Even though it’s not radiant ‘heat’ we’re talking about here.
Scott, a “heater” heats an object. The Sun is a heater. An oven is a heater. A heater increases the ‘heating’ of the object.
“Insulation” cools the object, only less so than the outside surroundings. The atmosphere is insulation. A jacket or a blanket is insulation. Insulation reduces the ‘cooling’ of the object.
Heating and cooling are opposite effects, Scott. An object can only ever be spontaneously heated by something hotter than itself. Likewise, it can only ever cool to something colder than itself.
A “heat source” (a heater) can and does itself raise the temperature of the object by feeding it with energy. That’s what HEATING is. Energy IN.
A “heat sink” (like an insulating layer) can and does not itself raise the temperature of the object by feeding it with energy. It can and does, however, itself lower the temperature of the object by draining it of energy. That’s what COOLING is. Energy OUT.
This is not hard, Scott.
Indeed Scott, inconvenient now to recall, but you cited your CO2 laser in support of your assertion that DWLWIR could warm water.
It all stems from your inability to comprehend natural processes.
The humor starts with the IPCC and then extends into “institutionalized science”, and then into the crowds of willing followers.
There are many classic examples, but “Norman” out did himself on this thread. He started out as if he were “king” of all science. Then, when he had to admit he was not familiar with the GHE/CO2 equation, he ended up as the “court jester” of pseudoscience. It’s hilarious to see them get so tangled up in their own web.
But, yes, it is sad when you consider the billions and billions of dollars wasted.
Slipstick says, July 31, 2015 at 11:03 PM:
“The conjecture is that a photon emitted by cold matter cannot be absorbed by warmer matter.”
No, Slipstick. The conjecture starts with the ‘photon’ itself. You move straight from the quantum concept of a ‘photon’ to the observed (macroscopic) world of thermodynamic radiant fluxes (W/m^2), as if they were one and the same thing, a ‘photon’ somehow just a “very tiny radiant flux”.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/what-causes-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-193660
“And, yes, all objects radiate. In all directions. But they don’t transfer energy in all directions. They have the potential to, but this potential is only realised towards objects or surroundings cooler than themselves. [In a heat transfer situation, that is.]
It’s in the transition zone between the microscopic (the individual photons, the (hypothetical) quantum world) and the macroscopic (the probabilistic averages of photons, the (observed) world of thermodynamics) that interesting ideas quite often emerge. There is (as of yet) no point in trying to tie the two realms together from totally opposite ends. That’s when you end up believing (perhaps even without knowing or wanting to) that a conceptual DWLWIR (or UWLWIR) ‘flux’ can actually itself have a thermodynamic effect.”
Kristian,
That last paragraph you quote is a matter of perspective. To my mind, there is no “transitions zone”; the probabilities of the quantum world determine the world we observe. For example, there is a nearly 100% probability, any exceptions that I can imagine being conditions too extreme to be relevant to the real world, if even possible, that the photon emissions of a molecule at higher temperature will have a higher average energy than those of a cooler molecule; the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a consequence of that fact. That does not mean that interactions of one photon, or even a small number of photons, are governed by the Laws.
Hilarious, Slip.
Maybe we should start calling you “Slapstick”.
Slipstick,
Let me explain my position a bit further.
The ‘two-stream concept’ of radiative transfer is “a matter of perspective”. You seem to take it uncritically as fact. It’s not. It’s a mental model. A hypothetical construct. It is not something we can ever physically observe. We only ever see what is called the ‘net’ transfer and its thermodynamic effect.
So in order to move from a single photon to a macroscopic radiant flux, all we need to do, according to your approach, is to zoom out.
OK. We’re in the space (let’s say it’s evacuated) between two blackbodies at different temperatures, that is, they’re involved in a radiative heat transfer.
As we begin zooming out, we will start seeing other photons besides our original one. Hardly any of them will be moving in the exact same direction as ours. Some will be moving in the same general direction, their trajectories only at some low angle to that of our photon. Others, however, will be moving at nearly right angles to our photon’s path, and others still will be moving in nearly the opposite direction, not to forget the ones who move not even in our general two-dimensional (xy) plane, but in the third (z) dimension, from above to below or from below to above, at some angle, relative to our photon.
It is impossible to make out any general order of any kind, any preferred direction; only chaos and complete randomness.
We will have to zoom out some more. The multitude of individual photons flying around now start grouping up, at least visually. The utter quantum randomness slowly becomes less so as we lose the photons out of sight and start seeing more general patterns of flight tracks merging into an ever more fuzzy weave, constantly evolving and refined, smeared gradually into a featurless fog. By now we’re moving through the zone where probabilistic averages of gazillions of photon trajectories (or of EM wavefronts, rather) are coming together, closing in on the “thermodynamic limit” where there is only the macroscopic “flux” left to be discerned. No more disorder. Only order.
Only the overall movement of energy through the space between the two bodies.
You’d like to think, Slipstick, that at this stage, we would see TWO macroscopic W/m^2 fluxes opposing each other, moving through each other, occupying the exact same space, the one from the cooler object to the warmer and the other from the warmer object to the cooler.
I’m sorry to disappoint you. That distinction was blurred out long before we got this far. In fact, it was never really there. It is an altogether artificial one, concocted by the human mind.
The probabilistic average of all the photons (EM wavetrains) flying about between the two blackbodies is not TWO fluxes. It’s but ONE. The actual energy transfer. The current running through the field. The radiant heat. Moving unidirectionally from warmer to cooler.
There is NO energy transferred from the cooler body to the warmer. Why? Because we do not observe this to happen. We never in a spontaneous heat transfer process see the internal energy of the warmer body go up as a result of absorbing radiant energy from the cooler body. We only ever see one thing:
The warmer body LOSES energy to the cooler one and the cooler one GAINS energy from the warmer one. And that’s it.
Whilst I understand that many of the processes that affect the average global temperature are enormously complicated and that there’s a great deal of uncertainty in quantifying the relative significance of many of the factors, it does seem quite alarming that we can’t even be certain that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse’ gas.
I’m puzzled why it is not possible to devise an experiment in the laboratory that can demonstrate whether or not CO2 at least could have a greenhouse effect in warming our climate.
Having given the matter some thought, with my basic and rather limited knowledge of Physics, following is what I propose as an experiment which could determine whether or not CO2 could have a warming effect on our planet.
1. The laboratory will consist of a large, spherical room, constructed of thick, insulated material connect to heating and cooling equipment on the outside, which is designed to keep the spherical wall at a constant, cool temperature.
2. The inside of the wall should be painted matte black to reduce as much as possible the amount of radiated heat from the wall into the room, and the room should be a vacuum. This represents outer space.
3. Inside the room is a much smaller glass-like spere on a pedestal. This represents the Earth and its atmosphere
4. At the centre of this glass-like sphere is a smaller, but solid sphere made of earth-like substances and containing a thermometer. This respresents the solid Earth itself.
5. The glass-like covering of the sphere, containing the representation of Earth and its atmosphere, should be constructed of a material which has a transparency to the Electromagnet Spectrum similar to that of our atmosphere.
6. Inside this sphere on the pedestal, with a thermometer at the centre, will be injected a certain mix of gases. The mix can be changed each time the experiment is conducted, and the resutling temperatures compared. The pressure or the amount of gas injected should be the same for each experiment.
7. The source of heat, representing the sun, fixed at some point on the spherical wall of the laboratory, should be a source which emits as close as possible the same mixture of wavelengths that our outer atmosphere receives from the sun.
Now, according to my limited understanding, a glass-like sphere which is filled with pure CO2, should, after a period of time, develop a higher temperature at its core, than another glass-like sphere placed on the same pedestal and exposed to the same heat source for the same period of time, but which contains only nitrogen oxide and oxygen, for example.
If it is found after various experiments with changed concentrations of CO2 in the gasses injected into the spheres, that the temperature at the core of the spheres is always approximately the same, whilst everything else has also remained the same, then such results would tend to prove that Doug Cotton is right in his assertion that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Wouldn’t you agree?
If there are fatal flaws in my proposed laboratory set-up, please mention them.
“I’m puzzled why it is not possible to devise an experiment in the laboratory that can demonstrate whether or not CO2 at least could have a greenhouse effect in warming our climate.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot5n9m4whaw
Also, you should read Tyndall’s work of 1861:
“On the Absorption and radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction,” John Tyndall, Philosophical Magazine Series 4, 22, 169-194, 273-285 (1861).
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf
Vincent, you’re on the right track. But, such an experiment has problems, because Earth’s atmosphere is so difficult to replicate. (That’s why the simple experiments fail to prove anything.)
The last 20 years has been a fairly good experiment–rising atmospheric CO2, but flat temps. As you probably know, the Warmers discount/downplay this particular “experiment”.
The climate “scientists” prefer to use computer models for their “experiments”. If the model doesn’t prove their pseudoscience, it is all to easy to make quick changes to “correct” the model.
Thanks Vincent. However, my hypothesis is not about radiation – it is summarized in this new comment.
Sorry to butt in, but I’m also puzzled” (like David A) in many ways by the apparent willingness of many readers to accept this concept of “radiative resistance” and then to associate such with rises in surface temperatures. Let me assure you that, for any temperature to rise there must be a net input of thermal energy, wouldn’t you all agree? So, even if some clouds or carbon dioxide molecules are warmed a little from mean temperatures like 255K a few kilometers above the surface, would someone please explain to me how they think the extra thermal energy actually gets back down into the warmer surface and raises its temperature? You see, I just can’t understand the IPCC claim that the Sun’s radiation warms the surface, or that radiation from colder clouds and colder carbon dioxide molecules then adds more thermal energy into the surface which is warmer. Can you?
Allow me to copy a comment on this I just wrote on the Principia Scientific Int’l climate blog regarding solar radiation of 168W/sq.m which …
does indeed appear to be the incident surface solar insolation shown in energy budget diagrams. And when I use that flux with the Stefan Boltzmann Law I do indeed get a temperature of 233K. I can see that the 168W/sq.m figure is derived from the Solar constant by first dividing by four (so as to distribute the energy passing through a circle to that striking a sphere with the same radius) and then using about half that result so as to allow for the albedo and atmospheric absorption.
So there’s no huge error in the 168W/sq.m mean flux of radiation striking the surface. Would you agree with that point? If not, what do you make it and why?
Now, I would suggest that, for any mean flux we would get the highest temperature if that flux were homogeneous. But in reality the mean is derived from a wide range of different flux levels striking the surface. Thus the mean temperature that the solar radiation could achieve would clearly be less than the above 233K, wouldn’t you agree? If not, please explain why. If, for example, we considered a simplified case where the 168 was the mean of two levels of flux on two halves of the surface – say 268W/sq.m and 68W/sq.m, then the Stefan-Boltzmann Law gives us temperatures of 262K and 186K and the mean of these is 224K which is colder than the above 233K for uniform flux.
So it does indeed appear pretty obvious that the mean solar flux of about 168W/sq.m could only achieve a mean temperature colder than 233K wouldn’t you say? If not, please outline the method you would use to determine the planet’s mean surface temperature from solar radiation? After all, as the top post says, the IPCC claims that this solar radiation warms the Earth. Do you agree with the IPCC on that issue? In that you don’t appear to agree with calculations of such temperatures using concepts of entropy maximization that people are now talking about then I assume you agree these people are wrong and the IPCC was right all along. But I’m just looking forward to your calculations that show why the IPCC is apparently right in your eyes.
“If not, please outline the method you would use to determine the planet’s mean surface temperature from solar radiation?”
A climate model calculation done a few years ago does exactly this:
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature,” Lacis et al, Science (15 October 2010) Vol. 330 no. 6002 pp. 356-359
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Lacis_etal_1.pdf
See their Figure S1.
When CO2 was set to zero, they found the Earth cooled by 35 C in about 20 years. This is slightly more than the canonical greenhouse effect value of 33 C, because as the planet cools, water vapor eventually freezes out of the atmosphere and more of the surface becomes icy, so the ice-albedo effect lowers temperatures even more.
This is, of course, the global average surface temperature. Without the baseline level of CO2, the Earth’s surface would be below freezing, on average.
I see, David A. So your linked document reads …
“Besides direct solar heating of the ground, there is also indirect longwave (LW) warming arising from the thermal radiation that is emitted by the ground, then absorbed locally within the atmosphere, from which it is re-emitted in both upward and downward directions, further heating the ground and maintaining the temperature gradient in the atmosphere”
and you thus think that the surface emits radiation, losing a certain amount of temperature in the process, and then, when back radiation sends about half of that initial radiation back to the surface, the surface somehow uses that half of what it emitted to rise in temperature by more than it fell when it originally emitted twice as much energy as it got back.
It’s just that, from my experience, I’ve grown to respect the validity of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which law (if radiation from the cold atmosphere did raise the already warmer surface temperature “besides” the amount that “direct solar heating of the ground” raises that temperature) would be violated.
So, sorry, I have to reject that “explanation” in my mind – just a personal thing based on a few decades of experience in physics – but don’t take offense, David A, whoever you are. I do understand how people like yourself have been so seriously misled by the “science” of climatology.
RPE 12:30am: “..for any temperature to rise there must be a net input of thermal energy, wouldn’t you all agree?”
I do. Also, for temperature to decrease there is a net output of energy.
“..would someone please explain to me how they think the extra thermal energy actually gets back down into the warmer surface and raises its temperature?”
It can’t raise the temperature unless from a warmer energy source, because for any temperature to rise there must be a net input of energy.
“I just can’t understand…that radiation from colder clouds and colder carbon dioxide molecules then adds more thermal energy into the surface which is warmer. Can you?”
Yes, Dr. Spencer ran a test on 6/30 in a post that will show you this happens, both waters cooled overnight but the water with the added radiation from colder cirrus clouds that came into its view was demonstrated to have more thermal energy as the black line trends down when the cirrus clouds show up. The physics of this demonstrated effect is explained in intro. atm. thermo. texts. Same effect measured by NOAA ESRL every day, all day.
RPE 1:10am “..the surface somehow uses that half of what it emitted to rise in temperature..”
No you are misrepresenting, you don’t correctly understand that the water doesn’t rise in temperature as Dr. Spencer’s test indicates, both of the water samples cool all night as shown by thermometers. Meaning for temperature to decrease there is a net output of energy. Yet one has a higher temperature than the other from the cirrus clouds in view as they affect the water temperature adding their radiated energy by 1st law making the black line trend down.
Ball4,
Your comment is irrelevant because you have ignored the cited portion which RTE addresses in his comments.
Many AGW types claim that back radiation raises surface temperature. You yourself may not adhere to that view, but you cannot deny that is their fundamental science, as in the excerpt _cited_from_the_referred_document.
mpainter “Many AGW types claim that back radiation raises surface temperature.”
Then they misrepresent the text book science too, I am unaware of any text books writing either of Dr. Spencer’s tested water will rise in temperature becoming warmer at night in presence of clouds and not monotonically cool, all the texts I’ve read agree the water will cool per Newton’s Law but the temperature of the one in view of cirrus clouds added radiation (absorbed, reflected, transmitted) will go as the black line indicates due to 1st law.
mpainter says, August 1, 2015 at 7:40 AM:
“Many AGW types claim that back radiation raises surface temperature.”
According to the bidirectional concept of radiative transfer, there can be no other way for the warmer surface to warm even further, than through the absorption of “back radiation” (DWLWIR) from the cooler atmosphere above.
All other attempted rGHE/AGW ‘explanations’ of the extra sfc warming ultimately lead back to this very mechanism.
Ball4 says, August 1, 2015 at 8:03 AM:
Then they misrepresent the text book science too, I am unaware of any text books writing either of Dr. Spencer’s tested water will rise in temperature becoming warmer at night in presence of clouds and not monotonically cool (…)”
Funny. And still, the global sfc of the Earth can ONLY go from its ideal pure solar radiative equilibrium temperature of 232K to the observed one at 289K by absorbing the DWLWIR from the cooler atmosphere:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
(Derived from Stephens et al. 2012.)
So the cooler atmosphere effectively and all by itself raises the mean temperature of the already warmer surface by ~57 degrees, simply by feeding it with an extra input of radiant energy next to the solar one.
The cool atmospheric DWLWIR ‘flux’ of 345 W/m^2 to the surface in other words has the exact same thermodynamic (net) effect on the surface as the hot solar flux – it raises its temperature in absolute terms.
Kristian says:
August 1, 2015 at 9:28 AM
The first half of that sentence is incompatible with the second half. With that type of reasoning, I shouldn’t wear extra clothes in winter.
-Scott
Scott,
How about it? Does the back radiation warm the surface?
mpainter says:
August 1, 2015 at 12:05 PM
mpainter,
I have made my position abundantly clear over the last few threads, so I’m curious to see what sort of misrepresentation you’ll do this time. The backradiation lowers the net loss of energy by the surface. Because the surface cools less effectively then the result is a surface that is warmer than it would be otherwise. Call it warming or less cooling…it doesn’t matter…the result is the same.
-Scott
Scott says, August 1, 2015 at 10:27 AM:
“”So the cooler atmosphere effectively and all by itself raises the mean temperature of the already warmer surface by ~57 degrees, simply by feeding it with an extra input of radiant energy next to the solar one.”
The first half of that sentence is incompatible with the second half. With that type of reasoning, I shouldn’t wear extra clothes in winter.”
Scott, don’t tell me. Tell “Climate Science^TM”. It’s their reasoning. Not mine.
No, they don’t think that CO2 warms the planet “all by itself”. It’s clear that you either don’t understand their argument or you intentionally misconstrue it. Therefore, I’ll just reference you to your own words:
Since you obviously haven’t bothered to think through these questions before you constructed your straw man, it’s very obvious that you don’t really care whether you represent your opponent’s view correctly or not.
That’s why I consider you a troll.
Have a good day,
-Scott
Above is an example of the tactics of the troll Scott:
He attributes to Kristian the use of the word CO2 when in fact Kristian did not use the word nor imply the word.
Interesting take mpainter. I’d be curious as to Kristian’s original meaning. He said “cooler atmosphere”, which contains CO2. Given that he was referencing climate scientists, who are commonly associated with focusing with just CO2, I assumed that’s what he meant. If he didn’t mean that, then what did he mean?
-Scott
Scott says, August 1, 2015 at 4:51 PM:
“No, they don’t think that CO2 warms the planet “all by itself”.”
Another gratuitous distortion from Scott of an opponent’s argument for the sole purpose of turning it into a statement that is more easily refuted. A debate tactic worthy of a true troll.
Can you please quote where I state that “climate scientists think that CO2 warms the planet all by itself”?
Address the actual argument, Scott. What’s actually being said. Not your privately constructed straw men.
“It’s clear that you either don’t understand their argument or you intentionally misconstrue it.”
Look, what is it specifically that raises the Earth’s mean sfc temp from 232 to 289K, Scott? What energy?
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
Is it the absorption of 165 W/m^2 in from the Sun? No. They can only take it as far as 232K. We’re looking for the additional warming …
Is it somehow a reduction in the OUTGOING energy from the sfc? Nope. That’s – according to the two-stream concept of radiative transfer – only dependent on the emissivity and temperature of the sfc itself, so either of these will have to reduce in order for that to happen. And they don’t; that’s sort of the point.
Well, then there is only one ‘flux’ of energy left, isn’t it, Scott? The ‘extra’ INCOMING energy from the cooler atm to the warmer sfc.
The sfc simply cannot get from an avg radiative output of 165 W/m^2 (ideal pure solar radiative equilibrium) and its corresponding mean gl temp of 232K to an avg radiative output of 398 W/m^2 and its corresponding mean gl temp of 289K without the specific absorption of the 345 W/m^2 DWLWIR ‘flux’ from the atmosphere.
IOW, the DWLWIR ‘flux’ – directly and ALL BY ITSELF – raises Earth’s average surface temperature from 232 to 289 K, enabling it to emit an UWLWIR ‘flux’ of 398 rather than a mere 165 W/m^2.
An energy flux from cold to hot has just raised the temperature – in absolute (not relative) terms – of the hotter system.
— Ball4 says:
August 1, 2015 at 7:15 AM
RPE 12:30am: “..for any temperature to rise there must be a net input of thermal energy, wouldn’t you all agree?”
I do. Also, for temperature to decrease there is a net output of energy.
“..would someone please explain to me how they think the extra thermal energy actually gets back down into the warmer surface and raises its temperature?”
It can’t raise the temperature unless from a warmer energy source, because for any temperature to rise there must be a net input of energy.–
I agree that greenhouse gases can’t cause something to be warmer, but there must be some mechanism which can.
Take two balloons, one is has helium and other is pressure container holding air. So Helium balloon is lighter than air and can lift balloon with air at 1 Atm [which is heavier than air]. As balloon rises in elevation and maintains the same absolute pressure it started with, it will become a higher pressure than the surrounding air, and will be warmer than the surrounding air.
Or you could have another balloon which is 1/4 full of air, so it expanse as it rises in elevation and this balloon will not become warmer as it taken to higher elevation- it can remain same pressure as the air outside of it- and it’s absolute pressure lowers as it gains in elevation.
So if start at 14.7 psi at sea level, half that pressure is 7.35 psi, which accord to standard atmospheric table would be before 6000 meters:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/wstdatmo.htm
So roughly at 6000 meters elevation, the 1/4 inflated balloon become 1/2 inflated and at same pressure as outside air [470 HPA which equals 6.817 psi]. But other balloon is higher pressure- 14.7 minus 6.817 is 7.88 psi higher than outside air.
And if continues to +10,000 meter the balloon become fully inflate and it’s at about 260 HPA. And it’s temperature is
-50 C. Whereas pressurized balloon mintains it’s absolute pressure of 14.7 and more than 10 psi higher than surrounding. And it started at 15 C and other cooling on way up [or warming the surrounding air] it’s 65 C warmer than this air.
You add another twist, put the pressurize balloon inside than 1/4 inflate balloon. So as it rises and given enough time, the pressurized balloon will heat the balloon that otherwise remain the same temperature as outside air.
So the partially inflate and pressurize air can have same temperature at the start, but pressure air could heat the the inflating balloon. So it could be same pressure as outside air, but be +50 C hotter.
And this same sort of mechanism which causes Venus to be hotter than it should be.
Another way is to magnify sunlight. As the solar power illustrate by incinerating birds fly thru the magnified sunlight [from all the mirrors reflecting sunlight into a focus].
Another way could involve some chemical reaction. Methane which oxidized [burnt] in the atmosphere to become CO2 could also way to create heat.
So other than gravity, magnification of the sunlight, or some chemical process which is exothermic, how could have sunlight involved to make something hotter than it “normally” could be?
Lightening would be another example.
But the radiant effect of greenhouse gases is not an example.
If greenhouse do cause “warming” it’s concerning the reduction of heat loss which would occur, were there not for the this “greenhouse effect”.
See? BBOTB. Terrible disease.
There is a communicable disease known as BBOTB (Black Body On The Brain) and this disease makes AGW types believe that the ocean’s surface is a black body that is warmed by LWIR.There is no cure. Some claim that this disease has infected as much as 97% of climate scientists.
I find all this talk of black bodies a distraction. While the emission spectra of the Sun, the Earth’s surface, and the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere resemble a black body, the absorption spectrum of the rest of the atmosphere, which modulates their interactions, most certainly does not. Their are significant gaps in that spectrum where the Earth’s LWIR can escape. Carbon dioxide molecule’s peak absorption falls in one of these gap. The absorption spectra of other gases overlay other portions of the total spectrum, enhancing absorption at those energies. These absorptions act like taps on on the LWIR pipe, redistributing the absorbed energy that would have otherwise flown to the top of the atmosphere, shifting the wavelengths of much of that energy, to the other molecules of the Earth. There is more of quantum mechanics than thermodynamics to radiative forcing. Thermodynamics is useful to estimate the magnitude of the effect, not to explain the reason for the effect.
Slapstick, you say ” I find all this talk of black bodies a distraction”
###
The whole basis of AGW is that the earth’s surface is hypothesized to radiate according to S-B principles. That is the rationale for positing 330 W/sq m of back radiation: to square observed temperature with S-B principles.
Where is the distraction? Is it in the fact that you are forced to consider that the ocean is not a black body? And that neither is much of the land? And that AGW is a non-starter in its fundamentals?
Reread the last sentence of my post.
Also, I never said, no do I believe, the ocean is a black body. It is, however, an excellent absorber of IR radiation and some of that IR would have escaped the Earth rather than being absorbed by the oceans had it not been for an increase in the so-called GHG’s.
Slipstick
Go study the absorbency spectrum of water, paying special attention to the attenuation of LWIR. Give it due consideration, and perhaps you will begin to see the light. But perhaps not.
If you’re talking about the fact that IR does not penetrate the water’s surface more than a few microns, the top few microns are not the top few microns for long. The water of the Earth, particularly in the oceans, is in constant motion, mixing and evaporating.
Slipstick,
Don’t buy into the “few microns” bit, though depending on the definition of”few” it might be valid for 15-micron light. They usually say 3 microns; I don’t know where they got the 3-micron number. On the 06/30 thread, I calculated the penetration distance for 95% absorbance at 8.8 microns for 15-micron light and 260 microns for 4.3-micron light. Just last week I was making measurements of some dissolved species in water at ~4.5 microns using FTIR, and there was very little background absorbance from the solvent at that pathlength. I also calculated the evaporation layer depth, which is ~87 nm. So the vast majority of the light absorbance takes place below the evaporation layer. Therefore, if it’s fueling evaporation it’s doing so at the cost of not using energy from below, which will cause the lower depths to be warmer over time. I’ve even showed this using an equivalent electrical circuit model. Even with just 3 microns to work with, it’s more than an order of magnitude deeper than the evaporation depth. Your point about surface mixing is also valid. They refuse to accept any of this, but if you want details or links I can provide them.
-Scott
“Therefore, if it’s fueling evaporation it’s doing so at the cost of not using energy from below, which will cause the lower depths to be warmer over time.”
______
Scott, please fine the violation of the 2LoT in that sentence, lest someone calls you “Jane”.
geran,
Claiming so does not make it so. Given that I actually ran experiments on that thread that agreed with my claims is plenty of evidence. But you will never believe any of that, which is fine because your reasoning skills are so low that your views will never gain any sort of large acceptance nor will you have any major influence. Enjoy your ideas.
-Scott
No problem, Jane.
Water is coolest at the interface and warms with depth to the subskin. Scott does not know what to make of that, hence he ignores it. With Scott, everything is by molecular defusion. He sees it all in those terms, even heat conduction in liquids.
mpainter,
I made it very clear from the start that molecular diffusion (spelled correctly) is a minimum speed for heat transfer, which is always faster than the actual molecular diffusion. You asked for something faster than evaporation (which is pitifully slow), so I gave it to you.
Given that the majority of the IR light is absorbed orders of magnitude deeper than the evaporation layer, I think it should be pretty obvious. Sorry you can’t understand a basic electrical equivalent circuit. Sorry you ignore the experiment I ran too, even though you asked for it. Sorry that blankets warm you up. And sorry that -100 (evaporation) + +1 (IR absorbance) = -99 (net result) even though in your world they equal -100.
Good luck getting your ideas accepted by anyone designing real systems.
Have a good day!
-Scott
Thus Scott thinks to prove that LWIR warms the ocean:
by ignoring surface processes and inventing his own .
Anyone who has read my posts knows that’s a blatant lie. Pathetic mpainter. Care to address the experimental evidence?
-Scott
Jane, since you know the world is going to explode due to AGW, have you calculated the exact date yet?
I kinda need to know if I need to buy more dog food or not.
Thanks
Actually, my views align well with Roy’s. GHE exists. Feedbacks probably near neutral. Increased temperature and CO2 are good things. But thanks for making more things up, it’s fun to see how much BS you can generate and believe.
-Scott
A blatant lie? You repeatedly ignore the temperature gradient from the subskin to the interface. You cannot possibly comprehend its significance.
You have claimed that IR energy absorbed at the interface is conveyed to depth by _molecular_diffusion_ for chrissake against the temperature gradient for chrissake.
“Actually, my views align well with Roy’s. GHE exists.”
Belief systems are hard to shake because they defy science. Back in the early 1980s, there were many sightings of Elvis. Many knew, for certain, that he was still alive.
http://elvisforver.tripod.com/id21.html
mpainter says:
August 1, 2015 at 7:58 PM
That’s another blatant lie. Look at my equivalent electrical circuit diagram. Wow, talk about lack of comprehension. As for ignoring, the list of things you ignore is manifold…must be convenient. Still putting lids on your cold drinks?
Again, a lie. You asked for a mechanism to transfer heat that was faster than evaporation. I showed that molecular diffusion, which is a lower limit of heat transfer is orders of magnitude faster. Thus, since it’s a lower limit for heat transfer, then heat transfer must be faster. Of course it doesn’t matter since the majority of the IR absorbance occurs below the evaporation. As far as where the IR energy goes, I don’t recall ever specifying that it went down. My electrical equivalent circuit would actually say the opposite, though tracking individual packets of energy is probably not straightforward, not that you care. My position is actually that the absorbed energy is lost through surface radiation and evaporation but because of its presence less heat is used up from below, not that you care. Given my experimental results and the fact that people keep the lids on their cold drinks, I think that’s a reasonable model, not that you care.
Have a good day,
-Scott
Scott has confused IR with the microwave band. Shall you call me a liar Scott? I will fetch the comment. “What happens when you put a cup of water in a microwave oven?” he commented, when the discussion involved absorption of IR at the sea surface. He insisted that if microwaves boiled water, then that meant IR would boil water, just as in a microwave. He showed ignorance of the absorbency spectrum of water in that thread.
More proof from Scott that DWLWIR warms water: his CO2 laser will blast a hole in water. Ha ha! His idea of a natural processes at the sea surface. Am I a liar? Shall I fetch those comments for the folks, Scott?
Scott has declared that a mechanical water pump on an automobile engine is convection like in the ocean. Will you call me a liar? Good, I will fetch that comment. You have several times declared that molecular diffusion conveys the absorbed IR energy to depth, ignoring the temperature gradient.
To this very moment you have shown no comprehension of the significance of the temperature gradient, still insisting, as always, that the absorbed IR energy is somehow conveyed to depth, against this gradient. Molecular diffusion confusion Scott.
Now you talk about putting lids on cold drinks! Insisting that people do so to keep them cool! Ha ha. Go to the beer joints, see any lids on the mugs? What a clown you are, and that is why you call me a liar, because you have no defense and you repeatedly make a fool of yourself. Go hug Slipstick/slapstick and tell him what a fine scientist he is. You two make a pair.
I’m off to review all of Scott’s comments this past year. What a rich store of jokes awaits me.
mpainter says:
August 1, 2015 at 9:45 PM
I was not confused. For interested readers, that was on the 05/21 thread, posted on 5/28 at 8:17 pm. And again, it’s a lie. My exact words were “So if I put water in a microwave oven, does it not heat up?” Straight up lie right there since he put it in quotes. I never insisted that IR “must boil water” (that’s actually you insisting that), so another lie. I didn’t “show ignorance”, see my response to your response on that – “If you can heat the entire bowl with one LW and not the other, then why not? The penetration depth of the radiation used in a microwave oven is only ~1 cm in water, so can I not heat up a bowl of water 10-cm deep?”
No need to fetch the comment, as above I will fetch it. This was from the 06/30 thread. My first comment to mpainter on it occurred on July 1 at 8:49 pm, where I said “I’ve heated up room-temp water with a CO2 laser (a “dark gun”). LWIR did heat the water.” My original posting of the laser experiment on that thread was June 30 7:52 pm, where I said “Oh, and here’s a much easier (and fun!) experiment to show people that LWIR can heat water–use a CO2 laser cutter. We have a 40 W laser in my lab and I’ve used it in the past to seriously heat up some water (to boiling).” This unambiguously answered the question of the OP. But I never claimed this was “natural processes at the sea surface”, that’s just another lie.
I notice you keep saying you’ll fetch the comment but never do. Again, I will do what you do not. This is from the 06/08 thread and the post was 6/9 at 4:22 pm. Here I was trying to correct your ignorance of what convective heat transfer means to people that actually do this for a living. To do this, I quoted someone else’s example (on Wikipedia) of non-buoyant convection. This quote is long to keep the majority of the original context: “This just shows your massive ignorance. You think that convective heat transfer only occurs due to buoyant forces. Just read this sentence from the above link:
Or ask any practicing chemical engineer if turning on a fan in a room increases the convective heat transfer. In this case, the bulk movement of the fluid through waves forces the convection.”
The entire point was to teach you that convection can be forced (in this case by wind) and includes advection. This is obvious and saying “convection like in the ocean” without context is at best a distortion.
Please dig up a quote where I said that. The proper interpretation is that the absorbed energy reduces the energy transferred from depth to surface, so the depth is warmer than otherwise. The comparison to molecular diffusion is because molecular diffusion is a lower limit for the rate of heat transfer. Given that I just corrected you recently on this shows that you don’t understand what is being said or are lying.
Again, that’s not what I’m saying. Your mind only changes your interpretation of the words, not what they actually mean. If you were capable of understanding the electrical circuit analogy (which is basic engineering), then this wouldn’t be an issue. I would give more analogous examples to how the IR changes the temperature gradient (which isn’t ignored by me), but you don’t understand them it seems.
You act as if this is the first time I’ve posted such a question. Guess you aren’t as good about remembering comments as you thought. But funny, if the people in beer joints actually wanted to keep their drinks cold, then I’d assume they’d use a more thermally resistive container. Since they don’t, I can only guess that they intend to consume the drink before it warms considerably, thus no need for a lid that would only hinder drinking anyway. But since this seems new to you, just try it–take two identical insulated containers, put chilled water in both, put a lid on one and then monitor the temperature change of the two. Which one warms faster? By your theory, the unlidded one will continually get colder if the insulation is good enough and always warm less slowly than the lidded one. Given your confidence, you should be performing this experiment and reporting your results ASAP.
I’ve established how you lied. My defenses are just fine…your proof by assertion does not change how they actually are in reality.
Actually you’re probably not given how you didn’t post a single quote I said, didn’t provide a single location of a quote, yet generated a false quote. For someone so convinced that he/she is right, why didn’t you? Every single one of your examples was at best distorted and at worst an intentional lie. Maybe that’s why you didn’t give specific examples. Speaking of examples, I’m still waiting for your experimental conditions for not heating up water with a heat gun which refutes my position “utterly”. I asked for the conditions twice on the 06/30 thread, as did Toneb. When I ran the experiment myself, I had no trouble heating up the water with a heat gun…ignored of course.
Have a good night,
-Scott
Furthermore, Scott has never thanked me for furthering his education. Thanks to my instruction, he no longer claims that
1. DWLWIR heats water like a microwave oven.
2. Convective overturning of the near surface sea water occurs in the daytime.
3. Molecular diffusion conveys incident DWLWIR to depth in the ocean against the temperature gradient.
4. Mechanical water pumps prove that oceanographic studies err in showing that convective overturning of near surface water is diurnal and nightly.
5. That his laboratory experiments with a CO2 laser prove that DWLWIR warms the ocean.
6. The temperature gradient at the sea surface was inconsequential in the thermodynamics of the sea surface.
Scott has dropped all these claims that he made on past threads undoubtedly because my patient instruction showed him how foolish these claims are. But not once has he acknowledged my help. tsk, tsk.
Unbelievable. I just reiterated each of my claims, explained what they actually meant, and unlike you provided their original location and context. None of them have been dropped, that’s just in your head.
-Scott
Scott,
You fool no one. You claim that you are a skeptic while you push the AGW line as in Septical Science or HotWhopper.
One only needs to read this thread to understand what you are:
a clamorous troll who will stoop to any sort of tactic, never presenting anything informative, but whose real purpose is to disrupt the thread and confirm in their ignorance those like Slapstick.
mpainter,
Believe what you want. Unlike you, I’ve actually shown the location and context of the claims that you’re saying I’m making, so at least other readers can read it and decide on their own. Good luck with your company that uses these new principles in engineering. If you’re correct, it’ll wipe the floor with all the competition.
Have a good day,
-Scott
Scott,
How will you respond to a prospective employer that asks you to explain the significance of the temperature gradient at the sea surface?
Will you repeat your claim that heat is conveyed to depth against that gradient?
mpainter says:
August 2, 2015 at 8:12 AM
Considering that I haven’t claimed that heat is conveyed to depth, I wouldn’t say that. Instead, I would tell them what I’ve actually said–the IR absorbance below the Knudsen layer provides energy that can be used for evaporation instead of the evaporation taking more energy from below. Because less energy is lost from below, the depths end up warmer than they’d be otherwise. I’d back that up with my equivalent electrical circuit diagram and support the conclusion with my experimental results. If the employer wanted a quantitative model, I’d probably design a finite-element simulation modeling the heat transfers, though I’d probably end up using a standard engineering equation to calculate the heat transfer in the gas phase.
Good luck with commercializing your idea,
-Scott
Now you are shifting. Formerly you insisted that the heat of LWIR absorbed at the surface was conveyed downward. You gave as one process of this conveyance to be molecular diffusion which conveyed heat _against_the_temperature_gradient.
You gave as another process _convection_. Yes, you insisted convection conveyed heat to depth, instead of the other way around. You gave your illustration of the automotive water pump as an example of this sort of convective exchange. And you still say that I am the one who is willfully ignorant of convection, as in ocean processes.
Now you have flipflopped and you repudiate those views, however, without admitting that you ever espoused them.
I repeat, you are an sks type who comes here to troll under the pretension of being a skeptic. In fact, you do nothing but uphold the AGW point of view and support types like Slipstick.
“geran says:
August 1, 2015 at 5:08 AM
Vincent, you’re on the right track. But, such an experiment has problems, because Earth’s atmosphere is so difficult to replicate. (That’s why the simple experiments fail to prove anything.)”
Geran,
I get the impression that Doug Cotton is claiming that CO2 does not have the capacity to add to any warming of the Earth, as a result of any ‘blanket’ effect or any restriction on the amount of out-going radiation. Such a capacity would contravene the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he claims.
The experiment I’ve outlined above should be able to demonstrate whether or not increased levels of CO2 in the artificial spheres result in such spheres retaining more heat, everything else remaining the same.
However, it’s clear that such a simple system that I’ve outlined is a far cry from the complexity of our Earth and climate with its huge array of interconnected factors, and positive and negative feedback.
The purpose of the experiment is to establish in practice and in real terms whether or not the presence of CO2 in an atmosphere has the capacity to ‘trap’ heat and raise temperatures, given the right conditions, however simple those conditions may be.
Having established that CO2 does have the capacity to ‘trap’ heat in these simple simulations of the Earth, that fact alone does not also confirm that in the very complex environment of the real Earth and the real atmosphere a similar warming effect, in ‘net’ terms, must occur.
It’s quite possible that ‘negative feedback’ factors, due to an increased albedo effect, for example, might completely negate such warming effects that might initially be due to increased levels of CO2.
I’m simply trying here to devise an experiment which could either confirm or refute Doug Cotton’s hypothesis that it is not possible for CO2 to have any initial warming effect through a process of ‘trapping’ the outflow of a certain amount of heat to outer space.
Vincent,
The necessary experiment to show that back radiation can reduce cooling rate (which leaves the object warmer than it would be otherwise) is not tough. Put a warm/hot object in a well-insulated container, cover its open side with an IR-opaque material like glass, then monitor its temperature profile vs time. Then do the same experiment with an IR-transparent material instead of glass. To keep people from going bonkers, you choose material thicknesses that are the inversely proportional to their thermal conductivities so that any heat transfer via conduction will match.
Then all you’d have to show is that CO2 absorbs IR, which is trivial to do in any FTIR instrument.
Honestly though, performing this experiment will not matter because people will ignore the results for some made-up reason.
Have a good day,
-Scott
Scott,
CO2 does absorb IR. No one claims it doesn’t.
Thing is, how do you go from there to extra heating of the global surface of a planet?
The Martian ToA spectrum as seen from space looks like this:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/two-mars-spectra.png
Obvious CO2 “bite” in the Planck curve, no question about it.
There are 26-28 times as many CO2 molecules in any given cubic metre of Martian atmosphere than there are in a similar volume on Earth.
Still, does this raise the global mean surface temperature of Mars above its apparent (‘effective’) planetary temperature in space?
Nope. Not one bit.
According to NASA (from multiyear readings by the TES instrument on the “Mars Global Surveyor” and corroborated by the MCS instrument aboard the “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter”), the average global surface temp of Mars is ~210 K, exactly the same as its calculated planetary blackbody emission temperature in space.
So there is no rGHE as defined (by a “raised ERL”) at all on Mars, and still its atmosphere contains much, much more IR-absorbing CO2 than Earth’s.
Why do you think this is, Scott? Any clues?
Scott is clueless.
But I would venture a guess that the density of the atmosphere has much to do with it.
That’s a good point. The pressure of the Martian atmosphere is 0.4-0.9% of that of Earth, so the gas-phase IR spectra have much less pressure broadening than on Earth. Additionally, the colder starting point of Mars means that the 4.3-micron band of CO2 is insignificant. The lower black-body/starting temperature also means that radiant energy transfers in general are far lower (at 10 um, the intensity at 254 K is 3.3x higher than at 210 K, and at 288 K the intensity is 6.4x higher). Finally, in a complicated situation like a planet/atmosphere, there are a variety of other factors that can come into play. Dust in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight before it reaches the surface, CO2 condensation in the atmosphere releasing heat well above the surface, and orbital eccentricity come to mind.
I am certainly not an expert in planetary deviations from ideality (I’m sure that line could lead to misrepresentation). But just as with the heating water from above, some simple, controlled, quantitative lab experiments can verify. I noticed you ignored my suggested lab experiment. Why don’t you run it and see what you get?
-Scott
Scott shows that he remains clueless.
Scott says, August 1, 2015 at 7:22 PM:
“The pressure of the Martian atmosphere is 0.4-0.9% of that of Earth, so the gas-phase IR spectra have much less pressure broadening than on Earth.”
Indeed. However, you saw the Martian ToA spectrum above. There’s a very clear and very deep CO2 indentation in the Plack curve outline. So the CO2 molecules in the Martian atmosphere (~26 times as dense at the surface as on Earth) definitely and obviously absorb a not insignificant portion of the outgoing surface IR.
But this circumstance doesn’t lift the Martian ERL off the ground at all, Scott. It doesn’t raise the physical global mean surface temp of Mars above its planetary blackbody emission temp in space. Not one single bit. Why?
“Additionally, the colder starting point of Mars means that the 4.3-micron band of CO2 is insignificant.”
But the (much more prominent) 15 micron band is more significant on Mars than on Earth, in that it sits closer to the peak wavelength of the Planck curve and so takes on a greater portion of the total flux.
“The lower black-body/starting temperature also means that radiant energy transfers in general are far lower (at 10 um, the intensity at 254 K is 3.3x higher than at 210 K, and at 288 K the intensity is 6.4x higher).”
288K -> 390 W/m^2
210K -> 110 W/m^2
The total sfc UWLWIR ‘flux’ is ~3.55 times as large on Earth as on Mars. However, since peak wavelength on Earth is 10 microns and on Mars 13.8 microns, the relevant CO2 absorption band lies much closer to the top of the Planck curve on the latter planet.
Either way, the ratio between planets is irrelevant, Scott. The only ratio of interest is the one between outgoing from the surface and outgoing through the ToA – on each respective planet.
On Mars, this ratio is 1:1. Which is to say that its planetary ERL is to be found at the solid surface itself and not somewhere up in the atmosphere. The ERL is not raised by atmospheric IR absorption.
– – –
Now try this: Take Venus, retain its total atmospheric mass (pressure, density), but reduce its total CO2 content to that of Earth’s atmosphere. Because of the exponential reduction in air density as you move up the atmospheric column, this would mean that one cubic metre of air at the Venusian surface would hold about 2.5 times less CO2 molecules than a similar one on Earth, but any single upward beam of IR from the ground would encounter, on average, as many CO2 molecules on its way to the tropopause as on Earth.
What would happen to the ERL? Where would it be situated?
Note, the total absolute amount of CO2 molecules contained in a 1x1m column of troposphere (from sfc to tropopause) is exactly the same as on Earth, but perhaps around 50 times less than on Mars (~40 km ‘tropopause’).
What you would find is that it’s the TOTAL mass of air molecules per cubic metre (total air density), NOT the partial density of its IR active constituents, that matters.
The absorption of sfc IR by atmospheric CO2 on Mars can do nothing to make the surface warmer. Even though the partial density of CO2 is way higher than on Earth (and on our modified version of Venus). It doesn’t help. It can’t do anything, temperaturewise. Why? Because the air as a whole is way too tenuous. The total air pressure and density at the Martian surface level is already much lower than at the tropopause levels of Earth and Venus.
The ERL on Mars is at 0 km.
The ERL on Earth is at 5-6 km.
The ERL on Venus is at 63-64 km.
This is all a matter of atmospheric MASS, Scott. The more massive the atmosphere, the thicker it gets under its own weight (thicker down low), and as a consequence, the higher up the air column you’re forced to go in order for radiative balance between the planetary system and the Sun to be achieved:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/heavy-atmospheres.png
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/why-atmospheric-mass-not-radiation-p1/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/why-atmospheric-mass-not-radiation-p2/
Scott says, August 2, 2015 at 7:11 AM:
“So in your model, where would the ERL on Earth be if the atmosphere was composed entirely of N2 or Ar?”
It couldn’t be composed entirely of N2 or Ar, Scott. It has to be IR active. See the first post linked to above to see why. Here it is again: https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/why-atmospheric-mass-not-radiation-p1/
–Scott says, August 1, 2015 at 7:22 PM:
“The pressure of the Martian atmosphere is 0.4-0.9% of that of Earth, so the gas-phase IR spectra have much less pressure broadening than on Earth.”
Indeed. However, you saw the Martian ToA spectrum above. There’s a very clear and very deep CO2 indentation in the Plack curve outline. So the CO2 molecules in the Martian atmosphere (~26 times as dense at the surface as on Earth) definitely and obviously absorb a not insignificant portion of the outgoing surface IR.
But this circumstance doesn’t lift the Martian ERL off the ground at all, Scott. It doesn’t raise the physical global mean surface temp of Mars above its planetary blackbody emission temp in space. Not one single bit. Why?
“Additionally, the colder starting point of Mars means that the 4.3-micron band of CO2 is insignificant.” —
It’s an interesting question.
I wonder about 210 ppm of water vapor in Mars atmosphere, is that too low a concentration to show up.
Or if CO2 has no heating is that also true of the trace amounts of H20?
Now, one aspect of Mars is there is great variation in air temperature in the first couple meters of elevation.
It’s interesting in terms of how heat could be distributed globally.
It’s interesting in terms of difficulty of measuring atmosphere from orbit.
With Mars atmosphere of .02 kg per cubic meter density, you not goiing to convection like you have on Earth surface.
On Earth one has about the same density at 15000 meter:
15000 meter and 0.19 kg per cubic meter.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/wstdatmo.htm
And of course on Mars it’s a 1/3 the weight or 1/3 the gravity as Earth. But if ignore that think of it as somewhere around 15 km on Earth, one is above the troposphere in tropopause or stratosphere in comparison to Earth in terms of convectional or behavior of ideal gases.
Of course in regard to Mars it’s said to have a large troposphere [twice Earth’s in terms of height].
Quote this:
“Planetary atmospheres can be composed of a number of layers. These atmospheres are said to be stratified. The lowest layer in the atmosphere is called the troposphere. This is where most of the mass of the atmosphere is located and where nearly all of the water vapor is located if it exists. The temperature of the troposphere generally decreases with height above the surface of a planet. If you were measuring the temperature of the troposphere while rising in a weather balloon, you would observe the temperature getting colder and colder. The temperature decreases because the troposphere is heated primarly by convection from the surface of the planet. Convective heating works best close to the surface and its effectiveness decreases as the height increases.
Sometimes, the temperature of the troposphere increases with height. This happens above ice caps for instance. In this case, the ice draws the heat out of the atmosphere and it draws more heat at lower altitudes than it does at higher altitudes. This should make sense to you if you think about how it would get colder and colder as you approached a large block of ice. When the temperature increases with height it is called a temperature inversion.”
http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mod-x/id-strat.html
So it’s troposphere because it’s got most amount of water vapor and most amount of the mass of Atmosphere. Which the same can be said about Earth troposphere. And unless it’s over an ice cap, it gets cooler with higher elevation [just like Earth].
But I would say that despite these kinds of similarities, it’s quite different. Or we could be fooling ourselves by labeling it a troposphere. Though I suppose if clueless about our troposphere it could be less deceptive.
It snows a lot at Mars poles in winter. It doesn’t snow a lot in Earth’s pole caps.
I don’t think there is any jet stream on Mars. I would think that instead of cold air falling towards the equator, that on Mars warm air “flies towards the poles”- which similar to earth, because cold air falling to equator, but with Mars a significant amount of the the atmosphere is being converted into snow. So it’s more of way one street.
Of course summer time at a pole is a creation of atmosphere. So it’s fairly alien with only slight similarity with Earth.
Vincent – centrifugal force experiments confirm what I am saying, as does temperature data in other planetary tropospheres. There is an evidence page at http://climate-change-theory.com and also read this new comment.
Can someone give me a one or two line significane of the statement “Climate Sensitivity = 1.3 deg. C”
What does this mean. What are the units. Is this 1.3 deg/century? Is it 1.3 deg/an increase in CO2 concentration. Does it have something to do with an equilibrium temp for the earth?
A lot of learned over my head discussion, but I could not find an answer to the significance of this number and if it is different from the IPCC number, if they have one.
Climate sensitivity literally means how much warming will result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. The tricky thing is distinguishing the various flavors.
When people talk about ‘climate sensitivity’ without qualification, they generally mean climate sensitivity over the long haul. This is also known as ‘equilibrium climate sensitivity’ or ECS. The oceans are thought to have huge thermal inertia and this means it might take… centuries? I don’t know exactly, a long time, for a change to result in a new long term equilibrium.
This is not to be confused with ‘effective climate sensitivity’ which frankly I don’t understand well enough to explain. Somebody else jump in if you know. Wikipedia says this:
Finally, people sometimes talk about ‘TCR’ or the ‘transient climate response’ which is the change in temperature at the time of a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
“Climate sensitivity” is an offshoot of the GHE nonsense. They (Warmists) believe that more CO2 in the atmosphere means higher global temps. Of course, they are wrong, but maybe, if they can only get more funding….
Thanks.
Let me see if I understand this half correctly. According to the Mauna Loha observatory, CO2 concentration is going up at 2 ppm/year. If it were to continue at this rate, it would take 200 years to get to 800. So in 200 yrs, we can expect the average world temperature to go up by 1.3 deg C. This seems to be a lot less than the 0.2 deg C per decade I constantly hear. Maybe it is closer the 0.1 deg C per decade that seems to be consistent with the satellite temperature data provided by Dr RS.
I hope he is right.
Thanks for this bit of enlightenment.
Ovi,
This would be correct if Dr. Spencer were talking about the Transient Climate Response (TCR). If he’s talking about Climate Sensitivity (and I think he is), he’s talking about the long haul. So add some hundreds of years to that date.
A footnote; people don’t usually think of doubling CO2 from current levels, but from preindustrial levels. In the 1800’s it’s thought that CO2 was about 280 ppm. The claims that we’ve seen temperatures rise globally by 0.8C since increasing CO2 to 400 ppm is fuel for the alarmist arguments; they say wow! Look at that, 0.8C, not even a doubling of CO2 and that’s just the Transient Climate Response! Remember, CS > TCR.
(The problems with this argument are legion, but FWIW it’s the way the argument goes.)
Thanks
Hi Norman,
Earlier in this thread you brought up a very salient point regarding the apparent fact that so little IR escapes the Venus atmosphere to space. You seemed to believe the greenhouse effect caused this through atmospheric gas absorption and emission of surface emitted IR. In fact it appears to me the Venusian cloud/particulate layer REFLECTS ~90% of surface emitted IR. The Venus particulate layer reflects ~90% of incoming solar radiation including visible spectrum and IR back out to space. The particulate layer extends from the surface up to about 50 kilometers above the Venusian surface. Above this layer from 50-65km the atmospheric pressure falls in normal Earth surface range of 1 bar and lower but
receives almost double the solar
irradiance 26-2700 w/m^2. Moreover, the temperature in the 50 to 65 kilometer atmosphere range of Venus ranges from 120 degrees Fahrenheit to about 85 deg F. Funny co2 doesn’t do much in that range! Since only 10% of incoming solar irradiance ~67 w/m^2 makes it to the Venusian surface, where does the 15000 w/m^2 it radiates come from.
Have a great day!
Kristian writes “Thing is, how do you go from there to extra heating of the global surface of a planet?”
A good question, to which the correct answer can be provided by the physics of entropy maximization brought about by minimizing unbalanced energy potentials. It cannot be answered with computations involving radiation and the Stefan Boltzmann Law because radiation is not what sets the surface temperature.
This is the new science you will hear more and more about in future decades, and which has been explained in detail in the book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All.”
Hi Norman,
Just a correction to my post above. The region above the Venusian cloud/particulate layer receives almost double EARTH’S solar irradiance or 26-2700 w/m^2.
Btw, thank you for a great post Norman.
Have a great day!
Venus, like all planetary systems, acts like a black body and emits at least as much radiation back to Space as it receives. Some planets emit more because they are contracting and converting potential energy into thermal energy.
The surface temperature of planets can be calculated an algorithm based on entropy maximization, and, in general, IR active gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide are shown to cause lower surface temperatures.
T
Hi Doug,
Yes and some planets may generate enormous heat on their own through fissile reactions, volcanic emissions and/or geological action due prior comet impact. As I’ve noted before centuries ago an observer noted Venus appeared INCANDESCENT. Research Ashen light.
Have a great day!
It only takes one planet not to generate internal heat of any significance (as is the case for Uranus) to disprove the need for any greenhouse effect. Furthermore, fission is a very random process and highly unlikely to maintain the fairly constant core temperatures in Earth or Venus, for example. What does is of course explained in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
Fission is very random and unlikely to support rasonable steady temperatures. The Sun does that. See this new comment.
While some scoff at the possibility that GHG’s are responsible for the global warming we’ve experienced over the last 35 years or so and claim that the lack of tropospheric warming over the last 10 or 12 years (while ignoring the uninterrupted increase in sea temperatures, of course) is evidence that this hypothesis is incorrect, my confidence in this model is based on comparison with the alternative models I’ve encountered, solar, ENSO/PDO, etc., every one of which predicted we should have entered a cooling period at some point in the last ten years. Instead, tropospheric temperatures have remained basically flat, sea temperatures have increased, and a significant El Nino appears to be upon us.
Where’s the cooling?
If there has been no warming, what is the source of the energy of this El Nino?
If you are a proponent of one of the other models, have you considered that, perhaps, the predicted cooling of whatever model you favor did occur and was negated by the warming of the GHG’s?
Slipstick,
I’m afraid that geran is right: you show that you have no comprehension of the ENSO cycles.
I do know about the cycles; I read the NOAA’s El Nino status update at least once a month. That was a tease to see if anyone was paying attention and what kind of responses it might engender.
Slip, you’re such a “tease”.
Except, Slipstick, you get it wrong every time. As in last week, when you claimed that El Nino was due to “pockets of warm water” coughed up by a warming ocean. You wished for that one back, didn’t you?
Dr. Roy tells it right in the above post:
“The largest single source of this non-radiative forcing is El Nino/La Nina, which correspond to a global-average weakening/strengthening of the overturning of the ocean.”
There you are, slip. It is in your hands. Study up and you won’t feel so foolish.
I don’t feel foolish at all. While my description is a gross simplification, it is not incorrect.
Slipstick,
I’m afraid you are not at the point of understanding what is correct or incorrect.
It is obvious that Dr. Roy’s comment bewildered you.
No Slipstick, the alternative model here does explain possible regualtors of the natural cycles, as well as how the required energy gets into planetary surfaces. The GH garbage doesn’t get off Square One in explaining the required energy supply, and you can’t prove to me that it does, now can you?
Mr. Cotton,
When your physics can explain what happens to a photon released by an atom cooled in a laser trap to 1 mK, get back to me. Until then, be well.
Scott says @ Aug. 1, 12:05 pm :
“Call it warming or less cooling…It doesn’t matter…the result is the same.”
#####
Scott tries to slip away under a smoke cloud of semantic confusion. But, no, Scott, the result is not the same.
Take Kristian’s example wherein the back radiation of the AGW hypothesis raises surface temperature by 57°. That can be posited through _warming_ of the surface, but not through _less_cooling_ of the surface.
If you adhere to AGW, you skewered on the prongs the egregious physics of the same. There can be no dodging.
Have you ever come in from a cold night and put a blanket on and warmed up? One can actually see an increase in body temperature this way. One could actually overheat and die if they put on too many blankets on a warm day. And in all these cases, the blankets are always cooler than the person (assuming the “warm day” is below 37 C). If you understand how these blankets increase your temperature through reduced cooling, you can understand it for backradiation and objects in a vacuum. One works through conduction/convection, the other radiation. In the case of the body, it is generating heat. In the case of the Earth and GHG, the sun is generating the heat. Piece of cake…though I’m sure you’ll wave it off out of hand.
-Scott
Scott, do you remember the line from SNL, “Jane, you ignorant sl_t!”
No, I thought not.
See Scott, the atmosphere is not a “blanket”. The atmosphere is a complex system that we don’t even fully understand. A blanket restricts heat transfer, the atmosphere adjusts heat transfer. Think of it this way: A blanket is a passive device, the atmosphere is an active device.
Don’t be an “ignorant sl_t”!
Funny how you reference the atmosphere as being so complex but then say ~20 yr with no temperature increase is good evidence of no GHE. Nor does the complexity of the atmosphere lead you to do tests in a controlled lab experiment to see what you can learn.
-Scott
Scott says:
“Nor does the complexity of the atmosphere lead you to do tests in a controlled lab experiment to see what you can learn.”
####
Like your CO2 laser that proves (according to you) that DWLWIR warms the oceans?
Or your tests with a microwave oven that proves (according to you) that DWLWIR warms the ocean?
Scott, the humor is that your belief systems keep you from any understanding of the “scientific method”. ANY experiment YOU do will be PROOF to YOU of the GHE. If you have a pet dog, to YOU, that is proof of the GHE. If your pet is a cat, that is all the proof you need. And, if you have no pets, that also proves, to you, the GHE.
Conversely, to you, there is absolutely no evidence that the IPCC “science” is wrong.
But, for those of us that use the “scientific method”, we look at the IPCC hypothesis and predictions, and compare to REALITY. It ain’t happening for Warmists.
Now, have fun with your phony science, because we enjoy the humor.
It’s also humorous how you avoided the main point that Earth’s atmosphere is NOT a “blanket”.
Guys,
I wish you good luck in getting your ideas accepted by a significant percentage of the engineering community. If you really believe them, I suggest you start a company utilizing them. You could make a real killing in the insulation industry since you’re so far ahead of the rest of world. Or gosh, you could totally dominate the market on spectrometers.
Have a good day,
-Scott
Nah, I make too much working for “Big Oil” as it is.
🙂
Indeed, Scott, does your blanket convect when humidity (ghg) goes up? The blanket analogy is a poor one, although I will grant that water vapor may retard surface cooling in certain cases.
But go explain to your AGW pals that the GHE is not warming but “less cooling” and see how that idea is received.
Given that you established long ago that you don’t understand what convective heat transfer is, I have no idea what your first paragraph is even supposed to be asking.
And I don’t actually have AGW pals since they all label me a skeptic, no different from Roy. However, I’d think most of the AGWers would be fine with the less cooling. Cool down 0.0001 C less every night than you would otherwise and guess what, an increase of 0.1 C in just three years.
-Scott
Do you remember citing the water pump of an automobile engine as an example of convective heat exchange? The subject was diurnal overturning of the near surface water of the ocean. Remember?
The truth is that you have no comprehension of natural ocean processes; you are unable to grasp their significance. For example, your incomprehension of the temperature gradient at the surface of the sea.
Oceanographic studies have established that convective overturning of the ocean is a diurnal, nightly process. You ignore the established science and cite water pumps on automobile engines to support your ignorance of sea surface processes.
Above you say:
” Given that you established long ago that you don’t understand what convective heat transfer is, I have no idea what your first paragraph is even supposed to be asking.”
Thus you demonstrate your ignorance that convection is an important process of cooling in the lower troposphere.
It is plain that you are no skeptic, as you claim, but an AGW troll.
1) I just discussed the water-pump reference in my post last night. Unlike you I provided its context and original meaning and also gave its location so anyone else could go read it and decide for themselves. So yes, I remember.
2) My comprehension of the temperature gradient is shown by my equivalent electrical circuit diagram, which you continually ignore.
3) Convective heat transfer always occurs at the ocean, it’s not magically on/off based on time of day. You should link to your sources on that so I can read what they actually say. Your ignorance of what convective heat transfer keeps you from understanding any of this.
4) Call me an AGW troll all you want, doesn’t change the message or that your’e an embarrassment to skeptics.
-Scott
Glad to see you understand natural convective heat transfer, Scott. You’ll know that it results from entropy maximization as unbalanced energy potential diminish. Hence you’ll be among the few who truly understand the new breakthrough 21st Century physics (based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics) here.
So I was wrong, you have learned nothing. You still adhere to your uninformed views and how water pumps mean that oceans overturn convectively.
This is textbook stuff, poor fellow. You make not the slightest effort to inform yourself and you refuse to believe others.
But this time my comment (above) referred to convection in the _troposphere_, not the ocean. But you duck that and try to divert it to the ocean. Here I copy my comment:
Above you say:
” Given that you established long ago that you don’t understand what convective heat transfer is, I have no idea what your first paragraph is even supposed to be asking.”
Thus you demonstrate your ignorance that convection is an important process of cooling in the lower troposphere.
It is plain that you are no skeptic, as you claim, but an AGW troll.
mpainter,
Again, believe what you will. Doesn’t matter in the end. If you think convection only happens during either day or night but not that other, then you don’t understand what convective heat transfer is. Any time there is any temperature difference in the atmosphere, convective heat transfer occurs. Limiting yourself to just buoyancy just shows your ignorance, which is willful at this point.
-Scott
It is oceanography, Scott. The willful ignorance is yours. It is a well-established fact that sea temperatures are cooler with depth and that the diurnal overturning convection is a nighttime phenomena occurring as the uppermost surface cools. Any oceanographic textbook will say this, yet you insist that the mechanical water pumps on automobile engines prove the oceanographers wrong.
However, if storm and high winds cool the uppermost surface, convection and overturning can occur. Note that in all cases the significant fact is the _cooling_ of the uppermost surface.
You will not comprehend this, of course, as you show you are uncomprehending of natural processes.
I should make it clear that Scott holds the view that convection in the ocean transfers heat from the surface to depth. Thus his insistence that I am ignorant about convection in the ocean.Thus also his citation of automotive water pumps, to demonstrate my ignorance of convection.:-) It all a part of his insistence that IR absorbed by the opaque (to LWIR) sea surface causes ocean warming. Never mind the oceanographic texts, these are wrong, his view is correct and I am willfully ignorant.
Scott,
Yes Scott the sun generates heat and light and emits radiation. Yet solar emission impact on the Earth surface lessens due to the inverse square law, albedo (effected by clouds, ice, etc.). You might consider that your cherished sweater will never heat your body to a temperature that exceeds it’s own temperature whether raised to a temperature close to your internal body temperature (98.6 deg F) or perhaps higher temperatures due to solar energy absorption. Artificial Earth satellites reach temperatures of 120+ deg centigrade. Likewise the Earth’s surface will never raise atmospheric temperatures higher than it’s own. The atmosphere in turn cannot raise the temperature of anything including the Earth’s surface to temperatures higher than the atmospheres, which is less than the Earth’s surface! If like faux science alarmists you prefer magic sweaters that can warm objects to temperatures in excess of their own without the assistance of outside mass/energy please seek counseling.
Have a great day!
You really don’t think that putting on a sweater can raise your body temperature even though the sweater is cooler than you? Death from overdressing is a real thing. And if you weren’t raised above your normal temperature, why would you die?
-Scott
Your body can generate enough heat to kill you- why people can die from Fever. Ie body raises it’s temperature to combat an infection.
Or infection does raise body temperature, it’s an response by the body to fight the infection.
The main way a human body manages it’s heat is from perspiration. Anything which will prevent a body from cooling from perspiration could cause it to over heat.
So wrapping yourself in saran wrap could be dangerous or body paint which stopped perspiration could be dangerous. And “over dressing” being dangerous, seems like it might be clothing which inhibited evaporation.
Another way to raise internal temperature is with exercise.
And like said, body can cause you to be hotter than it “should be”- or it’s “psychology” or psychosomatic response. Or said differently a human can acclimatize to wide range of temperatures.
You can get use to 100 C sauna or the Tibet monks can be hot with little clothing in sitting sub zero temperatures.
Hi gbaikie,
There’s no way a person could survive a 100 C sauna. Do you mean 100 F?
Have a good day,
-Scott
“The temperature in Finnish saunas is 60 to 100 °C (140 to 212 °F), usually 70–80 °C (158–176 °F), and is kept clearly above the dewpoint despite the vaporization of löyly water, so that visible condensation of steam does not occur as in a Turkish sauna.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_sauna
So need it to be dry heat- and obviously you are going to sweat a lot.
“A competitor at the World Sauna Championships in Finland died after collapsing with severe burns in 110C heat. But how hot can a sauna safely get?”
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-10912578
And:
“Most sauna users stick to temperatures of around 80C for periods of five to six minutes, according to Finnish Sauna Society chief executive Kristian Miettinen.
However, a self-confessed “sauna freak”, he usually heats the room to 100C, while others regularly prefer short three to four-minute bursts at 130 to 140C.”
Ah, I didn’t realize that this was a dry sauna dry sauna and not a steam bath (which is normally what I associate with sauna). Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Those are short time periods and well above the dew point. The reason I said a person wouldn’t survive at those temperatures is that proteins denature very rapidly at those kind of temperatures, almost certainly within minutes.
-Scott
I wrote you a short note, Scott, here.
Great Scott!
A highly REFLECTIVE cool surface may re-direct a laser beam that proceeds to heat a targeted object to very high temps, but few would claim the mirror heated the object. Clouds and particulates reflect IR back to the surface but absorption and emission remains a separate process very much dependent on the temperature of the emitter. As to your question, an overdressed person may die of suffocation. We breathe through our pores as well as our mouths. Like the murdered woman in the James Bond film Goldfinger who suffocated from being lathered in a coat of gold paint, we also may suffocate if bound by excessive tight clothing that cuts off our bodies ability to receive oxygen through our pores.
Have a great day!
–cuts off our bodies ability to receive oxygen through our pores.–
JohnKI, are we an insect?
Scott – Show me your Stefan Boltzmann calculations that you claim prove the Sun’s direct radiation (168W/m^2) could possibly raise the surface temperature above -40°C, let alone up to 15°C.
You see, Scott, the Sun’s direct radiation to Earth’s surface would have to be about three times as great to “generate the heat” as you claim.
Slip says: “While some scoff at the possibility that GHG’s are responsible for the global warming we’ve experienced over the last 35 years or so and claim that the lack of tropospheric warming over the last 10 or 12 years (while ignoring the uninterrupted increase in sea temperatures, of course) is evidence that this hypothesis is incorrect, my confidence in this model is based on comparison with the alternative models I’ve encountered, solar, ENSO/PDO, etc., every one of which predicted we should have entered a cooling period at some point in the last ten years.
___
Okay, Slip, you just won the Nobel Prize for the longest sentence on this blog.
(And you wonder why we ridicule you.)
Slip says: “Instead, tropospheric temperatures have remained basically flat, sea temperatures have increased, and a significant El Nino appears to be upon us.”
(And, you wonder why we ridicule you.)
Slip says: “Where’s the cooling?
________
Where’s the warming?
Slip says: “If there has been no warming, what is the source of the energy of this El Nino?”
________
Slip, an El Niño is caused by ocean/wind circulation patterns. The event happens periodically.
(And, you wonder why we ridicule you.)
Slip says: “If you are a proponent of one of the other models, have you considered that, perhaps, the predicted cooling of whatever model you favor did occur and was negated by the warming of the GHG’s?”
_________
Models, especially IPCC $ driven, are nonsense. So, yeah, if you are saying climate models are nonsense, I agree with you.
(You can’t be ridiculed for “seeing through” climate models. Congrats!)
It’s very obvious (from the real-world data) that the Pacific Ocean is the elephant in the room (in addition to the Sun, of course) regarding the global climate. Why? It’s simply a matter of size. The energy received, stored, handled and distributed by the (mostly tropical) Pacific quite simply dwarfs the energy received, stored, handled and distributed by any other region or basin on Earth. If the Sun is the ultimate Puppet Master, the Pacific Ocean is clearly its ordained executive string-puller here on Earth.
Expounded here:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/how-the-world-really-warmed-between-the-70s-and-the-00s-part-i/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-ii-step-1/
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-iii-steps-2-3/
And summarized here:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/modern-global-warming-in-three-steps-the-fairly-short-version/
On the “pause”:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/what-of-the-pause/
Kristian, ultimately temperatures for whole planetary systems on every planet are maintained by radiative balance with the Sun. What happens internally within a planetary system is determined by entropy maximization as absorbed solar energy is spread around. If you can’t work out what will happen as unbalanced energy potentials are dissipated, then you can’t work out how temperatures like surface temperatures are affected internally. It does not need the mass of the Pacific Ocean to support a local temperature. Temperature supporting does not depend on total thermal capacity at all. A thin layer of boiling water on a saucer will make the air molecules just above it warm up a bit.
You see Kristian, you haven’t explained how the surface of the ocean got to being somewhat hotter than deeper waters and also hotter than the base of the troposphere. The Sun’s radiation mostly only raises the temperatures in the clouds and above – not the ocean surface layers. The ocean surface is actually warmed as explained here and nowhere else to my knowledge.
Well, thank you for the prize. I’m honored. I was going to break that up, but it worked as it was, so I left it.
Where’s the warming? In the oceans, and now in the troposphere.
El Nino was a tease to see what kind of responses it engendered.
The models question is the real point of the post. I genuinely want to know how people can promote models that have failed, sometimes repeatedly, and then feel justified in ridiculing the IPCC models which, while far from perfect, have been far closer to what has occurred than any alternative.
Also, it seems that many expect some kind of linear, or at least smooth, effect of warming and then cry “hoax” when they do not see that response. Given the chaotic nature of the climate and the many non-linearities in its components, I cannot imagine how that would be possible.
Slipstick
You are making things up. Who promotes models of global cooling?
I have never seen nor heard tell of such.
And speaking about “models which have failed, sometimes repeatedly”, well, how about them climate models!
“Who promotes models of global cooling?”
I do. Water vapor cools; carbon dioxide cools but by less than 0.1° and there will be long term cooling starting within the next 100 years and lasting for nearly 500 years. I predicted all that in a archived statement on 22 August 2011.
You have no correct physics that can prove carbon dioxide causes warming, so you have no valid model to get you of Square One even.
PS Slip – Don’t forget that all the radiation from the atmosphere is like that from a black body at 3°C. There’s a long way to go for 1 molecule in 2,500 to raise that above 15°C so it could do some warming. Actually you’d need a mean of over 20°C because the Earth is not flat enough.
Oh, and did I mention that the Sun’s mean radiation to the surface is like that of an iceberg at -40°C.
Slip, every line is funny!
‘Well, thank you for the prize. I’m honored. I was going to break that up, but it worked as it was, so I left it.’
[Yeah, right!]
“Where’s the warming? In the oceans, and now in the troposphere.”
[Not happening, as in “Yeah, right!”]
“El Nino was a tease to see what kind of responses it engendered.”
[Yeah, right!]
“The models question is the real point of the post. I genuinely want to know how people can promote models that have failed, sometimes repeatedly, and then feel justified in ridiculing the IPCC models which, while far from perfect, have been far closer to what has occurred than any alternative.”
[Let me give you some homework for this one, Slip. How many IPCC models (without adjustments) have been right? (Answer: ZERO)]
“Also, it seems that many expect some kind of linear, or at least smooth, effect of warming and then cry “hoax” when they do not see that response. Given the chaotic nature of the climate and the many non-linearities in its components, I cannot imagine how that would be possible.”
[So, Slip, you are saying we may never see the effects of this awful, catastrophic, AGW, due to “the chaotic nature of the climate and the many non-linearities of its components”? I feel better already.]
Norman is still ahead on points, but you’re catching up. Good luck.
Well, we do seem to have a lot of “experts” here, and yet not one can put up any correct physics that refutes my hypothesis, and nor can any one explain how the required thermal energy actually gets into the ocean surface, or the surface of Venus etc. Show me your S-B calculations that yield a mean temperature between 12°C and 15°C for Earth’s surface – I’ll accept any value in that range.
PS: A flat “black body” disk receiving 390W/m^2 would indeed warm to about 15°C. That is not what should be used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations though because you can’t count backradiation and ignore energy losses by radiation back to the atmosphere and Space. But that’s what the IPCC do – it’s there in all those energy budgets. Solar radiation: 168 plus back radiation 324 less non-radiative losses of 102 = 390W/m^2.
But let’s suppose we play along with their little bluff and say, OK, the mean flux is 390W/m^2 and that would give us 15°C if it were delivered uniformly to a flat black body orthogonal to the radiation. But, a hemisphere receiving twice that amount by day and nothing at night would have a mean temperature far below 15°C because of the T^4 relationship between flux and temperature. We know that some regions on Earth do receive far more than the mean flux (however you calculate that mean flux) but because it is the mean, then there will be other regions receiving less than the mean.
If you do a few calculations you’ll soon see that, because the flux does vary, its mean does not produce as high a temperature as would equivalent uniform flux with the same mean.
Doug 12:13am: “Well, we do seem to have a lot of “experts” here, and yet not one can put up any correct physics that refutes my hypothesis..”
Dr. Spencer’s 6/30/15 test put up correct physics that refutes Doug’s hypothesis that the black line will trend up when the cirrus show up in view, it didn’t, the black line trended down. Even Dr. Feynman would say Doug’s hypothesis is thereby refuted by test. That was easy.
You don’t have a clue what my hypothesis is Ball4. Silent readers can confirm that by reading this this new comment.
I find no corrigenda in that letter Doug, your precipitable water calculations are known incorrect and most of your hypotheses falsified by Dr. Spencer’s 6/30/2015 test.
If you place a heated metal cube close to a cold one, the cold cube may well be warmed to a temperature close to that of the hot one. Say it is warmed from 20°C to 70°C by the hot cube which has an electrically controlled temperature of 80°C. But if you now add 5 more such heated cubes (each heated to 80°C) close to the other 5 faces of the cube that got to 70°C you will not make that cube hotter than 80°C despite there being six times the radiative flux that got it from 20°C to 70°C. For the same reason you cannot add the back radiation to the solar radiation and use the total in Stefan Boltzmann calculations. The 324W/m^2 of back radiation is equivalent to the radiation from a black body at a temperature of 3°C.
Perfect example, easy to understand. Even Warmists should be able to get this one.
Unfortunately, the conclusion drawn from the theoretical example is incorrect. The error is that there is not six times the radiative flux (power/unit area) being applied to the unheated cube, there is six times the power. For simplicity, assume that identical cubes, with sides of length 1, are arranged with their faces parallel and corners aligned at a distance of 0.1 in a vacuum. The radiation from the heated cube is then received on one face of the unheated cube
over an area of 1, as is the radiation from the unheated cube to the heated cube. When the other five cubes, also heated to maintain 80 deg C, are arranged facing the other five sides of the unheated cube at distance of 0.1, the area of the unheated cube receiving radiation from the heated cubes is now 6 and the flux is unchanged. However, the unheated cube is now receiving 6 times the power, will heat substantially faster, and will reach and maintain equilibrium with the heated cubes.
Good one, Slipstick.
Slip, Doug’s example points out that more flux power is not a guarantee of higher temps. I think you wanted to miss the point, and were successful.
You might want to spend a few moments reconsidering that first statement.
Did you ever look up the word “obfuscate”?
Okay, I’ll be plain. An increase of the radiative flux incident on matter will cause an increase in the energy of the matter, as long as the the wavelength of the radiation is in the absorption spectrum of the matter.
An example: I shine a flashlight on your face from a distance. I place a second flashlight adjacent to the first, also shining on your face. Do you perceive an increase in the brightness?
“An increase of the radiative flux incident on matter will cause an increase in the energy of the matter, as long as the the wavelength of the radiation is in the absorption spectrum of the matter.”
________
Exactly, with emphasis on “as long as the wavelength of the radiation is in the absorption spectrum of the matter”.
“By Jove, I thinks she’s got it”–Professor Higgins
PS: Slip: You wrote “as long as the the wavelength of the radiation is in the absorption spectrum of the matter.”
Well of course it is in this case because they are cubes made of identical metal. Whatever wavelengths one emits will certainly be in the absorption spectrum of all the others.
Yes geran, that’s correct where it is not the Sun’s radiation which is causing the surface to be warmer than that radiation could make it. See this new comment.
The error is in those who expect to encounter a comprehending mind in Slipstick.
Why would I want to “comprehend” physics that is incorrect?
I don’t know, but you do it all the time. So ask yourself that question.
That actually made me laugh. Thank you.
A bit too slippery, Slipstick. You fell into my trap and forgot it is a metal cube which therefore conducts pretty well. So we can assume that the first 80°C cube will warm the other right through, so, when we start beaming radiation from the other five cubes, all the surfaces on the central cube have already reached close enough to 70°C. So, Slip, what happens to all the new energy in the new radiation? Perhaps the central cube will get up to 75°C, but it won’t go above 80°C. I repeat, what is happening to the new energy when the temperature stops rising? The central cube is not radiating 6 times as much outwards, but it is receiving 6 times as much inwards – or is it? It sure is some pretty strong back radiation we’ve introduced – five times as strong as the Sun’s radiation represented by the first 80°C cube.
Perhaps I’m right about pseudo scattering after all, Slipstick. What’s your alternative?
— Slipstick says:
August 2, 2015 at 8:58 AM
Unfortunately, the conclusion drawn from the theoretical example is incorrect.–
It seems there could different conclusions which could be drawn.
Or you could be referring to “324W/m^2 of back radiation is equivalent to the radiation from a black body at a temperature of 3°C.”
I am not sure how that was arrived at and I would guess it’s safe bet to say it’s incorrect. Maybe or more probable it’s closer to blackbody at 4 C or less than 2 C.
The universe is suppose to be equal to blackbody of 2.7 K or something. Here they call it 3 K:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/bkg3k.html
And “T=2.735 degrees above absolute zero. ”
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/gr/public/cmbr_temp.html
Now, it would be kind of interesting were the blackbody temperature of our universe were to be 3 C rather than around 3 K. And not only interesting to imagine, but it seems to me that at some point in time our universe may have been 3 C.
Not sure what current thinking on matter is, but I assume it was warmer earlier, and will be cooler later, but it also seems if we going to have the big crunch, it will be warmer, later.
But were I to say that 3 C is incorrect, I would feel compelled to give a better guess.
And I would guess.
What?
I would tend to think it was less than 3 C. I would say the effect from CO2 would definitely be less than 3 C. And I think if add H20 and all the other greenhouse gases I would also think it’s less. But the droplets of water of clouds could make it closer to 3 C.
Naturally I would like to see the method of arriving at such a conclusion.
What does all the dust in the atmosphere do in terms of adding to the total blackbody temperature- as an example.
Or one could divide atmosphere into gases and particles. particles including cosmic, volcanic, sea salt, smog in general, and wind driven dust. Plus the droplets of water in clouds and not in clouds. Or all above tend to be called aerosols.
But the habit seems to be to separate water clouds from the other aerosols, which fine with me, so Black body temperature of clouds, and then separately all the other kinds of aerosols.
And then combined effect of all of the aerosols.
Also interested in low level aerosols, so anything below say 500 meter in elevation [obviously most clouds would be exuded from this].
So since lack the information, I can only guess.
You demonstrate total misunderstanding if I get your point that you are trying to make. There’s no real difference between back radiation and other radiation from the atmosphere. The IPCC energy diagrams show it as 324W/m² and I used 0.98 emissivity to get a temperature of 276.3K as you can check by searching “Stefan Boltzmann Calculator” and using the one at tutorvista.com so I’m not talking about background radiation in Space or just the radiation from carbon dioxide. Yes, the 324W/m² striking a spherical Earth would support a mean temperature that would be colder than 3°C because you’d need a flat Earth with emissivity 0.98 to get 3°C everywhere.
Oh.
Yes, pretty much a total misunderstanding.
I wonder if you measured from say 1 mm under the ocean surface and pointed at space what number you would get- at least with that, you would be measuring something like a black body.
” There’s no real difference between back radiation and other radiation from the atmosphere. The IPCC energy diagrams show it as 324W/m² and I used 0.98 emissivity to get a temperature of 276.3K as you can check by searching “Stefan Boltzmann Calculator” and using the one at tutorvista.com so I’m not talking about background radiation in Space or just the radiation from carbon dioxide. Yes, the 324W/m² striking a spherical Earth would support a mean temperature that would be colder than 3°C because you’d need a flat Earth with emissivity 0.98 to get 3°C everywhere.”
I think no one believes that back radiation is caused solely by CO2. Some think of CO2 as the God or the Prime Mover. So in this view CO2 would be creating a world where other greenhouse gases could radiate.
Of course there is the view that everything is a part of God- everything is expression/facet of God- kind of a Buddhism thing- but it’s a more of a primitive belief which predates Buddhism- but currently one can broadly refer to it as an eastern worldview.
But anyhow the sky can’t be all encompassing god of the blackbody, it could be a minor deity- say, the god of cold- anything very warm is not governed by it
There are comprehensive experiments that I’ve read regarding the penetration of radiation beneath the ocean surface. I’ll leave it to you to do your own research. Even Roy knows that back radiation does not penetrate warmer water by more than a few nanometers.
And of course the IPCC claims that water vapor does most of the 33 degrees of warming. If 1% WV does even 20 degrees of warming, then a rain forest with 4% WV would be 70 degrees hotter than a dry region with 0.5%, or 60 degrees hotter than a region with 1% WV.
You’d better make a run for it when you see any clouds approaching. /sarc
RPE 4:47am: “Even Roy knows that back radiation does not penetrate warmer water by more than a few nanometers.”
This is incorrect RPE, Dr. Spencer’s own thermometers detected and measured the effect of DW LW from cirrus clouds coming into view at 1:30am on 6/30/2015 several inches deep in the water when the black line started its concurrent trend down.
The physics problem posed previously puts me in mind of a relatively simple experiment which would establish whether photons from a cooler object can be absorbed by a warmer object.
Place thermostatically controlled heaters centered on one side of each of two identical metal cubes.
Install a recording power meter on the heater power line of one of the cubes.
In a chamber that can be evacuated, position the two cubes on insulating pads, parallel and centered on one another, one-half a cube side length apart, with the sides opposite the heater sides facing one another.
Evacuate the chamber.
Set the thermostat of the cube with the heater power meter to 80 deg C. Leave the other cube heater off.
Allow time for the system to stabilize. If there is no significant temperature rise of the unheated cube or the temperature rise brings the unheated cube above 60 deg C, adjust the spacing of the cubes appropriately and repeat the evacuation and stabilization.
When stability is achieved, record the temperatures of both cubes and the energy delivered to the heated cube in 10 minutes.
Turn on the heater of the previously unheated cube and adjust the temperature to maintain 75 deg C.
When the temperature of the previously unheated cube is stable at 75 deg C, measure the energy delivered to the warmer cube in 10 minutes. If the energy consumption has decreased, energy is being absorbed from the cooler cube.
Here’s an experiment I always like to suggest to Warmists: Rent a large walk-in freezer. Put ice blocks, having a total surface area of 5 square meters, in the freezer. Place a raw 10-pound turkey in the freezer. Record how long it takes to fully bake the turkey.
(5 square meters of ice, at 25 ºF, emits a total of over 1300 Watts. All that power will surely cook a turkey, Warmists insist.)
If the turkey fails to bake, just add more ice.
Anyone that believes this will work IS a “turkey”!
geran,
I realize that was a joke, but, as an experiment in critical thinking, let’s examine why the turkey doesn’t cook.
The 1300 W is radiated from the ice in all directions, not all at the turkey. Even if was all radiating from one face of the ice, only a very small fraction would impinge on the turkey due to its size.
The turkey is also radiating (i.e., cooling).
Ergo, the turkey does not cook.
Ergo, “back-radiation” does not warm the Earth!
(And, the “joke” is, of course, the IPCC AGW/CO2 “science”.)
“Back radiation” causes the equilibrium temperature rise. Whether you want to call that warming or slowed cooling is a matter of semantics. Most people would perceive the increased temperature as warming.
Slip, that is in your imagination, belief system, or “religion”.
The atmosphere cools the Earth. There can be subsystems of atmospheric “warming”, such as warm fronts, temperature inversions, etc, but those are localized events. In winter, the (local) atmosphere contracts to reduce the rate it is radiating to space, while in the opposing atmosphere (their summer), the “local” atmosphere is expanding. But overall, considered as a thermodynamic “control volume”, the atmosphere is ALWAYS cooling the globe.
It is true that the atmosphere is always cooling the globe. In fact, everything is always radiating or conducting (i.e., cooling). The question is, at what rate? The equilibrium temperature is determined by the energy in a system. If you increase the rate of heat input or reduce the rate of heat output, the average energy in the system and the equilibrium temperature will rise.
–Slipstick says:
August 2, 2015 at 2:18 PM
“Back radiation” causes the equilibrium temperature rise. Whether you want to call that warming or slowed cooling is a matter of semantics. Most people would perceive the increased temperature as warming.
geran says:
August 2, 2015 at 2:46 PM
Slip, that is in your imagination, belief system, or “religion”.
The atmosphere cools the Earth. There can be subsystems of atmospheric “warming”, such as warm fronts, temperature inversions, etc, but those are localized events. In winter, the (local) atmosphere contracts to reduce the rate it is radiating to space, while in the opposing atmosphere (their summer), the “local” atmosphere is expanding. But overall, considered as a thermodynamic “control volume”, the atmosphere is ALWAYS cooling the globe.–
It our atmosphere replace with the noble gas, Argon.
The argon would tend to cool the surface during the day.
Which means that the argon is heated by the surface during the day.
During the day and if you were in the shade, the argon would warm that which is in the shade. Or if in a vacuum and during but in the shade something over hour or so can become quite cold. So having an argon atmosphere would keep something in the shade warmer than it would be without the argon [or without any type of atmosphere].
Now, one does not need an atmosphere to do this, water would function in similar- if water is warm things in the water are water. Or fish don’t sweat.
Now night time could be called the big shade effect.
So assuming the argon has warmed enough from cooling the warmer surface during the day, during the big shade effect, the argon can keep things from getting as cold.
Now something hot lava or human body [which generates heat] can be cooled more from the argon gas- whether it’s night or day- then warmed. Or something cold like say ice, can warmed by the argon during the day as well as night.
This warming and cooling done by Argon gas atmosphere would be called a greenhouse effect by anyone who isn’t convinced
that only CO2 gas can cause a greenhouse effect.
Slip says: “If you increase the rate of heat input or reduce the rate of heat output, the average energy in the system and the equilibrium temperature will rise.”
________
Very true.
And, you could also add, “If you decrease the rate of heat input or increase the rate of output, the average energy of the system and the equilibrium temperature will fall.”
Welcome to the Laws of Thermodynamics.
In reply, please see this comment.
Slip writes: “Back radiation” causes the equilibrium temperature rise.”
Nope, not if the Sun’s direct radiation (about half the flux of the back radiation) is insufficient to raise the mean temperature of the Earth’s surface above -40°C in the first place, let alone right up to about +15°C.
The atmosphere is like a close body at about 3°C – not all that surprising, I suggest, though probably exaggerated by the IPCC a little, because average tropospheric temperatures are lower than that.
The Sun is like a close body at -40°C.
Pretty clearly the atmospheric radiation could do more warming than the Sun. The Sun would just slow the rate of cooling after all the warming by back radiation the night before. /sarc
Your whole paradigm is wrong. It’s time you read about the 21st Century paradigm here, as written in January 2013, or watched the 10 minute video recorded December, 2012.
Oh, and Slip, if you’re concerned that there won’t be enough “heat” to bake the turkey, I said you could add more ice. Also, consider mirrored walls on the inside of the freezer, to reflect the “heat”.
You see, Slip, this simple thought experiment wipes out the IPCC GHE/AGW/CO2 nonsense.
It’s just that many people fail to understand the science, or just don’t want to.
Just as ice cannot bake a turkey, atmospheric CO2 cannot warm the surface of the Earth. Ice emits low-energy photons, as does atmospheric CO2. (Much of atmospheric CO2 is well below 25ºF. Remember, the tropopause is typically about -62 ºF.)
There are so many things wrong with that analogy that I’m just going to ignore it for the moment. I might revisit it at a later time. Be well.
🙂
Actually, an incredibly obvious problem with the analogy arises, which I’m surprised I did not think of earlier (possibly because the situation is so ludicrous), and negates the entire premise.
Does the temperature of your heat source exceed the temperature you are trying achieve in the turkey?
If the answer is no, stop here. You cannot cook the turkey.
How right you are, Slipstick. Now let’s see you apply that principle to AGW, back radiation, the whole she-bang.
“Does the temperature of your heat source exceed the temperature you are trying achieve in the turkey?
If the answer is no, stop here. You cannot cook the turkey.”
__________
Exactly!
Just as mpainter also indicated, you have just realized that the IPCC AGW/GHE/CO2 is nonsense.
(Also, in this “experiment”, the ice is not a “heat source”, just as atmospheric CO2 is NOT a “heat source”. Neither brings “new” energy into the system.)
Let’s cook an Eskimo. Put him inside an igloo until he’s …ah, how do you like your Eskimo? Well done?
OMG. 1300 Watts! Who cares about the turkey. That’s enough to warm my living room in the winter. Forget about lighting a fire in the fire place, just throw a huge hunk of ice in the center of the room, and feel the heat.
Roy – you cannot work out any “sensitivity” from radiation,, full stop.
A flat Earth receiving any given uniform radiation would be WARMER than a spherical Earth receiving the same mean radiation because of the T^4 relationship between flux and temperature. (Mention that to Joseph Postma will you?)
The Earth’s surface receives far more radiation from the atmosphere than by direct solar radiation. But even the radiation with a mean of 324W/sq.m from the atmosphere would only make a flat Earth 3°C and a spherical one a few degrees colder than that. The Sun (delivering 168W/sq.m) can’t even compete with the atmospheric radiation. Of course neither on its own or together is what explains observed temperature. Entropy maximization does so, because the Second Law of Thermodynamics is never violated.
All of you should go back to this comment and enjoy your warm nights.
Suppose there were another planet in our Solar System located in an orbit about root 2 times (~1.4142x) further from the Sun and having no atmosphere. It would receive half the solar radiation that Earth receives at our top of atmosphere, but about the same as Earth receives at its surface, because about half of our TOA solar radiation is either reflected or absorbed in the atmosphere.
The imaginary planet’s Solar constant would thus be about 1360/2 = 680W/m² and, for the sunlit hemisphere the mean flux would be half that, namely 340W/m² which has black body temperature of 278.3K, equal to 5°C. However, that 5°C would only be achieved in a flat disk receiving uniform flux of 340W/m² striking it orthogonally. Because the mean is based on variable flux, the actual mean would be below 5°C. And that’s just for the sunlit hemisphere. If the planet kept one face always towards the Sun, the dark side would get down below 3K unless there were significant internal conduction across from the warm side. So we are talking about a very cold mean temperature about half way between 278K and 3K.
So it’s absolute garbage to talk about there being only 33 degrees of warming due to the introduction of an atmosphere sending additional radiation back to the surface. In fact, according to those energy diagrams like this one, the Earth’s atmosphere (after 30% reflection) receives 235W/m² (342-107) at the top, and then delivers from its base 492W/m² (324+168) into the surface, thus amplifying the solar energy by over 109%.
So there’s apparently about 150 degrees of warming due to back radiation if you work things out using the incorrect 20th century paradigm that assumes radiation determines a planet’s surface temperature.
You all need to think outside the square and break free from the indoctrination that has been prevalent in the whole education system from the 1980’s onwards. It’s all wrong.
“Suppose there were another planet in our Solar System located in an orbit about root 2 times (~1.4142x) further from the Sun and having no atmosphere.”
Since the sun is a sphere, should the distance not have been, cube root of 2, (~1.2599).
Not that it makes much difference to your point.
If you’re serious, the answer is no. It’s very close to the square root of 2 because the radius of the Sun is small compared with the distance.
I’ll take that back. I forgot that the area of a sphere is proportional to R^2.
Hear hear, RPE
You wrote: “Entropy maximization does so, because the Second Law of Thermodynamics is never violated.”
Long past time for the radiative model fixated to step back from their obsession and learn some thermodynamics.
Well said pochas ROY – ARE YOU LISTENING?
–The imaginary planet’s Solar constant would thus be about 1360/2 = 680W/m² and, for the sunlit hemisphere the mean flux would be half that, namely 340W/m² which has black body temperature of 278.3K, equal to 5°C. However, that 5°C would only be achieved in a flat disk receiving uniform flux of 340W/m² striking it orthogonally. Because the mean is based on variable flux, the actual mean would be below 5°C. And that’s just for the sunlit hemisphere. If the planet kept one face always towards the Sun, the dark side would get down below 3K unless there were significant internal conduction across from the warm side. So we are talking about a very cold mean temperature about half way between 278K and 3K.–
But it doesn’t matter what the mean temperature was- half the planet would be quite warm.
Economically this would a better world than the Moon in terms of solar energy. And Moon gets far more solar energy than earth. No where on Earth or the Moon’s surface do you get constant solar energy. In some parts of lunar polar region one can get as much as 90% of the time with sunlight, but it seems a constant source of sunlight at 680W/m² would be comparable or better than 1360 watts for 90% of the time. And you could get it anywhere on the sunlit side rather than being confined to a very small region.
So 680 times 24 is 16 Kw hour per day, which same a most of Moon but it’s constant supply of power, one could argue that the lunar peaks of eternal light are better because one get higher total and take holiday for couple days, do things with low power needs and store that amount electrical
power, and generally speaking one should have back up power anyhow.
But having the sun fixed in the sky would also have various advantages.
It also good in terms of having lots of solar energy, but it’s maximum temperature relatively low- good for growing crops.
The temperature of the surface is not how you describe it.
One could make 0 longitude where the sun is at zenith, and at the equator and zero longitude one would always have sun directly over head at zenith. And as Doug mentioned:
“330K: 672.4 W/m^2”
So ground would heat to about 330 K [57 C or 134 F].
These general condition would occur in radius of 45 degree longitude and latitude.
So at equator at 45 W longitude it would only be slightly cooler, as would 135 E at the equator. Or at zero longitude [or prime meridian] 45 degree north or south latitude.
So within that circle it only get slighter cooler as approached this perimeter.
Outside this circle in sunlight it could get much colder [but fixing solar panel at proper angle one still gets a constant 680W/m²].
At 60 degree west and at equator, the sun is at 30 above the horizon and level ground would get about 1/2 as much sunlight per square meter- 340 watts. Doug also provided:
280K: 348.5 W/m^2, ground would bit cooler than 280 K [6 C ]
And at 75 degree west at the equator, the sun is 15 degrees
about the horizon, or around 1/5th of watts per square-
136 watts. Or about 220 K [-53 C] But again one gets the 680W/m² if one points at the sun.
And where the sun is at the horizon the surface becomes very, very cold. But as long as the sun disk is fully above the horizon, if you point at sun you still get 680W/m².
Of course this world is very easy to to warm things or cool them- it’s free in terms of energy costs. And other making ice cream of cooking things on the barbie, with no energy costs, one also can easily warm or cool a home.
And that leaves the energy cost of transportation- also could use solar power in various ways.
Having a sun in one position, would greatly simplify everything in terms of energy production. And “alternative energy” would actual work on this planet.
“And you could get it anywhere on the sunlit side rather than being confined to a very small region.”
Garbage. Trying multiplying by the sine of the Sun’s angle of elevation from the horizontal. Consider also conduction losses right through to the other side where it’s close to 0K.
— Doug Cotton says:
August 4, 2015 at 4:53 AM
“And you could get it anywhere on the sunlit side rather than being confined to a very small region.”
Garbage. Trying multiplying by the sine of the Sun’s angle of elevation from the horizontal.–
That’s in regard to the level ground. But if you collecting solar energy, one can have the collector at angle so it’s pointed at the Sun.
— Consider also conduction losses right through to the other side where it’s close to 0K.–
There isn’t any to speak of. It’s just as earth being mostly molten ball of rock covered with thin surface of the colder rock, and the much hotter rock does not effect Earth average surface air temperature.
Or very little heat can conduct through a couple km of rock
Yes well the Earth I live in is not a natural collector with its surface always pointing at the Sun everywhere like a mass of computer controlled dishes.
There is conduction into every planet’s interior and it has had a considerable effect over the life of every planet. It happens because of entropy maximization, as per the Second Law. It is the surface temperature which affects sub-surface temperatures, not the other way around. We know this because the small solid core of the planet Uranus is not generating significant energy or losing significant energy by any “cooling off” process. So, note the word “Core” in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures“ and then go back to this new comment because it applies to you also, gbaikie.
Actually, the collecting of Solar energy over, say, 1 square Km of the surface, when the radiation vector makes an acute angle with the horizontal surface, is not improved by covering that surface with collectors oriented orthogonally to the radiation vector. You need to consider the shadows that the collectors would produce on those behind them. If the Sun were directly overhead and your (square or rectangular) collectors were thus flat and adjoining each other, then, when you raise them to, say, 45° when the inclination of the radiation is 45° then they start to cast shadows on the ones behind. You can demonstrate this with two squares of cardboard and a light source overhead, then another light making a 45° angle.
Let’s pick a mass of the planet and size. And rather than airless let’s assume a slow rotation [which maybe so slow it always faces the sun, or has very long day or it’s rotation is slower than always facing the sun [a very slow retrograde rotation like Venus]. So because it one side facing away from it’s sun, or because it has low rotation speed and has very long day, the atmosphere would be frozen out due to the cold
side of the planet.
And say planet is double the size of Earth- 20,000 km diameter or larger. Ie:
“A lot hinges on whether we assume Double-Earth started out beyond the ice-line of the solar system and moved inwards, in which case it will be really wet, or started out close to the sun and never got much volatiles. In the first case, “Wet Double-Earth,” the mass will be about 3 Earths and the average density 37% of Earth, with a surface gravity of 0.73 g and an escape velocity of 13.6 km/s. This will have an ocean hundreds of kilometres deep, surrounding a rocky core covered with high pressure warm ices.”
http://io9.com/what-a-habitable-planet-twice-the-size-of-earth-would-b-1476308959
Or another description is it’s almost a gas giant like Neptune or planet like Venus with lot’s water, but it between Earth and Mars distant or at distance where it gets
680W/m² from it’s sun. And it doesn’t have hydrogen or helium atmosphere, but has lots of H2O.
Say it was too close to the sun and too low of gravity in it’s formation to retain the helium and hydrogen.
So Neptune has 80% H2 and 19 helium and this world has less than 1% of both.
Let’s look at density of one and circumference of 72,000 km
or diameter of 23000 km or radius of about 11,500, which has volume of 6.37×10^12 cubic km. Or 6.37×10^21 cubic meters. Or 6.37×10^24 kg.
And earth with higher density has 5.97×10^24 kg.
But since not pure water, assume it’s overall density is 2, making it’s mass 1.27 ×10^25 kg. Making it about 1/10 of Neptune’s mass and 1/7th of Uranus and twice Earth.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/
So it has about twice Earth mass, but due to larger radius
it will have less gravity at the surface [about 2/3rd].
So with deep ocean and having an atmosphere unlike the world
with vacuum, there is connection between the cold side and the warm side.
With earth when it’s polar region enters 6 months of it’s winter’s darkness the ocean freezes over.
One could say if ocean average temperature is less than 5 C,
then within 6 months of darkness that ocean would likely also freeze over.
Now the basis of the model is a slow rotation, let’s begin by looking at a fast rotation. Earth rotation of 1000 mph would be very fast for a world of this size and low surface gravity. 3 times as fast as Earth might be impossible- as a guess. And Earth rotation speed might even be problematic.
But assuming earth’s speed and it’s distance from the Sun, it’s night would be twice as long and be colder as compared to Earth.
Roughly this longer night would have larger effect in non tropics regions. Or it’s possible tropics could be ice free, but elsewhere the ocean would freeze and remain frozen during day. Or giving the snowball Earth effect [which usually allows a thin band of tropics to be ice free].
Now if rotation speed is say 250 mph or 1/4 of the speed of Earth, one gets a 24 hour times 8, or 192 hour day. And four days [96 hours] of night. And we can easily assume that with such a long night that even the tropics would freeze over at night. Though during the long day the ice could melt.
So referring to my first post, it could not matter much what the rotation was actually was other than slow, because the point 45 degrees of the sun’s zenith could be created each day- though this is very small portion of entire surface area. And larger area of the planet would be more related to the atmosphere. And let’s assume the rotation [or movement of the spot] is 2 mph or less.
So with earth a 45 degree is 111 km per degree and is about 5000 km in radius, and area of about 78.5 million square km
of total area of 510 million or about 1/6th the total area.
But in terms rotation each rotation cycle it’s covering more than 1/2 of the entire surface.
Now it should noted that we have not mentioned a tilt to the axis of the rotation [23 degree with earth]. And for moment we will assume it’s tilt is zero.
And in terms of atmosphere a bit less than 1/2 of surface will remain cold and becomes even colder during the long night.
The question is would atmospheric gases freeze out of the atmosphere?
The H20 and CO2 should easily freeze out. Or roughly no matter how much CO2 or H20 is “available” in colder region one assume it’s less than 200 ppm- as the rest would become ice.
So if no rotation the heat of the sun is going to evaporate the water and create depression. It’s going to look like huge impact crater- with rim formed by snow.
And with a rotation rather than circular, it will be a trough.
So the water in the trough would be pushed by the ice forming behind it, newly created water from ice meet a rising tide of water.
Actually it’s going create atmosphere of some pressure inside the crater or trough, and doesn’t matter much how much atmosphere one started with.
Anyways the air should quite warm where the sun is at zenith.
What a planet “started out at” is irrelevant, because the solar flux determines and supports all temperatures even down to the core. Planets are not “cooling off” and would only do so if the solar radiation declined.
Based on the mean flux of radiation …
(a) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Earth is about -40°C. Yes, minus 40.
(b) The effective temperature of the Sun’s radiation reaching the surface of Venus is about -140°C
(c) The effective temperature of all the radiation from Earth’s atmosphere to its surface is about 3°C.
Because these planets are rotating spheres, the actual mean temperature that any of the above radiation could achieve is a few degrees colder than would be achieved with uniform orthogonal flux striking a flat non-reflecting surface. The reason for this relates to the fact that the achieved temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. So, because the flux varies with the angle of incidence, flux that is above the mean achieves only a relatively small increase in temperature above that achieved by the mean flux.
From this it is obvious that the mean temperatures of the surfaces of Earth and Venus are not achieved by direct radiation into those surfaces. Some relatively small regions on Earth may rise in temperature due to direct solar radiation, but overall, the observed global mean temperature cannot be explained by solar radiation. Atmospheric radiation would also not keep the mean temperature above freezing point (0°C) either.
Hence we need to consider a totally different paradigm (based on entropy maximization and the laws of thermodynamics) which can and does explain the actual observed temperatures, not only for Earth and Venus, but for all planets and even the regions below any solid surface. Correct physics produces correct results that agree with data from the real Solar System.
The breakthrough has come in this 21st Century and the science stands up to the test, being supported by copious evidence from planetary data, studies and experiments such as outlined at http://climate-change-theory.com so you will learn what is really happening if you read and study such.
— Retired Physics Educator says:
August 5, 2015 at 5:15 PM
What a planet “started out at” is irrelevant, because the solar flux determines and supports all temperatures even down to the core. Planets are not “cooling off” and would only do so if the solar radiation declined.–
So if planets are not cooling down, does that mean the earth wasn’t a molten ball of rock at it’s formation.
Or does your crazy idea allow for a rapid cooling after the planetary formation and thereafter the planet doesn’t cool
off?
No, you don’t know if the Earth’s core was originally hotter or colder than at present, and you have no proof that, now it has reached an equilibrium temperature, that it is cooling.
And you don’t understand why I say what I say because you haven’t studied the hypothesis on which it is based.
I have nothing further to say to you or anyone unless you have genuine questions which display evidence of having read the hypothesis.
Go back to this comment, gbaikie.
I suggest all read this comment.
So, Roy, you go wrong at Square One when you say “assuming the forcing-feedback paradigm is sufficiently valid for the climate system” because it is totally invalid.
You people need to understand that photons are not like little hand grenades that explode on impact with anything and deliver thermal energy equal to their electromagnetic energy. When photons strike an opaque plastic microwave bowl in a microwave oven they do not heat it. They are pseudo scattered, and some make their way through the plastic and into perhaps water on the other side. The only reason they warm water molecules is because the machine is designed to emit photons with the correct frequencies that are known to resonate with the natural frequencies for rotation of those water molecules.
Even when you place that bowl in the Sun’s rays, you actually don’t how how much (if any) of the solar radiation is being converted to thermal energy in the bowl. Sure the bowl’s temperature may rise, but that could happen by sensible heat transfer processes from the air. Indeed that does happen in the real world. Your clouds at relatively cold temperatures may indeed be warmed by solar radiation. That energy can pass through the cloud via sensible heat transfers, and, by the process of entropy maximization, what you think won’t happen, actually does. It’s all explained at http://climate-change-theory.com
where you’ll learn why the core of a planet or moon is at the temperature it is, and likewise the mantle, crust, surface and troposphere.
Footnote:
“But what we have in the real climate system is some unknown mixture of radiative forcing(s) and feedback”
No, no, no Roy.
The Sun’s radiation into the surface cannot possibly explain the observed much warmer temperatures than it could achieve.
The back radiation cannot be added to the solar radiation, and even if you do so incorrectly then you still don’t have enough. The K-T/NASA/IPCC energy diagram “inputs” of 390W/m^2 might come close to explaining 15°C for a flat Earth, but 390W/m^2 would produce less than 4°C for a spherical Earth, and in fact that would probably come from atmospheric radiation on its own as it is more uniform night and day than is solar radiation.
It is utterly pointless talking about back radiation slowing the radiative component of surface cooling (as it indeed does) when you can’t explain the surface temperature in the first place. You are trying to sit on the fence, Roy, with a foot in the camp that claims you can add back radiation in Stefan Boltzmann calculations, and the other foot in the camp that acknowledges back radiation only slows cooling and does not penetrate water surfaces. There is a third camp that is the CORRECT one, Roy, and it’s time you learnt from what I have explained at http://climate-change-theory.com which you cannot correctly refute, now can you? Where’s your article doing so?
Doug 6:03pm: “The Sun’s radiation into the surface cannot possibly explain the observed much warmer temperatures than it could achieve.”
Doug simply incorrectly neglects to add the 67 W/m^2 sun load dumped in earth atmosphere; when it is correctly and responsibly added as shown by Dr. Spencer’s test then earth surface temperature is easily explained by 1LOT balance from text books, again, by 1LOT at earth surface after KT97, all the KT97 surface arrows add up to 288K:
(168+67+78+24)in – (390+78+24-155)out = 235in – 235out = balanced at surface w/Tmedian=288K (the 390), 255K at TOA (the 235).
“The back radiation cannot be added to the solar radiation..”
Doug’s hypothesis is falsified by Dr. Spencer’s 6/30/2015 test when the black line trended down. If this hypothesis were correct, the black line would trend up when the cirrus came into view and it didn’t.
“..you can’t explain the surface temperature in the first place….which you cannot correctly refute,”
I just did. Not going to Doug’s site again until the required corrigenda are issued to line up with real world test nor should any other wary reader.
“Doug’s hypothesis” Ball4 has nothing to do with radiation supposedly determining a planet’s surface temperature and so Roy’s experiment with radiation does not refute the hypothesis at all. Roy is talking about (and measuring) something altogether different from maximum entropy production and the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. But of course you don’t have a clue as to what my hypothesis is all about, now do you? Silent readers please read this comment.
Doug 6:03pm: “The back radiation cannot be added to the solar radiation..”
Doug 10:06pm: “Doug’s hypothesis” Ball4 has nothing to do with radiation..”
Inconsistent.
The comment about radiation is merely to demonstrate that the old 20th Century Radiative Forcing paradigm is incorrect.
It is not inconsistent to then point out that the new 21st Century paradigm (which is based on entropy maximization) has nothing to do with heat transfers by radiation, because that paradigm is primarily about diffusion and natural convective heat transfers.
Now go to this comment, Ball4.
“..the old 20th Century Radiative Forcing paradigm is incorrect.”
Which is itself proven incorrect by 6/30/2015 test when the black line trended down from the added energy in the backradiation.
TO ALL LUKES & WARMISTS:
Here’s the challenge: Learn the correct physics in 43 minutes here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-TXYe4rJp0xmbBh51AD8jptu34LAJc-b
Then, on a suitable thread here, try to prove me wrong, and I will respond with correct physics suitably linked to show you why you are mistaken if you think the content of the video wrong in any way.
Doug – Your video is already shown needs corrigenda as proven by Dr. Spencer’s test 6/30, when the black line trended down, not going there. Any suitable physics you post here showing otherwise, that the black line should have trended up, MUST also be linked to a test Doug, per Dr. Feynman teachings. Give it a try, you haven’t succeeded as yet by test.
The Moon’s mean temperature is below freezing point (0°C) and yet its surface receives about twice the flux that Earth’s surface receives.
The Sun’s direct radiation does not “explain” Earth’s surface temperature.
See http://climate-change-theory.com and watch the new video published today and already watched by 75 in the first 8 hours or so.
Doug 4:16am: “The Moon’s mean temperature is below freezing point..”
The moon’s mean brightness temperature is about 200K (-100F) from Diviner preliminary data, we don’t know the actual mean surface temperature as there is no global thermometer field there.
“The Sun’s direct radiation does not “explain” Earth’s surface temperature.”
It does if you include the KT97 SW 67 absorbed in atm. which you forgot or neglected to do to advance your politics. Wary readers know that. Same for Venus and Mars.
Nope. It does not. You would need a mean of about 20,000W/m^2 with the kind of variation that occurs to “explain” a mean surface temperature above 280K. Calculations are in another comment I wrote 2 or 3 days ago.
Well 3,000W/m^2 – sorry – it’s after midnight here.
Doug – You are wrong about 3000 too. Only about 1300W/m^2 is needed at the lunar equator for T=400K with emissivity 0.95, area=1, rounded. Easy enough for the sun over a lunar day at lunar high Noon without the attenuation of any atmosphere, based on NOAA ESRL Earth observations.
http://www.diviner.ucla.edu/science.shtml
Ball4 might do well to work out that his mean of 235W/m^2 incident radiation would (for a flat Earth surface only) yield a black body temperature of 253.73K. (LOL)
See this new comment.
And, as I have said many times, a MEAN of 390W/m^2 would only support a MEAN surface temperature closer to 4°C than 14°C because of the T^4 relationship, as in the example in a comment above comparing the mean of the fourth powers of 2, 4 and 6 with the fourth power of the mean of those temperatures, namely 4^4.
And likewise, Ball4, a mean of 70% of 342W/m^2 (239.4) would support a flat black body Earth temperature of 254.91K but the actual variable flux that co