The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2017 was +0.19 deg. C, down from the February, 2017 value of +0.35 deg. C (click for full size version):
The global, hemispheric, and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 15 months are:
YEAR MO GLOBE NHEM. SHEM. TROPICS
2016 01 +0.54 +0.69 +0.39 +0.84
2016 02 +0.83 +1.16 +0.50 +0.98
2016 03 +0.73 +0.94 +0.52 +1.08
2016 04 +0.71 +0.85 +0.58 +0.93
2016 05 +0.54 +0.64 +0.44 +0.71
2016 06 +0.33 +0.50 +0.17 +0.37
2016 07 +0.39 +0.48 +0.29 +0.47
2016 08 +0.43 +0.55 +0.31 +0.49
2016 09 +0.44 +0.49 +0.38 +0.37
2016 10 +0.40 +0.42 +0.39 +0.46
2016 11 +0.45 +0.40 +0.50 +0.37
2016 12 +0.24 +0.18 +0.30 +0.21
2017 01 +0.30 +0.26 +0.33 +0.07
2017 02 +0.35 +0.54 +0.15 +0.05
2017 03 +0.19 +0.30 +0.07 +0.03
The cooling in March occurred virtually everywhere, with 23 of the 26 subregions we track having cooler anomalies than in February.
The UAH LT global anomaly image for March, 2017 should be available in the next few days here.
The new Version 6 files should also be updated soon, and are located here:
Lower Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
Mid-Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tmt/uahncdc_mt_6.0.txt
Tropopause: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/ttp/uahncdc_tp_6.0.txt
Lower Stratosphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tls/uahncdc_ls_6.0.txt
Nearly back down to pre-el Nino temp and without a strong la Nina. It’ll be interesting to see if there is a significant step up this time around. Not looking like much of one right now.
aaron says:
April 3, 2017 at 7:16 AM
Nearly back down to pre-el Nino temp…
What do you mean with ‘el Nino temp’, aaron?
Last year I had the opportunity to download and evaluate Roy Spencer’s gridded TLT data, and a few weeks ago I read a very interesting comment at WUWT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/18/berkeley-earth-record-temperature-in-2016-appears-to-come-from-a-strong-el-nino/#comment-2401985
The comment’s author showed us that a selection of no more than 18 points out of the grid gave a time series pretty good near to that constructed by averaging the full grid.
I did the same with only four points:
http://tinyurl.com/k3q2d87
The four points (or better: grid cells) are
– 60S-90W: near Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula;
– 20S-90E: between Madagascar and Australia;
– 20N-90W: in Guatemala;
– 60N-90E: in eastern Siberia near Tula.
Look how averaging laughable four grid cells gives, for the 1997/98 El Nino, the same data as what is obtained from the 9,504 cells!
But the more interesting point is the difference, in the blue 4-point-plot, between 1998 and 2016: while the 4 points are very near to the whole average in 1998, they moved quite a lot above it in 2016.
The reason was quickly found: while in 1998 the fourth cell in Siberia showed a temperature far below that of the 3 others, all 4 cells showed equivalent warmth for 2016.
Whenever something looks warm in a satellite record, you soon hear ‘Thats El Nio!’. But in 2016, El Nio was weaker than in 1998 and thus hardly could be the differences origin.
My humble guess: El Nio isnt the origin of warming: it is rather one of its many sentinels.
El Nino was only partially responsible for the 2016 warming. The other major part was the Arctic warmth driven by the AMO reduction in sea ice.
It’s all natural as far as I can tell. This will become even more obvious as we move into the summer months where the lack of sea ice has a lower impact.
You did not understand half a line of the comment (I know why: as is perfectly visible at WUWT, you are only interested in propagating your AMO stuff).
Reread my comment, concentrate on the cell coordinates, and try to understand.
LOL. I understood perfectly. The influence of the Arctic is not limited to the Arctic but reaches down into much of the NH especially as high as 60. You are obviously in denial.
By sea surface temp, el Nino was strong. But I think you may by right that it wasn’t as strong (wasn’t as high in the 1 region) and there was probably less heat transferred to the atmosphere than 98 (warm water not making it as far east suggest less westerly winds–>less energy transfer,and if the skies weren’t as clear, that’d also mean less atmospheric impact), at least early on.
Bindidon…”El Nio isnt the origin of warming: it is rather one of its many sentinels”.
The 98 El Nino produced an after-effect globally of 0.15C. That occurred in 2001 and CO2 warming could not possibly act that quickly. Furthermore, once the 0.15C spike occurred the global average remained flat around 0.15 C from 1998 – 2015.
According to the UAH 33 year report, global temps from 1979 – 1997 were below the average (baseline) from 1979 – 1995. Suddenly, with the 1998 EN, global temps went above the average and have remained there to date.
Again, CO2 warming would not be below average for 17 years then suddenly be above average for the next 17 years with a flat trend.
CO2 warming just doesn’t make sense. As I tried to explain using the ideal gas equation, warming is related to the partial mass of gases in the atmosphere. Based on it’s relative mass, CO2 has an insignificant warming effect. Most warming must come from N2 and O2.
There are swings as large and larger throughout the record, both hot and cold. I see nothing special about 2001. Looks just like other variability throughout the record.
Go on, have a look at the rest of the record.
I’ll even provide the numbers to prove it. No fancy linear trends, just the overall change in global temperature over a period of months or a year.
barry…”I see nothing special about 2001. Looks just like other variability throughout the record”.
Barry… I referred to the UAH 33 year report in which they refer to no ‘true’ warming occurring in the entire record till the 1998 EN. If you look at the record prior to late 1997, it is generally in the negative anomaly range. One might expect it to continue above and below the baseline as it did the past 17 years.
After 98, it dipped briefly below the baseline then rose above it in 2001 to around 1.5C, maybe a bit more. The IPCC reports a flat trend from 1998 – 2012. I am claiming that flat trend is centred around the level that it warmed post-98 (about 1.5C.
There is no physical explanation for that rise of 1.5C, especially when it levels of at that degree above the baseline. That’s not natural variability it’s a step rise in global warming similar to the step rise in 1977 due to the PDO.
There has to be a physical explanation and I refuse to accept the explanation is anthropogenic CO2.
sorry…I wrote 1.5C, that would be some step rise. I meant, of course, 0.15C. Just got back from a 2 hour power walk and I seem to be in oxygen debt.
If you look at the record prior to late 1997, it is generally in the negative anomaly range
The baseline (the zero line) is a semi-arbitrary choice. A linear trend of the data pre-1998 yields a warming trend, though not statistically significant (which is a statistical concept, not equivalent to “significant,” as an everyday adjective).
You get the same trend no matter where the baseline (zero line) lies. Raise the zero line high enough that every anomaly is negative, and what do you learn about temperature? Nothing. The trend, however, remains the same, as do the positions of the anomalies relative to each other. Change the position of the zero line and every anomaly changes by the exactly the same value.
The IPCC reports a flat trend from 1998 2012.
A flat trend is 0.0 C/decade. That is not the value that the IPCC gives.
There is no physical explanation for that rise of 0.15C
But you see rises and falls of this magnitude and greater throughout the record. You see even larger changes in some years (whether cooler or warmer than the year before). Even with no el Nino or volcano.
2001 was preceded by a double la Nina in 1999 and 2000. La Nina finished, global temps went back up from the short-term dip.
Is this unusual? Hell no! Let’s look right at the data and just compare year on year changes.
1980 was 0.15C warmer than 1979. A brief el Nino crossed through the last few months of 1979 and the first 2 months of 1980.
1986 was 0.15C warmer than 1985, which was a la Nina year.
1990 was 0.2C warmer than 1989, which was a la Nina year.
1994 was 0.15C higher than 1993, which was a neutral year.
2009 was 0.2C warmer than 2008, which was a la Nina year.
And so on.
We see this magnitude of change fairly regularly. Often after a la Nina, but sometimes even when the previous year has been ENSO neutral, no massive volcanic eruption and no following el Nino.
Those are the facts. The 0.15C through 2001 occurred after a two-year la Nina. That is not in any way, shape or form unusual.
If you want to see for yourself, here is the data, direct from the UAH website. First column.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.txt
And just to be thorough, here is the change in temp from 2000 to 2001:
0.14C (0.136 to three decimal places)
Less than all the examples above.
That’s not at all abnormal nor unexplainable. Everyone here knows that la Ninas depress global temps. 2001 was a neutral year after la Nina. That’s your answer.
barry says, April 4, 2017 at 4:43 AM:
There’s nothing special about the year 2001. There is however something very special indeed about the years 1988 and 1998. You need to know where and how to look in order to find out, though. You can see it if for instance you correlate the global TLT timeseries (UAHv6.0) with that of NINO3.4 SSTa (OIv2), properly scaled and lagged:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/nino-uah-1.gif
Watch how there are two clear and abrupt upward steps in global temp anomalies relative to the NINO3.4 SSTa occurring in 1988 and 1998. In between the steps, global temps simply tag along with the NINO3.4 (there’s a little bit of interannual noise plus two large volcanic eruptions disturbing the overall visual impression somewhat, but at least from 1998 onwards the lockstep relationship becomes pretty evident).
Those two steps are very much process-related (ocean-troposphere dynamics), both being firmly and swiftly established in the direct aftermath of large and solitary El Ninos (the 1987/88 and 1997/98 events). We can readily track the after-effects of these ninos, the extra-NINO (‘global’) warming, through the data. We can see how, when and where it spread and took hold. All we need to do is look at regional data. Bob Tisdale has written extensively on these two conspicuous upward shifts in global temperature anomaly. I’ve done the same.
No argument from me that ENSO events temporarily – and strongly – influence global temps.
If you are alluding to some “step-jump” owing to el Ninos, that’s where I don’t agree. ENSO effects – physically – are temporary events.
barry says, April 8, 2017 at 7:04 PM:
Now see this is where it seems you lack some basic understanding of the ENSO process and how it works and manifests itself.
First of all, this is something you NEED to bear in mind at all times:
The ENSO process is NOT equal to the SSTa in the NINO3.4 region. NINO3.4 ≠ ENSO.
I urge you to read Trenberth et al.’s paper from 2002 called “Evolution of El Nino-Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures”. Here’s a pertinent quote, the corollary of which would normally be overlooked by most readers, especially since the authors themselves never take their time to elaborate on it and/or actually try to follow their own lead:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
“Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.”
Trenberth’s “ENSO residual” is what makes those steps, barry.
The ENSO process operates across the entire Pacific basin, not just inside the narrow NINO3.4 region. Plus it pulls the strings via atmospheric bridges on the SSTa evolution in ocean basins such as the Indian and North Atlantic.
Trenberth himself points out the very plateaus and steps in global temperature that I have highlighted above:
https://www.rmets.org/weather-and-climate/climate/has-global-warming-stalled
(…) while the overall warming is about 0.16C per decade, there are 3 10-year periods where there was a hiatus in warming. From 1977 to 1986, from 1987 to 1996, and from 2001-2012. But at each end of these periods there were big jumps:
https://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/content_images/weather/trenberth-gwt.jpg
Trenberth is of course a firm advocate of “human-induced global warming”, so he will definitely not agree (not on record, at least) with my interpretation of those “big jumps” and “hiatuses”. But he does confirm and underscore the fact that they’re all there. They’re real features of the global temperature anomaly evolution since the 70s.
The question is then, how did they come about?
The obvious answer: Through the ENSO process.
The funny thing is this, global temps simply track NINO3.4 SSTa all the way from 1970 to about 2013/2014, EXCEPT at three specific instances, three abrupt upward shifts, all occurring within the span of less than a year. That’s 1979, 1988, and 1998.
The ENTIRE rise in the mean global temp during the modern era of ‘global warming’ is to be found within those three steps alone (leaving out the last 3+ years for now).
What’s even funnier is how easy it is to see where and how the ‘global’ warming took place in each instance.
The 1979 ‘global’ warming all took place in the East Pacific basin, the result of an abrupt and substantial flattening of the east-west thermocline (a sudden drop in the mean SOI level) occurring a couple of years prior, in 1976/77:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-ii-step-1/
The 1988 and 1998 ‘global’ warmings, on the other hand, both firmly originated in the West Pacific basin (mainly the result, it would seem, of the major 1976/77 switch in the direction that El Ninos evolve, from east-west before 1977 to west-east after; this, among other things, left huge pools of non-dissipated warmer-than-normal water at and below the surface in the far east of the tropical Pacific even after the demise of the El Nino, which would then, as the trade winds turned, and also via giant oceanic, subtropical Rossby waves, be brought back to the west IN ADDITION TO (on top of) the new solar-heated La Nina waters, and eventually sprawled out over the subtropical and – significantly – extra-tropical surface of the West Pacific), and from there were forced – to a varying degree – upon the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean basins as well:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-iii-steps-2-3/
It’s all in the data.
However, one should never forget where the energy ultimately comes from. The ENSO process is naturally fuelled by the Sun, but at the same time it is to a large extent what determines how much solar heat will actually be taken up by the Earth system, and how much of it will be released, in the first place. The coupled ocean-troposphere system is a highly DYNAMIC one, not at all a mere non-variable receptacle of ‘heat’, as too many people seem to believe.
We know (from official ToA radiation flux data, ERBS+CERES, ISCCP FD) that the mean level of solar heat input to the Earth system (the ASR, which is ‘net SW’, TSI minus reflected SW (albedo)) has gone up considerably since at least the mid 80s, and is the sole cause of our current positive ToA radiative imbalance (over the same period, after all, the OLR at the ToA, Earth’s heat output to space, has simply gone up with the tropospheric temperatures).
“..the OLR at the ToA, Earth’s heat output to space, has simply gone up with the tropospheric temperatures..”
For as long as CERES Team has meaningful observed data, Earth system OLR energy is found to decrease at TOA and Kristian has been informed (Loeb 2016 Table 4).
Ball4 says, April 9, 2017 at 7:53 AM:
‘fraid not:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/ceres_ebaf-toa_ed4-0_areaaveragetimeseries_deseasonalized_toa_longwave_flux-all-sky_032000to092016.png
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/uah-vs-ceres1.png
https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAF4Selection.jsp
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_EBAF_Ed4.0_DQS.pdf
Self cites are not convincing, cite the experts Kristian.
Now see this is where it seems you lack some basic understanding of the ENSO process and how it works and manifests itself.
I think I’m pretty familiar with it.
For the purposes of our discussion, during El Ninos heat is transferred from the ocean to the atmosphere and during la Ninas the opposite happens. Such a large amount of heat is transferred that ENSO events evident in the global surface record.
In a warming world these spikes (el Ninos) sometimes combine with other fluctuations to give the impression of step-jumps in the temperature record. But ENSO doesn’t create heat of itself – el Ninos are not responsible for the long-term warming of sea surface temperatures.
They cannot be, because we’ve had hundreds over the last thousand years, and if you work backwards through time on this premise, the globe should have been at least 10C colder 1000 years ago.
Trenberth does not agree with you, as you know, and you also know that your quoting him is a specious tactic.
These ‘jumps’ are not matched in the global sea level record or ocean heat content. They have their own short-term fluctuations at different times. You’re resting your case (whatever it might be) on a thin slice of atmospheric temps. Sea level and OHC show a steadier rise during the periods you think are flat between the ‘jumps’. They also rose during the period 1998 to 2012. Arctic and global sea ice declined in that tine, too, so the system warmed even if the slice of the atmosphere looked like it didn’t.
Self cites are not convincing, cite the experts Kristian.
Some credit is due for doing the work at all.
Then one can compare with expert views.
barry says, April 9, 2017 at 10:27 AM:
Apparently not on a broad scale. Again, there is much more to the ENSO process than what is going on in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. You might very well be aware of this, but in what you write about it, I’m afraid it doesn’t appear that way.
You’re right about the first, wrong about the second. Heat is NOT transferred from the atmosphere to the ocean during La Ninas. That is NOT how the Earth system works. Hint: The Sun is the ocean’s heat source, not the atmosphere.
This is true. But now you’re talking about the NINO (equatorial East Pacific) signal specifically, not the full ENSO signal. Which includes several other parts of the world’s ocean as well.
No, barry. The surface of the world ISN’T warming outside those jumps. That’s the whole point. The whole warming, the general upward trend, is because of those steps only. It’s not the other way around.
What “other fluctuations” did you have in mind? There are no independent “fluctuations” within the Earth system that I can think of capable of dominating the ENSO process and make its own signal ever outweigh that of ENSO. Can you?
It appears you are not looking at the data to see what’s actually going on, how things are connected, what leads what. You’re just speculating for the sake of speculating, of not wanting the things I point out to be correct. It seems.
I described quite explicitly how this works, didn’t I? Here it is again, in case you missed it:
However, one should never forget where the energy ultimately comes from. The ENSO process is naturally fuelled by the Sun, but at the same time it is to a large extent what determines how much solar heat will actually be taken up by the Earth system, and how much of it will be released, in the first place. The coupled ocean-troposphere system is a highly DYNAMIC one, not at all a mere non-variable receptacle of ‘heat’, as too many people seem to believe.
We know (from official ToA radiation flux data, ERBS+CERES, ISCCP FD) that the mean level of solar heat input to the Earth system (the ASR, which is ‘net SW’, TSI minus reflected SW (albedo)) has gone up considerably since at least the mid 80s, and is the sole cause of our current positive ToA radiative imbalance (over the same period, after all, the OLR at the ToA, Earth’s heat output to space, has simply gone up with the tropospheric temperatures).
True. The large-scale Pan-Pacific climate regime is. It switched from a negative (net cooling) to a positive (net warming) phase in 1976-77. This involves the ENSO process (including SOI), pressure and wind systems, and cloud cover.
Still with this argument? Look, ENSO works towards multi-decadal warming in positive Pan-Pacific climate regime phases, NOT in negative ones. The ENSO process fundamentally changes when these phases switch. You can read about it in the scientific literature.
I know. But the DATA agrees with me and not with him. So that’s HIS problem, not mine. In fact, I suspect he DOES agree with me. But he’s bound to The Cause, to his “global warming by CO2” agenda, so he would never come out and admit it.
And in what way is it “a specious tactic” to quote an expert on ENSO when discussing the topic?
Actually, no. OHC has flat periods too, but at different times. That’s because OHC (and sea level) depends much more directly on the ToA radiative imbalance than do the surface (and tropospheric) temps. There is no inconsistency. The overall warming is a result of a general increase in solar input to the Earth system since the 70s, causing a positive ToA imbalance. However, this positive imbalance wasn’t there constantly for 45 years. There are periods of no general increase in OHC from 1970 till today. The Earth system is all the time struggling to catch up.
Gordon Robertson says:
April 4, 2017 at 1:59 AM
The 98 El Nino produced an after-effect globally of 0.15C. That occurred in 2001 and CO2 warming could not possibly act that quickly.
1. I did not mention CO2 at any time in the comment you replied to.
2. Like Richard M, you did not understand my comment.
Recall: El Nino is known (in its simplest form like NINO3+4 or ONI) as an SST temperature average over 5S-5N–170W-120W.
What I tried to show is that if averaging four completely independent cells of a world grid gives in 1998 a good estimate for the global average of nearly 10,000 cells, then it is very unlikely that the El Nino phenomenon is the source of the temperature data, whose source must then be of much more global character.
So I repeat: El Nino is an associated climate phenomenon, and not a climate driver. The same remark should be valid for other phenomena like the AMO (I speak here of its non detrended variant).
Bindidon…”So I repeat: El Nino is an associated climate phenomenon, and not a climate driver”.
The 1998 EN drove the global average, not a local average, to 0.8C above the baseline in a few months. I would definitely call that a climate driver. EN and it’s partner LN are related to flooding and droughts over the entire planet.
Global climate is a multidecadal phenomenon. ENSO is an interannual weather fluctuation, often lasting less than a year.
Gordon Robertson says:
“…and CO2 warming could not possibly act that quickly.”
CO2 warming is immediate — as soon as the molecule is released into the atmosphere.
In fact, in just two months the CO2 produced by burning a gallon of gasoline radiatively blocks an amount of heat equal to the energy obtained by burning that gallon of gasoline. (David Archer)
Gordon is talking about a years worth of variation amounting to a few tenths of a degree. CO2 warming over a year (based on the long-term trend) is on the order of a few hundredths of a degree.
CO2 is definitely not responsible for the interannual fluctuations we see in the record. The long-term signal is utterly swamped at the time scale of a few months by internal variation (ENSO, etc).
That’s why you need long-term analysis to tease out any CO2 signal.
DA…”In fact, in just two months the CO2 produced by burning a gallon of gasoline radiatively blocks an amount of heat equal to the energy obtained by burning that gallon of gasoline”.
David…CO2 cannot block heat. Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules and to block heat you have to block the transfer of atoms and molecules. That’s what the glass in a greenhouse does.
In radiative heat transfer, infrared energy is the transporting medium, not the heat itself. Heat is related to atoms and localized to atoms, specifically to the electrons. If atoms radiated IR, they cool, case closed, unless something else maintains the heat level in the atoms like solar energy. The transfer occurs when IR is absorbed by other atoms, causing their energy levels to increase hence their temperature.
Heat in the radiator is not the same heat in the absorber. They are not the same atoms.
Physicist/meteorologist Craig Bohren referred to heat trapping by GHGs as a metaphor at best and at worst, plain silly.
barry…”Gordon is talking about a years worth of variation amounting to a few tenths of a degree”.
Not just that, Barry, I am referring to the 1.5C suddenly appearing after a strong El Nino and representing a positive anomaly that remained flat for 15 years.
I realize one has to be careful, with anomalies. The entire range of the UAH record could represent an overall warming and likely does. I am not debating that. In fact, when you select an average retroactively, such as the present UAH average of global temps from 1981 – 2010 then compare the overall data to that average, you have to be fully aware that you are not seeing a record of absolute temperatures.
There’s a dynamic in the data with anomalies that changes constantly. When the average changes with the data and time you have to be mighty careful.
Given that restriction, and trying to work within it, I think it’s vital to look closely at the data and try to tease out what it’s trying to tell you. In that respect, the sudden rise in 2001 to about 1.5 C above the 1981 – 2010 average is more than a simple variation.
Had the average carried on naturally with a positive trend from 1997 I could understand that. However, in between, there was a relatively massive, brief global warming. After the spike, the global average suddenly appeared above the baseline where it remained for at least 15 years.
That could be partly an artifact of the statistical analysis. As John Christy pointed out, the trend is like a see saw with one end of the range affecting the other.
I am not pushing this hiatus and smirking at alarmist, I want to understand what the heck is going on. There is something going on in the atmosphere and it chagrins me that some people are willing to write it off to something as simple as ACO2 warming.
The Tsonis et al study compared oceanic oscillations over a century and found a correlation between the phases of the oscillation. Global warming/cooling varied with the degree the oscillations were in or out of phase.
Not just that, Barry, I am referring to the 0.15C suddenly appearing after a strong El Nino
What?? That was directly after 2 years of a strong la Nina. 1999 and 2000 were la Nina years.
Gordon, we may have been through this before, but “heat” is used many different (and often self-contradictory ways) in various fields of science/engineering and various textbooks. As such, arguing about the meaning of heat is nearly pointless.
For example, every physics book I have read defines U = internal energy as the thermal energy WITHIN a system, while Q = heat is a process of transferring U from one region to another. With this very standard definition, there cannot be “heat, Q, in an object” any more than there can be “work, W, in an object”. With this standard definition, when EM radiation transfers energy from a warm area to a cooler area, it is indeed “heat” in the sense that any physicist would understand.
Yes — I have seen heat used the way you are using it (“Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules”). Sometimes this is done colloquially. Sometimes engineering texts do this. This is by NO MEANS a universal (nor even common!) definition of heat.
So rather than arguing semantics or the possible superiority of one definition over another, it is much better to argue the physics. And the physics clearly says that U of the warm surface decreases and U of the cooler GHG molecules in the atmosphere increases as Q in the form of IR travels from one to the other. And since that Q would have escaped to space without the GHGs, it seems perfectly understandable to say the GHGs blocked the Q (heat).
Gordon,
I am not pushing this hiatus and smirking at alarmist, I want to understand what the heck is going on. There is something going on in the atmosphere and it chagrins me that some people are willing to write it off to something as simple as ACO2 warming.
Fair comment. Ok. This is how I see it.
If CO2 and only CO2 influenced global surface temps we would see a monotonic rise, year on year in surface temps.
But there is plenty of variability within the climate system on annual, interannual and probably mutlidecadal scales.
So one should expect a bunch of fluctuations that drown out the CO2 signal.
ENSO can cause global temp swings of 0.2C and more. Volcanos similar. AMO and PDO may (may) play a role at multidecadal scales (causing long-term global temp change of a few tenths of a degree) and possibly other ocean/atmosphere energy exchanges. Solar fluctuation plays a role (probably very small, and drowned out by in-system processes: ie, the 11 year solar cycle is not evident in the global temperature record). Cloud cover plays a role. Ice albedo. And there are other anthropogenic inputs that may make a difference, like industrial aerosols and black carbon on snow. And other things not yet discovered.
If the globe were to warm by 3C over a century from CO2 (+feedbacks), then the rate would be 0.03 C/year.
ENSO influence alone is nearly ten times greater at 0.2C over a few months. So any CO2 signal over a year or two is utterly swamped by this interannual variation.
Most of the things mentioned above are cyclical or quasi cyclical, or fluctuations around a mean. They don’t create heat, just move it around.
So to uncover an underlying CO2 signal, one would need a fairly long period of time. Obviously one year is way too short. So how long is long enough?
If ocean/atmosphere cycles can be as long as 60 years (one full cycle) then you’d need at least 60 years.
But the CO2 signal should be strong enough to emerge from that in less time, probably 30 years.
There are numerous statistical tests done to try and establish a time-frame long enough that natural fluctuations cancel out and get a fair average that’s not too susceptible to them if they happen to have a different evolution over the period. The results centre on about 30 years. This is the classic climate period for global climate given by the WMO.
And that’s why trends over shorter periods should be treated (statistically) with great caution. They may not reflect the underlying, long-term trend. The bit of the IPCC you refer to on the slowdown 1998-2012 comes with this exact caveat.
As skeptics well understand, the 2016 el Nino bumps up the trend since 1998. I think we all agree that such a short time period trend is susceptible to how temperature evolves over a few months. So a trend analysis is giving more weight then, to short term influences than any long-term signal.
One could try to numerically account for the degree of influence these natural variations have and remove that to discern the underlying trend. There are studies that ave attempted this, which, of course, reduce the interannual variability (the ‘noise’) in the data and thus the uncertainty in the resulting trends.
But this is a tricky operation.
It’s easier just to use a long-term period, where the fluctuations cancel out.
For instance, if I run a linear trend from 1950 to 2014, and then compare that with a trend from 1950 to Dec 2016, the difference will be tiny. The 2016 el Nino has a tiny effect on the trend at this length. But run a trend from, say 2002 to 2014, and then again to Dec 2016 and the difference is much more pronounced.
Because at short time-periods, annual variation (weather) has a larger influence.
There’s no reason to expect global temperature evolution should be linear. It isn’t. Linear trend analyses give us an idea of the overall change, but doesn’t do much for details.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Heat is the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules and to block heat you have to block the transfer of atoms and molecules. Thats what the glass in a greenhouse does.”
I dare you to stick your hand in front of an infrared laser.
Tim Folkerts says, April 5, 2017 at 1:54 PM:
I wonder, exactly what Q are the “GHGs” blocking?
If there were no atmosphere (or “GHGs”), the average Q_in from the Sun to the global sfc would be, say, 300 W/m^2. In a steady state, the Q_out from the sfc (all radiative) would balance this. So: 300 IN, 300 OUT.
With an atmosphere (or “GHGs”), the average Q_in from the Sun to the global sfc is ~165 W/m^2, while the Q_in through the ToA is ~240 W/m^2. In a steady state, the Q_out from the sfc (only partially radiative), and the Q_out from the ToA (all radiative), would both balance these values. So: 165 IN, 165 OUT (sfc); 240 IN, 240 OUT (ToA).
The average Q_rad (‘net lw’) escaping the global sfc of the Earth is ~53 W/m^2. The average Q_rad (=Q_out) (OLR) escaping the global ToA, however, is ~240 W/m^2, more than 4.5 times the intensity of the sfc Q_rad.
So how exactly are the “GHGs” blocking sfc Q from escaping to space?
Kristian says: “If there were no atmosphere (or GHGs) …
These two different options (no atmosphere vs no GHGs). You seem to be comparing the CURRENT conditions on earth to an earth with NO ATMOSPHERE at all. I am comparing the CURRENT conditions on earth to an earth with NO GHGs. To me this is the more logical pairing to compare.
So if we kept everything else the same, but magically removed just the CO2, then the 40 W/m^2 in the “atmospheric window” of Trenberth’s diagram would increase because we basically made the “window” bigger. Some of the IR from the surface that would have been absorbed by the atmosphere will now escape to space.
“So how exactly are the GHGs blocking sfc Q from escaping to space?”
Well, I think I just explained it. The GHGs in earth’s current atmosphere block some of the current surface IR from escaping.
[In fact, look just at the 15 um band. Even with YOUR comparison, there is less 15 um IR escaping now than there would be with no atmosphere at all. So again, CO2 would be reducing this particular sort of IR, while increasing other wavelengths of IR.]
Tim Folkerts says, April 9, 2017 at 5:55 PM:
Yes, I gave you that option. It makes no difference.
We’re not talking about IR from the surface, Tim. We’re talking about HEAT [Q] from the surface.
What are you referring to here? The calculated 398 W/m^2 “IR flux”? Or the actual average radiant heat flux of ~53 W/m^2?
If you’re referring to the latter, then I must ask you to read my comment and my question to you once more. In what way are the “GHGs” blocking any sfc Q from escaping!?
If you’re referring to the former, then that’s not sfc heat, Tim, and you know that. This whole (nonsensical) idea of 398 W/m^2 going out from the surface, but only 240 getting to escape through the ToA to space, that’s NOT about the “GHGs” blocking surface Q from escaping. Is that what you think?
But is this surface HEAT, Tim? Think about it. Are you in fact as confused as Norman on this issue …? Or are you just pretending to be?
“Look how averaging laughable four grid cells gives, for the 1997/98 El Nino, the same data as what is obtained from the 9,504 cells!”
Stop the presses! Somebody rediscovered the Intermediate Value Theorem.
Is this the beginning of a cooling trend?
Probably not. One month’s change seldom has predictive value.
And your probably correct. Thanks for your comment. Here in QLD Australia we had our WARMEST March 2017 ON RECORD.
The QLD state of Australia is most subject to EL Nino/LA Nina trends one or another then ANY OTHER PART of our globe! A great indicator of our coming from EL Nino heat.
And might add that additional heat does not come from fairies or some cloud formation unknown that allows more sunlight in.
This cooling trend is “normal” after an El Nino spike but I would want ALL here to look at the graph of MINIMUM trends and BELOW the line MINIMUM trends – they ALL TREND upward.
Many who just follow their own herd mentality are simply not aware of deduction of EL Nino welling up of global temperatures. Climate scientist have taken in account the El Nino spikes and there is STILL a warming trend that punctuates through variability of climate.
Might I add, those implied CYCLES that justify an ideological non-action on global warming as government policy to mitigate. We are definitely warming and regardless of implied saturation of the effect greenhouse gases and other unknown conjecture of cooling cloud formations – the warming pattern will continue way beyond our own century of denials.
But warming is good, Mr. Projector. Bring it on.
Good for whom?
Good for what? 50 degrees C that hit crops and killed them off? Category Cyclonic activities (over land that are greater intensity). Flooding damage to many cities and town costing billions of dollars. Crop failures, cattle drowning, Rainfalls off the chart, pressure gradients of cooler eastern colliding with hot inland heat that generates storm cells with damaging hail, flash flooding, crop damage and home owner damage. You are living Disneyland if thin a warming world is all good.
Maybe in a Roy Spencer and a climate denier world of that global warming cannot be increasing bad news and lead to greater damage to our way of life.
“Ross Brisbane says:”
Your wild projections are not based on mainstream science. Estimates of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration have been decreasing except in your fervid imagination.
Get a grip, Ross of Brisbane. I say your temperature peaks are due to a combination of cyclic drought and wind across the Northern Territory depositing heat in Queensland, but it’s near impossible to isolate it from the effects of the Milankovitch Cycles and our planetary system bobbing up and down through our galaxy’s dust spirals. [SMH]
Get a grip on yourself. Do you really know what we in Australia have really been through over the last 6 months?
No heat does not come from fairies. It comes from additional energy in the climatic system. Battery storage maybe?
Your BS about dust clouds and far out speculations come from the minds of wingnut theory.
A far easier recognition of real science and the physics of CO2 energy conservation is far more credible then your spaced out junk.
As we move into summer the lack of sea ice in the Arctic has less of an effect. This should have a negative influence on the global anomaly. We haven’t had a real La Nina (except in the 3.4 region) so the overall impact of ENSO on global temperature has been small for the past 6 months and that shouldn’t change much.
I’d say to trend should be down until next fall and by then ENSO should be better understood than it is now and can then be factored in.
As we move into summer the lack of sea ice in the Arctic has less of an effect.
This seems backwards. Moving into summer the sun comes up over the Arctic, and any changes in albedo (ice cover) have a greater effect when the sun rises.
Probably not since we are not in La Nina territory.
ENSO is currently slightly positive, and if anything the prospects of having a double EL Nino appear stronger than the next phase being a La Nina.
Further, the satellite data appears more sensitive to El Ninos than it does to La Nina. Perhaps this is due to convection. Whatever the explanation, for there to be significant cooling in the short term, one would probably need a return to La Nina conditions.
Further, the satellite data appears more sensitive to El Ninos than it does to La Nina.
When looking at a superposition of NINO3+4 (scaled and shifted) with two UAH6.0 plots (Globe, ENSO area)
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170404/rlm7k5ik.jpg
I would rather say that the correlation between them is by no means evident as usually pretended (excepted for the Ninos in 1998 and 2016).
If you take into account volcanoes in 82 and 91, the correlation I think is good
Further, the satellite data appears more sensitive to El Ninos than it does to La Nina.
Is this different to the surface data sets?
It may be that la Ninas are generally less intense than el Ninos. Checking the various ENSO indices, this looks to be the case.
Yes! Get ready! Those nut job alarmists better come up with another excuse to explain the cooling quick before there agenda gets torn into a million pieces! The clock is ticking! Don’t let warmies like dr roy spencer throw you off! The sun is and always will be the primary controller of climate change not mankind! El Nio is coming back and the temperature is still cooling. Ocean currents have nothing to do with average global temps! Global cooling is here and is only going to get worse through the early 2030s and maybe even 2040s just as history tells is back in the 1800s and 1600s with the dalton and Maunder Minimum!
As for you dr spencer. I believed in you but you have betrayed all of us who tell the truth about climate change. I am ashamed of you. Hopefully the next few years of global temp decline will convince you what is really controlling the earths climate. Good luck in the scientific community.
Signed
ClimateChange4realz
Dr. Spencer “betrayed” you. Are you delusional? Dr. Spencer never set himself up as a climate prophet in the manner of your Hansens and Gores. On the contrary, Dr. Spencer has always exhibited scientific humility in pursuing the overwhelmingly complex question of the earth’s climate. You are the one that should be ashamed.
Robert, there is no question. The sun is and will always be the main influence on the earths changing climate with or without the help of mans puny contribution to the climate system. Read my comment below this that disproves the man made global warming myth and feel free to do your own research. If you have any further questions or counter arguments that are actually scientific related then i will be happy to serve you.
Here is the comment:
ClimateChange4realz
April 5, 2017
For those of you who want to know the truth about climate change read this comment!
To answer your questions Tony:
Answer: good question Tony. The reason for this is because there is also short term climate affects and shorter variabilitys in the climate buget such as blocking of radiation from major volcanic plumes such as the one in the early 1900s. Short term positive feedback loops such such as brief recovery spikes which are common in the climate system after steep short term drops and shorter solar cycles which also cause much of the short term variability. The sun is the main role in climate and causes over 90% of the climate change here on earth in the long term. Cycles range on the order of tens of thousands of years to as little as 6-8 years. The cycle that is going to have most of an affect on our life time is the 200 year bicentennial cycle and the 30-40 year schwibe cycle. Right now the past 200 years of warming induced solar cycles have reversed themselves and the earth is about to go through a major cooling possibly as bad as in the early 1600s in the middle of the little ice age. The cooling affects should be noticible to all towards the bottom of this 6-8 year solar cycle 25/26. Around the year 2022. The magnetosphere has already been getting substantially weaker allowing more cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere causing greater cloud cover and more albedo and reflection of UV rays. Also causes the flow to shift which is what is really responsible for these wacky weather patterns we are having. This is because as the jet stream moves out of place and flows mix the jet stream gets stuck causing major high pressure and low pressure areas to stall causing warmer and then cooler then normal temps as well. An example will be the warm winter in the southeast causing the cherry blossoms to bloom early and then freeze in march due to an unexpected hard freeze which can have gargantuan effects on reducing agricultural growing zones and causing food prices to increase. As for humans affects on the climate. They have such a small impact as co2 makes up only about 9-18% of the total ghg affect but humans emissions from fossil fuels make up less then 3% of that. Its role on climate variability in the atmosphere can also explain how much co2 concentration ppm in the atmosphere as well which is a whooping 0.04%! The earth has been warming over the past 100 years but is due to changes in solar activity not increase man made co2 which is really a substantial plant fertilizer to many plants as many have learned in elementary school! Dont let the alarmists fool you on there predictions! All 72 iPCC models have been predicting global warming for the past 19 years now when there hasnt been any! something AGW alarmists love to stay away from! What about the prediction about the glaciers melting? WRONG 62 of the worlds glaciers have actually been on an increase. What about the Greenland ice cap melting? WRONG! Its been growing at a record pace blowing away many records. What about the artic ice cap that wa supposed to be gone by 2013 according to our good old pal al gore? STILL THERE! Sorry al! What about the scientists who predicted that in 1998 the earth would plummet into a giant ice age causing food shortages and human extinction! WRONG! Why am I still alive? What about the city of manhattan will be under water by the end of the 1900s. WRONG! What about an increasing number in Atlantic hurricanes? WRONG! In fact 2014 just a few years ago was one of the questist on record! What about the moron in the early 2000s who claimed snow will be a thing of the past and children wont know what snow is! WRONG! The past few winters were one of the snowiest on record for the eastern US and this year the western US got there slice of the pie. What about an increase in the amount of summer heat waves? WRONG! Summer heatwaves have been much worse in the 1930s then this! What about the claim of increase storminess? WRONG! Although the past few years have been seeing more storms due to increase in galactic cosmic rays penetrating the earths atmosphere the long term trend shows storm and flood related deaths on a decline over the past 100 years when the earth was supposedly warming. What about the Antarctic ice cap melting into oblivion? WRONG! Although the Antarctic ice cap saw some decline this year mainly due to an increase in under water volcanic activity and shift in ocean currents NOT man kinds co2 emissions! the past couple years before it (2014 and 2015) have seen record sea ice extent blown away! What about all the polar bears drowning and dying? WRONG! Polar bear population has been increasing dramatically! What about the drought that was supposed to happen in California? WRONG! Record rain that broke a huge dam earlier in the year and record rain 2015-2016 year as well mainly due to strong El Nio! Take the scam for what it is and dont believe in any of it! Have any other questions feel free to ask. I will be back shortly to provide links to support my claims as a real scientist would do!
Here are all of the links:
Here is the adapt 2030 YouTube channel to get you ready for where the earths climate is really headed! I reccomend you watch all of the movies in order. (Oldest to newest)
http://tinyurl.com/n35uwzw
Here is a list of videos by a YouTuber 1000 frolly. Watch all the videos to receive full education on why the sun is the main controller of the climate not mans co2 emissions from fossil fuels:
http://tinyurl.com/kq7nfyj
Another video disproving man made co2 myth
https://m.youtube.com/watch
v=_u81qXOYfKg
Marc Maranos climate hustle documentary recommend for starters:
http://tinyurl.com/kl2x82q
great global warming swindle (video) recommended for beginners
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fa32O3GFQ
Sorry that third link came out wrong here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/logcu44
No surprise, I expected temperatures to crater during the first half of this year as they regress back towards the mean before the developing El Nio’s influence kicks in later on. We’ll remain ENSO-neutral through the end of summer so there is more cooling still left to occur.
The result is in line with Global Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies which have flat-lined recently:
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/global.png
The Tropical Storm season (2016/2017) in the Southern Hemisphere is shaping up to be the quietest in fifty years:
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical.php
Well remain ENSO-neutral through the end of summer so there is more cooling still left to occur.
ENSO has been in a cool phase since July last year and has warmed recently. 3 of the past 5 months have been warmer than the previous month. It’s impossible to predict what will happen yet.
While ENSO 3.4 has been cool, the 1-2 region has been warm. Globally they have probably cancelled each other out giving us fairly neutral conditions.
The 1-2 area is much smaller than 3-4. At this end of the climb down from peak el Nino, various other factors around the globe will have have influence.
El Nino is not the only property affecting short-term global temps. It tends to dominate during Nino/Nina events, but shouldn’t be mistaken for the sole cause of interannual fluctuations.
“Its impossible to predict what will happen yet.”
Hardly. You can predict anything. It just might be wrong.
However, with the AMO firmly in a negative phase, and the PDO crashing down, the likelihood is that Kevin is correct, and there will be continued cooling for the next couple of decades.
Bart, I’ll bet you $500 that the average global temperature for the 2030s will be higher than that for 2010s. (Baring a huge volcanic eruption or large meteor impact.)
I anticipate that by the 2030’s, you will be a distant memory.
No kidding!? The current real world observable warming trend is about 0.15 degrees centigrade per decade. I fully expect 100 years from now that 2120 will be about 1.5C warmer than today! Whoopee-doo!!!
Want to make a $500 bet!? 2120 will be less than 2 degrees centigrade warmer than today.
I anticipate that by 2030 $500 may be will buy you a burger and fries, or possibly not
Bart, I knew you didn’t have what it takes to put your money where your mouth is.
Obama says:
“The current real world observable warming trend is about 0.15 degrees centigrade per decade. I fully expect 100 years from now that 2120 will be about 1.5C warmer than today! Whoopee-doo!!!”
a) why do you expect the rate to stay constant?
b) why do you think 1.5 C is irrelevant?
c) what is the difference in average global surface temperature between an ice age glacial period and an interglacial?
(A: 5 C = 2 miles of ice over Chicago)
PDO come crashing down? It had been in a declining phase since the mid-80s and just ticked up with the new el Nino.
http://tinyurl.com/lkb7k7p
You predict that the cycle is about to go back down again fairly immediately, Bart?
Un-smooth it. Then, compare the latest blip to 1960. Yeah, I expect a crash in the not too distant future.
If I unsmooth it I don’t see cycles, I see irregular fluctuations.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1900
Flattish to late 1930s, then a parabola from 1940 to 1980. 40 year *cycle*.
If that parabolic curve is *the* cycle, then we have another 3 years of warm temps to peak, then a decade of still warmer temps but heading into a trough, which will bottom out (crash) around 1940.
I wonder if your eyes and mine see the same thing.
Gathering all you’ve said before, if AMO ad PDO coincide to trough at the same time, then global temps should be roughly what they were the last time this happened in 1970-ish (and possibly 1920-ish).
http://tinyurl.com/lpudvh6
I’ll plot a 5-year moving average of decadal temp data centred on the 1920 and 1970. Semi-arbitrary choice to give us some idea of the mean temps around 1920 and 1970.
http://tinyurl.com/lss64m2
Fairly different decadal average, warmer for 1970.
I’ve linked to the site rather than the image in case you want to make different choices (based on concurrent troughs/peaks AMO/PDO). I realize you may not agree with mine, and so you’re most welcome to adjust as you see fit and present the results.
Someone has, with a few tweaks, fit the number of pirates in the world to global temperature since the 1880s.
http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pirates-chart.png
My eyeball tells me that rising global temperatures is caused by a decrease in the number of pirates.
I mean, it’s pretty obvious! Just use your eyes for crying out loud!
http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/analytics-optimization/beware-pirates-big-data/
Barry, good point; was wondering when someone would get around to that comparo. Someone wrote a song about lying eyes.
Such pitiful flailing.
But the decrease in pirates is good for us right Bart? Less pirates good, more pirates bad. You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes. Those lyrics are so true even today.
The PDO doesn’t create heat, it just moves it around. Obviously.
David Appell says, April 7, 2017 at 6:08 PM:
Does it? Do you even know what the PDO is?
This is interesting. How would a fluctuating ocean/atmosphere exchange of heat create heat by itself?
barry, did I say the PDO creates ‘heat’?
No, Appell stated that the PDO moves ‘heat’ around, and I asked him: Does it indeed?
The PDO doesn’t create ‘heat’ and it doesn’t move ‘heat’ around either. If Appell (and you) only knew what the PDO really is, then this would be a non-issue.
The PDO isn’t itself a physical phenomenon. It is an index tracking the fluctuations around a mean value of a very particular SSTa pattern (one of several!) in the extra-tropical North Pacific. It is merely a manifestation of certain large-scale physical mechanisms at work in – mainly – the Pacific basin.
The absurd inconsistency of DA’s statement can be revealed simply by turning it around on him: CO2 doesn’t create heat, it just moves it around.
I know what the PDO is, Kristian, though the causes are not well understood.
The PDO index is physically based – on sea surface temperatures in the eastern and Western Pacific North of lat 20. It has a cool and warm phase with opposite effects in those regions.
Sure looks like “heat” being moved around to me. But maybe your quibble is semantic.
It’s possible that it is a fluctuation rather than a cycle, like ENSO, but over longer time scales. We have barely 2 ‘cycles’, so regular periodicity is not proven.
I sometimes ponder what the UAH temperature chart would look like if we didn’t have the El Chichn and Mt Pinatubo eruptions.
I guess you have to Roy, haven’t you?
Hkan says:
April 3, 2017 at 8:07 AM
It is very well possible to extract such events out of a temperature time series.
Unfortunately, the two author groups who managed to do it extracted the ENSO signals before (the goal was to show what remains in a time series when you strip off ENSO signals AND volcano eruptions).
Here is that of Santer et al. (2014):
http://tinyurl.com/ksoytkl
There is, afaik, no residual time series resulting from solely extracting SAOD changes due to eruptions.
As el Chichon happened around the same time as an el Nino, that would change the profile from a trough to a small peak. For Pinatubo, just remove the trough. The difference re long-term trend would be quite minimal.
What’s even more interesting is removing all the ENSO active months from the data. If you just plot the neutral for the last 20 years you get nearly a perfectly flat line. No warming at all.
I’d like to ask a question about your method.
As peak global temps lag peak ENSO events by 4-5 months, did you account for this lag when selecting monthly global temps?
I don’t think 9 years worth of actual data points is going to be very useful, but did you take this step when assessing the trend?
That’s equivalent to about 9 years worth of actual data points isn’t it?
It’s the same temperature now and mid 1980’s. What’s the big fuss about? 🙂
The trend rate.
Yes right. It warmed since it cooled….
It cooled from 1940 to 1975. (pre-manipulated) So the trend is flat over 75 years correct?
You have instantly changed the subject to data obviously not included in the data set used in the graph above. I infer that you understand both the big fuss and the trend rate perfectly well indeed.
I’m with you Elliot. Forgive me… I just more frustrated than usual this morning over this non issue of global warming..
Non-issue, eh?: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/
And by the way, the most recent yearly moving average is a full 0.7K above that shown for 1985.
In a few months, that trend line will likely be at .4 degrees Celsius above average over the last 40 years…which is much less than was predicted…by an order of 4 or 5.
As far as your website…the only real thing they bring up is that global warming increases the number of natural disasters, which was already debunked Roger Pielke by actual science and measurement.
Google his testimony to congress on youtube if you dare…
Mark says:
“Its the same temperature now and mid 1980s. Whats the big fuss about?”
No it isn’t.
1984-1986 averaged -0.27 C relative to UAH’s baseline (v6.0).
So far this year 2017 has averaged +0.28 C.
2014-2016 averaged +0.31 C.
CO2 levels have risen for 35 years, but UAH values indicate no statistically meaningful warming.
There is no discernible linkage of temps to CO2.
Maybe it’s time to re-think the AGW “theory”….
What is the level of significance for the warming shown? Give the trend-rate and coefficient of determination to two decimal places and show your working, please.
To show significance, one would have to separate out “natural variability”.
Dr. Spencer,
I followed Climate.reanalyzer last month and noticed that, as usual, the arctic was much warmer than the rest of the globe. Wondering if temps over the Arctic are accurately weighted in the UAH model?
Of course they are.
While UAH6.0’s TLT trend for the Globe is 0.12 C / decade for 1979-2016 , that for the Arctic is 0.25 (RSS 3.3 TLT shows even more: 0.35 C / decade).
Bindidon: “Of course they are”
So why does RSS show significantly more warming in the arctic than UAH?
I don’t know, Snape.
RSS 4.0 TTT, presented by the RSS team as the valuable alternative to RSS 3.3 TLT, shows
— 0.18 C / decade for the Globe (what is way above UAH6.0, higher than GISTEMP)
but
— 0.27 for the Arctic (what is quite near to UAH6.0).
All depends on which satellites you use, how you compensate their drifts, how you average their outputs.
In comparison to that, surface “adjustments” seem quite a bit more transparent.
I asked the question because I remember reading somewhere that the satellites have great coverage everywhere except the poles.
1. UAH’s 2.5 deg grid does not contain valuable data below 82.5 S nor above 82.5 N
2. In the document ‘http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/docs/readme.msu’ you read:
ALSO BE CAUTIOUS USING LT AND MT OVER HIGH TERRAIN ( >1500 M)
The areas of poor anomaly values are : Tibetian Plateau,
Antarctica, Greenland and the narrow spine of the Andes.
Depending on how much of these areas are neglected, the
coverage should be about 97-98% of the globe.
Bindidon…”UAHs 2.5 deg grid does not contain valuable data below 82.5 S nor above 82.5 N…”
yes…but the temps shown are direct measurements from AMSU units and not statistical calculations from NOAA models.
BTW, the NOAA sats from which UAH get their data contradicts their model-fudged surface records.
Bindidon…”While UAH6.0s TLT trend for the Globe is 0.12 C / decade…”
Still hung up on imposing a straight line trend where it does not belong???
UAH has to supply a statistical trend over the range but the trend tells you absolutely nothing about true warming or it’s cause.
Gordon Robertson says:
April 4, 2017 at 2:10 AM
Bindidon’While UAH6.0s TLT trend for the Globe is 0.12 C / decade’
Still hung up on imposing a straight line trend where it does not belong???
What’s the matter with you???
How can you pretend that?
This, Gordon Robertson, is the exact information provided by UAH in their public data file:
http://tinyurl.com/jrx6wcn
If you aren’t even able to look at such a trivial information: why then do you write comments here?
Indeed – the linear trends are given by UAH at the link Bindidon provides – to the UAH data portal. They are at the bottom of the page under each zone: global, NH, SH, tropics, Arctic, Antarctic, etc.
Bindidon…”This, Gordon Robertson, is the exact information provided by UAH in their public data file…”
Not debating that. UAH is required to give a statistical analysis based on the data. When stating a trend, they can’t hem and haw, science requires they state it statistically based on the overall set of data points.
That’s a well known problem with straight averages.
However, when you claim a trend of 0.12C/decade over 3.5 decades and claim there is also a flat trend of 18 years over the latter 2 decades, approximately, the inquisitive mind might ask why.
It’s in the numbers. If you plug all the data into a statistical averaging algorithm without questioning the various contexts from which the data was taken, you’ll get 0.12C/decade. However, when you try to account for the 18 year flat trend, you have to put the numbers aside and ask why.
Using endpoints on the range alone, you would likely get 0.12C/decade. That does not explain the 18 year flat trend, so you have to go back and draw a trend from 1979 – late 1997 then a flat trend from there on.
What does that work out to per decade? If you understand that you might understand why Obama and NOAA worked so hard at making the flat trend disappear.
However, when you claim a trend of 0.12C/decade over 3.5 decades and claim there is also a flat trend of 18 years over the latter 2 decades, approximately, the inquisitive mind might ask why.
As you’ve been answered on that dozens of times, you clearly lack an inquisitive mind.
No, you have no curiosity whatsoever about this. Your mind is closed. And obviously there’s no use explaining yet again. You have your pet answer and are deaf to anything that speaks against it.
No, any linear trend type is statistically significant over the full satellite record (and the last 35 years).
Which is completely explained by the influence of ocean cycles.
Ah, the science is settled then.
barry…”No, any linear trend type is statistically significant over the full satellite record (and the last 35 years)”.
Please explain the IPCC claim of no statistical warming trend over the 15 years from 1998 – 2012.
While you’re at it, explain the lack of a trend for 18 years on the UAH data and their claim of little or no warming for 35 years of the record.
How do you get a linear trend over the 35 years unless it’s pure number crunching?. There’s an obvious discontinuity at 1998 when the flat trend began.
Please explain the IPCC claim of no statistical warming trend over the 15 years from 1998 2012.
We’ve done this to death with neither of us satisfied.
While youre at it, explain the lack of a trend for 18 years on the UAH data
One answer is that interannual variability kept temps depressed, magnified by using such a time period.
Short answer is that the uncertainty precludes a claim of deviation in trend post-1998. IPCC also mention that – something I’ve quoted nearly a dozen times, for you, and which never seems to have pierced your mind.
How do you get a linear trend over the 35 years unless its pure number crunching?
The same way IPCC did it to give you the post-1998 trend you keep harping on about.
If you’re going to reject the trend analysis for the whole record, then you must reject the IPCC trend from 1998 to 2012.
It’s the same number-crunching.
So are you going to accept the “number-crunching” for the IPCC trend rates (and therefore mine for the whole record), or reject my number crunching and therefore also the IPCC’s trend analysis?
Be consistent. You can’t have it both ways.
Gordon Robertson says:
“While youre at it, explain the lack of a trend for 18 years on the UAH data and their claim of little or no warming for 35 years of the record.”
Why do you do this Gordon?
Your 18-year claim is false, as I’ve told you many times. The other claim is also false.
Do you not read replies? Do you not know how to calculate trends? Are you a pathological liar?
I can’t think of any other possibilities. So which is it?
Gordon Robertson says:
April 4, 2017 at 2:15 AM
How do you get a linear trend over the 35 years unless its pure number crunching?. Theres an obvious discontinuity at 1998 when the flat trend began.
I think it’s time for me to stop reading comments written by this Gordon Robertson: he even doesn’t know anything about simplest trend computations.
Here is the linear trend calculated for the UAH6.0 TLT time series for the period 1979 till now:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170404/r28twetw.png
barry…”Its the same number-crunching.
So are you going to accept the number-crunching for the IPCC trend rates (and therefore mine for the whole record), or reject my number crunching and therefore also the IPCCs trend analysis?”
Neither Barry. I want to do science. John Christy has referred to the complexity of the atmosphere and the over-simplification of the AGW model. I think we are scratching the surface and I have a lot of questions that are not being answered.
If you want to draw a trend line from 1979 – 2016, I have no argument you’ll find an indication of warming. I’ll even give you the benefit of the doubt that it’s significant. What I cannot accept is drawing the line in the first place because it has no meaning.
Even Hansen admitted the surface record has little meaning due to the variations in temperatures over a few feet above the surface. You simply cannot install a thermometer in a housing at a fixed distance above the surface and think it will tell you anything meaningful. That’s especially true when those housing can be up to 1200 miles apart.
I think this todo about global warming is politically based. It doesn’t interest me, I am interested in the physical causes and how they actually relate to the planet. At the same time, I have an interest in resisting the political correctness that has crept into science.
I think science should be debated not sermonized from a podium.
“No, any linear trend type is statistically significant over the full satellite record (and the last 35 years).”
Nonsense. To compute a measure of statistical significance, you must have a model that matches the data, with a valid autocorrelation for processes which influence the estimate for the quantity in question.
There is no such information available. When people proffer some fictional estimate of statistical significance, they are invariably assuming arbitrary models that they dreamed up with no connection to reality.
The “model” is simple this:
radiative forcing of CO2 = constant*ln(CO2/initial CO2)
AGW temperature change = constant*(radiative forcing change)
CO2 is increasing exponentially.
Hence AGW temperature change is expected to be linear.
Are you saying you have no idea what the trend of global temperature is, Bart?
I believe you’ve said that warming has slowed down since 1998. But how can you claim such a thing when you also say there is no trend analysis that can account properly for the uncertainty? Shouldn’t your view, then, be that we simply don’t know how global temperature has evolved, because we can’t model properly for uncertainty?
“CO2 is increasing exponentially.”
No, it isn’t. It only took off significantly in the mid-20th century. It showed positive curvature in the late 20th because temperatures were rising. It leveled off to roughly linear increase when temperatures leveled off. It will decelerate when temperatures decline.
Your model is unvalidated, and you are begging the question.
“Are you saying you have no idea what the trend of global temperature is, Bart?”
I am saying that global temperature anomaly does not fit the model of a linear trend.
You are saying that there is no model for global temps that gives us any information about uncertainty. Yet you confidently tell us what the evolution of global temperature is over various time frames, including the last 20 years.
Either you know of a sufficient model to back up your claims so that you don’t caveat them with uncertainties, or you don’t know of a valid model for trend analysis and you should rescind all those claims.
If there is a good model for determining uncertainty, what is it?
“If there is a good model for determining uncertainty, what is it?”
I know of none that have been done for the climate. I could create one, but I already have a job.
“Yet you confidently tell us what the evolution of global temperature is over various time frames, including the last 20 years.”
General properties are visible by inspection. Hard numbers… that’s a different ball game.
Ah, you’ve never done the analysis for uncertainty according to a model you haven’t yet developed. I think you should include this caveat whenever making claims about the evolution of observed global temperature.
You make no sense, Barry. It’s like the following surreal conversation:
Bart: Wow, that car is really zooming by.
Barry: How do you know? Did you clock it?
Bart: No, I just looked, and it went whoosh! Right on by.
Barry: But, you didn’t actually get the speed?
Bart: What’s your point?
Barry: In this graph, the slope of its postion versus time is not all that steep.
Bart: That’s just in the vertical dimension. You have to look at more than one dimension.
Barry: It’s statistically significant.
Bart: That is beside the point. You are applying an inappropriate model that consists only of vertical movement. I was standing on the road, and watched it go past, and it was really moving.
Barry: But, you don’t have a numerical value.
Bart: I was there. I was right there. And, it was moving fast.
Barry: But, you refuse to quantify it.
Bart: Why would I need to quantify it? One instant it was there, the next, varoom! Vanished down the road.
Barry: I don’t think you can quantity it.
Bart: What would be the point?
Barry: Ah, then you haven’t done the analysis.
Bart: ???
Barry: As I suspected.
Bart and barry
You two aren’t working together to produce a climate change comedy routine are you??
To reply to the analogy I want to know how fast the car is going, and specifically whether it accelerated while we observed it. You say it did, but the acceleration was less after it passed us (we’re standing on a point marked “1998”).
Fortunately, we have a speedometer that records velocity at regular time intervals.
But you don’t want to analyse the speedometer data to verify that the car’s acceleration decreased after it passed us.
Judge: Can you verify that the acceleration rate changed?
Bart: No, m’lud. But I saw it with my own eyes.
Judge: You have instruments that measure the velocity of the car over time?
Bart: Yes m’lud, but it’s too onerous.
Judge: You have the means to verify what you are charging but can’t be bothered to do so?
Bart: I’m doing this pro bono.
Judge: Case dismissed.
Bart says:
“No, it isnt”
It certainly is. The decadal averages are increasing faster than linearly.
“It only took off significantly in the mid-20th century. It showed positive curvature in the late 20th because temperatures were rising. It leveled off to roughly linear increase when temperatures leveled off. It will decelerate when temperatures decline.”
Why would it decline when we are pumping 40 billion tons of it into the atmosphere every year?
“Why would it decline when we are pumping 40 billion tons of it into the atmosphere every year?”
Because that is just a drop in the bucket compared to natural flows, and has little impact.
[CO2] showed positive curvature in the late 20th because temperatures were rising. It leveled off to roughly linear increase when temperatures leveled off.
Let’s get some visuals on this. Eyeballometer is, after all, the best metric.
CO2 1959 to present
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:12/trend
Late 20th Century
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1975/to:1997/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1975/to:1997/mean:12/trend
Post 1998
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1999/to:2016/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1999/to:2016/trend
The two periods look roughly linear – no clear positive curvature for “late 20th century.” The period is vague enough to be a movable feast. There’s some positive curvature for the latter period, but slight.
Comparative rates for the prior and latter period:
1975-1997: 1.54 ppm/yr
1999-2015: 2.04 ppm/yr
Now, if there’s no acceleration (positive curvature) for the latter period, we should see a dead flat line on differentiated CO2.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1999/to:2016/mean:12/derivative/plot/esrl-co2/from:1999/to:2016/mean:12/derivative/trend
Slope is positive, but we must caveat it’s unlikely to be statistically significant with that much variability.
Comparative trend rates in acceleration:
Whole record: 0.00237404 per year
1975 – 1997: basically zero*
1999 – 2015: 0.00304113 per year
The rates are copied and pasted from the source. Obviously that many decimal places is unnecessary, but I wanted to give the figures as they were.
Acceleration is greatest in the latter period. Caveats apply.
* Direct copy and paste from source yielded: 4.40372e-05 per year
For the full period of the UAH temp record (38 years, 3 months) the warming is statistically significant.
0.124 C/decade (+/- 0.062)
Total mean warming since 1979 is 0.47 C.
This is the lowest trend of all the major global temp data sets.
Now compare the last 38-year UAH record to the UAH record from 1900 to 1938.
That might be something interesting.
☺
There were no satellites operating at that time, JDHuffman.
I wonder if the “smiley face” means anything….
It does, JDHuffman! It even did.
But I have learned to keep quite serious with persons behaving skeptic wrt climate change of whatsoever origin.
Ah, you’re not serious. My mistake.
If the satellites used in the UAH model have poor coverage over the arctic, and the arctic is where most of the warming is occurring, then that is obviously a big problem.
Snape.
The area above 82.5 degrees not covered by UAH is a minuscule fraction (less than 1%)of the earth’s area so it is obvious that it is not a big problem.
It’s not obvious, since this is one of the fastest warming regions… and it’s left out.
But if you remove the influence of ENSO you get no warming over the past 20 years when nearly 40% of all CO2 emissions occurred and at the highest CO2/CH4 concentrations ever measured.
Remove the influences of ENSO over the past 20 years and I’m guessing there was still lots of warming in the arctic. So if satellites have poor coverage over the poles then, as I mentioned, that would be a problem for the UAH data set.
ENSO is currently neutral, but according to the most recent numbers from Climate Reanalyzer, the arctic has an anomaly of +4.4 C.
(It’s been crazy warm there for months.) So if UAH data, because of poor satellite coverage, under represents the arctic…..?
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png
Is the 2016 El Nino was?
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inino5_1979:2017_2000:2017.png
The ice in the Central Arctic.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r11_Central_Arctic_ts_4km.png
Bering Sea
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r12_Bering_Sea_ts_4km.png
The satellite go to 85N
The area above 85N is less than 3% of the area above 60N.
It is not going to make any difference.
Yes, Snape, there is a lot of warming in the Arctic over the past 20 years even as global temperatures have stayed flat. That means the rest of the planet has cooled. Think about it.
My own logic is that we had some late 20th century warming from the +PDO that is slowly cooling now but the global temperature does not see it because of the Arctic warming. Once the AMO goes negative we should see a larger drop in global temperatures.
Richard,
all that speculation because March was cooler than February? Lol!
I can speculate too:
Without AGW, this month’s anomaly may have been -0.19 C instead of +0.19 C
When processing UAH’s 2.5 deg grid (66 stripes of 144 cells each, no data below 82.5 S nor above 82.5 N) you obtain the following:
UAH6.0 latitude zone trends 1979-2016 in C / decade:
– 60N-82.5N: 0.25 0,023
and for the three topmost latitude zones
– 75N-77.5N: 0.28 0,034
– 77.5N-80N: 0.35 0,038
– 80N-82.5N: 0.42 0,044
96 of the 100 cells with the highest trends are located within 80-82.5 N.
Bindidon
Thanks. It amazes me how much Information some of you folks are able to present!
Beaufort Sea
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r01_Beaufort_Sea_ts_4km.png
Greenland Sea
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r07_Greenland_Sea_ts_4km.png
Canadian Archipelago
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r09_Canadian_Archipelago_ts_4km.png
Hudson Bay
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r10_Hudson_Bay_ts_4km.png
The whole Arctic
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/4km/r00_Northern_Hemisphere_ts_4km.png
As you can see, Arctic sea ice cover peaked around March 7 (maximum sea ice cover usually occurs in March), and is beginning to reduce heading through Spring into Summer. Minimum cover usually occurs in September.
barry…”Total mean warming since 1979 is 0.47 C.”
That’s pretty neat math, Barry. Let’s see, we had a flat trend from 1998 – 2015 centred around 0.15C. Prior to 1997, most of the anomalies were below the baseline.
The real true warming, excluding the recent 2016 EN, is closer to 0.15C and that all happened in one year, 2001.
Put away your calculator, Barry, and explain the physical causes. How did the globe warm 0.15C in 2001?
You have gotten most of your warming from the 2016 EN, which is still cooling.
If I run the long-term trend from 1979 yo Dec 2015, or Dec 2104, the answer is pretty similar.
Here’s yet another way of looking at the data:
http://tinyurl.com/l7jasus
That’s the trend from 1979 to 1998 inclusive (to give a high trend as possible for the period), including the predicted trend based on that with error bars to encapsulate the variability.
I’ve omitted 2015 and 2016 from the observations to see whether the consequent temps fall within natural variability.
http://tinyurl.com/kzkvlo9
Open both images in tabs near each other and click from one to the other.
The resulting temps to 2014 are within the error bounds. No statistically significant change in trend (there are statistical values that show the same thing – the uncertainty precludes any claim of a statistically significant slowdown. Yes, the mean trend line is lower after 1998, but the rate change is not a statistically significant one (IPCC does not discuss the uncertainty, but provides the error bars that support my contention).
Now, it’s a little unfair to accept a super el Nino in 1998 (which gives us the slowdown), but reject a super el Nino in 2016. So what does the whole record look like?
http://tinyurl.com/lzzf5bn
Still based on the trend from Jan 1979 to Dec 1998.
You think there’s been a step-jump. A sudden rise in global temps in one year. As you know, I disagree with your premise as well as your conclusions. I doubt repeating the argument will get either of us anywhere. But I see a trend from 1979 to Dec 1998, whereafter there is no statistically significant departure in trend, just interannual variability which keeps global temps relatively depressed for nearly two decades, but still within the region of the prior trend. The underlying trend is still apparent, and then 2016 comes along and exceeds the long-term trend for a few months.
There is now a positive mean trend since 1998. It’s not a statistically significant trend – just within that period the globe could be warming, flatlining or cooling. But the trend from 1998 is statistically indistinguishable from the temp trend prior to it.
This is the case no matter what correlation model is used, or what order polynomial, smoothing or any kind of trend analysis. I don’t have to cherry-pick a method. The result is the same.
Hopelessly jejune. This is not a deterministic system, and these are not deterministic data. You are fitting lines to noise.
I created a test based on a linear assumption. That model holds good for the period of interest. If you disagree, you are free to demonstrate that.
Even better, you are free to create your own test to answer Gordon’s remarks. It would be a marked improvement on criticising without doing any work to corroborate your criticism.
IOW, stop waffling.
“If you disagree, you are free to demonstrate that.”
I don’t have to demonstrate it. You cannot just assume a model and calculate statistics based on it with no regard for whether it is a valid model or not, and pronounce it “truth”.
Just look at the plot. The temperatures, appropriately scaled and baselined, match the CO2 rate of change. That is all you need.
I dont have to demonstrate it.
Yes you do. Assertion doesn’t cut it. Never does.
I pronounced no “truth”, just made a choice and followed through. And I invited you to do an improved method. Many times. You refuse. That’s not my fault. I remain open-minded.
Just look at the plot. The temperatures, appropriately scaled and baselined, match the CO2 rate of change. That is all you need.
Eh? That’s not the topic here.
The CO2 rate of change correlation to temps shows that the instantaneous rate of change of CO2 correlates to monthly temperature fluctuations. That is all. Doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m talking about with Gordon, which is about temperature trends and their uncertainty.
There is no basis to consider the data to fit the model of a trend with iid noise on top. Ergo, your claim of significance is just so much blather.
I’m getting the impression that if you were honest about the evolution of global temperature since 1979, you should be saying, “I am not certain.”
I would say nobody is certain, and pari passu, that claims of statistical significance are just so much blather.
Then why do you tell us temps have been rising over the long term in one post and that they have hardly been rising at all in the last 20 years in another, neither claim accompanied by any mention of uncertainty? If you don’t know, you don’t know. Will you now stop making claims about global temp trends of any duration?
These are qualitative observations. The temperatures fit a pattern, and that pattern is not a linear trend. Quantitative analysis based on an improper model, on the other hand, is pretty useless.
http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-qualitative-and-quantitative-research.html
https://www.mcgill.ca/mqhrg/resources/what-difference-between-qualitative-and-quantitative-research
Bart says:
April 5, 2017 at 5:00 PM
These are qualitative observations. The temperatures fit a pattern, and that pattern is not a linear trend. Quantitative analysis based on an improper model, on the other hand, is pretty useless.
‘Improper model’ means one that disagrees with Bart’s models. There is no point to trying any other model because it is self-evident that only Bart’s model is the proper one. It doesnt even need to be checked.
Seriously though, there is nothing improper about trying a linear model (as Barry does), or testing Barts model (sinusoidal??) as he should. There are statistical tests to see which is a better fit, or maybe they are equally good.
After finding the best statistical model for the data one can argue about whether it matches a theory. This is the usual way of doing things.
So, a proper model is a linear trend? Sorry, that is not what the data show.
Nate didn’t say that. And you offer no alternative.
So what’s the proper model for quantitative analysis of the evolution of global temperature?
If you know what it is, could you give us the uncertainty estimates for the trend since 1998?
“If you know what it is, could you give us the uncertainty estimates for the trend since 1998?”
I could, but it would require work. The model would have to include the long term trend that was in evidence before CO2 forcing could have established it, as well as the ~60 year cycle. What is left that could be ascribed to CO2 forcing after compensating for those is very little, indeed.
Perhaps I could prevail upon you to do the work?
Have you ever done it? You could simply copy and paste the resulting values.
If you’ve never done it, how can you make confident claims about the evolution of observed temperature if you don’t know the uncertainty?
JDHuffman says:
“CO2 levels have risen for 35 years, but UAH values indicate no statistically meaningful warming.”
Completely false.
Do the math.
Phony math. You do not have a validated model upon which to base claims of statistical significance.
None of you guys apparently understand statistics. You think you can just load the numbers into a canned routine, and out pops truth. But, you have no understanding of the assumptions which go into the canned routine. It is just pitiful.
The linear trend is statistically significant.
By what validated statistical model? None whatsoever.
In that case no no one can claim a slowdown in temps since 1998. And yet you do.
Not really. The slowdown is due to the peaking of the ~60 year cycle, and that has been in evidence for nearly two whole cycles now, back to the turn of the last century. That’s a whole different kettle of fish than imagining a significant trend over a couple of decades, when a linear trend model clearly does not fit the data over the long term.
It seems you’ve done no statistical testing for the cause/effect and uncertainty.
I’m beginning to suspect this is beyond your capabilities (no foul if so). It would appear hat your hypotheses re ocean forcing of temperature is done simply by eye-balling time series.
Am I correct on the latter?
Why do you think you cannot trust your eyes?
I trust my eyes, as far as that goes. But my eyes cannot tell if AMO leads regime changes in global temperature or if the AMO aliases global temperature.
That’s when we need to do more than eye-balling. A lot more.
Also because my logical mind suggests the possibility that the North Atlantic is a subset of the global system, and I now need to find out if its responding to global temp evolution or causing it.
Neither of our eyes can discern that, and indeed if I do a bit of “pattern watching” of hemispheric temps, the Southern Hemisphere looks like it leads AMO. Which can’t be right if AMO leads temps.
When we’re reaching different conclusions looking at the same things we use tools to give us a better view. But you don’t wan’t to do the *work* and use them.
Bit of an impasse, eh?
All you need are these two observations:
1) Global temperatures have been rising at the same underlying rate, with an approximately 60 year cycle riding on top, since well before CO2 forcing could have been responsible for it. When those terms are subtracted out, there is very little left for CO2 to force
2) the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 concentration is proportional to appropriately baselined temperature anomaly. That precludes human emissions of latent CO2 from being the primary driver of atmospheric CO2. It also precludes significant sensitivity of temperature anomaly to CO2, as that would indicate a positive feedback loop that would have driven us to a boundary condition eons ago.
Those two observations are enough to scotch the notion that burning of fossil fuels is having a deleterious impact on surface temperatures. The whole thing is a farce.
A) We are not the primary driver of CO2 concentration.
B) There is no evidence that rising CO2 concentration has resulted in any deviation from natural, cyclic behavior of the climate indeed, given point A, it is quite impossible for CO2 to have a significant impact on temperatures in the present climate state, as this would produce unstabilizable positive feedback, and we would have reached a saturation point eons ago.
C) Reduction of global temperature gradients would result in less extreme weather, not more.
D) Warmth is good for life on this planet, cold is bad.
E) CO2 is an essential nutrient for life on this planet. It has been decreasing steadily for eons, and has been approaching plant starvation levels in the relatively recent past. If anything, we need more of it, not less.
F) Wind and solar power will never, ever satisfy more than a small fraction of our energy needs, and they are environmentally horrendous.
Bart says
‘the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 concentration is proportional to appropriately baselined temperature anomaly. That precludes human emissions of latent CO2 from being the primary driver of atmospheric CO2. It also precludes significant sensitivity of temperature anomaly to CO2, as that would indicate a positive feedback loop that would have driven us to a boundary condition eons ago.’
No it is not, when properly tested, as previously discussed. Plus this notion requires throwing out broadly validated data sets for CO2 history.
‘1) Global temperatures have been rising at the same underlying rate, with an approximately 60 year cycle riding on top, since well before CO2 forcing could have been responsible for it. When those terms are subtracted out, there is very little left for CO2 to force’
No, one and half cycles is not sufficient to claim what you are claiming here.
Why should temp keep rising at a steady 0.7C/century? When does this stop? If this is a recovery from LIA, as you say, then shouldnt we be settling down by now to temps prior to LIA?
‘Those two observations are enough to scotch the notion that burning of fossil fuels is having a deleterious impact on surface temperatures. The whole thing is a farce.’
Bart, no these are your nutty ideas alone and are not accepted by anyone who is serious about the science. Therefore they do not scotch anything.
You are too blind to see. It’s pretty obvious, though. One day, people will look back upon this circus and shake their heads, like we do now for silly things other people imagined in the past that seem so obviously wrong now.
“Why should temp keep rising at a steady 0.7C/century?”
Why shouldn’t it? It’s behaved similarly before.
“When does this stop? If this is a recovery from LIA, as you say, then shouldnt we be settling down by now to temps prior to LIA?”
Why should we? We can’t recover to a steady state if there is no steady state to which to recover.
Bart,
Recovery was your word. It implies return to normal, in this case after the lia. The lia forcing was Maunder minimum, ending in 1700. You say, recovery from this is a lnear rise .7C/cent, that apparently has no end. It is a nonsense model.
You don’t need a model to determine if a linear trend is statistically significant. You just need to calculate.
You can also test to see if a linear model is appropriate for the data. It isn’t for the full record, but seems to be (from statistical analysis I’ve read) from about 1970/75 to present.
If a linear regression is an appropriate function for a sub-set of data, we can use that subset to explore other issues.
The data determine what model is most valid, not assertion.
All you need are these two observations:
But we disagree about what their correlation shows.
So I invite further inquiry and you reject it.
For the 134,678th time…
Your observations show changes in the rate of CO2 rise at monthly scale correlating fairly well with monthly changes in global temperature data.
So I see that acceleration is influenced by temps.
But I do not agree that your observation demonstrate long-term correlation. Especially for the period when temps slowed down but CO2 acceleration didn’t.
I also don’t believe for a moment that a 0.8C rise in global temps from 1959 is responsible for a 90 ppm rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, which is what your hypothesis directly implies.
DA –
“You dont need a model to determine if a linear trend is statistically significant. You just need to calculate.”
Apparently, you do not understand the basis for statistical inference.
Another milestone based on an arbitrary calendric interval, which some people seem to find meaningful; the monthly UAH TLT has now been above the 1981-2010 average every month for 5 years.
When was the last time we had a La Nina? Would that be 5 years ago?
Richard M,
Actually, the last La Nina interval was the last half of last year.
Of the four ENSO indexes I follow, one has a la Nina for the latter half of 2016, the others don’t.
Slipstick
Agreed! People tend to get caught up on the calendar. For example, endless comparisons between 1998 and 2016. But was December, 2016 really any more significant than January, 2017?
People get caught up in what they believe, what they want to believe, and, most importantly, what they are familiar with. They are also strongly influenced by peer pressure, the conventional wisdom so to speak.
How would you rate this comment based on that view?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242377
“Of the four ENSO indexes I follow, one has a la Nina for the latter half of 2016, the others don’t.”
Would “5 years” be “an arbitrary calendric interval”?
Most likely.
I misunderstood slipstick. It wasn’t a complaint, he was just acknowledging the five year interval was an arbitrary number.
The easiest way to look at it is UAH’s own anmomaly graph:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/032017_tlt_update_bar.png
Sans commentaires…
Trivial observation. Temperatures have been rising. But, rising temperatures do not establish that humans have been driving them, and the rise has been far less than the models based on assumed CO2 response projected.
This paper shows that the downward infrared radiation impacting Earth is higher, and just at the bands where anthropogenic GHGs emit:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Re: models. The agreement is quite good; see this graph:
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/climate-lab-book/files/2014/01/fig-nearterm_all_UPDATE_2017.png
Trivial observation. Temperatures have been rising.
Bart, how can you say this when you don’t believe we can model for the uncertainty of any trend analysis. Shouldn’t your view be far less certain?
You seem to misapprehend. I have not called the data into question. I have called into question your silly attempts at analyzing it by forcing it into a model which does not apply to it, and calculating statistics based on that model which are thereby inapplicable.
My view on temperature evolution is wrong because I’m using the wrong methods to assess trend and uncertainty, you say. But your view on temperature evolution is right because you’ve used no methods to assess trend and uncertainty and don’t even know what the appropriate methods are?
“Professor, I’m applying an AR(eyeball) method to the data, which tells me my results are statistically significant.”
F-
I certainly know the appropriate methods. But, it is a lot of work. Not this simplistic stuff you are bandying about.
It isn’t necessary, though, to make conclusions. Yes, definitely, in this case, eyeballing is far superior to utilizing arbitrary and inappropriate analysis techniques.
Why do you not trust your own eyes?
Because they do not agree with yours.
That’s not from trenchant opposition – I really don’t see what you’re seeing. A slowdown in CO2 acceleration after 1998 is simply not apparent to me just by looking at the graph you keep showing. Whatever limited testing I’ve done you’ve rejected. So I’m left with dismissal and no substance to fill the gap.
Just the mantra of “look at the graph” repeated over and over and over and over and over again.
Perhaps you could describe/name the appropriate model/methods. I have a friend who might be able to apply them and give me some answers.
Draw a straight and level line through the middle of the CO2 rate of change curve since 1998. Do the data essentially hug that line? Yes, they do. Ergo, the data are consistent with a deceleration during the temperature “pause”.
Your problem is that you are under the impression that a line drawn using a least squares fit is somehow better than the one described above. It isn’t. There is nothing holy and inviolate about a least squares fit, especially over short time spans where noise is dominant. Your eyes can make a better judgment than a canned analysis routine.
What you have to do to get a realistic picture is defocus from the trees, and concentrate on the forest. The agreement between sea surface temperature anomaly and the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 is amazingly good for nearly 60 years. In the world of stochastic data analysis, it hardly ever gets better than this.
Hang on:
I certainly know the appropriate methods [to assess trend uncertainty].
But upthread you said:
Barry: “If there is a good model for determining uncertainty, what is it?”
Bart: “I know of none that have been done for the climate. I could create one, but I already have a job.”
So you know the right method, but you haven’t created it yet.
And ‘create’, isn’t the right word, is it? The data dictate appropriate trend models.
Throw us a bone here, Bart.
I don’t trust my eyes. I certainly don’t trust yours. That outlook is statistics 101. A qualitative opinion is by definition subjective. Until you quantify you’ve got nothing solid.
(Fixed formatting)
Hang on:
I certainly know the appropriate methods [to assess trend uncertainty].
But upthread you said:
Barry: “If there is a good model for determining uncertainty, what is it?”
Bart: “I know of none that have been done for the climate. I could create one, but I already have a job.”
So you know the right method, but you haven’t created it yet.
And ‘create’, isn’t the right word, is it? The data dictate appropriate trend models.
Throw us a bone here, Bart.
I don’t trust my eyes. I certainly don’t trust yours. That outlook is statistics 101. A qualitative opinion is by definition subjective. Until you quantify you’ve got nothing solid.
What can I say? You insist on keeping your eyes closed, and denying there is such a thing as sight. This is invincible ignorance. Nothing can overcome it.
Round and round in circles. Hard to believe you ever took a course in statistics. Which institute failed to give you the most basic lesson? “Analyse the data to avoid fooling yourself.”
“This paper shows that the downward infrared radiation impacting Earth is higher, and just at the bands where anthropogenic GHGs emit”
Another trivial observation. It is not (even remotely) sufficient evidence to establish AGW.
No, not a “trivial observation”, rather it is empirical evidence consistent with the prevailing science. What is trivial is dismissing evidence without providing a single scrap of countervailing evidence or any justification for the dismissal.
Poisonous night gases leaching from the ground is consistent with malaria (literally, bad air). Lack of rain is consistent with the displeasure of the Gods. Consistency oft leads astray. It is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, for making conclusions.
And, I have presented copious evidences for my POV.
Bart seems to think that scientific hypotheses can be proved. They can’t.
Another indication that mathematicians do not understand even basic science.
They can, it just depends on your standard of evidence.
In the courts, we “prove” guilt or innocence based on standards such as “reasonable doubt” or “preponderance of evidence”, but these do not provide actual proof.
The preponderance of evidence standard is the level demanded for lesser, civil verdicts. The evidence for AGW does not even rise to that level.
“Might be” correlations without analysis, or even a physical basis, do not constitute “evidences”[sic]. Evidence is observation confirming, or contradicting, the predictions of a hypothesis.
No, it’s not trivial, Bart — it’s exactly the signature one expects from AGW.
No, it is the signature one expects from IR emitting material as it heats from whatever source. Trivial.
Maybe this is what the early stages of a low solar activity climate looks like. A series of powerful El Ninos, followed by weak La Nina conditions but strong cooling. The weak La Nina fails to top up ocean heat content, therefore we get progressive cooling as the next El Nino dissipates yet more heat from Pacific surface waters. I can’t see a ‘step up’ in global temp happening if, as predicted, the current weak La Nina transitions to another strong El Nino, but we shall see.
Operational SST Anomaly Charts
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.4.3.2017.gif
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomp.4.3.2017.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
The heat content in the ocean is falling.
For the last few months. Normal variability.
It usually happens when an El Nino occurs.
Really? It makes sense, but el Nino is not the only thing affecting Ocean Heat Content.
Anyway, here is a long-term time series of ocean heat content. You can see plenty of short-term downturns and a long-term increase.
http://tinyurl.com/kyuef5q
This is not the first time someone got excited over a dip in OHC.
As i understand that paper it seems likely to me that graph is a model of an invalid model. Did the boat correction for surface temp influence the DW also? bc they sure seem to callibrate like it did. Haha.
The A.R.G.0 empirical data has nothing like that trend.
It is a miracle!!! Every time we model data when there is none it matches the global temp models! Its funny if u step back and look from a helicopter view. Nothing is working in the best data but once uncertainty sky rockets we understand.
Thanks for that graph. There are downward dips during El Ninos: for the 1982-83 El Nino, that in 1997-98, and 2015-16.
But that recent loss seems over now: the change in the 0-700 meter region in the last quarter (4Q16) was a strong 1.05 W/m2, compared to 3Q16.
But, yes, the long-term trend is certainly upward. For your graph, since 1955, I calculate the trend to be 0.25 W/m2.
As i understand that paper it seems likely to me that graph is a model of an invalid model. Did the boat correction for surface temp influence the DW also? bc they sure seem to callibrate like it did.
These are subsurface temps, not sea surface (boat temps). It’s not from a a paper (although there are method papers describing it), it’s from an institute that monitors and updates ocean temps at various depths.
The A.R.G.0 empirical data has nothing like that trend.
ARGO data is used to create the OHC profiles like the one above. Older data is from XBTs.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to link to the “ARGO data.” An up-to-date time series would be nice.
You’ll probably hunt for it and find your way here:
http://tinyurl.com/jbf2xco
Jamie, I am a supporter of a stronger sun and more natural warming last century due to increases in solar activity (TSI, UV, magnetics). Do you have a model? I do if u want to compare sometime let me know. If not we can compare notes. When i do the math I either need to invoke a lag from the sun to climate (plausible) or invoke some GHG. Im currently exploring Methane bc it is a very strong GHG and matches temp nicely. CO2 could also be a factor obviously. Let me know if interested and we can touch base.
Still lots of wishful thinking about global cooling. The la Nina didn’t materialize, the trend since 1998 did not go flat by the end of 2016. Perhaps crossing fingers will be useful.
I’ll amend that slightly. The predicted (by skeptics) la Nina did not materialize in 3 out of 4 different indices. NOAA called it by their ONI method, but BoM, JMA, and the MEI index don’t have la Nina for 2016/17.
Indeed, barry. The MEI graphics tells us all is needed:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
Index that the graph is based on:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/mei.data
El Nino conditions achieved when the index (bi-monthly values) is > 1, Nina when the index is < -1. No values less than -1 are present over the last 12 months.
Looks just like the peak of a positive PDO as expected to emerge to me! The heat of this emerging positive PDO is from what ~15 to 20 years ago when the Pacific was in a neutral to negative phase and warming the water that is now spreading out from west to east. Or do you think the heat comes from somewhere else? So for me the test begins! Everything in the pacific is ready to warm. If we are back to PDO positove it is Time for the big step up in global temp or shut up.
Global temps have risen for a hundred years. Does the PDO create heat or just shift it around?
Might as well see how the PDO correlates to global temperature over the long-term.
http://tinyurl.com/lkb7k7p
Looks good to the mid-80s, then the correlation falls apart.
How does it look with a trend line?
http://tinyurl.com/kxf26dn
Maybe it would be fairer to compare with global sea surface temps. Here goes:
http://tinyurl.com/ljq73zh
Hardly any difference.
But wait, aren’t the satellite data superior? Ok, let’s do that then.
http://tinyurl.com/mceju59
Well, that just emphasizes the poor correlation from the mid-80s.
Thank you for your work, Dr. Spencer.
For the UAH6.0 linear trend since 1998 to go flat again, the average temperature for 2017 would have to be less than -0.16 C. We haven’t reached that so far this year. We’re quite high above it. The average so far based on the first 3 months of the year is 0.28 C.
If you want a visual for how low temps would have to go for the remainder of the year in order for the 1998 trend to flatten, check the temperature record at the top of this page. Temps would have to be as cool as 1985 for the remainder of the year.
I reckon the odds are pretty low.
If we look ahead to 2020 for a flat trend from 1998, we need a 3-year period of cool temps similar to those in 1994-96.
Barring a massive volcanic eruption in the next two years, I reckon the odds of that are very low.
barry
The globe may not be cooling at this time and even warming some but is it warming at the rate the models predicted a few years ago. They keep tweaking the models to match the measured warming but that is not predictability of a model, it then just becomes a complex toy for adults to play with but not really a scientific tool designed to predict future events.
Also, if carbon dioxide can prevent an ice age without burning up the planet, is that a bad thing? The human race almost went extinct during an ice age 70000 years ago. A large volcano on top of an ice age cooled the Earth and made life tough for our species.
They keep tweaking the models to match the measured warming
Well, they’re not doing a very good job of it! The modeling done for AR4, and the next gen models for AR5 both have a very similar deviation from observed temps. Not much is different, really.
What has changed is that recent temps moved back into the middle of the model ensemble. We’ll see how things progress.
Norman says:
“They keep tweaking the models to match the measured warming but that is not predictability of a model”
That’s called “doing science.”
This happens with all models. The Bohr model of the atom was certainly “tweaked,” to say the least. Did you expect it to correctly predict every atomic phenomenon at the time it was first written down?
The Bohr model only predicted Hydrogen correctly, which is why it’s not used anymore.
So, Dave, are you saying we shouldn’t use models due to their lack of predictive ability?
You’re right. The Bohr model also didn’t predict the fine structure of H spectral lines. Or the Lamb shift, or the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, or more.
But the Bohr model was a necessary historical step to get to the right answer, which is relativistic quantum field theory.
That’s exactly how science progresses.
David, they don’t tweak predictive GCMs to match temp observations. Doing the science in this case means getting the physics right and parametrizing dynamics in the system well enough. They don’t make tweaks to force predictive GCMs to match temps.
OK. But my understanding of what modelers do do is:
1) try to include more natural processes in their models. For example, https://eo.ucar.edu/staff/rrussell/climate/modeling/climate_model_components_evolution.html
2) work to improve parametrizations.
Yes, that’s a good page giving a brief overview over how they try to improve models and what components have been added and improved over the years.
My point is corroborated by it (and the other things I mentioned) – there is no mention of observed global temps anywhere on that page. GCMs are not trained to global temperature. The ‘tweaks’ are not done to match observations.
The whole process is very interesting. Control runs are done without any forcings to see how well they replicate things like cloud evolutions and ENSO and a wide array of dynamic processes.
There’s a great time-lapse comparison between a control run and a satellite derived time-lapse of atmospheric flows and turbulence over a year. It’s amazing how similar they are, considering the model is based on physics and topography mapping.
http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2014/02/climate-model-vs-satellite-data/
The two images are running at different speeds, so the flows are slower in one than another, but check out how well the large-scale processes match. The author describes some differences between what the satellites and the model are “seeing.”
They keep tweaking the models to match the measured warming
No temp data are used to calibrate predictive GCM runs (or control runs for same). Tweaking is done upon improved understanding of dynamic, in-system processes. If they used temps to calibrate, then you would be right.
The next ice age is tens of thousands of years off. Not an immediate concern.
If an ice age is a cautionary tale, then so are geological records of rapid global warming events, many of which are associated with widespread species die-off. Not that the human race would go extinct. But if we look to the past for signs of global disruption, cooling events are not the only source of interest.
Richard M says:
April 3, 2017 at 2:06 PM
Yes, Snape, there is a lot of warming in the Arctic over the past 20 years even as global temperatures have stayed flat. That means the rest of the planet has cooled. Think about it.
This 1998 cherry-picking slowly but surely becomes a bit boring. I guess in a few years, when warming continues as it does actually, the start date will be moved toward an even better place promising ‘better’ data again.
Lets us have a look at UAH6.0’s latitude trends for the whole satellite era (1979-2016) from 82.5 S up to 82.5 N:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170404/w76g2xhh.jpg
The ony place showing cooling at tropospheric levels (about 4 km above surface) is the Southern Circumpolar Current.
I have a couple of questions:
Why does the global temperature rise and fall so much over a few years? I know it is natural variability, but what is varying? I suspect changes in cloud cover.
Why do some claim CO2’s effect will take a long time? The globe can clearly cool and warm quickly. CO2’s insulating effect would immediately resist any cooling, so it seems to me that CO2’s affect would be completely factored in after any significant cooling event.
There are lots of short-term factors at play. Insolation, cloud cover, ocean/atmosphere heat exchanges (el Nino/laNina is the most dominant cycle over a few years), occasional volcanic eruptions and more. Not all of the factors are known for short-term variation.
Re CO2, let’s suppose that all of the warming since 1970 was from anthropogenic CO2. The trend for global surface temps (Hadley data) is 0.17 C/decade.
That’s 0.017 C/year.
As global temp swings per year can be far larger than that (0.2C), the underlying warming from CO2 is completely swamped at short time scales by other factors.
As an analogy, a tide gauge can measure a change in sea of a few feet as the tide goes in and out, but the height of waves every few seconds can be much greater, especially during storms. Plot the tide rising from lowest to highest during a storm and you will see huge variation every few seconds while the ‘signal’ hidden in all that chop is a steady rise.
Great analogy except the seal level started rising many, many, many, many years before the temp did.
CO2 does not have an insuating effect, it does not work like a blanket trapping heat, if it did we would stuff our roof spaces with it during winter and I would have made a killing out of CO2 enhanced thermos flasks to keep your coffee hot on a cold day.
Perhaps….maybe…..possibly the amount of energy leaving the planet varies dramatically despite the pile up of blankets made of pure carbon in our atmosphere.
Yes I know I am a heretic and should be burned at the stake for speaking out against the state.
OMG………..the temp for this month is 0.17C above the baseline we are doomed, doomed i tells ya.
crakar24 says:
“CO2 does not have an insuating effect, it does not work like a blanket trapping heat, if it did we would stuff our roof spaces with it during winter and I would have made a killing out of CO2 enhanced thermos flasks to keep your coffee hot on a cold day.”
You attic *does* have CO2 in it — from the air. But there’s quite a difference in the height of an atmosphere and the height of your attic. And your attic leaks heat constantly.
Lastly, no one would want to live with an attic full of 100% CO2 in it — a leak could kill you (hypercapnia).
Yes, CO2 certainly has an insulating effect. This is a scientific fact.
Describe this insulating effect in detail please
David Appell,
Two things. Insulators are also used to keep things cool. Firemen wear heavy insulation – keeps heat out. Cold rooms are heavily insulated – keeps heat out.
As to the attic leaking heat constantly – so does the Earth. That’s why it has cooled down over the last four and a half billion years or so.
You are being as silly as Mann, Schmidt, or Hansen!
You can’t make a thermometer hotter using CO2. Neither can they! A shared delusion is still a delusion. A fake fact, if you like.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
There are actual experiments that can be run in the lab to test the hypothesis of Carbon Dioxide’s ability to increase a surface temperature that has a continuous input of energy by emitting radiant IR back to the surface and having the overall effect of increasing the energy of that surface forcing it to reach a higher equilibrium temperature to balance the new net energy in.
The experiment would be in response to your claim:
“You cant make a thermometer hotter using CO2. Neither can they! A shared delusion is still a delusion. A fake fact, if you like”
The design would be to have a hot plate with a thermometer. All tests would have the same input energy to the hotplate which would reach an equilibrium temperature (the value of interest, one where the temperature is no longer changing).
In an enclosure above the plate you add high concentrations of different gases. Dry nitrogen at higher at high concentration (since the path length for the experiment would be small, maybe a meter or two, real atmosphere column is thousands of meters but that would make the test too expensive and difficult to run.
Test the equilibrium temperature with dry nitrogen. Then try dry carbon dioxide (theory would suggest the CO2 will warm and emit radiation in all directions with some making it back to the heating surface with the thermometer, and now you have more energy added to the heating surface and the equilibrium temperature will be higher than in dry nitrogen test).
You could also try very humid air and see what that effect is.
This experiment should satisfy your claims and demonstrate a real GHE in a lab experiment. Hope that helps.
Mike Flynn
I just thought of this for the experiment I suggested. You would probably have to artificially cool the enclosure to some same temperature for all tests as if this warmed up it would also start radiating back to the plate and could overwhelm the study of the effect of the gases involved.
Mike Flynn says:
“As to the attic leaking heat constantly so does the Earth. Thats why it has cooled down over the last four and a half billion years or so.”
That’s wrong. The Earth’s climate has had many oscillations since we’ve been able to measure it (which does not go back 4.5 Byrs, and I’m sure you don’t have data saying so).
“You cant make a thermometer hotter using CO2. Neither can they!”
We’re doing in on Earth, right now.
crakar24 says:
“Describe this insulating effect in detail please”
Read
“Principles of Planetary Climate,” Raymond Pierrehumbert (2010)
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/climatology-and-climate-change/principles-planetary-climate?format=HB&isbn=9780521865562
especially chapters 3 and 4. Let me know if that’s not detailed enough for you.
Mike Flynn says:
“Two things. Insulators are also used to keep things cool.”
During cold winters, insulation is used to keep a house warm.
Except that warming since the sattelite era from 1978 to present was caused by the sun which warms the earth naturally every 200 years or so. The trend however from 1998 to now experienced no significant global warming which marked the end of this warm era. We are now going into another solar minimum just like we did in the 1600s and 1800s. By the early 2020s there will be no “co2 causes disasterous climate change” babble anymore as everyone will realize we are cooling dramatically and the alarmists who support this phoney scam will have to comd up with another excuse as to why global warming is causing global cooling! My guess is climate geoengineering. They will say we tried to help everyone out by cooling the planet with chemtrails but we didn’t know how strong they really were so that’s why we caused it to cool this much but don’t worry we will be back to cool it some more once the affects of these chemtrails where off! Losers! History is repeating itself as it always has been. This climate change hype has been jammed down our throats for over 100 years now and history showed us every time the climate switched 30 year cycles they switch there scare tactics!
For those of you who want to know the truth about climate change read this comment!
To answer your questions Tony:
Answer: good question Tony. The reason for this is because there is also short term climate affects and shorter variabilitys in the climate buget such as blocking of radiation from major volcanic plumes such as the one in the early 1900s. Short term positive feedback loops such such as brief recovery spikes which are common in the climate system after steep short term drops and shorter solar cycles which also cause much of the short term variability. The sun is the main role in climate and causes over 90% of the climate change here on earth in the long term. Cycles range on the order of tens of thousands of years to as little as 6-8 years. The cycle that is going to have most of an affect on our life time is the 200 year bicentennial cycle and the 30-40 year schwibe cycle. Right now the past 200 years of warming induced solar cycles have reversed themselves and the earth is about to go through a major cooling possibly as bad as in the early 1600s in the middle of the little ice age. The cooling affects should be noticible to all towards the bottom of this 6-8 year solar cycle 25/26. Around the year 2022. The magnetosphere has already been getting substantially weaker allowing more cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere causing greater cloud cover and more albedo and reflection of UV rays. Also causes the flow to shift which is what is really responsible for these wacky weather patterns we are having. This is because as the jet stream moves out of place and flows mix the jet stream gets stuck causing major high pressure and low pressure areas to stall causing warmer and then cooler then normal temps as well. An example will be the warm winter in the southeast causing the cherry blossoms to bloom early and then freeze in march due to an unexpected hard freeze which can have gargantuan effects on reducing agricultural growing zones and causing food prices to increase. As for humans affects on the climate. They have such a small impact as co2 makes up only about 9-18% of the total ghg affect but humans emissions from fossil fuels make up less then 3% of that. It’s role on climate variability in the atmosphere can also explain how much co2 concentration ppm in the atmosphere as well which is a whooping 0.04%! The earth has been warming over the past 100 years but is due to changes in solar activity not increase man made co2 which is really a substantial plant fertilizer to many plants as many have learned in elementary school! Don’t let the alarmists fool you on there predictions! All 72 iPCC models have been predicting global warming for the past 19 years now when there hasn’t been any! something AGW alarmists love to stay away from! What about the prediction about the glaciers melting? WRONG 62 of the worlds glaciers have actually been on an increase. What about the Greenland ice cap melting? WRONG! It’s been growing at a record pace blowing away many records. What about the artic ice cap that wa supposed to be gone by 2013 according to our good old pal al gore? STILL THERE! Sorry al! What about the scientists who predicted that in 1998 the earth would plummet into a giant ice age causing food shortages and human extinction! WRONG! Why am I still alive? What about the city of manhattan will be under water by the end of the 1900s. WRONG! What about an increasing number in Atlantic hurricanes? WRONG! In fact 2014 just a few years ago was one of the questist on record! What about the moron in the early 2000s who claimed “snow will be a thing of the past and children won’t know what snow is!” WRONG! The past few winters were one of the snowiest on record for the eastern US and this year the western US got there slice of the pie. What about an increase in the amount of summer heat waves? WRONG! Summer heatwaves have been much worse in the 1930s then this! What about the claim of increase storminess? WRONG! Although the past few years have been seeing more storms due to increase in galactic cosmic rays penetrating the earths atmosphere the long term trend shows storm and flood related deaths on a decline over the past 100 years when the earth was “supposedly” warming. What about the Antarctic ice cap melting into oblivion? WRONG! Although the Antarctic ice cap saw some decline this year mainly due to an increase in under water volcanic activity and shift in ocean currents NOT man kinds co2 emissions! the past couple years before it (2014 and 2015) have seen record sea ice extent blown away! What about all the polar bears drowning and dying? WRONG! Polar bear population has been increasing dramatically! What about the drought that was supposed to happen in California? WRONG! Record rain that broke a huge dam earlier in the year and record rain 2015-2016 year as well mainly due to strong El Nio! Take the scam for what it is and don’t believe in any of it! Have any other questions feel free to ask. I will be back shortly to provide links to support my claims as a real scientist would do!
Here are all of the links:
Here is the adapt 2030 YouTube channel to get you ready for where the earths climate is really headed! I reccomend you watch all of the movies in order. (Oldest to newest)
http://tinyurl.com/n35uwzw
Here is a list of videos by a YouTuber 1000 frolly. Watch all the videos to receive full education on why the sun is the main controller of the climate not mans co2 emissions from fossil fuels:
http://tinyurl.com/kq7nfyj
Another video disproving man made co2 myth:
http://tinyurl.com/logcu44
Marc Maranos climate hustle documentary recommend for starters:
http://tinyurl.com/kl2x82q
great global warming swindle (video) recommended for beginners
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fa32O3GFQ
Help!!! I’ve been banned on Facebook for being “abusive.” Here is my recent article. Anyone that reads my posts knows that they have been directed at exposing the climate bullies.
The Benefits of Higher CO2 Levels; Fewer Hurricanes, Greater Prosperity, Longer Life
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/the-benefits-of-higher-co2-levels-fewer-hurricanes-greater-prosperity-longer-life/
CO2isLife
Did they let you know exactly what content of your blog was abusive? Or was it because of random complaints? Big Brother is coming!
Orwell used “Big Brother” in “1984” to refer to the totalitarian leader of the authoritarian ruling government. Facebook is a private company and can ban whoever they want
public company
David Appell
I think the progressive left is a totalitarian system. More inclined to suppress free speech and thought than have their views challenged.
You are quite correct that Facebook can ban whoever they want but it does not mean it is not a totalitarian action.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/totalitarian
“adjective
1.
of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.
2.
exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.”
My use of the word would fit in definition 2. Controlling the thoughts of others. CO2isLife rejects the current understanding of the state of the Climate and voices his opinions on it. He can be wrong but far better to do what this site is doing. Allow the whole range of opinions. I don’t think Roy ever banned anyone for just holding an opinion. It is when they get abusive to fellow posters and he does warm them about their behavior before the ban.
Companies in Australia are buying rings for their workers to wear in support of same sex marriage, will be interesting to see the fate which awaits the first person to refuse.
The rings have a slot cut in them to represent the gap between biblical marriage and the leftist version of. The slot is wide enough to also allow it to worn in the nose…..just saying.
The Facebook example is small fry compared to what others are trying to achieve
Norman says:
“I think the progressive left is a totalitarian system.”
That’s just stupid.
DA,
Latest news from the USA
Three senior House Democrats asked U.S. teachers Monday to destroy a book written by climate scientists challenging the environmentalist view of global warming. The Democrats were responding to a campaign by the conservative Heartland Institute copies of the 2015 book, Why Climate Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
So maybe not so stupid afterall.
Further to my last
Public school classrooms are no place for anti-science propaganda, and I encourage every teacher to toss these materials in the recycling bin, Scott said. If the Heartland Institute and other climate deniers want to push a false agenda on global warming, our nations schools are an inappropriate place to drive that agenda.
Those descriptions of totalitarian again
1.
of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.
2.
exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.
And you DA think Norman is stupid?
Using the the second description of the word “totalitarian”, you could find a way to apply it to almost any person, company, government, etc.
Schools should do there best to teach science and not be called names for refusing to do otherwise.
David Appell
Thanks for correcting my incomplete conclusion on the issue of totalitarianism.
I worded my post incorrectly. I said: “I think the progressive left is a totalitarian system.
A more precise post should have included, I think the extreme progressive left is a totalitarian system.”
It is in the extremes of any world-view that totalitarianism emerges and the extreme right suffer the same mentality. They do not like anything that questions their strong beliefs about what they believe to be the truth.
Those with other views are viewed as enemies to be vanquished. (Since currently we have very strong inhibition of killing those who disagree with us the next option is to completely silence their words and ideas which is similar to killing them but you do not have to physically do it then).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-shuts-down-free-speech-too/2016/12/15/745fa352-c30d-11e6-9578-0054287507db_story.html?utm_term=.82b9b7104963
This is a balanced view of both sides but both exhibit totalitarian systematic belief. Shut down and suppress any opposing thoughts or ideas.
Snape
The question to your post is then what do you believe “Science” is?
You and me have very different views on science. I think in the elementary and junior high level of thought you probably would be best using an authoritarian approach to setting up ideas in young minds. Once science students reach Junior or Senior levels and beyond. Good science teaching would be to include alternate views (like Creationism or views against Climate Change). You would have the students research the topics to find evidence in favor or against the ideas. That is how you debate science, with evidence. No need to suppress ideas that do not fit in with the mainstream thought. Far better for your students to learn and research on their own.
Totalitarian thought is Science chokes and destroys it. This view always pops up and then some genius comes and crushes it and turns the world upside-down and science can once again grow. Counter ideas should be fought against by superior evidence and not suppression of those rival thoughts.
Norman
I mostly agree, but there’s a big difference between not teaching something and “suppressing” information.
Example: a medical school may choose not to teach aromatherapy, reflexology or Chinese medicine. Does this make them a totalitarian institution that actively suppresses other points of view?
Are the extreme progressive left a force to be concerned about?
I know one, from my childhood – an activist from Socialist Alliance.
I went to one of the meetings, was uninspired and never went back. I read one of the ranty gazettes they put out.
I don’t see these people around much. I expect they show up at rallies and the like pushing their agendas. Don’t seem like a big deal, and society is a big enough tent to hold them and their political opposites without falling apart.
barry
A thoughtful response from you as seems typical.
YOUR QUESTION: “Are the extreme progressive left a force to be concerned about?”
It seems the suppression of free speech and opposing views is very strong on college campuses. Did you read about the protest/riot in Berkley California recently over a free speech issue?
My concern is both left and right are pushing each other into more extreme views and the numbers on both sides are increasing that are entering the extreme camps. I consider you more a moderate so you would not be so affected by this trend.
In China they reached a climax of opposing views and had there big “Cultural Revolution”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
The solution was to kill all opposing ideas and thoughts.
The University setting should be one of free inquiry of many ideas and active debate of the merits of the ideas, not the suppression of opposing ideas.
I agree that partisanship has been on the rise.
I don’t consider the war between rejecting “hate speech” and it’s political opposite, expressed as promoting “freedom of speech” to be an extremist arena, but I agree that it’s become a partisan battle.. The issues are complex and interesting. I’m not even close to settling on a point of view, though I can articulate the pro/con.
Not really an appropriate discussion for this venue, but an interesting one nonetheless.
Norman says:
“Good science teaching would be to include alternate views (like Creationism or views against Climate Change).”
Creationism is not based on science.
Nor is climate change denial.
What Norman’s doing here is trying to win the scientific debate by means other than scientifically disproving AGW.
But he, or anyone, hasn’t been able to do that, so in their frustration they insult scientists and the left and whoever they wish they could prove wrong.
Snape
What you post is a correct view but it is not quite the point I am making.
A school not teaching some topic would not be considered suppression in my view or totalitarian. A school has realistic limits of what they can cover and teach. A totalitarian education system would be one that does not allow the topic to be brought up or punishes an individual for bringing it up.
In your example about medical school, it would not have to teach alternate medical procedures but if a student did bring up Chinese medicine and wanted to point out some observational evidence of the viability of this practice and was crushed by the Instructor, I would really start to consider this totalitarian and a negative on the body of truth.
Norman
Right. I love freedom of thought, too. I just don’t think schools should be criticized for refusing to teach what 97% of scientists think is rubbish.
David Appell
Sorry but I think you greatly missed the point I was making and came up with a twisted post about the content of my post.
I thought a correction should take place on your distorted view.
Your claim: “Creationism is not based on science.
Nor is climate change denial.”
In my post I did not make the claim that Creationism is science.
My point (Post was not to you by the way, so if you want to criticize my posts it would be nice if you tried to understand the point I am making which it seems Snape, who I was responding to, understood okay) was that bringing up Creationism or Climate Change denial in science classrooms can be very instructive (at higher levels of scientific thought process) to how science works.
Science is a process that is based upon observational evidence and or experimentation to arrive at closer approximations of Truth or Reality. You can have students investigate the claims of Creationism and see if they can come up with valid evidence for the claims. Or with Climate Change denial you can present students with information that Mass of the atmosphere may be the cause of a warmer surface and have them seek evidence to support this claim. In doing science they would have to explain all the observations. One big one would be what happens to the 390+ w/m^2 being emitted by the Earth’s surface if mass was a valid explanation. It would get young scientists to learn and think and also be exposed to the myriad of ideas that pop up in the scientific thought body and how to evaluate them in context of evidence based research. I still cannot see how this would be harmful.
David Appell
Also on your second point.
YOU: “What Normans doing here is trying to win the scientific debate by means other than scientifically disproving AGW.
But he, or anyone, hasnt been able to do that, so in their frustration they insult scientists and the left and whoever they wish they could prove wrong.”
Not sure where this one came from. I am not trying to scientifically disprove AGW. I do not know which scientists I have insulted nor am I frustrated that I have not been able to disprove AGW. It is not even my goal. I think Carbon Dioxide will produce some warming of the Earth’s surface. I am not certain by what amount, I really question any confirmation of increase in severe weather caused by a 1 C global temperature increase in 100 years.
I have not seen you provide any valid proof that severe weather has increased. You have linked to the output of some computer model forecasts into the future, that is a far-cry from proving that severe weather has steadily increased.
I used to be a leftist and generally liked a lot of their ideas on making a better world. Now they seem a hostile totalitarian force for worse not better. Not an insult but an observation, I did link you to a Washington Post article so you can see what I am reading on the topic.
Snape
I agree with you. When using the word teach. That is the long term systematic process of getting useful information in the minds’ of students. So schools should not waste time teaching material that is not supported by the scientific community. My point is that the issue of Climate Change denial can still be brought up in schools and discussed or thought about, but you would not have to teach obvious false science. Bringing it up and discussing is a different matter than teaching and I would be against completely suppressing the idea and squashing it without discussing it and bringing up some of its flawed reasoning.
I think we agree, or hope so, but are discussing different aspects of education system. Thanks.
crakar24 says:
“Latest news from the USA”
Teachers should also reject books advocating flat-Earth theory.
Norman wrote:
“…bringing up Creationism or Climate Change denial in science classrooms can be very instructive”
I disagree. US high school students aren’t sufficiently prepared to understand such distinctions — and what’s worse, most HS teachers aren’t qualified to teach it. I think the students should be taught what the science says. Those who really desire more knowledge can be taught the subtleties of the scientific method later, in college.
(I think European high school students probably could handle that, though.)
David Appell
I was not advocating teaching Creationism or Climate Change Denial.
I explained the distinction between teaching and discussing and issue.
If a student brings up the subject and is curious I think some time could be explained why this subject is not science, unless the student can provide sufficient evidence to make it viable.
I just don’t like suppression of ideas as that more likely leads to stagnation than growth.
This is just a number.
It would be interesting to know areas that are extreme and contribute most to the numbers this month.
I saw an area over Siberia that was hot this month. In December that area was colder than normal.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/march_2017_map.png
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2016/december/DECEMBER_2016.png
Is there an area that always is warmer than previous?
To obtain this information, you should process for example UAH’s 2.5 degree world grid data such that
– linear trend
and
– maximal deviation fron the trend
are computed for each of the 9,504 grid cells over the entire UAH era (dec 1978 – now).
Then you sort the list first by ascending deviation from the trend, and then by descending trend.
The top of the sorted list should give the answer to your question.
The DMI ice temperature product (IST) uses three thermal infrared channels from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the Metop-A satellite to calculate the surface temperatures in the Arctic.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/ice_temp/plots/icetemp.arc.d-00.png
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/osisaf_nh_iceextent_daily_5years_en.png
“Midwest/Northeast: Snow, Wind Later This Week
Thanks to an intensifying southward jet stream plunge, the surface low-pressure system will also intensify late this week over the Ohio Valley and Northeast.”
http://virga.sfsu.edu/gif/17040500_jetstream_h36.gif
I would like to thank Barry et all for their statistical analysis (stats are not my strong suit) however I question their relevancy wrt agw.
Whilst I acknowledge the work by Dr Spencer as a vital contribution to this field of science I hardly see how quibbly over trends in the tenths of degrees supports the agw theory.
We don’t have the knowledge to make any determination of this trend, for arguments sake for all we know their are forces driving the temps down by up to 1c but co2 is adding 1.2c or perhaps the other way round or indeed its all natural and co2 has basically no effect.
IMHO the trends shown by Dr Spencers data do not support agw or at the very least show co2 to be a very weak contributor
Crakar24 says:
“IMHO the trends shown by Dr Spencers data do not support agw or at the very least show co2 to be a very weak contributor”
So what is causing the observed warming?
Are you serious DA? First I ask you to describe the insulating properties of CO2 and you give me a reference to a book I can buy on a website.
Now you want me to describe what is causing the obsereved warming, if you bothered to read my comment you would understand that I am saying we dont have enough knowledge to make an educated statememnt as to why.
Your mind must be like one big bowl of spagetti that lacks the ability of critical thought and logical processing pathways.
crakar2.4
I agree with your assessment of David Appell. I sometimes wonder about his responses. I think he just quick scans them and makes a comment.
My hypothesis on his actions is that he gets paid some sum of money for the number of posts he makes on skeptical climate blogs, if you watch, when a thread is almost done with posts you will see 20 more posts all coming from David Appell. Everyone has to eat and pay rent so that may be how he accomplishes his wage earning. Not a proven fact just my speculation on his antics.
Occurrences on this page of “Norman”: 75
Occurrences on this page of “Appell”: 60
as of 5:41 pm PST 4/7/17.
Norman says:
“My hypothesis on his actions is that he gets paid some sum of money for the number of posts he makes on skeptical climate blogs….”
Here again is another instance of Norman trying to win the scientific debate with methods other than science — imply your opponent is crooked, trying to win by default.
No proof need be offered.
David Appell
I really do not consider you an opponent. I actually like to read your posts and links. I am not trying to win the argument by nonscience.
I was just trying to figure out why on a dead thread (no activity for awhile, no active or ongoing debates about some issue) I suddenly see 20 new posts and then I look through it and you have comments posted all throughout the thread. It was just unusual behavior so I was attempting to come up with an explanation as to why you would do this. It makes some kind of sense if you got paid some income per post, it did not make much sense otherwise as no one responds to all the posts and most would not even look after a time period. I was just curious when I saw a large increase in posts on what I assumed was a dead thread.
I hope I did not spark hard feelings toward you on my speculation.
Thanks for the hat-tip, crakar. Linear trend analyses aren’t the be all and end all, I agree. They are suggestive. Over long time frames, as the uncertainty diminishes, they become a bit more suggestive.
Agreed Barry but all it suggests is the planet may have warmed or cooled a bit over a period of time, the period of time of course is subjective.
As I said I believe this type of discussion is very important and very useful the mere fact we are talking about changes in tenths of degrees suggests to me AGW is a non problem and the longer we remain in the thenths of degress the bigger a waste of money this whole AGW thing has become.
Hi Dr Spencer
Can you post the latest WV departures from normal chart.
Thanks
It is a weak solar/albedo/lower sea surface temperature play that will put an end to the global warming theory . El NINO if it should come this summer may delay the drop but once the drop occurs which will likely be after this next El Nino ends, will be fast.
Albedo should increase, even a 1/2% increase is significant , and sea surface temp. should cool all in response to very weak solar.
Increase in clouds, volcanic activity ,snow cover will result in a higher albedo. Less UV light will promote lower sea surface temperatures.
Not much more say but wait and see how this unfolds as solar activity should remain very weak going forward.
This recent burst of solar activity should end.
Solar trend, with the 11-yr cycle doing its thing, has been pretty much flat since the 1960s.
You’ve been predicting this for years, Salvatore. It seems to be perpetually just around the corner.
I believe you gave a firmer prediction than usual, recently. Do you have any kind of time limit on this prediction, or will you always be able to say the conditions aren’t exactly right?
We’ve been waiting longer for the enhanced GHE to kick in, going on two decades now.
It’s just a matter of time, Barry. The handwriting is on the wall. The AMO already switched phase. It is only an anomalous PDO that has kept temperatures high, and going by history, its crash will be sudden.
God apparently has a sense of drama, whoever she is.
The AMO and PDO do not create heat, they just move it around.
The increase in ocean heat content is the best metric to see the planet’s energy imbalance.
Stupid comment. The Earth is never in steady state, so there is always either an imbalance one way or the other, or a transition to an imbalance one way or the other.
The oscillations are due to alternating storage and release of heat, and they have very long term components. Releasing stored heat has the same immediate effect on the surface system as introducing new heat.
But the full cycles are 60 years or thereabouts, aren’t they? So after 60 years surface temps should be about the same as they were as at the beginning of the cycle?
One apparently significant modal response is near 60 years. That does not preclude others.
Bart says:
“The Earth is never in steady state….”
Stupid comment. It was very close to one for much of the Holocene.
But it isn’t now. And you have nothing to offer as an explanation, just denial.
“It was very close to one for much of the Holocene.”
IOW, it wasn’t. And, at other times, it was less so. Your arguments are self-refuting.
Bart, the PDO has trended down since the mid-80s.
http://tinyurl.com/lkb7k7p
And has kicked up at the same time as the latest el Nino. Maybe it’s moving into a warm phase. If so, I imagine that should prolong your skepticism for quite some time.
If you’re predicting global cooling, could you go one better than Salvatore and put some constraint on it as to when you think you would be proved wrong? What would it take for your hypothesis to be undone? Or is that even possible?
Don’t smooth it with the average. There is a recent blip up. It is not unlike the previous blip at about 1960. That one came crashing down. This one will, too.
Smoothing just makes it easier to see. But here’s the non-moving average version.
http://tinyurl.com/l37qd27
Just a noisier version of the same thing. PDO correlation breaks down mid-80s, and the recent el Nino kick-up is still there.
But we have some predictions from you and that’s good.
“…and the recent el Nino kick-up is still there.
Let’s see what happens when it dissipates.
Say it dissipates, AMO is still low, the sun keeps quiet and global temps continue to go up.
Will you state for the record that this will interfere with your hypothesis on what is driving global temps?
Never respond to hypotheticals. I will cross that bridge if and when we come to it.
What would you say of a hypothesis that has no predictive value?
Like AGW?
What about your hypothesis? Does it have predictive value or not?
Well, I did predict the turning point of the pause based on the observed apparent ~60 year cycle, and that arrived on time. AGW proponents missed that one.
I also predicted that CO2 rate of change would turn around with it, and that also came to pass.
So, yeah, I’m feeling pretty successful so far. We will see what the future holds.
I also predicted that CO2 rate of change would turn around with it, and that also came to pass.
Would you kindly give the numerical values for the CO2 rate of change prior to and after the turning point of the pause?
Preferably the acceleration rate of the 15+ years before and after.
I’ve been hoping you would corroborate what you keep saying with some actual values. What are they?
Bart: Explain how the PDO or AMO inputs more heat into the Earth’s system.
Explain how CO2 inputs more heat into the Earths system.
Are you unable to answer the question. Bart?
I think it is self-evident. CO2 can trap more heat in the system, all things being equal. Ocean currents can do the same. Neither H2O nor CO2 produce heat, but that is a trivial point. It is about the dynamics of heat transport, not heat production.
Well, I did predict the turning point of the pause based on the observed apparent ~60 year cycle, and that arrived on time. AGW proponents missed that one.
I also predicted that CO2 rate of change would turn around with it, and that also came to pass.
CO2 spikes with el Nino? That’s well observed. Your ‘prediction’ is hardly original.
And if the PDO cycles are regular we should be in the middle of a cool phase over the next 15 years.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/PDO.svg/1000px-PDO.svg.png
You predicted a change in periodicity? Maybe a reference to your prediction is in order.
But I have to admire the vague 60-year cycle reference. You can now change topic and say you meant a different 60-year cycle to what we were discussing.
So here’s the AMO:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Amo_timeseries_1856-present.svg/672px-Amo_timeseries_1856-present.svg.png
Presaging a continued warm phase for a decade or so.
I really have to see this prediction you made. It’s not based on those cycles. Unless you predicted a change in periodicity.
And if you’re saying the these ocean/atmosphere systems are responsible for the global being warmer than 100 years ago, would that mean we should see less heat in the oceans over that time? Where is the heat coming from?
What makes 100 years special? The oceanic heat content oscillates due to numerous forcings (wind, tides, Coriolis forces, planetary wobble, orbit precession, etc…). Some of these are very long term.
Keep in mind also that we don’t have particularly good measurements of oceanic heat content, and that degrades spectacularly before ARGO came online in the 2000’s, with very poor surface measurements, and hardly any at all at depth.
What makes 100 years special? It covers most of the instrumental record. Data are patchier the further back in time you go, so I usually round off to 1900 or 1950, depending on what’s being looked at.
So, you mention ocean heat content data being worse quality the further back in time you go.
Is AMO, PDO and global surface temperature data immune from this?
Nope.
There’s all this uncertainty you champion when arguing against something, but that completely evaporates once you push your own theories.
You do not caveat the older AMO or PDO data.
You believe we cannot model global temp behaviour sufficiently to make uncertainty estimates about global temperatures. Yet you make claims about the evolution of global temperatures without caveat.
I spy a bias in this lack of consistency.
No, not really. There is a difference between discerning qualitative patterns, and estimating quantitative values.
Should I take that to mean that you have no interest in quantifying your views?
I’ve talked with you a fair bit in recent times, Bart, most of it fairly collegially, which I appreciate. I think you might agree that you tend to emphasise uncertainty when arguing against a thing, but omit it when making your own case. I’ve a good memory, and that ledger is quite clear.
“Should I take that to mean that you have no interest in quantifying your views?”
Quantification is work. I don’t work for free.
Uncertainty is always difficult to deal with. We’ve only really been getting good data on this system for a very short time, relatively speaking. But, that does not prevent us from observing patterns, and extrapolating likely progression in general terms.
Your hypotheses will be given credence according to the rigour you’ve applied to them.
You’ve said previously that you have no interest in persuading anyone. I guess I could compliment you on sticking to your guns.
At least I have rigor. Applying arbitrary models to data that do not exhibit the properties of those models is not even a pretension to rigor. It’s just chaff, intended to bamboozle the unwary or math-challenged.
Bart: “At least I have rigor.”
Rigor? Your mark 1 eyeball on a couple curves? No, Barry has more rigor.
What you have demonstrated is the ability to fit a curve integrating between two endpoints and a constant of integration of YOUR choosing not nature’s. With those three free parameters you can fit the top post curve as closely as you want, to as high a degree of confidence ever observed.
What Bart hasn’t done is write a physical reason your eyeball results provide: 1) any kind of global T prediction, 2) any kind of statement about eGHE or even the basic physics of rGHE.
Umm… no.
Bart makes my point, there is no defense for lack of rigor.
Bart says:
“Quantification is work. I dont work for free.”
Shorter Bart: My replies here are based only on what I imagine.
More concise Bart: the patterns are glaringly evident. Why waste time proving 2 + 2 = 4? How would it be worth the effort for people who can’t even add 2 and 2? How would that even begin to crack their religious devotion?
Salvatore take a look at the GCR chart.
It can be seen that the even-numbered cycles, the minimum activity is extended in time.
https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/monitor.gif
Your conclusions are in a word wrong, and that will be proven over the coming years, as the temperatures of earth will start a more significant decline (which started in year 2002 by the way).
– Salvatore del Prete, Reply to article: IC Joanna Haigh – Declining solar activity linked to recent warming,
10/8/2010
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6428
There is at least one “skeptic” on this board who has a truly inquisitive mind and can disagree without being disagreeable. Kudos to you, sir.
The temperature over the southern polar circle falls according to the norm.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_SH_2017.png
High temperatures in the Pacific in Nino 1.2 region will inhibit the development of hurricanes in the Atlantic.
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/images/full/Full_GoesSST.gif
Norman,
Experimentation demonstrating the ability of gases to absorb heat, and thereby lower the amount of heat reaching a thermometer, were carried out by Professor John Tyndall and others, more than 150 years ago.
Subsequent experiments have verified his extensively and meticulously documented experiments. No GHE supporter has come anywhere near even attempting to perform physical experiments of this nature, let alone trying to contradict Tyndall’s results.
Any competent experimental physicist laughs at the foolishness of the concept that interposing CO2 between a source of heat and a thermometer, causes the temperature of the thermometer to rise!
This would require a naive and gullible belief in fake physics, as promoted by certain mentally deranged self proclaimed climatologists.
Tyndall’s experiments are replicable – they verify his original conclusions. The laws of thermodynamics still apply, it would seem.
Or you can believe the assertions of David Appell – self proclaimed journalist. If you live in a cold climate, you might notice that using a clear glass fire screen works to shield you from the fierce heat of an open fire. If you do not understand why, Tyndall provides a clear explanation, complete with an illustration for those of lesser scientific background.
I hope this helps.
Cheers.
Mike
Your logic is so upside down it’s making me chuckle.
Are you imagining the fire in the fireplace as the sun, and the glass screen as Co2 helping to keep the planet cool?
Mike Flynn
I am not sure you want to bring in John Tyndall’s research into your debate.
I looked at his original testing here.
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf
Do you like to research things? Look at page 29 of this research paper and note the title. Tyndall did different types of testing. He tested the absorbitivity of different gases but he also tested
“Radiation of Heat by Gases”. Read through this series of tests.
He totally proves your current view as incorrect. It is what I stated which is opposite of your current view.
Heated Carbon Dioxide (and a couple other gases he tested) caused deflection in his instrument while heated oxygen or nitrogen did nothing.
I hope that helps you understand why your thought process is incorrect and needs to adjust to correct and valid physics.
Tyndall does not support your view, which is not based upon any empirical testing or logical thought process. Just a fantasy you hold onto, now embrace the truth. Find the reality.
Mike Flynn
I think you use some backward thinking to try and disprove the GHE which ends up in failure mode on your part.
YOU: “Experimentation demonstrating the ability of gases to absorb heat, and thereby lower the amount of heat reaching a thermometer, were carried out by Professor John Tyndall and others, more than 150 years ago.”
Yes indeed and that is exactly what satellites show, the amount of energy exiting the Earth TOA is less than the IR energy leaving the Earth’s surface so indeed the GHG inbetween absorbed this energy and prevented it from reaching the satellite thermometers.
YOU: “Any competent experimental physicist laughs at the foolishness of the concept that interposing CO2 between a source of heat and a thermometer, causes the temperature of the thermometer to rise!”
True and also no climate researcher would say that such a thermometer would rise. If David Appell reads this post he will also agree that such a case would be foolish. It is opposite of what Climate researches say. I really do not know where you got this from.
If you would actually go back up to my posts and read the nature of my experiment, it is opposite of what you think is being claimed.
Carbon Dioxide leads to a higher surface energy because it emits IR back to the surface.
Mike Flynn
I tried to explain the concept to John O’Sullivan on a previous thread but so far he has chosen not to respond.
The maximum rate a surface can emit IR is when there are no surrounding energy fluxes around. It is determined by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law.
Q=(area of surface)(emissivity of surface)(Stefan-Boltzmann Constant)(temperature of surface in Kelvin)^4
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/radiation-heat-transfer-d_431.html
Look at this link.
Once you add any surrounding IR flux the rate of energy leaving the surface now goes down, the higher the surrounding temperature the less energy leaves. This is not a cooling effect, the presence of any surrounding source of IR reduces the loss of heat making the surface warmer than when no surrounding energy IR fluxes are present. Not that hard to understand. Think about it, it will make sense to you if you make an effort to understand, if not you will mindlessly continue posting your own false physics and think you are the smart one.
CO2 experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo
Mike Flynn says:
“Subsequent experiments have verified his extensively and meticulously documented experiments. No GHE supporter has come anywhere near even attempting to perform physical experiments of this nature, let alone trying to contradict Tyndalls results.”
MF thinks no one has ever verified Tyndall since.
That’s not just funny, it’s really really sad that this man presumably graduated from a high school or even college.
Snape,
I’ve said what I’ve said. Make of it what you will.
If you believe that putting CO2 between the Sun and the surface of the Earth, makes the temperature of a thermometer on the surface hotter than a similar thermometer placed on the surface of the Moon (no GHGs to be found there) under similar conditions – distance, exposure time, and so on – then I wish you well with your existence in your fantasy world.
The reason that no GHE proponent has ever demonstrated that placing a gas between a heat source and a thermometer causes the temperature of the thermometer to rise, is because it doesn’t happen.
Have you any facts to contradict Professor Tyndall’s experiments? Maybe intense chuckling will make thermometers hotter – CO2 has never been shown to do so.
Cheers.
Mike, you DO realize, don’t you, that the average temperature of a thermometer on earth is WAY higher than a thermometer at a similar latitude on the moon? So I similar thermometer on the moon is indeed cooler, contradicting your claim.
(Of course there are many reasons for this, but GHGs are indeed one of the reasons for the warmer average temperature on earth.)
Mike
No need to contradict Professor Tyndall.
Imagine your house is the stratosphere (a very cold climate, indeed!). The warm fire is the earth (which has been heated by the sun).
The clear glass fire screen are the greenhouse gasses in the troposphere. These gasses help keep your home cool by shielding it from the heat of the earth.
In other words, Co2 (and other greenhouse gasses) in the troposphere absorb some of the heat emitted from the earth, and thus cool the stratosphere.
Snape,
Imagine your house is on the surface – reality, not fantasy.
Imagine it is heated by the Sun – reality, not fantasy.
Imagine it is night – reality, not fantasy.
Imagine you have read and understood Tyndall’s experiments – sorry, I’m lapsing into the realms of fantasy myself . . .
Cheers.
Mike
Ok. Forgot the hypothetical. Our thermometer is near the ground. However, the heat that GHG’s absorb doesn’t come from the sun, it comes from the earth beneath your feet. So the Co2 is not BETWEEN the thermometer and the heat source, it’s ABOVE them.
The cooling effect your talking about is taking place in the stratosphere.
Snape,
Better.
I’m not sure whether anyone would agree that the Sun doesn’t warm gases. The temperature of the air certainly seems to increase during the day. At night, the temperature drops, regardless of CO2 – presumably due to withdrawal of heat from the Sun.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter. If you shade a thermometer from the Sun – using a cloud, a sunshade, or even some gas, the temperature of the thermometer falls,
If you can demonstrate otherwise by reproducible scientific experiment, I would be very surprised. Computer models or consensus agreements are not reproducible scientific experiments.
No GHE. Even GHE supporters have difficulty in claiming it has any temperature raising effect at night, indoors, when it’s cold, in arid tropical deserts with a demonstrated lack of that most important GHG – H2O, even though they are the hottest places on Earth!
A most interesting effect – of no effect at all!
Cheers.
Mike
A thermometer in the shade is warmed by the atmosphere. Put it in the sun, it gets even warmer. This is like the earths surface, warmed by both the atmosphere and the sun.
The atmosphere, on the other hand, is primarily warmed by the earth, Why? Because on a clear day the sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere mostly unobstructed. On a cloudy day, clouds reflect most of the sunlight back into space.
When the sun comes up in the morning, it starts to warm the earth’s surface around you, and this in turn warms the air around you. Opposite when it gets dark.
Mike Flynn
You ask for evidence and I will provide it. It will require a click of the mouse. I really do not think you are interested in any evidence and will not look at the link but there is always hope.
Here shows GHG warming the surface at night with no solar energy available completely contradicting your false belief system that seems unshakable even when evidence contrary to it is presented.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58e2cdf59906c.png
This graph is real world measurements and it shows an increasing temperature spike during the night and it also shows a higher downwelling IR than upwelling.
Here is a graph with just temperature so you can more clearly see the upward trends at night.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58e2d0aaba326.png
Did you look at the Tyndall research paper I linked you to above. His research confirms the GHE, Carbon Dioxide, when heated, emits IR while he could not detect the effect with nitrogen or oxygen.
I think you should look at the links, think about what they are showing you and start to slowly get back into the real science instead of your “cargo-cult pseudo science” you currently are demonstrating. Your view is not based upon empirical evidence, logical thought process or any thermodynamics textbooks.
Snape and Norman,
Let’s cut to the chase. Neither you nor anybody else can raise the temperature of a thermometer by using CO2.
Avoiding the subject, talking about averages, misunderstanding physics – none of these can achieve the impossible. Without heat, all matter has no temperature – absolute zero. CO2, C, O – it matters not.
Matter at a given identical temperature cannot be distinguished by temperature alone. CO2 at 20 C is precisely the same temperature as any other material at 20 C. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t believe me, but it’s true! Measure the temperature of two gas cylinders. You won’t even be able to tell if they are full or empty, let alone what sort of gas they contain. Would you know whether they are full of mercury or sand, if their temperatures are the same?
No miraculous properties for supposed GHGs. You’ve been had. Complete nonsense!
Cheers.
Mike
Do you think it’s possible to measure the temperature of CO2 using a thermometer?
Mike Flynn
You avoid the links I put in like a deadly disease. They show warming of the surface at night with NO SUN!! I can’t make you look but you look ignorant when you don’t look then post garbage.
I really do not grasp your point at all or what you are trying to say with this.
YOU: “Matter at a given identical temperature cannot be distinguished by temperature alone.”
Okay that is correct. But from this statement you make this conclusion:
YOU: “No miraculous properties for supposed GHGs. Youve been had. Complete nonsense!”
How is this a logical thought process. Different materials emit different IR based on their temperature. You can have lots of the material at the same temperature and you could identify the material with an IR detector based upon the temperature and how much IR it emits. It is highly variable. Hot polished metal will emit very little IR while water at the same temperature will emit a lot.
You really did not have any studies in physics but just post like you know something. If you spent a little time reading a physics book instead of posting it would really help with your understanding. People respond to your posts but it really does no good, I can go back to your posts of years ago and they are the same, you have little ability or desire to learn but seek to have attention so you post the same things multiple times hoping fools like me will respond.
Mike Flynn
Click on this link. It is an emissivity table for IR for various materials.
If you have water at 50 C and a Brass object at 50 C you will easily be able to tell the difference between materials using an IR gun.
http://www.scigiene.com/pdfs/428_InfraredThermometerEmissivitytablesrev.pdf
MF, what did you get when you repeated Tyndall’s experiments?
PS: Tyndall was actually not the first:
Circumstances affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays, Eunice Foote, The American Journal of Science and Arts, November 1856, pp. XXXI.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6xhFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA382#v=onepage&q&f=false
– For more information, see Eunice Foote’s Pioneering Research On CO2 And Climate Warming, Raymond P. Sorenson, Search and Discovery Article #70092 (2011).
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/pdfz/documents/2011/70092sorenson/ndx_sorenson.pdf.html
“Tyndall was actually not the first”
Once again Stiglitz’s law of eponymy holds No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.: Stephen M. Stigler, 1999: Statistics on the Table, Harvard University Press, Ch. 14.
Another name for this “supremely important law of the history of science” is “the Infinite Chain of Priority: Somebody Else Always Did It First” (Tony Rothman, 2003: Everything’s Relative and Other Fables from Science and Technology, John Wiley & Sons, p. xiii.).
Eunice Foote had her observations presented by a male scientist at a time when women were excluded from formally participating. This, and that her experiments were not as rigorous as Tyndall’s work which took place 3 years later, is why she doesn’t even make a footnote in the history. Which I think is a shame. I’ve promoted her work elsewhere.
Tim Folkerts,
Unfortunately, I’m not referring to averages. Averages tend to be the refuge of the incompetent. No one has yet measured the average temperature of the Earth (or its surface), and it seems probable that no one will be able to do, so in the foreseeable future.
I believe the Earth’s surface was once molten. The average surface temperature was obviously above the temperature of molten rock.
Before liquid water appeared, the average temperature was above the boiling point of water. And so on.
Neither you nor anybody else can calculate or model the average temperature of the Earth at any point in time. In any case, such a temperature would be as useless as averaging the numbers in a telephone directory.
No one has every demonstrated a GHE, let alone quantified such a non existent thing.
If you can rebut anything I have assumed as fact, please do so. I doubt that you can. Faith is not fact.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
Please start reading at page 29 of Tyndall’s paper and then report back that you still agree with your statement.
YOU: “No one has every demonstrated a GHE, let alone quantified such a non existent thing.”
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf
Norman,
As instructed by you, I report back that no one has demonstrated a GHE. Tyndall heated gases. Heated bodies emit EMR. You may not realise that a common electric hair dryer uses this principle of heating air, and transferring the absorbed heat to something else – namely hair.
Not a GHE. Just physics in action.
Maybe you could raise the temperature of a thermometer by using some CO2 yourself! Only joking – CO2 heats nothing.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
Look at your assertion you post many times on different threads.
YOU: “Lets cut to the chase. Neither you nor anybody else can raise the temperature of a thermometer by using CO2.”
Tyndall did this very thing in his heated gas experiments. You have a mental block in your thought process. Cult programing that prevents you from logical reasoning ability. Your opposition and stubborn personality are too intense for you to open up your mind to evidence and humble thought.
Is the atmospheric carbon dioxide warmer than absolute zero?
YOUR POINT: “Tyndall heated gases. Heated bodies emit EMR.”
Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere emits IR then correct and according to Hottel’s charts it would emit about 60 W/m^2 in all directions at the temperature of atmosphere in the lower troposphere (maybe up to 1000 meters).
Why would you claim that Carbon Dioxide cannot raise the temperature of a thermometer using CO2 when that is EXACTLY what Tyndall demonstrated and at the same time he demonstrated that all heated gases do not emit measurable IR as with Nitrogen or Oxygen which when heated produced no effect.
“…at the same time (Tyndall) demonstrated that all heated gases do not emit measurable IR as with Nitrogen or Oxygen which when heated produced no effect.”
Tyndall 1861 results show N2, O2 deflections of his needle were measurable, though deflected needle only a fraction of a degree at higher than ambient pressures (5″ mercury). Vs. CO2 achieved 25 degree deflection.
The added pressures enabled higher opacity of the gas in the tube so to be observed from his limited IR supply at 212F. His first ambition at the time was only to establish the order of each gas effect.
He observed introducing lab air raised the “thermometric columns” 5F.
Mike Flynn says:
“No one has every demonstrated a GHE….”
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Mike,
By your logic, placing a piece of glass between the sun and a thermometer on a surface, the thermometer should not warm. It certainly does warm.
Thanks for some answers to my question. I have a follow-up relating to “the insulating effect” of CO2.
In a simple one-dimensional world, a warm piece of ground will emit some IR photons. The higher the temperature the higher the rate the photos are emitted. In the vacuum of space when that IR photon leaves the ground then the ground cools a little and the photon is gone forever. Without any new energy added to the ground then the ground will cool to absolute zero over time, at which point it stops molecular movement and no longer emits IR photons. Correct?
If there is an atmosphere over the ground with some IR reactive gas (CO2, water vapor, etc.) and let’s assume there is only one CO2 molecule and the rest are N and O2, then the IR photon hits the CO2 molecule and is absorbed. I think only three things can happen, and I want to know if they are correct, or if there are more things that can happen:
1) the CO2 emits the photon upward and it is gone forever. The ground cooled a little when the IR photon left so ground remains at that lower temperature.
2) the CO2 emits the photon downward and hits the ground. When the ground absorbs that IR photon it must warm back to its original temperature. It does not warm higher since there is no extra energy available. Since this process takes some time the CO2 slows the rate of cooling. Hence, this is an insulating effect.
3) the extra energy in the CO2 molecule is transferred to one of the neighboring molecules via kinetic energy. This way the CO2 molecule cools and the neighboring molecule warms. In this case I don’t think the CO2 would emit the IR photon.
Is this correct, or are there more things that can happen?
If #3 cannot happen then the odds of #1 & #2 are 50/50 since the CO2 will emit in a random direction and there are only two directions in a one-dimensional world. If #3 can happen, then what are the odds that it happens. Are there any measurements showing the effect, or lack of it?
Tony
Tony, That all sounds good. As I recall, the odds of (3) are actually much higher than either (1) or (2). The frequency of collisions in the atmosphere is very high, and the time before emitting an IR photon is considerably longer.
(There is one other possibility to consider here, too. The other N2/O2 molecules can hit the CO2 and give it extra energy, which could then be emitted as an IR photon. )
Tony,
Correct – more or less. It might be noted in passing that all matter above absolute zero is continuously emitting EMR. The infrared spectrum covers roughly 700 nanometers to 1 millimetre, it doesn’t matter whether it’s CO2, N2, or anything else, matter at the same temperature is at the same temperature, by definition.
A simple measurement is to wait for sunset. Under clear sky and windless conditions, the temperature will drop.
In other words, the thermometer is emitting more energy than it is absorbing. End of story. Once again, Professor John Tyndall explains the mechanism in mid 19th century terms – quite nicely.
No GHE. No need. Just physics in action. Sir Isaac Newton even created Newton’s of Cooling. Not as well known as Newton’s Laws of Motion, but still useful.
Cheers.
Why does water vapor warm the atmosphere?
Saturated air rises:
So let us get back to the air with its water vapor. When water vapor gets mixed into the air, the oxygen and nitrogen have to move over to make room because only 6,02 x 1023 bits can fit into the box; ultimately, when you are out-of-doors, the gases move up, because all the space around is already filled with oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and the other components of air, and up is the only place where there is more room. But the water molecule is actually lighter than the oxygen molecule and also lighter than the nitrogen molecule.
Some airy weights:
Basically, you get the weight of a molecule by counting the protons and neutrons in its atoms:
That makes O2 have a weight of 16 + 16 = 32
It makes N2 have a weight of 14 + 14 = 28
Carbon dioxide (CO2) has a weight of 12 + 16 + 16 = 44
Argon is an atom that has a weight close to 40
Finally, water H2O has have a weight of 1 + 1 + 16 = 18
See how light the water is? It is amazing that it doesnt float away altogether and become lost in space.
Anyway, you can see that a box of gas that is part water vapor will be lighter than one that is only oxygen and nitrogen. So it will rise.
https://marydaly.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/why-humid-air-rises/
Mike, you seem to be missing several important ideas.
1) You say ” … all matter above absolute zero is continuously emitting EMR” (which is true, but misleading) and “… it doesnt matter whether its CO2, N2, or anything else, matter at the same temperature is at the same temperature, by definition.” which is also true, but misleading — especially when combined with the previous statement. Different types of matter at the same temperature emit the thermal EMR with very different efficiencies. The EMR from N2 would be so small it would be tough to actually measure. The EMR from CO2 would be many orders of magnitude stronger at the same temperature.
2) “A simple measurement is to wait for sunset. Under clear sky and windless conditions, the temperature will drop.” You miss the importance of this! Under a cloudy sky, the temperature will drop much less due, due to the backradiation from GHGs and clouds (= higher average temperature over night, and a warmer starting point for the next morning). Under a clear sky of pure N2, the temperature drop would be much greater due to the near-absence of back radiation (= lower average temperature over night, and a colder starting point for the next morning). Your example actually supports the greenhouse effect if you think about the further implications! The back radiation DOES effect the average temperature, making the surface warmer when GHGs are present. 🙂
Tim Folkerts
A good and thoughtful reply but it will not change Mr. Flynn.
Mike Flynn can do an actual test to prove himself wrong but he will not do it. Not expensive or even too time consuming.
Get a double walled Styrofoam insulated cooler. Fill it with ice water and on a summer night test your faulty hypothesis that Carbon Dioxide cannot warm a thermometer. Put some low cost thermometers around the testing container to monitor the source of incoming heat. Have a thermometer placed in the air just above the ice water (it should be fairly cold so it will not warm the ice water or you can monitor it to see if it is the warming agent…you can vary the experiment to try an eliminate all sources of heat input other than the warmer atmosphere above and the IR it is emitting downward toward your ice water cooler.
If you do the experiment honestly and working to eliminate any form of heat input (warmer air surrounding the cooler) maybe put the cooler on a stand so it does not contact the warm ground. Maybe put ice in the double wall so the air on the sides and underneath (that would still be quite warm, does not transmit heat to the ice water)…you may discover that the Carbon Dioxide and water vapor (do it on a clear summer night to eliminate cloud induced GHE) GHE (downwelling IR or backradiation) will warm your ice water to a much higher temperature.
Tim Folkerts says, April 6, 2017 at 8:51 AM:
Here we go again. The temp will drop less per unit of time under a cloudy sky and/or a more humid atmospheric column than under a clear sky and/or a drier atmospheric column, because the surface heat loss – including the radiant portion – is reduced. You make it sound as if the “back radiation” somehow independently heats the surface a little bit to offset its overall cooling. But this way of describing the process greatly confuses readers like Norman here, and is really quite redundant.
There is ONLY a LOSS of energy to be detected from the surface under a cloudy/humid atmosphere also. The loss is simply much SMALLER than under a clear/dry atmosphere.
So the MATHEMATICAL/CONCEPTUAL addition of radiant energy from the “back radiation flux” (the DWLWIR) does not have a separately detectable thermodynamic effect on the surface. It is only in SUBTRACTING from the opposite (upward) mathematical/conceptual surface loss of radiant energy (the UWLWIR) that is has a physical meaning, REDUCING the NET loss.
Kristian: “You make it sound as if the back radiation somehow independently heats the surface a little bit to offset its overall cooling.”
As Tim’s comment and Dr. Spencer’s 2015 test on the added atm. DWLWIR point out to Kristian: “It doesn’t matter whether you call it “reduced rate of cooling”, or “warming”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.”
Ball4 says, April 7, 2017 at 7:48 AM:
It very much matters. It’s two different (opposite) thermodynamic processes. “Insulation” vs. direct “heating”.
Again, Folkerts makes it sound as if the “back radiation” somehow independently heats (thus directly raises the temperature of) the surface a little bit to offset its overall cooling (reduced temperature) somewhat. Which is nonsense.
Tim’s 8:57am comment does not use the term heat, Kristian. Though I’d vote to grant Tim a license to use heat term as he uses it correctly meaning KE of the body constituents.
It doesn’t matter whether you call it “independently heats”, or simply “heats” or “offset its overall cooling”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.
Tims 8:51am comment.
Ball4
That is a good point. I really don’t know why Kristian is so obsessed with his view of radiant energy transfer.
It really is not the logical assumption one would make when trying to figure out what is going on.
In his view, if you have a hot plate in space at 300 C (no surrounding energy flows), you could put an IR detector pointed to the surface and detect an approximate IR outgoing flux of 6118 W/m^2.
If you move another plate at 300 C above this plate then there is no IR being emitted by either surface, they must somehow work to suppress the emission of each surface. The NET IR is zero so there can be no bidirectional flow of energy between the plates.
Even if you put IR sensors in-between the two plates pointed at the surface of each plate and both sensors registered 6118 W/m^2 he would not accept that energy fluxes are flowing in both directions. One surface is emitting 6118 W/m^2 but also absorbing the same amount from the other surface so the temperature does not change.
He also would not accept that if you tried many different temperatures of the plates (say 15 C) and you have the identical IR sensors they would both now detect 390 W/m^2 coming off each plate (the IR detectors are both facing opposite directions and the IR reaching their internal sensors can only come from one direction…the sensors can even be cooled by liquid helium to close to absolute zero so their own internal energy does not effect what the sensor is detecting). With overwhelming evidence Kristian will still insist you are not measuring two macroscopic flows of energy that are moving in opposite directions.
I have linked him to many textbooks on the subject but he ignores them and just keeps up with his strong opinions that are not grounded in anything.
I do not mind Kristian believing this view on his own. I get annoyed with his posts when he makes the bold assertion I am wrong with my understanding (even though mine is supported by all thermodynamics, his has zero support, is logically based and seems to be measureable by actual IR sensors).
“So the MATHEMATICAL/CONCEPTUAL addition of radiant energy from the “back radiation flux” (the DWLWIR) does not have a separately detectable thermodynamic effect on the surface.”
Once again, Dr. Spencer’s 2015 test on the atm. DWLWIR showed it DOES have a separately detectable thermodynamic effect on the surface, the result was: an increase in temperature.
No matter what Kristian calls the result.
Kristian says: “You make it sound as if the back radiation somehow independently heats the surface a little bit to offset its overall cooling. ”
I am sorry that this is what you hear. Specifically, I would never say (in a careful discussion) that the atmosphere “heats” the ground (ie that “Q” goes from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer ground).
In the end you are simply quibbling over semantics here. Whether we discuss a two-flux model or discuss a one-flux net model, the results are mathematically and physically the same.
Ball4 says: “Though Id vote to grant Tim a license to use heat term as he uses it correctly meaning KE of the body constituents.”
Actually, I avoid using “heat” in this sense. “Heat” is used in various ways by various people at various times. I try to consistently use “heat” to mean “Q” which is a process transferring energy from one system to another. This is consistent with all textbooks used in thermodynamics in physics that I have seen.
You seem to be referring to “U”, which is the internal energy of a specific system. I have certainly seen occasional textbooks (in engineering and climate science) that call “U” “heat”. B
Tim Folkerts says, April 7, 2017 at 10:29 AM:
No, it’s not what I hear. It’s what people like Norman hear. People who know how these things actually work get what you mean.
What I’m telling you is simply that when you describe the process as if the “back radiation” somehow directly and all by itself makes the surface temperature higher, then you appear to TREAT it as if it were a separate incoming heat flux, right next to the solar one. I know you’re careful not to CALL it heat, Tim. But that only adds to Norman’s confusion, because the way you DESCRIBE the process, the “back radiation” seems to act like a heat flux.
I’ve shown you this before, Tim:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
Derived from this:
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif
How does the global average surface temperature of Earth get from 232K to 289K according to the “back radiation” explanation of the GHE?
Well, the average solar heat flux (165 W/m^2) could only raise the temp as far as 232K. But if you just add the DWLWIR (and subtract the conductive and evaporative heat losses, of course), then the temp would somehow go all the way to 289K [165+345-112= 398 W/m^2].
But this is equivalent to putting two Suns in the sky. Or three +, rather. It’s the way you add HEAT fluxes together.
Just stop talking about atmospheric “back radiation” altogether, as if it were some kind of distinct thermodynamic energy transfer to the surface, on a par with the solar flux, and stick to simply including it in the surface heat loss (radiative+conductive+evaporative) and Norman’s confusion will (hopefully) vanish.
You know I’m not.
This is not about one-way vs. two-way transfer, Tim. Didn’t you read my comment?
Even if you adhere to a two-way model of radiant transfer, you will have to agree that neither of the two “counter fluxes” making up the net can independently be seen or treated as a thermodynamic energy transfer like ‘heat’ [Q] or ‘work’ [W]. They are fundamentally integrated into ONE, the net flux, the radiant heat, the macroscopically detectable thermal transfer of radiant energy.
If you want to define the average radiant heat loss of Earth’s surface as UWLWIR minus DWLWIR, that is 398-345= 53 W/m^2, or just simply as 53 W/m^2, that makes no difference, budgetwise. The problem/confusion only arises as soon as you, if adhering to the two-way model, choose to split the two heat loss components and put them up as separate energy transfers next to actual heat fluxes. Then you are definitely muddying the waters …
Tim: “Actually, I avoid using “heat” in this sense. “Heat” is used in various ways by various people at various times. I try to consistently use “heat” to mean “Q” which is a process transferring energy..”
There is no need to ever use heat term, when invoking it one has to watch the pea (KE) carefully, if no heat term, then no pea watching.
Tim uses the term heat consistently and correctly when writing about the transfer of KE. Kristian, not so much.
Q is transfer of constituent particle KE by virtue of a temperature difference between two bodies either in contact or in view of each other. Authors and dictionaries sometimes invoke the heat term correctly meaning KE transfer. In Clausius, Maxwell, Planck time they consistently (over) used heat always correctly meaning the transfer of constituent particle KE between two bodies. Mostly because heat was in research mode not well understood at the time.
Clausius wrote heat is never contained in a body and stuck to that. Kristian writes something not contained in a body can then transfer from that body to be not contained in another body. Basically paranormal, mythical, superstition which causes Kristian innumerable errors. His license to use heat should be revoked and those errors would clear right up.
The efforts to give heat some corporeal form through pretzel twisting words are substantial on blogs. People can not let a long outdated term die off. The errors continue.
“It’s the way you add HEAT fluxes together.”
Energy fluxes actually, you know like added DWLWIR from adding cloud to clear sky as in Dr. Spencer’s test.
“..because the way you DESCRIBE the process, the “back radiation” seems to act like a heat flux.”
No, not the way Tim describes it. It doesn’t matter what Kristian calls it, Norman is not confused, the result is the same: a temperature increase.
“…and subtract the conductive and evaporative heat losses, of course…”
Kristian forgets to add back the conductive and evaporative energy gains in the cycle for no net affect on surface constituent particle KE.
Kristian says:
“It very much matters. Its two different (opposite) thermodynamic processes. Insulation vs. direct heating.”
No, Kristian — a joule is a joule, whether you add one or block one from escaping.
Ball4 says, April 7, 2017 at 9:16 AM:
Tim Folkerts says, April 7, 2017 at 10:29 AM
Ball4 says, April 7, 2017 at 12:47 PM:
Huh!?
Elsewhere, Folkerts points out to Gordon Robertson:
Tim Folkerts says, April 5, 2017 at 1:54 PM:
… which echoes …
Mark W. Zemansky, “Heat and Thermodynamics”, 5th Ed. (1968), p.80:
https://archive.org/details/HeatAndThermodynamics
I use and have always used the term “heat” [Q] in the exact same way as Folkerts and Zemansky do. The physically/thermodynamically standard way.
Kristian: “I use and have always used the term “heat” [Q] in the exact same way as Folkerts and Zemansky do.”
Incorrect.
Zemansky correctly writes Q is by virtue of temperature difference using energy term not heat term as does Kristian in error.
Zemansky on Q: “equal to the difference between the energy of thermal radiation”
Kristian on Q: “we need to account for is the HEAT transferred to/from the system”.
Ball4 says, April 8, 2017 at 10:37 PM:
Good trolly! I see you’re starting to string the pieces together. But still quoting out of context and misrepresenting, I see. Tsk, tsk. Bad trolly!
Zemansky says:
“Heat is energy in transit. It flows from one part of a system to another, or from one system to another, by virtue of only a temperature difference. When this flow has ceased, there is no longer any occasion to use the word “heat.””
Folkerts says:
“(…) every physics book I have read defines U = internal energy as the thermal energy WITHIN a system, while Q = heat is a process of transferring U from one region to another.”
They’re both correct.
Heat is simply the energy transferred between places at different temperatures, as a direct result of the temperature difference. It is also the process itself, the thermal transfer of energy. No temperature difference, no heat, no thermal transfer of energy, and no change in U (and T).
Zemansky also says (pp.78-79, Ch 4-4):
“This energy, whose transfer between the system and its surroundings (…) has taken place only by virtue of the temperature difference between the system and its surroundings, is what we have previously called heat. We therefore give the following as our thermodynamic definition of heat: When a system whose surroundings are at a different temperature and on which work may be done undergoes a process, the energy transferred by nonmechanical means, equal to the difference between the internal-energy change and the work done, is called heat. Denoting this difference by Q, we have
Q = U_f – U_i – (-W), or
Q = U_f – U_i + W, (4-2)
where the convention has been adopted that Q is positive when it enters a system and negative when it leaves (just the opposite of the sign convention for W). The preceding equation is known as the mathematical formulation of the first law.
Notice how he denotes his definition of “heat” by Q.
Finally starting to sink in, trolly?
To make this whole concept easier for you to grasp, just think about what Zemansky and Folkerts are both pointing out:
“It would be just as incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body” as it would be to speak of the “work in a body.” The performance of work and the flow of heat are methods whereby the internal energy of a system is changed. It is impossible to separate or divide the internal energy into a mechanical and a thermal part.”
When the energy is INSIDE the system or object, it is termed “internal energy”, U. When the energy passes from one system or object to another by some thermodynamic process, however, it is termed according to the process of transfer, be it a THERMAL process (the energy is then termed “heat”, Q) or a MECHANICAL process (the energy termed “work”, W).
It’s all energy. It is only given different names in different situations to distinguish between the different states and/or processes that the energy can be in. To make it all EASIER to follow, easier to analyse. To AVOID confusion and gain PRECISION.
However, treated individually and independently, as distinct entities, neither the “DWLWIR” nor the “UWLWIR” would fit into this neat thermodynamic definitional system of state and path functions (energy stored and energy transferred). And this is my central point:
Only when COMBINED, treated as ONE integrated unit, as a single flux, one single transfer of energy, they will be able to produce a thermodynamic (macroscopically observable) effect. Because only then they become a THERMODYNAMIC energy transfer, an actual, operative “path function”, the radiant HEAT, Q_lw.
And there’s a very good reason for it. It happens to be all we ever detect. Macroscopically. Thermodynamics is about MACROSCOPIC conditions. It applies to and governs the MACROSCOPIC world. The one that we live in and sense. We only ever detect that one single transfer of energy, the Q_lw, the NET transfer of thermal radiant energy between systems or regions at different temperatures.
It’s that simple.
Sorry, full Zemansky quote (forgot the “unquote” at the end):
“They’re both correct.”
Only to their own mythology about heat in a futile attempt to give heat some kind of corporeal existence .
Nowhere does Zemansky put heat into Q as does Kristian; for Zemansky Q is always internal kinetic energy changing by virtue of a temperature difference. When Zemansky uses heat he always…ALWAYS means the KE of the objects constituents following Clausius, Maxwell, Planck unlike Kristian who simply follows his own personal mythology when using heat term, sometimes Kristian correctly lines up with Zemansky, sometimes not.
Kristian: “the radiant HEAT”
Zemansky: radiant energy
Kinetic energy is not radiation Kristian, photons have no rest mass so far as is known. Follow Zemansky exactly and Kristian’s errors in this field will reduce, always use energy.
Zemansky: the energy transferred by nonmechanical means
Kristian: heat flux
No, Kristian does not follow Zemansky exactly, leading to substantial Kristian errors which Zemansky does not commit.
Ball4 says, April 9, 2017 at 5:50 AM:
Er, yes, he does in the quote directly above you comment. You should read it out loud to yourself, maybe that’ll help. You seem to suffer from some severe form of selective reading impairment, after all.
Again, I don’t know what you think you’re reading, but it certainly isn’t what is written in black letters on white background on this very page. Zemansky is careful to stress, again and again, that Q (heat) is specifically NOT (!!!) to be confused with the “internal kinetic energy” of objects. He says the complete OPPOSITE of what you claim. Read the quotes.
You’re really starting to come off as delusional here. Are you OK?
I’m fine, it is Kristian needs help reading Zemansky, again:
Zemansky: the energy transferred by nonmechanical means
Kristian: heat flux
Ball4 says, April 9, 2017 at 8:18 AM:
“Zemansky: the energy transferred by nonmechanical means”
Yes. … is called HEAT, and is denoted by Q.
It’s right there in the quote, dude:
Do you want an even smaller spoon …?
The energy is transferred per Zemansky, Kristian insists the heat is transferred which causes Kristian commit much error in Earth energy balances that are not committed by Zemansky.
TonyL says:
“In a simple one-dimensional world, a warm piece of ground will emit some IR photons. The higher the temperature the higher the rate the photos are emitted. In the vacuum of space when that IR photon leaves the ground then the ground cools a little and the photon is gone forever. Without any new energy added to the ground then the ground will cool to absolute zero over time, at which point it stops molecular movement and no longer emits IR photons. Correct?”
No, because the Earth’s surface is also receiving energy from the Sun.
David,
I stated “without any new energy”. I was trying to establish that CO2 does act as a radiative insulator, and I think most everyone agrees with this.
Now the question I have is, how much? Can CO2 transfer some of the energy from the ansorbed IR photon to N or O2 without emitting another IR photon? Are there any empirical measurements of this? It seems that this is a key thing to know as it determines the effective “R value” of CO2.
I also suspect that this value measured in a lab may be very different in the real world, and also extremely variable based upon conditions. I have used MODTRAN to look at how surface temperature changes as a function of CO2 concentration and cloud cover. The more cloud cover the less the effect of CO2. What are your thoughts on this?
Tony
They begin to heavy rainfall in California.
What if Earth had a ring?
Today, I would like to mention a very interesting possible driver of climate: suppose Earth had a ring.
If we had a ring, it would cause shading on the Earth. Furthermore, as Earth traveled around the sun, the shade of the ring would fall on the northern hemisphere for one half-year and on the southern hemisphere for the other half-year. Indeed, it would fall on the northern half during our winter, and on the southern half during their winter. The effect would be to intensify winter. So who would notice that? Bears?
Well, if the dust is very small (and the YORP effect guarantees that it will end up small if it doesnt start small) if it is very small, then solar storms, which release floods of high-energy charged particles, can cause a sudden downfall of dust from one sector of the ring. The immediate effect might be a local storm, possibly quite a large one. Unexpected storms are not so unusual. During a phase of very active sun, lots of sunspots that is, the ring would erode very considerably. But during quiet sun, the ring could get thicker.
We do know that the Maunder minimum was a time of very few sunspots, seventy years with no spots visible, and the Jesuits were watching closely. The Maunder Minimum is the middle of the Little Ice Age. So there is a correlation; there might be causation.
There might be.
Quiet sun might cause thickening rings, colder winters. And we have a very quiet sun these days, these years. You cant wake up the sun by parking your car.
https://marydaly.wordpress.com/
What’s heating the ocean ?
The sun.
And the atmosphere when it’s warmer than the ocean’s surface temp.
Yes, the Sun.
ZERO CO2 warming of the oceans, yet you constantly use ocean effect El Ninos to show your atmospheric linear trend farce, and pretend its anthropogenic.
DOH !!!!!!
Bindidon says:
“The sun.”
Q: What changes have occurred with the sun to cause the observed ocean warming?
Extra credit: Why is the stratosphere cooling?
Haha, I wonder why they didn’t answered your question, David.
Again it is a very low solar/increased albedo/lower sea surface temperature play for the climate moving forward.
Albedo increase – due to greater volcanic activity (major),increase in global cloud coverage/snow coverage as a consequence of very weak solar conditions.
Lower overall sea surface temperatures – as a result of a reduction of UV light again a consequence of very low solar conditions.
It is that simple and concise no need to go on and on.
Exactly that you are telling since about 2010.
Les dieux ne sont pas avec vous, Salvatore!
“Les dieux ne sont pas avec vous”
Translation: “The gods are not with you”
And oh dear I unfortunately forgot to mention UAH6.0’s trend for the Globe since 2010: 0.36 +- 0.09 C / decade.
Once you include the transient of the NON-CO2 based El Nino.
A mathematical nonsense, in other words.
But keeps using those NON-CO2 El Ninos.
its ALL you have. !!!
The storm could bring 1 to 4 feet (0.3 to 1.2 meters) of snow to the Sierra’s higher elevations, an unusual amount for April. Forecasters say it will be the biggest storm the Sierra has seen in April in a decade.
Electronic monitors last week showed the Sierra’s snowpack was at 164 percent of normal. It was the most dense springtime snowpack since 2011, a year followed by five years of harsh drought.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article142831394.html
Dangerous freezing rain in the Northeast. On the night of blizzards.
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00889/7gkth6lxrjpc.gif
Mike
Here is another experiment you could try: On a warm summer night, place a thermometer in the fridge until it’s nice and cold. Then take it outside.
What do you suppose will happen?
Heat flows from warmer to colder body.
ren
Yes indeed it does. But do you consider radiant IR a potential heat flux? Like how the Sun is able to warm the Earth and other planets?
To Tim Folkerts, Norman
I think I just had a moment of clarity regarding the Flynn/Tyndall confusion.
Basically, Tyndall placed CO2 between a heat source and a thermometer, and the thermometer showed cooling. What’s important to consider is the heat source was not the sun! (It couldn’t have been because Co2 is mostly transparent to sunlight.)
So to replicate Tyndall’s experiment on a planetary scale, the heat source would have to be the sun warm earth, the troposphere would contain the Co2 in the middle, and the thermometer would be placed on the other side (the stratosphere).
Now increase levels of the Co2 in the middle, (humans are doing this), and according to Tyndall’s experiments, the stratosphere should cool.
As far as I know, this has been observed.
I meant to write, “the sun warmed earth”
Norman
“An infrared heater or heat lamp is a body with a higher temperature which transfers energy to a body with a lower temperature through electromagnetic radiation. Depending on the temperature of the emitting body, the wavelength of the peak of the infrared radiation ranges from 780 nm to 1 mm. No contact or medium between the two bodies is needed for the energy transfer. Infrared heaters can be operated in vacuum or atmosphere.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_heater
“Quartz tungsten infrared heaters emit medium wave energy reaching operating temperatures of up to 1500 C (medium wave) and 2600 C (short wave). They reach operating temperature within seconds. Peak wavelength emissions of approximately 1.6 m (medium wave infrared) and 1 m (short wave infrared)”.
The temperature in the photosphere is about 10,000 degrees F (5,500 degrees C). It is here that the sun’s radiation is detected as visible light. Sunspots on the photosphere are cooler and darker than the surrounding area. At the center of big sunspots the temperature can be as low as 7,300 degrees F (4,000 degrees C).
The chromosphere, the next layer of the sun’s atmosphere is a bit cooler about 7,800 degrees F (4,320 degrees C). Visible light from the chromosphere is usually too weak to be seen against the brighter photosphere, but during total solar eclipses, when the moon covers the photosphere, the chromosphere can be seen as a red rim around the sun.
Temperatures rise dramatically in the corona, which can also only be seen during an eclipse as plasma streams outward like points on a crown. The corona can get about 3.5 million degrees F (2 million degrees C). As the corona cools, losing heat and radiation, matter is blown off as the solar wind.
http://www.space.com/17137-how-hot-is-the-sun.html
Snape
Best of luck in getting Mike Flynn to understand or even consider your point.
Well, it was fun to think about. Not sure if my idea actually holds water.
Snape says: “Now increase levels of the Co2 in the middle, (humans are doing this), and according to Tyndalls experiments, the stratosphere should cool.
As far as I know, this has been observed.”
Certainly, the scientific prediction is for increased CO2 to cool the stratosphere. A reasonable question would be whether that impact would swamp other influences.
It is a deceptive ploy by alarmists to say that the stratosphere has cooled because increased CO2. Over the time period where we have measurement, the stratosphere cooled essentially when there were major, low-latitude volcanic eruptions sending aerosols to uncommon heights. Since the end of these volcanic eruptions, the stratosphere has basically flatlined in temperature. That has been the situation now for 22 years. In other words, we have flatlined stratospheric temperatures for a longer period of time than we had cooling stratospheric temperatures.
The 2017 February and March temps for stratosphere were -.21 and -.22. The temperatures in 1995 were cooler than that for 2/3 of the months . . . and were cooler for every month in 1996.
CO2 does not appear to the dominant influence.
Snape 1:38pm, your idea is not exactly what Tyndall wrote, easy to find what he did write from experiments in 1859,’60 google string: Tyndall 1861
His IR source shining into the gas in his apparatus was 2 boiling water* containers so as to show constant temperature from these sources. He used end caps to make sure no material conduction from the boiling water into his gas tube. He screwed a thermometer into his apparatus (search 2nd hit of thermometer). His words: “On filling the tube the thermometric columns rose, on exhausting it they sank.” So added CO2 raised the gas temperature in his apparatus.
Mike Flynn has been shown this in the past, now he is using it for twisting pretzels around to confuse readers. And play games with them.
Prior to the thermometers, Tyndall used a balanced thermopile reading calibrated to 0 in view of the IR from both waters, as the gas filled the tube increasing opacity not as much IR reached the thermopile and the needle deflected showing the IR from the control water unchanged and the IR from the apparatus decreased, this is what Mike is trying to sell to the unwary as a decrease in T from CO2 et. al. gas.
Tyndall was so astonished (search astonishment) the needle pegged with CO2, that he then screwed in the thermometers.
He actually eventually removed his whole apparatus and just squirted CO2 out of his cylinder into the air of the room between his boiling waters and found the same results, the CO2 with IR from boiling water increased T in the atm. of his lab. The most famous original CO2 heat trapping (ha!, really opacity increasing) experiment.
*He had tried many other much hotter sources but could not maintain their T to his specifications. Hotter T would have enabled him to better measure O2, N2 opacity over a vacuum.
Ball4,
I’m thinking as his room’s temperature increased, the temperature in the attic decreased. In my planetary idea, of course, the room would be the troposphere (which shows warming), and the attic would be the stratosphere (which I believed was cooling until I read the post by “An Inquirer”).
An Inquirer: “Over the time period where we have measurement, the stratosphere cooled..”
No confidence in that.
The standard atm. of the mid-latitude tropics shows a stratosphere 9-10km deep and the committee voted it isothermal(z). The fixed thermometer fields at z=1.5m are debated as being too sparse, TOBs deficient, relocated, sited at airports or nearby tennis courts with asphalt & burn barrels. Since there is no fixed thermometer field in the stratosphere at any level, the known readings are even more sparse so confidence in trends is much less.
My last reading of papers on stratosphere anomaly still cannot improve the sparseness to be very confident of the cooling trends but if you read closely they are picking up some long term cooling signals from what they do have above the noise and dealing with various spikes you mention. Of course they want more funds for better data.
Ball4…”The most famous original CO2 heat trapping (ha!, really opacity increasing) experiment”.
How many times do I have to say this before an alarmist gets it. INRARED ENREGY IS NOT HEAT. CO2 cannot trap heat!!
When the Earth’s surface emits IR, the surface cools. If that heat was not replenished by solar energy, the Earth would continue to radiate energy and cool. It’s a natural process that has nothing whatsoever to do with atmospheric CO2.
The heat in this case is associated with the atoms and molecules that make up the surface. There is no heat to trap in the atmosphere which has it’s own thermal energy due to the collision of gas molecules.
If CO2 manages to capture some IR from the surface, it does warm but its mass is so insignificant compared to the 99%+ created by N2 and O2 that CO2 contributes virtually nothing to atmospheric warming.
Which leads to the question, Ball4, what was the mass of CO2 in Tyndal’s equation? Was it 0.04% of the gas in the container? I don’t think so. If he infused CO2 into the container it was likely closer to 100% CO2.
INRARED ENREGY IS NOT HEAT.
Enregy is Venusian for Energy.
Snape 3:38, the cooling at Tyndall’s needle on the side of the apparatus (from increased opacity in the apparatus) would be from the same physics as the stratosphere cooling; the increased temperature at his thermometer bulb inside the apparatus (or the free lab air) being from the same physics as added CO2 increasing thermometer T lower troposphere down to surface.
No need to go into Tyndall’s lab attic in search of testing support for Mike Flynn’s cooling, which in Mike’s comments is simply a confusing twist of the pretzel.
Ball4,
When Tyndall squirted Co2 into the air in his lab, the lab warmed up, right? If the lab warmed up, the attic would likely have cooled. The attic, then, would be somewhat analogous to the stratosphere.
“How many times do I have to say this before an alarmist gets it. INRARED ENREGY IS NOT HEAT. CO2 cannot trap heat!!”
Calm down Gordon. Only once since Tyndall proved you wrong, you took my bait. Heat was trapped in Tyndall’s apparatus! It couldn’t get out until he evacuated the chamber when the “thermometric columns sank”.
In real modern physics Gordon, the term heat can mean anything you want as heat does not exist, so excuse my bait, the atm. molecules KE as measured by thermometer increased as CO2 was added making the atm. in the tube more opaque to transiting the IR from the boiling water.
This is all really easy, your comments would be sensible if aligned with Tyndall results meaning you took the time to read Tyndall 1861, until then my bait will be successful, I’ll haul you in hook, line and sinker.
Norman…”do you consider radiant IR a potential heat flux? Like how the Sun is able to warm the Earth and other planets?”
Atoms or molecules are required to produce heat, since heat is a property of mass. IR as EM does not have heat as a property so there’s no such thing as a heat flux, unless you are referring to a vector field flux of thermal energy flow in a mass. Heat does flow like electricity in a conductor, being transferred via valence electrons.
If solar IR continued through space without contacting atoms or molecules, there would be no heat associated with it. It’s only when the electrons in an atoms or molecule absorb IR that they can potentially gain the energy to jump to a higher energy level. If that happens, the kinetic energy of the atom increases and that represent heat.
“what was the mass of CO2 in Tyndal(l)’s equation?”
Test.
CO2 was ~.04% to begin with and then increased from that amount when he opened the cylinder into his lab atm. pegging his needle and “the thermometric columns rose” from the boiling water added IR energy as CO2 ppm increased atm. opacity.
He also evacuated his cylinder and introduced CO2 into the vacuum pegging his needle & saw that “the thermometric columns rose”. Upon introducing air into his apparatus (.04% CO2) the thermometric columns rose 5F.
When he introduced N2 from vacuum to 100%, his needle changed a smidgen from 0 to 1 count or so, I didn’t reread the whole paper but his results are in there, find them.
Snape…”Tyndall placed CO2 between a heat source and a thermometer, and the thermometer showed cooling”.
How much CO2 did he place between the heat source and a thermometer. Was it the 0.04% of CO2 that makes up it’s proportion of air? Obviously not because air with that percent CO2 will not do anything.
GR,
Will not do anything”, or “will do very little?” Which one do you think is correct?
Gordon: “there’s no such thing as a heat flux…Heat does flow..”
A demonstration of confusion over heat term miss-use. As I always recommend Gordon, your confusion will reduce if you drop the heat term from comments, heat term is never needed, the term only adds confusion as you demonstrate.
Snape 4:32pm, suppose Tyndall’s lab warmed to say 800F at Venus CO2 level, would you expect the attic to still cool? I would not.
Take that down to his 5F, there would be no effect on his attic. Presumably in his day, lab was kept at room temperature by steam heat and maybe a thermostat or valve set at keeping it fairly constant. As far as I read, I did not recall him mentioning the T of his lab atm. and if it varied or not. My guess is he did not consider room temperature variation/change significant to what he learned in his apparatus so did not report it iirc.
The Co2 in the room would act like insolation and impede some of the boiling water’s heat from reaching the attic. Thus the attic, receiving less heat, would cool down as the room warms. Isn’t this super basic physics?
In order for the room to reach 800F from the heat of a pot of boiling water (pretending it’s possible), the room would have to be insulated like an oven. Almost no heat would be permitted to reach the attic and be lost through the roof. So yeah, the attic would be cooling.
Assuming, of course, that the boiling water is the attic’s only heat source.
Ball4
So here’s the question you need to ponder:
How could you get the room up to 800C if you have heat leaking into the attic?
Gordon says things like : ” The heat in this case is associated with the atoms and molecules that make up the surface. …
Atoms or molecules are required to produce heat, since heat is a property of mass.
Gordon, I KNOW you like this definition of “heat”, but this is non-standard, mostly archaic use of “heat”. Try googling “heat thermodynamics” and see what you get. The first page comes up with wikipedia, Khan Academy, several universities, and assorted other sources. NONE agree with your definition. All discuss heat, Q, as a process of energy transfer. Simply insisting on a non-standard definition is not going to get you very far.
At a minimum, accept that some (MOST!) scientists use a different definition than you. Maybe ask which definition of “heat” they mean. Better yet, give people the benefit of the doubt and think “thermal energy transfer” when they say “heat”. If you STILL disagree with what they are saying in this context, then state your objections. If you simply want to quibble about semantics … well I guess that is your prerogative.
“How could you get the room up to 800C if you have heat leaking into the attic?”
Heat can’t leak from Tyndall lab as it doesn’t exist in the lab, only KE exists in there. The KE can leak, the rate of which matters.
There is no perfect insulation, if the energy into the room is greater than energy leaving for long enough the flame temperature will get it to 800+C as it burns a fuel and any real insulation would thus raise not lower the attic temperature.
Ball4
Do you understand that in this scenario the insulation is in the room beneath the attic?
Yes, the insulation in the room below the attic will transfer (radiative, conductive) a nonzero amount of KE to the constituent molecules in the attic, increasing their KE thus a thermometer would detect: a higher temperature in the attic.
The attic will become warmer than it was before insulation was added to the room below?
When the room below the attic constituent KE increases from that of room temperature to that of 800F.
Ball4
Ok, one more try and l’ll let it go:
So initially, lets assume equal energy entering and leaving the room. This gives a stable temperature.
When insulation is introduced, energy will exit at a slower rate than it did previously. This also means energy will enter attic at slower rate. However, because insolation was not added to attic, energy will still be leaving at about same rate as before…thus less coming in than leaving and temperature will decrease.
When the insulation has absorbed all the energy it’s capable of, an equilibrium will again be reached and the temperature will again stabilize. To achieve more heating, more insulation will need to be added, and the process will begin all over again.
If level of Co2 in the atmosphere were to stabilize, eventually temperature would as well (except for potential feedbacks like albedo loss). As long as we keep adding more CO2 (insolation), temps will keep increasing.
The reason attic would remain cool even as room becomes increasingly hot is that a ridiculous amount of insulation would have been used. The ceiling between room and attic might need to be 20′ thick for room to reach 800 F using such a small heat source.
An Inquirer says:
April 6, 2017 at 2:35 PM
Over the time period where we have measurement, the stratosphere cooled essentially when there were major, low-latitude volcanic eruptions sending aerosols to uncommon heights.
This, Inquirer, is plain wrong.
Because the time period where we have measurement shows exactly the contrary, what you seem completely to ignore though data about it is accessible to all of us.
You just need to
(1) download the UAH temperature time series for the lower troposphere
— http://tinyurl.com/jrx6wcn
and for the lower stratosphere
— http://tinyurl.com/ktx6xg8
and to
(2) superpose the data plots in a common chart:
http://tinyurl.com/mxu7syn
There you immediately see that upon the huge eruptions which occured during the satellite era (St Helens + El Chichon; Pinatubo), the lower stratosphere experienced rather strong global warming at the time the lower troposphere cooled.
The stratospheric warming spots are even higher in the tropical zone, but I didn’t add the Tropics LS plot because its tremendous ups and downs hide more than they colud explain.
These observations perfectly confirm research done by Stenchikov and Santer some years ago.
Snape 12:31am, sure a ridiculous amount of insulation which increases the amount of time for the increased kinetic energy flow to reach the attic but eventually at steady state the attic is warmer as no amount of insulation is perfect. You could even put in some state changing device like the Venera landers used to delay the inevitable.
Ball4
I’m not sure I follow your comment. But the key point to understand here is quite simple:
If the amount of energy leaving the room exceeds the energy produced by the pot of water, the room will cool.
So even if the room were 800 F, the rate of energy exiting could not exceed the original rate….or the room would be cooling, right?
Insulation could not cause a FASTER rate of energy to exit the room, which is what would be required to increase temp in attic.
Attic gets it’s energy from the room. If the rate of energy leaving room declines, temperature in attic will also decline. It’s that simple.
Snape 12:11am: “If level of Co2 in the atmosphere were to stabilize, eventually temperature would as well (except for potential feedbacks like albedo loss). As long as we keep adding more CO2 (insolation), temps will keep increasing.”
CO2 IR active gas effect is not insolation (perhaps you meant insulation in context of subthread).
CO2 is but one of around 9 measured radiative forcings (each with some confidence interval est.s) of planet wide global near surface air temperature, there is no assurance added CO2 alone will always long term (climate length) increase overall global surface T (& reduce T higher up for no change in total system KE). One or several other radiative forcings acting together could invoke a long-lasting reduction in T though effect of added CO2 component is monotonic on that T.
Snape 4/6 3:38: “I’m thinking as his room’s temperature increased, the temperature in the attic decreased.”
Snape 4/7 11:13: “If the rate of energy leaving room declines, temperature in attic will also decline.”
Spot the evolution in Snape comment?
There are 2 relevant furnaces in Prof. Tyndall’s room burning a fuel consuming energy driving his gas bill up: the 2 flames boiling the water in his containers, one producing his relevant tube’s IR at 212F constant. Lets say consuming methane in air. Flame T ~3500F each.
Squirting the CO2 into his apparatus from the gas cylinder increased the temperature at the 2 screwed in air-tight thermometer bulbs “the thermometric columns rose”. There was an equal and opposite temperature reduction causing his balanced needle to deflect from 0 an amount to his astonishment, from the increase in opacity of the column contents. An opacity that could not be detected by human eyes, to him the column opacity did not change, it was still clear, thus he was astonished.
This process had no effect on his attic temperature or room temperature as CO2 did not burn a fuel, total KE of the relevant constituents was not changed from this added CO2 process, higher local constituent KE at bulb, lower KE at needle.
Then I added a number to your assumed warming 800F from the flames if allowed to run a long time. Presumably he turned them off at times. This process left alone would eventually warm the attic like your furnace does in winter time not cool the attic.
Then you added insulation like an oven. Ok, if added instantaneously the ridiculous amount of insulation would for a bit decrease the attic temperature as presumably the insulation was 72F room T and had to warm up to 800F. This decrease would eventually become the same attic T as original then increase over the original T as the flames kept running.
You are jumping around faster than I can keep up.
Ball4 wrote, “spot the evolution in Snape comment?”
No evolution. Two ways of saying the same thing. I’ve been “jumping around” trying different ways to explain what I assumed was a fairly simple concept.
No evolution? Plenty of evolution as defined in Snape comments: the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.
Ball4,
Maybe I should have tried devolution:
– As room gets more warm, attic gets more cold
– Insulation no make area above insulation warmer.
Ball4,
I don’t appreciate being criticized for trying to explain something better. Should I have tried devolution?
– As room gets more warm, attic gets more cold
– Insulation no make area above insulation warmer.
“As room gets more warm, attic gets more cold”
You devolve to nothing here. Sure if the A/C outlet is in the attic, and the exchanger is plugged in the room.
“Insulation no make area above insulation warmer.”
Insulation does not burn a fuel, the 2 flames do.
Ball4:
I ended up thinking about something that has almost nothing to do with Tyndall’s experiment and neglected to let you know. Sorry
BTY, An insufficient level of insulation will never warm a room to, for example, 800 C, no matter how long you wait. (Assuming a constant heat source)
Right, I had presumed your ridiculous amount of insulation was off the scale high (you know 20′ thick) & not too low.
Gordon Robertson says:
“INRARED ENREGY IS NOT HEAT.”
I dare you to stick your hand in front of this IR laser:
https://phys.org/news/2007-11-worlds-largest-laser-pace.html
Agreed?
ren says:
“Heat flows from warmer to colder body.”
False — heat is emitted by any body with T>0.
IR is not heat David, but IR is still EM energy which can be transformed into the KE of the constituent particles of an opaque hand.
Energy is emitted by any body with T>0 which is all bodies.
Ball4 says:
“IR is not heat David”
Of course it is: E=h*nu
Ball4 says:
“Energy is emitted by any body with T>0 which is all bodies.”
Emitted energy is a flow of energy.
ren says:
“Heat flows from warmer to colder body.”
Radiation is heat. Radiation flows from any body with T>0.
“Radiation is heat.”
No. Only in your personal mythology. Radiation contains no KE of its constituent particles, radiation has momentum, energy and can be polarized.
Are you ready to put your hand in front of that infrared laser — or any laser?
If not, why not?
Ball4 says:
“radiation has momentum, energy and can be polarized.”
What do you think heat is, if not energy?
Heat is a myth David, as such it can be anything you want in your own private mythology, same for the other commenters here.
Clausius: An object contains the kinetic energy of its constituent particles. An object does not contain heat.
I point my IR laser at my hand all the time to see if the battery is working David, so far no deleterious effects. I will let you similarly test higher energy lasers.
So you’re afraid of high-powered IR lasers.
I don’t blame you.
David wrote ANY laser, some are battery powered, others use more juice.
ASTEROID 2014 JO25 IS GETTING NEAR THE EARTH THIS APRIL 19, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAmNmnV5ujM
If anybody is interested in Tyndall’s work relating to gases, heat, radiation, and so on, they might find it useful to ensure that they get the most recent edition of Tyndall’s book “Heat: a mode of motion”.
When Tyndall corrected himself, he used footnotes in new editions. This presumably saved the cost of resetting and reimposition. Unfortunately, it can also lead to confusion, if the original incorrect body text remains in place.
It’s fairly obvious that many people are merely parroting what they have been told by someone who did not bother to properly read and comprehend Tyndall’s works.
Anything which prevents heat from reaching a thermometer results in a lowering of the thermometer’s temperature.
Just as a matter of interest, if CO2 absorbed 2000 times as much energy of a particular wavelength as, say, dry air, but only comprised 4 molecules per 10,000, then the dry air would still absorb more energy than the CO2, overall. 4 CO2 @ 2000 = 8000, but 9996 @ 1 = 9996.
Still no GHE, I’m happy to say.
Cheers.
Flynn says:
“Anything which prevents heat from reaching a thermometer results in a lowering of the thermometer’s temperature.”
Hey! We finally agree on something!
My reply seems to have gotten lost, so here is a condensed version.
Mike, CO2 absorbs WAY more than 2000x better than N2 & O2 — and that even includes factoring in the actual abundances! You can see for yourself at a website called “spectralcalc.com” Play around with the “Line List Browser”.
“Anything which prevents heat from reaching a thermometer results in a lowering of the thermometer’s temperature.”
And the “anything” constituents increase in KE as measured by thermometer, thus temperature, hey, whoa, Mike, a GHE!
Mike needs to actually read and comprehend Tyndalls book “Heat: a mode of motion” where Prof. Tyndall sets forth the conception of heat as body constituent’s molecular motion, the same definition previously published by Clausius.
Oh, and the writings where Prof. Tyndall explains the GHE would be especially important for Mike.
Nobody needs to read Tyndall — they just need to pay attention in freshman physics.
Tyndall’s work is covered in freshman physics David, reading Tyndall you do not have to worry about what inaccuracy crept in behind in the subsequent text author’s words.
If you want to know what Newton said, read Newton. So forth.
Mike Flynn invokes Tyndall without having read/understood his experiments, and Tyndall wrote about Earth or any planet’s GHE in 1861 which MF ignores for entertainment purposes.
Tim Folkerts,
Hopefully you will agree that 20 C results in peak spectral emissivity of close to 10 um.
In a room or other closed container at 20 C containing any gas, the gas is also at 20 C. Nitrogen, oxygen, radon, CO2, H2O – all have the same temperature. No little white hot CO2 molecules.
The gases are all exposed to the same wavelengths. You are confused about resonant frequencies, energy, heat and temperature, possibly.
CO2 heats nothIng. CO2, just as other gases, can be heated by friction, compression, and other methods. Left to itself, it will cool, like any other gas, to absolute zero.
You may try to convince others that at 20 C, CO2 is somehow much hotter than other gases at 20 C because it absorbs thousands of times more energy, but you will find yourself questioning whether you are making sense, even to yourself.
But all this is beside the point. Neither you, nor anybody else, can make a thermometer hotter by surrounding it with CO2.
Still no GHE.
Cheers.
Tim Folkerts
I hope you can see Mike Flynn is just playing with you. He has no interest in science, truth, logic. He states nonsensical comments to annoy you and hope you respond. He has done the same thing for years. I think you are much too intelligent to waste anymore time trying to reason with him, unless you use him as a method to teach other readers about the actual physics. I think US citizens might be so scientifically illiterate (Gordon Robertson is one example) that they might actually believe Mike over you. That would be a really sad thing to happen to a Nation improved by scientists through several generations.
Norman you are right, Mike is just playing word games void of science when writes: “Neither you, nor anybody else, can make a thermometer hotter by surrounding it with CO2” as Prof. Tyndall reports 1861 “the thermometric columns rose” made hotter by surrounding it with CO2…..and lab air, N2 et. al. Test results replicated later by many others added even more precise measurement equipment.
I agree with Norman — Mike Flynn isn’t serious. He shouldn’t be treated as if he is….
GR on the other hand…….
Mike, you were doing fine for two paragraphs. In your 20C room scenario, all of the gases are indeed @ 20 C.
But then you show that you are clearly confused about heat and temperature when you say “You may try to convince others that at 20 C, CO2 is somehow much hotter than other gases at 20 C because it absorbs thousands of times more energy”. That is not how it works, and that is not what I am trying to convince people of.
CO2 does indeed absorb thousands of times more IR than N2. It also emits thousands of times more. The two energy flows balance; temperature remains steady @ 20C. You could also consider a polished metal ball (emissivity =0.03) and a similar ball painted with black paint (emissivity = 0.96). If you suspended both in the room, both would reach room temperature (20C in your example), but the painted ball would be absorbing (and emitting!) 32 times more IR!
(And yes, Norman, this is mostly so that others are exposed to the flaws in his reasoning.)
MF: dry air already contains 0.04% CO2.
“Did the Obama White House Collude with a Politically Motivated Scientist?”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446505/judicial-watch-lawsuit-seeks-obama-white-house-records-controversial-global-warming
barry
I think you might be able to answer this question I have.
https://tinyurl.com/lytej3o
This link has a measured value of contribution to downwelling IR from Carbon Dioxide at 0.2 W/m^2 in a decade (the increase in the IR).
barry
Sorry I have to break up the original post into fragments to try and find the offending piece. Hope it does not destroy clarity for you.
The problem comes up with the ocean heat content over this same time period.
https://tinyurl.com/jbf2xco
I can’t get an exact number but it looks like the content was around 5 x 10^22 joules in 2000 (same years as the IR study above) and rose to around 13 x 10^22 joules in 2010. Maybe in the ballpark of an 8 x 10^22 joules energy gained over that time period.
If you run the math on this. The Earth has 360 trillion square meters of water so that is your absorbing surface.
Start the math by dividing the total energy increase of 8×10^22 joules/360×10^12 m^2 = 2.22×10^8 joules/m^2 Now to get watts just divide this by the number of seconds in a decade (3600)(24)(365)(10) to get = 315,360,000 seconds in a decade.
2.22×10^8/3.1536×10^8 = 0.704 W/m^2
It would seem the each meter of ocean surface would have had to receive and average of 0.704 W/m^2 in order to get the number of joules into the ocean in the 10 years. Problem is the measured value of contribution of Carbon Dioxide is only 0.2 watts/m^2 over the whole decade (increasing gradually the whole time). Even if it started at the 0.2 the whole time it would still be far short of explaining the increase in ocean heat content. From this limited study it would seem AGW contributed less than 28% of the observed heating. Some other factor must have contributed the reamining 72%. Maybe changes in cloud cover or dustiness changes, less dust in the air over the oceans.
What does this say?
My maths is poor (I like to be clear about my limitations), but I’m pretty good at grasping concepts.
I don’t have a quick answer for your question, but I have some thoughts and questions that pop up.
It’s my understanding that if something external to the system (the Sun, for example) causes the Earth’s atmosphere to warm, >90% of the added energy goes into the oceans on short time scale.
The heat capacity of water is much greater than that of near surface air (1000 times greater, IIRC).
Is your model 3D? That is, have you accounted for volume at all stages of the equations, not just the OHC source? Seemed you devolved to 2D when accounting for ocean surface area.
Googled a few articles, primers, really, and a science blog staffed by climate researchers. Maybe there’s some useful stuff in there for you.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content
https://scholarsandrogues.com/2013/05/09/csfe-heat-capacity-air-ocean/ (equations)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/
barry
Thanks for the links. I have already read through most of this material at other sites and it is all similar.
In my calculation you can only use a 2D model of energy in. Energy into the ocean only enters via a 2D surface, a 3D calculation is not needed to determine energy in.
The point I am making, in order for the ocean to accumulate the energy that has been measured in the OHC, there would have to be an imbalance of Net energy of 0.7 W/m^2 entering into the ocean to allow this heat accumulation.
I just took the total water surface area of earth and time consideration.
The OHC curve is mostly linear over the 10 year time period indicating a continuous energy input of 0.7 W/m^2. If energy input was highly variable the OHC increase would show this.
The studies have shown carbon dioxide during the same time period increased a total of 0.2 W/m^2 over that time and that amount of input energy is far too small to explain the OHC. Does that make sense to you conceptually. Forget the math, just wondering about the concept.
Norman says:
“The studies have shown carbon dioxide during the same time period increased a total of 0.2 W/m^2 over that time and that amount of input energy is far too small to explain the OHC.”
radiative forcing does not equal energy imbalance.
David Appell
The 0.2 W/m^2 is not what is going on at the TOA where you describe the forcing factor is taking place. This is the actual increase in downwelling IR that is attributed to an increase of 22 PPM CO2 over that time frame. It is the actual energy that can can add to a total OHC. So it is part of a surface energy imbalance. The surface is receiving 0.2 W/m^2 more energy and it must do something with this energy. Increase temperature since the ocean’s absorb lots of energy before increasing in temp and increasing upwelling IR flux the energy storage in the ocean can get large before affecting its temperature. The large OHC is based upon a few hundredths of degrees C and this would not do much to increase the upwelling IR, so the energy can accumulate for quite some time before the emission rate increases to match the energy imbalance.
Again, radiative forcing does not equal the energy imbalance. It excludes convection, for one thing. And RF is calculated/measured at the tropopause, not the surface or the TOA.
“Here, we update our calculations (Fig. 1), and find a net heat uptake of 0.71 0.10 W m2 from 2005 to 2015 (with 0.61 0.09 W m2 taken up by the ocean from 01,800 m; 0.07 0.04 W m2 by the deeper ocean; and 0.03 0.01 W m2 by melting ice, warming land, and an increasingly warmer and moister atmosphere.)
Gregory C. Johnson et al, Nature Climate Change, July 2016.
http://flux.ocean.washington.edu/510_2016/johnson.et.al.energy.imbalance.pdf
Norman says:
“Problem is the measured value of contribution of Carbon Dioxide is only 0.2 watts/m^2 over the whole decade (increasing gradually the whole time).”
This is where you went wrong — that’s the *increase* in CO2’s radiative forcing over a decade, not the value of its radiative forcing.
Norman, you’re confused about what is the rate of change.
“W/m2” *is* a rate of change.
Total CO2 radiative forcing is now about 5.35*ln(405/280) = 2.0 W/m2. Aerosols are about -1 W/m2, and other GHGs and brown carbon contribute too, but let’s call the total RF 1 W/m2.
As I said, there is still convection and whatnot. But for simplicity let’s assume RF=energy imbalance.
Then, if the RF is 1 W/m2, that’s how much the ocean heating rate would be.
If CO2’s RF is increasing by 0.2 W/m2/decade, the next decade’s energy imbalance would be something like 1.2 W/m2 — not 0.2 W/m2. Accordingly, the ocean would warm at a rate of 1.2 W/m2.
See the difference?
DA…”Norman, youre confused about what is the rate of change. W/m2 *is* a rate of change”.
It depends on the parameters and the inference. If I state something as metres/second, I am referring to the rate of change of distance per unit time. Rate of change usually has a time factor in it. That’s why time was invented, to keep tract of change.
W/m^2 has no time factor. It refers to the radiation in watts over an area of a square meter. To make it a rate of change you’d have to state W/m^2/sec. Then you’d have a flow, likely in a fluid or gas, and something would be changing.
Gordon Robertson says:
“W/m^2 has no time factor.”
1 Watt = 1 Joule per second.
Seriously Gordon, did you EVER TAKE even baby? physics.
DA…”1 Watt = 1 Joule per second.
Seriously Gordon, did you EVER TAKE even baby? physics”.
I don’t know how you could be so confused about this and why you feel the need to use ad homs as your primary rebuttal. You were talking about a rate of change.
Yes, a watt is 1 joule/second and it describes the amount of work done per second. You are talking about the radiation of a square meter, however, which is another matter on something like an ocean surface.
In electrical theory an ampere describes the number of coulombs passing a point in a second. An ampere is not a rate of change. It’s not till you express it as a differential, as in di/dt that it becomes a rate of change.
You talked specifically about heating the ocean which requires a time factor. It takes time for water to warm and describing that takes more than stating W/m^2.
In electrical theory, if you have a heater giving off 300 watts that is a reference to a constant emission not a rate of change. If you want rate of change you have to express it in watt-hours or kilowatt-hours.
If you want to know anything about the effect of electrical watts you have to talk in terms of power, which is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred.
A reference to 250 W/m^2 is a reference to a constant radiation from an area of a square meter. If you wanted to make that a rate of change, you’d have to express it in watts/area/second, or watts/area/hour.
David Appell
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. I can understand it. The 0.2 was the increase in an already imbalanced state that was adding energy to the oceans, not the actual amount of energy imbalance itself.
I got it.
Me too. I had pondered that possibility but not knowledgable enough to determine. The value is cumulative, then, and we start with an energy imbalance in the first place.
The repair plan was released nearly two months to the day after a giant crater erupted in the dam’s main spillway, eventually triggering a crisis that forced the temporary evacuation of 188,000 residents.
Croyle acknowledged the plan is a work in progress.
“We have a little less than a 60 percent design,” he told reporters. Nonetheless, the project is being circulated among four contracting firms, and DWR expects to execute a contract by April 17. The firms weren’t identified.
“We’re moving as fast as we can. We need this (contract) in a matter of hours or days, not weeks or months,” Croyle said.
Croyle said he was unable to provide a cost estimate beyond his original projection nearly two months ago that it would take up to $200 million to repair the structure. President Donald Trump made a disaster declaration over the weekend that’s expected to free up approximately $274 million in federal funds for Oroville repairs, although much of that money is being spent on debris removal and other functions not directly tied to repairing the spillway.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article143200489.html
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=38.9;-124.2;5&l=rain-3h
It is worth noting the degree of cloudiness in the North Pacific.
http://files.tinypic.pl/i/00889/qb0p9iylw8yi.png
Precipitation forecast in California from 7 to 15 April.
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=37.3;-125.0;5&l=rain-ac&t=20170415/09
Hi Norman,
some messages above you linked a very interesting plot from SURFRAD about Sioux Fall LWIR on March 24.
I noted a strange phenomenon which puzzles me.
That day, during the night from 6pm to 4am, the downwelling LWIR radiation was more than the upwelling LWIR radiation (I estimated at least 14W/m2 at peak about 10:30pm), but the air temperature was still falling down, I also plotted the case and dome temps for the two PIR sensors and they follow the air temperature too.
Since the upwelling temperature should reflect the ground temperature and it was declining too, how do you explain this?
If the real temperature driver at the ground was pure radiative, I expected to see an increment into the upwelling LWIR in that conditions until it reached the downwelling one.
I suspect that (at least that night) there was an another energy sink process on the run which was much more influential than the LWIR radiative exchange between the atmosphere and the ground.
I would like to know your point of view about that, and the opinion of anyone who as an explanation for that, of course.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
Thank you for your thoughtful and thought provoking post.
Here is the graph I posted.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58e2cdf59906c.png
When the air temperature is rising you can see the UPWELLING IR also going up in both the air temperature rises.
One other factor is the other forms of heat exchange going on. Even if you are adding energy to a surface its temperature may not show change right away as the energy is moving in the system by other means, conduction, convection and evaporation.
My main point on this graph was to show downwelling IR can exceed the surface upwelling and that temperatures can rise at night without a warm front being the cause. Winds were from the North that night and fairly light when the temperature rose most. It could also be the cold wind keeping the temperature down, when it got light that is when you see your upward temperature spike. I can think on it more if you bring up more good points. Thanks again.
Link to weather in Sioux Falls on the night of the graph.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KFSD/2017/3/24/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Sioux+Falls&req_state=SD&req_statename=South+Dakota&reqdb.zip=57101&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=99999
The north wind may be taking away the energy so that it keeps the surface cooler, then when it is lightest the surface can then warm from the atmosphere.
IIRC, it rained for couple hours after midnight. What about the release of latent energy at height and the surface evaporation reducing local T? What about dew point which influences T low?
What about pressure? Looks like a low pressure system was passing and being replaced by a higher pressure system.
These type of weather systems you can plainly see P=density*R*T does not hold, sometimes P goes up when T goes down at the same density and vice versa. Pretty difficult to draw conclusions on night time terrestrial LW with all this going on.
Ball4
The events you are describing are after my main point of a noticeable increase in the air temperature from around 10:30 PM to 11:30 PM.
You can see the downwelling flux increase and then the cooling trend stops and reverses and the night-time temperature goes up for about 1/2 hour.
Maybe better conditions for you to look at.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KFSD/2017/3/23/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Sioux+Falls&req_state=SD&req_statename=South+Dakota&reqdb.zip=57101&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=99999
Night on the 23rd between 10 and 12 would probably help. The pressure was not changing much and the dew point was well below the air temp so no latent heat would be formed by condensation at the temperature during that time.
Ball4 thanks for the thoughtful analysis. It is very hard to get all the data and demonstrate points from real time data as it is very complex with multiple processes going on. It is hard to find just the right conditions to demonstrate points. You need cloudy and very calm nights to try and show a GHE, but I think this one at least shows the possible GHE whereas IR emitted by the atmosphere can actually warm the surface.
Find a calm night time pretty much straight decline of DWIR emitted from the cooling atm. Then check weather report for a clear night.
Find one with a few up DWIR bumps that return to the steady decline, look for passing clouds in the night sky in the weather report. If you are looking for GHE, there it is.
Can also see the clouds in the solar DW SW but much bigger, quicker hashier swings.
Ball4
Yes thanks, that is what I try to do but it can be a labor of love, it does take some time of which I do not have an unlimited amount.
The Clear nights with calm conditions are easy with the available points. The Desert Rock, Nevada has many clear calm nights that do show the steady drop in temperature and Downwelling IR. The cloudy one is much more difficult because clouds often come with weather patterns that can have wind pulling warm air into the area or cold air distorting any possible effects of radiation on the sensors.
Rain, as you point out, also will affect any results you are trying to see. Showing evidence of atmosphere warming the surface is much more difficult. Usually, even with clouds, the downwelling IR does not go above the upwelling, a lot of times they are even and the temperature does not change. You need to find an inversion to get the effect and a clear sky inversion of Arctic air will not help much since the surface is still cooling and the downwelling IR is not enough to actually warm the surface. I might get lucky and find the correct conditions but the problem will be that no one will be interested or care and it will not change anyone’s thought process, so it is a lot of work with zero benefit. You already accept the GHE so that is talking to the choir, it would be people like Kristian, Mike Flynn, Gordon Robertson and some others who would benefit but they will not accept this as valid evidence.
Thanks again.
Norman…”You need to find an inversion to get the effect…”
An inversion simply means there is warmer air over cooler surface air. That is not about radiation it’s about convection. There actually are warmer molecules of air above cooler molecules of air.
Ball4…”You can see the downwelling flux increase and then the cooling trend stops and reverses and the night-time temperature goes up for about 1/2 hour”.
How about this. During the day, solar energy warms the surface, which is in contact with air. As the air warms it rises and is replaced by cooler air from above.
When the Sun disappears over the horizon, the surface begins to cool. What you seem to be claiming is that GHGs making up 1% of the atmosphere can cause the surface to rewarm. That’s the basis of the AGW theory and it’s pseudo-science.
If there’s any re-warming of air above the surface it involves the 99%+ of the atmosphere made up of N2 and O2, and it is due to convection.
BTW…I experienced the greenhouse effect the other day, in a real greenhouse.
Gordon, that was Norman writing.
“What you seem to be claiming is that GHGs making up 1% of the atmosphere can cause the surface to rewarm. That’s the basis of the AGW theory”
No.
In your farmer’s green house visit, the GHE therein is from cats with digestive problems not the opacity of the atm. in there.
Gordon Robertson says:
“What you seem to be claiming is that GHGs making up 1% of the atmosphere can cause the surface to rewarm.”
Gordon, THIS is your fundamental error.
You are only looking at CO2’s number density, but not how “big” the molecules are.
At certain wavelengths, CO2 is *VERY VERY GOOD* at absorbing infrared radiation.
At its maximum, its cross section is about 10,000 m2/kg.
Imagine targets painted on the side of a barn. Now stand back, and throw a ball at the barn side.
What’s your chance of hitting a target?
Does it depend only on the number of targets?
OF COURSE NOT.
It also depends on the SIZE of each target.
Gordon Robertson
YOU: “An inversion simply means there is warmer air over cooler surface air. That is not about radiation its about convection. There actually are warmer molecules of air above cooler molecules of air.”
Warmer air emits more IR than cooler air, so a warmer air mass above a cooler one will emit more radiant energy downward than the air below will radiate upward. This will create a NET IR flow greater to the surface than is leaving causing night time warming of the surface.
Massimo…”Since the upwelling temperature should reflect the ground temperature and it was declining too, how do you explain this?”
Massimo…you are confusing IR with heat. Temperature applies to heat not to IR, even though a scale of colour temperature has been developed to equate EM to real temperatures. There is no upward and downward upwelling temperatures unless you are referring to convective heat transfer, which moves atoms.
The temperature of the surface refers to the average kinetic energy in whatever atoms/molecules make up the surface. That has little to do with the LWIR measured from the surface although I’m sure they have a scale that equates heat to IR.
If you think in reference to heat rising via radiation you get into that other nonsense about heat trapping and radiation from a cooler atmosphere transferring heat to a warmer surface.
“There is no upward and downward upwelling temperatures…”
I obviously meant there is no upward and downward radiative temperatures.
GR: Temperature is a scalar, not a vector — it has no direction.
Massimo,
If I was a cynical person, I would say that Norman and his ilk haven’t got the faintest grasp on reality.
But I’m not – so I won’t.
I’m sure there’s some esoteric climatological sciency reason that reverses the normal laws of physics – cooling becomes warming, CO2 at 20C is hotter than air at 20C, and so on.
Who knows – maybe Mann, Schmidt, and Hansen really do have first class intellects, and really did get Nobel Prizes!
In the fantasy world of the GHE, anything is possible.
Cheers.
Hi Mike,
I really didn’t read the discussion between you and Norman.
I’m very busy these days and even if I take a look on daily basis here, I don’t read all the messages.
Anyway, my impression is that sometimes there are misunderstandings between different posters.
“CO2 at 20C is hotter than air at 20C, and so on.”
I can’t believe Norman ever stated that, maybe it has been a question of wording, I guess.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
The point brought up was not in my posts to Mike Flynn.
It was between Mike and Tim Folkerts. Mike Flynn completely distorts the content of the initial post to form this absurd concept (he does this all the time and I don’t think he is able to stop doing it).
Tim was explaining that Carbon Dioxide absorbs a lot more IR than Nitrogen or Oxygen (which is an experimentally proven fact).
From that he made up this absurd conclusion to suggest that is what is being stated (which it is not).
Hope that clears it up.
Mike Flynn does not understand the concept of emissivity. He does not understand that two objects at the same temperature can have very different emission rates of IR radiant energy. I don’t think anyone can explain the concept to him.
He also believes the Earth’s surface has been cooling for 4.5 billion years. He can’t grasp that in a molten state it cooled very rapidly and become solid but has not warmed or cooled much since then, it oscillates between some high and low points but shows no evidence of a continuous cooling.
He is one strange person and does not seem to possess logical thought process. He just says things, not even sure why.
+2
Massimo,
GHE supporters seem to think that in a sample of air, the CO2 is somehow at a different temperature, I guess. It’s extremely difficult to pin a GHE supporter into stating what the GHE actually is, how it is defined, quantified, and measured.
Just assertions that CO2 is evil, and raises the temperature of thermometers placed on the surface – somehow, and by some amount – they just can’t say why or how much!
Their non science continues when they continue to ignore the fact that photons have no rest mass, but do possess energy, which can be transferred to electrons either partially, wholly, or is some cases, not at all. An invidual gas particle can be travelling very slowly, or very fast. Momentum transferred by photon / electron interaction may be increased or decreased – the resultant sum of vectors may even be reduced to zero. This is used in practice to achieve temperatures within picokelvins of absolute zero.
So, in the case of a group of gases being subjected to radiation of 10 um (around 20C), all gases will stabilise at 20C, although the individual photon/electron interactions make mockery of the concepts of heat and temperature. No GHE – regardless of the amount of GHGs present!
GHE proponents rattle on about spectroscopy, and seem convinced that only certain wavelengths
can be used to heat certain gases. They find themselves completely unable to explain how a sample of air can be raised to any reasonable temperature by merely compressing it in an enclosed space – regardless of any lower surrounding temperature.
Oh well, it makes no difference. Facts are facts. Beliefs are beliefs.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says:
“GHE supporters seem to think that in a sample of air, the CO2 is somehow at a different temperature, I guess.”
You guess wrong.
Now we’re finally getting somewhere….
Mike Flynn
Your scrambled thought process makes you a Legend on the boards. It is amazing!
YOU: “GHE proponents rattle on about spectroscopy, and seem convinced that only certain wavelengths
can be used to heat certain gases. They find themselves completely unable to explain how a sample of air can be raised to any reasonable temperature by merely compressing it in an enclosed space regardless of any lower surrounding temperature.”
What GHE proponents feels this way?? Gases can be heated in various ways, conduction, convection. Nitrogen or Oxygen will not be heated by IR radiation, they are unable to absorb it but they can certainly be heated by other means. I really do not know why you post the material you do. I can’t understand your thought process.
GHE supporters seem to think that in a sample of air, the CO2 is somehow at a different temperature, I guess.
You can add me to the list of “GHE supporters” that doesn’t think this.
So who is Mike talking about?
Just for anyone who is besotted with Watts per meter – squared or otherwise.
Ice (frozen water) emits more than 300 W/m2. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got millions of the buggers, you can’t even use them to make a decent cup of tea!
Sad but true.
Cheers.
Not sad at all! Just some cool (pun intended) physics for anyone willing to understand at more than a surface level!
Temperature anomaly over the South Ocean in March 2017.
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/s_pole/ch_tlt_2017_03_anom_v03_3.png
And north.
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/n_pole/ch_tlt_2017_03_anom_v03_3.png
Will April repeat the anomaly distribution in the Northern Hemisphere?
Ice and Snow Cover.
https://weather.gc.ca/data/saisons/images/2017040700_054_G6_global_I_SEASON_tm@lg@sd_000.png
http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00889/sd08u3dd0chy.png
Temperature measurement in the stratosphere based only on the infrared radiation of oxygen molecules.
“RSS upper air temperature products are based on measurements made by microwave sounders. Microwave sounders are capable of retrieving vertical temperature profiles of the atmosphere by measuring the thermal emission from oxygen molecules at different frequencies.”
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/n19_amsu_t01_nh_asc.png
So really the temperature of the stratosphere shows the density of oxygen (ozone).
Mike Flynn
Your confusion on the matter can be alleviated by studying the material in this link about View Factors and how they work.
You can thank me for leading you to some good information. Always wanting to help a fellow out.
http://machineryequipmentonline.com/hydraulics-and-pneumatics/radiation-heat-transferview-factor-relations/
Mike Flynn says:
“Ice (frozen water) emits more than 300 W/m2. It doesnt matter if youve got millions of the buggers, you cant even use them to make a decent cup of tea!”
Does it work better than heating with a vacuum?
Mike Flynn…”Ice (frozen water) emits more than 300 W/m2. It doesnt matter if youve got millions of the buggers, you cant even use them to make a decent cup of tea!”
Mike, don’t know where you got the 300 W/m^2. A watt is related to a horsepower, which is a measure of the rate of doing work. There are 746 watts per 1 hp. Heat is also related to doing work, in fact, heat and work are interchangeable even though there is no easy way to convert between the two mathematically.
I would think the IR emitted by ice would lack the intensity and wavelength to warm much of anything. Mind you, if you put an ice cube from a fridge in an environment of -30C, it might produce a warming effect for an instant or two. It would likely radiate all it’s heat in a few seconds not to mention that lost by conduction.
I’d like to know how the value of 250 W/m^2 was derived for the planet’s surface. It means essentially that the energy generated by 3 square metres of the surface has the capacity to do the work of a horse.
I think something is wrong there.
Gordon 5:25pm: “(The ice cube) would likely radiate all it’s (sic) heat…”
Mistake!
Gordon 4:44pm: The mistake many people are making is trying to pass of(f) radiant energy as heat…The point is that IR is NOT heat
—–
“..the energy generated by 3 square metres of the surface..”
I think something is wrong there. The surface doesn’t generate energy. The surface does radiate energy at all wavelengths and all temperatures.
Ball4 says:
“The surface doesnt generate energy.”
The surface emits energy, upward.
Some of that energy is absorbed by CO2, which then re-emits it in a random direction, depending on the molecule’s (random) orientation.
Some of that re-emission is downward, warming the atmosphere and surface below.
= AGW.
Some of that re-emission is downward, absorbed in the atmosphere and surface below.
Gordon,
Sorry. I thought you were aware of the relationship between temperature and radiation.
“All objects emit electromagnetic radiation. The amount of energy that is emitted by an object per unit surface area of the object is directly proportional to the surface temperature of the object (T is in the numerator). This is known as the Stefan-Boltzmann Law . . . ”
At 273K, emission is 314.94 W/m2, given emissivity of 1. The emissivity of ice is around 0.98, so my > 300 W/m2 seems fair.
You can look all this up yourself, if you’ve a mind to. It’s fairly basic physics, which most climatologists seem to ignore, or redefine if they can’t bully people into adopting their climatological silliness!
As to the relationship between Watts and horsepower, you are correct. People tend to forget that something like ice is continuously emitting large amounts of energy. It’s just not easy to use in a heat engine, as it’s only hotter than colder matter. The heat from ice is ample to vapourise frozen CO2, but building an engine to utilise this principle is impractical, of course.
I’m sure the GHE proponents will complain bitterly. They don’t seem to like inconvenient truths.
By the way, pretending that adding wattages results in anything meaningful is just silly – or even stupid! Adding the 300W from a square meter of ice to 300W from another square meter of ice, gives 600 totally meaningless Watts! Maybe they are special climatological Watts, which result in a temperature rise compared with 300W from the same source.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says:
“The amount of energy that is emitted by an object per unit surface area of the object is directly proportional to the surface temperature of the object (T is in the numerator). This is known as the Stefan-Boltzmann Law . . . ”
OMG, no.
It’s proportional to the 4th power of temperature.
And the statement is about the energy flux emitted by the object, not the energy per square area.
Basic physic, people.
No David,
you must read carefully Mike before criticizing him.
1) He wrote “directly proportional” not specifying the the 4th power but he wasn’t detailing so he is still correct.
2) He wrote “The amount of energy that is emitted by an object per unit surface area” which is exactly an energy “flux” indeed.
What is the difference for you about “energy flux emitted by the object” and “energy per square area” of the same object?
Have a great day.
Massimo
Gordon Robertson says:
“Id like to know how the value of 250 W/m^2 was derived for the planets surface. It means essentially that the energy generated by 3 square metres of the surface has the capacity to do the work of a horse.”
Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Basic physics, people.
Mike Flynn on April 6, 2017 at 9:00 PM (an at many many other places in this thread)
It is amazing how far some people can go in keeping their ignorance alive against all odds.
To Mike Flynn (manifestly one of these magnificent guys who never get tired of telling us “Well you know I have a degree in applied physics”), I suggest to leave his pseudoknowledge level and to move up to real knowledge about what people like barry, Norman and Tim Folkerts try to explain him.
I’m talking here about the work of a humble science man named Joseph W. Chamberlain, who has been over 40 years ago a head man in explaining the effect of trace gases:
Chamberlain, J.W., 1978. Elementary, Analytic Models of Climate: I. The Mean Global Heat Balance
http://tinyurl.com/m4x3a8x
(and select the pdf full text from there)
and
Chamberlain, J.W., Hunten, D.M., 1987. Theory of Planetary Atmospheres: An Introduction to their Physics and Chemistry.
http://tinyurl.com/m2ad2r3
Having (tried to) read that stuff, one begins to understand that the world of trace gases is a little bit more complex than you ever had imagined before.
It is a hard but necessary way to grasp into it.
May be then he manages to escape out of his boring monologues a la
But all this is beside the point. Neither you, nor anybody else, can make a thermometer hotter by surrounding it with CO2.
Still no GHE.
How is it possible to stay so dumb?
Demonstrably possible. Mike is always good for a few laughs at him not with him.
The equation of hydrostatic equilbrium shows how the pressure in the sun changes to balance gravitational collapse. But what creates the pressure?
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_NH_2016.png
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_EQ_2016.png
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_MEAN_ALL_SH_2016.png
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/Academics/Astr221/StarPhys/hydrostat.html
Bindidon…”It is amazing how far some people can go in keeping their ignorance alive against all odds”.
This post of yours, which is essentially a smug attack on Mile Flynn, is one of the most ignorant, self-righteous bits of politically-correct nonsense I have ever read on Roy’s site. If you want to understand how trace gases operate in the atmosphere study basic chemistry not some yahoo writing a paper on climate models.
The ideal gas equation is not that hard to understand, PV = nRT. It tells you using ‘n’, which represents the mass of a gas in a mixture, based on partial pressures, that a trace gas cannot possibly add much heating to a much larger gas mixture.
In the atmosphere, where 99%+ of the gas mixture is nitrogen and oxygen, it is ludicrous to consider that CO2 at 0.04% could warm the mixture any more than a 1/10th of a degree C over a century.
Furthermore, if you are really interested in heat transfer, go to the source, Clausius. He explains the 2nd law, entropy, and heat transfer subjectively without hiding behind meaningless equations. When he uses equations, he develops them piece by piece, explaining the meaning as he goes.
Modern physicists have tended to steal his equations and add their own incorrect interpretations without having a clue what the equations mean. Hence we end up with a gross confusion between infrared energy and heat.
Gordon 5:01pm: “In the atmosphere, where 99%+ of the gas mixture is nitrogen and oxygen, it is ludicrous to consider that CO2 at 0.04% could warm the mixture any more than a 1/10th of a degree C over a century.”
How does added CO2 even warm the entire atm. mixture 1/10th of a degree C? CO2 isn’t burned as a fuel anywhere in the total system.
Added CO2 extinction coefficient does add atm. opacity to the lower troposphere. So much so that it astonished Prof. Tyndall during his lab testing.
Atmospheric CO2 absorbs some of the upward infrared radiation given off by the Earth’s surface. It then emits it in a random direction. Some of that emission is downward, reaching the surface and warming it.
Thus cooling the higher atm. with no net change in total atm. constituent KE.
Yes, the stratosphere COOLS with anthropogenic warming.
This is the most significant prediction of greenhouse theory.
And it’s been observed (you have to subtract out ozone loss, which is basically flat these days), and is the BEST evidence warming is caused by manmade greenhouse gases and not the Sun or something else.
Concur.
Gordon, please read Clausius carefully…. His statement of the second law doesn’t apply to just ANY system.
“(Clausius) statement of the second law doesn’t apply to just ANY system.”
Name just any system then for which 2LOT as Clausius stated does not apply.
A nonadiabatic system.
Meaning a diabatic system? 2LOT applies to a diabatic system David.
DA…”Gordon, please read Clausius carefully. His statement of the second law doesnt apply to just ANY system”.
I am not referencing Clausius and the 2nd law to just any system. I am referencing him on heat transfer in the atmosphere.
If you were talking about entropy, the system would have a bearing, as to whether it was reversible or not. That does not apply to the 2nd law, it is applicable anywhere heat is being transferred.
Modern scientists have made the mistake of tying the 2nd law to entropy. That was not what Clausius intended and he explained that. He mentioned entropy as an aside to his development of the 2nd law not as a requirement of it.
There is no need to reference entropy in any application of the 2nd law and doing so complicates matters in certain applications. The 2nd law is about the direction of the transfer of heat and losses but the implications of that are far reaching.
Clausius went into great detail in his explanation of heat transfer and if you read him carefully he is talking about atoms and mass. He even equated the motion of atoms in a solid, as they vibrate, to work, and equated that work to heat.
Some people argue that heat is internal energy only but what else could heat be? It cannot exist as energy outside the boundaries of a body, it is equated to the motion of atoms within a body. It’s the same with gases and liquids although gases have no atomic bonds holding them together.
Others argue that heat is only the process of transfer and that it does not exist other than that. That’s not what Clausius said, he actually stated that heat is the kinetic energy of atoms.
He also pointed out that at a macroscopic level we need not worry about the internal workings of the atom. I think that may have confused some people. Macroscopically, all we are concerned with is basically the relationship between heat and work.
In the atmosphere, however, although we could relate heat to work, in the case of the GHE and AGW, we are concerned with the transfer of heat. The 2nd law has to apply.
Gordon Robertson says:
“The ideal gas equation is not that hard to understand, PV = nRT.”
You think heat can only be exchanged by conduction.
Why are you ignoring other methods?
DA…”You think heat can only be exchanged by conduction.
Why are you ignoring other methods?”
With nitrogen and oxygen making up over 99% of the mass of the atmosphere I am not concerned about radiative transfer. It’s a red herring argument created by climate modellers because the equations for radiative transfer are already well established.
I have already conveyed the message of Woods circa 1909 that radiation from the surface would be ineffective after a few feet due to the inverse square law.
I think the average climate modeller is an idiot who has set science back a century. Same with quantum theorists. It’s about time we got back to observable science and away from our ego-oriented conditioned minds.
The average modeller lacks the background in atmospheric physics to create a reliable model.
The average modeller lacks the background in atmospheric physics to create a reliable model.
You have it backwards, Gordon. Astrophysicists are often the lead researchers on GCMs.
Eg, lead author:
https://www.aer.com/news-events/bios/michael-j-iacono
On this GCM.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008JD009944/full
Examples abound. GCMs are constructed with expertise in astrophysics pretty much always (I can’t find any examples against).
Gordon Robertson says:
“DAYou think heat can only be exchanged by conduction.
Why are you ignoring other methods?”
No one is ignoring them. But that is not the mechanism by which the greenhouse effect operates — it does through radiative transfer, and you can’t ignore *that*.
Bindidon
I looked at the book in the second link. Not only could Mike Flynnn benefit, it would also help Kristian. If he would read through pages 7 and 8 of the book he would see conventional physicists use two stream to describe the radiant flow, one up and one down and this author gives detailed equations to determine the intensity of each stream (or flux of energy…definitely bidirectional where it you look for the NET between the two).
Thanks.
Norman says:
April 7, 2017 at 12:15 PM
Don’t forget nevertheless to have a closer look at the paper pdf you access via the first link.
The paper’s very kernel starts on page 9:
4. Radiative Effects of Minor Constituents
The addition to the atmosphere of a minor constituent that
absorbs in the 8 to 12 pm window could be important.
and tops on page 12 with equations (27) and (28), with a hint on
… or a few parts per billion (ppb) for substances that have a single strong absorbing band in the 8 to 12 mu window.
It’s easy enough to understand I guess.
“…definitely bidirectional where it [sic] you look for the NET between the two…”
Pseudoscientists will be confused by this linked discussion of “NET”. They will assume the discussion applies to the atmosphere, not the model the author is discussing.
They probably believe “MRE” refers to “Meals Ready to Eat”, rather than “Monochromatic Radiative Equilibrium”….
Such is the vacuum of pseudoscience.
Norman…” If he would read through pages 7 and 8 of the book he would see conventional physicists use two stream to describe the radiant flow…”
The point is to unify radiant flow with heat transfer while respecting the requirement of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that in a context like the atmosphere, heat can only be transferred from a hot region to a colder region.
The mistake many people are making is trying to pass of radiant energy as heat. Heat does not flow through space and anyone who thinks it does is sadly misinformed. I have seen thought experiments passed off on this site as suggesting that, or that heat flow can be blocked by GHGs.
We need to agree on something. Who does or does not agree that infrared energy is electromagnetic energy and that heat is the kinetic energy associated with atoms and molecules? In fact, heat is the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules by definition.
When a substance is heated by a flame, the electrons in the atoms of the substance have their energy levels raised instantaneously and they pass that energy to adjacent atoms. In that case, heat does flow, as kinetic energy, from atom to atom, like an electric current. Kinetic energy describes energy in motion, in this case the energy moving is thermal energy.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that heat is transferred from the heated end of an iron rod to the cooler end. The 2nd law is satisfied. Some seem to be arguing that a mutual heat transfer takes place with heat moving from the cooler end to the heated end, which is nonsense.
In the atmosphere, heat is not transferred by an exchange of heat between bodies. A quantity of heat is not removed from one body and transferred to another. To do that, one would have to break off a chunk of mass from a hotter body and transfer it to the cooler body. To do that in the atmosphere requires convection.
With only radiation, heat is transferred by infrared energy. However, heat does not leave the hotter body, it reduces in the hotter body. In the absorbing body, IR interacts with the electrons in the shells of the atom, causing them to rise to higher energy shells. That change in kinetic energy represent heating in the atom.
The point is that IR is NOT heat. Trying to measure the up/down flow of IR does not measure heat transfer. Claiming a positive sign of the up/down IR flow satisfies the 2nd law is sheer bunk. The 2nd law is not satisfied in the atmosphere unless heat is transferred from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere and NOT is the reverse direction.
You cannot have a body (the surface) lose heat through radiation, collect a small fraction of the radiated energy, re-radiate it back to the surface, and claim the surface will warm. That’s called perpetual motion.
Until these basic facts are clearly understood about heat transfer there is no point discussing the problem though misguided thought experiments.
Gordon Robertson says:
“The point is that IR is NOT heat.”
GR, you get more preposterous, and dismissible, every day.
Concur.
Gordon 4:44: “The mistake many people are making is trying to pass of(f) radiant energy as heat.”
Gordon 4:44 makes the same mistake he claims many people are making, passes off radiant energy as heat lost: “You cannot have a body (the surface) lose heat through radiation, collect a small fraction of the radiated energy, re-radiate it back…”
“Heat does not flow…heat does flow..”
Gordon remains somewhat confused. Let’s try to improve Gordon:
The mistake many people are making is trying to pass off radiant energy as kinetic energy, the truth is photons have no mass so contain no KE (photons do possess EM energy, momentum, polarization).
You can have a body (the surface) reduce the kinetic energy of its constituent particles through radiation…
Heat does not flow from a body since heat is not contained in that body, the KE of constituent particles can transfer (via conductive, convective, radiative energy transfer) from/to that body decreasing/increasing the body temperature.
I do not expect miracles.
Ball4 says:
“The mistake many people are making is trying to pass off radiant energy as kinetic energy, the truth is photons have no mass so contain no KE”
Photons have no kinetic energy???
Al Einstein disagrees!
E=hf
“Photons have no kinetic energy???
Correct.
E=hf is energy David, that’s what the big E stands for. The E is not KE, which involves mass.
Ball4: But for a photon E = pc = hf, where p is its momentum.
Yes and this shows our common understanding of momentum involving mass is not the whole story, much to read on that, try looking into the equivalence principle too.
Oh, and should have noted photons have both linear AND angular momentum.
Ball4 says:
“Heat does not flow from a body….”
A cake doesn’t cool when taken out of an oven?
There was never any heat existing in your cake David, only KE of its constituent particles which can be radiated/conducted away to cool to room temperature in your example.
For entertainment purposes, you are free to invent your own mythology, superstitions about heat which others display repeatedly. I’ll go with Clausius definition of heat which has admirably survived the test of time.
No heat in the cake?
So you think you can eat the cake the moment you take it out of the oven, without scalding your mouth?
What about a pie — can you eat a pie the instant after you take it out of an oven?
Why not? Is it hot??
No heat in the cake or pie David, that’s simply mythology. Plenty of constituent particle KE in your cake & pie though, readily detected by kitchen thermometers.
Ball4 says:
“No heat in the cake or pie David, thats simply mythology.”
So then why would your finger get burnt if you stuck it into the pie?
The pie’s constituent particle KE.
DA…”GR, you get more preposterous, and dismissible, every day”.
And the more you open your mouth without an intelligent scientific rebuttal the more I am convinced you have nothing more than high school science.
Heat is NOT IR. They have nothing in common. Heat is associated with atoms and heat requires mass. IR is EM, which has no mass.
Your misunderstanding of such basics is why you are so firmly entrenched in the pseudo-science surround catastrophic global warming.
Gordon, again: if you don’t think IR is heat, let’s see you insert your hand into the beam of an infrared laser.
Deal?
“You cannot have a body (the surface) lose heat through radiation, collect a small fraction of the radiated energy, re-radiate it back to the surface, and claim the surface will warm. Thats called perpetual motion.”
Ever hear of the Sun as a heating source?
You really don’t have the slightest clue how radiative transfer works.
David Appell
I see you are back and recovered from your surgery. Saw it on your blog.
And why do you bring it up here?
David Appell
Sorry about that if it offended or bothered you. I was just wondering what happened to you.
It’s irrelevant here.
No need to be mean to a friendly gesture in any forum.
Discussions of my health aren’t “friendly,” and Norman well knows that it doesn’t belong here. He’s just being a dick on purpose. Can it.
Have you ever considered that a conversation can be more productive with some demonstrated good will? Tone matters – to lurkers, too, if that is your intended audience.
Tone is irrelevant to truth. But it is relevant to getting people to listen to your point of view. Perhaps getting people to listen isn’t important to you?
DA…”Ever hear of the Sun as a heating source?”
Ever heard of thermal equilibrium? There is an equilibrium established between solar energy reaching the surface and infrared energy being emitted from the surface and conducted from the surface.
You are suggesting that the radiated energy can be sent back by GHGs in a cycle of perpetual motion to raise the surface temperature beyond what it is warmed by solar energy. You seem to buy into Rahmstorf’s theory that the energy radiated from the surface at a loss can be back-radiated and added to solar energy.
Rahmstorf also thinks that the 2nd law is satisfied if the net IR energies up and down are positive. He obviously has not a clue what the 2nd law is about….heat, not IR.
Please don’t talk to me about my understanding of the radiation theory till you understand the basic laws of thermodynamics.
Gordon Robertson says:
“You are suggesting that the radiated energy can be sent back by GHGs in a cycle of perpetual motion to raise the surface temperature beyond what it is warmed by solar energy. You seem to buy into Rahmstorfs theory that the energy radiated from the surface at a loss can be back-radiated and added to solar energy.”
Rahmstorf is absolutely right. But he’s just saying what *all* scientists know.
“Please dont talk to me about my understanding of the radiation theory till you understand the basic laws of thermodynamics.”
You completely fail to understand radiation theory. You don’t even understand that a heat can also be infrared radiation.
… it would also help Kristian.
Indeed, Norman!
To Mike Flynn:
This idea that clothes can produce warming is utter nonsense. Neither you, nor anybody else, can make a thermometer hotter by putting clothes on it.
Cheers
Snape,
You are absolutely correct. Wrap a thermometer in clothes, or an insulator, or a gas.
It gets no hotter. As a matter of fact, if you prevent heat from reaching a thermometer, its temperature will drop. If you wrap a corpse in clothes, don’t expect it to heat up,and come back to life!
Typical GHE supporter response – deny, divert, and confuse! Can you raise the temperature of a thermometer on the Earth’s surface by increasing the amount of GHG between it and the Sun? Rhetorical question, I know. Of course you can’t!
Cheers.
Mike
We agree again! After I discovered that putting clothes on a thermometer didn’t actually make it hotter, I started going to work in my underwear. People are amazed that I never get cold!
Yes, given Mike’s belief no need to check the temperature outdoors as selection of heavy long johns or shorts, clothes, jackets, heavy jackets to sally forth in the AM will not matter. People that move from Fla. to N. Dakota in Dec. can thus use their existing wardrobe according to Mike’s science recommendations. Save money.
Oh, and by the way, people move from N. Dakota to Florida in the winter and do not die from their climate T change, so why all the hubbub about 0.1C/decade in global climate? Give me a break. There is no GHE worth worrying about. By test!
Ball4 says:
“Oh, and by the way, people move from N. Dakota to Florida in the winter and do not die from their climate T change, so why all the hubbub about 0.1C/decade in global climate?”
What was the difference in average global surface temperature between the last glacial period, 22,000 years ago, and the pre-industrial Holocene?
Ball4 says:
Oh, and by the way, people move from N. Dakota to Florida in the winter and do not die from their climate T change, so why all the hubbub about 0.1C/decade in global climate?”
How readily do plants and other species change climate regimes?
MF,
Do you really not understand that insulation works both ways — heat doesn’t get in, and heat doesn’t get out????
No answer, Flynn?
“How readily do plants and other species change climate regimes?”
If people want to take plants with them when moving, they will do just fine as long as properly cared for & the border guards don’t confiscate.
Ball4
How do you feel when you’re temperature is 1.0 C higher than usual?
When our bodies are 2.0 C warmer than usual, we are really sick.
“How do you feel when you’re (sic) temperature is 1.0 C higher than usual?”
That happens to me after reading a Mike Flynn comment, usually accompanied by laughter. People flying from New York at -10F getting off the plane in Miami at 72F experience a climate change delta T of 82F and are not dropping dead. They just take off their winter jackets which according to Mike the jackets had no effect anyway in NYC blizzard they left.
Just thinking that I measure +1C higher right now, oh and Mike’s total ignorance of quantum mechanics 5:51pm may have helped.
“What was the difference in average global surface temperature between the last glacial period, 22,000 years ago, and the pre-industrial Holocene?”
Nobody knows.
Ball4 says:
“If people want to take plants with them when moving, they will do just fine as long as properly cared for & the border guards dont confiscate.”
A) So a cactus from Arizona can be transported and grown in Alaska?
B) Regarding climate change, people don’t “take” plants, the plants are on their own. The only question is if they have the capability to adapt fast enough to continue to exist.
““A) So a cactus from Arizona can be transported and grown in Alaska?”
Yes. As I wrote with proper care, there are at least 4 cactus species native to Alaska, for example prickly pear which also grows in/native to Arizona.
As far as “take with plants”, long ago Phoenix was a haven for pollen allergy suffers. No longer, the snow birds took their plants with.
Mike Flynn says:
“As a matter of fact, if you prevent heat from reaching a thermometer, its temperature will drop.”
What if you prevent heat from escaping a thermometer?
DA,
If you can prevent all energy from escaping from a thermometer, its temperature, of cours, will not drop.
Unfortunately, no such perfect insulator exists. The flip side, of course, is that a perfect insulator would also prevent any external energy reaching the thermometer, being perfectly reflective by definition. The climatological one way insulator is a figment of fantasy.
But I know you were only trying for another stupid “gotcha”, and trying to avoid facing the fact that the GHE doesn’t exist any more than the luminiferous ether.
All your silly attempts to point out out that the human body is designed to maintain its core temperature at around 37C, has nothing to do with the non existence of the GHE.
If you have any new information, I would like to hear it. Rabbiting on about the fact that overcoats don’t increase the temperature of corpses doesn’t seem to show that CO2 increases the temperature of thermometers.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says:
“If you can prevent all energy from escaping from a thermometer, its temperature, of cours, will not drop.”
Exactly.
Insulation reduces heat loss.
So does atmospheric CO2.
David,
As I pointed out, insulation also prevents heat getting in. That’s why firemen wear thick insulating clothes, and why the hottest places on Earth (arid tropical deserts) have the least GHGs between the surface and the Sun.
Maybe you might consider using a less pointless and irrelevant analogy, and try science.
Trying for “gotchas” doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for you. Maybe it appeals to the mentally deficient, or the gullible – if that’s your intended audience, you’ll do well.
Cheers.
MF: Do fireman’s clothes prevent heat from getting in, or do they prevent heat from getting out?
Mike Flynn, again avoiding questions. Tsk, Tsk.
Mike Flynn
Your question: “Can you raise the temperature of a thermometer on the Earths surface by increasing the amount of GHG between it and the Sun?”
The correct answer is you can. The Sun produces most its energy in the visible spectrum of EMR.
You can thank me for this link to Plank’s Law and how it works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law.
GHG’s do not absorb much energy in the visible spectrum so most of the visible solar energy can reach the ground on cloudless days.
Now the GHG will be warmed and start emitting IR toward the surface and based upon the classic heat transfer equation.
Φ = εσA(T4 − T04)
where
Φ = (phi) net heat flow rate [W] emitted (+) or absorbed (−)
ε = (epsilon) emissivity, a dimensionless (unitless) measure of a material’s effective ability to emit or absorb thermal radiation from its surface; ranges from 0 (none) to 1 (maximal)
σ = (sigma) Stefan’s constant, 5.670 10−8 W/m2K4
A = surface area [m2] of the object emitting or absorbing thermal radiation
T = absolute temperature [K] of the object emitting or absorbing thermal radiation
T0 = absolute temperature [K] of the environment
Now can you do math? In the above equation what happens to the net heat flow rate as the temperature of the environment goes up?
If you can do math you will answer correctly that as the surrounding temperature increases the heat flow from the surface goes down. If it has the same input energy and can not lose energy as fast the thermometer on the surface goes up. Are you glad I helped you learn something today? I hope so.
Norman,
Sorry Norman, but you are fantasising. On Earth, the absorbed radiation from the Sun is recorded as a temperature increase by a thermometer on the surface. At night, the temperature drops, as the thermometer emits more energy than it absorbs.
Increasing the proportion of GHG in an enclosed space – say a room, bottle, or gas cylinder, changes the temperature not a bit.
The hottest places on Earth (due to sunlight) are in arid tropical deserts. By definition, lacking that most important GHG, H2O. The less GHG between the Sun and the surface, the hotter it gets. Taken to extremes, the Moon has no GHGs at all, and achieves temperatures in excess of 107C after equivalent exposure times.
John Tyndall pointed out (with measurements, of course), that the higher up a mountain you go, the higher the surface temperatures get – under windless conditions.
You might have noticed your GHE doesn’t seem to work indoors, in the shade, at night, when it’s cloudy or raining, inside CO2 cylinders – and works negatively in deserts (the less GHG, the higher the temperature).
Maybe you could try your maths under the conditions I have mentioned. Or apply them to a container of boiling water left out in the Sun – surrounded by GHG, as opposed to not surrounded.
Still no GHE. Complete nonsense.
Cheers.
Ignore him, Norman — MF is a troll who won’t answer any questions that challenge his denial.
Mike Flynn says:
Wrap a thermometer in clothes, or an insulator, or a gas. It gets no hotter.
Really??
So if I put a thermometer at room temperature into an oven at 450 F, it gets no hotter?
Then how am I cooking anything in there?????
Mike Flynn says:
“Still no GHE. Complete nonsense.”
Does the Earth’s atmosphere store heat?
If so, it has a GHE.
Norman…”The Sun produces most its energy in the visible spectrum of EMR”.
Over 50% of solar radiation is in the infrared. How does that incoming infrared affect GHGs in the atmosphere?
Gordon Robertson says:
“Over 50% of solar radiation is in the infrared”
But little of it is in the bands that CO2 absorbs.
Mike Flynn says:
“Wrap a thermometer in clothes, or an insulator, or a gas. It gets no hotter.”
Really?
Do you see, Flynn, finally, the absurdity of your claims that have no foundation in science?
Really. Without heat, the thermometer will drop to absolute zero. So will whatever you wrapped it in. Maybe you have some magical self heating CO2 lying around, but I doubt it.
Have you?
Cheers.
MF: Finally you agree with the concept of insulation, which keeps a body warmer by reducing heat loss.
That’s exactly what atmospheric CO2 does to the planet.
—
See how easy that was?
Mike Flynn says:
“Without heat, the thermometer will drop to absolute zero”
But your clothes have a ready source of heat: your body.
So does the Earth: the Sun.
🙂
DA…”MF: Finally you agree with the concept of insulation, which keeps a body warmer by reducing heat loss.
Thats exactly what atmospheric CO2 does to the planet”.
Let me see if I have your reasoning straight. If I have a blanket over me as I snooze, it will keep me warmer provided the room temperature does not get too low. So, you’re suggesting CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a blanket.
All CO2 in the atmosphere accounts for 0.04% of the atmosphere. All GHGs account for 1% roughly. Let’s give you the 1%.
If I had a blanket that covered 1% of my body it would have to be very small or threadbare. If I had a blanket covering 0.04% of my body, exactly what warming effect would it or the one percenter have in keeping me warm?
GR:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242859
Mike’s theory is lacking a heat source.
Snape says:
“This idea that clothes can produce warming is utter nonsense. Neither you, nor anybody else, can make a thermometer hotter by putting clothes on it.”
Why do you wear a coat in the winter?
David,
What has wearing clothes, or fur, or blubber, got to do with the non existent GHE?
No one has managed to raise the temperature of a thermometer by surrounding it with CO2. Or by using the power of their mind – Uri Geller included.
How hard can it be?
If you can’t do it, maybe you could just deny, divert, and confuse the issue by talking about overcoats. That might work!
Cheers.
MF, always avoiding questions…….
Why do you wear a coat in the winter?
David Appell,
Why are you pretending to be more stupid than you really are?
Or are you not pretending at all?
ANSWER THE QUESTION DAVID!!!! – only joking, of course!
Cheers.
Mike Flynn: I think you avoid all questions because you don’t have an answer to them.
Mike Flynn says:
“No one has managed to raise the temperature of a thermometer by surrounding it with CO2”
We do this every day, right here on Earth. Or Venus.
David Appell
Serious? You must have missed my follow up about how I started going to work in my underwear after finding out that clothes don’t make a thermometer hotter.
Snape,
Are all GHE supporters as silly as you are trying to appear? Or did you really not go to work in your underwear?
I know Warmists live in a fantasy world, but going to work in your underwear because nobody’s managed to make a thermometer hotter by surrounding it with CO2, seems a bit extreme.
Maybe just having a tantrum, lying down and beating your heels on the floor, might be just as cathartic. Do you think the Trump administration would be more inclined to believe in the non existent GHE if you run around in the nude?
I’d be inclined to avoid very cold or very hot weather, if I were you.
Cheers.
Mike
I’m pretty sure I’d get arrested if I actually went to work in my underwear.
Besides the silliness, I was hoping to point out something you fail to notice:
Clothes on a thermometer – not much happens
Clothes on a warm body – helps keep it warm
Co2 around a thermometer- not much happens
Co2 around a warm planetary body – helps keep it warm
Keep in mind that although both clothes and Co2 act as insulators, Co2 is clear and does not block sunlight as clothes do. Thus the term, “greenhouse gas”.
Snape says:
“Serious? You must have missed my follow up about how I started going to work in my underwear after finding out that clothes dont make a thermometer hotter”
So why *DO* you wear clothes?
(Besides the social convention.)
David
See my above reply to Flynn.
Snape,
“Helps to keep it warm . . ” doesn’t seem to be causing a raise in temperature – as in “Hottest year EVAH!”
I’m not sure how “Helps to keep it warm” leads to rising temperatures, and I suspect that you don’t either.
At night, temperatures seem to fall – as they do in winter. Even a gas cylinder filled with compressed CO2 doesn’t seem to be popular as a heat source.
It seems far too difficult for GHE supporters to actually demonstrate their effect, so they have to resort to the usual tactics of deny, divert and confuse. Uri Geller supposedly bent spoons with the power of his mind. His powers apparently vanished when unbelievers were present. Maybe the GHE obeys the same laws.
Cheers.
Mike
You make the argument that if Co2 can’t make a thermometer hotter, how could it warm the earth? This struck me as particularly idiotic since you could ask the same about clothes, “if clothes can’t make a thermometer hotter, how could they possibly keep you warm?”
Or how about, “I just wrapped some insulation around a thermometer and nothing happened! How could it keep my house warm?”
Which reply?
If you have an answer, just give it. Can’t wait.
David
I was poking fun at Flynn’s bonehead argument that if you surround a thermometer with Co2 and it doesn’t get hotter, how could it warm the earth?
I tried to point out (sarcastically) that putting clothes on a thermometer won’t make it hotter either.
I realize you read so many knucklehead comments it’s hard to tell when someone’s not being serious.
Mike Flynn says:
“It seems far too difficult for GHE supporters to actually demonstrate their effect”
More Flynn evasions, more Flynn refusal to answer even basic questions or reply to simple comments.
Mike Flynn says:
Helps to keep it warm . .
Now you’re claiming that you don’t understand how clothing keeps up warm?
You get more and more absurd with each reply.
Sorry, Snape, for confusing your replies.
Bart,
If CO2 changes are temperature dependent, we’ve had an an increase of 90ppm since 1959, alongside a temperature increase over the same period of 0.8C.
If 0.8C rise causes 90ppm rise in CO2 and the planet was 5 C cooler during the last few glacial periods…
What do you estimate the atmospheric CO2 concentration should be at the bottom of each ice age?
Simple subtraction gets us into negative CO2 territory, so that can’t be right.
Based on your hypothesis, what should CO2 atmospheric concentrations be during ice ages?
Always a great question.
Just out of curiosity why would this period be representative of the long term relationship?
The reconstructed temp/co2 record shows that as global temperatures hit their peak and begin to fall co2 continues to rise, then eventually falls with temperatures. Then at the other extreme the temperatures begin to rise co2 concentrations eventually reverses itself and rises as well. Would not the reconstructed temp/co2 be a better source for your question?
This pattern reinforces the notion that co2 is dependent on temperature and is consistent with known natural processes. It does not disprove that co2 levels also affects global temperature, however at the inflection points, there is a suggestion that other factors are in greater control.
In the case of ice ages, I completely agree that CO2 is led by temps over the long term. I am asking Bart to make a prediction of what CO2 temps should be based on his contention that temps have led CO2 over the ML record since 1959. That means that a 0.8C temp rise has caused a 90 ppm increase in CO2.
For various reasons that seems wildly wrong. I asked to him to predict CO2 at the bottom of ice ages according to his hypothesis. Unfortunately, Bart’s model appears to be non-predictive for most things.
Bart did predict (or claim) that the recent slowdown in global temps produces a slower acceleration in CO2. Unfortunately, he does not want to run the numbers to see if that has actually happened. when I do so, he claims my methods are wrong, and still won’t do the work himself to corroborate.
Basically, I’m trying to get him to substantiate his hypothesis. He keeps showing me a graph of monthly CO2 acceleration (first difference CO2) tracking well with global temp fluctuations and claiming that this is easily viewable evidence of the long-term relationship (I think it only shows that the monthly acceleration changes correlate well with temp anomalies). He also claims that one only has to look to see than acceleration has slowed down post 1998. I don’t see it.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/to:2015/plot/esrl-co2/to:2015/derivative/trend
Our conversation has been stuck in a loop because Bart won’t go further than insist I look at the graph and believe my (his) eyes.
Our conversation is stuck in a loop because you are trying to nit-pick at non-issues so that you can keep the illusion of discrepancy alive and remain in denial. My doing extra work will not alleviate that. you will just train your microscope on some other imagined flaw to continue your self-deception.
The result here is glaringly evident. I won’t give ground on that. To do so would be to deny reality itself, in order for you to indulge in the fiction that there is room for negotiation here.
There isn’t. The rate of change of atmospheric CO2 tracks temperature anomaly. There is no doubt about it. No room for negotiation. No chink in the armor. It is a fact.
Bart adds to his many logical failures.
In order for your fact to, in fact, be a fact, then many other long established facts have to be wrong. Such as CO2 levels over the last millenia or more.
Im sorry but that is simply the way it is in science and logic, one cannot prove a fact by throwing out other facts, unless you can convincingly disprove them. Which you havent.
Then there is the mathematical sleight of hand in his arguments that he simply chooses to disregard.
The rate of change of atmospheric CO2 tracks temperature anomaly. There is no doubt about it. No room for negotiation. No chink in the armor. It is a fact.
This is the loop we’re stuck on. I agree with that (now for the 453,276th time) and then probe the matter further, specifically to see if there is correlation on lower frequencies. I did that from the outset of our discussion 2 weeks ago.
But you refuse to. You keep repeating this mantra which I agreed with 2 weeks ago and nearly every day since. I start investigating lower frequency correlation and you return to this.
Again and again and again and again.
We are stuck because you refuse to move beyond the first observation we both agreed on from the beginning. I even predicted that you would bring it up before you did. Your loop precludes you even seeing me agree with you. In print. Many times.
That’s definitely your glitch, not mine.
Here is where 2 weeks ago I predicted you would produce the derivative graph.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/03/the-global-warming-debate-spectrum/#comment-241202
And here is where 2 weeks ago, 14 hours later in the same thread, I agreed that “short-term matches do occur and temperature leads those events.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/03/the-global-warming-debate-spectrum/#comment-241259
You haven’t moved on substantively since then, let alone perceived that I agreed with you on short term correlation despite saying so many, many times to you since.
Definitely your glitch, your loop.
Barry –
“If 0.8C rise causes 90ppm rise in CO2 and the planet was 5 C cooler during the last few glacial periods”
You are still hung up on proportionality, when the relationship is to the rate of change.
bilybob –
“Just out of curiosity why would this period be representative of the long term relationship?”
A cogent point. We are dealing with a massively complex, time varying, nonlinear system. There is no reason to expect that local approximations to specific behavior over a given time interval should extrapolate to general behavior over all time.
“It does not disprove that co2 levels also affects global temperature…”
At some level, it must. But, it is very state dependent, i.e., depends very much on the overall configuration that encompasses every physically relevant variable on the Earth, as well as on other bodies such as the Sun and the Moon which influence the Earth’s climate.
Right now, in the present state of the system, as there is obviously a strong driving relationship between temperature and the rate of change of CO2, there cannot be a significant sensitivity of temperature to CO2, as that would produce an unstabilizable positive feedback loop, and we would be witnessing rapid exponential growth in both variables.
You are still hung up on proportionality, when the relationship is to the rate of change.
I agree* that the relationship is to the rate of change (acceleration) – the instantaneous changes month to month.
Where we part company is that you think this is also evidence that temps drive CO2 long-term in the period of the instrumental record.
If you are saying that the overall change in temperature over the last few decades is not responsible for the rise of CO2, then we agree.
But you keep saying the instantaneous relationship also shows the long-term relationship and pop up the first difference CO2 graph to demonstrate it.
We have a good idea of the temp rise since 1959. We have an excellent record of CO2 over the same period. We have all we need to assess whether the instantaneous relationship holds good for the long term. After a bunch of different tests (some you haven’t seen) I conclude it is not.
Pointing at the graph isn’t going to cut it, I’m afraid. You clearly don’t see what I see. When will you take the next, logical step in the discussion?
* for the 234,657th time.
There is no reason to expect that local approximations to specific behavior over a given time interval should extrapolate to general behavior over all time.
The given time interval is one month. That’s where the correlation is.
Looks like you’re saying that you can’t extrapolate monthly behaviour to decadal/centennial. We may be on the point of agreeing.
“But you keep saying the instantaneous relationship also shows the long-term relationship and pop up the first difference CO2 graph to demonstrate it.”
There is long term, and there is very long term. I think perhaps you are purposefully blurring the concepts.
“After a bunch of different tests (some you havent seen) I conclude it is not.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I do not see any indication you are qualified to understand what you are doing.
“The given time interval is one month>”
One month is overwhelmingly dominated by noise. You can’t extrapolate anything on the basis of one month.
I’ve been clear about what I mean by long-term, and you’ve talked about it with me. Namely, the overall acceleration prior to and post 1998. 15-18 years prior and after.
More shortly, decadal as opposed to monthly.
Clear?
CO2 radiates, and California is still snowing.
http://images.tinypic.pl/i/00889/x0wmmqd0h1rq.png
Probably too little CO2?
California has a Cap & Trade scheme and also has climate taxes to fight climate change. The drought is over and it is still snowing is due to higher taxation to fight climate change and cap & trade.
Proof positive that the government can control and regulate climate change.
California is increasing the gasoline taxes to fight climate change. So we should see even more snow and less drought in the future.
There is a direct correlation between California’s fight against climate change and more snow.
Is the difference between weather and climate not understood?
Up to about 100 hPa (0.1 bar) of gas law and hydrostatic balance are strictly observed.
To this height, the atomsphere is dense enough. This is also true on other planets with a dense atmosphere.
David Appell,
I just placed a cake in my oven. The air contains around 400 ppm CO2, I believe. I left the cake for about 15 minutes. The temperature of the cake seemed quite unchanged. The oven appears fairly well insulated. Do you think more insulation would raise the temperature? Maybe the back radiation from the CO2 wasn’t working?
The Sun is shining brightly outside. The GHE seems to have stopped working. I can’t see how wearing an overcoat will heat the cake (or me, for that matter). I’ve actually got the AC on at present. Maybe it’s the GHE in reverse, but the CO2 in the air doesn’t seem to be having any effect.
Good luck with using CO2 to heat your oven. I find electricity works much better for me.
Cheers.
The fact you would even write such a thing shows you have NO idea how the green house effect works.
Do you, Tim?
Is it the ‘cool’ atmospheric “back radiation” directly raising the sfc temp beyond the pure solar equilibrium one, upon being added and absorbed as a separate macroscopic flux, just not heat, but something else?
I’m not quite sure what you are even asking. The temperature of the surface is raised “beyond the pure solar equilibrium” because the energy flows of the surface have been altered. Specifically, adding CO2 means there is less thermal IR leaving than before. In a two-flux model, you would say there is more incoming IR than before. In a one-flux model, you would say there is less IR leaving. Either way, the balance is changed.
In either case, I would not call it a “separate macroscopic flux”. In the two-flux model, it would be a separate MICROscopic flux of photons heading down. To me this is the more fundamental, more informative model. If you want to ignore photons and use a more classical, macroscopic view, then it is a REDUCED macroscopic flux. Either gives the same results in the end — the presence of CO2 resulted in a higher surface temperature.
Also see:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242956
Tim Folkerts says, April 8, 2017 at 11:27 AM:
Hehe. I’m sure you’re not, Tim. Long live the goldfish memory! Such a simple evasion tactic, isn’t it? Forcing your opponents to having to explain everything in detail all over again each and every time. I know you know perfectly well what I mean. And yet you choose to beat around the bush as if you didn’t. Once again.
Speaks volumes, Tim.
But you will notice that I DID try to answer the question that I thought you were asking. In considerable detail even.
So just who is it that is really evading here?
Tim, for you:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242745
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242936
For Kristian:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242754
Mike says:
“I don’t know how the overcoat will heat the cake (or me, for that matter).”
So do some science. Put the coat on the cake and see if it gets hotter. Then put the coat on you and see if you get hotter.
Mike
Before conducting your experiment, consider that a cake, out of the oven, is losing heat. Your body, on the other hand, is simultaneously losing and generating heat.
In this respect, the earth is more like your body than the cake. The sunny side is gaining heat while the dark side is simultaneously losing heat.
Strictly speaking, the sunny side is loosing heat as well, but warming wins the battle. Warm weather systems can obviously bring warmth to the dark side, but this is kind of nitpicking the basic idea.
Oh, and apologies to Ball4 (AKA “the heat nazi”) for misusing the word heat.
Snape,
The cake remained at the same temperature. Putting it the oven, or wrapping it a coat made no difference. The temperatures of the cake, the oven, the coat, the room, remained relatively unchanged. So did mine.
Putting on a coat didn’t seem to make any difference to my temperature – it seems to remain at around 37C. Much the same as yours, or any other reasonably healthy human being.
Does your temperature increase when you put on an overcoat? How high does it get? If insulation increases temperature, then mountain climbers would not get frost bite, I suppose. The finest and best engineered high altitude climbing boots, the inners, and the socks etc., cannot guarantee that you will descend with all your toes intact, rather than a blackened dead mess, requiring immediate amputation before gangrene sets in, and death results. Your overcoat certainly won’t stop your temperature dropping after you die.
So what’s your next pointless and irrelevant clothing analogy? Can you not produce a copy of the AGW theory, supported by experimental evidence showing that the theory is no longer a hypothesis?
I thought not – that’s why you adopt the deny, divert and confuse tactics of the gullible and misguided Warmist!
How hard can it be? Surely you can make a thermometer hotter with some CO2 (or water vapour, perhaps)? Maybe re-reading the non existent AGW theory might help to achieve an impossible result!
Cheers.
Mike
I wasn’t serious about the experiment because I didn’t think YOU were serious!
It’s one thing not believe in AGW, but
you don’t think WEARING CLOTHES keeps a person warm?
Snape,
Excuses, excuses. Your’e not serious? Or serious but ignorant?
Why bother demanding that people do things you think are pointless?
People wear clothing for a variety of reasons. For example, desert Berbers wear thick woollen robes in some of the hottest places on Earth. Their habits are supported by an Arab saying “If I’d known it was going to be this hot, I would have worn a thicker robe”. Maybe you think that people invariably wear clothes to “keep warm” (whatever those particular weasel words mean), but insulators work both ways.
Deny, divert, confuse – typical Warmist nonsense in lieu of any facts. Telling me what I think (or don’t think) requires that you have mind reading abilities. Also typical Warmist thinking, it might appear.
Maybe you could quote my written words, and then provide facts which show that I am wrong. Inconvenient, I know, but rational scientific discussion is often based on fact, rather than fantasy.
So far, you’ve provided precious little fact to support your mad assertion that CO2 can raise the temperature of a thermometer. You are free to believe in AGW, the ether, phlogiston, or unicorns. I’m free to disagree. I prefer fact to faith, in general.
Cheers.
Mike
A. We just proved that clothes don’t really keep a person warm (it’s been a 10,000 year urban myth).
B. The experiment was flawed.
Hmmmm…?
Mike.
I’ve made analogies to clothing because they are an insulator we are all familiar with. Because if you don’t believe in insulation (Don Quixote comes to mind), or are unable to understand it, there’s no point in debating anything to do with GHE with you.
Mike
I do want to apologize for telling you you to do an experiment, and then afterwards claiming it was flawed and I wasn’t serious. Seemed ok at the time.
It does appear that MF wrote that clothes don’t keep him warmer.
More likely, he’s just too stubborn to admit it.
Mike Flynn says:
“I just placed a cake in my oven. The air contains around 400 ppm CO2, I believe. I left the cake for about 15 minutes. The temperature of the cake seemed quite unchanged.”
Tim is right, MF — you really don’t have a clue.
Your oven is full of air, before and after you opened it to put the cake in. Did the amount of CO2 in the air in your oven change? Did the temperature in your oven change? No? Why not?
(Sigh)
Bart, I found a graph of CO2 acceleration in 5-year averages for the ML record.
http://tinyurl.com/l2yxnww
It shows that CO2 acceleration increased after 1998, contrary to what you said should happen. You said a lowering of the rate of global temp rise would reduce CO2 acceleration.
Apparently this hasn’t happened. It would appear CO2 – rate or acceleration – is not determined by global temperatures over the long term, only short-term accel fluctuations.
It doesn’t show that at all. It shows the leveling off of rate at the turn of the millennium, and then an uptick due to the El Nino just past. The data are heavily smoothed, so the transitions are not observable.
…readily observable.
Increases in Mauna Loa CO2 by decade:
(decade, avg_ppm, chg_ppm, pct_chg)
1970s 332.16 11.0 3.4%
1980s 347.11 14.9 4.5%
1990s 361.98 14.9 4.3%
2000s 380.62 18.6 5.1%
???
Aggregate GHG forcing is increasing linearly:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.fig4.png
So temperature change is expected to do the same.
QED
Disagree. The 5-year averaged rates after the turn of the century are higher than before 1998.
Here’s a moving 5-year average to 2011 – no contamination from 2016 el Nino.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/to:2011/derivative/mean:60
The rate is higher after 1998. Acceleration looks pretty constant to me, with monthly fluctuations in the acceleration rate influenced by temperature still observable.
Don’t like smoothing? We’ll go back to the original. Recent el Nino excised.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/to:2015
The rate is generally higher after 1998.
A few days ago I averaged the annual acceleration values pre and post 1998. Excluded data after Dec 2014. The post 1998 value was higher. No surprise. You can see that with your eyeballs in the graph.
The rate of CO2 rise is higher after 1998 than before. The slowdown in temps didn’t change that.
Any way I dice it, there is no statistical evidence CO2 acceleration slowed after 1998.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/to:2015/plot/esrl-co2/to:2015/derivative/trend
Take two long-term periods before and after 1998. Excise large swings from the beginning and end of the periods so that the results are not affected by ENSO events near the end points. This is what you get.
http://tinyurl.com/jwaxjq5
Now forget that these are trend lines. We could just do an average and look at the results as flat lines for the periods. The result would be the same.
The rate of CO2 accumulation is higher in the later period. Rate has accelerated relative to pre 1998.
But you are arguing the rate of acceleration has slowed since 1998: the rate of the rate of the rate is less post 1998.
I point back to the graph above, but you say the trend lines are not appropriate, even though you said a few days ago that a linear regression trend line represents the overall acceleration (you said this when I posted a graph of the CO2 first difference since 1979 with trend line.
You make your claims with eyeball and draw-a-line-with-a-ruler method, saying this is sufficient.
But you also said the data is noisy and prone to uncertainty as a result, avowing that the technique to get quantitative trend and uncertainty estimates is complex.
I don’t get any consistency in your argumentation on acceleration trends, let alone receive any quantified corroboration for them.
I’m trying new ways to address the estimates. You won’t progress your argument or do any work to substantiate.
We can’t move forward without you doing more. It’s not enough to continually assert your view without statistical analysis and to rubbish any attempt to subject your view to it.
Your view on the above is unverified. It’s been clear for a while that you are never going to go any further than that. I suspect it’s because your view (lower acceleration after 1998 and statistical validity of same) will be rejected if you actually test it, and you probably suspect or know that already.
“The 5-year averaged rates after the turn of the century are higher than before 1998.”
Of course they are. So are the temperatures. I really don’t think you grok the rate of change relationship.
“The rate of CO2 rise is higher after 1998 than before. The slowdown in temps didnt change that.”
No, it isn’t. Yes, it did. You are very confused.
“Excise large swings from the beginning and end of the periods so that the results are not affected by ENSO events near the end points.”
That only excises the positive phase. Now, you are keying off the very significant La Nina that followed the 1998 El Nino.
You can’t do it this way. You are making calculations based on noise and extraneous cycles. Just look at the plot. The curves lie practically right on top of one another. Get your head out of the trees, and look at the forest.
Yes, I grok the difference between rate of change and rate of rate of change. The latter is acceleration.
Now, you are keying off the very significant La Nina that followed the 1998 El Nino.
The time-period shortens. I think we are seeing you devolve to the short-term correlation, because the long term doesn’t suit your hypothesis.
Acceleration (rate of rate) is essentially zero from 1975 to 1997. It is not for the period 2002 to 2015 (no la Nina now).
The first-difference data is noisy. Statistical uncertainty caveats positive conclusions. You bring it up to argue against me, but omit it when advancing your perspective.
You won’t do the work on statistical uncertainty necessary to corroborate your view. We both know why.
It’s because you know you’ll find that the acceleration changes you espouse are not statistically significant. And then you’ll have to eat your own criticisms of what I’ve attempted.
That’s why you insist on “qualitative” methods. Actual statistical analysis would undo your claims.
Its Official, Global Warming and Higher CO2 Ended the California Drought!!!
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/its-official-global-warming-and-higher-co2-ended-the-california-drought/
Another lows are on their way to California.
A brief overview…
Yes, CO2 helps warm the surface of the earth. But this warming effect — the radiative green house effect — is only effective in specific circumstances. Those circumstances include …
1) a warm object (like the earth).
2) a source of thermal energy to the surface from other object (like sunlight from the sun).
3) a low-temperature sink for thermal IR from the surface (like 3K space).
4) some material between the warm surface of the object and the low-temperature sink that can absorb/emit significant amounts of IR (like CO2 around earth).
There are a few more details, but that pretty much covers things. So a CO2-filled oven doesn’t fit the requirements. Nor does a CO2-fill room. Nor does a thermos with CO2 between the two walls. (However, a real greenhouse does!) Unless you are discussing a situation with those features, you are not discussing the radiative greenhouse effect.
Tim F says
Nor does a CO2-fill room. Nor does a thermos with CO2 between the two walls. (However, a real greenhouse does!) Unless you are discussing a situation with those features, you are not discussing the radiative greenhouse effect.
There is almost no radiative enhancement for a real greenhouse.
Read this paper to find how small (if any) the radiative enhancement actually is in practice
Basically the project was to find if it made any sense to add Infra Red absorbers to polyethylene plastic for use in agricultural plastic greenhouses.
Polyethylene is IR transparent like the Rocksalt used in Woods Experiment.
The addition of IR absorbers to the plastic made it equivalent to glass
The results of the study show that( Page2 )
IR blocking films may occasionally raise night temperatures (by less than 1.5C) the trend does not seem to be consistent over time
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/hightunnel/about/research/general/penn_state_plastic_study.pdf
Sorry Tim the paper has now been made unavailable.
I wonder why?
Perhaps it was unhelpful to the warmist cause?
This link shows how readily available is was until recently.
I had referenced it several times.
This link proves my point
hightunnel/about/research/general/penn_state_plastic_study.pdf
The paper showed that the difference of internal temperature within the polytunnels was very small.
Sometimes the pure polyethylene produced higher temperatures than the IR enhanced polyethylene
Sometimes the pure polyethylene produced lower temperatures than the IR enhanced polyethylene .
But the difference in each case was very small
Bryan,
Another empirical study (from the real world) worth reading is this one from 1989 showing what an incredibly poor insulator CO2 is, and how convection will effortlessly negate all potential radiative effects on heat transfer through an air column:
http://gaia.lbl.gov/btech/papers/29389.pdf
“The Effects of Infrared Absorbing Gasses on Window Heat Transfer: A Comparison of Theory and Experiment.”
I’ve discussed it with Folkerts before, so he should know about it.
Kristian, Yes, I know that about CO2 in windows. That result is perfectly reasonable (as confirmed by their pretty good match between theory and experiment). But is it not really relevant here. A window with CO2 between the panes is VERY different from the earth. Some key differences include …
1) Even pure CO2 in the short space between the panes will not absorb a great deal of thermal IR.
2) Convection and conduction can occur between the source (inner warm pane) and sink (outer cold pane) for a window. Convection and conduction can NOT occur between the source (earth’s surface) and sink (outer space) for a earth.
3) Temperature differences between panes are fairly small (maybe 290 K vs 260 K) between the two surfaces, vs larges difference between surface and space (maybe 280 K vs 3 K).
(The window would actually be a better analogy for transfers WITHIN the atmosphere. The temperature gradient within the window is not really affected by GHGs. The temperature gradient within the atmosphere is also not really affected by radiation (it is set primarily by the adiabatic lapse rate). Not a great analogy, but better.)
Tim Folkerts says, April 8, 2017 at 2:32 PM:
No, that would be all those static CO2 lab experiments purporting to show how CO2 causes warming, Tim …
A horizontally positioned window heated from above – the first thing they tried – is indeed a very different situation from the real Earth one. And note, even here they pointed out that:
“(…) the effect [on the heat transfer through the window] of the infrared properties of CO2 is unnoticeable (…)”
As soon as you tilt the window up into an upright position, however, you’re basically opening up for convective effects to take hold. And this is getting much closer to the actual situation on Earth. Much more realistic, much more dynamic.
Here’s what the study found:
“(…) from Glaser’s results for vertical windows it can be seen that the convective transfer becomes significant at around 9 mm for SF6 [a gas much more IR-active than CO2], while there is practically no convective transfer through an air-filled window at gapwidths up to 20 mm under these conditions. In fact, air outperforms SF6 at gapwidths greater than 9 mm in a vertical window and the benefits from infrared absorp tion by SF6 have been negated by the magnitude of the convection.”
And:
“For larger vertical gap widths, where energy savings from the use of infrared absorbing gasses may begin to accrue, convection effects will begin to take effect and negate the positive impact of going to larger gap widths.”
Now that’s a significant finding right there, Tim. THE significant finding, I would say.
Uhm, that’s true, Tim. But irrelevant. We’re talking about the SURFACE heat loss here, not the ToA one. It is the SURFACE heat loss that’s supposedly being reduced by the radiative properties of CO2 in the air above it. Because of an increase in “back radiation”, right? And the more CO2 in the air, the more it’s allegedly reduced.
Only problem is, convection. Convection effortlessly negates any potential radiative effects on the surface heat loss (the heat transfer away from the surface) at air column thicknesses beyond a couple of centimetres. I quote again:
“For larger vertical gap widths, where energy savings from the use of infrared absorbing gasses may begin to accrue, convection effects will begin to take effect and negate the positive impact of going to larger gap widths.”
And that’s over a few centimetres, Tim. Imagine what convection will do with an entire boundary layer at its disposal, or even a full tropospheric column. What happens to the sfc Q, you think? Stays at the bottom? Trapped? Blocked from escaping?
You’re speculating about a final net change in real temperatures based on theoretical radiative effects seen in isolation, assuming all other mechanisms will simply stay constant, yet offer NO empirical evidence from the real Earth system to back these speculations up.
Take note, I’m talking about the idea of an “enhanced GHE” here, not the “GHE” itself, which is a (slightly) different matter.
Why do you keep talking about surface and space. The temp gradients through these windows are MUCH larger than between the surface and the air directly on top of it, and also much larger than the general tropospheric temperature gradient.
Exactly. And that’s precisely what we’re talking about here.
The environmental lapse rate (the tropospheric temperature gradient) is very much affected by radiation, Tim. And I think you know that. It settles at the balance point between the large-scale convective/advective heat transfers occurring within the tropospheric column on the one hand and the radiative surface heating by the Sun, in turn leading to heating by the surface of the lowermost part of the troposphere, plus the radiative cooling of the troposphere to space, on the other.
The adiabatic lapse rate strictly applies to rising and falling ‘parcels’ of air only.
Kristian, I would love to actually get together and talk with you. You have a lot of good knowledge, but the limitations of typing back and forth (on someone else’s blog) just make this too cumbersome to really accomplish much. I fear we are talking too much past each other. (For example, you say you are focusing on the *enhanced* GHE from more CO2, but many people are saying that the whole idea of a GHE is false).
Some basics can be presented — I try to stick to the underlying physics. But hashing out the details and feedbacks is basically cutting-edge research, which will not be accomplished here.
Tim Folkerts says, April 8, 2017 at 5:07 PM:
Ok, so let me just ask you this: Do you think that increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 will necessarily and inescapably lead to higher global temperatures (at all altitude-specific levels from the surface to the tropopause) at some “new equilibrium”? That there MUST be some degree of net warming from a simple rise in CO2_atm (assuming the solar input stays unchanged), no matter what?
And if so, on what exactly are you basing this opinion? On mere radiative theory? Or on actual empirical observations from the real Earth system?
I’m very interested to know …
Kristian: it’s based on both theory and observations.
For example:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
Kristian says: “Do you think that increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 will necessarily and inescapably lead to higher global temperatures … no matter what?”
No. Otherwise every year would be warmer than the last. There are all sorts of variations on timescales ranging from days (eg weather) to years (eg el nino) to thousands of years (eg Milankovitch cycles) to millions of years (eg continental drift) that all impact climate.
But I do think that adding more CO2 *tends* to warm the earth by impacting the escape of IR from the earth. So if we expand from your “assuming the solar input stays unchanged” to “assuming ALL other variables remain unchanged”, then more CO2 will make the earth warmer. So for example, MODTRAN (climatemodels. uchicago. edu/ modtran/)can calculate the IR escaping to space as you change CO2 and keep all other variables constant. More CO2 –> less IR escaping –> warmer earth.
The trillion dollar question is how that relatively small effect at the top of the atmosphere “trickles down” to the surface. How would the lapse rate change? How would evaporation and cloud cover change? I don’t even try to answer THOSE questions.
Tim Folkerts says, April 9, 2017 at 11:42 AM:
Agreed.
However, this is not what we see in the real world. There is NO empirical evidence anywhere from the real Earth system showing how an increase in CO2_atm causes T to rise. And there is NO empirical evidence whatsoever to suggest that an “enhanced GHE” is responsible for (or has even contributed to) ‘global warming’ over the last 3-5 decades.
Tin Folkerts…”But I do think that adding more CO2 *tends* to warm the earth by impacting the escape of IR from the earth”.
What does absorbing a tiny amount of IR have to do with the surface cooling? When the surface emits the IR it has already cooled. You can’t change that by absorbing some of the emitted IR.
The only thing that will warm the surface is more solar energy.
“The only thing that will warm the surface is more solar energy.”
No Gordon, Dr. Spencer demonstrated by test that added cloud radiation at night can also warm surface water as his result was: a higher temperature.
Bryan, yes, the “radiative greenhouse effect” is only a small part of a warming real greenhouse. That is one reason why the name is a bit unfortunate. That doesn’t stop the effect from being important for the earth.
Tim…”Nor does a thermos with CO2 between the two walls. (However, a real greenhouse does!)”
Tim…you have not explained what the 0.04% of CO2 in a real greenhouse contributes to heating the greenhouse. Why should CO2 or even water vapour have anything to do with heating a real greenhouse?
Circa 1909, Woods did an experiment to prove real greenhouses warm due to a lack of convection. My friend has a real greenhouse in which the temperature is controlled by an automated system that open windows on the roof of the greenhouse. The automated windows are obviously controlling the convection, hence the cooling.
I don’t think CO2 has anything to do with either real greenhouse warming or atmospheric warming. I have supplied an analogy in previous posts using the ideal gas equation and partial pressures to show that atmospheric temperature is directly proportional to the partial pressures of gases in the atmosphere while holding the volume constant.
I’ve had no responses to my calculations other than ad homs. Perhaps you’d care to comment. Basically, I am claiming that the major proportion of warming in the atmosphere is due to nitrogen and oxygen, based on the fact they make up over 99% of the mass of the atmosphere. Their partial pressures account for about 96% of the atmosphere.
The partial pressure of ALL CO2, at 0.04% is negligible and the partial pressure of ACO2 I estimated at about 0.01 C over a century.
Lindzen, who is light years ahead of me, did a similar calculation based on convective heat flow and suggested there is an upper bounds of CO2 warming over a century around 0.4C.
Gordon asks: “Timyou have not explained what the 0.04% of CO2 in a real greenhouse contributes to heating the greenhouse. Why should CO2 or even water vapour have anything to do with heating a real greenhouse?”
You misunderstand! I said that real greenhouses will have warming due to a radiative greenhouse effect — but not that CO2 was the cause. For greenhouses, it is the glass that serves the purpose of blocking IR between a warm surface (inside the greenhouse) and cool surroundings (the atmosphere above).
(and before anyone complains … for a real greenhouse this is not the primary cause of the warming. blocking convection is the main reason greenhouses are warm.)
Consider the physics of a farmer’s greenhouse with thin walls, with standard lab glass, situated in very windy conditions.
Now consider the physics of a farmer’s greenhouse with very thick, high R insulated walls, low E glass, situated in very calm conditions.
Might learn something about their physics.
Tim…”For greenhouses, it is the glass that serves the purpose of blocking IR between a warm surface (inside the greenhouse) and cool surroundings (the atmosphere above)”.
That was disproved by Woods in 1909. He did an experiment using real glass and a sheet of rock salt over boxes. Rock salt freely passes IR. After heating under the Sun there was no difference in the temperatures. Woods concluded that real greenhouses warm due to a lack of convection.
“That was disproved by Woods in 1909.”
R.W. Wood Gordon. Actually it was confirmed by Wood in 1909 when he found a 10C difference in T with the rock salt covered box. Only when Wood put a glass cover the rock salt plate was there no difference with the glass covered box.
There are two 800# gorillas in the room.
One gorilla, mentioned upthread, was the fact that CO2 levels are continuing to increase, but there is no corresponding increase in satellite temps, recognizable in the natural variability.
This single fact destroys the CO2/AGW theory. As Dr. Christy has shown, NONE of the climate models predicted such unrecognizable warming.
Second, the UAH troposphere temps are dropping back from the last El Nino rise. During an El Nino, the Pacific Ocean releases enormous amounts of heat energy. The heat energy moves through the atmosphere, until it is finally emitted to space.
Again, this single fact destroys the CO2/AGW theory. According to the theory, the atmosphere traps heat. But, as we see, the atmosphere does not trap heat, it moves heat energy to space.
Gorilla 1: “There is no meaningful warming!”
Gorilla 2: “Even if there were some warming, the atmosphere easily transfers heat energy to space.”
“Again, this single fact destroys the CO2/AGW theory. According to the theory, the atmosphere traps heat. But, as we see, the atmosphere does not trap heat, it moves heat energy to space.”
No, this destroys nothing. According to theory, an atmosphere with MORE CO2 traps MORE heat (to reuse the same slightly sloppy wording) than an atmosphere with less CO2. But both scenarios move energy through from the surface and eventually off to space.
Tim Folkerts…”According to theory, an atmosphere with MORE CO2 traps MORE heat …”
Tim….with all due respect, CO2 does not trap heat. To claim it does is to confuse the infrared energy transmitted by atoms with the kinetic energy of atoms, which is heat.
Electromagnetic energy exists in the universe only because atoms transmit it as they cool. As electrons in the shells surrounding atoms (to use the Bohr model) move between different energy levels they transmit EM as they drop to lower levels or absorb it as they move to a higher energy levels.
Transmitted EM is not heat, the latter being a property of atoms while the former is a product of atoms.
In order for CO2 to trap heat, it would have to trap atoms or molecules. Convection is the process of transporting and transferring heat by mass. Heat being a property of the atoms, it is transported/transferred with the atoms. That is not taking place with radiative transfer, the mass, as represented by the surface transmitting the EM, remains intact. Therefore the heat goes nowhere.
Radiative heat transfer is a pseudo-heat transfer in that the heat is transferred as a net process, not physically. Radiative heat transfer means an emitting body is reduced in kinetic energy, aka heat, while a body absorbing the emitted EM increases it’s KE, hence warming.
It’s like a radio signal. A person speaking into a microphone at one station has his/her voice audio converted to an electrical signal. The electrical signal is amplified, modulated onto a high frequency RF carrier signal,and applied to an antenna. As the HF RF runs up and down the antenna it is converted to EM and sent off into space.
At a distant station, another antenna receives the transmitted EM and converts it to an alternating electrical signal. The signal is demodulated to audio and amplified. It can be run through speakers where the voice of the person at the sending station can be heard.
The person sending the signal goes nowhere but he/she has communicated with a person at a distant station using EM. The only difference between the two scenarios is that audio is transferred in one while in the other heat is transferred.
I call that a pseudo-transfer because there is no physical exchange between the stations of any kind other than by EM. The receiving station supplies it’s own power to run it’s receiver and it’s the same with a receiving station with heat transfer. The receiving station supplies the atoms to be heated by the absorbed EM.
There is no physical transfer of heat in radiative transfer, heat does not flow through the atmospheric space between an emitting body and an absorbing body. There is an EM flow from a transmitting body to an absorbing body but EM is not thermal energy. EM has no mass and it cannot possible transfer heat physically.
The atmosphere is a gaseous mass and it can transfer heat atom to atom by collison. However, radiative transfer does not occur with nitrogen and oxygen, which make up 99%+ of the atmosphere. Therefore, heat transfer in the atmosphere has to be largely by conduction and convection involving mainly N2 and O2.
Gordon,
I hope you don’t mind if I add a little detail.
With great respect, your explanation may inadvertently reinforce a misconception widely held by supporters of the mythical GHE.
I find no reason to disagree with Richard Feynman who said that all physical processes apart from gravity and nuclear processes can be explained in line with the following :
1. An electron moves from one place and time to another place and time.
2. A photon moves from one place and time to another place and time.
3. An electron emits and absorbs a photon.
Note that there is no requirement that an electron must emit a photon of identical energy to that which it absorbed. Such a thing would be nonsensical in general, as after the exchange, the atom itself would be unchanged in all respects, having emitted precisely as much energy as it absorbed. There would be no way of establishing the existence of either the photon or electron, if you think about it. Measurement would be impossible, if your measuring instrument was completely unchanged after interacting with what it was trying to measure!
In fact, there may merely be an effective change of momentum of the atom which contains the electron in question, accompanied by a change in the momentum of the interacting photon. Hence temperature rises if a gas is compressed, or heated by friction. As you say, heat cannot be trapped. It is impossible to stop electrons emitting photons of progressively less energy as the matter in question heads remorselessly towards absolute zero in the absence of an external heat source.
Anyway, considering that the leading lights of the Warmish movement include a self proclaimed distinguished professor, who apparently didn’t have the wit to know whether he had received a Nobel Peace Prize or not, an undistinguished mathematician who seemed to think that a probability of 0.38 meant certainty (as in “Hottest year EVAH!”, and a retired anti-coal activist who thinks that climate change will result in storms which will pluck giant boulders from the sea bed, and rain them down on our unbelieving heads!
Strange but true.
People like Tim Folkerts say –
“According to theory, an atmosphere with MORE CO2 traps MORE heat (to reuse the same slightly sloppy wording) than an atmosphere with less CO2.”
He can’t actually provide a copy of this non-existent theory, although he can, no doubt, provide endless links to speculations and unproven assertions by the usual crowd of Warmists.
The GHE doesn’t seem to apply unless direct sunlight is present – except in the arid tropical deserts where less, not more, GHG results in the highest surface temperatures ever recorded.
I haven’t seen a copy of this alleged CO2/AGW theory (Tim’s wording), and I doubt anyone else has, either. The GHE is nonsense. Obviously, some not terribly bright person misunderstood what a greenhouse is for, and how it works. A catchy name, but quite nonsensical.
Luckily, it seems that even politicians – who are not generally known for their intellectual objectivity – are facing facts at last.
Cheers.
This discussion [atmospheric GH effect] is not happening between politicians. And if you’re talking about the US government, I see little interest in a decent review of facts there, only a highly selective, little understood collection of talking points. They provide news paper articles as sources. Where they cite research, the researchers tend to point out that their work has been distorted.
IOW, a politician is a terrible source for understanding the science. By definition, their expertise is the political angle. You can include Al Gore in that lot, even if he did study science decades ago.
In any case, no US politician I ever read rejects the ‘greenhouse effect’ of atmospheric gases that strongly absorb IR. They’re not in line with the *facts* as you seem to see them.
Forecast jet stream indicates that winter in Canada will not forgive.
http://virga.sfsu.edu/gif/17040900_jetstream_h72.gif
GR says:
“EM has no mass and it cannot possible transfer heat physically.”
EM has energy. EM is the movement of energy from one point to another. This is commonly called “heat.”
Your definition of “heat,” applying only to the movement of atoms, is just a different colloquial use, but with kinetic energy instead of EM energy.
You are hung up on semantics, with no gain in physical understanding.
DA…”EM has energy. EM is the movement of energy from one point to another. This is commonly called heat.”
EM ‘IS’ energy. It’s called electromagnetic energy. It’s comprised of an electric field and a transverse magnetic field. I have been studying it for decades in my studies of electronics and electricity.
There is nothing in an electric field or a magnetic field that is remotely associated with heat. Heat is related to mass and the development of the Clausius theory of heat delves deeply into that.
I don’t care what modernists call heat, the wiki articles on the Net are full of pseudo-science.
The movement of energy from one one point to another is generally called kinetic energy but that is a generic term. Kinetic energy with machines is different than kinetic energy in a chemical reaction. With reference to atomic motion and the movement of electrons between atomic energy levels, that KE is called heat.
Gordon Robertson says:
“There is nothing in an electric field or a magnetic field that is remotely associated with heat.”
EM waves carry energy — right?
‘But both scenarios move energy through from the surface and eventually off to space.’
Tim, don’t let the facts confuse you. Since you realize that the atmosphere moves heat energy to space, rather than “trapping” it, the CO2/AGW theory is destroyed.
JDHuffman says:
“One gorilla, mentioned upthread, was the fact that CO2 levels are continuing to increase, but there is no corresponding increase in satellite temps….”
UAH LT v6.0 linear trend = +0.12 C/decade.
NV trend = +0.15 C/decade.
CO2 trend = -0.03 C/decade.
Total = +0.12 C/decade.
Works for me!
No, that’s not the trend of natural variability, and you can’t prove that it is.
The 11-year cycle in CR is delayed
(from a month up to two years) with respect to the sunspots (Usoskin et al. 1998).
The time profile of cosmic-ray flux as measured by a neutron monitor (NM) is shown
in Fig. 4 (panel b) together with the sunspot numbers (panel a). Besides the inverse
relation between them, some other features can also be noted. A 22-year cyclicity
manifests itself in cosmic-ray modulation through the alteration of sharp and flat
maxima in cosmic-ray data, originated from the charge-dependent drift mechanism.
One may also note short-term fluctuations, which are not directly related to sunspot
numbers but are driven by interplanetary transients caused by solar eruptive events,
e.g., flares or CMEs. An interesting feature is related to the recent decade. The CR flux
in 2009 was the highest ever recorded by NMs (Moraal and Stoker 2010), as caused
by the favorable heliospheric conditions (unusually weak heliospheric magnetic field
and the flat heliospheric current sheet) (McDonald et al. 2010). On the other hand,
the sunspot minimum was comparable to other minima. The level of CR modulation
during the cycle 24 was moderate, much more shallow than for the previous cycles,
reflecting the weak solar cycle 24. For the previous 50 years of high and roughly-stable
solar activity, no trends have been observed in CR data; however, as will be discussed
later, the overall level of CR has changed significantly on the centurial-millennial
timescales.
When an energetic CR particle enters the atmosphere, it first moves straight in the
upper layers, suffering mostly from ionization energy losses that lead to the ionization
of the ambient rarefied air and gradual deceleration of the particles. However, after
traversing some amount of matter (the nuclear interaction mean-free path is on the
order of 100 g/cm2 for a proton in the air) the CR particle may collide with a nucleus in
the atmosphere, producing a number of secondaries. These secondaries have their own
fate in the atmosphere, in particular they may suffer further collisions and interactions
forming an atmospheric cascade (e.g., Dorman 2004). Because of the thickness of the
Earths atmosphere (1033 g/cm2 at sea level) the number of subsequent interactions can
be large, leading to a fully-developed cascade (also called an air shower) consisting of
secondary rather than primary particles. A schematic view of the atmospheric cascade
is shown in Fig. 6. Three main components can be separated in the cascade:
The hadronic nucleonic component is formed by the products of nuclear collisions
of primary cosmic rays and their secondaries with the atmospheric nuclei,
and consists mostly of superthermal protons and neutrons.
The soft or electromagnetic component consists of electrons, positrons and
photons.
The hard or muon component consists mostly of muons; pions are short lived
and decay almost immediately upon production, feeding muons and the soft
component.
The development of the cascade depends mostly on the amount of matter traversed
and is usually linked to residual atmospheric depth, which is very close to the static
barometric pressure, rather than to the actual altitude, that may vary depending on the
exact atmospheric density profile.
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfi-fe201703061963.pdf
In general, the following main features are observed in the long-term evolution of
solar magnetic activity.
Solar activity is dominated by the 11-year Schwabe cycle on an interannual
timescale. Some additional longer characteristic times can be found, including
the Gleissberg secular cycle, de Vries/Suess cycle, and a quasi-cycle of 2000
2400 years (Hallstatt cycle). However, all these longer cycles are intermittent and
cannot be regarded as strict phase-locked periodicities.
One of the main features of long-term solar activity is that it contains an essential
chaotic/ stochastic component, which leads to irregular variations and makes solaractivity
predictions impossible for a scale exceeding one solar cycle.
The sun spends about 70% of its time at moderate magnetic activity levels, about
1520% of its time in a grand minimum and about 1015% in a grand maximum.
Grand minima are a typical but rare phenomena in solar behavior. They form a
distinct mode of solar dynamo. Their occurrence appears not periodically, but
rather as the result of a chaotic process within clusters separated by the 2000
2500 years (around the lows of the Hallstatt cycle). Grand minima tend to be of
two distinct types: short (Maunder-like) and longer (Sprer-like).
The recent level of solar activity (after the 1940s) was very high, corresponding
to a prolonged grand maximum, but it has ceased to the normal moderate level.
Grand maxima are also rare and irregularly occurring events, though the exact rate
of their occurrence is still a subject of debates.
These observational features of the long-term behavior of solar activity have important
implications, especially for the development of theoretical solar-dynamo models
and for solar-terrestrial studies.
Sorry.
The sun spends about 70% of its time at moderate magnetic activity levels, about 15-20% of its time in a grand minimum and about 10-15% in a grand maximum.
Ionization in the southern hemisphere is currently higher (90S-20S) than in the northern hemisphere. Depends on atmospheric pressure.
http://sol.spacenvironment.net/raps_ops/current_files/index.html
Snape,
All good. Thanks.
The problem with claiming that the GHE is explainable by the insulating properties of GHGs is that it is literally impossible. As I’ve mentioned, both the hottest (and coldest) places on the surface have the least GHGs between them and the Sun. Normal radiation physics and quantum electrodynamics seem to be functioning as usual.
No miraculous one way insulator exists. The concept of GHGs accumulating heat over time, resulting in the Earth becoming hotter day by day, year by year, and century by century, is as silly as it sounds. Hopefully, Governments will choose to fund useful scientific research, rather than climatological pseudoscience.
And now, I must away. No doubt Nature will take its course.
Cheers.
Mike
I like your observation about the hottest and coldest places having the least GHG’s. You’ve mentioned this before and I had go read about it – now I’ve mostly forgotten what I read.
I just realized that my understanding of insulation had a big flaw. It’s commonly explained that insulation works by slowing the rate of heat loss or gain, and that’s of course true, but this effect is ONLY TEMPORARY. Not sure why it’s taken so long for me to figure this out…maybe I didn’t pay attention in high school physics!
Maybe I still don’t really understand how it works.
Anyway, I think insulation INITIALLY reduces the rate of heat loss. After that, the rate returns to normal. It’s the TRAPPED HEAT that, for example, keeps us warm when we wear a coat.
This would be true of GHG’s in our atmosphere. If levels weren’t increasing, they wouldn’t be slowing the rate of heat loss, they would simply act as a HEAT TRAP.
I’ve never read this anywhere, but, like I said earlier, maybe I just didn’t pay attention in high school physics.
A coat traps heat next to your body. It doesn’t slow the rate of heat loss (except initially).
Is this common knowledge and I’ve just been clueless?
You’ve been evolving (Snape term).
Ball4
Just to be clear, my new understanding of insulation (maybe not new to anybody else) does not in any way change my position on AGW.
They may also evolve.
Ball4
Our discussion of how an insulated room effects an attic makes me think you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Ball4
I take that back. That was a pretty confusing scenario….I’m still confused.
My recent idea is much more straightforward.
Perhaps. Show/cite me a test of what you are talking about.
Ball4
I haven’t seen anything to support my views, just thinking.
Here’s something similar:
Imagine a small, constant stream of water coming out of your faucet. Then place a sponge under it.
As the sponge absorbs the water, the “outflow” will initially be much less or nonexistent. Less water will be reaching the drain. As the sponge becomes saturated, the outflow rate will return to normal. The sponge will, however, will always continue to trap water.
So the sponge initially reduced the rate of flow down the drain, but once saturated, the rate returned to normal.
So, in my view, the atmosphere is like a giant heat-filled sponge that keeps the planet warm, but it doesn’t slow the rate of heat loss.
However, start adding GHG’s….?
Snape, I think you have some very good points here. Here are two (relatively minor) additional thoughts on your analogies.
1) Humans are different from planets in that humans have a thermostat that tries to maintain a specific temperature (37C). Putting on a coat on a cold day DOES decrease the heat generated by the person. You will indeed burn fewer calories when you put on a coat (rather than having your body warm up from 37C to say 40 C). So this is NOT a particularly good analogy for planets and their energy balance.
2) I have used a slightly different sink analogy — a bucket with several small holes near the bottom. When you turn on the faucet, the water will collect in the bucket and the level will rise until the inflow = outflow. If you plug a few of the holes, the water will rise further until the pressure increases and the flows again balance. In the analogy, water = thermal energy; depth (pressure) = temperature.
The sponge and bucket serve the same basic purpose. The bucket allows a little more flexibility.
Tim
I appreciate the vote of confidence!
Regarding your first point, I was thinking about the same thing this morning. Yeah, the human body is an irregular heat source, which really complicates the analogy. Thinking it through, I found that it still works, but it gave me a headache! (I had to picture a lizard instead of a person because my imaginary guy kept dying of hypothermia).
I also considered insulation in a house, but a furnace is constantly turning on and off, which again complicates the analogy.
The bucket with holes is really good.
Now we have the sponge analogy. All…ALL analogies are imperfect, nonzero possibility all this brouhaha started over MSM (et.al.) using analogies. Go back to the actual stuff Snape. Let clothiers worry about the jacket market.
Ball4
Who brought up the hypothetical of raising Tyndall’s lab to 800 C. in order to prove I was wrong?
I have an analogy that demonstrates how dumb it is for people to argue there was no “pause”. You might like that one. (Saving it for next month).
Ball4
I didn’t mean to imply my analogies were perfect.
Show me the research that proves there’s no such thing as a perfect analagy! 😊
Using Tyndall’s room was Snape’s analogy, I merely added a number.
Start by assuming that the opposite proposition is true, there is a perfect analogy, and then show that such an assumption always leads to a contradiction.
Ball4
I don’t know if there is or isn’t a perfect analogy. Who cares? You, on the other hand, claimed there isn’t, but didn’t explain why you think this.
No big deal. I make claims without evidence all the time. I do however, try really hard to explain the logic behind my points of view.
I’ve just never seen a perfect analogy, the original set up is always the one & only. There are some that come close to be useful like water current and electrical current along with similar equations showing up in different fields of science but always go with the original when trying to make a point.
Ball4
“The boy’s room was like a disaster zone.”
Is the analogy perfect? Far from it. Does it make clear the boy’s room was really messy? Perfectly.
Mike Flynn says:
“The concept of GHGs accumulating heat over time, resulting in the Earth becoming hotter day by day, year by year, and century by century, is as silly as it sounds.”
What’s not silly is that you constantly misunderstand basic physics.
And clearly have no interest in learning it.
A shadow can cause cooling.
The Sun is not the Earth’s only source of warmth and energy.
The Universe is pretty big.
If there were only two planets in the universe, one near the edge and the other near the middle, which would have a warmer climate given all other atmospheric conditions were the same?
Do you think its shadows or lack of shadows could affect the climate on Earth?
Mike Flynn
I do hope you are done posting exposing your ignorance and now have gone to look at information and become educated (a distant hope!).
If not YOU: “Putting on a coat didnt seem to make any difference to my temperature it seems to remain at around 37C. Much the same as yours, or any other reasonably healthy human being.
Does your temperature increase when you put on an overcoat? How high does it get?”
Your ignorance is truly outside the box of people who know nothing but need to talk about it. Not only do you completely lack any understanding of the science of heat transfer, now you show complete lack of knowledge of human biology. Wow! How uniformed are you?? Will you keep showing us or maybe learn to read again and get off the computer.
The human body regulates its internal core temperature. If the outside is cold it will increase metabolism to try and keep the core at the constant temperature of 98.6 F (37 C)which is ideal for the chemical reactions that keep us alive.
If it is hot outside the body moves blood circulation to the outer perimeter and induces sweat glands to activate to cool by evaporation.
So with clothes. If you go out naked in subzero conditions the amount of heat lost by your surface will overwhelm your body’s ability to maintain core temperature as it can only increase metabolism so much. Your core temperature will drop and you will suffer hypothermia and if not treated you will die. When you put a coat on in cold conditions or insulated boots, it greatly slows the loss of energy from your surface and allows your internal metabolism to keep the core at 98.6 F and you do not freeze to death.
I really should not have to explain this to an adult. I think it is really good that you post such totally ignorant and ridiculous posts, even the scientifically illiterate that may read the comments will reject your posts. The scientific literate already know you know nothing about science and post garbage every time, I just worry about those who only know a little science and your preaching may convert them, thankfully you are so uniformed your preaching will not even reach that audience. Praise the Lord! Science can remain an honest quest for the truth about the natural world!
Mike Flynn’s comments are intentionally for entertainment purposes only. Some are not even wrong.
A perfect description of your own comments, troll.
Why are the differences between Co2 and other insulators almost never discussed? Clothing, blankets, the fiberglass insulation in our homes, the glass in a greenhouse…..these all insulate by trapping warm air.
This is clearly not the case with Co2.
CO2 in a planetary atm. is an IR active gas which when combined with total atm. pressure increases the opacity of the total column of air looking up from the surface. These physics are different from that of a jacket worn in the NH winter but the effects are similar so the MSM chooses to describe the effect in terms the avg. reader can understand.
You should too, then when you accomplish more study and feel ready to tackle optics theory go ahead move up to the actual atm. physics.
Ball4
I wouldn’t know if your description of Co2 is accurate or not. You’re probably right, though, about the science be dumbed down for public consumption.
I enjoy learning, but I like trying to figure things out on my own more. This approach is fun, like brain teasers, but, yeah, I won’t be able to figure out anything very advanced.
Sort of like trying to learn math without using a math book. You might figure out some basic stuff, but not much more.
Take time read Tyndall 1861, he could not see the opacity increase with his eyes but the instrumentation measured it and he was astonished that his needle pegged with no observed change in the tube. He screwed in thermometers to be sure.
Ball4 says:
“These physics are different from that of a jacket worn in the NH winter but the effects are similar so the MSM chooses to describe the effect in terms the avg. reader can understand.”
Yes, but the term goes way back, at least to 1908:
“The greenhouse theory and planetary temperatures,” Frank Very, Philosophical Magazine, 6, 16, 478 (1908).
Actually the term seems to go back to Fourier in 1827. This is from Arrhenius’s 1896 paper:
“Fourier maintained that the atmosphere acts like the glass of a hothouse….”
and he references Fourier’s work.
Links here:
http://www.davidappell.com/EarlyClimateScience.html
Yes David, Fourier built a little box (charcoaled black inside) to act as a farmer’s greenhouse and ran crude tests on it, later authors were trying to improve. Tyndall 1861 is the first I know published on GHE in well instrumented tube, though like Stigler’s law tells us, he probably learned from earlier others to conduct & improve the Fourier concept testing rigorously.
So how early did farmers start using greenhouses, anyone know?
Fourier’s deduction was about the atmosphere, not a box.
Fourier built the box and tested it David. He inferred from the tests what his experimental results would mean for the atm.
Ball4
Thanks for letting me know. I was not sure what the goal is. You do know that a vast amount of US citizens are illiterate when it comes to science and they may come or be linked to various climate blogs to try and sway opinions.
Mike Flynn may be joking around but there will be lots of people that hear what he says and go “that makes sense, yeah, the scientists are fools and we know better!”
When policy and science research are based upon public opinion and the issues become political and activist the science drowns in the ocean of ignorant thought and there is no way to change it with actual science thought as the people are not able to understand what you are saying (no background in the subject discussed).
Already science suffers from politics. Researchers scramble for dollars and produce rapid shoddy work. The Truth suffers when those engaged in research must produce of perish! That is why I think there are so many research articles (and these appear in peer reviewed science journals) blaming Climate Change for all types of ills and problems, that is the direction of the Politics and the direction of the research money flow. The noise becomes so loud you can no longer look for the actual signal.
Anyway thanks for you point of consideration. I hope you are correct about Mike Flynn. I do not think g*e*r*a*n was joking even though everything was hilarious to him. I see him on other blogs saying the same things he did here (like on CO2isLife blog). Makes me think he was not joking but actually thinks his view is sound science.
Norman
I mentioned this earlier, but some of Flynn’s comments make me think of Don Quixote. Are you familiar?
I lost a longer comment in working off my phone, Norman and Snape can evolve works Ng with texts not blogs. Kristian is on right track using Zemansky but limits understanding of Zemansky energy flux by Kristian’s insistence on heat flux.
Ball4
Yes most thanks for you point.
YOU: “Kristian is on right track using Zemansky but limits understanding of Zemansky energy flux by Kristians insistence on heat flux.”
I do try to ignore the term heat but it does creep up. I have never stated the cooler atmosphere downwelling IR is a heat flux (unless it would exceed the upwelling IR flux, which it does on some rare occasions). I have only referred to this down flux as energy. It is valid for climate scientists to consider it an energy input into the surface as that is what it is in actuality. It is NOT a heat flux unless the energy is above the surface outgoing energy flux (then the downwelling IR will increase the internal energy of the surface that is considered a heat flux at that point).
You have to consider both the solar flux and downelling flux as energy inputs into the surface. The molecules of the surface do not determine from where the energy comes from. A 15 micron IR photon from the atmosphere will still be absorbed by the surface molecules and converted into K.E. to be distributed among the molecules connected to it. I envision a surface to be like a bunch of balls connected by springs. If you disturb one part of the configuration the springs carry the disturbance throughout the configuration. So an IR photon is absorbed by a surface molecule and the molecule starts vibrating more which then causes the surrounding molecules to vibrate more and then they will emit an IR photon based upon the excitation and relaxation time and it can be a multiple of various wavelengths of IR but it will be a discrete amount based upon the energy of the emitted photon that carries the energy away from the surface.
Admittedly the word “heat” does get used colloquially, even by physicists, as a synonym for temperature, but strictly speaking “heat” is the transfer of energy.
So properly one should say that a gas has an energy (and a temperature), not that it has heat.
But radiation, like downwelling IR — energy in motion — is heat.
David Appell says, April 9, 2017 at 11:40 AM:
Not THE transfer of energy, David. A transfer of energy.
Bravo, David!
LOL! No, David. DWLWIR from a cool atmosphere to a warm surface of course isn’t heat.
Why is this so hard!?
Heat, Q, is the energy spontaneously transferred between two regions at different temperatures as a result of the difference in temperature. It ALWAYS flows from hot to cold only. It doesn’t matter if the energy is transferred by way of conduction, convection or radiation. In terms of radiation, the radiant heat is simply equal to the NET radiation, ‘net sw’ or ‘net lw’.
“But radiation, like downwelling IR – energy in motion – is heat.”
Another cue for Gordon now David is trying to pass off radiant energy as heat.
David, radiation has no KE in its constituent particles (photons) or EM waves if you prefer. Check with your guru Al.
Q, is the energy transferred between two bodies at different temperatures as a result of the difference in temperature. Q ALWAYS flows increasing universe entropy. It doesn’t matter if the energy is transferred by way of conduction, convection or radiation. In terms of radiation, the total radiant energy is simply equal to the NET vector sw plus lw radiation.
Clearer physics now? I removed the mythology for Kristian.
Kristian says:
“LOL! No, David. DWLWIR from a cool atmosphere to a warm surface of course isnt heat.”
Radiation is energy.
So DWLWIR is downward energy.
David Appell
I think “Heat” is only a subset of energy flow. A specific type of flow where the NET energy is from Hot to Cold. It is a NET flow after all flows are balanced out, so it would not just be an energy flow in of itself unless a warm object was by itself (then it would have positive heat flow and its internal energy would go down which is how you can determine heat flow if you know nothing else about the system).
Heat flow can be positive or negative. If the external source is warmer than your object, the energy from the external source will warm your object and the heat flow from your object is negative.
In a case I described above. If you have two plates that face each other (and relatively close) at 300 C each you have a tremendous flow of energy from each surface but you have zero heat flow (neither surface is gaining or losing internal energy). So you could not label either radiant flow of energy as “heat” since neither flow is changing the internal temperature. That is why I think Ball4 wants to keep the discussion to energy flows and not “heat” to prevent massive semantic battles that really are confusing and do not lead to any more insight into the debate about Climate Change or even the GHE.
Norman says:
“I think Heat is only a subset of energy flow. A specific type of flow where the NET energy is from Hot to Cold.”
Fine with me. But it still comes down to semantics.
DWIR (etc.) is more usually described as a “energy flux.” But it’s still a transfer of heat.
David Appell
It is only a transfer of heat if the internal energy of the Earth’s surface changes. If the Earth temperature (equilibrium state) does not change than there is no heat flow and the Downwelling IR could not be considered a heat flux. That is why I like that Ball4 is aggressively taking on the semantics, it seems to cause much discussion and not much progress. Gordon Robertson jumps on it, Kristian jumps on it. I think Kristian is a very intelligent poster but I think he gets stuck in the semantic debate and makes these really long posts about it on numerous threads. If at least on this blog, posters (at least the regular posters) could come up with a mutual and acceptable definition of heat, a lot of wasted effort on semantics could be avoided. I think Ball4 may have the most reasonable definition of all so far. IR is an energy flux unless it causes the temperature to change.
I can think that you might also be correct in your application since the increase in Carbon Dioxide did increase the downwelling IR some (0.2 W/m^2 increase in a decade which was a measured value, but for valid science it would have to be duplicated by other researchers but I will accept it as valid for now), the downwelling IR flux does become a heat flux. But not exactly because without the solar flux the increased 0.2 W/m^2 would still not warm the surface as the outgoing flux is still going to be 398 W/m^2 and the increase downwelling would make it 345.2 so it would still not be a heat flux to the surface. The combination of the solar AND downwelling IR would now be a heat flux (but only in combination). You would have a NET downward flux of 510.2 W/m^2 in a decade from 2000 to 2010 and it would warm the Earth surface some because its outgoing flux was 510 W/m^2 and something has to change in the outgoing fluxes to balance the incoming to reach an equilibrium state. As long as the surface is shown to be warming or OHC continues to increase there is most definitely a Heat flux into the surface. It can be from increased radiant energy from the two streams or from a change in the outgoing balance (change in evaporation or convection). Hard to pinpoint for sure what the source of the heat flux is but it is certainly a reality. Even Roy Spencer’s work shows an increase in global temperature over time.
Norman says, April 9, 2017 at 2:48 PM:
*Sigh*
I know what heat [Q] is in physics. So I don’t have to “debate” its meaning. I will only EXPLAIN its meaning. Tim Folkerts knows what heat is too. You, Gordon Robertson, Ball4 and David Appell are all hopelessly confused.
And now you want the regular posters here to “come up with a mutual and acceptable definition of heat”. How sad and laughable is this at the same time? Pick up the first thermodynamics textbook that you can find, look up the term “heat”, read about the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics, and you will get the clear and unambiguous definition there.
Stop this nonsense!
SAY WHAT!!!!??
Ok, so sort of a heat flux, but not quite, is that it?
Give me strength!
No, no, no, no, no. The SOLAR flux (net SW) is a heat flux. Because it comes from a warmer place. The DWLWIR is NOT a heat flux. Because it comes from a cooler place. You can’t add together a heat flux and a non-heat flux and get another heat flux, Norman. That’s not how thermodynamics work, sorry.
YOU NEED TO READ UP ON WHAT CONSTITUTES A HEAT FLUX. Simple as that.
Yes, it’s called the SOLAR flux. The ASR. The net SW. TSI minus refl SW (albedo). The DWLWIR is part of the net LW, the heat moving OUT from the surface.
It’s like teaching preschool kids … This is sooo elementary.
Kristian
I don’t mind you having your own opinion and feeling strongly about it. What causes me to react to your opinion is when you say I am confused about my understanding of heat transfer.
In a previous thread I linked you to three different sources from experts on heat transfer and they all state it like I do. You feel differently, fine, but you are not on any high ground to call others (who actually read what the textbooks say and understand the content) confused. I take issue with that. Go back and look at my links, explain (NOT from your own opinion but from the textbooks) why my understanding is wrong or confused because it lines up exactly with the textbooks and it also lines up with my understanding of Chemistry and the electronic structure of matter.
The Sun’s incoming flux will only be a heat flux until an object’s internal temperature no longer changes. Once the internal energy does not change their is no longer a heat flux, only two energy fluxes. One solar into the object and the other emission of the surface away from the surface. Both will be equal and no heat will flow.
It comes down to the mythology of heat not the semantics David, plug in any word to google and you can get the def. so fast (0.57 sec!) semantics is not a problem.
—–
“The SOLAR flux (net SW) is a heat flux.”
Cue for Gordon. Kristian is trying to pass off radiant energy as heat again.
“The DWLWIR is NOT a heat flux. Because it comes from a cooler place.”
Then DWLWIR must be a cold flux, maybe Gordon can fill us in on that too. Is radiant cold a problem Gordon?
Norman says: “The Suns incoming flux will only be a heat flux until an objects internal temperature no longer changes. Once the internal energy does not change their is no longer a heat flux, only two energy fluxes. One solar into the object and the other emission of the surface away from the surface. Both will be equal and no heat will flow.”
Sorry, I can’t agree with this. Let’s use wikipedia for simplicity. “In physics, heat is the amount of energy flowing from one body to another spontaneously due to their temperature difference, or by any means other than through work or the transfer of matter.”
Restating those same words, the amount of energy flowing from one body (the sun) to another (the earth) spontaneously due to their temperature difference, *is* heat. This does not stop being heat just because the second body (the earth) might happen to be at a steady temperature.
There is a *separate* heat from from one body (the earth) to another body (the atmosphere).
Tim: “Restating those same words, the amount of energy flowing from one body (the sun) to another (the earth) spontaneously due to their temperature difference, *is* heat.”
Tim, energy also flows from one body (the earth) to another (the sun) spontaneously due to their temperatures which then *is* cold flow by your reasoning.
Actually, radiative transfer exists sun to earth, earth to sun. There is no need to call out one as heat transfer and one as cold transfer, radiant energy transfer is sufficient and accurate.
Ball4. Implicit in that definition of “heat” (and stated explicitly in other places) is that heat is the NET flow of such energy.
So there there are thermal photons generated by the sun that get absorbed by the earth. And, yes, there are also thermal photons generated by the earth flowing to the sun. But the net flow of thermal energy is always from the hotter object to the cooler object.
* there is an ENERGY flow of thermal photons from hot to cold — call it E(hot->cold). This is not “heat flow”.
* there is an ENERGY flow of thermal photons from cold to hot — call it E(cold->hot). This is not “cold flow”.
* there is HEAT from hot to cold — call it Q(hot->cold) = E(hot->cold) – E(cold->hot).
Tim, in your own 5:03pm post you say energy flow *is* heat, then you write 6:49pm energy flow is not heat.
Even you are having trouble keeping your mythological heat existence straight. I know of no examples using your myth of heat existing leads to increased physical understanding.
Rubbing your hands together to warm them on a cold morning is a common experience . You might write this generated some heat. Or you could write the temperature of your hands increased. The second can be experimentally verified; the first can not.
As you can tell from these blog threads, I have become absolutely convinced commenters have become deluded into thinking they have explained something using the heat term yet all they did was invoke a nonexistent entity, a myth.
It is very easy to deal with the definition of heat: Heat does not exist. Why in the world is so much time & effort wasted, in so many ways defining something that does not exist? Rhetorical question, let loose the hounds.
“Rubbing your hands together to warm them on a cold morning is a common experience . You might write this generated some heat.”
Actually, this is a very clear example of WORK done to raise the temperature of your hand. It is NOT an example of HEAT; there is NO HEAT in this example. Either can change the internal energy (and temperature) of an object.
delta(U) = Q + W
The change in U was due to W and not Q here. In the same way, compressing a cylinder to raise the temperature of gas is W, not Q.
Had you not known the hands were rubbed together, whether the increase in T came from work or a temperature difference could not be determined.
Once you know the hands were rubbed together, a force though a distance, the hands internal energy was raised, their constituent KE was higher. Their temperature was increased.
Had the hands been warmed by a chemical pack, the hands internal energy was raised, their constituent KE was higher. Their temperature was increased.
Both of those statements explain the observations with no need at all to invoke a mythical entity.
Tim Folkerts
I could be wrong but I am not convinced by your post I am (not at this time anyway).
Here is something for you to read straight from physics: “As we have seen in the zeroth law of thermodynamics, when two objects are placed in contact heat (energy) is transferred from one to the other until they reach the same temperature (are in thermal equilibrium). When the objects are at the same temperature there is no heat transfer.”
Link:
http://www.physics.louisville.edu/cldavis/phys298/notes/heat_thermeq.html
The hottest an object can get with non concentrated solar energy is 120 C at the distance the Sun is from Earth. It does not matter that the surface of the Sun is much hotter, the energy spreads out and the maximum flux will bring an object to thermal equilibrium at 120 C and then no more heat flows based upon the zeroth law. The object is at the same temperature as the Sun at Earth distance.
I believe this would mean (I could be wrong, I will think on it more) that if you expanded the 5500 C solar surface to the area it would have at Earth distance, the surface would then be 120 C.
“The hottest an object can get with non concentrated solar energy is 120 C at the distance the Sun is from Earth. “
Not quite. The hottest a *blackbody* object radiating *to 0 K space* can get with non concentrated solar energy is 120 C at the distance the Sun is from Earth.
It would be quite possible to get a surface above 120 C using, for example, multiple sheets of glass to make an extreme greenhouse effect. I should try it sometime just for kicks.
Sunlight is *still* 5700K at the distance of the earth. If the photons somehow cooled to 120 C by the time they got to earth, they would be IR and invisible to our eyes. it would also be impossible to re-focus them to burn ants.
Tim Folkerts…”It would be quite possible to get a surface above 120 C using, for example, multiple sheets of glass…”
Tim…it is possible to weld metal from sunlight using a lens ground from ice. Does that not tell you something about EM? EM from sunlight does not affect the ice lens but it can melt metal if focused correctly.
Kristian…”I know what heat [Q] is in physics. So I dont have to debate its meaning. I will only EXPLAIN its meaning. Tim Folkerts knows what heat is too. You, Gordon Robertson, Ball4 and David Appell are all hopelessly confused”.
Kristian…I have respected most of what you have said except for your understanding of heat. You too confuse EM with heat.
This is not my opinion. I have read deeply into the description of heat by Clausius and he states that heat is the kinetic energy of atoms.
What else could it be? If you cannot accept that heat is associated with the energy of atoms then you cannot accept that electrical energy is related either. Both electrical energy and heat are transmitted through metals by valence electrons. Heat is related to the energy level at which electrons reside in an atom.
We know that as the kinetic energy of atoms rises that temperature increases, Temperature was invented by humans to measure relative levels of heat. Planck stated that in the book of his from which you quoted.
Tim…”Actually, this is a very clear example of WORK done to raise the temperature of your hand. It is NOT an example of HEAT”;
Tim…it is a fundamental of thermodynamics that heat and work are interchangeable. Friction is a common way to produce heat, have you never heard of people rubbing sticks together to produce a flame?
Of course, work is a source of heat in rubbing your hands together but it also involves friction, which produces heat.
Clausius elaborated on the relationship between heat and work, it is the basis of his treatise on heat.
Seriously, put your equations away and think this through. In electronics and the electrical field the friction caused by electrons trying to pass through a resistance causes heat. It’s called an I^2.R loss.
Ball4…”It is very easy to deal with the definition of heat: Heat does not exist”.
Good grief, man. What do you call the kinetic energy associated with atoms? If you raise the average kinetic energy of gas molecules in a container what happens? The temperature rises, right?
What is temperature? It is a definition of humans based on the set points of a thermometer at the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water.
Why was it developed? To keep tract of the average kinetic energy of the atoms of the gas.
And what do we call that kinetic energy…tada…HEAT.
If we microwave water at 20 C till it boils, what do we say about the water? It’s hotter. That means it level of heat has increased. On a centigrade thermometer the temperature has risen from 20C to 100C.
They got all this initially from drilling cannons. As they drilled they noticed a phenomenon, the barrel did something. It developed a mysterious property that was eventually called heat.
Come on, Ball4, don’t allow yourself to be sucked in to pseudo-science.
“What do you call the kinetic energy associated with atoms?
The kinetic energy associated with atoms.
“And what do we call that kinetic energytadaHEAT.”
Only in mythology Gordon.
“That means it level of heat has increased.”
Only in mythology. What really happened in physics is energy was absorbed and as you write average kinetic energy of gas molecules in a container increased as measured by a thermometer. Do not let yourself get sucked into the mythology of heat Gordon. Heat does not exist.
“I have read deeply into the description of heat by Clausius and he states that heat is the kinetic energy of atoms.”
Then Gordon knows Clausius wrote heat does not exist. KE of the atoms is simply just KE of the atoms.
“Temperature was invented by humans to measure relative levels of heat.”
No Gordon, heat does not exist except in mythology per Clausius, temperature was invented to measure the avg. KE of the atoms & molecules.
Norman says:
“It is only a transfer of heat if the internal energy of the Earths surface changes.”
No. Heating is the transfer of energy.
Period.
Norman says:
“I can think that you might also be correct in your application since the increase in Carbon Dioxide did increase the downwelling IR some (0.2 W/m^2 increase in a decade which was a measured value, but for valid science it would have to be duplicated by other researchers but I will accept it as valid for now), the downwelling IR flux does become a heat flux. But not exactly because without the solar flux the increased 0.2 W/m^2 would still not warm the surface….”
I think you’re arguing semantics, but I’m not really interested in that.
There *IS* downwelling infrared radiation — actual photons — and those warm the surface — because they carry energy — regardless of anything solar.
Snape
I have not read that book or even heard of it even though it is listed as one of the greatest novels of all time. Thanks for the information.
Is this the concept from the book you refer to? :”A Duke and Duchess, and others, deceive Don Quixote for entertainment, setting forth a string of imagined adventures resulting in a series of practical jokes. Some of them put Don Quixote’s sense of chivalry and his devotion to Dulcinea through many tests.”
So Mike Flynn posts because he finds the counter posts amusing and the more outrageous his posts the more he relishes the counterposts.
I think the game playing is okay except that too many take the issue too serious (like wanting to jail deniers). Carry on Mike Flynn, stir the pot and have fun. Thanks Snape for letting me know his purpose.
Norman
The quote you mentioned was just a brief part of the book and not at all what I was thinking of.
Don Quixote is a character who has gone mad and believes himself to be a brave, skilled knight. In one chapter, he sees a herd of sheep but believes them to be an evil army. He then draws his sword, and bravely battles the enemy until all are vanquished. He then expects onlookers to praise his heroism and noble deeds.
I sometimes think of Flynn as the Don Quixote of climate science. Lol
working with
Ball4
The reason the fluxes of surface and atmosphere are bidirectional because an emitted photon will only move away from the source that emitted it. The photon from the atmosphere will only move away toward either the Earth surface or outer space. The photons do not bounce of each other like air molecules. They have direction until they reach a surface and are either reflected, absorbed or transmitted through the surface. From emissivity experiments of IR it is known that the Earth surface will absorb nearly all the IR that hits it (very little reflected and the transmission into the surface is only a few atoms in the micron range).
You can take an IR sensor that points to the Earth’s surface and get a reading that translates into an equivalent flux of Watts/m^2 (that actually matches what the Stefan-Boltzmann Law would give you for the emitting surface…that is because they calibrate the sensors before moving them to the field…they want precise readings). You can take the very same meter and point it skyward and it will give you a lower reading (clear sky) but it will be comparable to what Stefan-Boltzmann Law would give for the emissivity of the atmosphere (which in above 0.9) and its temperature. So what is Kristian’s proof that there is no bidirectional flow even though instrumentation clearly demonstrates there is such independent flows that only matter based upon the temperature of the emitting source. Upwelling flux seems totally related to the surface temperature and nothing else.
So my view is that the combination of the two energy inputs (solar downwelling and atmosphere downwelling) are needed to create the surface temperature we observe. Neither alone can do it, only the combination of both inputs do it.
510 IN (165 + 345) = 398 + 24 + 88 (510 OUT)
If you add GHG you will increase the 345, how that influence the actual surface temperature is complex as more clouds can reduce the solar flux, more warming can increase the convection and evaporation losses. Complex mix that is difficult to actually determine. Only complex computer simulations can even do the math and then it becomes a guess if the model is precise or not on taking in all the various possibilities.
Concur.
In your Stephens 2012 balance of energy transfer (after Zemansky & the test Dr. Spencer performed in 2015) your surface 345 is composed of the 24+88 LW fluxes cycle back down + 233 LW atm. emitted down due its temperature(z) (from 75 atm. LW emitted down from solar absorbed + 158 remaining atm. emitted down at its temperature(z)).
Kristian’s proof would be in an experiment or observation but I do not recall him point to one or even perform one supporting existence of his mythological heat flux.
Norman…”So my view is that the combination of the two energy inputs (solar downwelling and atmosphere downwelling) are needed to create the surface temperature we observe”.
Why would that be the case. The lower down the EM spectrum you go into the infrared the closer you come to the IR emitted by the surface. Furthermore, you reach the 2nd law problem where a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer energy to the warmer surface.
At the altitude of Mt. Everest’s peak, nearly 30,000 feet the temperature is seldom above 0C if at all. Any warming is due to direct sunlight and at night the temps drop to well under 0C.
Where exactly is your atmospheric down-dwelling heat transfer coming from?
“Furthermore, you reach the 2nd law problem where a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer energy to the warmer surface.”
That’s not a 2LOT problem Gordon, that is your problem. That process increases universe entropy so is in accord with 2LOT.
Gordon Robertson
YOU: “Furthermore, you reach the 2nd law problem where a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer energy to the warmer surface.”
What part of the 2nd law states that?
YOU: “Where exactly is your atmospheric down-dwelling heat transfer coming from?”
I did not call it a down-welling “heat” transfer. Those are your chosen words. It is a downwelling energy flux and the surface will absorb it according to all heat transfer textbooks (have not found one yet that states differently).
Have you ever looked at the empirical tested Hottel graph for emissivity of GHG I linked you to in a previous thread?
The air at the Top of Mt. Everest is cold (lapse rate cooling) and so it will emit far less IR than sea level air (which is warmer). Also the air is much thinner and has much less GHG present (if you look at Hottel’s GHG emissivity graphs you can see this). Far less water vapor at that level and you have to consider the beam length. In order for you to get a high emissivity you have to go through several meters of atmosphere (again look at Hottel’s emissivity graphs or it will not make sense to you). There is not a lot more air to go to reach the TOA so the available beam length is considerably less than for sea level.
Norman says, April 7, 2017 at 12:15 PM:
Sorry, Norman, but I will have to respond via my own blog, because this site for some reason absolutely will not allow my comment to go through.
Here it is, anyway:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/comment-page-1/#comment-911
“okulaer”, yes, that’s me – “Kristian”.
Ceteris Paribus; Less is More, Use Only Data Sets That Dont Require Adjustments.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/ceteris-paribus-less-is-more-use-only-data-sets-that-dont-require-adjustments/
JDHuffman says:
April 8, 2017 at 2:50 PM
…
Again, this single fact destroys the CO2/AGW theory. According to the theory, the atmosphere traps heat. But, as we see, the atmosphere does not trap heat, it moves heat energy to space.
Gorilla 1: There is no meaningful warming!
Gorilla 2: Even if there were some warming, the atmosphere easily transfers heat energy to space.
Looks nice, but… in which form is that heat energy transferred to space, if not per radiation?
Tell us everything, JD!
JDHuffman says: ” …..the atmosphere does not trap heat, it moves heat energy to space.”
If the atmosphere is what carries heat to space, and it were to suddenly became much thinner, it seems like the earth would heat up, right? Opposite of what us warmists think.
Snape says: “If the atmosphere is what carries heat to space, and it were to suddenly became much thinner, it seems like the earth would heat up, right? Opposite of what us warmists think.”
No. The atmosphere does carry heat from the surface to the atmosphere and then from the atmosphere to space. But this is less efficient that the surface simply radiating the energy straight off to space.
This is rather simplified simulation, but let it run a a minute and it should stabilize at ~ 288K. You can see the photons inefficiently moving up through the atmosphere. Then try making the atmosphere much thinner (ie reduce the GHGs) and you will see a flood of photons leaving. The IR leaves more efficiently and the surface indeed cools.
https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/greenhouse
Tim
My question was for Huffman. I thought he might agree, and I would point out the moon has a much thinner atmosphere than ours. Then I would ask him, “so is the moon warmer or colder than the earth?”
Tim
Much better to ask Huffman how the moon cools several hundred degrees every night with so little atmosphere to transport heat to space!
Snape, the Moon does not have oceans.
Snape,
You are right. The surface of the Moon gets far hotter after equivalent exposure times than the surface of the Earth. As Tyndall showed, as you ascend, reducing the amount of atmosphere between the thermometer and the Sun, the thermometer gets hotter. Removing GHGs from the atmosphere – say the Libyan desert – also causes raised temperatures.
The Warmist response is usually to start talking about the magic of averages. This works wonderfully well, because nobody can prove you are wrong. Even better, talk about anomalies, and don’t tell anyone that 70% of the surface is covered by water, virtually none of it is at sea level, and that thermometers are intentionally placed away from the surface, to ensure that inconvenient actual surface temperatures are ignored.
I believe my facts are correct. You may draw your own conclusions.
Cheers.
Mike
I posed a question to Huffman. Did not say I agree with his logic (quite the opposite).
I merely pointed out the “gorillas”. As obvious as they are, not everyone will be able to see them.
Mike Flynn
Hope your clicking finger is not wore out but I will give you real world examples of desert vs wet area.
I just picked a random day for the information for both places. Both were clear at night.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58eae0c741d8e.png
July 17, 2016 some measured fluxes in Desert Rock, Nevada
Downwelling IR at Desert Rock, Nevada July 17, 2017
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58eae1d563eff.png
You act like you want real world data, so here is some. You can see the Dry location still has a considerable amount of downwelling IR.
360 W/m^2 during the day (warmer air radiates more) and still above 310 W/m^2 at night.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDRA/2016/7/17/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Desert+Rock&req_state=NV&req_statename=Nevada&reqdb.zip=89020&reqdb.magic=21&reqdb.wmo=99999&MR=1
Here is the actual humidity conditions for this location.
Between 4% (during day) and 13% at night. Really a fairly dry location yet still enough water vapor to have a downwelling IR flux of between 310 and 360 W/m^2 so the GHE is far from gone in desert condtions.
Mike Flynn
Now for a wetter area: Goodwin Creek, Mississippi by Batesville, Mississippi. July 17, 2016 same date as Desert Rock data.
First some measured fluxes. You can see the incoming solar flux goes way down in wet area during the day, cloud formation. Wet moist air rising produces clouds.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58eae11b2289d.png
Here is Goodwin Creek downwelling IR. It is higher than Desert Rock. 380 to 460 W/m^2.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58eae21213a97.png
If you look at the downwelling of Desert Rock and Goodwin the Desert Rock is only dropped down to 80% of Goodwin so it is still significant factor.
The big elephant all you desert vs moist areas miss is the drastic difference in evaporative losses. The desert has very little water and will not cool via evaporation.
Here are the actual weather conditions for Batesville, Mississippi July 17, 2016
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KUOX/2016/7/17/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Batesville&req_state=MS&req_statename=Mississippi&reqdb.zip=38606&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=99999&MR=1
Very humid air around 88%. You can see the humidity between desert and moist air is almost 8 times different but the downwelling IR does not differ by such a large amount so the Water vapor in the air is still enough in a desert to emit quite a bit of IR.
Mike Flynn
To also help you really understand the evaporative heat loss difference between a desert and a wet area consider some of these high evaporation rates over warm ocean. They give the amount of energy removed from the ocean surface by evaporation.
http://fvcom.smast.umassd.edu/Courses/MAR555/Lectures_pdf/MAR555_Lec_2.pdf
In this document they have a graph of the latent heat (in watts/m^2 over different ocean regions). It is considerable and you should realize a desert has very little heat loss by evaporation so your comparison and conclusions are not very good science as you are not looking at the complex issue of multiple heating and cooling mechanisms in play.
Norman,
Are you disagreeing with something I said, or just trying to deny, divert, and confuse?
What part of my statements are you disagreeing with?
If you have some fancy calculations which differ from observation using reasonable instruments – I’ll believe the instruments.
No GHE. Hottest places on Earth – least GHGs. Coldest places on Earth – least GHGs.
Just ordinary physics. No magic required.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
Your analytical abilities are subpar. I am not sure you are capable of complex thought, you have a super simplistic view of things and it becomes obvious that what people respond to you goes over your head and you fail to understand it. It is most obvious with your post here.
You claim: “No GHE. Hottest places on Earth”
And the links I posted show this is a complete false statement. The Desert has quite a bit of GHE going on. Where does your statement come from?
The coldest places on Earth are due to 6 months without sun but they are still much warmer than the moon’s darkside even after a couple days of darkness.
Bin, do you believe heat energy is radiated to space by any other means than photons?
I notice that some people have criticised me for questioning the existence of the ability of CO2 to cause thermometers to get hotter, given a constant heat source.
To anyone who thinks they are scoring any points by sneeringly implying that anyone who disagrees with a scientist must be bonkers, I have to say that you may be extremely gullible, mentally deranged, or besotted by the cult of celebrity.
I happen to disagree with John Tyndall, who supported both the existence of the ether and the meteoric origin of the Sun’s heat.
I disagree with Lord Kelvin’s calculation of the age of the Earth as being 20 million years old, and his belief in caloric.
I disagree with Newton’s belief that base metals could be tranformed into gold by using the Philospopher’s Stone. And so on, and so on.
Feynman said “As a matter of fact I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” Should I disagree with him? Or do you think that Michael Mann’s claim of being awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace outweighs Richard Feynman’s real Nobel Prize for physics?
At the Apollo 13 enquiry, NASA experts heaped ridicule on Feynman’s claim that certain o-rings behaved in a certain way at low temperature. After being comprehensively told by the experts just how ridiculous he was, he used an o-ring and iced water to show the committee what happens in practice, in spite of consensus theory!
I have left out some details, of course.
Who should you believe? The experts, or the facts?
Make a thermometer hotter by putting more CO2 between it and a heat source, demonstrate it n a replicable fashion, and I’ll very smartly change my thinking. Blathering about overcoats or other insulators, appealing to authority, or attempting gratuitous insults, is unlikely to sway me, or any reasonable person.
Worship the Warmist cult leaders if you wish. Don’t expect me to willingly pay a cent to encourage them.
Cheers.
MF says: “Make a thermometer hotter by putting more CO2 between it and a heat source … ”
Actually, you have this rather backwards. The CO2 must be between a thermometer and a COLD SINK (like on earth — the CO2 is between the warm thermometers on the surface and the cold depths of outer space). This inhibits heat loss from the surface to space, resulting in a warmer steady-state temperature given the steady input of solar energy.
Just like you don’t make your house warmer by putting insulation between the furnace and the interior; you make it warmer by putting insulation between the interior and the cold exterior.
[Coincidentally the CO2 is also between the sun and the surface, but this is doesn’t 9significantly) impact the surface temperature. CO2 is transparent to sunlight and hence sunlight still gets in just fine with or without CO2.]
Tim, Mike Flynn – Prof. Tyndall in 1860 screwed two thermometers into his apparatus and added more CO2 between them and a heat source which enabled him to demonstrate making a thermometer hotter by putting more CO2 between it and a heat source.
Mike – That was test not vlog post, just like Prof. Feynman demonstrated with ice water, clamps and O-rings. Both tests got some attention.
Ball4,
No he didn’t. Anybody who doesn’t believe me can read Tyndall’s work for themselves.
Cheers.
Mike, what I wrote is EXACTLY the experiment Tyndall performed, the exact experiment you asked for in your own words.
Mike Flynn says:
“Or do you think that Michael Manns claim of being awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace outweighs Richard Feynmans real Nobel Prize for physics?”
Fred Singer’s claim that he and John Christy won the Nobel Prize:
“John Christy, my fellow skeptic and fellow co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize (by virtue of having our names listed in IPCC reports) in the WSJ [ITEM #4].”
http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2007/November%203.htm
Tim,
The GHE seems to be a wonderfully flexible concept. You have described the situation at night – warm surface, CO2, outer space. Temperatures drop at night, as far as I know. No GHE at all.
CO2 is supposed to actually raise temperatures, as in “Hottest year EVAH!”, “This year was hotter than last year”, and so on.
Introducing a pointless and irrelevant insulation analogy doesn’t help.
If I place a thermometer on the ground outside in the Sun, then move it onto the floor of my insulated house, the temperature falls. Of course, if I put under a heat lamp, and the temperature rose, I doubt that you would claim that CO2 caused the temperature to rise.
On the other hand, you seem to be claiming that a thermometer placed in the Sun gets hotter in the presence of more CO2, rather than less. This is nonsensical, unless you can demonstrate otherwise.
Maybe you could attempt to actually state the AGW theory in scientific terms, in such a way that it could either supported or disproved by reproducible experiment. It would appear that your theory would require at minimum a thermometer, an energy source, and a GHG. Actually, John Tyndall actually carried out meticulous ecperiments using the above, so you theory should accord with his results.
I’m only joking of course. Pseudo science depends on analogies, sneers, and self promoting celebrities. The scientific process plays no part.
Given a fairly constant heat source, – say the Sun – and a thermometer on the ground – exposed to the Sun – and CO2 in the atmosphere, what mechanism explains the tnermometer getting hotter as CO2 is increased? If the whole globe is warming, indoor thermometers are also getting hotter. Is the increase the same in an unheated well insulated, but uninhabited, hut in Antarctica, as a thin tent in the Libyan desert?
Your theory should be able to quantify the effect of GHGs under all conditions and situations, and be experimentally verifiable. If it can’t, no matter how elegant it is, it’s wrong.
Good luck!
MF: “On the other hand, you seem to be claiming that a thermometer placed in the Sun gets hotter in the presence of more CO2, rather than less. This is nonsensical, unless you can demonstrate otherwise.”
Prof. Tyndall demonstrated a thermometer placed in view of a heat source gets hotter in the presence of more CO2 rather than less in perfectly replicable experiments.
No, the thermometer indicated a COOLING when CO2 was placed between the heat source and the thermometer. He talked extensively about the gases blocking “caloric rays” which cooled the thermometer. For example … “I was indeed slow to believe it possible that a body so constituted, and so transparent to light as olefiant gas, could be so densely opake to any kind of calorific rays”
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf
The needle indicated less energy received out of the tube Tim, the thermometers inside the tube more energy IN the tube. Tim see p. 33:
“I subsequently had the tube perforated and thermometers screwed into it air-tight. On filling the tube the thermometric columns rose, on exhausting it they sank, the range between the maximum and minimum amounting in the case of air to 5 (degrees) FAHR.”
Page 32 not 33.
Ball4, My reply got lost, so here is the short answer. The section you referenced was about the effect of the gas’s temperature. As the gas was introduced to the tube, it got warm; as it was pumped out, it got cool. He was observing the extra heat from the warm gas warming the thermometer. Once the gas returned to room temperature, this effect disappeared. Then the expected COOLING of the thermometer as the gas ABSORBED IR was indeed observed.
Concur, 8:37 you have written Tyndall results correctly Tim. At 7:46pm you had it backwards.
Ball4,
Tim Folkerts is correct.
You are possibly confused. Tyndall demonstrated that CO2 absorbs heat. What you don’t say, is that heat absorbed by CO2 does not reach the very sensitive thermopile distant from the heat source. As indeed, does the heat impeded by a brass plate inserted in the path of the invisible rays. All the heat is absorbed by the brass plate. It gets hotter as a result.
Net result is that transmitted heat drops. Tyndall illustrated with a translucent glass Victorian firescreen, showing why it works to reduce the heat felt from an open fire.
Anyone wanting to check, may care to read Tyndall’s book(s), with footnoted corrections he made as he became aware of new facts.
Still no GHE. Sad?
Cheers.
Mike, you are starting to get this stuff, I didn’t need to write the thermopile did absorb the energy as should be obvious. The CO2 in the tube absorbed the energy making the gas hotter, thus making the thermopile measurably cooler in temperature. The GHE is as measured in Tyndall’s tube.
“what mechanism explains the tnermometer (sic) getting hotter as CO2 is increased?”
The opacity of the gas in Tyndall’s tube increased as more CO2 was added so to absorb more of the IR in view from the boiling water making the thermometers hotter.
Ball4,
We’re talking about a thermometer on the far side of the CO2. You may have noticed that the surface is hotter than the air in direct sunlight.
The air absorbs some of the heat. It does not make the surface hotter. The surface of the Moon indicates how high surface temperatures can rise in the absence of any atmosphere at all.
Any matter can be heated if it absorbs energy of any type. No GHE. Just ordinary physics at work.
Placing any sort of insulation between the Sun and a thermometer on the surface reduces the temperature of the thermometer, compared with direct sunlight.
No GHE.
Cheers.
“We’re talking about a thermometer on the far side of the CO2.”
Tyndall immersed the thermometers directly in the added CO2 which absorbed the IR radiation from the boiling water showing CO2 actually raised the temperature in a verifiable reproducible experiment. Using thermometers, an energy source, and a GHG.
Mike: “Given a fairly constant heat source, say the Sun and a thermometer on the ground exposed to the Sun and CO2 in the atmosphere, what mechanism explains the tnermometer getting hotter as CO2 is increased? “
The temperature of an object will be determined by BOTH the rate that energy comes in from a heat source, Q(in) and the rate heat leaves to cooler areas, Q(out).
Tell me which statement you disagree with …
1) If Q(out)=Q(in), the temperature will hold steady.
2) If Q(out)<Q(in), the temperature will rise.
3) You are stipulating that Q(in) from the sun is steady.
4) So temperature will be determined by Q(out).
5) Suppose that with no GHGs in the atmosphere that the ground settles to some temperature, T1.
6) at this steady temperature, there is some thermal radiation, Q(out1), leaving such that Q(out1)=Q(in).
7) Q(out1) is thermal radiation from the ground to the cold expanse of outer space.
8) Now suppose we add GHG's, so that the ground is now radiating some amount Q(out2).
9) since the atmosphere is warmer than outer space, Q(out2) < Q(out1)
10) Q(out2) < Q(out1) = Q(in)
11) Since Q(out2)
QED.
Again, which specific statement do you disagree with? Which statement violates any law of physics?
That last line should have been:
11) Since Q(out2) < Q(in), thermal energy is accumulating in the ground and the temperature of the ground will rise.
Tim
You do realize you’re arguing with someone who doesn’t believe wearing a coat will help keep you warm?
Snape,
Maybe you live in a fantasy world. Would you mind quoting me? Or are you just making stuff up?
In any case, what has wearing clothing got to do with non existent heating due to CO2?
I suspect you are endeavouring to deny, divert, and confuse, but I could be wrong. Can you point to any reproducible scientific experiment which demonstrates the ability of CO2 to raise the temperature of a thermometer?
I thought not.
Cheers.
On 4/8/17 Mike Flynn wrote:
“If insulation increases temperature, then mountain climbers wouldn’t get frostbite…”
Tim, you made an unfortunate mistake in your “proof”.
If you are trying to prove GHGs warm the surface, then you cannot assume that as a “given”. In your point 8): “Now suppose we add GHG’s, so that the ground is now radiating some amount Q(out2).”
It’s QED, not!
JD, Step 8 is simply a definition.
We can always define some symbol to represent the net outward thermal IR from a surface. In “Circumstance 1” with no GHGs, that net surface thermal IR radiation was symbolized “Q(out1)”. In “Circumstance 2” with some GHGs, it was symbolized “Q(out2)”. ince the net radiation might be a different value. (and of course, it does indeed turn out to be a different value).
What were you defining?
Tim,
Maybe I should point out that Q(out) is an effect, not a cause. If the temperature is rising, fairly obviously, there is more energy absorbed than leaving. Reducing the rate of heat loss from your hot beverage by putting in a vacuum flask does not cause a rise in temperature.
So temperature is not determined by the amount of radiation leaving an object. If I say that an object is radiating 1 kW of energy, you can determine nothing of use. Even if I tell you that the difference between absorbed and emitted energy is 1 kW, you still do not know much at all.
But notwithstanding that particular piece of sciency misdirection, step 8 is where GHE Warmist magic occurs. Adding GHGs between the Sun and the ground makes nothing hotter. The ground was radiating already. It has a temperature, and must therefore radiate energy.
Your implication that the ground was not radiating prior to the introduction of GHGs is just climatological sleight of hand. Silly. A vacuum tube, or incandescent lamp filament surrounded by a vacuum radiates quite nicely. Introducing GHGs just lowers the efficiency, or makes the device completely useless. Not an analogy, just a couple of examples of radiation without GHGs. The Moon is another one, if you want something bigger.
You can play with formulae all you like. As Tyndall demonstrated, placing CO2 between a source of heat and a target, reduces the heat reaching the target, and lowers its temperature.
That is why the hottest places on the Earth’s surface, have the least amount of GHGs between them and the Sun.
If I am incorrect, maybe you could quote my words, and provide facts to correct me. Maybe you might even find a copy of the Theory of AGW.
Cheers.
“Maybe I should point out … ”
No, maybe you should admit that you got nothin’.
“Even if I tell you that the difference between absorbed and emitted energy is 1 kW, you still do not know much at all.”
You know the temperature is rising. That sounds pretty valuable to me!
“Reducing the rate of heat loss from your hot beverage by putting in a vacuum flask does not cause a rise in temperature.”
And who was it that said analogies were no good? Plus this is not even a good analogy — the vacuum flask would need a heater inside to be a decent analogy!
“step 8 is where GHE Warmist magic occurs.”
Step 8 is simply giving a symbol to the energy radiating away. I can call the amount of energy leaving anything I want. Nothing at all happens in step 8 other than clarifying nomenclature!
“Your implication that the ground was not radiating prior to the introduction of GHGs … ”
In fact, step 6 clearly states that the ground WAS radiating!
“You can play with formulae all you like.”
Great attempt at misdirection! You are the one who asked for theoretical and mathematical explanations for the GHE.
“As Tyndall demonstrated, placing CO2 between a source of heat and a target, reduces the heat reaching the target, and lowers its temperature.”
But if you want to compare this to earth, placing CO2 between a source of thermal IR (the ground) and its target (outer space) reduces the heat reaching outer space. By conservation of energy, it also reduces the heat leaving the surface, therefore warming the ground.
Tim Folkerts
I admire your patience. Do you instruct students at a community college level besides your other work? Mike is still just messing around. He is the true meaning of the word troll. He really does not care what anyone says or posts. He just likes to provoke a reaction (like a disruptive student in a classroom). But he does seem to make the number of posts grow at a rapid amount with multiple responders.
When he gets bored he will leave and pop again on another thread to start a new round.
At least he is not an offensive troll.
As Roy said on a previous thread “The wheels on the bus go round and round”
Norman says:
“Mike is still just messing around. He is the true meaning of the word troll. He really does not care what anyone says or posts. He just likes to provoke a reaction”
Norman, you’ve convinced me.
The best evidence, for me, is that Flynn refuses to answer any and all challenges to his claims.
He simply ignores them. A clear sign of a troll.
Tim,
You wrote –
“Nothing at all happens in step 8 other than clarifying nomenclature!”
Good. If nothing at all happens, what’s the point of having it? As you say, the ground is already radiating.
But then you wouldn’t be able to slip in the magic about GHGs raising temperatures, would you?
Try it without the magical step 8. Maybe you could clarify your nomenclature in another step. How about step 1 – “GHGs make thermometers hotter”. Maybe you could make jackets with lots of thermometers surrounded by CO2, which would stay warm through cold winter nights.
Even in Antarctica, where ground temperatures fall below the freezing point of CO2, let alone H2O!
I don’t believe it, of course, but I’ll gladly buy your CO2 powered thermometer heating device, when you’ve perfected it. I wish you well!
Cheers.
Gotta admire the chutzpah of a fellow who can go from ‘step 8 is the critical mistake’ to ‘step 8 has no meaning’ and make is sound like he means it both times!
…the unmasking of Mike Flynn (which is probably a fake name anyway).
Tim,
You wrote –
“You know the temperature is rising. That sounds pretty valuable to me!”
Really? How did you know the temperature is rising? If the object is emitting 2 kW, and absorbing 1 kW, would you be so sure? The difference between absorbed energy and emitted energy is 1 kW.
In any case, a thermometer will save you all the trouble of intricate calculations f dubious value.
For example, if the Earth once had a completely molten surface, and the surface is not completely molten now, I don’t even need a thermometer, do I? Or, another example, if I boil some water (it’s bubbling away furiously, and too hot to hold), and discover later on that it’s around room temperature, I know it has cooled.
If you’re trying to tell me that CO2 can restore the radiated heat to the Earth, I would have to disagree.
You can’t even heat my cooled water with CO2!
Complete and utter nonsense.
Cheers.
“You can’t even heat my cooled water with CO2!”
Actually you can heat the cooled water with CO2, as indicated by thermometer, Prof. Tyndall can show you how.
Kristian
I went to your blog and looked at your links and I have read those from previous threads. They talk about radiation intensity but do not explain energy transfer between two sources of IR interacting with each other. So I am not sure how these links will prove my view incorrect.
On Your blog you make this statement: ” There is nothing exceptional about any of it. It is all firmly based in standard modern physics, and multiple times I have posted links for you to read that details specific principles or descriptive models that Ive been trying to outline to you. You appear to summarily ignore them all, reverting directly instead to these perennial thought-up experiments of yours that you think I should do to somehow see the light, while at the same time accusing me of being some kind of religious zealot that thinks the very idea of a bidirectional transfer is the work of the Devil himself.”
Like I said I would do the experiments myself if I thought it would show you something. Not sure it will.
You have two heat lamps, an IR absorbing painted plate (like Roy uses in his experiments) and thermometer. The lamps both have variable dimmers to set various levels of intensity.
First heat the plate with one of the lamps to equilibrium temperature. I could be wrong but I doubt it, in your many long posts you claim a cooler energy source cannot add any energy to a hotter one and hence would have no effect. Start turning on the second heat lamp but keep the intensity output (W/m^2) below what you calculate for the painted plate surface emission would be from the first heat lamp.
Your stated point is that the GHG in the atmosphere cannot combine with the solar flux and create a new energy flux that warms the Earth’s surface to a much higher equilibrium temperature that either energy input alone could not do. So with the second heat lamp on do you think the plate temperature will stay the same until the second light output exceeds the emission from the surface? Let me know what you think, I might go ahead and do the test to see if you are correct or if I am. I will let the evidence decide and not your many words. If you are right so be it. Will you say the same if my experiment proves you are wrong?
Norman,
The temperature of the Sun’s surface is about 5800 K or so.
A lump of oxidised metal – say a manhole cover, or even better, a solar hog water collector, cannot even reach a temperature of 100 C, under the unconcentrated rays of the sun.
However, using a largish lump of iron, heated to black heat (no visible colour change – say 300 C), I can heat material to a far higher temperature than the Sun can. Using a heat lamp to increase temperature is pretty easy, if completely pointless. High source temperatures may not result in higher object temperatures.
Try increasing the temperature of a thermometer using CO2. Silly, isn’t it? And yet people believe it is possible, through the magic of climatological pseudo science!
Showing that increased energy input may result in increased temperatures is pretty pointless. Showing that keeping the energy input constant, but increasing temperature by introducing CO2 – that would be exceptionally clever! Having invented a free source of energy, you would become fabulously rich, as well as being venerated by the populace at large.
Or maybe you could sell your brilliant idea of making things hotter by using more heat. I think it’s already been done, though.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
It is obvious you derive some satisfaction from your posts but I have already linked you to the Tyndall testing which did use Carbon Dioxide to increase temperature.
You know thermodynamics. In order to increase temperature you have to add more energy than is being given off. Tyndall used hot CO2 and based upon its emissioin was able to show an increase in energy of testing equipment.
I have explained it already but can try again. Maybe it will amuse you and make you day.
The fluxes that are adding energy to the surface are the solar downwelling (reaching the surface) and the downwelling IR reaching the surface. Each input alone will not raise the Earth’s temperature to what is measured by sensors. It is the combination of both that achieves the 15 or so C average for Earth’s surface.
Alone the solar flux is 165. Alone the Downwelling IR is 345. Alone neither could put enough energy in the surface to sustain a flux of 398. Together they will have the energy to do this. If you add more GHG to the atmosphere the 345 goes up and there is more energy emitted by atmosphere. In links above I showed you this with measured values. Humid air at night will emit more IR down than warmer dry desert air even at lower temperature. The evidence is there, I have put two posts for you to look at. It is real data for you not an abstract average. I think you should consider looking at the links and then explain what is happening.
Norman says:
“It is obvious you derive some satisfaction from your posts…”
I’m convinced, from Norman and others and months of MF deliberate confusion, that Flynn is just a troll looking to stir people up.
Like Saffiyah Khan, the best response is to treat him with a smile.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/09/birmingham-woman-standing-in-defiance-of-edl-protester-goes-viral
Norman,
Yes, you can heat CO2 – or any other matter in the universe. Yes, anything above absolute zero can be used to heat anything colder.
Is heating a thermometer with hotter pre-heated CO2 supposed to be the GHE? It wouldn’t seem so, but maybe you can provide a copy of the AGW theory if I am wrong.
Talking nonsense about fluxes, and saying they can’t be detected unless they are added doesn’t convince me that the GHE exists. Rather the opposite.
Warmists have a habit of demanding that others look at links to avoid having to admit they cannot explain things. You can’t even provide of copy of the supposed theory of AGW. Not even a link to this wondrously non-existent document!
Your talk of fluxes is peculiar. You don’t state your units, but claim that if you add 165 and 345, you get 398 of something, which apparently leads to 15 C or so. Absolute rubbish. More than 50% of the Sun’s radiation is IR. According to,you, this is less than the IR reaching the surface when the Sun is not shining.
And so on. You can’t produce any theory explaining how CO2 makes thermometers hotter each year, or any experimental evidence to support such a nonsensical hypothesis.
I’ll leave you to your beliefs.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn
YOU: “Yes, you can heat CO2 or any other matter in the universe. Yes, anything above absolute zero can be used to heat anything colder”
Have you tried this yet with heated oxygen or nitrogen? I didn’t think so. Where do you get this conclusion from, what is it based upon? Your own religious convictions? Empirical evidence does not support your claim.
If Nitrogen and Oxygen are such good emitters of IR as you believe them to be, please tell me why the downwelling radiation that is measured ever changes based upon cloud cover or air water vapor content?? You make less sense than a preschool child describing physics. You just say whatever and I guess since you posted it you must think that makes it a true statement. Nothing backing it up, just you strong belief. I hope you have a Faith in you as you make a very fine religious person. You make a horrible scientist but would be an excellent preacher.
Mike Flynn
Here: “Twenty to 24 percent of the TSI and a majority of the near infrared radiation is absorbed in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), mainly by water vapor, trace gases, clouds, and darker aerosols. The remaining 46 to 50 percent of predominately visible light penetrates the atmosphere and is taken in by the land and the oceans.”
That is what the 165 W/m^2 solar flux to surface comes from.
Here is the thought process that you are not able to understand.
Energy IN (165 W/m^2 solar flux averaged + 345 W/m^2 downwelling IR from atmosphere averaged) = Energy OUT (398 W/m^2 upwelling from Earth’s surface averaged + 24 W/m^2 convection cooling + 88 W/m^2 evaporative cooling)
165 + 345 = 510 (w/m^2 averaged)
398 + 24 + 99 = 510 (W/m^2 averaged)
The energy In and Out are equal and the system is at equilibrium. Outside of an equilibrium state the temperature will rise or fall to come to an equilibrium. Energy IN = Energy OUT.
Does that help your general confusion?
What AGW documents do you want people to provide for you? Why are you asking for them when you won’t look at graphs I link you to so you can see real world measured values of energy flows?? Why do you ask for something you don’t want?
Mike Flynn says:
“Yes, you can heat CO2 or any other matter in the universe…”
GHE trolling.
Kristian
Please read page 266 of this Heat Transfer textbook and tell me why you think I am wrong?
http://dl1.ponato.com/eb1/1149__64dd22f.pdf
What do the authors say about heat radiant heat transfer? What do they consider NET radiant energy to be?
Tim,
You wrote –
“It would be quite possible to get a surface above 120 C using, for example, multiple sheets of glass to make an extreme greenhouse effect. I should try it sometime just for kicks.”
No, it wouldn’t. Give it a try. Harnessing the awesome power of the non-existent ether, or hitching up a team of unicorns would be just as effective!
Don’t be discouraged. Do you think many thin sheets would be better than one thick sheet? Would it get even hotter if you put CO2 between the sheets? Maybe you could make a biggish one, and mount in on your car – 120 C should be enough to feed a low pressure steam plant. Who needs Tesla – the Folkerts Solar Steam Car (FSSC) is just around the corner!
I’m only joking of course. I’ll obviously be laughing out of the other side of my mouth, after you’ve made a vast fortune. Maybe you should have kept your idea secret – the oil companies won’t be happy. Or maybe they are not overly worried. What do you think?
Cheers.
You are digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole!
First some background — where does this “120 C” maximum temperature” come from? (A rhetorical question!) Incoming sunlight at the earth (“insolation” or “total solar irradiance”) is about 1360 W/m^2. Suppose this was absorbed by a flat, perpendicular, blackbody surface. We can use the Stephan-Boltzmann equation,
P/A = (sigma)T^4
to give
T = (P/A / (sigma))^0.25 = 393.54K = 120.4 C
Let’s call this the “Flynn Limit”.
So here are TWO actual examples of temperatures that exceed this supposed limit.
1) A patented solar furnace.
“Solar furnace US 4556047 A
ABSTRACT
The solar furnace is constructed of evacuated glass block solar elements that include an interior face, or surface, of zinc. Because of this material, substantial solar radiant energy is retained and radiated to the interior of the furnace, permitting the furnace to reach temperatures of 300 C. and more … ”
2) VENUS!
Since Venus is closer, the “Flynn Limit” there would be higher. The irradiance would be boosted by a factor of 1 / (0.72 AU)^2 = 1.93x, or 1360W/m^2 = 2623 W/m^2. Using the equation above gives a “Flynn Limit” of 464K or 191 C. The “Flynn Limit” says a surface at Venus cannot be heated above 191 C by the sun. However, the entire surface of Venus is heated to about 460 C by the sun.
The “Flynn Limit” says that both the patented solar furnace and Venus are impossible!
+1
Tim,
Deny, divert, confuse.
You said you could achieve temperatures of 120 C by using glass to create an extreme greenhouse effect, I call your bluff, and you leap into a perfect lather of deny, divert, and confuse!
Any fool can patent anything, as long as they don’t use the words “perpetual motion”, in general – and many do!
Venus? What has Venus to do with your ludicrous claim that you can boil water by putting it in the sun under a pile of glass?
Warmist fantasy and evasion at its finest!
Sorry Tim. If you make ludicrous claims, at some time someone’s likely to,ask you to back them up. If you can’t, you’re likely to look like a blustering buffoon.
Care to rethink your claims, or are you still convinced you can boil water by creating an enhanced greenhouse effect? Unconcentrated rays of the sun, of course.
Cheers.
To be consistent with climate science, a flat surface would be radiating from both sides. So, for 1360 W/m^2 incoming, the surface would be radiating 680 W/m^2 each side, at equilibrium. That would correspond to a S/B temp of 58 C.
A solar furnace typically works by focusing solar light. The concept is similar to a magnifying glass. Solar light can be focused and the resulting maximum temperatures are much above S/B values. But, the atmosphere is not a magnifying glass.
The Sun is not able to heat the surface of Venus much, due to the high albedo. The surface heating comes from the flowing lava, which keeps the surface over 460 C, as Tim indicates. The S/B equation cannot compare to the vulcanism.
What flowing lava?
Explain the D/H ratio found in Venus’s atmosphere.
When flowing lava solidifies, it gives off heat energy.
There are several theories to the D/H ratio. Choose the one you like best.
Norman…”Please read page 266 of this Heat Transfer textbook and tell me why you think I am wrong?”
Thanks for posting link. Interesting book.
Early in the book they make certain things clear:
1)radiation is only meaningful at very high temperatures.
2)much of the derivation of radiation theory is based on the ideal blackbody at high temperatures.
5)they state clearly that the 2nd law forbids heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body without work being done on the system.
Work *IS* being done on the system — incoming solar radiation.
DA…”Work *IS* being done on the system incoming solar radiation”.
Work is basically a force acting through a distance. Where is that force in solar energy? Do you think it is moving atoms and their electrons around?
There is a work equivalent in the heating caused by short wavelength solar energy but it’s an equivalent, not actual work.
GR, now your trolling is going to far — you’re too easy to dismiss.
No one is going to believe anything you write at this rate.
3)a blackbody is defined as a body that will absorb ‘ALL’ energy it takes in while reflecting none. That does not describe our atmosphere and that was a point made by G&T in their paper disproving the GHE. They referred specifically to the number of CO2 molecules in a specific volume in our atmosphere.
Tyndall’s experiments thoroughly disprove G&T paper. They simply write Tyndall’s work off as fictitious.
G&T freely admit none of their work was found from experiment and observation only analysis: (a) thru (f). Their work is even more mythology than is nonexistent heat (a myth invoked 170 times).
Ball4…”Tyndalls experiments thoroughly disprove G&T paper. They simply write Tyndalls work off as fictitious”.
More propaganda from the peanut gallery. Tyndall’s work is fiction.
Both G&T have expertise in thermodynamics which is far more than I can say for the alarmist climate scientists and their adherents.
I have yet to see one rebuttal of them that has a realistic basis in thermodynamics or even basic physics.
“Tyndall’s work is fiction.”
No, Tyndall’s replicated experimental evidence shows Gordon’s comments are fiction. Likewise G&T have no credibility as they admit they did no experiments supporting their work.
Gordon Robertson says:
“3)a blackbody is defined as a body that will absorb ALL energy it takes in while reflecting none. That does not describe our atmosphere”
But it does, very closely, in the infrared, which is what matters for atmospheric radiative transfer.
DA…”But it does, very closely, in the infrared, which is what matters for atmospheric radiative transfer”.
I thought as much. Your understanding of blackbodies is primitive. As G&T pointed out, a volume of CO2 in the atmosphere has a density so sparse it is ludicrous to consider it a cavity resonator (blackbody).
GR: How sparse?
Be quantitative.
Norman:they clearly state that heat is transferred only from hot to cold without external work like any other physics textbook tells.
Radiation is exchanged between all objects with T > 0.
Which is all objects.
esalil
Yes indeed that is what it says and no one I know disputes that, I certainly have not.
That says nothing about energy. Heat is defined in the textbook as the NET energy of a surface. The amount of energy emitted by the surface minus the amount absorbed by the surface. There are two energy flows in the equation. One is moving away from the surface, the other is moving toward the surface.
So I am not sure what your point is. Are you saying that you can’t combine energy fluxes to create a larger energy flux to the surface?
norman…”Yes indeed that [heat flows from hot to cold] is what it says and no one I know disputes that, I certainly have not.
That says nothing about energy”.
What is heat? It’s thermal energy. The 2nd law is all about energy in the form of heat.
Your book is about radiation and they explained early in the book that radiation normally only applies at temperatures far in excess of normal. They talk about blast furnaces, for example. What they ate talking about does not apply at atmospheric temperatures.
GR, ready to stick you hand in front of a big IR laser, and tell us that radiation is not heat?
OMG David. Stick your hand in front of a block of ice and tell us if radiation is heat. Does the emitted infrared radiation of the ice warm your hand? Where the hell did you learn physics?
If David had his hand exposed to space 3K, then moved it in front of the ice blocking the view of space, he would express gratitude to the ice suppler some 270K warmer.
Tim F says
“It would be quite possible to get a surface above 120 C using, for example, multiple sheets of glass to make an extreme greenhouse effect. I should try it sometime just for kicks.”
That’s the problem only theory is presented with no experimental results.
What’s happened to experimental physics!
There is no experiment to prove that a greenhouse or glasshouse can give any radiative enhancement that is measureable.
If Tim can give an example we would all be delighted.
Bryan: “There is no experiment to prove that a greenhouse or glasshouse can give any radiative enhancement that is measureable. If Tim can give an example we would all be delighted.”
Tim already did, Prof. Tyndall built a small greenhouse or glasshouse that gave radiative enhancement from CO2 that is measurable by thermometer. See Tim’s comment 7:46pm on 4/9 for an account of the experimental results and be delighted.
The experiment you reference shows that some gases absorb IR.
There is no attempt to separate out the convective effect from the radiative enhancement claimed by the greenhouse effect.
Using accepted radiative transfer theory,it should not be too difficult to calculate the radiative enhancement to be expected given two greenhouses one with 50% of roof removed and the other with the roof complete.
Given the ambient temperature and physical dimensions and glass physical details.
Then do the experiment to confirm the calculation
I think that you will find that the radiative enhancement is almost immeasurable.
Useful reading
Page 51 to 57
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf
“given two greenhouses one with 50% of roof removed”
That one is not a greenhouse. That is 50% farmer’s field.
Bryan…”Useful reading…Page 51 to 57…”
The alarmists have dismissed the paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner based on two studies, one by Arthur Smith, a librarian, and the other by Josh Halpern (a chemist) et al, which includes Smith.
The Smith paper has since been debunked but it addressed only a small part of the G&T paper. Halpern, who goes by the nym Eli Rabbett, has hated G&T since their paper came out.
In their rebuttal to G&T, Halpern et al made some major gaffes. Ironically, I spotted them before G&T rebutted. One of the better gaffes was a claim by Halpern that G&T had described a system in which one of the surface was not emitting.
Halpern obviously fell victim to the current notion among alarmists that IR is heat. G&T had cited the 2nd law which restricts heat transfer to one direction without compensation. Halpern jumped on that from a radiation pov, claiming the 2nd law, in essence, requires that one body in a two body system is not radiating.
That’s how basically stupid alarmists can get.
GR, speaking of heat, are you ready yet to stick your hand in front of the beam of an IR laser?
Ball4…”Prof. Tyndall built a small greenhouse or glasshouse that gave radiative enhancement from CO2 that is measurable by thermometer”.
In 1909, Woods proved conclusively that IR has nothing to do with warming a glass house, that the warming comes from blocking convection.
He made two houses from cardboard boxes, covering one with glass and the other with a sheet of rock salt. The latter transmits IR freely. After the houses were allowed to stabilize after sitting in sunlight, there was no discernible difference in temperature.
That experiment has been repeated more recently by Nahle.
Yeah. So what?
“He made two houses from cardboard boxes, covering one with glass and the other with a sheet of rock salt.”
Yes.
“After the houses were allowed to stabilize after sitting in sunlight, there was no discernible difference in temperature.”
No, Gordon is incorrect. Did Gordon even read the experiment?
Wood found a difference of 10C, 55C vs. 65C. Those are Gordon’s incorrect words, in R.W. Wood words: “the enclosure covered with the salt plate keeping a little ahead of the other, owing to the fact that it transmitted the longer waves from the sun, which were stopped by the glass.”
So Wood covered the rock salt plate with glass plate, THEN “There was now scarcely a difference of one degree between the temperatures of the two enclosures”
Nahle’s experiment used insulation on the box, a completely different experiment.
Gordon Robertson
Don’t get too excited by Woods 1909 experiment. Dr. Spencer has already addressed it at length and found many flaws to the experiment, you should read through them.
The thread was way back in 2013
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/08/revisiting-woods-1909-greenhouse-box-experiment-part-i/
I trust nothing Nahle claims, he is a fruitbat or dingbat. He really comes up with some lame material that only the most uneducated would consider even slightly valid. Hope you do not use him as a reference.
Gordon Robertson. Question for you. Why do you go to the fringe people on this topic instead of looking at established textbooks, struggling through the material, learning it and then finding out what the GHE really is. I hope you are not looking for moral support from Mike Flynn. He is a game-player trying to produce reactions from people. His posts are not even remotely logical or based upon rational science. He just posts things he knows irritates and annoys people who have studied science.
“If Tim can give an example we would all be delighted.”
Wow! It has rarely been so easy to delight so many people!
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243283
Far from delighted Tim
Your link to the solar furnace gave a rectilinear radiation a parabolic mirror and reflection its operational principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace
Nothing whatsoever to do with the Greenhouse Effect.
You carelessly suggested that a collection of flat plates and CO2 could reach as high a temperature as required
You were gong to do it sometime in the future.
My point is
Why not calculate the radiative enhancement expected using the radiative transfer equations
Then do the experiment to confirm your calculation.
I think both calculation and experiment will produce a result that is almost unmeasurable.
Tim F
I’ve had a look at the other type of solar furnace you reference as a patent.
It seems to be a confused mixture of technologies.
It does not give sufficient data to back up its hopes.
However it does include references to selective coatings.
This indeed is well established technology and several models of flat plate collectors are available.
These collectors do not make use of the greenhouse effect
Instead they make use of selective coatings, the same physics as the blooming of lenses.
Standard classical wave optics
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:160609/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Bryan says:
“There is no experiment to prove that a greenhouse or glasshouse can give any radiative enhancement that is measureable.”
You can’t do “experiments” in climate science, but careful observations show exactly this enhancement:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
David Appell says
“You cant do experiments in climate science, but careful observations show exactly this enhancement”
I don’t think almost anyone would agree with you on that.
Woods Experiment and even Tyndall just for a start.
If the greenhouse effect was the topic then varying the CO2 content fraction in the greenhouse enclosure should give some interesting results
“If the greenhouse effect was the topic then varying the CO2 content fraction in the greenhouse enclosure should give some interesting results.”
Varying the amount of CO2 content fraction in Prof. Tyndall’s greenhouse enclosure tube did give interesting results and he discusses and shows his test data.
Bryan says:
“If the greenhouse effect was the topic then varying the CO2 content fraction in the greenhouse enclosure should give some interesting results”
Indeed it is — it’s why the planet is warming.
Bryan says:
“I dont think almost anyone would agree with you on that.
Woods Experiment and even Tyndall just for a start.”
Those are experiments about gases, not about climate.
D A
That’s like saying the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with climate its only about thermal properties of gases.
Typical of your contributions.
Adds very little to the discussion.
Kristian
Here is one for you to consider. Your claim is I do not “get” you approach to radiation balance but you “get” mine.
Here is an example of yours.
You have only a dry nitrogen atmosphere. You have no oceans only surface. Keep the albedo the same and the surface will absorb 70% of the incoming flux. No solar flux will be absorbed by the nitrogen atmosphere and all will reach the surface.
That will give you 240 W/m^2 of solar heating flux.
Equilibrium will be reached when the surface emits 240 W/m^2.
The surface will be at 255 K. The atmosphere will heat up until it is also at that temp. And so it remains.
Now add some GHG into this atmosphere. Using your own thought process.
Ein = Eout
240 in = 240 out (no evaporation or convection, isothermal atmosphere)
With some GHG you now still have 240 In but your out is down
OUT (240 – 50 (from downwelling of some GHG) so now the out is only 190. It means the 240 In will keep heating the surface until it again reaches 240 out instead of the NET of 190. That means the surface will have to warm up to a temperature to emit 290 W/m^2 (290-50) = 240 now it is back in balance (I am keeping the LW all on the right side)
The surface will go from 255 K in this case up to 267 K.
The surface is now warmer with the GHG present. As you keep going it gets warmer as you add more GHG.
So it does work either method. The results are the same. GHG will lead to a warmer equilibrium temperature than if the gases were not present.
Norman says, April 10, 2017 at 11:04 AM:
Yup.
Ideally, with no differences in temperature across the globe or between day and night, yes.
Again, only if there were no temperature swings whatsoever. And that is an impossible situation. In reality, the surface would end up at an average temp much lower than 255K, while the bulk atmosphere would end up at an average temp much higher than 255K, in the steady state.
No.
We’ve been through this thought experiment before, haven’t we, Norman?
The atmosphere needs to be IR active in order for it to connect thermodynamically with the rest of the universe, including the surface below and space outside, in the steady state. It needs to be IR active for heat to flow through it in the steady state. That’s why an atmosphere needs to be IR active.
However, it is the MASS of the IR-active atmosphere that causes the thermal enhancement effect on the surface. Simply by being warmer than space.
The surface will NOT become warmer from simply increasing the amount of IR-active gases in the atmosphere. Theoretically it could happen. But there’s a ton of empirical evidence, both from Earth itself and from other planets in the solar system, to tell us it simply doesn’t work that way in the real world.
“Theoretically it could happen.”
Please elaborate. Kristian might be on to something there.
Norman,
You wrote –
“With some GHG you now still have 240 In but your out is down.”
Ah! The magical one way insulator appears!
It is a fact that CO2 is somewhat more opaque to IR than some other gases. The solar insolation comprises more than 50% IR. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the less energy from the Sun reaches the ground.
Also, your Tout equalling Tin generally happens twice a day – at the maximum and minimum temperature infection points. The rest of the time, the temperature is either rising or falling. No balance to be seen.
As to CO2 preventing IR escaping to outer space, more nonsense. At night, the surface cools. Spouting nonsense about “warmer than it otherwise would be” doesn’t stop the surface cooling! The temperature drops – it doesn’t rise.
Just Warmist fantasy. CO2 heats nothing. Maybe you could join Tim Folkerts – boiling water by piling up sheets of glass. Must be a dollar to be made – free energy for all!
Have you managed to define the GHE yet? Or maybe the theory of AGW has magically appeared?
Oh well, maybe the age of miracles is not over yet!
Cheers.
Clearly trolling.
DA…”Clearly trolling”.
At least Mike is trying to explain things scientifically. All you do is chime in like an old Granny with ad homs and whatever you can quote from Google.
Gordon, you should be paying attention scientific flaws, not those of anyone else. That’s quite a challenge already.
Maybe (?) Gordon Robertson and Mike Flynn are the same person??
Certainly same low credibility level, neither cite or do testing to support their comments.
David Appell…”Norman, youre confused about what is the rate of change. W/m2 *is* a rate of change”.
I am replying in parts to minimize the chances of being rejected by the system.
I have moved this post of DA down because I think it is important. I argued with DA that W/m^2 is not a rate of change and he replied snidely (i.e. with ad homs regarding my level of high school physics} that a watt is measured in joules/second.
DA is confusing rate with rate of change. They are two different concepts related to different contexts as I plan to reveal.
For example, velocity is defined as the rate of change of distance per unit time. However, if distance is plotted along the y-axis and time along the x-axis any curve produces due to sets of (x,y) will represent velocity.
In this case we are talking about a change in distance, which is the context. To compare numbers to W/m^2, let’s use a velocity of 250 m/s. On our graph, that will be represented by a straight line horizontally.
The rate of a point moving along that ordinate is constant therefore there is no rate of change. In order for there to be change, the point would have to accelerate or decelerate.
Consider the sine wave representation of a single rotor cutting a magnetic field as it rotates between the N and S poles of a magnet. The induced current in the rotor varies in intensity as the rotor cuts the magnetic flux at various angles.
The equation for a sine wave is y = sin x. The first derivative tells you the slope of the tangent line at a point on the curve and the slope of the tangent tells you the rate of change of a point of the sine wave.
The 1st derivative of y = sin x is cos x.
Take values between (0,0) and (pi/2). At 0,0 cos x = 1, at pi/4 (45 degrees) cos x – 0.707 and at pi/2 = 90 degrees, cos x = 0. This tells you the maximum rate of change in the sine wave is at 0,0 because cos x is a maximum there and the tangent line at that point has a slope of 1.
cos x is a minimum at 90 degrees since cos x = 0 at 90 degrees. That means the tangent line is horizontal, representing no rate of change. In between, at 45 degrees, cos x = 0.707.
That is the proper usage of rate of change in a meaningful context. As applied to velocity, if a car was speeding up and slowing down at a sine wave rate, the velocity could be described in the same way.
Btw…the sine wave representation of the rotor in an electric motor does represent angular velocity.
Wrong, Gordon, wrong.
A Watt is indeed a rate of change — an energy flux.
Joules per second.
Thus, W/m2 is the correct way to specify energy added to the system.
Another baby physics fail from Gordon Richardson.
DA…”A Watt is indeed a rate of change an energy flux.
Joules per second”.
The flux is NOT changing!!! It is at a constant value.
Again, the rate of change of a constant is zero.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Joules per second.
The flux is NOT changing!!! It is at a constant value.”
OK, it’s a constant — a constant energy flux, delivering a constant amount of energy (Joules) every second.
DA,
1 joule per second is constant. You might be confused because it is expressed as a unit quantity per unit of time.
As to W/m2, a block of ice is emitting energy at the rate in excess of 300 W/m2. All the time. You may call this an energy flux if you wish. Old fashioned, but still in use, I believe.
So tell us how much energy is added to a system at say 20 C, by the 300 W/m2 emitted by a block of ice?
Is an object at 20 C heated by the 300 W/m2 emitted by the block of frozen water? Climatologists might convince the gullible that an object at 20 C will rise in temperature due to the 300 W/m2 from the ice, but I don’t think you’re silly enough to believe that particular piece of climatological rubbish.
On the other hand, you might believe that 0.2 W/m2 raises the temperature of the Earth, year after year, decade after decade, and on to infinity.
You may be silly enough to believe the impossible. Or maybe you’re just pretending – I can’t read your mind.
Cheers.
Gordon, of course a Watt is an energy flux. Elementary.
“On the other hand, you might believe that 0.2 W/m2 raises the temperature of the Earth, year after year, decade after decade, and on to infinity.”
If you keep adding energy to a system, what happens to its temperature?
David Appell,
If it’s 300W/m2 from ice applied to a system above freezing point, what do you think?
Are you really as stupid as you appear? Can you not comprehend what I wrote?
If you truly suffer from some mental impairment or learning difficulty, let me know. I’ll type more slowly, or use less syllables, if you think it will help.
If you are just innately slow or thick, I can’t help much. I wish you all the best, in that case.
Cheers.
Troll.
“If it’s 300W/m2 from ice applied to a system above freezing point, what do you think?”
Depends on the magnitude of the energy flux the ice is blocking from reaching the system above freezing. MF hasn’t supplied that info.
Mike,
The block of ice at 273 k say, is looking awfully warm compared to space beyond the atmosphere, at 3 K. If i were on the moon, dark side, that block of ice would indeed warm me.
My point is the warm atmosphere, in comparison to its absence, will indeed warm me.
DA went on to use W/m^2 in the context of warming the ocean. If you have a radiant flux incident upon a surface, whether it is absorbed depends entirely on the temperature of a radiating source.
For example, if I have a cup of water at a constant temperature of 20C due to ambient conditions in a room, and I move a comparable chunk of ice close to the cup, what will happen?
No one expects the water to warm even though it is intercepting the radiant flux from a chunk of ice. The water will not warm till a radiant flux from a source hotter than the water is brought close to the water. The ice will melt faster due to the radiant flux from the cup of water.
That satisfies the 2nd law.
Speaking of CO2 warming the surface in the same context is sheer lunacy. For one, it lacks the mass to radiate sufficient IR and for another it will most likely be cooler than the surface. Like the block of ice, it’s warming nothing.
Whenever you talk about heat transfer in the atmosphere you must satisfy the 2nd law. Infrared radiation has nothing to do with the 2nd law and people have gotten confused trying to apply blackbody radiation as heat. Normally, blackbody equations apply only to bodies at very high temperatures, like stars.
Gordon,
Bugger. You more or less beat me to it! Had I but known of your response, mine would no doubt been slightly different. What the GHE enthusiasts propose seems based on the principle that a ship could extract the heat from surrounding waters, use it to power an engine, and merrily travel along leaving a trail of ice cubes in its wake.
They have no understanding – of thermodynamics, or anything else much, it would appear. Sad.
Cheers.
More evidence that MF and GR are the same person….
David Appell
How much torture can you endure from the mind of Mike Flynn! I know you have a strong science background. It must be like fingernails on a chalk board.
It’s bad, but you’ve enlightened me on this post — it’s clear now that “Flynn” is just a troll. Who knows his motivation, but it clearly isn’t honorable.
Gordon once again is self confused: “I move a comparable chunk of ice close to the (20C) cup, what will happen? No one expects the water to warm even though it is intercepting the radiant flux from a chunk of ice.”
So we have a warmer cup “intercepting” the radiant flux from the cooler ice when Gordon tells us that is a 2nd law problem.
Gordon can not keep his stories straight.
Your question is easily answered by test Gordon, so do an experiment. Test it. That will be one more experiment than G&T did.
Gordon Robertson says:
“DA went on to use W/m^2 in the context of warming the ocean. If you have a radiant flux incident upon a surface, whether it is absorbed depends entirely on the temperature of a radiating source.”
Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Extremely wrong.
Radiation carries no information about the temperature of its source. It’s just a photon(s).
Gordon, you are so extremely confused about everything that I’m now thinking you too are a troll, just not as dedicated as Mike Flynn.
David Appell,
A chap named Einstein disagreed with your assertion. He actually received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work showing your assertion is wrong.
Another chap named Millikan performed some fairly detailed experiments, which supported Einstein’s view, rather than yours.
Maybe you could demonstrate your experimental data which shows that both Einstein and Millikan were wrong, I don’t believe you have any, but shoukd you produce it, I will gladly bow before your effulgent intellectual brilliance!
Your thinking about trolls seems just as muddled. Have you considered giving your mind a bit of a rest? Maybe it’s worn out from all that thinking.
Cheers.
Now you’re also an Einstein troll.
Gordon Robertson
Your cup analogy is not comparable to the GHE at all.
To make a valid analogy you would have to have your 20 C cup with a constant input of energy (in an earth system it would be radiant energy from some source).
You already have surroundings that are warmer than the ice so it is completely incomparable to the Earth GHE. You are on the wrong path here.
In the Earth system there is no warm surroundings to keep the cup warm. There is only the empty void of space that would only return a 3 K background flux of microwaves.
So to make it more comparable, you have a cup surrounded by very clear ice emitting 300 W/m^2 that a visible light source can go through to reach the cup.
We can start your little idea with a 20 C cup that is not surrounded by ice yet just cold space. Now it will be radiating at its maximum, if it is close to the emissivity of a black body it will approach 1. To make calculations easy we will make it a big cup with a total surface area of 1 square meter. To maintain a 20 C temperature the cup will need a 418.7 W/m^2 flux and it will be at equilibrium with this incoming energy. In equal out.
So now we still have this 418.7 incoming flux but the cup is surrounded with the clear ice that is emitting 300 W/m^2. Without the solar flux the cup would maintain a temperature that emits 300 W/m^2 or -3.45 C.
You can see that ice surrounding the cup will bring it to a much higher temperature than what a 3 K background microwave flux would do correct?
So you have a 300 flux being absorbed by the cup, in your description the energy flux that was maintaining the cup temp at -3.45 C goes away once you introduce a warmer temperature flux? Now isn’t that ridiculous logic and unscientific?
What you actually get is the 300 W/m^2 flux still is absorbed by the cup and now it also absorbs the 418.7 solar flux as well to have a combined flux of 718.7 incoming W/m^2 and it will now increase in temperature until it is radiating 718.7 W/m^2
This gets its temperature to rise to 62.35 C. A nice warm cup of coffee (big cup that is, super size)
So you can follow the logic. The solar flux alone will raise the Cup of Coffee to 20 C
The ice sphere alone will raise the cup of coffee to -3.45 C
The two together will raise the Cup of coffee to 62.35 C
No violation of 2nd Law. All energy flows are accounted for. The ice sphere does not make the cup of coffee warmer. If you turn off the solar flux the coffee cools and the 300 w/m^2 will not warm it up. It will cool until it is back down to -3.45 C. so how does this violate the 2nd law.
I already gave Kristian an experiment to try. He will never do it perhaps you will. Paint a surface with highly absorbing IR paint. Get two heat lamps with variable controls attached to each. Put a thermometer on the plate and turn on a light to full. Let the plate reach its equilibrium temperature then turn on the second heat lamp to a setting that adds less energy to what the plate is calculated to emit but enough to produce an effect. See if the “cooler” energy flow can raise the temperature of the thermometer.
Let me know your results.
Norman,
You’re just being stupid, now.
You can’t even say how the GHE is supposed to work. That’s because it doesn’t exist.
You pointless, irrelevant, and poorly thought out “experiments” achieve nothing. Try raising the temperature of a thermometer using the supposed (but also no-existent) GHG properties of CO2. If you could, or could find any else who had, performed such a miracle, you would no doubt have produced it by now.
Deny, divert, confuse. Not working out too well, is it?
Until you can at least define the GHE in some scientifically testable way, you can’t blame people for ignoring your assertions, can you?
When you’ve figured out what the GHE is supposed to be, people can test your idea. So far, you haven’t done terribly well.
Do keep trying.
Cheers.
“Try raising the temperature of a thermometer using the supposed (but also no-existent) GHG properties of CO2”
Prof. Tyndall tried and succeeded experimentally. By test! He has been produced. The GHE was demonstrated in his lab. You can find his report on the internet!
Mike Flynn
You do seem to use about one primary incorrect debate tactic over and over. It is called the “strawman” you set up a point no one is making about CO2 not being able to raise a thermometer temperature
when it is colder than the thermometer. And then rant about that would mean CO2 has magical heating properties.
It is a strawman because no poster I have read makes the claim and then you attack a point no one is making.
Mike Flynn I have already given an idea that is easily testable that you can do (but of course will not, that seems a solid prediction).
Take a plate and paint it with very absorbing IR material.
Put a reliable thermometer on the plate and get two heat lamps and variable controls for both. Turn on one heat lamp 100% and direct the energy at the plate and let it reach equilibrium temperature with the surroundings. Next turn on the second heat lamp and also point it toward the plate but vary its level of energy input. Try different settings and make sure you keep it at a level that is less than the painted surface was radiating at before you turned on the second lamp (you can calculate it using Stefan-Boltzmann Law based upon it temperature with a high emissiviity). See if the lower energy input can raise the plate temperature to a higher level.
Mike Flynn
YOU: “Youre just being stupid, now.
You cant even say how the GHE is supposed to work. Thats because it doesnt exist.”
The ice sphere description does exactly explain how the GHE is supposed to work and why a surface becomes warmer if you have two sources of energy input to an absorbing surface.
It is not that I am “stupid” the problem is you are a simple minded person that cannot understand complex thought and in confusion that goes over your head you need to lash out and call someone stupid to cover for your own lack of comprehension.
Hi Norman,
For what I understood, Mike point is that the ice sphere has its own energy supplied to the system, GHGs are supposed to get their “backradiated” energy from the cup itself, which is warmed more by that.
IMHO this is the thing that have to be demonstrated which is true.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
Thanks for the reply. I do not think Mike Flynn understands anything. I think he posts to provoke a reaction.
If the Earth had a temperature without solar input the GHG would only help in slowing down cooling, they would never raise the Earth’s surface temperature alone. I would never suggest they would.
The way it works is solar energy heats the surface, the GHG overall do not allow energy to leave at the same rate it would without the gasses so now the same solar input causes the surface to reach a higher temperature.
You could do a Tim Folkerts experiment to show it working by surrounding an object with glass in outer space. The solar energy would heat the object to equilibrium temp but the outgoing IR would not go through the glass (opaque) and start to warm it. The warm glass would start radiating energy in both directions but keep being warmed by the IR emitted from the object heated by a solar incoming continuous flux. The IR from the object cannot freely radiate to space.
Say your solar flux is 1366 W/m^2 and will heat your internal object to 120 C so that it radiates IR at 1366 W/m^2
This energy will hit the glass and be absorbed and the glass will start to heat and emit IR. The balance in this system will not be reached until the glass gets hot enough to emit 1366 W/m^2 into space. The radiant beams will go in all directions from the glass (isotropic radiant emission) so the object in the center will receive 1366 from the Sun but will also eventually (when the glass reaches equilibrium conditions) receive 1366 W/m^2 being emitted downward by the 120 C glass surrounding the object.
This will end up raising the objects temperature so it will be emitting 2732 W/m^2 (nothing it can do about it, that is how much energy its surface is absorbing so it will keep heating until it emits the same amount of energy it is receiving). So it will end with a temperature of 195.4 C.
Now the Mike Flynn’s will think this is perpetual motion but the temperature does not go higher than that all the energies balance.
The glass is emitting a total of 2732 watts at 120 C. It is emitting 1366 out and 1366 back to the object.
It might sound absurd but you can test it with a 1 m^2 plate.
In a cooled environment add 1000 watts to this plate (not per meter just watts) The actual surface of a 1 m^2 plate is 2 square meters of emitting surface so a 1000 watt input will only raise the temperature to emit 500 w/m^2
Hi Norman,
“The solar energy would heat the object to equilibrium temp but the outgoing IR would not go through the glass (opaque) and start to warm it.”
The glass is warmed in that case, in GHGs there are two cases:
1) the GHGs molecules are sufficiently rarefied to avoid any energy share to the surrounding. In this case 50% of photons are backradiated, but the temperature can’t raise at ground because there is no thermalization of the GHGs which just return those 50% of the same photons without changing the GHGs molecular KE.
2) the GHGs molecules are sufficiently close each other to
collide and share the photon-collected energy with the surrounding. In this case the returning photons depends upon the effective GHGs temperature, but more than 99% of the gases surrounding them are not GHGs at all and return their energy to the ground via the gravitational attraction which return them to the surface. So the GHGs efficiency in heating should be very little because the whole atmosphere works to returning heat to the ground, not only those tiny 400ppm.
BTW, I wrote a reply to the Sioux Fall argument above few days ago, but it seems that something went wrong, since it’s not there.
In that case I don’t see any GHGs in those temperature recovery by night, but latent heat due to the rain evaporation as Ball4 suggested. I also don’t agree with Ball4 suggestion to find the GHGe on clearsky nights searching for clouds passages linked to reduction of the temperature decay by night because clouds aren’t gaseous bodies but water drops floating in the air because of their small size. They emit as a Plank’s BB.
Have a great day.
Massimo
I also dont agree with Ball4 suggestion to find the GHGe on clearsky nights searching for clouds passages linked to reduction of the temperature decay by night because clouds arent gaseous bodies but water drops floating in the air because of their small size. They emit as a Planks BB.
The night time passing clouds are shown in the instrumental data linked to increase in observed DWLWIR Massimo. Clouds are indeed condensed, colloid water droplets leading to increased energy emitted (over clear sky) & absorbed by the instrumentation as shown in the recorded data, and if the instrument wasnt there, the surface. Water in clouds has an emissivity slightly less than 1 (~0.95) so does not emit as a Plancks BB.
Hi Ball4,
I agree with all that you wrote here, but maybe I’ve been not clear, the only thing I don’t agree from your Sioux Falls related message was your:
“Find one [night] with a few up DWIR bumps that return to the steady decline, look for passing clouds in the night sky in the weather report. If you are looking for GHE, there it is.”
I don’t agree in particular to the final statement, just because the GHGe should be hidden behind the spontaneous emissions of the clouds indeed, this because of their own temperature which is not the consequence of any UWLWIR (probably just a little indeed), but the consequence of the energy accumulated at the tropics or other warmer regions where they “born” because of evaporation process.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, it doesn’t matter what object the added night DW radiation comes from, the radiometers pick it up if in their range. Added water droplets add some radiating in view of the instruments (from passing clouds at warmer lower levels) which prove it. The same physics is in action for added CO2, the radiometers don’t care about the source adding the radiation just that it is in the wavelength bands they are looking for.
Mike i noticed rhat you didntt find holes in normans logic. Instead you just insult. Try instead to rebut the logic. Only then will you convince people.
Hi Ball4,
I still probably haven’t been clear.
I don’t doubt the CO2 (or any other GHGs) capability of “backradiating” the UWLWIR from the ground, I’m just arguing on the amplitude of that effect compared to the others running concurrently.
So, IMHO arguing that looking at the UWLWIR reduction of nightime decay linked to clouds passing on the zenith isn’t a real proof of the GHGe. The GHGe is embedded into the clouds emissions, but it isn’t the dominant effect on the radiation, because the entity of that GHGe radiation can’t be greater than 50% of the UWLWIR so can’t stop the nightime decay of the ground temperature, it can only reduce it.
How much it does, it’s all to be established.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“How much it does, it’s all to be established.”
Certain tests have established how much Massimo. In one of them, Dr. Spencer ran a test on the real atm. in 2015 quantifying the temperature increase in a container of water aimed at one over night sky with passing clouds over blocked from view of the night time sky. Others have run more precise tests for much longer times (~decade).
“can’t stop the nightime decay of the ground temperature, it can only reduce it.”
Right, the air temp.s show a steady decline even though the passing clouds briefly increase the DWLWIR as shown by the radiometers. Without the clouds passing by the air temps. would be slightly lower and Dr. Spencer quantified how much using water in his experiments.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body-part-ii/
My editor must have been in the bath room.
“How much it does, it’s all to be established.”
Certain tests have established how much Massimo. In one of them, Dr. Spencer ran a test on the real atm. in 2015 quantifying the temperature increase in a container of water aimed at the over night sky with passing clouds over a water container blocked from view of the night time sky. Others have run more precise tests for much longer times (~decade).
“can’t stop the nightime decay of the ground temperature, it can only reduce it.”
Correct, the air temp.s show a steady decline even though the passing clouds briefly increase the DWLWIR as shown by the radiometers. Without the clouds passing by the air temps. would be slightly lower and Dr. Spencer quantified how much using water in his experiments.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body-part-ii/
Hi Ball4,
I don’t get how Dr. Spencer’s experiment should have distinguished the effective GHGs radiation from the BB radiation due to the droplets temperature of the clouds (ok, near BB not really a BB radiation indeed).
I fully agree with you that IR radiation from cloud warm the ground.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
“..should have distinguished the effective GHGs radiation from the BB radiation due to the droplets temperature of the clouds”
Rest assured it did not Massimo, photons do not have tags on them indicating point of origin. However, when the clouds appeared the thermometer data logger showed temperature of the water in view increased over the water not in their view just as fast as cloud radiation took to get there.
Hi Ball4,
so I probably misunderstood your:
“If you are looking for GHE, there it is.”
I believed that you meant that that clouds radiation was the proof that GHGe was driving that change in surface cooling, instead you were just arguing that into that radiation the GHG radiation was there too.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Massimo, I meant what I wrote, by observing passing clouds, the ground instrumentation detects proof that the GHEe was driving the change in surface cooling AND pointing out the added cloud radiation detected by the surface radiometers includes radiation from GHG.
Dr. Spencer similarly built a nighttime passing cloud detector by observing temperature changes by thermometer (the change in surface cooling) in two containers of water instead of using radiometers.
Hi Ball4,
are you arguing that all the DWLWIR without clouds is the result of backradiation from the ground?
Tyndal’s experiment proves the contrary instead. Heated CO2 emits as function of its own temperature which is raised by passing on the gas heated ball.
At low tropo altitude where gas density is sufficient to allow bumping between molecules in times lesser than the photon absorbtion and emission times the radiation is function of the temperature of the whole atmospheric gasses not only GHGs.
And UWLWIR is not the only way the atmosphere exchange energy with the ground.
If that was you point, I still don’t agree, otherwise I should know what do you mean.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“…are you arguing that all the DWLWIR without clouds is the result of backradiation from the ground?”
Don’t think so if I understand your meaning. The night DWLWIR without clouds is from well mixed gases alone thus clear-sky emission to surface. With clouds the DWLWIR is higher, not so well mixed, is due added water in the column, known as all-sky emission to surface.
I try to avoid the confusing backradiation term as too hot to handle (pun intended).
Hi Ball4,
it’s probably my bad English.
You must know that when I was at school English was teached very little (2 or 3 hours a week), the result is what you read from me.
Now our children are luckier because today English is highly valued.
IMHO it’s one of the few good things the EC gave us.
“I try to avoid the confusing backradiation term as too hot to handle (pun intended).”
I often use backradiation within quotation marks because even if I know that it must exist, I still think that at low tropo is hardly discernible from the thermal radiation, and its impact on our climate is currently unknown (despite I know that some posters here claim that they know).
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, imo backradiation term has been unfairly attacked and sent to the dog house, which, as some husbands know, is a very real place. I am ok to leave it there, rescuing it isn’t worth the effort. Backradiation is every bit the same as thermal radiation and it seems thermal radiation is ok to use in mixed company, so be it.
The history of thermal term is that of a shortening of thermodynamic internal energy to separate off chemical, nuclear, potential internal energies & so forth. Take out “odynamic intern” and you are left with thermal.
Norman,
You claim that I have never managed to heat anytthing with oxygen and nitrogen. Yes I have – frequently. For example, the nitrogen and oxyge I expel from my lungs has been heated to around 37 C or so. I use this to heat all sorts of things if required – fingers, for example. I also blow on things to cool them at times. Interesting, isn’t it?
A hair dryer heats air quite nicely. I’ve used it to warm prosessed photos, etched copper boards and all sorts of other things. Compressing any gas rapidly heats it. I’ve managed to heat parts of my anatomy quite painfully, inadvertently. In the case of a Diesel engine, to almost incandescent temperatures! The resulting heat is used to rapidly burn fuel. I’ve used Diesel engines.
You really have but a tenouous grip on reality, haven’t you?
No GHE. No theory of AGW. No magical properties of CO2.
You may choose to feel offended, upset, or insulted – as much or as little as you like.
My care factor remains precisely zero.
Maybe you could quote what I say in future, rather than plucking products of your febrile imagination from your Warmist fantasy. Or maybe not. Your choice.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn…”No GHE. No theory of AGW. No magical properties of CO2″.
Elementary, my dear Watson.
Only a commenter that writes Prof. Tyndall’s experiments are fiction could write 6:41pm. Gordon has little if any credibility left.
Mike Flynn
YOU: “You claim that I have never managed to heat anytthing with oxygen and nitrogen.”
Please remember the context of that micro-debate. It concerned Tyndall’s experiments with heated gases. Heated Nitrogen and Oxygen had little effect on Tyndall’s thermopile while heated Carbon Dioxide had a large effect. Nitrogen and Oxygen only emit exceedingly small amounts of IR relative to Carbon Dioxide. The full extent of the argument would be for you to heat something using heated nitrogen or oxygen just with the IR they emit (that means NOT conduction or contact with the heated gas).
Heated Carbon Dioxide will raise the temperature of a colder thermometer via IR emission, Nitrogen and Oxygen will not raise the temperature of the thermometer (or not noticeably) via IR emission from the gases. Hope that clears up your confusion on the issue, the mistake was mine for not being explicitly clear.
Norman,
This what you wrote –
“YOU: Yes, you can heat CO2 or any other matter in the universe. Yes, anything above absolute zero can be used to heat anything colder
Have you tried this yet with heated oxygen or nitrogen? I didnt think so. Where do you get this conclusion from, what is it based upon? Your own religious convictions? Empirical evidence does not support your claim.”
You seem to be changing your tune. You say you don’t think I have tried to heat anything with heated oxygen or nitrogen. When I point out how foolish your statement is, you change the subject to one more to your liking.
Deny, divert, confuse. You can’t possibly be as ignorant as you seem. For example, Tyndall’s thermopile was so sensitive it registered the heat from his assistant exhaling from 30 feet away. Do you really think that the only gas that can cool by emitting radiation is CO2?
Maybe you are aware of measurements called “air temperature”? These are measurements of the temperature of the “air”. This “air” is about 4 parts CO2 to about 9996 parts NOT CO2.
You can both feel and measure the temperature of hot “air” from a distance. Tyndall had no trouble doing so 150 years ago.
It doesn’t matter. Neither you nor anybody else can demonstrate this non-existent GHE. Nor can you even locate the supposed Theory of Global Warming. You’ve probably been led astray by a pack of bearded balding bumbling buffoons, due to an excess of enthusiastic gullibility, in lieu of rational thought.
Have fun with trying to heat a thermometer using CO2 that hasn’t been preheated. Tim Folkerts reckons he can heat a thermometer to 120 C just with sheets of glass. David Appell thinks he can achieve the same results using 300 W/m2 from ice. Maybe you can do better. Let me know your results.
Cheers.
“Have fun with trying to heat a thermometer using CO2 that hasn’t been preheated.”
Prof. Tyndall had a lot of fun increasing the temperature on thermometers using CO2 that hasn’t been preheated. Thereby demonstrating the existence of the GHE.
Ball4,
Where can I buy some of these magical thermometers which heat up in the presence of CO2?
Can I heat something else – say a house – using this CO2? Or do I have to build a giant thermometer in the shape of a house? Or maybe a house in the shape of a giant thermometer? How does the CO2 know what to heat?
How can I stop a cylinder of compressed CO2 from getting hotter and hotter all by itself?
Do you really imagine others are as foolish as you appear to be?
Cheers.
You can buy thermometers of the same design Prof. Tyndall used at your local hardware store.
Yes you can heat something the size of a house the same way Prof. Tyndall did, just scale up the size of his tube to house dimensions.
The thermometer does not need to be in the shape of a house.
Neither does the house have to be in the shape of a thermometer.
The CO2 doesn’t “know” anything, it is a gas.
You don’t have to stop a cylinder of compressed CO2 from getting hotter and hotter. I only imagine Mike Flynn foolish enough not to be able to answer his own questions.
Ball4,
I hope you’ve patented the magical house heating CO2 tube before anbody else, otherwise I’d be inclined to suspect you’ve just been playing with your own (tube, that is!)
I’ll leave you to it. Have fun.
Cheers.
Prof. Tyndall has prior on his device design Mike, it is foolish to write there is a patent possibility.
Roy, why don’t you just disable comments for awhile?
It’s worth repeating the norm is an ice sheet to the Gulf of Mexico with an ice shelf from Maine to Scotland, for 100,000 years… We’re arguing over fractions of supposed warming in the Arctic from a trace trace gas when -100 is coming.
Actually the ice sheet only went down to about I-80, and the average global temperature difference was -5 C.
Norman says, April 9, 2017 at 10:43 PM:
“Please read page 266 of this Heat Transfer textbook and tell me why you think I am wrong?
(…)
What do the authors say about heat radiant heat transfer? What do they consider NET radiant energy to be?”
What are you referring to? Wrong about what? About heat? Or about a bidirectional radiative transfer? Or both? Well, you’re right about one thing. Something’s got to give here.
You can’t BOTH have the notion of there being two discrete, independent macroscopic radiant fluxes (W/m^2) moving in opposite directions inside one and the same radiation field between a hot and a cold region being consistent with reality AND the standard thermodynamic definition of “heat” being consistent with reality at the same time.
So I’m glad you brought up this quite conspicuous case of inconsistency when it comes to radiative heat transfer and the bidirectional descriptive model.
What you point to is an unfortunate and still all too common practice in radiation physics of “forgetting” the strict thermodynamic definition of “heat” in discussing radiative heat transfer within the framework of the bidirectional model. During a two-flux analysis, in some situations one is simply “forced” to paint oneself into the proverbial corner, in that the EXPLANATION of radiative transfer always ends up violating the thermodynamic definition of “heat”. Creating much and widespread confusion in the process. That is, amongst people who have an inadequate grasp of physics to begin with. In fact, I would venture to say that you have just pointed out the root cause of the whole “IPCC heating by back radiation” clutter.
Take “The Engineering ToolBox” as an example: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/radiation-heat-transfer-d_431.html
What happens is this,
You start off with the simplest case, the blackbody. Here’s the general statement:
So with only a slight rearrangement, you get: q/A = σ T^4, where q/A is the radiant “heat flux” (W/m^2). By definition, and thus by convention.
The thing is, in order for the radiation emitted from the surface of the hypothetical blackbody per unit time as a direct result of its absolute temperature to be equal to its radiant HEAT loss, as per the thermodynamic definition of heat [Q], then its surroundings will have to be at a temperature of absolute zero. Why is this? Because surroundings at absolute zero emit no radiation back to the blackbody, and so the NET is equal to the outgoing flux alone (σ T^4 – 0 = σ T^4).
IOW, this is the standard premise behind the most basic version of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, q/A = σ T^4: The surroundings of the radiating blackbody are at absolute zero (or if not, then at least – realistically – they will have to be much, much, much colder than the blackbody itself):
http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/documents/431/heat_radiation_from_black_surface_absolute_zero.pdf
At the next step already, though, the problem introduces itself.
What happens when you put two such radiating blackbodies next to each other?
They BOTH still emit “heat” to their surroundings, don’t they? q/A = σ T_bb1^4 and q/A = σ T_bb2^4.
So at what point do their individual “heats” cease to be just that? When you make them face the other, what do you call the q/A expressions? Do you somehow redefine them? Even when they remain the very same entities as before. Physically and in principle.
Why confuse matters and name them differently all of a sudden?
No, what you resort to doing, rather, is you just put the two “heats” up against each other, as they are, as they come, more or less as if the other one weren’t there (as if they were both still emitted to surroundings at absolute zero), and then you let the simple arithmetical sum of the two be called, not the radiant “heat”, but the radiant “NET heat”.
From “The Engineering ToolBox” link above:
“Net radiation heat loss rate”? There’s no such thing as a “net radiation heat loss rate”. There is either a “net radiation loss rate” or a “radiation heat loss rate”. Sloppy (imprecise) wording like the above can really muddle things up for people. And it apparently does …
This particular case of inconsistency seems to be a strange corollary of the bidirectional descriptive model of radiation and radiative transfer; the fact that at some point you are “forced” to talk about radiant “heat” flowing both from hot to cold AND from cold to hot, the only stipulation being that there must somehow be MORE “heat” flowing from hot to cold than from cold to hot, so that the NET “heat” will always move from hot to cold …
However, such an approach, such a way of portraying a thermodynamic transfer of energy, is really quite an – in fact, appallingly! – un-physical one when you think about it. It goes directly against the very definition of “heat” [Q] in thermodynamics, positing that two ‘heats’ can oppose each other to make up one NET heat between them. Inside ONE AND THE SAME heat transfer process. It is nothing short of a contradiction in terms. An oxymoron.
No, there is NEVER any heat flowing spontaneously from cold to hot. By thermodynamic definition! There is no “net heat”.
And this is why I think you’d be better off NOT describing the process of radiative transfer between two opposing objects or surfaces as if there were two discrete, independent macroscopic fluxes making up ONE net transfer. Because it’s both confused AND confusing. Because in the real world, there is ONLY the net transfer, the q/A: q/A = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4), where the two terms on the righthand side are just mathematical radiative temperature expressions, NOT distinct macroscopic “fluxes” of their own.
The bidirectional descriptive model is based simply on a geometrically simplifying MATHEMATICAL method of solving the problem of radiative heat transfer. Read this (pp.299-300) to gain an understanding of how complex this problem really is, and how many different computational methods have been devised in order to solve it:
https://books.google.no/books?id=J2KZq0e4lCIC&pg=PA299&lpg=PA299&dq=michael+modest+%22radiative+transfer+equation%22+299&source=bl&ots=_zhYzgL1a3&sig=zUqAN-Gwrmvx3oGaSbosfNsB4Po&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilmLaC3pvTAhWBEiwKHQQwAzMQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=michael%20modest%20%22radiative%20transfer%20equation%22%20299&f=false
You can read about the Schuster-Schwarzschild (two-flux) approximation for radiative transfer through semitransparent (absorbing and scattering) media here:
http://www.thermopedia.com/content/128/
Sorry again, have to post this supporting comment outside Spencer’s blog:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/to-norman.png
Kristian,
I salute you!
Cogent.
Clear.
Concise (all things considered), and, as far as I know,
Correct.
Cheers.
“They BOTH still emit “heat” to their surroundings, don’t they?”
No, both objects constituent particles possess KE and can emit photons which carry energy away from the body.
“..the fact that at some point you are “forced” to talk about radiant “heat” flowing both..”
No Kristian, experiments show you are “forced” to talk about radiant energy flux emitted from both objects.
“It goes directly against the very definition of “heat””
No Kristian, the objects constituent particle kinetic energy is always well defined and can always be measured by simple thermometers.
“..where the two terms on the righthand side are just mathematical radiative temperature expressions, NOT distinct macroscopic “fluxes” of their own.”
Both objects emitted photons in both opposing macro energy flux streams are experimentally detected routinely, they are not just math expressions.
Kristian, I really like your discussion here and your efforts to clarify the meaning of “heat”. You are spot on with your discussion of “heat” within classical thermodynamics.
The one quibble I have is when you say things like “in the real world, there is ONLY the net transfer”. This truly depends on how you model the universe [As an aside, NONE of physics is “real” — all of physics is all a mathematical construct of people to try to grasp the world around us. But let’s not go there!]
If we restrict ourselves to a macroscopic, classical thermodynamic model, then only one-way transfers exist. In much the same way we say that still air is not moving macroscopically. This is an excellent perspective. Classical thermodynamics is powerful and very useful.
But your discussion almost makes it sound like it is incorrect to think microscopically. Like it is wrong to even consider modelling photons. Photons are a very useful for explaining some features of energy transfers– just like gas molecules are very useful for explaining some features of the air.
Microscopically, its fine to think of individual photons getting emitted and absorbed by a surface.
Statisically, it is fine to think about the energy of an entire set of photons leaving a surface each second and the energy arriving.
(hopefully a little more later …)
Oh, but I fully agree with you, Tim. Don’t worry. I have no inherent problem with “photons”.
When I say that there is only the net transfer in “the real world”, then I’m talking about what we can actually physically detect. The “real” world being the world we can sense and observe around us. The MACROscopic world. Where the Laws of Thermodynamics apply.
Sure, we can detect single light quanta striking a surface too, but that’s really beside the point here. It simply doesn’t concern this particular subject, which is about the heat transfer between two (or more) objects/regions. Individual photons flying around in all directions do NOT constitute thermodynamic transfers of energy. And if you add them all up, statistically, to get the probabilistic average, you get the net flux through the radiation field. Which will be UNIdirectional. Unless you WANT to model it according to a two-way perspective …
Kristian wrote:
“Individual photons flying around in all directions do NOT constitute thermodynamic transfers of energy.”
Of course they do. E=hf for every photon.
“And if you add them all up, statistically, to get the probabilistic average, you get the net flux through the radiation field. Which will be UNIdirectional.”
The NET flux is in one direction.
But there are fluxes in two directions, and it is not incorrect to state that. In fact, you can DETECT both fluxes, if you measure.
In the atmosphere, these two fluxes, upward and downward, are the basis for the Schwarzschild Equations — which are also called the “two-stream equations,” because there are two fluxes.
Very good David, no use of heat term 7:20pm. +1. Short and sweet.
Only because it wasn’t relevant here.
It is relevant in other considerations.
PS: Dare you to stick your hand in front of a laser beam and then tell me there is no heat there.
I’ve stuck my hand in front of laser beams countless times, no ill affects, my hand reflected, absorbed and possibly at times transmitted some of the photons. I designed/built a laser in HS science fair, optically pumped the mirrored end ruby crystal, no one was harmed.
Norman says, April 9, 2017 at 4:06 PM:
Norman, I do not HAVE an “opinion” on heat. YOU have an opinion on heat. Ball4 has an opinion on heat. Gordon Robertson has an opinion on heat. David Appell has an opinion on heat. I don’t.
I KNOW what heat is. YOU evidently don’t. What I am doing is simply trying my best to EXPLAIN what heat is to you.
What I do feel strongly about, Norman, is people like you walking around entertaining their very own private ideas about what heat might be and then trying to understand the world and everything they read about it through THOSE ideas rather than trying to actually find out what heat really IS, in order to get things straight from the outset.
There is no room for any private OPINIONS about what heat is and is not, Norman. Heat is thermodynamically defined as ONE thing and one thing only.
That’s because you ARE, Norman.
The best indicator of your utter confusion regarding the thermodynamic concept of heat [Q] is your bizarre belief that you can just add together the solar flux and the DWLWIR and get the total “heat in” to the surface [165+345= 510 W/m^2].
I know there is nothing I can say to make you change your opinion about this. But I urge you to pick up a textbook on thermodynamics and start READING. Educate yourself!
I can’t discuss this subject with you any more, Norman. You simply do not possess the required understanding. You have a fully dogmatic approach to it. Hence, there is no way to get through to you.
“to get the total “heat in” to the surface”
Those are Kristian’s words confused by using the myth of heat actually existing in nature dogma, Norman correctly writes that 165+345 = 510 W/m^2 is on avg. the energy absorbed (not reflected or transmitted) into Earth surface as observed over a 10 year period.
Kristian,
There are several trolls here that do not want to learn. “Ball4” is also “Trick”.
“Norman” is well-known for his rambling pseudoscience. He has NO physics background.
But for those that are sincerely trying to learn, consider this example.
Kristian is trying to explain that different photon fluxes do not add. It is confusing for folks that do not understand photons. But, think of your AM radio. You can hear one channel clearly, but you must change channels to hear another station. The two stations are on different frequencies.
Maybe that helps.
No help 7:34am, your radio is tuned to narrow band light frequency, an object’s constituent particle KE allows the object to emit light of all frequencies at any temperature, which your radio interprets as noise.
g*e*r*a*n
Sorry you are a poser pretending to be the same poster who goes by the name without the “*” between letters. The real and true poster would have put at least one “hilarious” in each of his posts. That was the trademark of this poster. You attempt to sound like the real deal but you are missing the proper language.
g*e*r*a*n says, April 11, 2017 at 7:30 AM:
Oh, I know. On both counts.
Kristian
YOU: “I know there is nothing I can say to make you change your opinion about this. But I urge you to pick up a textbook on thermodynamics and start READING. Educate yourself!”
Actually that is what I did. For a while I had the false ideas that Mike Flynn and Gordon Robertson believe from the fringe prophets and posted similar views to their own. Then I did an actual experiment and it floored me redirected my thought process. Instead of reading PSI garbage I started to read actual text books to get the real science and so here I am with the real science.
I think Ball4 is correct not to use the term “heat” as if is confusing for most. Heat is clearly defined in textbooks on the topic as NET energy flow to a surface under consideration. It is the combination of the energy the surface is emitting (based upon its temperature as the only active variable) and the amount of energy the surface is absorbing from the surroundings. In a simple field of view of 1 the math is easy. If the field of view changes the math becomes much more complex.
I have clearly stated numerous times that there are NOT two “HEAT FLUXES or flows”. There are two energy flows. One away from a surface and one toward a surface. All the photons being emitted do constitute an actual energy flux away from the surface, all of them are moving away and you can measure this value with a variety of instrumentation by capturing some and then doing the geometry for an isotropic energy flow (uniform in all directions) to convert it to some know W/m^2 flux.
The other energy flow is what the surface absorbs. It is capable of absorbing any IR that strikes its surface from whatever source. The amount of this flux of energy it does actually absorb is determined by the amount of energy that is reaching it and the surface absorbitivity and for grey bodies emissivity and absorbitivity are the same value.
It is not an opinion or a wrong belief. It is what the textbooks state. I have linked you to three different online textbooks that say this very same thing I just said, you are the one maybe that should read the books and update your understanding.
If Tim Folkerts chooses to respond, ask him. He is one that actually studied thermodynamics in University level courses. If he says my view is wrong and explains why I would value his thoughts on the issue. As it stands I do think I have a correct understanding of the physics of heat transfer. If I am wrong so me from what textbook that makes this claim. Thanks.
Norman says, April 11, 2017 at 8:17 AM:
FYI, I did too.
It is not confusing if you only use it CORRECTLY, Norman. If you KNOW what heat is, it is all but confusing. It makes everything so much CLEARER.
Ball4 doesn’t understand the concept of heat. And as a result he doesn’t want anyone to use it. Which is a ridiculous position.
Obviously you’re not quite there yet, Norman. Because you still think it’s ok to add together the solar flux and the DWLWIR to get the total heat in to the surface, which is, ehm, wrong.
The two strictly belong to two DIFFERENT heat transfers …
No, Norman. This is precisely where you fail and get confused.
In a radiative heat transfer, the radiant heat [Q_rad] is the σT_h^4 minus the σT_c^4; the sum (or the net) of the two expressions. This is distinctly NOT what you’re describing above.
You’re mixing up separate heat transfers. Take a look at this:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/figure-16-03-03.jpeg
This is a heat engine schematic, but if we only ignore the “work” [W] part, it could also serve as an analog for the Sun => sfc => atm/space system.
The top reservoir [T_h] is the “hot” one, from the perspective of Earth’s surface. It is equivalent to the Sun. It is the HEAT source of Earth’s surface, the middle circle. IOW, it is what provides Earth’s surface with its “incoming heat” [Q_h]. The solar flux (ASR_sfc, the ‘net SW’).
The bottom reservoir [T_c], on the other hand, is the “cold” one, from the perspective of Earth’s surface. It is equivalent to the atmosphere and space. They are both the heat SINKS of Earth’s surface. IOW, they are what receives the “outgoing heat” [Q_c] from Earth’s surface, their heat source. In terms of radiation, that would be the OLR_sfc, the ‘net LW’.
As you SHOULD be able to gather, Norman, these are two discrete heat transfers. You can and do not mix them up in a thermodynamic analysis. If you do, you will confuse yourself with regards to cause and effect. You will simply lose sight of the forest and start seeing trees only …
That’s what you do, Norman. You see trees when what you should’ve seen is a forest.
Nope. You obviously need to read more. Much more. These are pretty elemental issues.
What Kristian needs to do is TEST more, stop reading! Show one test proving heat exists in a body and take down Clausius, my thermo. prof.(s) and Ball4.
“(Heat) is not confusing if you only use it CORRECTLY, Norman.”
Yes, as many do (Clausius, Planck, Maxwell, my several thermo. Prof.s.), achieving analytic results in accord with experiment such as Dr. Spencer has run showing radiant energy flowing from colder body to warmer body is measurable and can result in: a higher temperature. Kristian’s problem is he uses the myth of heat incorrectly. That result shouldn’t happen, the result should be: something else.
“Ball4 doesn’t understand the concept of heat.”
My Thermo. Prof. wrote the book and here is verbatim by p. 73 of 570: “…a body never contains heat.”
This was a shock to me at the time but I have since found it is classic Clausius. On a test that prohibited programmable calculators, he had a problem wanting to calculate the heat flow from a lab glass of hot water given some initial conditions. I circled the word heat and answered Zero as a body never contains heat.
On the off chance he meant energy, I completed the problem using energy with some long hand division and a log est. The test came back showing I had solved the problem correctly, with a big red pencil circle around my statement about heat and a +1. Then a big red arrow pointing at my longhand division circled in big red pencil and a statement inside: Get a slide rule. -1
I went on to study what thermodynamically happens to compressible fluid flows in nozzles, even supersonic. We did a lot of testing. That Prof.’s name was Pauline and I (all of us) regarded her as god almighty, she could actually seem to understand that stuff too.
The post below came out in the wrong place. It’s a semi-philosophical comment mostly to Ball4.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243424
Kristian, I think you have an excellent grasp of “heat”. I just don’t think you have an excellent grasp of Norman’s views. Specifically:
NORMAN: “I have clearly stated numerous times that there are NOT two HEAT FLUXES or flows. There are two energy flows. One away from a surface and one toward a surface.”
KRISTIAN: “Obviously youre not quite there yet, Norman. Because you still think its ok to add together the solar flux and the DWLWIR to get the total heat in to the surface, which is, ehm, wrong.”
Norman is specifically saying “energy flux” but you keep hearing “heat”.
Yes, Norman is working to grasp that taking heat as an entity out of his comments is desirable for clear understanding, Kristian not so much.
Kristian says:
“The best indicator of your utter confusion regarding the thermodynamic concept of heat [Q] is your bizarre belief that you can just add together the solar flux and the DWLWIR and get the total heat in to the surface [165+345= 510 W/m^2].”
Of course you can do this — energy is energy.
Just like you can add the energies of all the different wavelengths of sunlight to get the total energy from sunlight, 345 W/m2.
It’s no different adding in IR. Energy is energy.
“of course you can do this. – energy is energy”
And there is this little “thingy” call the First Law of Thermodynamics. The only energy striking the TOA is what is supplied by the sun. That means that you cannot have more energy striking the surface of the earth than what you have at the TOA. If so, that would be what is known in thermodynamics as a Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind.
“That means that you cannot have more energy striking the surface of the earth than what you have at the TOA.”
No. There is also Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere also radiates at its terrestrial temperature(s). Same physics as the glowing ball of gas & plasma aka the sun.
There is no such thing as perpetual motion SGW.
Thanks for the lesson in fake physics. You are double counting energy.
The is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Climate pseudo-scientists like Trenberth (and you) have created it.
Maybe you can patent an IR reflector for electric wall heaters. You should be able to double the heat output.
No double counting SGW, the sun emits SW and the atm. emits LW aka terrestrial energy, easy to keep them separate.
An IR reflector for electric wall heaters would not double the energy. It would just block (absorb and reflect) the energy from behind the reflector. No patent opportunity.
Again, there is no such thing as perpetual motion which violates 2LOT.
I don’t need your fake physics. The sun is the ONLY energy source which heats the earth. What you get at the TOA is all you get. You can not magnify that. Period. You are creating energy. You are creating a perpetual motion machine of the first kind with your fake science.
“the atmosphere also radiates its terrestrial temperature(s)”
What complete ignorance. “Temperatures” are not radiated. You think the atmosphere is comparable to the sun?? What a howler. I’m done wasting my time with you.
SGW, you confuse yourself using the word heats, both the sun (SW) and atm. (LW) add radiated energy that is absorbed at the surface as observed by instrumentation on the surface. Dr. Spencer ran a test demonstrating those physics with water and thermometers instead of radiometers.
Energy cannot be created as you write which is well known in physics. It is not possible to create a perpetual motion machine.
And somehow SGW misquoted me as writing the atmosphere also radiates its terrestrial temperature(s) when I actually wrote 9:02am as shown by test and observation: the atmosphere also radiates AT its terrestrial temperature(s).
SkepticGoneWild says:
“And there is this little thingy call the First Law of Thermodynamics. The only energy striking the TOA is what is supplied by the sun. That means that you cannot have more energy striking the surface of the earth than what you have at the TOA.”
False.
For example, your home has more energy striking its inner surface than the sun provides.
David,
OMG you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
Again it is a very low solar/increased albedo/lower sea surface temperature play for the climate moving forward.
Albedo increase due to greater volcanic activity (major),increase in global cloud coverage/snow coverage as a consequence of very weak solar conditions.
Lower overall sea surface temperatures as a result of a reduction of UV light again a consequence of very low solar conditions.
It is that simple and concise no need to go on and on.
“Global cooling has started, and it will be here for sometime to come. All the factors that control the climate are now in, or going toward a colder phase.”
– Salvatore del Prete, December 31, 2010
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/12/dessler-and-spencer-debate-cloud-feedback/#comment-8257
Gordon Robertson says:
April 7, 2017 at 4:44 PM
The mistake many people are making is trying to pass of radiant energy as heat. Heat does not flow through space and anyone who thinks it does is sadly misinformed. I have seen thought experiments passed off on this site as suggesting that, or that heat flow can be blocked by GHGs.
Some people should read books.
For example:
Michael F. Modest
Radiative Heat Transfer
Third Ed. 2013
http://tinyurl.com/kw74yfx
The first 1 1/2 pages in the intro are enough for a very beginning.
Better access the material using this link, with english as home language instead of norwegian: http://tinyurl.com/kqfdgj2
Wow! g*e*r*a*n ? If the thread continues that way, we soon will see m*p*a*i*n*t*e*r appearing… Oh no!
Operational SST Anomaly Charts for 2017
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.4.10.2017.gif
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anome.4.10.2017.gif
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.4.10.2017.gif
The Southern Hemisphere Sees Its Quietest Hurricane Season On Record
https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/848902801753296897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2017%2F04%2F03%2Fthe-southern-hemisphere-sees-its-quietest-hurricane-season-on-record%2F%23ixzz4dxaAAIus
EXTENDED RANGE FORECAST OF ATLANTIC SEASONAL HURRICANE
ACTIVITY AND LANDFALL STRIKE PROBABILITY FOR 2017
We anticipate that the 2017 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have slightly belowaverage
activity. The current neutral ENSO is likely to transition to either weak or
moderate El Nio conditions by the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. The tropical
Atlantic has anomalously cooled over the past month and the far North Atlantic is
relatively cold, potentially indicative of a negative phase of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal
Oscillation. We anticipate a below-average probability for major hurricanes making
landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean. As is the case with all
hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making
landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every
season, regardless of how much activity is predicted.
(as of 6 April 2017)
By Philip J. Klotzbach1
and Michael M. Bell2
In Memory of William M. Gray3
http://webcms.colostate.edu/tropical/media/sites/111/2017/04/2017-04.pdf
We are too stuck on semantics. For Ball4 is it “heat flowing from an object” (IMHO). For Kristian it is “only one-way flows are real” (again IMHO). So let me try some money analogies. Ball4 first …
******************************
Ball4 says: “he had a problem wanting to calculate the heat flow from a lab glass of hot water given some initial conditions. I circled the word heat and answered Zero as a body never contains heat.”
Suppose I transfer $100 from my savings account to my checking account. A withdrawal of $100 came from savings and a deposit of $100 went into my checking. Ball4’s objection is akin to saying “there are no ‘withdrawals’ inside the savings account, so you can’t take a ‘withdrawal’ from the savings account”.
Or akin having a problem like “if I apply a 100N for 3 m to a box, how much work did I supply?” and answering “you don’t contain work, so you can’t supply work”.
The English phrasing is awkward. If would be nice if the structure was more parallel like “work done” and “heat done”, to “working” and “heating”. But the prof clearly intended “calculate the [Q] from a lab glass of hot water”, and there is most definitely Q from the lab glass, even though the lab glass does not “contain” Q.
“there is most definitely Q from the lab glass, even though the lab glass does not “contain” Q”
The lab glass container of hot water most certainly does contain Q, Tim, aka the KE of the constituent particles. What it does not contain is heat, no body contains heat, since at least Clausius time. Or if you can prove it does contain heat show me a confirming test.
A lab glass container of water chilled to 33F most certainly also contains Q, aka the KE of the constituent particles. I haven’t seen commenters say it contains cold. Cold water yes, or hot water, but not heat water.
“Ball4’s objection is akin to saying “there are no ‘withdrawals’ inside the savings account”
Not at all. There is $100 that perfectly exists in savings, it can be withdrawn. It may consist of 90 from pay and 10 from interest, can’t tell which $ w/o knowing.
If there is $100 in your savings account, saying there is $900 in your savings account is an $800 myth.
“The lab glass container of hot water most certainly does contain Q”
Dang. I really thought you had it. What you are trying to describe (the KE of the constituent particles) is U (internal energy).
Q is the rate of change of the constituent particle KE. So yes delta U=Q+W, there is plenty of relevant constituent particle KE in the U of the glass continuously reducing with -rate of change of internal constituent particle KE (Q) in this example. Stick a thermometer in the water measure its relevant delta U = -Q reducing temperature readout shown (temperature is not heat). It will plot as a straight decreasing line with time on semilog graph paper (Newton’s law of cooling).
I write relevant because there is also chemical, nuclear, potential energy et. al. in U which aren’t relevant to this discussion.
If IR energy is absorbed into the U of this glass, its rate of change of internal constituent particle KE (Q) is modulated. Say by absorbing DWLWIR energy from a cooler source which is the test Dr. Spencer ran on the night time atm. summer 2015.
“Q is the rate of change of the constituent particle KE. So yes delta U=Q+W”
This fails the most basic test of correctness — dimensional analysis.
* Q would be J/s (rate of change of energy)
* delta U would be J (energy)
Delta U occurs over a non-zero, non-instantaneous time, right Tim? You simply forgot to put that finite time in the denominator. Or if you prefer real differential calculus dU/dt.
Ball4 says:
“Or if you can prove it does contain heat show me a confirming test.”
Stick your finger in it.
That measures the avg. KE of the constituent particles banging into my finger David. Show me a confirming test that in addition the glass of water contains any heat. You will one-up even Clausius.
If a burnt finger doesn’t indicate the presence of heat, nothing does.
—
PS: Tim is right — for a liquid or solid, it’s internal energy that matters for temperature, not just kinetic energy.
Consider a chunk of ice at 0C exposed to room temperature thus melts. A mixture of water and ice, observed constant T while melting. The ice is heated, and we are uncritically supposed to believe that its state of motion changes.
But its temperature does not change and hence we are supposed to believe that its state of motion does not change.
It is very easy to solve this, go with Clausius: An object contains no heat. Why waste all this time defining something (stick your finger in it) that does not exist. Abandon heat as an entity, life is short, you can spend time doing better things.
Rub those hands together again, their temperature increases. Short and sweet. Measurable.
Do not retort anything about heat, go do something productive.
Then what else matters besides KE David?
My burnt finger indicates its temperature was higher than I desired, temperature is not heat.
In trying to understand the definitions of heat and temperature, David says a burnt finger indicates heat.
Ball 4 says it indicates a higher than desired temperature.
Ok.
But if the finger went in ‘not burnt’ and became burnt, wouldn’t that indicate a transfer of heat?
From a higher temperature object to a lower temperature object?
Lewis, good question, worth asking, it once sent me into shock and I dug into test data to figure it out.
Mythical heat as an entity doesn’t exist in the high temperature object (which even Kristian agrees) thus cannot transfer out or in. High KE exists in the object as measured by thermometer, can transfer. The finger is burned by the bulk transfer of the high KE of the constituent particles of the object to the constituent particles of the lower temperature finger. Not by a mythical entity existing called heat.
Kristian is using the mythical entity of heat to try and convince us (with a focus for some reason on Norman) that all energy flows can not be added as in 1LOT. Norman is correct since testing by Dr. Spencer has proven Kristian’s use of the myth of heat as an entity is faulty.
Kristian presents no testing supporting his assertions.
Ball4 says:
“Then what else matters besides KE David?”
Internal energy — excitement of vibrational, rotational, and other other molecular states.
Consider a solid. There’s not much classical kinetic energy of its molecules going on.
Ball4 says:
“Mythical heat as an entity doesnt exist in the high temperature object (which even Kristian agrees) thus cannot transfer out or in. High KE exists in the object as measured by thermometer, can transfer. The finger is burned by the bulk transfer of the high KE of the constituent particles of the object to the constituent particles of the lower temperature finger. Not by a mythical entity existing called heat.”
That’s what heat is — a transfer of energy.
But colloquially, and even in science, “heat” is used to indicate the presence of transferrable energy in object. Railing against this usage will get you nowhere — you simply have to accept its usage and understand the science accordingly. Otherwise you get into ridiculous semantic arguments like this one.
For example, “ocean heat content.”
“”heat” is used to indicate the presence of transferrable energy in object. Railing against this usage will get you nowhere”
I agree, I do not rail against the presence of transferrable energy, what I rail against, irreverently, is the transferrable heat entity when Clausius tells us an object does not contain heat.
Something not contained in an object can not transfer and then be not contained in another object.
“That’s what heat is – a transfer of energy.”
So always use the term transfer of energy, the problem as you know is that Kristian errs using transfer of heat. There is no heat entity in the ocean, there is plenty of KE of its constituent molecules.
Join with me in chuckling at Ocean Heat Content papers. Really Ocean Energy Content & if you read them closely they ALWAYS mean energy when they write heat. Kristian gets incorrect answers, not the papers.
“Internal energy excitement of vibrational, rotational, and other other molecular states.”
Those are all KE. Then what else matters besides KE David?
“Consider a solid. There’s not much classical kinetic energy of its molecules going on.”
The solid’s constituent particles, the molecules, contain vibrational KE in the lattice, not translational KE.
thanks lads its nice to no I can still stick my finger in the bath to see how hot it is before i get in. Well done
Oh by the way take Dr Spencer’s graph run a line from the +0.19 point parallel to the ave line and go backwards over the years no global warming since 1988 …………no warming for 29years
cheers
Harry Cummings says:
April 11, 2017 at 9:55 PM
… run a line from the +0.19 point parallel to the ave line and go backwards over the years no global warming since 1988 no warming for 29years
Oh sorry! You can’t simply draw lines in a time series when you want to know how it behaves.
You have to compute the time series’ trend.
For example, the linear trend for UAH6.0 TLT during these 29 years, computed by a function using ordinary least squares, is
0.13 +/- 0.01 C per decade
i.e. nearly the same as the trend for the entire UAH era (which is actually at 0.12 C).
1.3 C per century: that’s not so horribly much, but it doesn’t mean ‘no warming’, especially not at tropospheric level.
It fits perfectly to 1.75 C at mean surface level.
Yes, Harry you are good to go, your finger is measuring the avg. KE of the constituent particles in the tub not the mythical entity called heat.
Ball,
kT = for billiard ball gases.
For liquids and solids it’s more complicated….
A thermometer measures avg. KE, David, just as well for solids and liquids perhaps you read kT where I wrote KE.
Bindidon thanks for the explanation I was just talking in general terms just running a plain ordinary plastic ruler I have on my desk. I think what it tells me we are taking such small amounts of warming which continuously vary in potential danger (or not)
Regards
Harry,
Today it will be 60 deg F in my town. It so happens that it was 60 one day in February. If I follow your logic, i should conclude there has been no warming since February.
But all the budding flowers seem to disagree!
Harry Cummings says:
“thanks lads its nice to no I can still stick my finger in the bath to see how hot it is before i get in. Well done”
Exactly.
This entire debate is an argument about semantics.
Tim Folkerts says, April 11, 2017 at 7:47 PM:
“I just don’t think you have an excellent grasp of Norman’s views.”
Then I’m afraid you haven’t read Norman’s ramblings carefully enough. You see, his confusion about what constitutes heat goes to the very core of this problem, a problem than actually also very much involves YOU, Tim. And that is the practice of mixing together 1) “gross/component (or just plain energy) fluxes” and “net (or real heat) fluxes” as if they were equivalent entities, as if they were somehow comparable, corresponding, even interchangeable thermodynamic quantities, and by extension, 2) strictly separate heat transfers.
Allow me to quote Norman for you:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243401
You see his confusion. Those textbooks are not talking about what he’s talking about. Yes, heat can be viewed as a NET flux of energy. However, it isn’t just ANY net flux of energy. You can’t simply go and pick for yourself among all energy fluxes that you perceive as ‘available’ and from these somehow build your heat flux of choice. You also can’t just randomly add them ALL into one and get heat. It doesn’t work like that. And I know you know this perfectly well, Tim. Norman obviously doesn’t.
What the textbooks are saying is essentially this:
The DWLWIR (345 W/m^2) is a gross or component flux of energy; a downward “hemiflux” (σT_dlr^4).
The UWLWIR (398 W/m^2) is too; an upward “hemiflux” (σT_ulr^4).
The sum or the NET of the two is the HEAT flux [q/A] (the “sfc net LW”):
q/A = σ[T_ulr^4 – T_dlr^4]
What Norman is saying in the quote above, however, is essentially this:
E_in = 165 W/m^2 (the solar HEAT flux) + 345 W/m^2 (the DWLWIR) = 510 W/m^2
E_out = 398 W/m^2 (the UWLWIR) + 112 W/m^2 (sfc conductive and evaporative HEAT fluxes) = 510 W/m^2
Sfc HEAT = E_in – E_out = 510 W/m^2 – 510 W/m^2 = 0.
Steady state, balance IN/OUT, no change in temperature, no heat flow.
If you somehow doubt that this is what he actually believes, then there are more quotes for you to read. Like this one:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243142
Or this:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243135
In the very same comment, though, directly below the section quoted above, in fact, he starts conflating this particular understanding with other potential ways of defining heat:
(Emphasis added.)
So now he’s essentially saying this:
Q_in = 165+345.2 = 510.2 W/m^2
E_out = 398+112 = 510 W/m^2
Q_in – E_out = 510.2 – 510 = 0.2 W/m^2.
The E_in has turned into a Q_in because it is now larger than the E_out and so it will change the “internal energy” of Earth’s surface, raising its temperature. Norman’s own words.
It is still unclear, however, whether he considers the +0.2 W/m^2 into the surface a “NET heat flux” (Q_in – E_out (!?)) or not. It is simply impossible to tell from the quote above.
Now, watch how Norman is faithfully espousing the official logic of “Climate Science” when determining how the average surface temperature of Earth was (and is) caused – that’s the “IPCC heating by back radiation” logic, essentially this one, which I’m sure you’ve seen before, Tim:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
What is he saying?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243096
This is basically Norman saying that DWLWIR is directly causing UWLWIR.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243100
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243351
My response to such ‘logic’ behind solving (?) a thermodynamic problem could only be … by way of *facepalm*. It is just sooo wrong and sooo stupid on sooo many levels!
These are TWO SEPARATE heat transfers jumbled into ONE!! And thereby you completely lose track of – you CONFUSE – cause and effect!
In thermodynamics you add separate HEAT FLUXES like this and gain a higher U and T. You don’t add an incoming heat flux and one component of the outgoing heat flux to gain a larger incoming heat flux to increase U and T.
You know this, Tim.
Kristian
I think you are too stuck in book knowledge.
You are claiming my ice sphere example is so wrong. But you won’t do any experiments at all and then yet claim I am wrong.
I told you I did an experiment and posted it on this blog a few year back and I have described a very easy experiment to perform that will show you why I can state these things and they are not wrong
I think I will ignore your posts since you don’t want to do experiments you remind me of C*o*t*t*o*n. He is totally convinced his abstract idea is totally right and everyone who does not blindly accept it is wrong and he uses your same mentality. “I am the expert who knows physics the rest of you know fony fiddless fissics”
I described experiments for him to do and let me know his results but he never would. You are very similar. I have done experiments that would make me think my view is on the correct path. You have done none and insist you know better.
I told you about taking two heat lamps with variable controls and set them up to shine equally on a plate painted with highly absorbing IR paint. Take a thermometer and measure the plate surface temperature. First turn one light on to a dim setting but enough to warm the plate a few degrees. Now turn it off. Turn on the other light to full and let the temperature reach equilibrium at a higher temperature than the first light. Now turn on the dim light and see if it will increase the surface temperature at all. If it does you are wrong. It means a source of energy cooler then what the surface is emitting can actually warm the surface further. If you do such testing and prove me wrong I will accept it as valid otherwise you are just a banging drum in my ears! Lots of talk, no action!
Tim Folkerts has suggested such an ice cave concept on a thread about a year ago using he similar logic thought process I did.
Norman,
As long as you’re stuck on the idea that you can simply add together an actual incoming heat flux (the solar flux, 165 W/m^2) and a conceptual component of an outgoing heat flux (the DWLWIR, 345 W/m^2) and get a total incoming flux that’s much larger than the mere solar heat flux, and which will directly, upon absorp tion, raise the surface U and T far beyond what the solar heat flux could do by itself, then we have nothing to discuss. Then there is no point in us even TRYING to reach any form of agreement on this subject. Because then you expose to the world, again and again, how you simply lack the basic understanding.
YOU ARE WRONG, Norman! This is not my opinion or contention. It is a FACT. I am TELLING you.
This is the ONLY way to set up the averaged surface energy budget of the Earth, according to proper, standard THERMODYNAMIC principles:
Q_in = Q_rad(sw) = 165 W/m^2
Q_out = Q_rad(lw) + Q_cond + Q_evap = [398-345=] 53 + 24 + 88 = 165 W/m^2
Q_net = Q_in – Q_out = 165 – 165 = 0 W/m^2
=> ΔU_sfc = 0 => ΔT_sfc = 0
Earth’s surface is involved in TWO separate heat transfers at the same time:
1) Sun => sfc [Q_in]
2) Sfc => atm/space [Q_out]
As people who have gained even a basic understanding of thermodynamic principles would readily gather, the two conceptual component fluxes of the sfc Q_rad(lw), the UWLWIR (398 W/m^2) and the DWLWIR (345 W/m^2) are BOTH part of the “sfc => atm/space [Q_out]” heat transfer (they are actually what fully constitutes it, together in one), the second one, and therefore have absolutely NO business, budgetwise, appearing – individually OR in combination – in the “sun => sfc [Q_in]” heat transfer, the first one, which is a completely separate one!
1st Law of Thermodynamics for Earth’s surface:
ΔU = Q – W
where W = 0 and Q = Q_in – Q_out = Q_net
=> ΔU = Q_net
Kristian says: “This is the ONLY way … “
This is where I disagree. Certainly what you are describing is ONE way. It is a standard way. It is even an excellent way. But it is not the *only* way.
Both your method (using formal definitions from thermodynamics) and Norman’s method (using basic concepts of energy) give the same answer. Both are based on the principle of conservation of energy. They are just arranging (and naming) the terms in different ways. Basically it is how you want to arrange the parentheses.
Heat_in = 161 + (333-396) – 80 – 17 = 1
Energy_in = (161 + 333) -396 – 80 – 17 = 1
Now if/when Norman tried to say that 396 W/m^2 was “heat from the atmosphere to the ground” he would be wrong. As near as I can see, he doesn’t do that.
Tim Folkerts says, April 12, 2017 at 8:48 AM:
No, Tim. You’re cutting the quote short, significantly leaving out the main point of my message to Norman, seemingly for the sole purpose of building a straw man for you to focus your attention on. And you proceed by doing just that.
This is what trolls like Ball4 tend to do. It quite frankly should be below honest and objective commenters like you …
What I said in full was this: “This is the ONLY way to set up the averaged surface energy budget of the Earth, according to proper, standard THERMODYNAMIC principles:”
(Emphasis added.)
If we want to account for what is actually going on, thermodynamically, we need to follow the HEAT in to and out from the surface, Q_in and Q_out. We want to know what process INCREASES the surface U and T. That’s the Q_in. And we want to know what process REDUCES the surface U and T. That’s the Q_out.
OF COURSE you CAN set up the budget in a multitude of different ways, if that’s your fancy. No one’s twisting anyone’s arm. It’s not really much of a problem doing this and still mathematically “conserve the energy”. That’s just a case of simple arithmetic. But that’s NOT the issue here, and you know that, Tim. The challenge is in seeing which one of these different budgets actually makes physical SENSE, and which ones are mere number games. If you don’t play by the rules of standard thermodynamics (you know, the field of physics dealing with macroscopic transfers of energy and what these will do with the different macroscopic properties of the systems involved, like temperature), you can’t expect to be able draw any physically meaningful conclusions from your analysis.
Norman ends up believing that the COMBINED “energy inputs” from the Sun (+165 W/m^2) and the atmosphere (+345 W/m^2) are what directly forces the average equilibrium temperature of Earth’s surface to be 289K, in turn resulting in the equilibrated radiant “energy output” from the surface to be 398 W/m^2 (which would’ve been 510 W/m^2 at 308K if it weren’t for the parallel conductive and evaporative cooling). So the DWLWIR basically causes sfc U and T and UWLWIR to rise. Not relatively speaking, but in absolute terms. And it does so in the exact same manner as the solar flux does – by a direct macroscopic transfer of energy (W/m^2).
This is just completely nonsensical, a silly case of reverse engineering, mixing up cause and effect. Cause
and effect is being mixed up because the DWLWIR here is simply being treated as a regular HEAT flux next to
the solar one. It doesn’t matter what you CALL it, Tim. You can’t continue hiding behind that ridiculous argument: ‘Yeah, but I don’t CALL it heat, so I’m good.’ No, you’re not good. If you place the DWLWIR next to the solar flux to directly achieve a higher temperature from the additional input, then you have effectively turned the DWLWIR into a second Sun in the sky. This is how we add HEAT fluxes to achieve higher temps, Tim.
The atmosphere ISN’T a second Sun in the sky. It is an INSULATING layer on top of the Earth’s surface. So start treating it that way …!
And stop pretending you don’t know what I mean.
“If you place the DWLWIR next to the solar flux to directly achieve a higher temperature from the additional input, then you have effectively turned the DWLWIR into a second Sun in the sky. This is how we add HEAT fluxes to achieve higher temps, Tim.”
Not as determined by actual testing. No matter how Kristian wordsmiths a comment, he cannot get around the actual tested physics.
Dr. Spencer’s nighttime sky test showed additional input of DWLWIR effectively turning the added DWLWIR from clouds into a nighttime sun (really a glow) in the sky achieving a measured result in surface water: a higher temperature.
Thus there are really two IR suns in the sky during daytime, a SW source over a few degrees of viewing angles and a LW terrestrial source over a hemisphere (180 degrees) of view angles. These energy sources are routinely detected by radiometers tuned to detecting SW and LW on the surface.
Energy fluxes can indeed be added including those from a cooler atm. to a warmer tub of water.
Norman,
Quite apart from the fact that you haven’t actually performed the experiment yourself (correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ll need to provide your lab books to convince anyone that you’re not just making stuff up), any fool can probably come to the conclusion that using two heat sources heating one object, may well result in an increase in temperature.
However, using one heat source, and showing that introducing CO2 results in an increased temperature might help. Neither you nor anybody else can perform this miracle.
It’s about as silly as Tim Folkerts’ mad idea of heating water to 120 C using sheets of glass between the Sun and the water, or heating anything at all by filling a tube with CO2.
I’m not sure why Warmists keep demanding that everyone else wastes their time and effort dancing to the will of the Warmist. There is no GHE. There is not even a testable GHE hypothesis, let alone a theory.
What a pack of delusional wallies!
Cheers,
Mike Flynn
The dimmer heat lamp would not be a heat source if it could only warm the temperature of the plate 10 F while the full heat lamp would warm it by 30 F above ambient. Once the plate is hotter is emitting more radiant energy than the dimmer light is emitting, by your own thought process, it would be colder energy source than the surface and if it could warm the surface to a higher temperature it would totally violate your understanding of 2nd Law thermodynamics.
Also your ignorant statement is exactly why my performance of the test would be a total waste of effort as you state.
YOU: “Quite apart from the fact that you haven’t actually performed the experiment yourself (correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ll need to provide your lab books to convince anyone that you’re not just making stuff up),”
So whatever I would find or post you are going to believe I am just making stuff up, that is why you need to do it then you will know what I am talking about and quiet your posting for awhile. NOT!
Mike,
Try the following experiment, which I have done. Take a beaker or jar put black paper in the bottom. Place thermometer inside so that it is sensing the lower half of air inside.
Now shine a heat lamp or bright flood light down into the beaker. Observe the temp rise. Now add an ir absorbing gas. I used ‘canned air’ because it is a strong ir absorber. Observe that the temp now rises to a higher value.
Nate,
Canned air contains heavy molecules, which wold suppress convection, which (for an open beaker) would make the canned air warmer than regular air.
You could improve things by covering the top with saran wrap which is mostly transparent to IR. Even so, I suspect that the small amount of IR intercepted from the only slightly warm paper would not have a dramatic effect on the results. (it would depend critically on just how well the specific gases actually absorb various wavelengths of IR.)
“..two heat sources heating one object, may well result in an increase in temperature.”
Over same test with one source.
Prof. Tyndall in showing that introducing CO2 results in an increased temperature would have had a higher temperature recorded by “thermometric column” if he had used two boiling water IR sources while heating them by filling his tube with CO2 demonstrating the GHE from a testable hypothesis & theory.
Do the test.
Tim,
Convection-good point. You want heavier than air gas so it stays in the jar. Saran wrap, yes, but then dont you just have a greenhouse?
Then the experiment is greenhouse with or without CO2 inside.
Perhaps cover jar top with polyethylene bag filled with air vs filled with ‘canned air’.
Kristian
Every time I do some testing your ideas do not support the evidence yet they strongly support Ball4’s position.
At work I used an FLIR heat gun to check pipe temperatures.
A very hot pipe was indicating 300 F on the screen. Next to this hot pipe was a guard rail. I pointed the gun in its direction and it was above the ambient 70 F at about 92 F (close enough to be heated by the 300 F pipe…it was about 1 foot away).
I held the gun between the hot pipe and the rail. When I pointed the FLIR gun at the pipe it showed 300 F. Just turning it around to face the guard rail it read 90 some F.
This shows clearly there are two energy fluxes that can be individually detected that are considerably different. They also show clear direction. The IR coming off the flux was moving to the guard rail. But simply turning the FLIR toward the pipe and all that IR flow is gone and only enough IR to register 90 F is indicated. Logically there is zero reason (except that you opinion makes another claims) for me to not think there are two real flows of IR in opposite direction and that the IR coming off the guard rail will indeed hit the surface of the hot pipe and be absorbed by it at it is going in that direction and there is no physics that claims it won’t be absorbed.
I do not think the company would let me do this at work but if I heated the guard rail to about 200 F pipe and see if that changes anything with the 300 F pipe temperature.
Also the guard rail being warmed by the 300 F pipe then emitting IR at a greater rate than the surrounding materials would be strong evidence for the backradiation you do not accept.
+1 Norman, no faulty use of mythical heat entity spotted except for the heat gun, really an IR energy gun.
Kristian: “My response to such ‘logic’ behind solving (?) a thermodynamic problem could only be…by way of *facepalm*.”
Right that’s all Kristian has. Facepalms. Show us a test supporting your assertions Kristian, I mean a real live one you have performed.
Scientists are not convinced by facepalms. Only proper testing will be convincing, you know like Dr. Spencer performed on the actual atm.
Norman:
I have the highest university degree in physical chemistry. English is not my first language. I did not understand what you actually measured. Do you mean that the tube heated the rail and backradiation from the rail heated further the tube?
esalil
What I was measuring was the IR given off by a hot pipe (300 F) and a guard rail about a foot away (at 90 F) as read by a FLIR camera with temperature indication.
The point of this test was to demonstrate the reality of two IR fluxes moving in opposite directions from each other. If I turned the camera to the hot pipe it read 300 F. When I took the same camera and pointed it at the guard rail it gave me around 90 F (I think it might have been 91 or 92 F can’t recall the exact number).
Since the guard rail was emitting IR in the direction of the hot pipe I would think that this IR would be absorbed by the pipe surface.
Ball4:
Yes, but it does not raise the temperature of the hotter object.
Norman:
OK, but it did not raise the temperature of the tube? So the heat flowed only from hot to cold?
esalil
Here is how I understand it. From textbooks on heat transfer they refer to heat flow as the NET energy of a surface based upon how much it is emitting minus how much it is absorbing from it surroundings.
If you take the 300 F pipe into space. For simplicity of calculation I will give it a 1 m^2 surface area and give it an emissivity of 0.9.
The pipe would be radiating at the rate of 1618 W/m^2 so it would need this much energy to maintain a 300 F temperature.
Now if you add any material into the space it will change the temperature of the pipe and increase it. Why? energy conservation.
Every second 1618 joules/sec are added to the pipe. And in free space 1618 joules/sec are lost by radiation.
If you put a sleeve around the pipe, the sleeve will warm and start to radiate in all directions. It will radiate some energy back to the pipe. It is colder than the pipe so the heat flow from the pipe will still be from pipe to sleeve but the temperature of the pipe will go up. In order to remain at 300 F it must get rid of 1618 joules/sec as that is what is being added. if it does not rid itself of this energy the pipe temperature goes up. The energy that is backradiated from the sleeve will be absorbed by the pipe surface which will add some energy to the surface above 1618 joules a second depending on how warm the sleeve gets. If you would totally surround the pipe with a sleeve the view factor becomes one so all the energy emitted from the pipe will hit the sleeve.
At equilibrium the sleeve will need to radiate 1618 joules/second away from its surface to balance the incoming energy. It will radiate in all directions so half the energy will go to the pipe and the other into free space. The outer surface has to elimate 1618 joules/second and being isotropic radiation the amount of energy returned from the sleeve to the pipe will be 1618 joules/second on top of the 1618 joules/ second that are being added by a heat source. The pipe surface will then have to emit 3236 joules/ second to get rid of all the energy it is receiving. It will keep getting warmer until it radiates at 3236 joules/second at a temp of 443.6 F considerably warmer than the 300 F it would get to in free space.
Norman:
I am pretty sure that the sleeve cannot be hotter than the tube.If it would, by adding more sleeves you would get higher and higher temperatures, perpetuum mobile.
esalil
In my example the sleeve only becomes as warm as what the hot pipe was in free space but the pipe becomes hotter since the energy cannot leave at the same rate as before but keeps getting added at the same rate.
The process you don’t think can happen already takes place in the core of the Earth. If the Earth’s crust was highly conducting metal instead of the thermally insulating crust material, the core could not achieve its high temperature, it would be much cooler. The energy that is released by the radioactive decay is restricted in the rate it can leave and accumulates to heat the core to almost 10000 F.
I also think multi-layer insulation works in similar fashion to allow energy to leave at a very slow rate in space or else everything would freeze or take massive amounts of energy to keep at room temperature when on night side of Earth and everything would boil on the Sun side.
Norman:
The pipe heats the sleeve until the sleeve reaches the same temperature as the pipe Then the whole thing emits this 1618 joules/sec. The pipe and the Ste1ve stay at 300 F.
esalil
I don’t think it works that way. The sleeve raises to 300 F but think about what that means. It would be radiating 1618 W/m^2, it has to radiate away 1618 watts of energy. If the sleeve is close to the pipe it means its surface area is just over a square meter so it would be close to emitting 1618 W/m^2 back to the pipe. The pipe is gaining 1618 joules/second from some source to maintain its 300 F temperature and now it is also absorbing 1618 joules/second from the sleeve so its temperature will continue to rise until it reaches emission of 3236 joules/second which will only emit at a much higher surface temperature.
It is similar to how insulation can considerably get a surface to a much higher temperature than a non-insulated pipe at the same initial temperature.
If you have a pipe with continuous energy and wrap it in insulation that slows greatly the loss of energy across the insulation what happens to the pipe temperature? Does it stay the same as you think it does in the sleeve/pipe radiant case? Why would you think that.
It is all 1st Law physics. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. If you add joules to pipe it will heat up and start emitting. If you restrict the number of joules leaving the pipe it will increase in temperature.
Norman:
No. The sleeve transfers heat only to cold outside. It cannot transfer the heat to the same temperature pipe. Actually,the sleeve stays little bit colder because it must have larger surface than the pipe
esalil
I did not make the claim that the sleeve would transfer “heat” the the pipe. It would transfer IR energy. Based upon your knowledge of Chemistry what leads you to believe the hot pipe surface will not absorb this IR?
esalil: “It cannot transfer the heat to the same temperature pipe.”
P.Chem should know it CAN transfer the energy to the same temperature pipe.
Norman is trying to make that thermodynamic point clear.
Norman:
You claim that the temperature of the pipe gets 443.6F. The sleeve must heat the pipe to that temperature.
Ball4: I am talking about heat not energy
Norman was writing about energy not heat. Any object can radiate energy to any other object, no matter each object T.
esalil
Would the 300 F pipe (with its own internal energy source maintaining this temperature) get warmer if it was wrapped in heavy insulation?
Kristian
YOU: “YOU ARE WRONG, Norman! This is not my opinion or contention. It is a FACT. I am TELLING you.”
No it is clearly your opinion! You do not have any experimental evidence supporting your claim.
Three people who have more knowledge than you state what I am stating. Tim Folkerts (who actually took Universtiy level thermodynamics), David Appell who has a PHD in theoretical physics and Roy Spencer who has a PHD in meteorology and atmospheric science. Based on you vs the experts in the field I would consider it your own opinion.
Hey what about Ball4? Seven years of college down the drain.
YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT!
Kristian is using the nomenclature and methodology of thermodynamics as taught to physic students around the globe.
Norman is using the nomenclature and methodology of conservation of energy — also taught around the globe.
As long as you each use your own approach self-consistently, you should both be fine.
Both? Kristian comes to wrong conclusions as proven by Dr. Spencer’s testing by using his opinions on heat as an entity. Norman’s views not using heat entity but instead energy align with the test by Dr. Spencer.
Both can not be “fine”, the testing shows which is correct. Kristian who needs to do a test (preferably on the atm.) to support his comment assertions.
“Kristian comes to wrong conclusions … ”
Really? Where? I think he stubbornly insists on one set of wording and one way of thinking about things, but as near as I can tell, he has the right conclusions as far as predicting things like temperatures.
(I see this as akin to arguing whether cash based accounting or accrual based accounting is “correct”. They are different ways of dealing with the same information, and both work just fine. They just look a little different along the way.)
“Kristian comes to wrong conclusions…Really? Where?”
Kristian insists heat entity can not flow from the cooler atm. to the warmer surface water. This is correct invoking of heat term. But if it were correct thermodynamics, the result of Dr. Spencer’s atm. test should not have been: a higher temperature.
Thus invoking the heat entity term is demonstrated wrong by test. As Clausius learned by his own (and others) testing; Clausius then dismissed the existence of heat as an entity in an object.
Norman is correct to write energy flowed from the cooler atm. to the warmer surface water. This is correct classic Clausius thermodynamics as it aligns with the result of Dr. Spencer’s atm. test (and those of Clausius): a higher temperature.
“whether cash based accounting or accrual based accounting is “correct”.”
Accrual accounting IS cash based accounting as accruals to income calculation are necessary if the cash has not flowed.
Think you really mean income vs. cash accounting. If so, yes the 3 sheets will then look different as cash can be counted, income is an estimate of management. Some managements tend to est. in their favor, so I prefer to count the cash & use the cash flow statement, income statement not so much.
Over time cash flow approach and income approach are equally valid as management estimates are actually recorded as cash transactions. I have found the cash flow approach is closer to reality in the shorter term since management estimates are not as suspect when one counts the cash. Geez talk about OT.
Tim Folkerts says, April 12, 2017 at 9:32 AM:
Are you kidding me!?
Yeah. Everything to keep the profound and near-ubiquitous misconception in the population at large that the atmosphere somehow heats (oh, sorry, “warms”) the surface some more alive and thriving, isn’t that right, Tim? You know it doesn’t. But you’re seemingly more than willing to let people keep thinking that it does, to perpetuate the IPCC myth of “heating by back radiation”:
https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/drivhuseffekten.png
No need whatsoever to clear up the mess once and for all …?
Norman is just plain wrong. It’s that simple. And you know it. You know that you can’t add fluxes the way he does. He’s not conserving the energy any more than I do. Only I do it CORRECTLY while he’s mixing up separate heat transfers, adding their “heats” and “non-heats” together to create larger “heats”, and ending up completely confusing cause and effect in the process.
But this all seems fine to you. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. In this era of postmodern science where everyone’s entitled both to their own opinions AND their own facts, who are we to tell them they’re wrong, right? He FEELS he’s correct in his belief. So why take that joy away from him. Right? Someone said “hard sciences”? Ooh, that sounds so strict and cold. Can’t have that, can we?
Congrats, Tim! A job well done.
“Someone said “hard sciences”? Ooh, that sounds so strict and cold. Can’t have that, can we?”
No hard science from Kristian who is a test free commenter, all we get is the soft social science of his assertions. And scholarly looking formulae copied from various authors.
Get dirty in the lab Kristian if you want to be convincing; if not keep asserting stuff. Norman, Prof. Tyndall, even David “burnt finger” A. et.al. here are pointing the way to the lab door.
“You know that you cant add fluxes the way he does. Hes not conserving the energy any more than I do. Only I do it CORRECTLY while hes mixing up separate heat transfers … ”
1) I could be nit-picky and say that you can’t add heats the way you do! There is a (356-333) = ~ 23 W/m^2 heat from the surface to the atmosphere and a separate ~ 40 W/m^2 heat from the surface to space. There is not a single ~ 63 W/m^2 transfer.
The point is that people can always be more accurate (either with words or with experiments or with theories), but often it is not worth the effort. There is a saying “don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’.” The idea that we might “clear up the mess once and for all” is ‘perfect’ speaking and getting in the way of ‘good’.
2) You better both be conserving energy! Conservation of Energy is one of the most fundamental guiding principles of modern science. If you aren’t conserving energy, you are doing something wrong (or discovering some entirely new science).
You are both “good”; you are neither “perfect”.
Psuedo-scientists always confuse the terms “heat”, “energy”, and “temperature”. They have precise meanings in the world of physics.
But physicists are human too, and they often use the word “heat” when they mean “energy” or “energy transfer,” because that’s the way “heat” is used colloquially.
Examples:
the heat equation
heat capacity
specific heat
ocean heat content
Tim Fokerts…”Conservation of Energy is one of the most fundamental guiding principles of modern science”.
The 1st law of thermodynamics is about conservation of energy. Carnot used it with heat engines and claimed there were no losses in a heat engine. Clausius disagreed and developed the 2nd law.
One complaint of the 1st law was that under certain circumstances it allows perpetual motion. The 2nd law was designed to plug that loophole.
Your claim that back radiation can warm the surface is one of those loopholes that were plugged. It’s positive feedback and it’s not allowed in the atmosphere. It’s scientifically illogical for ACO2 to capture a tiny amount of surface IR flux, after losses, then back-radiate an even tinier amount to the surface so as to warm it.
I don’t begin to understand why you can’t see that. You seem so locked into the math that you cannot stand back from it and look at the reality the equations are trying to describe.
Tim Folkerts says, April 12, 2017 at 12:43 PM:
Don’t be stupid, Tim. You know what I mean. Yes, and the radiant, the conductive and the evaporative heat losses are also “separate heats”. But they’re all heat LOSSES, Q_out. The solar input is a heat GAIN, Q_in. You KNOW that’s what I mean.
So stop pretending you don’t.
And stop giving Norman a free pass on this subject. You could make a difference here, you know that. He might listen to you. Eventually. He won’t listen to me if his life depended on it. Right now you’re doing him a disservice by allowing him, in fact encouraging him, to simply perpetuate his own confusion.
Kristian
YOU: “And stop giving Norman a free pass on this subject. You could make a difference here, you know that. He might listen to you. Eventually. He wont listen to me if his life depended on it. Right now youre doing him a disservice by allowing him, in fact encouraging him, to simply perpetuate his own confusion”
I have already asked you to do simple experiments to prove my view incorrect. It is not that I am not listening to you, it is that I have done tests and explained the results that contradicts what you post. You have provided nothing to determine your view is a correct one.
I have empirical evidence that the atmosphere does indeed emit energy to the Earth’s surface. It agrees with Tyndall’s testing of heated gases and also with Hottel’s testing. Two experimentalists have already demonstrated that gases in the atmosphere emit energy and empirical testing demonstrates it is moving down from the atmosphere and to the Earth’s surface where there is currently no experimental evidence to support any claim that it is then not absrobed by the Earth’s surface and there is not a valid test or experiment you have done to demonstrate any of this not taking place.
Here is empirical evidence contradicting what you state. I would not know why Tim Folkerts would go against actual measurements which you have no contradictory ones. You claim the devices do not measure a downwelling flux and I disagree with you on this only your opinion makes you think you have the right understanding.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58f036113af2a.png
“Your claim that back radiation can warm the surface is one of those loopholes that were plugged. Its positive feedback and its not allowed in the atmosphere. Its scientifically illogical for ACO2 to capture a tiny amount of surface IR flux, after losses, then back-radiate an even tinier amount to the surface so as to warm it.”
I know you *think* you have this all figured out, but you really don’t. the greenhouse effect violates neither 1LOT or 2LOT.
Start with the 1LOT. If Qin > Qout at the surface (with W=0, and let’s assume no convection or evaporation for now), then U increase –> T increases. With a steady Qin, the temperature will adjust until Qout = Qin.
If the atmosphere was transparent to IR, then Qout is radiation from the surface to the cold expanses of outer space. Since space is so cold, the surface radiates to it very efficiently. Basically the radiation leaving the surface is
Qout = (sigma)(T_surface^4)
If CO2 is added, then the surface is radiating (at least in part) to merely “cool” CO2 in the atmosphere instead of to “cold” outer space. Now the equation is something like
Qout = (sigma)(T_surface^4 – T_atm^4)
Since Qout has gotten smaller while Qin has stayed the same, there is now an imbalance and U must increase, hence the temperature of the surface must increase.
Notice there is never any heat from cold to hot. Originally there is a lot of heat from warm to cold. Then there is less heat from warm to cool. No violation of 2LOT.
Yes, Tim! You nailed it! Why can’t you always explain it simply like this? It is the ONE correct way of explaining a “greenhouse” or an “atmospheric” effect. As INSULATION. Just stick to the “reduced Q_out at any given T” explanation, and we’ll live happily ever after in glorious agreement!
Kristian
Then you would also agree that increasing GHG in the atmopshere (the quantity makes a difference since it decreases the heat out) will lead to the end result of a warmer surface?
Good. That is what the basic point is all about.
Does the amount of GHG in the atmosphere change the equilibrium temperature of the Earth’s surface?
In your other writings you have states some GHG is necessary but the quantity does not matter. what is your current understanding?
More GHG warmer surface?
Less GHG cooler surface?
Or No change once a certain amount is present?
If in both cases the solar flux to surface remains the same.
Norman says, April 14, 2017 at 5:17 AM:
Theoretically: YES.
In reality: NO.
Upthread I responded to Tim Folkerts about this exact issue:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243423
Tim Folkerts says, April 9, 2017 at 11:42 AM:
“But I do think that adding more CO2 *tends* to warm the earth by impacting the escape of IR from the earth. So if we expand from your “assuming the solar input stays unchanged” to “assuming ALL other variables remain unchanged”, then more CO2 will make the earth warmer.”
Agreed.
However, this is not what we see in the real world. There is NO empirical evidence anywhere from the real Earth system showing how an increase in CO2_atm causes T to rise. And there is NO empirical evidence whatsoever to suggest that an “enhanced GHE” is responsible for (or has even contributed to) ‘global warming’ over the last 3-5 decades.
Indeed. Just drop the “atm DWLWIR => + sfc U, T and UWLWIR” stupidity, plus learn what is actually the Q_in and Q_out for the surface of the Earth, then we can talk.
If you simply prefer to stay inside your little bubble and not even making an attempt at educating yourself on radiation and elementary thermodynamic principles, then I’m sorry, but I won’t be responding to any of comments of yours in the future, except in cases where I feel I – once more – need to point out how confused you really are.
It doesn’t appear to, no.
What I have said is that the atmosphere needs to be IR active in order for the bulk of it to be connected thermodynamically to the rest of the universe, the surface below it included, at dynamic equilibrium. Otherwise no heat would be able to flow into it, through it, and out of it in the steady state.
The “level”, however, of IR activity doesn’t matter.
I discussed this briefly, again with Folkerts, on a previous thread on this blog, starting here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/07/the-warm-earth-greenhouse-effect-or-atmospheric-pressure/#comment-218850
Tim: “With a steady Qin, the temperature will adjust until Qout = Qin. W=0.”
Let’s put some rounded energy rate numbers in joules/sec/m^2 ie. W/m^2 to this:
~Steady state surface balance (Stephens 2012) for T_surface ~289.5K: 398 out = 398 in, check.
Heh, Tim: “With CO2 addedsomething like Qout = (sigma)(T_surface^4 – T_atm^4)…temperature of surface must increase”
Yes, to 289.5K (as in Stephens) from ~255K surface balance (240in=240out) with TOA radiating from surface for your transparent atm. But what happens to X=T_atm.?
398 = (sigma)(289.5^4 X^4)
Solve for T_atm. X=~0 or possibly, if you want, X is slightly nonzero to show a slight surface imbalance of +0.6W/m^2 (+/- 17 !!) as they show.
Even so, obviously by inspection still too cold for Earth T_atm. emissivity ~0.8 looking up from surface.
There is more to this story.
Kristian: “However, this is not what we see in the real world. There is NO empirical evidence anywhere from the real Earth system showing how an increase in CO2_atm causes T to rise.”
Anywhere? No, there are selected sites instrumentation is used showing how an increase in CO2_atm causes T to rise per theory.
Many more sites use instrumentation to show how added radiation_atm. causes T to rise just like in Dr. Spencer’s water tub in its view and indicated in my Ryobi IR002 IR gun.
Kristian says:
“Everything to keep the profound and near-ubiquitous misconception in the population at large that the atmosphere somehow heats (oh, sorry, warms) the surface some more alive and thriving, isnt that right, Tim? You know it doesnt. But youre seemingly more than willing to let people keep thinking that it does, to perpetuate the IPCC myth of heating by back radiation”
You’re wrong, Kristian.
The atmosphere, like all objects, radiates energy. Some of that radiation strikes the ground. That’s what you all “backradiation.” It exists, and can be (and has been) measured:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
DA…”The atmosphere, like all objects, radiates energy. Some of that radiation strikes the ground”.
I don’t think anyone is debating that. We are arguing that IR reaching the surface does NOT raise the surface temperature.
Instead of quoting alarmists like Philipona, who is a well known uber-alarmist, how about supplying your own explanation based on your claimed degree in physics?
The 2nd law is explicit that heat cannot be transferred by its own means from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface.
Besides that it is ludicrous to claim that a tiny fraction of surface IR captured by ACO2 can be back-radiated to raise the surface temperature beyond what it is warmed by solar energy. Such a cyclical positive feedback exchange without losses is known as perpetual motion.
You seem convinced that any IR of any intensity and wavelength has to be absorbed by a body at a higher intensity and wavelength.
“The 2nd law is explicit that heat cannot be transferred by its own means from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface.”
However the 2nd law is explicit that energy can be transferred by its own means from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface since the process increases universe entropy, which is demonstrated by Dr. Spencer’s test using the night time atm.
Gordon Robertson says:
“We are arguing that IR reaching the surface does NOT raise the surface temperature.”
So does the IR’s energy just vanish into thin air?
Of course not.
PS: Gratuitously insulting Philipona just because you don’t like his results is cowardly.
Gordon Robertson says:
“The 2nd law is explicit that heat cannot be transferred by its own means from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface.”
That’s only for adiabatic systems. The atmosphere is nonadiabatic.
I’ve corrected you on this before:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/07/the-warm-earth-greenhouse-effect-or-atmospheric-pressure/#comment-218483
The planetary warming resulting from the greenhouse effect is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics because a planet is not a closed system.
Pierrehumbert RT 2011: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today 64, 33-38
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Gordon Robertson says:
“You seem convinced that any IR of any intensity and wavelength has to be absorbed by a body at a higher intensity and wavelength.”
Um, bodies don’t have “wavelengths” in the radiation-sense.
Maybe you meant temperature?
So then, just where do you think the incoming IR’s energy goes?
Ball4: “However the 2nd law is explicit that energy can be transferred by its own means from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface since the process increases universe entropy …
Just to be clear, the specific “energy transferred from cooler to warmer” DECREASES the entropy of the universe. However this sort of thermal transfer is always accompanied by a larger transfer of energy from warmer to cooelr which results in a larger magnitude increase in entropy.
The process of TWO-WAY transfer of thermal photons increases the entropy of the universe.
“”energy transferred from cooler to warmer” DECREASES the entropy of the universe.”
Think about that some more Tim, a photon born i.e. emitted at cirrus cloud height that makes it straight to Earth surface and dies, i.e. absorbed say in my warmer IR gun view port (or Dr. Spencer’s warmer tub of water) will increase universe entropy. That is a natural & physical occurrence, well understood in this field.
Ball4: “a photon born i.e. emitted at cirrus cloud height that makes it straight to Earth surface and dies, i.e. absorbed say in my warmer IR gun view port (or Dr. Spencers warmer tub of water) will increase universe entropy. “
No. Entropy will decrease.
Classically, entropy is Delta(S) = Q/T. So for example, if a net flow of 400 J of energy moved from a 400K region to a 200 K, there would be a decrease of -400J/400K = -1 J/K of entropy and an increase of +400J/200K = +2 J/K of entropy.
Entropy increases when a warm object cools and a cool object warms. Entropy decreases when a cool object warms and a warm object cools.
In modern statistical mechanics, you need to talk microstates and macrostates to figure out entropy. Basically, the universe tends toward a more likely configuration. Individual interactions (like a photons moving from cold to hot) can and do occur, but these serve to make the universe more ordered and hence they lower entropy. However, it is more probable for a photon to go the other wya and increase entropy. At a macroscopic level, this always means a net flow from hot to cold and a net increase in entropy.
“No. Entropy will decrease.”
Then Tim will break Prof. Clausius’ heart after all these years, Rudolf thought he had something on entropy.
Spontaneous emission of a photon from an object (the water ice or gas molecule in the cirrus cloud object) decreasing the cloud’s internal KE, is well, spontaneous, nothing forced it. Universe entropy HAS to increase or Clausius will be proven wrong. Radiation does indeed possess entropy though it possesses no T so your formula is N.A. Radiation possesses polarization and from that science has developed entropy of radiation.
If you want to discuss more advanced subjects, I will get my Brousseau down off the extended shelf, it is a little dusty. I will need to brush up. Generally, though where that will go is skylight is never 100% polarized in any direction so there is way more to this story of skylight polarization. All the reasons for the departure from 100% are variations on the same theme: universe entropy increases as real processes are irreversible.
I am thinking (given your formula) that your intuition is from an object forced to cool as in your refrigerator freezer, that its entropy decreases, like as ice is formed from water, entropy decreases. Of course, you know, the refrigerator is powered (not spontaneous) in order to cause this entropy decrease, overall increasing net universe entropy.
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471143022.html
Tim Folkerts says:
“YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT!”
Thank you.
Roy, I wish you would solve the mystery of the units for the “Trend” line on your tlt data file. I’m guessing deg C /decade but would like you to indicate that somewhere, or else I shall continue to nag you.
I suspect UAH assumes that anyone interested in their time series is sophisticated enough to inherently understand the units.
pochas94…”I wish you would solve the mystery of the units for the Trend line on your tlt data file”.
How can you have a trend line in a data file?
If you are referring to a graph with a trend line would you care to supply a link?
See “Trend” near the bottom left of UAH data files.
Tim Folkerts
Thank you for taking the time to get in the middle of the debate Kristian and I are having about radiant heat transfer.
YOU gave this in a post above: “Both your method (using formal definitions from thermodynamics) and Normans method (using basic concepts of energy) give the same answer. Both are based on the principle of conservation of energy. They are just arranging (and naming) the terms in different ways. Basically it is how you want to arrange the parentheses.
Heat_in = 161 + (333-396) 80 17 = 1
Energy_in = (161 + 333) -396 80 17 = 1”
I understand both methods. But I think the disagreement is far deeper than how you arrange the numbers.
From reading your posts I am assuming you accept the GHE that GHG in the atmosphere create a downwelling IR that enables the surface to reach a higher equilibrium temperature than without such gases present. Is this a correct view of your understanding?
Tim Folkerts
Here is what Kristian stated in a post above: “Weve been through this thought experiment before, havent we, Norman?
The atmosphere needs to be IR active in order for it to connect thermodynamically with the rest of the universe, including the surface below and space outside, in the steady state. It needs to be IR active for heat to flow through it in the steady state. Thats why an atmosphere needs to be IR active.
However, it is the MASS of the IR-active atmosphere that causes the thermal enhancement effect on the surface. Simply by being warmer than space.
The surface will NOT become warmer from simply increasing the amount of IR-active gases in the atmosphere. Theoretically it could happen. But theres a ton of empirical evidence, both from Earth itself and from other planets in the solar system, to tell us it simply doesnt work that way in the real world.”
Kristian does not seem to think GHG’s do much but connect the atmosphere with the rest of the universe. Maybe you could explain his idea in your terms. I seem to be able to understand you better than I can understand his points.
Norman…”It needs to be IR active for heat to flow through it in the steady state. Thats why an atmosphere needs to be IR active”.
Heat can be transferred through the atmosphere by conduction and convection. N2 and O2 make up nearly 99% of the mass of the atmosphere. Neither is IR active in the temperature range of the surface. However, both can conduct heat from the surface then transfer it high into the atmosphere via convection.
En route, heat can be transferred molecule to molecule via collision.
Cumulonimbus can have peak altitudes between 40,000 and 70,000 feet. What’s to stop N2 or O2 radiating to space directly from such a cloud? If the temperature differential is great enough both molecules will radiate freely.
Please don’t tell me N2 or O2 at 40,000 feet are incapable of radiating energy to reach thermal equilibrium.
Every atom and molecule is capable of radiating EM to cool.
Gordon Robertson
Have you ever used this tool? Hitran database.
If you do you will see O2 and N2 emit at about 100 billion to a trillion times less IR than CO2 depending on how you read the graph.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/db_intensity.php
Gordon Robertson
You will have to click on “plot” to see the graphs.
Gordon Robertson
I will see if my plotted graphs come through on links.
This one would be for our atmosphere up to 7 km.
It shows water vapor at about 1 million or so times more active than nitrogen or oxygen. I am not sure how to completely interpret the data as not only are CO2 and H2O lines much more intense, they cover a much greater part of the IR band so it could be even much greater than 1 million (which would put N2 and O2 contributing maybe 0.0034 W/m^2 to downwelling IR)
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/plots/guest619308617.png
No water vapor and atmosphere.
http://www.spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/plots/guest2102602769.png
Gordon Robertson says:
“Heat can be transferred through the atmosphere by conduction and convection.”
You left out radiation.
I’m curious, Gordon: how do you think the Sun heats the Earth? It’s clearly not via conduction or convection….
Gordon says: “Please dont tell me N2 or O2 at 40,000 feet are incapable of radiating ”
OK, I’ll let a bloke named Gordon tell you. “Neither [N2, O2] is IR active in the temperature range of the surface. ”
At the temperature of the atmosphere, nearly all the possible radiation is IR. Since N2 & O2 are not IR active, they can only radiate extremely weakly outside the IR range. Even the tiny bit of IR-active CO2 in the atmosphere radiates FAR better than all the N2 & O2.
Tim Folkerts
In your calculations:
Heat_in = 161 + (333-396)-80 -17 = 1
Energy_in = (161 + 333) -396 80 17 = 1
If in either one you take the value you have for the downwelling IR of 333 W/m^2 you get the same result but a much colder surface.
Removing the 333
Heat_in = 161 + (0-396) – 80 -17 -1 = -333
Energy_in = (161 +0) – 396 – 80 -17 -1 = -333
Same value but a lot more energy leaving the system.
Granted if you remove GHG your solar input will go up to 240 (no clouds, on IR absorbtion on the way down, only reflection from albedo effects). Also with no GHG you would not have a -80 evaporation loss and I am not certain about how the thermal loss would respond.
Kristian does not accept a GHE from backradiation. So our different views are fundamental and both cannot be correct. How you arrange the fluxes is only a small part of the disagreement. He believes (most strongly) that if downwelling IR caused a warmer surface that would violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics so it is not possible. It then is the mass of the atmosphere that causes the warmer surface.
Kristian
YOUR comment above YOU: “But this all seems fine to you. Maybe Im old-fashioned. In this era of postmodern science where everyones entitled both to their own opinions AND their own facts, who are we to tell them theyre wrong, right? He FEELS hes correct in his belief. So why take that joy away from him. Right? Someone said hard sciences? Ooh, that sounds so strict and cold. Cant have that, can we?”
I would say this applies completely to you. I think you are mirroring your own philosophy. You will not do any experiments or tests but rely completely on your own understanding of material you have read. I don’t care if I am right or wrong. If you say I am wrong do so with experiment and evidence. I have done tests with FLIR camera that certainly points out your views are wrong and I describe the tests. I have done hot plate experiments. I don’t mind doing any experiment or test within my abilities. I am not frightened to be proven wrong. I like science as a pursuit of truth and I am willing to be wrong, but not because you repeat it in numerous posts. Give me experimental evidence.
+1
Agree, big red arrow and circle +1, go Norman!
Kristian
Here is an experiment you could do in your kitchen that does not even involve radiant heat transfer. Just energy exchange and how the surrounding environment will lead to a higher temperature.
Turn on an oven burner so it gets fairly hot. Get a high temperature cooking thermometer and put it on the burner. Now put a pot of ice water on the burner and after a minute or so measure the temperature (get it before the ice melts and the water heats as that is not what I am getting at).
Now take a hot pot of water and do the same thing and with the burner in identical setting (same energy flow through the burner) see if the thermometer reads at a higher temperature. If it does it clearly indicates that even with a colder temperature the hot water is able to cause a higher temperature for the burner than the pot of ice water.
What is happening? The molecules in either surface (burner or pot) are not free to move but remain in place and the rate of vibration determines the surface temperature. When the rapidly moving burner molecules hit the slower moving ice water pot surface molecules, the burner molecules receive less energy in their collisions with the cold pot molecules than the hot pot molecules, so when they transfer energy into the internal, they transfer less energy and the surface will be cooler.
Please do this simple test and prove I am wrong or quit saying I am. I predict the thermometer on the burner with ice water will read a lower temperature than when the burner has a pot of hot water on it.
If they stay the same temperature I will then accept your point I am wrong and continue my studies until I get things right.
Kristian…quote from Zemansky…”This energy, whose transfer between the system and its surroundings () has taken place only by virtue of the temperature difference between the system and its surroundings, is what we have previously called heat”.
I am seeing the problem. Clausius described heat as the kinetic energy of atoms. He even went into some atomic theory about the relationship between the work done by atoms as they vibrate and the heat equivalent.
Clausius concluded that atomic theory is not required to deal with heat transfer at a macro level. In fact, his equations deal with mainly work and heat. Zemansky should have made that clear.
In the macro world, it is not necessary to know anything about the reality of heat, that is left to statistical mechanics. However, when we want to know how heat is related to infrared energy at the atomic level we need to distinguish between heat and IR.
Zemansky’s definition is far too narrow. He does not allow for heat transfer in a solid like an iron rod. It is known that heat is transferred through iron by valence electrons in atoms. Of course, it is driven by a temperature gradient but we have to look even deeper than that.
There is no such physical phenomena as temperature. It’s an invention of the human mind. We defined temperatures around the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water. Temperature was developed as a tool to measure the relative levels of heat.
The phenomena is a difference in the levels of thermal energy. So, heat is real, it is energy.
This is very simple, Gordon.
The “heat” that you are talking about is what in Thermodynamics is properly called the “internal energy” of the system. It’s the U in the 1st Law.
The standard thermodynamic definition of “heat” is the energy transferred to and/or from the system by virtue of the temperature difference between the system and its surroundings. That’s the Q in the 1st Law.
You should pay attention to what Zemansky points out. It is crucial to the understanding of thermodynamic states and processes and the very reason why it only confuses matters talking about the “heat” inside a body:
“It would be just as incorrect to refer to the “heat in a body” as it would be to speak of the “work in a body.” The performance of work and the flow of heat are methods whereby the internal energy of a system is changed. It is impossible to separate or divide the internal energy into a mechanical and a thermal part.”
It doesn’t matter if the ‘thermal transfer’ of energy [Q] is by way of conduction, convection or radiation, Gordon. “Heat” is just what it’s defined to be: A spontaneous transfer of energy due simply to a difference in temperatures. A “heat transfer”.
IR isn’t in and of itself “heat”, that’s very true. But no one is claiming that it is. At least not me, nor Zemansky. Just read the definition of “heat” until you get what it actually means … KE is not “heat” either. IR is IR. KE is KE. U and Q and W are different entities altogether.
Kristian says: “It doesnt matter if the thermal transfer of energy [Q] is by way of conduction, convection or radiation … “ but then says a few sentences later “IR isnt in and of itself heat … “
What do you think “radiation” is if not the thermal IR exchanged between two objects? You did in fact just claim (correctly) that the thermal IR radiation *is* “heat” as used in classical thermodynamics.
[Now you could also have an IR laser, in which case the IR is not thermal radiation and hence not “heat”, but that is a completely different case.]
Tim Folkerts says, April 13, 2017 at 11:21 AM:
In one sense, you’re right, Tim. If you stick to the notion that a thermal radiative transfer between two regions at different temperatures is a spontaneous UNIdirectional macroscopic process, like I do, then the IR (energy) transferred will be equal simply to “radiant heat”. The IR you thermally DETECT will always be the radiant heat, true.
However, MICROscopically, the individual IR energy quanta (the photons) inside the thermal radiation field will still NOT be “heat” in and of themselves. It is only the probabilistic average of ALL the photon movements (directions and frequencies) at each and every point of the 3D radiation field that makes up the radiant heat. The NET movement of radiant energy through the field. So is a single lw photon IR?
If you go by the BIdirectional model, though, the radiant heat is only the “net LW” or “net SW”. DWLWIR is IR, isn’t it? But does it constitute HEAT? UWLWIR is IR. But does it constitute heat? What about TSI? The radiation from the Sun. UV, visible light, near and far infrared. But is it heat? Is TSI radiant heat from the Sun?
My, what an inquisitve Kristian today.
“So is a single lw photon IR?”
Only if the photon’s hf energy has the f of the lw IR band then yes.
“..the radiant heat is only the “net LW” or “net SW”. DWLWIR is IR, isnt it?”
No, there is no KE in net LW or net SW. There is radiant energy hf in both LW and SW EMR which possesses polarization, momentum and energy, no mass (so far as has been measured to date) thus no KE. Yes, DWLWIR photons are considered to have hf in lw IR bands.
“But does (UWLWIR) constitute heat?”
No, UWLWIR does not possess KE, does not constitute heat.
“But is (radiation from the Sun. UV, visible light, near and far infrared) heat?”
No solar radiation does not possess KE either, does not constitute heat.
“Is TSI radiant heat from the Sun?”
No, TSI is radiant energy, each photon with energy hf, no KE, no heat.
The colloquial (Appell term) (and dictionary) definition of “heat” is the energy transferred to and/or from the system by virtue of the temperature difference between the system and its surroundings.
The problem, of course in science, is that means a mythical entity not in a body can then transfer paranormally from that body and then the same entity will not be in another body. This is not science, can’t test for it.
Use heat term at real cocktail parties, many will not notice, watch for few rolled eyes: “My coffee has a lot of heat in it. My taco sure has some heat. That pitcher can throw heat. My slice of hot pie has a lot of heat, it burnt my finger!”
Use Clausius thermodynamic definition of heat at science parties to avoid embarrassment from writing nonsense: “a motion of the particles (in a body) does exist, and that heat is a measure of their kinetic energy.” And my Prof. p. 73 (a dog eared page) “…a body never contains heat.” A body does contain KE, the particles have motion relative to cg of that body, the KE can transfer without magic.
Though of course “you” may want to comment nonsense like Flynn et. al. to try draw attention and be entertaining at cocktail and even science parties when, of course, heat is all about “you”.
Gordon: “driven by a temperature gradient, If the temperature differential is great enough, as the kinetic energy of atoms rises that temperature increases”
G&T, Gordon’s favorite authors: “an average surface temperature of a planet, where T is the temperature, rho the mass density, and Cv the isochoric specific heat.”
Gordon earns first prize for the most self contradictions in comments when the top post is all about the physical phenomena of measured temperature:
“There is no such physical phenomena as temperature.”
Kristian says: “It [heat] is only the probabilistic average of ALL the photon movements … “
This is a thoughtful answer. Classical thermodynamics is all about averages. The net result of the photons is “radiant heat”, just like the net result of collisions is “conductive heat”.
Ball, you’re also not going to get very far by claiming radiation doesn’t have kinetic energy. KE is *all* a photon has, and it’s equal to hf.
But physicists commonly do not use the term “kinetic energy” when discussing EM waves or photons; they just call it energy. An EM wave or photon is about the simplest form of energy transfer there is.
You still seem hung up on the word “kinetic energy” as the only possible way to explain heat. That’s too strict. Objects with zero mass certainly have energy; since they travel at the speed of light, it’s obviously “kinetic” energy too. It’s so obvious no one even uses the word kinetic when discussing mass zero objects.
It gets absurd when saying a cake just out of the oven has no heat in it, or that the atmosphere doesn’t. That’s when nonscientific people roll their eyes at the nerds, and rightly so.
By the way, in general relativity (where gravitions are also expected to be massless), there is indeed energy in spacetime itself, and it’s not radiant energy. there’s also radiant energy — gravitational waves. For that matter, there’s also nonradiant energy in the standard QED vacuum.
“Ball, you’re also not going to get very far by claiming radiation doesnt have kinetic energy. KE is *all* a photon has, and its equal to hf.”
hf is energy of light David, EM radiation; KE is the energy of mass with a velocity in the frame. No velocity in the frame, no KE in that frame.
Show me an authority that writes photons possess KE traceable to test, I will be interested to discuss. You won’t be able as no test has ever shown photons possess mass. The mass of the photon often is said to be identically zero. But given the near impossibility of measuring zero in the face of inevitable errors and uncertainties, it would be more correct to say that the upper limit of the photon mass keeps decreasing, its present value last I looked being about 10^-24 times the mass of the electron.
It might bother you that a photon can possess momentum because you are stuck on mass * v, sometimes that is true, sometimes not. Momentum is a property complete in itself, not always m*v.
“..there is indeed energy in spacetime itself, and it’s not radiant energy.”
I will buy that, there is no perfect vacuum, energy can pop out spontaneously, well sort of – check the details. The theory behind Hawking Radiation and eventual evaporation of black holes is the place to go for those details. Every thing radiates even black holes have a temperature, below CMB 2.7K now, so they absorb more than radiate at the moment. When that reverses eventually, and the CMB is less than BH T they will start to evaporate.
It is has been absurd in science to think there is an entity called heat in an object that could be poured out (transferred) since the mid-1850s David, despite your valiant efforts to go backwards and give heat corporeal existence by sticking a finger in hot pies, heat does not exist in an object, KE of the constituent particles about the pie cg, does exist.
Ball4: “It is has been absurd in science to think there is an entity called heat in an object that could be poured out (transferred) since the mid-1850s David, despite your valiant efforts to go backwards and give heat corporeal existence “
The thing is, no one is espousing such a view here. Heat is does not have corporeal existence — you can not collect a bucket of “heat”. As near as I can tell, no one has said anything even remotely like this.
Similarly, there is no corporeal existence of potential energy. Nor kinetic energy. Nor chemical energy. Energy — in whatever form — is an abstract concept used by humans to try to make sense of the universe.
In particular, “conservation of energy” is a powerful idea. When abstract, non-corporeal energy in one region of the universe decreases, the abstract, non-corporeal energy transfers across the boundary of the region and an equal amount of abstract, non-corporeal energy is added to the other region. The abstract, non-corporeal amount of energy transferred (specifically due to temperature differences) is called “heat”.
Ball4 says:
“It might bother you that a photon can possess momentum because you are stuck on mass * v, sometimes that is true, sometimes not. Momentum is a property complete in itself, not always m*v.”
It doesn’t bother me at all. A photon’s momentum equals its energy (with c=1).
—
“Kinetic” means motion — kinetic energy is the energy of motion. It’s not defined by mass, but since photons don’t have mass the phrase “kinetic energy” and “energy” are the same, so no one uses the first. But it’s certainly energy of motion.
“No velocity in the frame, no KE in that frame.”
Photons certainly have a velocity.
—
I don’t see why you’re being so pedantic about this, or what it gains.
Momentum is not energy David, geez. Momentum has units m*v, energy has units m*v^2. You cannot set c=1 in SI units, c is a constant of nature.
There is nothing pedantic in correctly understanding thermodynamics, rather it is profound physics. Sticking your finger in a pie to measure heat is pedantic. The gain is an understanding of nature.
Tim 3:51pm, rationally kinetic energy can be measured, is tangible (hit your thumb with a hammer), PE can be measured (mgh), chemical energy can be measured, light energy hf is measurable, light momentum is measurable, I cannot think of an energy that cannot be measured. I disagree that energy is abstract.
Your bucket of heat is immeasurable, hypothetical, abstract, intangible – can be any amount you want and I agree no one here other than you have claimed a bucket of heat, they have claimed various other containers of heat (pies, cakes, objects, bodies, atm., Earth surface, so forth.)
Consider two ways of making a point about near adiabatic combustion of hydrogen in oxygen: 1) the temperature is higher following combustion; 2) heat is released.
The first 1) is concrete, tangible, rational, a measurement that can be directly made by thermometer. The second 2) IS abstract invoking a hypothetical, mythical entity that can at best be inferred indirectly only from temperature measurements. That’s word jazz not a physical explanation.
“The abstract, non-corporeal amount of energy transferred (specifically due to temperature differences) is called “heat”.
The concrete, physical, tangible, thermometer measured amount of energy transferred is called the amount of energy transferred. No myth invoked. Rationally, constituent KE exists in one container, can transfer to & then be in another container. No myths needed.
Ball4 says:
“Momentum is not energy David, geez. Momentum has units m*v, energy has units m*v^2. You cannot set c=1 in SI units, c is a constant of nature.”
Physicists, especially theorists, commonly use units where c=hbar=G=k=1.
It makes for much simpler equations.
Then, for a photon, p=E.
Ball4 says:
“Sticking your finger in a pie to measure heat is pedantic.”
Claiming that there is no heat in the pie is indeed pedantic, and unnecessary.
What does it gain you?
Ball4 says:
“You cannot set c=1 in SI units, c is a constant of nature.”
Of course you can.
Every time you say it takes you 40 minutes to drive, say, 20 miles, you are using units where
40 minutes = 20 miles
or
2 minutes/mile = 1
or
1 minute/mile = 1/2
It’s the same with the speed of light. Or hbar or G or k (Boltzmann’s constant).
Especially k. It is a useless constant as far as physics is concerned — it accompanies every temperature T is every equation. G’s can always be subsumed into the mass term, and hbar gets you nothing, really — it just sets the scale of the quantum world.
Like I wrote, these equalities are all routinely done in advanced physics classes and papers.
Ball4 says:
“It is has been absurd in science to think there is an entity called heat in an object that could be poured out (transferred) since the mid-1850s David”
From this past week’s Science magazine:
“Does space heat up when you accelerate? Physicists propose test of controversial idea,” Science 4/14/17.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/does-space-heat-when-you-accelerate-physicists-propose-test-controversial-idea?utm_campaign=news_weekly_2017-04-14&et_rid=17044375&et_cid=1274349
David: “Claiming that there is no heat in the pie is indeed pedantic, and unnecessary. What does it gain you?”
The gain is advancing out of the 1800s in ones understanding of the nature of thermodynamic internal energy.
The use of heat term in those earlier days had some successes and hence does deserve a bit of respect. Bodies were said to be heated because of the passage of a mythical entity called heat from one to another. Just like slide rules were once the only means for fairly rapid division.
Now that we have cheap hand calculators and computers we dont use slide rules. Slide rules had their day, advances in understanding of nature buried slide rules, with full honors.
It is the same with 1800s mythical heat, yet many modern textbooks officially acknowledge the death of mythical heat (my Prof. writes: “…a body does not contain heat”), they then try to breathe life into the myth of heat in fantastical ways.
Moral of the story: Just use modern science energy term and you will automatically avoid all the fantasy pitfalls David, no kidding.
Ok, if I am correct I ought to find some fantastical uses of heat in David’s linked article. Search the article for “heat”. 5 hits.
“Does space heat up?”
Fantasy. Space does not have a temperature, it has no KE, the matter inhabiting space has KE, can have a temperature.
“To see the vacuum heat to 1 K.”
Pure fantasy.
“…the fog of photons in the accelerated frame heats up the electrons..”
Fantasy. While electrons have mass, thus energy, an electron does not have a temperature, an electron cannot be heated.
In reality of thermodynamic internal energy, a molecule can absorb a quantum of photon energy ~kT and thereby get its electronic energy level kicked up a quantum amount. While the writer undoubtedly knows this, he chooses fantasy to communicate to MSM. Now just think how many young readers have been misled by this fantasy.
A curious young person will have to unlearn this fantasy first in order to advance in understanding thermodynamic internal energy. You know, as is demonstrated around here much of the time.
“..using units where 40 minutes = 20 miles..”
Fantasy.
Stick to SI units in which c is a natural fundamental constant David. Planck function deserves a lot of respect, contains 3 fundamental constants of nature. In Planck’s CGS, SI, whatever.
I’d be interested in David showing an example of a paper where 40 minutes = 20 miles. Wherein apples are oranges. One of the tests I do upon first read is look for consistent units which are easy to check.
Ball4 says:
“Does space heat up?
Fantasy. Space does not have a temperature”
You’ve never heard of the cosmic microwave background???
Its temperature is 2.73 K.
https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html
Ball4 says:
“Fantasy.”
It’s done every single day by professional physicists.
“Stick to SI units in which c is a natural fundamental constant David.”
You can always put the c and hbars back in if you want — all they do it set the scale.
“Planck function deserves a lot of respect,”
The Planck function is still the same!! It just looks a lot simpler with no loss of understanding — the exponential becomes 2*pi*nu/T = 2*pi/lambda*T.
If you want to calculate something, you put the units back in (by simple dimensional analysis), but for talking about the theory the units aren’t needed.
“Id be interested in David showing an example of a paper where 40 minutes = 20 miles.”
Every time you say it takes you “an hour” to drive somewhere, you are setting a velocity equal to one.
“One of the tests I do upon first read is look for consistent units which are easy to check.”
My units (c=1 etc) make it *much* easier to do this, since all quantities have units of mass or its inverse. Very easy to check equations.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units
c=hbar=G=k=1 are called “Planck units.” Other choices are possible, as that link shows.
Correction:
I wrote:
“Every time you say it takes you an hour to drive somewhere, you are setting a velocity equal to one.”
I should have written,
“every time you say it’s an hour from here to there, you’re setting some speed equal to one.”
David asks incredulously: “You’ve never heard of the cosmic microwave background???”
I have heard of the CMB which has even been measured, very precisely David! Think about the use of the word microwave some more. They dont use the cosmic vacuum background temperature for a physical reason.
“Its temperature is 2.73 K.”
The CMB brightness temperature is ~2.7K David. Think about the type of instrument that measures the CMB. Is it thermometer or radiometer calibrated in SI units not natural units? Can either measure temperature of a vacuum as your link stated?
“but for talking about the theory the units aren’t needed.”
Why did David use 2.7K, not the unit temperature? David needed to use an SI unit for clarity.
David’s wiki link even tells David: “(Natural units) may entail a loss of clarity due to the loss of information for dimensional analysis…SI units are designed to be used in precision measurements. ”
Link a paper or text wholly using natural units David, your claim was “routinely done in advanced physics classes and papers.”
I am just curious Ball4 … what is your opinion on “work”? The typical description of work is something like this:
An object does not contain “work”. But an object an do work by pushing on something. For example, a piston of compresses gas can push on some other object, thereby losing internal energy from the gas in the piston. In your opinion, is “work” mythical (the way you think “heat” is mythical) because people are claiming that work “came from the piston” even though there was no “work within the piston”?
The wording is exactly parallel to your discussions of “heat”. To be logically consistent, you must either accept both “heat” and “work”, or you must reject both “heat” and work”.
“is “work” mythical (the way you think “heat” is mythical) because people are claiming that work “came from the piston” even though there was no “work within the piston”?
No.
Work has never had the mythical proportions of heat attached to it Tim, because folks find it easy to observe, understand the motion in piston f*d. Because of that motion over a distance inherent to work, papers were written well before Clausius 1857 which actually begins with ref. to a previous paper “in which heat is assumed to be a motion.” They really didn’t know what else to write at the time, so Clausius put it right in the title “The Nature of the Motion which we call Heat”. There had to be a motion somewhere.
For over 160 years now, this has been the dogma faithfully passed on by even those who forcibly argue, like my Prof. wrote, that there is no such thing as the amount of heat in a body. The new readers have to deal with this strange and subtle alchemy in that which does not exist (heat) is transformed into that which does (motion).
This leads to all sorts of errors in explaining nature with the myth of heat. Especially around the science of an atm. Poor little innocent backradiation has been attacked unfairly and sent to jail for life without parole, says it all.
Free backradiation! Jail heat!
Ball4,
You wrote:
“Space does not have a temperature”
but it does (2.7 K), since space is not a vacuum.
“Why did David use 2.7K, not the unit temperature?”
Because we’re talking about measured numbers, not just theory.
David, you aren’t catching the science, the near vacuum of space has no temperature, the matter within does. The CMB has a brightness temperature of 2.7K which you used instead of unit temperature. Why not use a natural unit?
Ball4 wrote:
“Link a paper or text wholly using natural units David, your claim was routinely done in advanced physics classes and papers.”
“General relativity explains gravity as the curvature of spacetime. Its all about geometry. The basic equation of general relativity is called Einsteins equation. In units where c = 8πG = 1, it says….”
https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0103044.pdf
-=-=-
“Let us work in units where c = 1.”
https://arxiv.org/vc/physics/papers/0207/0207047v2.pdf
-=-=-
“…while E2 = m2 + p2 reminds us of the relativistic energy formula in units where c = 1.”
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.00301.pdf
Ok, David, thanks. I am going to stick to SI units in atm. science where relevant speeds are not relativistic & general theory of relativity reduces to Newton’s where energy is conserved along with linear, angular momentum in common units instead of mapping to a coordinate system in which:
“energy conservation arises from time translation invariance, linear momentum conservation comes from space translation invariance, and angular momentum conservation is a consequence of space rotation invariance.”
I will leave all that to you. I notice energy is still different than momentum in that world even when the units are chosen so c=1 which is where this discussion started when you claimed they were the same. Apparently you are behind in reading.
I know very well how to calculate the numbers by putting the constants back in.
But not knowing that momentum = energy for a massless particle reduces your understanding of the physics.
In any case, I made it clear that many physicists set the fundamental constants equal to one.
Those are David’s words not mine, what I wrote is a photon does not possess kinetic energy, a photon does possess energy hf, momentum and polarization.
Of course, all of a photon’s energy is kinetic.
No, David, you aren’t going to succeed in giving a photon any mass, kinetic energy is mass motion relative to observer, photon’s have no mass thus possess no kinetic energy, just hf.
Ok, if you think so, show a ref. pointing out photons possess mass, thus possess KE, not just hf.
Kristian…”The standard thermodynamic definition of heat is the energy transferred to and/or from the system by virtue of the temperature difference between the system and its surroundings. Thats the Q in the 1st Law”.
Kristian…I don’t have an argument with that reasoning because classical thermodynamics is not concerned with what heat really is at the atomic level. That definition will suffice.
However, when you start dealing with IR and the relation of IR to the atom, you need to be far more specific. You can’t talk about changing the thermal energy in an atom and have heat be an abstraction.
If you consider the Earth’s surface as 15C on average, for argument’s sake, why does it have such a temperature? We have generally agreed in this blog that short wave solar energy heats the surface and it obviously leaves something behind.
Now take a body, maybe an iron cannonball and sit it a foot above the surface on an insulator. Heat it with an acetylene torch till it is 100 C then remove the torch. What is the physical difference now between the ball and the surface?
If you touch the ball with your fingers it will burn you and you might say, “Wow, that’s hot”. Hot refers to heat.
At an atomic level, the atoms in the ball are vibrating furiously, doing work as they vibrate. Work and heat are equivalent and that vibrating also represents the average kinetic energy of the vibrating atoms.
The energy associated with the vibration is heat, it is thermal energy. We don’t care what heat is exchanged with the environment we are concerned only with the temperature of the ball. It has a larger quantity of thermal energy than the surface a foot below it where the atoms are vibrating far less furiously.
Gordon Robertson says, April 16, 2017 at 2:56 AM:
HEAT isn’t anything in particular “at the atomic level”, Gordon. HEAT is just energy in transit. The energy spontaneously transferred from a cooler place to a warmer place simply as a result of the temperature difference between those two places. Energy transferred from one place to another through a THERMAL process rather than through a MECHANICAL one. Once this energy IS thermally transferred, however, then we no longer call it HEAT. We call it “internal energy”. Just like with energy transferred mechanically. Once it’s transferred we no longer call it WORK. We call it also “internal energy”. We do this for a very good reason. To avoid confusion.
Both a transfer of energy in the form of HEAT (thermally transferred) and in the form of WORK (mechanically transferred) will potentially raise the temperature of the system receiving that energy. But there is no way, once the energy actually enters the system, warming it, to distinguish between the thermally and the mechanically transferred energy. It is all just “internal energy”. That’s why we refrain from saying that a body contains HEAT. The HEAT is simply the energy when thermally transferred. Just like WORK is simply the energy when mechanically transferred. A body doesn’t contain WORK either. As you said, the two are equivalent. If there can’t be WORK in a body, then there can’t be HEAT in a body either. There can only be “internal energy”. WORK and HEAT are both process (or path) functions, while internal energy [U] is a STATE function. IOW, a body CAN and DOES contain internal energy. But it loses and gains energy to/from its surroundings via HEAT and/or WORK.
I don’t really talk about single IR photons and their “relation” to single atoms. Such interactions are not really a matter of thermodynamics. A photon doesn’t have a temperature, and neither does an electron, an atom or a molecule. Likewise, single photons do not transfer heat. Heat is a MACROscopic phenomenon, as is temperature.
Well, yes. If you touch the hot cannonball, it will spontaneously transfer some of its internal energy to your fingers in the form of heat, thus burning you. What you feel isn’t the energy INSIDE the ball. You feel the energy thermally TRANSFERRED from the ball to you. That’s the heat, my friend.
No. The energy associated with the vibration of a body’s molecules is called (molecular or microscopic) “kinetic energy” (KE). KE is not heat, Gordon. KE is KE. The molecular KE of a body makes up part of that body’s “internal energy”. The internal energy of the body also includes the body’s molecular/microscopic “potential energy”.
I’m not quite sure who you’re referring to when you say “we”, Gordon. If there’s ANYTHING “we” care about in the field of thermodynamics, it’s the energy exchanged between bodies and the environment.
Yes, because you have just heated it, as you yourself pointed out. Which means you have transferred energy to it in the form of heat, which has resulted in an increase in the ball’s internal energy (including its molecular KE) and thus its temperature.
This is all very straightforward.
When you sit next to a bonfire, you can feel it warming you. You can feel a transfer of energy from the bonfire to you making you warmer as your body absorbs that energy. Same thing with the Sun. If you go out on a sunny day and you stand in the sunlight, you will feel warm. Something is warming you. A transfer of energy from the Sun to you. As the energy thus being transferred is absorbed by your skin and body, you will warm.
Well, in both cases, Gordon, energy has been transferred to you in the form of HEAT, increasing your internal energy. And you know what? That heat was transferred to you from the bonfire and from the Sun via … RADIATION. There was a net flux of radiation moving from the bonfire and from the Sun to you, warming you upon absorp tion of that net flux. And that net flux is what we call RADIANT HEAT.
Kristian: “The energy spontaneously transferred from a cooler place to a warmer place simply as a result of the temperature difference between those two places.”
Yes, Kristian demonstrates increased understanding of thermodynamic internal energy here, obviously he’s been working at learning physically tested science unlike some commenters around here. Kristian now aligns with the learning from Dr. Spencer’s atm. test.
More progress, with more work, may come from understanding physical radiant energy is physically not radiant heat which Dr. Spencer’s test on the atm. also scientifically demonstrated.
As Dr. Spencer demonstrated by nighttime atm. test added transfer of energy Q from the additional cooler clouds when additionally absorbed by the warmer surface water resulted in increased water U overnight thus: a higher temperature.
Add Q over time with W=0 get a higher U, water delta U overnight = Q + 0
Consistent with 2LOT as universe entropy increased.
1155 comments. Most in the history of the universe. This is worse than global warming.
So what? There’s no inherent problem with a large number of comments. People are engaged.
A little research needed, see if longer comment totals, especially including certain departed of this cocktail party.
Ball4
It did not take much research. The C*o*t*t*o*n era did have more posts. I found this one with 1546 posts.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/why-summer-nighttime-temperatures-dont-fall-below-freezing/#comments
Kristian
Too hard to follow the debate on this long thread so I am going to try some down here.
YOU: “What I have said is that the atmosphere needs to be IR active in order for the bulk of it to be connected thermodynamically to the rest of the universe, the surface below it included, at dynamic equilibrium. Otherwise no heat would be able to flow into it, through it, and out of it in the steady state.
The level, however, of IR activity doesnt matter.”
On your view of reality I would like to suggest a David Appell concept. Test your idea with peer-review and see if experts in the field agree with your view. (My prediction is that they will not)
However, in order for a hypothesis to be valid it must explain observation (which yours does not).
I like to use real world data rather than endless opinion to prove a point. I do not think you look at this information but I will post it anyway.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58f1318535fc8.png
Measured downwelling IR (sensor pointed up at the sky and this is what it picks up).
Weather data for this location. Clear and dry conditions.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDRA/2016/7/27/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Desert+Rock&req_state=NV&req_statename=Nevada&reqdb.zip=89020&reqdb.magic=21&reqdb.wmo=99999
Notice the graph. The highest the IR measurement goes is 425 W/m^2 and the low point is at 355 W/m^2. The radiating air temperature is above the other location.
But what do we see?
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/surf_check.php?site=gwn&date=2016-08-02&p5=dpir
Very wet location with relative humidity at 100% at times. Much more water vapor in the air at this location (check dew point values to verify)
A low value of over 400 W/m^2 even though the air temperature is lower than the desert air. And a high point of 455 W/m^2.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KUOX/2016/8/2/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Batesville&req_state=MS&req_statename=Mississippi&reqdb.zip=38606&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=99999
This evidence invalidates your opinion that the level of GHG does not matter.
This clearly shows that the amount of GHG present changes the downwelling IR and the increase in downwelling vs upwelling will lower the heat flow away from the surface.
“This evidence invalidates your opinion that the level of GHG does not matter.”
Norman, what “evidence” are you talking about?
You are providing links to data, and then using your “opinion” to state temperature data “proves” your opinion!
That’s like saying bluebirds are blue because of AGW. Then, as proof, linking to summer temps in some major city, and saying “see”!
(But, I still find your pseudoscience hilarious.)
Norman says, April 14, 2017 at 2:48 PM:
Still, the average temperature appears to be higher at the site with the smaller amount of “GHGs” in the atmosphere and lower at the site with a larger amount of “GHGs” in the atmosphere. A circumstance which you even seem to freely admit. And which follows a pretty consistent pattern in the real Earth system: The average surface temperature in more humid, more cloudy and more rainy regions is LOWER than in drier and less cloudy regions within the same general latitude band.
So I’m not sure what your point here is, Norman. What exactly is it that you have shown?
Here’s your original point. I quote you in full:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243674
So the bone of contention is NOT whether an increase in the atmospheric IR opacity will reduce the average radiant heat loss from the surface or not. It will. The question is whether or not this reduction will necessarily force the average surface temperature to rise and end up higher at a new dynamic equilibrium.
You have not shown this to be the case. In fact, you have sort of shown the opposite.
I have written a post on this on my blog just now. So instead of expounding further my side of the argument here on this thread, especially since it would require me to link to a whole string of individual figures, which is cumbersome, I will simply link to my post over there. I hope you’ll read it, look carefully at the plots and think it all through:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/the-congo-vs-sahara-sahel-once-more/
Kristian says:
“Still, the average temperature appears to be higher at the site with the smaller amount of GHGs in the atmosphere and lower at the site with a larger amount of GHGs in the atmosphere.”
That is a grossly inaccurate description of the impact of greenhouse gases, Kristian, and if you can’t see that or can’t do better you deserve to be ignored and even ridiculed.
Kristian
If nothing else just go with the heat flow. You can clearly see that the desert surface is losing heat at a much greater rate than the moist air.
Desert air heat loss.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58f1355f5a5b5.png
Moist air heat loss.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_58f135898ed69.png
To make claims the amount of IR activity does not matter seems absurd and makes your posts far less valuable and very unlikely to be considered by experts in the field.
When the evidence does not support your claims it is is time to reevaluate those claims.
I’ve really enjoyed this thread. Kristian has impressed me but so has Appell, MF, Ball, Norman, and others.
This discussion of energy flow is interesting, so I would like to ask a question about it with a hypothetical example:
Assume a one-dimensional world with two objects in a vacuum separated by some distance. Ob1 is at 350K and Ob2 is at 200K. This would mean that IR photons are leaving Ob1 at a higher rate than Ob2, correct? When an IR photon leaves Ob2 (the cooler object) and hits Ob1, does it raise Ob1’s temperature? If it didn’t then this must mean the photon was reflected. If it was absorbed then it seems it must warm Ob1 by the amount of energy in the photon. This, of course, means a cooler object actually warmed a hotter object, if only for an instance in time.
Clearly, Ob1 is losing heat via IR towards Ob2 at a faster rate, so this means Ob1 is warming Ob2 over time. But it also seems Ob2 is actually warming Ob1 in the process. If not then why not?
It seems to me that this can be viewed as a net flux from Ob1 towards Ob2, but it can also be viewed as two separate fluxes in each direction.
Tony
TonyL, that is a great scenario, and allows great questions. The scientific answers will show AGW to be the hoax it is.
One suggestion, however.
Specify that the objects are REAL, that is, NOT “black bodies”. They should be exactly the same, both in composition and mass. They could be any two, perfectly identical, rocks that might be found in someone’s backyard.
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Specify that the objects are REAL, that is, NOT black bodies.”
Many real objects can be blackbodies. The Sun. The Earth’s atmosphere, in the infrared. Many more.
Whoever told you that was even more confused than you are!
Explain why the Sun isn’t a blackbody.
(You’re going in circles here.)
The Sun is close to a theoretical black body emitter. But to absorb all wavelengths, a body would have to be extremely close to absolute zero, 0K.
I patiently await your next effort to spin, obfuscate, hinder, confuse, deflect, and manipulate.
“But to absorb all wavelengths, a body would have to be extremely close to absolute zero, 0K.”
Why?
physics….
TonyL wrote:
“When an IR photon leaves Ob2 (the cooler object) and hits Ob1, does it raise Ob1s temperature?”
Let’s assume both objects are blackbodies.
Then, of course that impacting photon raises Ob1’s temperature, since that IR photon is energy.
If you think not, what do you think happens to that energy? Does it just disappear?
Does standing inf front of a huge block of ice cube warm you up, dufus?
Do photons leaving the earth and striking the sun warm the sun up more? Your deranged thermodynamics say yes to both.
You confuse “heat” and “energy”. Typical for pseudo-scientists.
Tony L…”Clearly, Ob1 is losing heat via IR towards Ob2 at a faster rate, so this means Ob1 is warming Ob2 over time. But it also seems Ob2 is actually warming Ob1 in the process. If not then why not? ”
When you reference heat you MUST respect the 2nd law. It states clearly that heat cannot be transferred without compensation from a cooler body to a warmer body.
I think that in itself explains your query. Obviously IR from a cooler body is not absorbed by a warmer body.
The problem comes from trying to apply blackbody theory to heat. A blackbody is a theoretical structure that absorbs all EM sent it’s way. Blackbody theory normally applies at very high temperatures like those in stellar atmospheres. There is no way you can specify CO2 in the atmosphere as a blackbody absorber or radiator.
Gordon Robertson says:
“When you reference heat you MUST respect the 2nd law. It states clearly that heat cannot be transferred without compensation from a cooler body to a warmer body.”
You keep lying about this.
Why?
00Gordon Robertson
David Appell is using current physics with his post. The things you read are made up material (Claes Johnson) about energy not being able to absorb.
The electrons do not rise to higher orbitals in production of IR. That is the visible and UV range. It takes a lot of energy to raise an electron to a higher energy orbital. IR is produced by molecular bonding vibrations. The electrons are not moving up and down orbitals in this radiation. It is a lower level energy as the electric fields are further away hence less intense and the resulting release of electromagnetic energy is a lower level. IR deals with molecular vibrational modes.
Also real objects are grey bodies and the emissivity factor is used to determine how far away the surface would be from a black body. I the emissivity is 0.99 it is very close to absorbing and emitting just as a black body surface would do.
I think you should reread a lot of Ball4’s discussion of “heat”.
The same word creates such issues. It is completely true that “heat” will not flow from a cold to hot body. It is not true to say that energy will stop flowing from a cold body to a hot one.
No Davie, Gordon is NOT lying. He is correct. It takes extra work to move heat energy from a cold body to a warm body.
It’s just that you can’t (or, don’t want to) understand thermodynamics.
(Saying that people are liars puts you in the “basement level” of pseudoscience.)
Neither you or Gordon understands the second law or what an adiabatic system is. A nonadiabatic system CAN do the work to move a net amount of heat from a cold body to a warm body.
No Davie, you are confused again. It is the “first law” that deals with work, heat, and conservation of energy, not the “second law”.
Wrong again.
Go read about the adiabatic assumption in the second law.
“The planetary warming resulting from the greenhouse effect is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics because a planet is not a closed system.”
— Pierrehumbert RT 2011: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today 64, 33-38
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Davie, you need to get away from Pierre. Get hold of a good physics book.
That’s a lame excuse, since Pierrehumbert is one of the best climate scientists in the world.
I know what the textbooks say. You should read one.
Davie, here are the first two sentences of the PH “paper” you linked to:
“In a single second, Earth absorbs 1.22 1017 joules of energy from the Sun. Distributed uniformly over the mass of the planet, the absorbed energy would raise Earths temperature to nearly 800 000 K after a billion years, if Earth had no way of getting rid of it.”
The Sun could not raise Earth to 800,000K!
Do you know why?
That’s very low — you’re trying to intentionally misinterpret what Pierrehumbert wrote, and then trying to use that misinterpretation against him.
I can see why you hide your name — if I were you I’d be ashamed too.
Riiiiiight!
PH is WRONG in his first two sentences, and it’s my fault!
Welcome to Davie’s pseudoscience!
g, you’re in no way qualified to judge RP.
You look silly even trying.
Davie,
The Sun could not raise Earth to 800,000K!
Do you know why?
@TonyL
TonyL..
[“Assume a one-dimensional world with two objects in a vacuum separated by some distance. Ob1 is at 350K and Ob2 is at 200K. This would mean that IR photons are leaving Ob1 at a higher rate than Ob2, correct? When an IR photon leaves Ob2 (the cooler object) and hits Ob1, does it raise Ob1s temperature? If it didnt then this must mean the photon was reflected. If it was absorbed then it seems it must warm Ob1 by the amount of energy in the photon. This, of course, means a cooler object actually warmed a hotter object, if only for an instance in time.
Clearly, Ob1 is losing heat via IR towards Ob2 at a faster rate, so this means Ob1 is warming Ob2 over time. But it also seems Ob2 is actually warming Ob1 in the process. If not then why not?”]
Ok, I’ll try to answer this as it is probably the most fundamental principle being applied – or more accurately misapplied – to the cAGW debate.
You asked “When an IR photon leaves Ob2 (the cooler object) and hits Ob1, does it raise Ob1s temperature?” The answer is ‘No’. However, the question should have been phrased: Do photons from Ob2 raise Ob1’s temperature?” “The answer would still be ‘No’ but the difference is important. One photon emitted from Ob2 can be of a different energy level to another single photon. So your single photon could be a low energy or high energy photon. However, and crucially, the average of the photon energies emitted by a hot object is greater than the average of photon energies from a cold object. This is why HEAT flows from hot to cold and NEVER in reverse. This is why the Sun’s radiation heats the Earth and why atmospheric CO2 cannot (unless it happens to be hotter than the receiving molecules on the Earth’s surface, which is very rare and not global).
The average of the photon energy from Ob2 will always be lower than Ob1 because Ob1 is hotter than Ob2. Hence the photons from Ob1, on average, will have greater energy/shorter wavelength/higher frequency than those of Ob2. When higher energy photons are absorbed **for thermal (internal) energy gain** by a cooler object, the cooler object warms (increases temperature if you prefer but a single molecule doesn’t possess temperature, as temperature is the average of kinetic energy of the molecules. However you can think of it as the energy required to elevate the receiving atoms to a higher energy [electron] level). When photons of lower (average) energy meet a hotter object the radiation (photons) are either reflected, transmitted or absorbed (but in this case they are absorbed for no thermal gain as they do not possess the required energy to raise the molecule’s internal energy sufficiently to enable it to emit photons which are (on average) higher energy.
Prevost’s theory (probably more of a postulation) of exchange of ‘radiant heat’ is being used by some to imply that heat flows both ways. It doesn’t. Radiation flows both ways but the radiation from a cooler object is irrelevant to the hotter object (in thermal terms).
If you were to take three potatoes and bake one in a microwave oven for ten minutes, then place it next to one of the room temperature potatoes, heat would flow from Hot to Cold and eventually both would be at the same (equilibrium) temperature with the room. If you had placed the second room temperature potato close to the hot potato (doubling the CO2 level?), then there would be more photons emitted by the two ‘cool’ potatoes (as they warm up because they are absorbing radiation for thermal energy gain) toward the hot potato but the hot potato would NEVER have gained temperature. Atmospheric CO2 cannot add to the thermal energy of Earth. Neither can it insulate the Earth (because 1, it is not an effective insulator and 2, even if it was there isn’t enough to make a measurable difference.
I hope this helps.
“I hope this helps.”
Your comment does not help Arfur, what you write is a setback to science, as you provide no testing data to support your opinion.
Dr. Spencer set up an experiment on the night atm. in 2015 proving your opinion “The answer is ‘No’.” is wrong, the actual answer is YES as shown by test thermometer. OB1 was ambient T surface water at start and OB2 was added cirrus cloud, the result for OB1 was: a higher temperature.
Believe whatever you want, Ball4, I don’t care. According to you and your interpretation of such an ‘experiment’, an old lady freezing to death in her apartment only has to introduce a wooden chair into her room and she’ll be warmer. Way to go, science!
I am not going to change your belief, so further comment on your part is nugatory. Hopefully, TonyL will at least have a fighting chance of understanding what happens in the real world.
Dr. Spencer’s test data are not a belief Arfur, they are real world atm. thermodynamics. Obviously you do not care about science.
Here you have an unrelated anecdote, hearsay, a story, even a belief OR show what happens when a wooden chair is introduced into such a room from data and proper experiment Arfur.
This will be my last comment on this to you Ball4.
You are wrong and you have misinterpreted Dr Spencer’s experiment. At no time did the temperature of the water increase.
Dr Spencer insulated the second box from heat loss by radiation by placing an aluminium sheet over it. This led to a reduction in heat loss, so that box cooled less quickly. Any 9 year-old could have told you that.
It has nothing to do with atmospheric CO2 and radiation thereof. Neither you nor Dr Spencer should compare atmospheric CO2 to a solid sheet of aluminium.
At its most basic level, science should make sense. Stating that backradiation from a cooler trace gas heats the planet makes no sense on any level.
Good day to you.
Arfur, thanks for actually looking into the test data at my prodding proving my & TonyL’s point by atm. test wherein unfortunately for your opinion the Ob1 water did exhibit a higher temperature from the added energy of the cirrus just as TonyL described.
Due the added energy from the cirrus, container Ob1 cooled less quickly as you write & it doesn’t matter what you call it, as Dr. Spencer writes, the result is the same: a higher temperature.
DA…”Then, of course that impacting photon raises Ob1s temperature, since that IR photon is energy.
If you think not, what do you think happens to that energy? Does it just disappear?”
According to Bohr, being energy is not enough in an atom. The energy needs to have a specific frequency and intensity in order to affect an electron and cause it to rise to a higher energy level.
Gordon Robertson says:
“According to Bohr, being energy is not enough in an atom. The energy needs to have a specific frequency and intensity in order to affect an electron and cause it to rise to a higher energy level.”
So answer the question — what do you think happens to the IR energy?
Davie asks: “So answer the question what do you think happens to the IR energy?”
Photons that impact a surface, where their wavelengths are too long to be absorbed, are ]reflected.
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Photons that impact a surface, where their wavelengths are too long to be absorbed, are ]reflected.”
Example?
PS: A long wavelength implies a small energy.
Example???
And you claim to have studied physics?
Davie, the fact that you can not bake a turkey with ice cubes in an example of how wavelengths that are to long are reflected.
What do you think happens to the energy (radiation) given off by the ice cubes when it reaches the turkey?
So much for your “physics” training, huh?
Wavelengths too long for the surface get reflected.
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Wavelengths too long for the surface get reflected”
What is the evidence for your claim?
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Wavelengths too long for the surface get reflected”
What does “too long for the surface” mean? Too long how?
15 microns is longer than 10 microns.
2 miles is longer than 1 mile.
(And you claim to have studied physics!)
You didn’t explain. Again, what does too long for the surface mean?
Which specific wavelengths are “too long for the surface?”
That’s why I continually refer you to physics books. This is in the realm of “quantum physics”. A particular molecule can absorb, or reflect, an incoming photon. The “decision” is based on wavelengths. If the incoming wavelength is too long for the molecule, it gets reflected.
Temperatures are important, unlike in pseudoscience.
g*e*r*a*n says:
“If the incoming wavelength is too long for the molecule, it gets reflected.”
Then why aren’t radio waves, which have very long wavelengths (from about a mm to a 100 km) reflected off EVERYTHING?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………………….?
Davie, “longwave” radio waves ARE reflected off everything. That’s why longwave radio goes around the world.
You have no knowledge of electro-magnetic wave propagation.
PS: We’re talking about blackbodies, which, by definition, absorb all energy incident upon them.
No Davie, “we” are NOT talking about black bodies. YOU are!
TonyL mentioned “objects”. In the next comment, I suggested he specify “real” objects, NOT black bodies. Then, Gordon also mentioned the fallacy of using black bodies.
So, you stumbled over your own roadblock.
Then you admit that radiation (energy) from a cooler blackbody is absorbed by a warmer blackbody.
I admit no such thing!
You are trying to “troll” out of the discussion by attempting to propose such nonsense. Your pseudoscience fails you, so you resort to “debate tricks”.
So what do you think happens to IR emitted from a cold body towards a warmer body?
Where does it go?
PS: Consider them blackbodies, since they’re simplest.
Davie, you’ve got to get away from your “training wheels”. Black bodies are teaching tools. Earth does not have objects that absorb all wavelengths of EM.
It’s time to grow up and face the real world.
Which radiation, traveling towards the Sun (a blackbody), does it not absorb? Show your evidence.
Davie, you are addicted to pseudoscience.
The Sun is NOT a “black body”. It is close to an idealized blackbody emitter, but it is NOT a blackbody absorber.
The fact that it is so close to an idealized emitter should tell you that it is an extremely poor absorber.
The Earth cannot heat the Sun.
Again, find a good physics book.
If the Sun isn’t a blackbody, explain what radiation pointed towards the Sun that the Sun does not absorb.
Davie, now you’re just floundering.
Grasping at straws.
Lost at sea.
The Sun does not absorb photons with too long a wavelength. It reflects them.
(Is that the 47th time I’ve explained that?)
Which wavelengths are “too long?”
The Sun isn’t a solid. So what does the reflecting?
What is the experimental evidence for your claim?
Davie, it doesn’t take a “solid”, it takes “mass”.
Where did you study physics? What year? Prof’s name? Is a copy of your diploma online somewhere?
Are you sure your degree wasn’t in “pizza delivery”, instead of physics?
With simple graph analysis tool I get that the temperature increase rate derived from the red line is the same if I take interval or the entire scope: About 1 deg per century. No increase of speed, but also no decline; a steady process in the last 35 years. Not afraid to put a few more pieces of wood into my stove.
That’s right — linear warming.
But feedbacks are kicking in and the warming isn’t expected to become faster-than-linear for another decade or two, although sea level rise is starting to accelerate.
PS: Your wood’s sequestered CO2 would have made it into the atmosphere anyway.
Davie?
So now the atmosphere can’t “trap heat”?
(Tangled up in your pseudoscience again, huh?)
Prove it.
Prove you are tangled up in pseudoscience?
I’m letting you do that.
(And, you’re doing a great job.)
Prove that the atmosphere can’t “trap heat.”
Say, by using the Earth’s outgoing TOA radiation.
Davie, if it takes 30-40 years for the bogus AGW to “kick-in”, then the atmosphere is not “trapping heat” very well.
You’re the one with the flawed theory. Prove that puppy!
You made a claim. Now you can’t support it. Are you retracting it, then?
Prove that the atmosphere cant trap heat.
Davie, check out the UAH temps at the start of this post.
If you can’t see heat escaping from the troposphere, then you have just had too much of the AGW koolaid.
Bohous…”With simple graph analysis tool I get that the temperature increase rate derived from the red line is the same if I take interval or the entire scope: About 1 deg per century”.
Are you talking about the red running average curve on Roy’s graph? If so, it is agreement with the IPCC announcement in 2013 that there was no warming during the 15 year period from 1998 – 2012. Roy’s graph extends that flat trend to 2015.
Just off to bed thoroughly disgusted by the general understanding of heat transfer on the Internet.
Searching for the reason heat can only be transferred from hot to cold I got hit after hit on Google talking about liquids and gases where atoms are free to move and collide with each other. There are a large number of people who can’t tell an atom from a molecule.
I am talking about heat transfer in a solid where the atoms are bound to each other by covalent bonds. For example, an iron rod made purely of iron atoms bound to each other.
I am not interested in the exchange of heat with its surroundings I want to know why the cold end of the rod becomes too hot to handle when the other end is heated by an acetylene torch. Please don’t call it internal energy, that term is far too generic. What kind of energy is it?
Something is traveling down the rod atom to atom and I know it is heat (thermal energy). That’s what Clausius said back in 1875. Thermal energy as kinetic energy is transferred atom to atom just as electricity is transferred.
Modernists have become stupefied by the math and have completely lost contact with the reality.
One thing I did find is that the energy of a photon radiated by an electron needs to have the difference in energy between the orbitals over which the electron transitioned as it dropped to a lower energy level. Going the opposite way, jumping to a higher energy level, the electron must absorb the same amount of energy between the energy levels.
I think that explains why photons from cooler IR cannot be absorbed by a warmer body. The electrons in the warmer body are already at a higher energy level than what they can be raised by energy from the cooler IR.
I would be much more sympathetic to your complaints about poor quality of online science discussions, Gordon, if you weren’t simultaneously espousing basic mistakes of your own.
* Iron has metallic bonds, not covalent bonds.
* Thermal IR predominantly comes from vibrations of molecules and/or solids, not electrons jumping between different orbitals. (jumping between orbitals typically produces much higher energy UV or visible light.
* When a given photon (say 10 um) arrives somewhere, the surface has no idea whether the photon came from the 5700 K surface of the sun or some cold 250 K air. The surface can’t decide to reject a photon based on where it came from!
Tim “contributes”: When a given photon (say 10 um) arrives somewhere, the surface has no idea whether the photon came from the 5700 K surface of the sun or some cold 250 K air. The surface cant decide to reject a photon based on where it came from!
Tim, don’t think of it as the surface is trying to find out where the photon came from. That method of thinking just makes you look stupid.
Think of it as the surface will only absorb certain wavelengths. Wavelengths that are too long get reflected.
Hope that helps, but I know you’ve got a long way to go.
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Think of it as the surface will only absorb certain wavelengths.”
Which wavelengths will the surface not absorb?
BTW, a blackbody absorbs all wavelengths.
Davie, you can’t get away from your pseudoscience. A “black body” does not exist on Earth.
Which wavelengths will the surface not absorb?
Wavelengths that are too long.
(48)
Too long compared to what?
compared to impact surface.
(49)
Tim…” Iron has metallic bonds, not covalent bonds”.
I think you’re nit-picking. When I learned covalent bonding theory, which was not that long ago, bonds between atoms of metals were due to shared valence electrons, meaning outer shell electrons.
Metallic bonds sound to me like the ionic bonds in liquids. I don’t accept that iron atoms behave like ions which attract each other. It’s yet another example of science being misinterpreted by modernists.
Metallic, covalent, who cares, there’s an energy flowing atom to atom and it’s thermal energy.
Less face it Tim, the entire theory is sci-fi and it’s only going to get worse till someone reigns in quantum theory and begins looking at the physical reality again.
I have worked on electronics theory for decades. I have studied semiconductor theory in-depth. The idea of electrons orbiting a nucleus has never been explained and I personally find the notion to be ludicrous. There’s something going on we plainly don’t understand and we are still stuck with the Rutherford-Bohr model and its antiquated terminology.
To compound matters, quantum theory has introduced the probability of finding an electron orbiting a nucleus. I find that to be horribly inadequate. Let’s find out what’s going on for cripes sake.
Tim…”Thermal IR predominantly comes from vibrations of molecules and/or solids, not electrons jumping between different orbitals. (jumping between orbitals typically produces much higher energy UV or visible light”.
Thanks…you’ve just defeated your argument about back radiation. The Earth’s solid surface is made up primarily of atoms and molecules incapable of resonating and absorbing IR of the frequency generated by cooler CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
ummm … no. You don’t just get to make up ‘science’ to fit your preconceived conclusions. The earth is actually made up of innumerable different solids which are capable of absorbing a wide variety of frequencies of light — including IR.
A tiny grain of rock is composed of a HUGE number of atoms in a solid. This extended solid can vibrate in innumerable ways with innumerable energies — including IR. The same goes for any solid material. A single iron atom cannot vibrate. A pair of iron atoms bound together can vibrate back and forth (one mode). Three iron bound together have several more modes. A trillion iron atoms bound together can vibrate in so many ways with so many energies that they can absorb/emit a broad range of wavelengths.
Basically you are drawing conclusions that contradict reality, and wishfully thinking that what you know about individual atoms applies equally to huge collections of atoms.
Gordon Robertson wrote:
“The idea of electrons orbiting a nucleus has never been explained and I personally find the notion to be ludicrous.”
Nobody who understands physics thinks that. So why do you think they think that?
Tim…”The surface cant decide to reject a photon based on where it came from!”
This sounds like an argument based on a post by Roy. It presumes all IR energy that is incident on a surface must be absorbed.
There’s no proof of that, in fact, it is well known that much of the energy absorbed by bodies is based on the relationship between their quantum energy levels and the quantum requirements of the absorbing body.
I think a lot of confusion comes from the use of theoretical blackbody models. A blackbody is defined as a cavity that can absorb all EM incident upon it. Most bodies in the real world can’t.
Haha, geez Gordon, you have a ways to go in your study of radiation. BB radiation does indeed exist emitted FROM the steady state temperature cavity pinhole, a BB object does not exist in nature since all objects reflect some radiation, guaranteed by 2LOT.
Well, at least Gordon is working to understand the top post. For that, congrat.s.
Explain why the Sun isn’t a blackbody.
Solar radiation is not blackbody radiation because the sun is not enclosed in an opaque container.
Ball4 says:
“Solar radiation is not blackbody radiation because the sun is not enclosed in an opaque container.”
The Sun is a blackbody — it absorbs all energy incident upon it.
And its emissions are, very very closely, that of a blackbody:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#/media/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg
“The Sun is a blackbody it absorbs all energy incident upon it.”
If it did, of course we’d be toasted by now. Proof? We are not toasted. Didn’t even need to mention neutrinos…what do you know sun can transmit energy!
Possibly David meant to write light incident on it. Sun is not a BB for light either. Neither is a black hole. They are both very nearly black, not perfectly black from universe entropy arguments.
Ball4 says:
“The Sun is a blackbody it absorbs all energy incident upon it.
If it did, of course wed be toasted by now.”
Why????
The Sun’s emissions are very close to that of a blackbody.
So how are we toast?
Right, David, solar radiation is measured very close to BB radiation ideal Planck function around 5800K give or take, but sun is not exactly a BB.
Oh, we’d be toast if the sun couldn’t cool by shedding the energy of neutrinos which contradicts your statement the sun absorbs all incident energy.
Gordon says: “It presumes all IR energy that is incident on a surface must be absorbed.
No. it presumes that the surface can at least absorb SOME IR photons (which experiment shows it can). Nothing about blackbodies is assumed and nothing about blackbodies is required.
As to the iron bar, one typical approach would be the treat the rod as a series of thin slices and calculate the heat moving from one slice to the next. This sort of “finite element analysis” is a very common and very powerful way to determine temperatures and heat transfers in such a case.
GR wrote:
“I think that explains why photons from cooler IR cannot be absorbed by a warmer body.”
Does the photon do a U-turn when it gets to the warmer body?
Does radiation from the Earth do a U-turn when it gets to the Sun?
DA…”Does the photon do a U-turn when it gets to the warmer body?
Does radiation from the Earth do a U-turn when it gets to the Sun?”
You don’t have the answer, do you? So you obfuscate your lack of understanding by posing stupid questions.
Explain why the 2nd law forbids heat transfer from a colder body to a warmer body. According to Clausius, the law applies to conduction, convection, and radiative transfer.
You seem to think that all incident radiation on a body must be absorbed yet the Bohr atomic model was based on the study of the Balmer series of hydrogen. The Balmer series are visible spectral lines that reveal electrons in transition from a higher energy level to a lower level. Based on the difference in energy level of the transition, the emissions given off by the electrons are of different frequencies in the light range of the EM spectrum.
My own theory, based on an overall ignorance of atomic theory, which I am trying to learn, is that IR from a cooler body lacks the intensity and frequency to affect an electron in an atom residing at a higher energy level. In order to move the electron higher, hence increasing its kinetic energy and temperature, the IR from the cooler body would require a temperature higher than that of the warmer body’s electron state.
What happens to the IR from a cooler body? It probably just keeps on going.
Our understanding of IR flow through the atmospheric is pathetically lacking. As G&T claimed in their paper, the description of a photon path through the atmosphere till it is absorbed by a CO2 molecule is not a simple problem. It would require Feynman diagrams and it is a many body problem.
The idea of a photon of IR going straight from a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere to an atom’s electron on the surface, and being absorbed, is well beyond the understand of physicists. Talking about it is sheer conjecture.
“Explain why the 2nd law forbids heat transfer from a colder body to a warmer body.”
Heat transfer is a myth Gordon. The 2LOT for all non-mythical (real) processes in nature: Universe entropy increases.
Energy transfer from a colder body to a warmer body is not forbidden as long as 2LOT holds: Universe entropy increases.
The experiment on the atm. by Dr. Spencer showed that energy from a colder body to a warmer body satisfies 2LOT (universe entropy increased) as the result was: a higher temperature in the water in view of the added LW IR from the cirrus.
“..the Bohr atomic model was based on the study of the Balmer series of hydrogen.”
Yes, surfaced about 1911, and Bohr model failed for higher elements in the table. Rutherford extended it with different orbits, mid 20s Pauli added the exclusion principle which Fermi extended by 1926 with the electrons in a cloud rather than specific orbits. Which pretty much holds today.
“…IR from a cooler body lacks the intensity and frequency to affect an electron in an atom residing at a higher energy level.”
The whole atom is not at the higher electronic energy level, just the electron is. Each electron level has a quantum step in energy no matter the vibration, translation energy of the whole atom. Translation has no quantum, vibration and rotation of the atom are also quantized along with the electronic level.
At Earth atm. temperatures, normally there is not enough terrestrial photon energy to jump a full electronic level, there is plenty of photon energy to be absorbed and jump a molecule’s vibrational/rotational quantum level.
These discussion show atm. science is multi-discipline , pretty normal for most fields of study.
Ball4 says:
“Yes, surfaced about 1911, and Bohr model failed for higher elements in the table. Rutherford extended it with different orbits, mid 20s Pauli added the exclusion principle which Fermi extended by 1926 with the electrons in a cloud rather than specific orbits. Which pretty much holds today.”
Sorry, no. For one thing, Pauli first added spin.
“Electrons in a cloud?” What does that mean? A wave function?
There were still notable problems with the revised Bohr model — it could not account for the Lamb shift, or the electron’s anomalous magnetic moment (g-2).
It took QED (quantum electrodynamics) for those to be explained.
“Sorry, no.”
No to what David? Be specific. Pauli really had by 1925 found no two electrons in an atom could have all their quantum numbers be identical (see Physics Nobel 1945); Fermi in spring of 1926 published (in Italy) quickly extending Pauli’s work beyond the atom to a “gas” of electrons or, better, electrons moving freely in a metal for many noteworthy app.s. Today we know the electron is not a precise location but a cloud of locations.
Ball: Pauli proposed spin in 1924.
PS: “A cloud of locations” makes no sense. It’s a wavefunction.
Pauli was a busy guy in 1924. Google up string: electron cloud model
Let me know what you think.
Electrons aren’t “clouds.” They are described by a wave function.
So David rejects the modern electron cloud model? On what grounds?
GR wrote:
“What happens to the IR from a cooler body? It probably just keeps on going.”
Going where? Entirely *through* an object??
Do you have evidence of such a thing?
“Probably?” Either you know or you don’t….
Gordon Robertson says:
“Explain why the 2nd law forbids heat transfer from a colder body to a warmer body.”
It doesn’t, in a nonadiabatic system.
Davie inquires: “Does the photon do a U-turn when it gets to the warmer body?
Does radiation from the Earth do a U-turn when it gets to the Sun?
If by “U-turn”, you mean “is reflected”, then the answers are “yes”.
But, if by “U-turn”, you mean reflected at 180 degrees (opposite direction), then the answers are “no, angle of reflection equals angle of incidence”. (High school physics.)
So you think the radiation emitted by the Earth, towards the Sun, get reflected.
Reflected by what?
Reflected by the Sun’s radiating “surface”.
What is the Sun’s “radiating surface?”
Show an example of radiation reflected off the Sun.
The solar spectrum we see on Earth is thought to come from the “photosphere”.
A photon from Earth, with too long a wavelength, will be reflected by the photosphere. That concept is already in the textbooks. You need to “show an example” otherwise.
Prove your pseudoscience. That’s when it really gets hilarious!
g*e*r*a*n says:
“A photon from Earth, with too long a wavelength, will be reflected by the photosphere.”
Reflected how?
Reflected by what?
Reflected how? Wavelength mismatch.
Reflected by what? Impact surface.
“Reflected how? Wavelength mismatch.”
A mismatch between what and what?
“Reflected by what? Impact surface.”
What exactly is the impact surface of the Sun?
mismatch between photon and impact mass
impact surface of the sun would be the first radiating level, thought to be the photosphere.
Sheesh, do I have to explain everything to you?
(I bet you know how to order a pizza, though.)
This time Gordon accurately answers his own question, particularly after his cite of Clausius 1875:
Q: “What kind of energy is (thermodynamic internal energy)?”
Specifically:
A: “kinetic energy is transferred atom to atom”
Gordon shows progress after some work too, just like Kristian. Now if Gordon will progress on to understand that KE can be transformed, radiated away from any object or body or iron bar as radiant energy (aka photons) he will really be on to useful commenting in atm. science. And advance past G&T also.
Clausius statement of the second law:
“Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.”
Notice that little phrase “without some other change….”
DA…”DA…”Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.
Notice that little phrase without some other change.”
I make note of it each time I present the statement of Clausius. He went into it over several paragraphs to clarify exactly what he meant.
He called it compensation.
He uses it to distinguish between an adiabatic and nonadiabatic system.
Do you know what “adiabatic” means, Gordon? Do you?
Ball4…”kinetic energy is transferred atom to atom”
You are revealing yourself as knowing very little about energy.
Kinetic energy is a generic term that can be applied to any energy in motion. It goes hand in hand with potential energy and in a system both energies must balance.
If you have a boulder at the edge of a 100 foot cliff it has potential energy. If you push it off so it is in free flight it has kinetic energy. But the correct name for that application of kinetic energy is gravitational energy.
It is necessary to be more specific in a case where we are talking about thermal energy moving through an iron rod. What kind of energy is flowing? Speaking of that energy as internal energy or kinetic energy is far too general.
In a copper conductor connecting a resistance across a battery, there is a flow of energy and we identify it as electrical energy. The energy flowing in a chemical reaction is chemical energy. The energy associated with nuclear decay is nuclear energy.
In the same way, the energy associated with atomic motion is thermal energy. Calling it kinetic energy only suggests it is energy in motion and it seems you and others are confused about the difference between generic kinetic energy and the more specific energy associated with the vibration of atoms in a solid conductor.
Gordon 4:36pm, you are the one wrote “kinetic energy is transferred atom to atom”, which is correct.
Then Gordon wrote “Kinetic energy is a generic term that can be applied to any energy in motion.” Not any energy Gordon, KE is any mass in motion (vibrating, translating, rotating), translational goes as m*v^2.
“If you have a boulder at the edge of a 100 foot cliff it has potential energy.”
Yes, at v=0. mgh + 0 = constant
“If you push it off so it is in free flight it has kinetic energy.”
While in flight at new position x boulder also has reduced PE along with increased KE:
mg(h-x) + mv(x)^2 = same constant
“But the correct name for that application of kinetic energy is gravitational energy.”
No, as Ive shown, KE and gravitational energy (mgh) are different, they add to the same constant in order for the boulder falling process to show conserved energy.
“In the same way, the energy associated with atomic motion is thermal energy. Calling it kinetic energy only suggests it is energy in motion “
Thermal energy is short for thermodynamic internal energy which is KE, constituent mass in motion relative to object cg.
Ball4…”But the correct name for that application of kinetic energy is gravitational energy.
No, as Ive shown, KE and gravitational energy (mgh) are different, they add to the same constant in order for the boulder falling process to show conserved energy”.
Both the PE and KE you describe are due to gravitational force. The force causes the PE and the subsequent KE therefore the associated energy is gravitational.
You seem to be visualizing the energy involved as energy separate from the process. Energy is a generic name but it also has specific definitions related to the context in which it is applied.
The compressed mixture of gasoline and air in the cylinder of an engine represent potential energy. After ignition, the expanding gas drives the piston down. PE has been converted to KE.
One might debate whether this falls in the realm of chemical energy or mechanical energy. It doesn’t matter, PE and KE apply to both.
In an engine, the energy driving the piston is certainly not electrical. electromagnetic, nuclear, etc. It’s an explosion which is typically related to chemical energy and possibly thermal energy.
However, in the context of an engine a flywheel’s momentum is used to stabilize the timing of the explosions. The flywheel momentum helps compress the gas/air mixture on the stroke after the exhaust stroke. Therefore, mechanical energy plays a big part in the chemical explosion.
Gordon wrote:
“If you have a boulder at the edge of a 100 foot cliff it has potential energy. If you push it off so it is in free flight it has kinetic energy. But the correct name for that application of kinetic energy is gravitational energy.”
Good god, no.
Energy of motion is indeed kinetic energy.
In this case, when the boulder is pushed, potential energy converts to kinetic energy.
The total energy of the system = PE + KE = constant
DA…”Good god, no. Energy of motion is indeed kinetic energy.”
Your sarcasm is becoming so ludicrous that you are confusing yourself. That’s what I said, kinetic energy is the energy of motion.
However, it is a generic energy that applies to any case in which energy is in motion. If we want to identify the energy in motion we have to specify, thermal, mechanical, chemical, nuclear, and so on.
Thermal energy is a valid form of energy and not a definition made by humans writing books. As such, it has substance and can be identified as the same energy presented by atoms in motion.
Idiot. Only kinetic energy is energy of motion.
And not all thermal energy is energy of motion. IR, for example.
Gordon 7:50pm, only PE has the gravity term (mgh) with height relative to a datum, only PE is due to gravity.
KE has no gravity term (1 / 2 m*v^2) so it is wrong to write KE is due to gravitational force Gordon since g does not enter the eqn., KE is mass observed with velocity relative to the observer.
—–
David 8:32pm, no, you are mixing concepts, IR is EM energy hf, IR is NOT thermodynamic internal energy (thermal energy) of motion relative to cg as photons have no mass thus no KE.
Undoubtedly there is separate EM (IR, photon hf) internal energy in an object also, continuously emitted/absorbed.
Ball4…”Not any energy Gordon, KE is any mass in motion (vibrating, translating, rotating), translational goes as m*v^2″.
That energy is called mechanical energy. Mechanical energy can be potential or kinetic.
Same in the electrical field, you can have potential energy or kinetic energy.
Don’t feel bad, the wiki contradicts itself, first defining KE as you do then later adding this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy
“Energy occurs in many forms, including chemical energy, thermal energy, electromagnetic radiation, gravitational energy, electric energy, elastic energy, nuclear energy, and rest energy. These can be categorized in two main classes: potential energy and kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the movement energy of an object. Kinetic energy can be transferred between objects and transformed into other kinds of energy”.
No contradiction there Gordon.
Your boulder example shows KE + PE (mgh). The boulder is at a temperature so has thermodynamic internal energy (long form of thermal energy). The boulder also contains chemical, nuclear, elastic energy which are not relevant to the discussion in the top post, a mile above here. Your boulder emits EMR energy (light) of all frequencies.
Gordon Robertson
I have a simple test you could perform in a short period of time with little expense to you and it will make the GHE theory and 2nd Law much more understandable. Designed to eliminate the confusion and the 1000+ posts on the same issues over and over.
The only item you might need to buy would be a high temperature thermometer.
Also I hope you have an electric oven (I don’t think you can do it with a gas oven)
Turn a burner on and put the thermometer under the burning element but touching it. Get it to a high temperature that you can still log a temperature on.
Now fill a pot with crushed ice and put it on the burner and see what happens to the temperature. Does it drop? Stay the same? Increase? Just record the temperature and monitor it.
Keep the burner set at a constant level so it is receiving the same amount of energy the entire time.
Let the burner heat melt the ice and eventually get to boiling point and log the temperatures the whole time.
My prediction is that when you put the ice pot on the burner it will get colder (even with the same energy input) and then will begin to warm up as the water in the pot warms up.
Observations. The water in the pot is never hotter than the burner temperature. It is always a colder object contacting a hotter one. This experiment uses conduction instead of radiative heat transfer but the concept is the same.
Will the burner read a higher temperature if the pot temperature goes up? This is similar to back-radiation from the atmosphere.
As the water in the pot warms up the pot molecules are vibrating more rapidly and when they contact the burner molecules they hit the burner molecules with more energy relative to the ice water pot molecules.
The results of the test should inform one that the burner is the only source of energy to the experiment. It is what is warming the water in the pot. As the water in the pot warms, the burner temperature rises relative to the state when in contact with the ice water pot.
The heat flow is always from the hot burner plate to the colder pot temperature so the 2nd Law is satisfied. The pot does not warm or heat the burner, but in the relative states between ice pot and boiling water pipe, the burner temperature rises (if my prediction for this experiment is correct, I could be wrong and the burner does not change temperature regardless of what the pot temperature is).
So the atmosphere is not “warming” the surface as so many false teachers are leading so many astray. But the surface is warmer in a state relative to another state.
If the burner gets warmer as the pot water increases it should help you understand the GHE and how it actually works and you can reject the garbage science that sounds like common sense but it is really bad science.
Norman says, April 16, 2017 at 8:10 PM:
The atmosphere is indeed “warming” the surface in the sense that its presence forces the surface temperature at equilibrium to be higher than if the atmosphere weren’t there. The colloquial term “warming”, after all, doesn’t have a clear physical definition. It just means that something is somehow making something warmer, in whatever way …
However, in physics there are two DISTINCT ways for something to make something else warmer (disregarding energy transfers by the performance of “work” [W]):
#1 Increase its HEAT INPUT/gain (+Q_in), and
#2 reduce its HEAT OUTPUT/loss (-Q_out).
#1 is by way of (directly) “heating” the object, while #2 is by way of “insulating” it.
As we all know, you can’t raise the temperature of something in absolute terms by simply insulating it better. So for #2 to work, that something will have to be simultaneously “heated”; not necessarily have its Q_in increased, but at least it needs to have a fairly constant heat input at the same time as you start reducing its heat output (loss).
So the atmosphere obviously “warms” the Earth’s global surface through mechanism #2. It INSULATES the surface. The thing directly HEATING the surface (mechanism #1), providing its Q_in, is of course the Sun. The presence of the massive, warm, IR active atmosphere between the surface and space simply reduces the total Q_out from the surface, AT ANY GIVEN SURFACE TEMPERATURE.
Now here’s the problem with the “back radiation” EXPLANATION of how this comes about …
You say – in fact, you insist – that Earth’s average global sfc temp is produced like this:
E_in = E_out
Solar flux + DWLWIR = Conductive loss + Evaporative loss + UWLWIR
165 + 345 = 24 + 88 + 398 W/m^2
510 = 112 + 398 W/m^2
But what you appear to be saying here is this:
Q_in(SW) + “DWLWIR” = Q_out(cond) + Q_out(evap) + “UWLWIR”
There is no surface radiative heat loss (Q_out(LW)) in your scenario! Because you have arbitrarily split it in two and placed each ‘half’ on either side of the equal sign, as a separate deposit (DWLWIR) and a separate withdrawal (UWLWIR) of energy, respecitvely.
What you are effectively doing, then, is this:
You’re tying what you perceive as separate instantaneous macroscopic inputs of energy (W/m^2) to the surface to specific surface temperatures, derived from a simple blackbody flux/temp calculation, so that
Q_in(SW) = 165 W/m^2 alone would only give a T_sfc of 232K, while
DWLWIR = 345 W/m^2 alone would only produce 279K, but
Q_in(SW) + DWLWIR = 510 W/m^2 would give a T_sfc of 308K, before you reduce this by subtracting the combined outputs from the conductive and evaporative losses (112 W/m^2) to achieve the final 289K (510-112= 398 W/m^2).
But by seeing the process like this, what you are effectively doing is turning the atmosphere into a second Sun in the sky. You make the cooler atmosphere a second HEAT SOURCE to the warmer surface, right next to the Sun. You have added together the solar heat flux and the DWLWIR as two equivalent HEAT fluxes to directly heat the surface.
And you are in no position with how you set up your budget above to hide behind a claim to the effect that the DWLWIR here is merely an “energy” input, while the radiant “heat” still moves from the surface to the atmosphere (and space), and therefore the 2nd Law isn’t violated. Because you have no Q_out(LW) in your budget. You have specifically eliminated it by splitting it up, claiming TWO distinct and oppositely working energy flows on either side of the budget instead.
You can’t have it both ways, Norman.
EITHER the atmosphere makes the surface temperature go up by directly heating it, in the exact same manner as the SOLAR flux does, an energy input that makes the sfc U and T rise in absolute terms. OR the atmosphere makes the surface temperature go up by insulating it, reducing its Q_out at any given T. It can’t do both. The atmosphere can’t “warm” the surface through BOTH mechanisms at the same time. The DWLWIR can’t be operating on both sides of the equal sign simultaneously.
* * *
If we were to hypothetically put an actual second Sun in the sky, what would happen?
Scenario A
Q_in(Sun1) = 165 W/m^2
Scenario B
Q_in(Sun1) + Q_in(Sun2) = 165 + 165 = 330 W/m^2
The total heat GAIN would naturally increase.
So what would happen to the sfc heat LOSS, going from Scenario A to B? It would increase as well, of course! To a new and higher state of equilibrium. To balance the increased input.
Scenario A
Q_in(Sun1) = Q_out(A) => 165 = 165 W/m^2
Scenario B
Q_in(Sun1) + Q_in(Sun2) = Q_out(B) => 330 = 330 W/m^2
And what do you think would happen to Earth’s average global sfc temp as a result of this? It would clearly rise. How come? Because of the increase in the TOTAL HEAT INPUT.
But you will notice, Norman, how this set-up is EXACTLY equal to your “solar flux + DWLWIR” set-up. There is no difference!
This is the way you add together HEAT FLUXES in thermodynamics to produce a higher temp. It’s as simple as that. There is no way around it …
And so, when you want to explain Earth’s sfc temp by adding together the solar flux and the DWLWIR, your EXPLANATION directly violates the 2nd Law, Norman.
You are very clearly mixing two real and separate heat transfers (sun=>sfc (Q_in) & sfc=>atm/space (Q_out)) into one, to produce two DIFFERENT heat transfers that aren’t really heat transfers.
There can be no separate energy input from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface that directly and all by itself raises the U and T of the latter. Which is EXACTLY what you claim happens when you add the DWLWIR to the solar flux – extra energy is supplied to the surface, and the addition of this extra energy (from the cooler atmosphere) makes the U and thus the T of the already warmer surface go UP in absolute terms, not relative to some other state, but in absolute terms; the temperature actually RISES way beyond the hypothetical solar equilibrium from your atmospheric energy input alone. That is called DIRECT HEATING, Norman. You have added a second HEAT flux. It doesn’t matter what you choose to CALL it. You have added more HEAT to the surface to make it warmer. Just like a second Sun would do. Only you have done so from a cooler place …
Again, for the nth time, the atmospheric thermal enhancement EFFECT on the surface doesn’t violate any laws of thermodynamics. Of course it doesn’t. It is a very real effect. But your “back radiation” EXPLANATION of this effect most certainly does violate the 2nd Law …
The atmospheric thermal enhancement effect on the surface is an INSULATION effect, NOT a heating effect. The “back radiation” explanation of the effect distinctly portrays it as an “extra heating” effect.
IOW, I am ONLY objecting to the “back radiation” EXPLANATION of the atmospheric effect, not to the effect itself, please make note of this.
If you stick to explaining the atmospheric thermal enhancement effect on the surface as an INSULATION effect, reducing its Q_out at any given surface T, then we have no quarrel, no fundamental disagreement. Then we can start discussing to what extent we see any evidence for AGW (an anthropogenically “enhanced GHE”), which is a much more interesting and relevant subject in the end …
Kristian wrote:
“But your back radiation EXPLANATION of this effect most certainly does violate the 2nd Law ”
It does not, because the Earth or it atmosphere are not adiabatic systems.
Kristian says: “And so, when you want to explain Earths sfc temp by adding together the solar flux and the DWLWIR, your EXPLANATION directly violates the 2nd Law, Norman.”
I never understood why you feel so strongly about this. The second law states that the entropy of the universe must increase (or at a minimum, remain constant).
The entropy of the universe is increasing at some rate as energy from the sun hits the earth and eventually works its way off into space. This rate of entropy increase will be the same whether I write an equation one way or another — the universe doesn’t care. Norman’s version of the equation does not predict a decrease in the entropy of the universe. It doesn’t even predict a decrease in the entropy of any subset of the universe.
The 2nd Law doesn’t forbid energy transfers from cool to warm. It only forbids NET macroscopic transfers from cool to warm.
Or perhaps you can provide the statement of the 2nd Law that you think is violated by Norman.
Tim…”The second law states that the entropy of the universe must increase (or at a minimum, remain constant)”.
No it doesn’t. If you read Clausius he makes it clear that he developed the theory of entropy as an adjunct to the 2nd law.
The 2nd law states that heat cannot be transferred without compensation from a cooler body to a warmer body. It was modernists who converted it to be about entropy.
Clausius explained in words that entropy is the integral of infinitesimal changes in heat, into or out of a body, over a process, taken at the temperature T at which each infinitesimal change occurs.
You have S = integral dQ/T
In experiments, they try to keep T constant using a bath.
Clausius invented the concept of entropy and he claimed that in a reversible process the entropy is 0, otherwise it is positive. If you read modernists on entropy it becomes essentially a garbage theory full of presumptions.
Entropy tells you whether a process is irreversible and to what degree. It tells you nothing about the direction of heat transfer.
“If you read Clausius … ”
Statements like this usually indicate poor understanding of science.
Science has advanced in the past 150 years. While Clausius certainly was a brilliant man, he doesn’t have the last word in thermodynamics or entropy. He has some great insights and started a long chain of work on entropy. Your dismissal of the last 150 years of progress suggests you have no regard for the process of science.
“You have S = integral dQ/T”
Actually that should be DELTA(S) = integral dQ/T. The *change* in entropy is given by that integral.
“Entropy tells you whether a process is irreversible and to what degree. It tells you nothing about the direction of heat transfer.”
No. Consider a transfer of 400 J of energy from a 400 K object to a 300 K object. The 400 K object has an entropy change of -400J/400K = -1 J/K (the negative because the object has Q leaving). The 200 K object has a change in entropy of +400J/200K = +2 J/K. This irreversible change as heat moves from warm to cool increases the entropy of the universe by +2 J/K – 1 J/k = +1 J/K. A hypothetical flow in the reverse direction would lead to a DECREASE in entropy (with no external work and no external entropy change to compensate) = impossible. Clearly entropy DOES tell you abut the direction of heat flow.
“No it doesn’t. If you read Clausius he makes it clear that he developed the theory of entropy as an adjunct to the 2nd law.”
Then let’s read Clausius 9th memoir, writes verbatim, well, actually translated: “Two fundamental laws of the universe
1. The energy of the universe is constant.
2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”
So the thing about direction of energy flow? That’s a corollary, energy flows in accord with 2.
Gordon Robertson says:
“The 2nd law states that heat cannot be transferred without compensation from a cooler body to a warmer body.”
Only for adiabatic systems.
The Earth and its climate are NOT adiabatic systems.
Why do you keep ignoring this?
Tim Folkerts says, April 17, 2017 at 5:51 PM:
Yes, it forbids Q to move spontaneously from cold to hot. And Norman – in his EXPLANATION – is effectively splitting Q_out(LW) into a Q_in part and a Q_out part.
We all know that the 2nd Law ISN’T actually violated. In the REAL world. The EFFECT is real. I am only talking about the way the DWLWIR for all intents and purposes is turned into a Q_in flux and the UWLWIR likewise into a Q_out flux when setting up Earth’s surface “energy budget” like this:
Q_in(SW) + DWLWIR = Q_out(cond) + Q_out(evap) + UWLWIR
As you will readily recognise, there is no Q_out(LW) term in this budget. No “net LW flux” to move in the direction from hot to cold. There is only a SEPARATE LW flux involved in the “surroundings => sfc” heat transfer and another separate LW flux involved in the “sfc => surroundings” heat transfer. This is, after all, essentially a standard Q_in-Q_out=Q_net budget.
The separate LW flux in from the surroundings is afforded independent thermodynamic ‘powers’ by letting it directly raise the U and T of the surface – in absolute terms, not relatively. Just like, exactly equivalent to, what the SOLAR heat flux (Q_in(SW)) is doing.
This means that what you do is effectively add together TWO heat fluxes to cause a higher surface temp, as if there were two Suns in the sky. And you know this, Tim. The separate LW flux out from the surface is accordingly relegated to the status of a mere cooling Q, its magnitude directly determined (caused) by the two incoming heat fluxes COMBINED.
It is ALL in the way you EXPLAIN the effect, Tim. You simply CAN’T physically explain it like this.
To be frank, I’ve never understood why you DIDN’T have a problem with this stupidity.
Back in the days, people KNEW how to do a surface budget properly. Because they KNEW that the only transfers of energy that can actually HEAT and COOL the surface are the Qs. Actual THERMODYNAMIC transfers of energy. Like these ones, from 1980 and 1979, respectively:
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/28903/StrubPTed.CEOAS.AnnualMeanSurface.pdf?sequence=1
https://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/CR/1980/8040.PDF
(Note how, in the second link, the authors actually – and pretty ironically – designate their surface radiant heat loss term (Q_out(LW)) “effective back radiation”. Clearly they hadn’t yet received the memo from the “climate crowd”.)
Within the field of oceanography one tends to stick to this proper physical approach even today:
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/ocean/p_ocean/ppt_notes/4_HeatFlux.pdf
It is mainly the atmospheric sciences that started this ridiculous practice of just throwing ALL perceived “radiative fluxes” (SW and LW alike) into one big bowl to derive that physically meaningless term “net radiation”. How are you gonna find out what causes what if all you do is just jumble the solar and the earth radiant fluxes together into one hot mess?
The DWLWIR and UWLWIR don’t do anything on their own. Because physically they aren’t separate macroscopic fluxes! Their thermodynamic effect on their surroundings is only ever evident as a UNIT. Because THEN they’re a Q. Q_out(LW).
When you split them and arbitrarily place them on either side of your IN/OUT budget, then they’re no longer working as one. They’re no longer an integrated whole, a unit, a single quantity. And by that, they have effectively lost their thermodynamic significance. And you will end up completely losing track of cause and effect in your surface energy budget as a result. You will THINK you see things that aren’t really there. There is ONE actual LW flux, Tim. The NET. The two ‘components’ are mere mathematical expressions of temperature. You can’t have them work independently.
Stop this nonsense!
Kristian:
“When you split them and arbitrarily place them on either side of your IN/OUT budget, then theyre no longer working as one.”
Two fluxes, in opposite directions.
One net flux, one minus the other.
But both fluxes still exist. It’s ridiculous to claim they don’t.
Kristian…”The atmosphere is indeed warming the surface in the sense that its presence forces the surface temperature at equilibrium to be higher than if the atmosphere werent there”.
Kristian…Lindzen claims the atmosphere keeps the surface cooler. He is talking about the convection produced by air molecules which carry off warmed air and replace it with cooler air.
Lindzen claimed the surface would be as high as 72C without that convection.
Those are Gordon’s words not Lindzen’s.
Gordon Robertson says, April 17, 2017 at 7:11 PM:
Well, it obviously doesn’t. All we need to do is compare the average global surface temperature of the Moon and of Earth.
MOON
Distance from Sun: 1AU
Mean annual solar input to global sfc: 296 W/m^2
Average global sfc temp: 197K
EARTH
Distance from Sun: 1AU
Mean annual solar input to global sfc: 165 W/m^2
Average global sfc temp: 289K
Our atmosphere CLEARLY makes a difference. The question you should ask yourself (and Lindzen?) is: Cooler than WHAT?
Kristian for moon: “Average global sfc temp: 197K”
No, 197K is roughly the moon brightness temperature as measured from moon orbit, compare it to 255K for Earth brightness temperature as measured from Earth orbit.
The actual moon surface global thermometer temperature over time is unknown, not enough data. If there were, then you could compare to Earth surface thermometer measurement 289K except the results won’t be exactly comparable as you would have to measure regolith temperature at a depth.
The Moon’s equatorial temperature:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/04/norfolk-constabulary-made-wrong-charges.html
Kristian
I will continue to disagree with these types of posts.
Did you read my post to Gordon Robertson about ice in a pot on a electric burner?
Wish you would consider what Ball4 posts and not treat him as a useless troll. He is intelligent and his ideas are valid. You keep making my energy flows into heat. They are not. At the current temperature of the Earth surface the solar flux is cooler (it is adding less energy than what the Earth is losing). I do not know what makes you against the adding energy fluxes to make a greater flux. I have given you experiments to try and I already said, if you do this experiment and prove me wrong with evidence I will change my mind. Your opinions will not do it.
I said take two heat lamps. Turn one on to half power and see how warm it heats a IR absorbing surface. Turn it off and turn the other lamp to full power and see how much it heats the surface. If the surface is hotter with the full power light than the half power light it means now the surface is warmer than the half power light. If the 1/2 power light can increase the surface temperature of the plate than you are wrong!! Two fluxes add together even from a colder flux to produce a third flux which is greater than each individual flux. Do the simple experiment and prove me wrong. Why is this so hard for you?
Also you claim my view would make the atmosphere act like a second Sun. Yes exactly it is a second source of energy and night time clearly shows it acting as such with links I have provided above. Maybe you ignore those. The fact of an emitting atmosphere keeps the surface warmer at night when there is no solar flux. That would mean it must be adding something to the surface or the surface would cool faster.
Also I gave an experiment above to prove the atmosphere is an emission source of IR energy downward. During a night time summer (clear sky) take a well insulated cooler of ice outside with the top open so downwelling IR can reach the ice. The air above the ice will be as cold as the ice so it will not be able to warm it up, what will? IR emitted from the sky. Real energy that can do real things like melt ice. There is a continuous energy flow, it will become a heat flow if you cool the surface so it is emitting less than the atmospheric IR downwelling emission.
Nothing has changed, it is always and energy flux but the energy flux will become a heat flux when it is greater than the surface upwelling flux (NET energy flux is heat by definitions in textbooks).
The two inputs combined (solar and DWIR) are a surface heat flux and raise the temperature to a higher equilibrium. It still makes perfect sense thermodynamically except to you.
Er, no, Norman. You are truly a lost case. Try this exact statement with Tim Folkerts and see what he says. Solar + DWLWIR is NOT a surface heat flux. You do not get it and you are not willing to learn.
In fact, I urge you to state this particular position (your quote above) in an email or letter to ANY physicist in the world to see what kind of answer you get. Try it.
Solar W/m^2 + 0 W/m^2 is a surface heat flux per Kristian 9:14am.
Solar W/m^2 + (a positive number of W/m^2) “is NOT a surface heat flux” per Kristian 10:30am.
This is an example of dubious pretzel twisting that results from invoking the myth of heat.
Kristian says:
“Solar + DWLWIR is NOT a surface heat flux. You do not get it and you are not willing to learn.”
Wrong Kristian.
Both are energy fluxes — the delivery of a certain amount of energy per unit time per unit area.
Energy fluxes add.
Every physicist in the world would agree with this.
Whaty a lot of wasted effort about semantics.
Yes, both solar energy and “back radiation” are energy fluxesare “energy fluxes”.
But they are not both “heat fluxes” — at least not with the standard definitions of heat, Q, in classical thermodynamics. The solar flux is in fact Q. The back-radiation is not Q. Since the surface is warmer than the atmosphere, the (Q from the surface to the atmosphere) = (energy flux from the surface) – (energy flux into the surface) = “forward radiation” – “back radiation”. Every physicist in the world would agree with this.
Of course, in the end, it doesn’t matter what you *call* them. It only truly matters what effect they have. And the effect is the same whether you call the back radiation “an energy flux into the surface” or “a reduction in the heat out from the surface”.
“The back-radiation is not Q”
Certainly back radiation is not W Tim, so has to be Q i.e. energy transfer by virtue of a temperature difference.
The myth of heat in action.
Tim…”But they are not both heat fluxes at least not with the standard definitions of heat, Q, in classical thermodynamics”.
There is no such thing as a heat flux. Heat does not physically travel through space other than by conduction and convection. You have to move mass to move heat.
Once again, IR is not heat nor is it a heat flux. Early scientists like Planck referred to IR as heat rays but that does not suggest they are transferring heat it implies they are sourced from a source of heat, atoms.
Most EM comes from heat sources, mainly stars at very high temperatures. We do not refer to the light produced as a heat wave. Microwaves can raise the temperature of water but we do not call microwaves heat waves.
Although IR is an energy transporting mechanism it does not have heat as a property. You must know that. EM is a tranverse wave with an electric and magnetic field. It has no mass and no capability of transporting heat.
IR can induce heat in a source but the heat rise is local to the body. The EM is converted to heat locally by an electron transitioning to a higher energy state after absorbing the IR. Some people obfuscate that as bonds doing the warming but the bonds are shared electrons.
In the same way, when a body cools it gives off IR. The loss of heat is local to the body. When a body radiates IR it cools and when a local body absorbs that IR, provided it is cooler still, it will warm. There is an effective heat transfer but it is not physical.
There is no actual heat transfer body to body in radiative heat transfer.
Gordon, decent atm. physics comment.
I’d suggest looking into the separation of 1st quantum electronic levels, you will find the separation between them much higher (~x300) than those of rotational quantum levels, about 10x vibrational levels so photon emission by electronic level quantum decrease is very, very rare at earth temp.s.
Gordon Robertson says:
“There is no such thing as a heat flux. Heat does not physically travel through space other than by conduction and convection.”
Gordon, you are a pure idiot.
Worse, you revel in your ignorance.
Gordon, I realized how out of your league you are here when you wrote above that you were trying to learn Bohr atomic theory.
You’re still at a high school level. Time to listen and learn from those of us who know a lot more than you.
Fer cryin out loud, Tim! OF COURSE it matters! Norman seriously believes the DWLWIR alone is what raises the average surface temperature of the Earth by a direct addition of a discrete macroscopic flux of energy (345 W/m^2) from the max potential solar equilibrium temp (232K) all the way to the observed one (289K), in fact theoretically far beyond even this (to 308K), were it not for the parallel cooling from the turbulent heat fluxes (Q_out(cond) & Q_out(evap)).
And you LET him go on believing this nonsense! You LET him flounder in his deeply confused view of the world. You actually actively ENCOURAGE him to! I really do wonder why …
It is ALL in the way you EXPLAIN it, Tim. That’s more than just “semantics”:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243896
Perhaps I am just giving too much credit to Norman (with the corollary that Kristian is giving too little credit). It seems obvious to me that thermal radiation ALWAYS goes both ways. As such, when someone explicitly mentions DWLWIR from air to surface, there is an implicit assumption that there *must* also be UWLWIR from the surface to the air. Maybe Norman doesn’t realize this, but I highly doubt it.
Sort of like saying “the tires pushing back on the road make the car accelerate forward”. Implicit in this is Newton’s third law. It is actually the road pushing forward on the tires that makes the car accelerate, but N3 implicitly told us that the two forces are indeed the same magnitude and both must occur together. When someone says “the tires pushing back on the road make the car accelerate forward”, I don’t feel a need every time to “correct” them with an explanation of N3. Just like I don’t feel the need to “correct” someone who explicitly mentions “DWLWIR” without also explicitly mentioning UWLWIR every time in the same sentence. (Unless they have explicitly stated that they think there could be a flow in one direction without a flow in the other.)
Tim Folkerts
Thanks for the understanding. I have told Kristian several times that there is an UPLWIR. I have also done my own tests to convince me two way fluxes are a reality. The two way does not mean the energy just goes in straight lines up or down, the radiant filed goes in all directions equally.
The two-way is just in reference to a surface. Energy is either emitted and this energy always moves away from a surface or is absorbed and this is energy that is moving to a surface.
Like I have explained to Kristian. I can take a FLIR tool, aim it at a hot source and get a reading at a distance (something is going into the sensor, changing the electrical nature of a grid of sensing material and converting that into a readable temperature). I can take the same device and rotate it 180 degrees to an object in the path of the hot object and it is warmer than its surrounding and it has a readable energy coming off of it.
I explained it thusly to Kristian. If you have two plates each at 300 C facing each other thermometers on either plate will not change. There is zero heat flow between the two plates. I can take the FLIR tool and point it at one plate and it will give you a temperature (something entering the FLIR and giving a reading). I can rotate it to the other plate and it will also give the same reading. There is a measureable flow of energy between the plates but zero Heat flow.
You can also be assured heat flow and energy flow are different. If you have the two plates at 100 C each, there is still no heat flow, but you can see a considerable lower reading for energy flow.
Maybe you can explain why Kristian has difficulty with this idea.
The more GHG in the atmosphere with same temperature the larger is the DWLWIR and so this energy will be absorbed an less surface internal energy will be used to maintain a certain UPLWIR flux and the surface will warm under these conditions.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Once again, IR is not heat nor is it a heat flux. Early scientists like Planck referred to IR as heat rays but that does not suggest they are transferring heat it implies they are sourced from a source of heat, atoms.”
Stand in front of an IR flux. I get to set its intensity, but it’s wavelength is in the IR.
Will you be warmed when it hits you?
Gordon Robertson says:
“Once again, IR is not heat nor is it a heat flux. Early scientists like Planck referred to IR as heat rays but that does not suggest they are transferring heat it implies they are sourced from a source of heat, atoms.”
Explain an infrared laser.
DA…”Energy fluxes add. Every physicist in the world would agree with this”.
Have you ever studied vector calculus?
In order to add the rotating vectors used in frequency analysis they must be in phase. It’s highly unlikely that IR at it’s base frequency would add to solar energy at it’s base frequency. In fact, they might subtract.
Furthermore, the piddly flux produced by back-radiating IR would go unnoticed by the immense flux of solar radiation. This theory has also failed to address the effect of solar IR on the GHGs.
It was your buddy Rahmstorf who was one of the initiators of this notion. He obviously did not think it through very well.
“It’s highly unlikely that IR at its base frequency would add to solar energy at its base frequency. In fact, they might subtract.”
Gordon, photon bath in earth atm. is incoherent light. Only if light is coherent can the waves interfere, add, subtract.
True, the light is a bath of many directions, but for the simple models bidirectional gets you enough information to make a decent energy balance case incoming and outgoing.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Have you ever studied vector calculus?”
Energy is a scalar, not a vector.
Fluxes are vectors, and add accordingly.
Davie rants: “Energy fluxes add. Every physicist in the world would agree with this.”
Davie, maybe most “pizza delivery” guys would agree, but not real physicists.
PhD–Pizzas happily Delivered
You outta learn that when you have to resort to person insults and silly replies, your cause is clearly lost.
Your replies to me are always silly, usually accelerating to ridiculous. Don’t worry, there are plenty of examples on this thread.
I just don’t let frauds get away with lies.
Davie rants: Energy fluxes add. Every physicist in the world would agree with this.
Quit attempting all your pseudoscience tactics. They don’t work with me.
Norman, your “two heat lamps” experiment is irrelevant to the GHE nonsense. The two fluxes are basically the same, so yes, they will add. That is the similar to a magnifying glass, which can focus (add) the flux from the Sun.
Fluxes from identical sources DO add. But, the flux from a wall of ice does NOT add to the flux from a brick wall at 70 degrees F. The fluxes are different, because the sources are different. DWIR does NOT add to solar flux. Being of such different wavelengths, they do not even “see” each other.
If you can just remember “cold” can not heat “hot”, it will get you through most pseudoscience.
g*e*r*a*n….”Fluxes from identical sources DO add.”
That’s the point, the sources have to be independent sources of heat.
That’s not happening in our atmosphere. You have ACO2 at a trivial concentration supposedly absorbing IR from the surface then back-radiating an even more trivial amount at a lower temperature to the surface.
There’s no way, as you stated, that IR will add to solar energy. For one, the back-radiated energy was produced by solar energy in the first place by heating the surface and causing it to radiate longer wavelength IR. The addition of IR through back-radiation is a recycling of energy.
For another, the surface is heated by short wavelength EM and the IR portion of solar energy has to swamp any ACO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
For another, that back-radiated energy was produced as a relatively immense loss at the surface. The surface is radiating an immense flux of IR, and the surface cools. It will be rewarmed by solar energy during the day.
The portion captured by ACO2 is far less than 1%, based on the mass of ACO2. By the time the ACO2 radiates isotropically, the amount of IR aimed at the surface will be a tiny, tiny fraction of the initial IR radiated by the surface.
On top of that, I don’t think it’s absorbed.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Thats the point, the sources have to be independent sources of heat.”
Baloney.
Energy has no memory of where it came from — it’s just energy, and it all adds together.
Davie, you may be confusing yourself with your terminology. Photons have “no memory”, but they do have a wavelength. That means that all photons are not the same. A photon may have a wavelength that might be compatible with a surface it’s impacting, and be absorbed. Or it may have a wavelength that is too long, and be reflected.
It is NOT a “memory” issue, it is a “compatibility” issue.
Again you think long wavelength photons are reflected.
For which you’ve offered no experimental proof.
Tell us why all the radio waves zooming around the world aren’t reflected by everything they approach.
Davie, obviously you’ve never worked with antennas.
But, I could have stopped with “you’ve never worked….”
Why aren’t radio waves reflected from nearly every object they encounter, since their wavelengths are so long?
Davie, you keep asking the same questions over and over.
Longwave radio waves are easily reflected. That’s why they can travel the curve of the Earth. Do you believe the Earth is flat?
Norman…”At the current temperature of the Earth surface the solar flux is cooler (it is adding less energy than what the Earth is losing)”.
Norman, will you please stop reading Kiehle-Trenberth? They made that fiction up.
Without solar energy the planet would soon be a frozen mass. If solar energy is not replenishing surface heat, same thing, but a bit slower.
The surface radiation is tied directly to the intensity of solar energy. CO2 or GHGs in the atmosphere have nothing to do with it. The surface absorbs solar radiation, stores it for a bit, especially in the oceans, then radiates the stored heat as IR.
The surface and the solar energy are obviously in equilibrium.
Gordon Robertson,
Have you tried to do any experiments yet. I have suggested many an you can think of your own to try.
I wish you would get your facts correct on what generates IR electromagnetic energy. It is not a result of electrons moving up an down orbitals, it is a vibrational lower energy process.
Here is a Quote: It would be the same if you look at any website on the process that generates IR.
“Figure 1 The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Atoms and molecules can absorb electromagnetic radiation, but only at certain energies (wavelengths). The diagram in Figure 2 illustrates the relationships between different energy levels within a molecule. The three groups of lines correspond to different electronic configurations. The lowest energy, most stable electron configuration is the ground state electron configuration.
From this source:
https://tinyurl.com/3xhp96p
Gordon Robertson
Sorry the quote in the link would not go through. I did link you to the actual website that explains the different processes involved in EMR production. Hope you read it!
Kristian
If you do the ice cooler test what does the DWIR become? If you have ice emitting upwards at 300 W/m^2 and a DWIR of 380 W/m^2 what is the DWIR then? No solar it is done at night. Will the DWIR add heat to the ice, melt it an warm it up until it is emitting at 380 W/m^2?
What does this mean?
g*e*r*a*n
Why is your wall at 70 F in order to maintain a temperature of 70 F it is receiving a constant input of energy from somewhere or it will cool.
Now with your thought experiment. Actually do an experiment and make it more than a thought experiment.
Put a plate between an ice cooled plate and a warmer surface on the other side. This object will now have two sources of energy reaching it. The ice IR on one side and the warmer IR on the other side.
As I try to explain to you, the warmer is a relative state in reference to other states.
In the first test use a surface cooled by ice behind it. Do the same setup but now put dry ice behind instead of water ice and make sure it is much colder surface (use a thermometer). Keep a thermometer on the plate between the two other surfaces. Once you get an established temperature with the Dry ice, put back warmer water ice and see if the middle plate increased in temperature and then tell me if the cold side flux had any impact. Let me know your results. If there is no change in temperature regardless of the surface of the cold side I will consider your points. If the water ice makes the surface warmer than it was with the dry ice does that mean ice warmed the surface???
Norman, it wasn’t a “thought experiment”, it was an example of why your “two heat lamps” experiment was invalid.
You probably read my comment too quickly because you were in a hurry to write your rambling pseudoscience.
(Nice example of rambling pseudoscience, BTW.)
While this interesting, it still doesn’t seem to answer or address what I want to know.
Does anyone disagree that a cooler object can reduce the rate of cooling of a warmer object? The earth is warmer than the atmosphere but the atmosphere does reduce the rate of cooling from the surface – correct? I think the atmosphere also reduces the rate of warming from the sun (clouds, scattering, etc.).
If you claim a cooler object cannot reduce cooling of a warmer object then please explain why the moon cools so fast when it’s night arrives and the earth does not cool nearly as much. Also explain why a clear night cools faster than an overcast night.
If you claim the atmosphere can reduce the rate of cooling and it does not use IR flux back radiation, then explain how it reduces the earth’s rate of cooling.
TonyL, the discussion with Arfur above suggests you already know what you want to know. Dr. Spencer answered your questions with a backyard test using the atm.
TonyL, it appears you have been confused by all the pseudoscience.
You have to be very careful when comparing the Earth to the Moon. They are similar, but importantly different. Earth’s surface is 70% water. Water is a superior “heat holder”! The Moon, without large reservoirs of water, cools quickly.
Don’t be confused by the “slowing the cooling” nonsense.
Do you use ice cubes to “slow the cooling” of a cup of hot coffee?
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Do you use ice cubes to slow the cooling of a cup of hot coffee?”
Duh, no. Bad metaphor.
That would need a “lid.”
Davie, to pseudoscientists, ice is a “heat source”, just like atmospheric CO2.
Try to keep up with the pseudoscience. I have to explain everything to you!
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Davie, to pseudoscientists, ice is a heat source, just like atmospheric CO2.”
Are you claiming that ice doesn’t radiate energy?
Are you claiming that ice is a thermodynamic heat source?
Well, my coffee is not floating around in outer space. If my coffee cup were floating around in outer space, then surrounding a coffee cup with 273 K ice would greatly slow the cooling compared to if a cup that was radiating to the 3K background of outer space.
Hi Tim,
I would agree with you if the ice wasn’t there because of your coffee cup.
Do you get the little difference?
If you put your coffee cup floating alone in the outer space at 3K then the system is made of your cup and the outer space.
But if you add the ice you add a finite third energy source (I would consider that 3K a second source too, even if I agree with Kristian).
AFAIK, this is not the way GHGs are supposed to work.
That ice should be there as a consequence of your coffee cup (maybe because of solidification of the evaporated water from the cup).
In which case I suspect that cup should cool not faster neither slower because the first transformation (water->vapour) practically uses energy directly by conduction from the cup, while the last two transformations (vapour->water and water->ice) radiates exactly the same energy radiated/conducted by the cup to produce that vapour and to transform its coffee to ice.
Have a great day.
Massimo
(Davie was having trouble with his pseudoscience, so “partner-in-pseudoscience” Tim shows up to help out. Tag team pseudoscience, blog entertainment at its best!)
Tim, leaving the planet won’t keep your pseudoscience alive. In the near vacuum of space, the coffee would instantly vaporize. The ice would quickly cool to the 3K temperature you mentioned. Your pseudoscience fails you again.
But, back on Earth, you would have a hard time keeping your coffee hot using only ice cubes.
It’s called “reality”.
He-Who_Must_Not_Be_Named,
If you want to play “reality”, then my coffee was in a sealed travel mug preventing it from evaporating! Trying to distract with irrelevant details won’t make your objection any more powerful. The same result holds for a piece of wood or an asteriod or a block of radioactive uranium. All will be cool slower if surrounded by a shell of ice @ 273K than if surrounded by space @ 3 K.
Back on earth, eskimos often use blocks of ice to keep warmer — its called an igloo. 😀
Tim, one square meter of ice emits about 300 Watts. If the interior walls of an igloo has a surface area of 10 square meters, (3000 Watts), how long would it take to bake a turkey? (In a conventional oven, 2500 Watts, it takes about 5 hours to bake a turkey.)
He Who_Must_Not_Be_Named can NOT bake a turkey with ice, he forgot to account for the background IR 10m^2 blocked by the ice. Most of the rest us put the left over turkey ON ice.
Hi Tim,
“The same result holds for a piece of wood or an asteriod or a block of radioactive uranium. All will be cool slower if surrounded by a shell of ice @ 273K than if surrounded by space @ 3 K.”
I suspect he is right indeed, your ice should cool itself to 3K and the cooling delay of your coffee (piece of wood or asteroid or block of radioactive uranium) should be due to the additional energy that you put in the system adding that ice shell. It shouldn’t be the coffee “back-radiation” but the ice radiation because of its added energy to the system that delayed the coffee cooling.
If the ice temperature was a consequence of the coffee radiation on that water which solidified at a certain distance, I suspect that the coffee cooling shouldn’t delay at all indeed.
Have a great day.
Massimo
G*E*R*A*N, one square meter of ice emits about 300 Watts of diffuse IR heading out in all directions. If the interior walls of an igloo
hashave a surface area of 10 square meters, (3000 Watts), most of the 3000 W will necessarily hit other parts of the ice surface. The maximum possible intensity at the surface of your turkey from the ice is 300 W/m^2. Once the turkey gets to 0 C, it will be emitting 300 W/m^2 itself and cannot warm any further due simply to ice.This is all very basic thermodynamics, known by engineers who work with heat & temperature & furnaces.
Massimo, even adding an ice shell at 3K will delay the cooling of the interior object.
The thermal IR from the interior object will get absorbed by the ice, warming the ice above 3K. Once the ice is above 3K it will slow the cooling of the interior object by inhibiting the thermal IR from the interior object. (Or the ice will provide “back radiation” if you like the bi-directional model for photon fluxes.)
Well Tim, you got it right.
Ice at a few degrees below freezing can NOT cause something to heat to above that temperature, no matter how much ice is there.
I wonder if this correct application of physics also applies to the atmosphere….
Hi Tim,
“The thermal IR from the interior object will get absorbed by the ice, warming the ice above 3K. Once the ice is above 3K it will slow the cooling of the interior object by inhibiting the thermal IR from the interior object. (Or the ice will provide back radiation if you like the bi-directional model for photon fluxes.)”
I don’t agree, if the ice formed because of the net radiation of the inner warmer object and the outer space equivalent temperature radiation, the temperature of the ice shell should be at maximum when the ice was created by liquefaction and successive solidification of the WV. After that, the ice should cool down to 3k as the inner warmer object, and in case the WV which generated the ice was coming from the water evaporated from the very same inner object, the cooling time should be the same as if the inner object never left evaporate its water.
Instead, in case of the ice shell placed there with already some more energy in it, then it’s all an another system with added matter and energy respect the original one.
I don’t believe this is a good paradigm for summarize the GHGe.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“Ice at a few degrees below freezing can NOT cause something to heat to above that temperature, no matter how much ice is there.
I wonder if this correct application of physics also applies to the atmosphere.
If *only* there was some OTHER source of radiation besides the cold ice and/or atmosphere! Then maybe then the surface could continue warming above temperature of the atmosphere. /sarc
g*e*r*a*n says:
“Tim, one square meter of ice emits about 300 Watts. If the interior walls of an igloo has a surface area of 10 square meters, (3000 Watts), how long would it take to bake a turkey?”
Such raw ignorance — and the writer proud of it….
It’s way over your head, Davie.
Tim Folkerts
From above you said this: “Of course, in the end, it doesnt matter what you *call* them. It only truly matters what effect they have. And the effect is the same whether you call the back radiation an energy flux into the surface or a reduction in the heat out from the surface.
And I will accept this answer. But can you settle the point if GHG concentration will affect the Earth surface temperature?
Will having some GHG above zero cause the surface of Earth to have a higher equilibrium temperature with the same value for surface solar flux?
Will adding more GHG cause even further increase in equilibrium temperature?
The reason I favor my view over Kristian’s is because of direct measurement of a backradiation. Also the effect still works at night with no solar input at all or at the poles when there is no solar energy for months. In Antarctica the Net IR loss is greatest during the summer months and lowest in the winter when there is no Sun. I don’t know how you can explain this outside a GHE.
https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/srbavg
https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAFSFCSelection.jsp
Norman says, April 17, 2017 at 9:40 PM:
Hilarious. Folkerts just confirmed what I’ve been telling you all along, explicitly informing you that your understanding of “heat” and “heat fluxes” in this case is just WRONG:
“Yes, both solar energy and “back radiation” are (…) “energy fluxes”.
But they are not both “heat fluxes” – at least not with the standard definitions of heat, Q, in classical thermodynamics. The solar flux is in fact Q. The back-radiation is not Q. Since the surface is warmer than the atmosphere, the (Q from the surface to the atmosphere) = (energy flux from the surface) – (energy flux into the surface) = “forward radiation” – “back radiation”. Every physicist in the world would agree with this.”
Note how he rounds it off: “Every physicist in the world would agree with this.”
So can you now please just accept that I’m right about the thermodynamic concept of heat and that it is not just me expressing my “opinion” on it when I’m trying to explain it to you …?
No, Norman. There is no “direct measurement” of “back radiation”. Anywhere. There couldn’t be. How do you suppose that would even work, physically? You might THINK there is, but there isn’t. As I’ve explained to you on multiple occasions in the past. I’ve even quoted verbatim, time and time again, the very manufacturers of the instruments allegedly “directly measuring” atmospheric “back radiation”. But it doesn’t seem to sink in. You’re still linking to these SurfRad plots of yours to somehow “show” me that it’s all true.
Your “direct measurements” are no such thing. They are ALWAYS just CALCULATED values. DERIVED. From other, actually detected quantities. What is invariably detected by ANY radiometric instrument “measuring” thermal radiation is the radiant HEAT (net flux) at the sensor surface, which normally produces a certain voltage output, positive, neutral, or negative, which translates directly into a certain net energy transfer to or from. FROM THIS (plus a direct temperature measurement of the sensor surface itself) you can then COMPUTE the two conceptual “component fluxes” up and down. But you could NEVER EVER actually detect either of them separately, even if they somehow were indeed distinct entities. It would simply be physically impossible. Why? Because the REAL 3D participating (scattering, absorbing and emitting) medium sfc-atm radiation field is nothing but a seething, more or less uniform cloud of photons individually flying in ALL directions imaginable at ALL possible wavelengths through each single point, with just a small macroscopic gradient of radiative intensity away from the surface (the radiative equivalent of T); there aren’t two discrete and oppositely directed macroscopic fluxes occupying the exact same space, like two arrows on a piece of paper, Norman. That is just a mental construct. A simplified mathematical model of reality.
I don’t know how many times I will have to tell you this simple fact.
http://tinyurl.com/l3oss34
“1.16 OUTLINE OF RADIATIVE TRANSPORT THEORY
When considering heat transfer by conduction and/or convection within a medium, we require knowledge of a number of material properties, such as thermal conductivity k, thermal diffusivity α, kinematic viscosity ν, and so on. This knowledge, together with the law of conservation of energy, allows us to calculate the energy field within the medium in the form of the basic variable, temperature T. Once the temperature field is determined, the local heat flux vector may be found from Fourier’s law.
The evaluation of radiative energy transport follows a similar pattern: Knowledge of radiative properties is required (emittance ε, absorp tance α, and reflectance ρ, in the case of surfaces, as well as absorp tion coefficient κ and scattering coefficient σs for semitransparent media), and the law of conservation of energy is applied to determine the energy field. Two major differences exist between conduction/convection and thermal radiation that make the analysis of radiative transport somewhat more complex: (i) Unlike their thermophysical counterparts, radiative properties may be functions of direction as well as of wavelength, and (ii) the basic variable appearing in the law of conservation of radiative energy, the radiative transfer equation introduced in the previous section, is not temperature but radiative intensity, which is a function not only of location in space (as is temperature), but also of direction. Only after the intensity field has been determined can the local temperatures (as well as the radiative heat flux vector) be calculated.”
Apparently there are indeed direct measurements of back radiation.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-244065
Dr. Spencer’s test on the atm. in 2015 also directly measured night time back radiation from cirrus cloud AKA all-sky emission to surface.
The Feldman 2015 paper directly measures clear sky back radiation from CO2 spectral signature in both increasing T and decreasing T environments over a decade.
Hi Tim,
not really, from your link:
“As infrared energy strikes an individual bolometer element, the element increases in temperature, and its electrical resistance changes.”
After a photon stroke the element “increase” in temperature, it doesn’t reach a know temperature. That is the resistance of the detector is not univocally linked to the incoming photonic flux. The system must take account of the initial detector temperature.
It’s always a computed incoming flux by extrapolation of the detector (outgoing) flux indeed.
Kristian is right.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Hoops!
I missed to write that the first link is about near visible IR detectors, the thermal flux is negligible for those photons detection if you don’t pretend infinitesimal resolution.
In case you want to use them in the thermal range (where their quantum efficiency is laughable), I highlight you the graphics at page 25. There you can see how:
1) the quantum efficiency is always reported at a known temperature of the sensor (in that case 145K, quite a low temperature to warrant a good sensitivity).
2) the bottom graph shows you how the dark current (which reflects Kristian’s outgoing flux of the detector) is proportional to the detector temperature as expected.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, as I said (I thought fairly clearly!) there are TWO different sorts of detectors.
Microbolometers are — well — miniture bolometers that do indeed react to changes in temperature due to heat (net flux in/out of the detecting element). The link you mentioned is for such a device. So “Kristian is right” in the sense that such things do indeed exist.
But this it not the only way to detect photons. Photovoltaic cells generate currents when hit by photons. Photoresitors change resistance when hit by photons. Photodiodes generator currents. CCD’s collect charge on miniature capacitors. None of these are reacting to heat to change temperature. All involve quantum mechanical principles.
The detector in many FLIR systems is a focal plane array that uses similar quantum mechanical effects to react to incoming photons.
“Its always a computed incoming flux by extrapolation of the detector (outgoing) flux indeed.”
Nope. Not for the various quantum-based detectors.
Kristian says:
“There is no direct measurement of back radiation”.
False.
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
I know of more measurements, too, if you want them.
Here come the bogus “papers”! I was wondering when Davie would have to resort to them.
When he really gets desperate, he will claim that 97% of scientists believe in AGW!
What an easy excuse you have — just laugh at any science presented anywhere, so none of it means anything. You win!
You don’t even take yourself seriously.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-243868
Still stumped on that one, huh?
Nope, it’s perfectly clear to me. You have little understanding of the basic principles of physics.
🙂
(smiles)
AERI instruments aren’t detecting “back radiation” from a cool atmosphere to a warm surface, David. They’re detecting radiant heat from the cool air/sky to a super-cold detector. No difference. Always the heat (or, if you will, the net flux of photons/net movement of radiant energy through the radiation field separating the two regions in question).
“The atmospheric emitted radiance interferometer (AERI) is a ground-based instrument that measures the downwelling infrared radiance from the Earth’s atmosphere.”
https://www.arm.gov/capabilities/instruments/aeri
No mention AERI is detecting heat nor in the handbook:
“The atmospheric emitted radiance interferometer (AERI) measures the absolute infrared (IR) spectral radiance (watts per square meter per steradian per wavenumber) of the sky directly above the instrument.”
“The AERI data can be used for 1) evaluating line-by-line radiative transport codes, 2) detecting/quantifying cloud effects on ground-based measurements of infrared spectral radiance (and hence is valuable for cloud property retrievals), and 3) calculating vertical atmospheric profiles of temperature and water vapor and the detection of trace gases.”
The detector is cryogenically cooled to 77 or 67 K, Ball4. Which means it is WAY colder than the air/sky above. So heat naturally flows from the latter to the former. From warmer to colder. It’s as simple as that. The instrument wouldn’t “see” anything if it had the same temperature as the ground of surface air. That’s pretty basic.
“The instrument wouldnt see anything if it had the same temperature as the ground of surface air. Thats pretty basic.”
That’s pretty basically wrong Kristian, my IR thermometer is at the same temperature as the ground of surface air as it sees something: the correct brightness temperature of a lab glass of ice water and boiling water.
True, my IR thermometer won’t measure the faint IR that is as low in intensity as the AERI can measure. Which is why they go to the expense of dewars.
Norman says:
“The reason I favor my view over Kristians is because of direct measurement of a backradiation.”
Right. Kristian can stomp his feet all he wants, but the reality is that there are energy fluxes in both directions (up and down in the atmo), and these can each be measured by sensors.
That hardly precludes thermodynamics… but the greenhouse effect can’t be explained via thermodynamics — radiation transfer must also be included.
David,
I usually don’t pretend to teach something to someone, but I suggest you to work on the field and try to do your own measurements of the “energy fluxes in both directions” that “can each be measured by sensors” in your point of view.
Kristian is right, you never measure one flux, you always extrapolate one flux from the measuring system by measuring or stabilizing to a know value the detector temperature.
The nanoantenna (or rectenna) arrays pretend to directly detect the EM radiation but I suspect that give them directionality into the thermal range of the EM spectrum will be an hard task to comply.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, there are detectors that count and measure photons. These detectors would (and do), in the Earth’s atmosphere, detect photons going in all directions, including up and including down.
So you can measure one energy flux, and you can detect “backradiation” directly. The Feldman et al paper I keep citing did it; here are a few more along those lines:
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004).
Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen et al, (2007).
Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006.
Trying again, with tiny links:
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004). http://tinyurl.com/knoa4dy
Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen et al, (2007)
http://tinyurl.com/mb4xz38
Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, W.F.J. Evans, Jan 2006
http://tinyurl.com/cz57jt3
Also
“A method for continuous estimation of clear-sky downwelling longwave radiative flux developed using ARM surface measurements,” C. N. Long and D. D. Turner, Journal of Geophysical Research, vol 113, D18206, doi:10.1029/2008JD009936, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/lc5svty
David Appell
Thanks for the links to measurements of GHE. I did read in one of your links they cooled the sensor with liquid nitrogen. The sensor could at most create Kristian’s heat flux of 2 w/m^2. The rest of the measured effect would be downwelling IR from the atmosphere.
David Appell
Hope you DO NOT FEED THE TROLL with a reply.
I try to respond as little as possible. The troll is not interested in debate or logical thought. Only in trying to annoy another poster and trying to illicit a response. I saw you had several empty interactions with the troll that really were most unproductive.
I might disagree with you on points but I will not just try to intentionally annoy you for a response.
That troll is a waste of effort. They do not care for Climate Science in any way. I have seen this troll rebuked even on the Tony Heller blog.
Hopefully you will not respond and maybe it will leave this blog for greener pastures (more people to annoy and generate responses).
Thanks, Norman, I’ll try.
It’s just that when such incredible b.s. is claimed…. well, you know.
Thank you DA, the anagram of g*e*r*a*n is anger. Well displayed, no need for it.
Oh, if you think Davie displays anger, you should see Norm in one of his tantrums. He has written 500 word comments cussing and insulting me.
He’s hilarious!
Good catch.
Norm, is this the troll you’re talking about?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-242921
I was not especially aware of “Focal Plane Arrays”. They are solid state devices used in a variety of detectors, including IR detectors. I haven’t done extensive research, but they detect incoming photons, NOT HEAT. Basically they are like CCD detectors, generating a charge when a photon hits the detector. They often require cooling to low temperature, but they are detecting incoing photons.
This is in contrast with microbolometers, which do detect heat by measuring a temperature of a detector as IR enters/leaves the various miniature sensors.
Basically, Microbolometers operate like Kristian imagines; Focal plane arrays detect incoming photons like Norman imagines.
http://www.photonics.ucla.edu/host/ieee_photonics_la/documents/James_Beletic_OPN.pdf
http://www.optotherm.com/microbolometers.htm
Sorry, I replied above instead of here.
See this post and the following one.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2017-0-19-deg-c/#comment-244104
I just add here that reading more in deep the first document that the “HgCdTe [detector] is routinely grown with cutoff wavelengths
that range from 1.7 to 16.5 m.”
So the detector can work on the far IR thermal region too, but in that case the temperature of the detector became critical for the measurement as per any other bolometer.
In fact, even for near IR application where the influence of the sensor temperature is very low, on page 27 you can anyway read:
“the FGS package was designed to simultaneously meet several requirements:…” and “… To provide thermal isolation and
highly stable temperature of the imaging array. ”
That is because the detector always measures the net of the two fluxes involved, the incoming flux which is the measuring target and the outgoing flux which is produced by the temperature of the detector itself.
To infer the incoming flux you always need to extrapolate the detector temperature outgoing flux.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
I would agree with you an Kristian that you are deriving a DWLWIR flux by using the sensor temperature and its outgoing flux. That would not mean there is not a real DWLWIR flux that can be measured.
The sensor is pointed upward. No IR from the surface can make it to the array no matter from what direction the surface emission photon is going, always away from the surface. The senor body blocks all this IR from reaching the array so it will not be part of the detection process.
The textbooks and Prevost’s Law say what I claim. I make the claims because I parrot what I read.
All bodies with temperature radiate IR in all directions away from the emitter. A one way flux away from the surface. It covers all points but still moves away from the surface. If you have another surface it also emits and the rate of emission is only based upon the surface temperature and its emissivity. No other variables are needed.
Yes Norman, if Massimo and Kristian are correct they will have to provide test data that incoherent photons interact with each other to merge into one unique net flow instead of two opposite.
Until that proper test data is presented they can assert all they want, no one will be changing text book basic physics.
Hi Ball4,
“if Massimo and Kristian are correct they will have to provide test data that incoherent photons interact with each other to merge into one unique net flow instead of two opposite.”
I don’t understand your claim, I never said that and I don’t believe Kristian said that the net flux isn’t composite by the outgoing and incoming fluxes.
The problem with the real world is that you can’t measure one flux without knowing the other because everything you use to detect one or the other flux is subject to both (the fluxes I refer are the incoming and the outgoing from the sensor surface). If you don’t measure the detector temperature or if you don’t stabilize its temperature to a fixed value, your detector can’t report you any information about the incoming IR flux because the detector internal KE which it is the “worker” which does the work that give you the measurement is always the result of an energy flow in and out.
When Norman wrote:
“The sensor is pointed upward. No IR from the surface can make it to the array no matter from what direction the surface emission photon is going, always away from the surface. The senor body blocks all this IR from reaching the array so it will not be part of the detection process.”
He misses the point that the detector itself is not
measuring the incoming photons, but it is sensing the effect of those photons on its structure which produce an increase of its inner averaged kinetic energy compared to the same inner KE value when those photons don’t impinge its detecting area, but that value is also the consequence of the outgoing flux which is unknown if its own temperature isn’t measured or already known because regulated to be stable at that known value.
Anything is returned from a detector (current, voltage or resistance) is proportional to its internal KE in that moment, if you don’t know how much is outgoing you never know how much is incoming.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
I do understand what you are saying and I do not disagree.
You would find that the sensor at ambient temperature (corrected for sensor contribution to voltage detection in sensing array) will give you a close reading to one cooled by liquid helium.
If you cool the sensor array to near absolute zero, the sensor will not be adding any energy to the Downwelling flux and it will still be able to calculate similar watt levels in either system. They initially were using the super cooled systems but found that correcting for ambient temperature gave good enough results so you did not have to cool the sensor at the higher cost of doing so.
So you have two sensors pointing up. One taking in to consideration the sensor ambient temperature and then calculating the change from the Downwelling IR from the atmosphere. The other super cooled so the sensor produces insignificant amounts of IR and your almost exclusively sensing the direct Downwelling flux.
It is separate and distinct from the Upwelling flux. You can just turn both sensors around to face the surface and you get a totally different flux (generally higher than the downwelling).
If the surface cools the flux goes down. If it warms the flux goes up. Regardless of what the air temperature is doing.
You can really see this effect on sunny days. The surface warms much faster than the air above and you have actually a greater net loss of radiant energy. Surface flux increases much faster than atmosphere downwelling.
Heat is not a real flux. It is an arbitrary flux based upon the object and its surroundings. It can be changed by changing the surroundings. The energy flux only changes with changes in temperature. It is an independent variable.
Yes, Norman. The radiant heat IS the real flux of energy. It is the net movement of thermal photons through the radiation field. Its “components” are mere conceptual (mathematically derived) entities.
MP 7:49am: “I don’t understand your claim, I never said that..”
Massimo agreed with Kristian who did, let’s listen to Kristian assert & citing no experimental evidence:
“there aren’t two discrete and oppositely directed macroscopic fluxes occupying the exact same space”
“The DWLWIR and UWLWIR don’t do anything on their own. Because physically they aren’t separate macroscopic fluxes!”
“radiant heat IS the real flux of energy…Its “components” are mere conceptual (mathematically derived) entities.”
If not two separate fluxes then all that is left is DW and UW must then combine, photons hit head on, combine and become TOTAL HEAT INPUT (Kristian term). Add these combinations all up for macro: “add together HEAT FLUXES in thermodynamics to produce a higher temp”
——
OTOH Kristian writes that Norman is “..claiming TWO distinct and oppositely working energy flows on either side of the budget instead.”
Norman agrees with Prof. Planck from his reading, listen to Planck’s claims in Theory of Heat Radiation p. 9: “A body A at 100◦ C. emits toward a body B at 0◦ C. exactly the same amount of radiation as toward an equally large and similarly situated body B’ at 1000◦ C. The fact that the body A is cooled by B and heated by B’ is due entirely to the fact that B is a weaker, B’ a stronger emitter than A.”
Dr. Planck learned this from experiment, he and others directly measured the radiation by creating bodies A and B, B’, google his experimental ref.s p. 74 at room temperature, 1bar. READ these published experiments, translated as necessary, this site may have eaten some important symbols.
——
Ok if you want to say this was lab work, not on the atm., well then there are at least two modern experimental ref.s directly measuring atm. backradiation at the surface:
1) Dr. Spencer’s test on the atm. in 2015 directly measured night time back radiation from cirrus cloud.
2) The Feldman 2015 paper directly measures clear sky back radiation from CO2 spectral signature in both overall increasing T and decreasing T environments over a decade.
Radiometers do the same routinely but as you write they are calibrated to inexpensively measure electric signals that agree with Planck’s testing & claim but instead of using expensive tubs of water (Spencer) and spectral measuring devices (Feldman).
Ball4
I think your view is a lot closer to reality from textbooks. I read your ideas in every textbook I have read so far including the one Kristian recently linked to.
I think Kristian has it opposite of reality. There is no such thing as a Heat flux. You can’t measure such an entity. You can’t get any type of sensor pointing up or down or sideways that will read a “heat flux” and unidirectional flow from the surface to the atmosphere. No device will give you a 53 W/m^2 heat flux when pointed at the Earth’s surface (unless the surface temperature was really cold).
Heat flux is a derived concept. All that really exists are energy flows and they are only based upon the temperature and emissivity of a surface. You need to derive them with Stefan-Boltzmann Law but they are independent. Heat Flux is a totally dependent value and can only be determined by calculating the individual (real) energy fluxes and then subtracting the absorbed flux from the emitted flux to get a heat flow (positive or negative or zero depending on the surrounding conditions).
You can calculate an energy flux with just one measurement, the surface temperature. With a heat flux you need to measure temperature in a time frame to calculate heat loss or gain.
Far worse if you have multiple objects each radiating. Easy to calculate the individual energy flows of each and then derive the heat flux of each surface by using complex FOV calculations.
I think Kristian is wrong and you are correct. Heat flux is a nonexistent energy that only exists as a mathematical construct derived from all possible energy fluxes and FOV calculations.
With two plates facing each other in the same direction there is no heat flow. Neither plate changes temperature so you can’t measure it. You can take any IR measuring device and get an energy flux from either surface.
The more I think and read on it the more I see your view as the correct interpretation and Kristian’s as some mistaken understanding. I know he will not agree but evidence is really against his points.
When he finds a way to measure this unidirectional heat flux I will reconsider his views but he hates to experiment or test. He is all theory.
Yes, to be well founded Kristian has to find a way to measure by an experiment wherein incoherent photons do combine into one net flux, that some of Dr. Planck’s object A emitted photons hit head on with those coming from (emitted by) B’. Thus the A emitted photons are combined into photons from (emitted by) object B’ and their energy is retuned to A so it never reaches B’ and thus Kristian’s proper experiment does support his assertion: radiant heat IS the real flux of energyIts “components” are mere conceptual (mathematically derived) entities.”
Also when Kristian finds a way to measure heat is possessed by photons so that his radiant heat is well founded assertion, that experimentally photons possess KE thus heat, then I’ll drop radiant energy which is well founded as photons do possess energy hf.
Ball4
It might even help Kristian if he read his own textbook link. Maybe he missed the discussion on page 16.
It clearly states similar to what you have stated and what I have stated. It absolutely in no way supports Kristian’s view of radiant energy transfer.
I don’t know where he gets his material. He claims you are a troll and I am wrong and confused but all the material clearly states two energy flows. Page 16 uses integration to cover for all the energy directed into a surface and out of a surface and calls the difference between them the Net Heat flux.
If Kristian wants to convince anyone he has to measure his real heat flux somehow and prove such a thing exists in reality and not just an abstract math notion to help engineers design things. Kristian will never prove but he will still claim I am wrong. I have proven his claims false with an FLIR and if Tim Folkerts is correct that they are actual photon detectors coming from the direction the FLIR is facing then he really has no valid argument. Hope he thinks it trough and reads page 16 of his linked textbook.
Kristian says:
“Yes, Norman. The radiant heat IS the real flux of energy. It is the net movement of thermal photons through the radiation field. Its components are mere conceptual (mathematically derived) entities.”
A photon has both an energy and a direction.
The “components” of its direction/velocity are not “mathematical constructs” — they are every bit as real as the components of the velocity you walk with.
I can’t understand how you got so turned wrong on this very simple concept.
Hi Norman and Ball4,
I think that we should specify what’s the context we are analyzing.
If you are arguing about a radiative only system Planck is perfectly right but since the very same book Norman linked at chapter 9 page 385:
“Note that the combined heat transfer coefficient is essentially a convection heat transfer coefficient modified to include the effects of radiation.
Radiation is usually significant relative to conduction or natural convection, but negligible relative to forced convection. Thus radiation in forced convection applications is usually disregarded, especially when the surfaces involved have low emissivities and low to moderate temperatures.”
This should means that even in quiet non windy days “Radiation is usually significant relative to conduction or natural convection” that it works in parallel as resumed by the EXAMPLE 96 “Heat Loss from a Person”.
Note tHi Norman and Ball4,
I think that we should specify what’s the context we are analyzing.
If you are arguing about a radiative only systems, then Planck is perfectly right but since the very same book that Norman linked at chapter 9 page 385 reads:
“Note that the combined heat transfer coefficient is essentially a convection heat transfer coefficient modified to include the effects of radiation. Radiation is usually significant relative to conduction or natural convection, but negligible relative to forced convection. Thus radiation in forced convection applications is usually disregarded, especially when the surfaces involved have low emissivities and low to moderate temperatures.”
This should mean that even in quiet non windy days “Radiation is usually significant relative to conduction or natural convection” and is disregarded for low to moderate temperatures [difference].
Practically in the best case, radiation exchange works in parallel to convection as resumed by the EXAMPLE 96 “Heat Loss from a Person”.
Note that in that example more than 50% of the heat flow is by convection not by radiation, even in a steady air condition (no wind) since in the analysis you can read: “The heat transfer between the person and the air in the room is by convection (instead of conduction) since it is conceivable that the air in the vicinity of the skin or clothing warms up and rises as a result of heat transfer from the body, initiating natural convection currents.”, so no moving air, no wind.
Note that that is the situation that gives to the radiation process the highest importance to the radiative heat (energy) exchange, but only 50% (or a little less) of the total heat transfer happens by radiation.
If you put the detector in place of the human body in that example, and you try to measure the incoming IR without knowing the effective temperature of the detector you get a complete useless information. That because, if its absolutely true what Ball4 wrote (that incoherent photons dont interact each other in space), its absolutely also true that once they have been absorbed by matter (the detector) there is no way to discriminate the effect on the detector of one UW photon from one other DW photon.
I honestly dont fully read your debate with Kristian, so maybe he was saying something else, my point was about what I wrote here above.
hat more than 50% of the heat flow is by convection not by radiation, even in a steady air condition (no wind) since in the analysis you can read: “The heat transfer between the person and the air in the room is by convection (instead of conduction) since it is conceivable that the air in the vicinity of the skin or clothing warms up and rises as a result of heat transfer from the body, initiating natural convection currents.”
So that’s the situation that gives to the radiation process the highest importance to the heat exchange.
Have both a great day (and all the other reades of course)
Massimo
Massimo, Planck radiation physics operate at same time as convection, conduction, they are independent, can be superposed. If you read the experiments in Planck’s paper, find they minimized convection so as not to have to calculate its independent effects. Since the room temperature was in balance with the measuring equipment, conduction was also minimized.
For example, a hot asphalt desert parking lot at Noon on clear sky day, no wind, you feel too warm steady state & plug in a fan for some forced convection. This an experiment many people have done so should already be part of your experience without further testing.
The Planck formula and surface emissivity physics work the same at each temperature as it reduces as you cool down to the new steady state. The overall T solution could be found from analyzing superposition of all the energy flows, radiative, conductive and convective. Evaporative too as it works to cool your skin.
An IR gun using Planck physics (with correct emissivity) would record your skin temperature and follow it down the same as a thermometer. Of course, lab experiments would be more precise.
Kristian…”The radiant heat IS the real flux of energy. It is the net movement of thermal photons through the radiation field”.
Come on, K., there is no such thing as a thermal photon. We don’t even know if photons exist, they were defined as particles with momentum and no mass as a convenience to particalize EM. Einstein claimed that no one knows if EM exists as a wave or as particles.
Photons apply to EM only, and EM has no properties related to heat. EM is defined by its amplitude and frequency.
Space is largely a vacuum due to the lack of mass through much of it. That lack of mass causes the temperature to be near absolute zero. As you introduce mass, the temperature rises. Whereas there is little mass where the temperature is near absolute zero there is plenty of EM bouncing around.
Heat has to be a property of real atoms and molecules. EM is not a property of atoms and molecules but it can be produced by them or absorbed by them. Once it’s absorbed, the EM is converted to kinetic energy, which is heat.
I would sure like to be there at the atomic level to see what happens when EM is absorbed by an electron. Heck, I’d just like to see an electron in a covalent bond. Until we humans can see that directly, it shall remain a mystery. Quantum theory is absolutely useless when it comes to such visualization.
Hi Ball4,
“Planck radiation physics operate at same time as convection, conduction, they are independent, can be superposed.”
I absolutely agree, I shouldn’t have wrote something against that (I hope).
“The overall T solution could be found from analyzing superposition of all the energy flows, radiative, conductive and convective. Evaporative too as it works to cool your skin.”
Exactly.
“An IR gun using Planck physics (with correct emissivity) would record your skin temperature and follow it down the same as a thermometer.”
Yes because inside the gun there is a thermocouple or an equivalent device that adjust the radiation to the current gun temperature (many years ago I opened my first IR gun and found it, if you don’t believe me then check yourself on your IR gun).
Anyways I’m no way arguing that photons from different directions could “interact each other to merge into one unique net flow instead of two opposite” as you said about me.
I’m just arguing that once the photons impinged on the detector from different directions they are converted in the same internal KE inside the structure of the detector and there is no ways to distinguish them.
The detector output signal is a function of that KE which is flowing inside the detector structure as the result of the net flux of the incoming and the outgoing fluxes of photons from and to the surroundings.
For this reason it’s important to know the detector’s body temperature to establish the real IR gun target temperature.
Just that.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Yes Massimo, your 3:56am comment reverses your earlier agreement with Kristian, now you clearly disagree with Kristian’s unphysical comment “The DWLWIR and UWLWIR don’t do anything on their own. Because physically they aren’t separate macroscopic fluxes!”
“That is because the detector always measures the net of the two fluxes involved, the incoming flux which is the measuring target and the outgoing flux which is produced by the temperature of the detector itself.”
Do you think is is what happens with the camera on your smart phone? Do you think it detects the temperature of millions of little pixels due to the net flux of visible light photons hitting the detector?
This is, in fact, NOT how a CCD detector (used in digital cameras) works. They are NOT measuring temperature.
We know the detector can detect light in the range from 0.4 – 0.7 um this way, so why not beyond 0.7 um (infrared)? In fact, most digital cameras CAN detect near IR.
If you can detect near IR this way, why couldn’t you redesign the chip to measure farther into the IR i a similar manner?
This seems to be exactly what the chips in question are doing. They are not changing temperature in response to net photons.
Hi Tim,
I already posted the answer to this question.
The answer is exactly in the article of the link that you posted about those near IR sensors.
Until you detect near IR radiation, the dark current (specified anyways in that link for high precision near IR detection, since the astronomers use those detector for detecting radiation from very far celestial bodies) for some applications could be negligible (for example in you smartphone camera). If you instead try to use those detectors for higher WL such as those in the thermal IR range (4 to 20um) you must adjust the detector readings for its own temperature because itself is a source of photons in that range of WL.
One other solution is highly stabilizing its temperature to a known value to adjust the measurements for that known value.
Note that supporting what I write here, in the link that you posted the author wrote that the the FGS package was designed to simultaneously meet several requirements: and one of those requirement was To provide thermal isolation and highly stable temperature of the imaging array.
Do you asked yourself why he had to specify that highly stable temperature of the imaging array?
And note that that requirement wasnt for detecting the far thermal IR but just to avoid the tiny dark current in the near IR as explained by the bottom graph on page 25 of the very same article.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Tim Folkerts says, April 18, 2017 at 8:18 PM:
And:
April 18, 2017 at 5:57 PM:
Dear me. Tim, you cannot be serious!? This again?
Bear with me. I have to respond through my own blog, since Spencer’s site for some reason won’t allow my comment to go through:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/comment-page-1/#comment-929
I am serious. There are lots of detectors — photovoltaic cells, CCDs, photoresistors, photodiodes, photomultiplier tubes — that react to specific photons. These are based on quantum mechanical effects, not on total energy deposited and temperature changes.
You apparently didn’t read my linked comment. I specifically addressed the red herring you’re laying out here … I know very well that quantum detectors measure radiation in a different way than thermal detectors. That doesn’t mean they measure a “back radiation” flux from the atmosphere to the surface. And they need a HEAT flux in to the detector in order to detect anything, Tim. Even photons.
But Norman isn’t talking about photons. He’s talking about a separate macroscopic power density flux down to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. That’s the “back radiation” we’re talking about here.
Kristian says:
“That doesnt mean they measure a back radiation flux from the atmosphere to the surface.”
Kristian, why are you ignoring the many papers I’ve cited where they do exactly that?
Kristian
YOU: “But Norman isnt talking about photons. Hes talking about a separate macroscopic power density flux down to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. Thats the back radiation were talking about here.”
Exactly what all the textbooks are saying about it. The downwelling atmospheric energy flux is just based upon the emissivity of GHG and the temperature and since it is a gas you have to include path length in the equation to get your correct DW real energy flux.
Real, and measured by many means.
The DWIR will be a heat flux to the surface if you artificially coold the surface. Take some liquid nitrogen tanker trucks and pour it out on a pond. The now warmer atmopsheric emission would turn into an actual heat flux. So now you have a unidirectional flux from atmosphere to frozen pond but a few miles away the same atmosphere has no flux at all, the only energy is the heat flow (which can’t be measured by anyone or anything) from the surface to the atmosphere. A unidirectional flow of energy. So how can this be a logical thought process? Far more rational to be in reality and understand that both the surface and the atmosphere emit energy towards each other. You mathematically derive a heat flux for each object. The Earth has a positive heat flux, the atmosphere has a negative heat flux (gaining energy from the surface).
Norman says:
“The DWIR will be a heat flux to the surface if you artificially coold the surface”
I haven’t tried to keep up with all the back-and-forth here….
But the atmosphere radiates. Some of that radiation strikes the ground as IR. That is a energy flux, I’ll also call it a heat flux, and it warms the surface.
David,
According to your logic:
“But the atmosphere radiates. Some of that radiation strikes the sun as IR. That is a energy flux, Ill also call it a heat flux, and it warms the surface of the sun.”
Like I said earlier, pseudo-scientists confuse the terms “heat” and “energy” which have very specific and precise meanings in the world of physics.
SkepticGW: Yes.
David,
What a howler! The earth heats the sun. By all means publish this amazing feat in the Physical Review journal.
This “insanity” is the result of the nonsensical fake physics of bidirectional heat transfer. You have violated both the First and Second Laws of thermodynamics. In your alternate universe, the sun is now at a higher energy level. Presto. Energy creation. And yet you stop this at one cycle. For the warmer sun will now heat the earth even more, and so on.
Per the heat flow equation, even if you had two identical suns next to each other radiating at the same temperature, the heat transfer between them is ZERO, since T2 = T1, yet you somehow think a cooler black-body can transfer heat to a warmer one. Go figure.
SGW, actually it is your comment that is nonsensical as heat is an 1800s myth, a dogma that doesn’t exist in reality, your use of the heat term conforms only to your own mythology nonsense.
Actually in reality, experimental testing shows of your two identical suns, one not absorbing the energy of terrestrial radiation would be less warm than the one absorbing the radiated terrestrial energy. This is easy to understand basic physics except for those that get confused about modern reality by incorrectly invoking the ancient myth of heat.
My comment is nonseniscal? LMAO. The idea that the earth heats the sun is the most abject stupid concepts I have ever run across. One would think this phenomenon would appear in some physics text, or maybe an astrophysics journal.
Please change your moniker to “StrikeThree”, because you are way out of here.
“Scientists Have Determined The Earth Heats the Sun!”
More on page 6 of the National Enquirer. And in further news, a new Elvis sighting has occurred…….
Ok, SGW, all you have to do to back up your nonsense claim is cite one test, or DIY, that incident radiant energy photons are 0% absorbed by any real object, at any temperature.
To do that you will need to show the Planck radiance function was 0 at that frequency and temperature.
The IDIOTS that designed my water heater were really dumb. Instead of one tank, they should have constructed 4 smaller ones, and grouped them together but spacing them slightly apart so they could radiatively heat each other up some more! Wow! I think I’ll head to the patent office.
Dang! Ball4 beat me to it.
And remember. Never place ice in a thermos and close the lid. The heat flux from the ice will cause over-pressure in the thermos, causing it to explode.
Another handy tip. Run out of firewood in the winter?? No problem! Just throw a hunk of ice in the fireplace. The heat flux from the ice will get the room nice and toasty!
THAT thought trivia is not a proper test SGW, do you know how to experiment properly? If so, show us.
In your water heater assertions, you forgot to subtract the background radiation the added 3 smaller water heaters are now blocking, you improperly added, but that is not all you forgot.
Run the test, take the data, the patent office will make you do so with your working prototype if you really have something. Of course you do not, that is a silly idea.
Ice does not explode the cooler SGW and added ice will not warm my fireplace, you are simply mistaken. If not, run the tests and let us know, with data.
SkepticGoneWild says:
“What a howler! The earth heats the sun.”
Of course it does. Obviously.
The Earth emits radiation. A little of it is in the direction of the Sun.
Do you think those photons do a U-turn before they get there?
SkepticGoneWild says:
“The IDIOTS that designed my water heater were really dumb. Instead of one tank, they should have constructed 4 smaller ones, and grouped them together but spacing them slightly apart so they could radiatively heat each other up some more! Wow! I think Ill head to the patent office.”
All you’re showing is that you don’t understand physics.
(And it’s not very complicate physics, either.)
SkepticGoneWild
If you are not a troll but a person who actually wants to understand science I would like to discuss ideas with you. If you are a troll then not so much.
In your examples of ice and its flux in trying to prove the absurdity of GHE you are really failing in understanding some really fundamental differences.
David Appell is actually correct with his Earth warming the Sun but. It is the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, Energy conservation.
The amount of energy and warming would be very insignificant however.
The Earth’s area is 510.1 trillion square meters. The Earth radiates an outwelling IR flux of 240 W/m^2 at TOA. The total amount of energy the Earth is emitting in all directions is 1.224×10^17 joules/second (510×10^12 m^2 times 240 W/m^2)
The distance from Earth to Sun is 149.6 billion meters.
Area of a sphere is 4(pi)(r^2)
The area of the 1.224×10^17 joules/sec spread to the Sun’s distance would 2.81×10^23 m^2 (assuming I did not make any caclulator errors).
The energy density would then be 4.36×10^-7 W/m^2 reaching the Sun
or 0.000000436 W/m^2.
The first law would be violated if this energy just vanished on the way to the Sun. What would stop the Sun from absorbing this energy?
SkepticGoneWild
One of the misunderstandings with GHE is forgetting to understand that the Earth’s surface or the Sun are constantly having an influx of new energy.
I have read people say GHE can’t exist because if you wrap a blanket around a dead dog the dog will not warm up.
But if you have a pipe that is being heated by some source at a constant rate (like the Sun in Appell’s post), it has a continuous influx of energy, joules into it. (One gram of water will raise 1 C if you add 4.18 joules of energy to it)
The uninsulated pipe can lose energy by all processes conduction, convection and radiation and will reach some equilibrium with its surroundings so that it is losing energy at an rate equal to what it is gaining. If you put insulation around this same pipe with it still continuous energy supply it will get hotter than in its noninsulated state because of the 1st Law. The amount of joules is increasing in the body of the pipe and it gets warmer.
Same with the Earth system. It has a constant supply of input energy from the Sun. If anything impedes the loss of this energy (backradiation absorbed by a highly absorbing Earth surface) it will get warmer (like the pipe) than without the restriction.
With your ice examples. If you bring your examples to space with no other inputs you can see the effects. If you have an object at 100 C sphere with a surface area of 1 m^2 (emissivity of 0.95)
It will radiate 1044 Watts of energy. In order to maintain a temperature of 100 C it must have a source of energy that will supply 1044 joules/second of energy. Any less and it will cool down, more and it will heat up. Does that make sense?
Now if you enclose this with a shell of ice emitting 300 joules/second (the ice is maintained at this temperature by some heat source) the surface will have an absorbitivity of 0.95. Since the object is completely surrounded by the shell of ice it has a View Factor of 1 meaning the surface will receive all the 300 joules/second to its surface. It will then absorb 285 of the available joules.
So it is still gaining 1044 joules from its internal heat source and also absorbing 285 additional joules from the ice shell. Now it will raise in temperature until it is losing energy at the rate it is gaining energy which with an ice shell will be 1329 joules/second. Since the only way it can lose energy is by radiation it will raise in temperature to 123 C. The ice shell will make the object raise in temperature 23 C from a free radiating state.
The equilibrium state can go to many different temperatures depending upon the external environment. But you have to understand the constant input of energy. In your cases there is no new input of energy. Putting ice in a thermos would not produce warming, there is not energy input. The ice inside the thermos emits (loses) 300 watts away from its surface and then the walls of the thermos reflect it back so it gains the 300 watts. The end result is no temperature change. I think the Kristian one way flux is what produces all the lack of understanding. If you think in a two flux Ball4 reality things make much more sense.
I do not know if I explained it well. It is very logical and you can look in any of the textbook links to confirm what is being said.
Norm,
I am not a troll. Thankfully I took my university physics/thermo classes before the climate nutcases took over. I am not going to learn anything from some physics dork posting nonsensical comments on this website.
The earth/atmosphere has no energy of its own to provide. It’s a passive system. The sun is all there is. The sun cannot warm itself up by reflecting back some of its own radiation onto itself. That would be a violation of the First Law. And how many cycles of self warming does this procedure go through? Sun heats earth, earth heats sun a little more. Warmer sun provide more warming to the earth. Even warmer earth heats sun more. When does this nonsensical cycle end?
skepticgonewild..”The sun cannot warm itself up by reflecting back some of its own radiation onto itself”.
Anyone whose head is not stuck in the clouds would get that. When the human brain’s distortion is allowed to have it’s way, weird and wonderful things become possible.
By the same token, solar energy that warms the surface cannot be converted to infrared energy and recycled by GHGs radiating a tiny fraction of the emitted IR so as to warm the surface beyond what it is warmed by solar energy.
SkepticGoneWild says:
“The earth/atmosphere has no energy of its own to provide. Its a passive system.”
As the lower atmosphere warms from the greenhouse effect, the stratosphere cools.
Energy is (of course) conserved.
Gordon Robertson says:
“By the same token, solar energy that warms the surface cannot be converted to infrared energy”
Of course it can. And it is.
It happens throughout the universe, everywhere. Your body is radiating IR right now — it’s how ear thermometers work; they utilize the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and, I believe, assume an emissivity of 0.95.
“…and recycled by GHGs radiating a tiny fraction of the emitted IR so as to warm the surface beyond what it is warmed by solar energy.”
GHGs radiate, I’m sure you’ll agree.
What they radiate downward warms the surface.
What doesn’t get radiated upward means the stratosphere cools.
(Stratospheric cooling is the absolute best evidence for AGW. It wouldn’t happen if the warming was due to the Sun…. You have to account for ozone loss, though, which also cools the stratosphere.)
SGW wrote:
“The sun cannot warm itself up by reflecting back some of its own radiation onto itself.”
But that’s not what’s happening.
First, it’s not “reflection.” The difference matters.
If only the Sun existed, its radiation would stream away to infinity.
But if both the Sun and the Earth exist — TWO BODIES, each at their respective temperatures — then both radiate. There is overall MORE energy in the system, because now TWO bodies are radiating. The equilibrium temperature of the Sun is slightly higher, and this certainly does not violate conservation of energy.
“The earth/atmosphere has no energy of its own to provide.”
Sure it does! The atmosphere has a temperature. It has a heat capacity. There’s an ENORMOUS amount of energy that the atmosphere has and that it can give away. This is energy that the atmosphere has collected over the ages from various sources. The atmosphere constantly collects new energy and constantly gives away some of its own energy. But the energy of all those rotating, vibrating, moving molecules certainly “belongs to” the atmosphere — not the earth or the sun.
This would be like saying that I have no money of my own because I don’t run the mint! Even though the government may have “created” the money once upon a time, it is mine now!
O M G TIM. The atmosphere is a passive system. It has temperature because the sun has warmed it up. Take the sun away and what do you have??
This is the same garbage you find at the Science of Dumb…er, I mean “Doom” site.
SkepticGoneWild says:
“The atmosphere is a passive system. It has temperature because the sun has warmed it up. Take the sun away and what do you have??”
You have a very cold planet. So what?
Take chemical energy away from your cells, and you won’t radiate much either.
But, like the Sun, that energy *is* there….
SkepticGoneWild, everything you say about “passive” and “the sun has warmed it up” etc is true, but what does it matter vis a vis what I said?
Do you think …
* the sun just “loaned” the energy to the atmosphere?
* that the surface is forced the atmosphere to sigh a contract that the atmosphere may never send photons of its own energy to the surface?
You really have gone wild this time!
Tim,
I understand the difference between energy and heat. You don’t. Nothing wild about that.
In my thermodynamics course, we studied the three methods of heat transfer, not energy transfer.
SGW, in your course work were you then instructed that an entity heat does exist in an object? So then that entity could transfer from the object. I see you are still practicing the hokum you were taught.
In my course work the Prof. wrote: “…a body never contains heat.” Your instruction was simply following dogma of the ancient rituals surrounding the 1800s mythology of heat.
Actually an object contains constituent particle KE, energy which can transfer by three processes which started with Clausius 1857 paper debunking the prior myth of heat as an entity.
“we studied the three methods of heat transfer, not energy transfer.”
Heat *IS* energy transfer! Heat might be a specific subset of energy transfer, but it is not something completely different. One object loses thermal energy; another gains an equal amount. The amount transferred is heat, Q.
Ball4 says: “SGW, in your course work were you then instructed that an entity heat does exist in an object? So then that entity could transfer from the object. ”
“Heat” is just a word meaning “how much energy was moved”. It is not some separate entity. Your object is no more valid than saying “there can be no ‘transfer’ from my savings account to my checking account because ‘transfer’ does not exist as a separate entity in my savings account’.”
The terminology may not be optimal, but it is what we are stuck with. If Object A has thermal energy it can give some of that thermal energy to an adjacent (cooler) Object B. I could call that amount of energy that was transferred “George” or “Mary” or “heat”. IT’S JUST A WORD!
Tim 3:25, we are not stuck with the myth of heat, there is no need to use heat term, ever. Leave heat term in the 1800s and improve your thermodynamics communication in the 2000s.
how much energy was moved are tangible, physical science words meaning how much energy was moved. No myth need be invoked.
Tim 3:16, One object loses therm-odynamic intern-al energy; another gains an equal amount of therm-odynamic intern-al energy. The amount of energy transferred by virtue of a temperature difference is, Q.
No mythical entity need be invoked.
Tim,
Duh. I was making the point that the three methods of transferring heat are CALLED “heat” transfer versus “energy” transfer for a reason, because you can have two-way flow of energy, but not two-way flow of heat. You need a positive temperature gradient to transfer heat per the Second Law. And when T2 = T1, heat transfer Q is zero, even though energy is still being emitted by each black body.
OMG Ball4, you have your work cut out for you. Have you looked at the online Thermodynamics notes for MIT? I guess MIT didn’t get your memo regarding “heat”. Please call up the MIT Thermodynamics professor and set him straight.
SGW 3:56, join thermodynamics in the 2000s, advance & exit the 1800s.
Rate of energy transfer Q is zero when T1=T2, radiant energy transfers both ways per Planck treatise.
Invoking a myth only adds confusion. Field of thermodynamics is hard enough without invoking a totally useless mythology.
“Have you looked at the online Thermodynamics notes for MIT?”
Not sure, but if MIT invokes the myth of heat, the good Prof. succeeds only in adding confusion from the 1800s. If I did read the notes, I would simply read energy for heat and reduce or eliminate that inherent confusion.
Ocean Heat Content? Really Ocean Energy Content when I read those papers. If you do that, sometimes you can spot gaffes and get a silent chuckle. Those times makes the effort worthwhile. You rise above the confusion.
Ball4,
Find me any physics textbook or published paper with a worked out two-body blackbody radiative problem that shows a cooler body warming up the warmer one, giving initial and final T1 and T2’s, otherwise you are blowing hot air and engaging in a modern form of alchemy.
Any modern textbook will work SGW, you can name any one you want. They will all teach 1LOT consistent results of Dr. Spencer’s 2015 test on the atm. showing a cooler body (cirrus) radiating energy absorbed in the warmer body (sfc tub of water) with the result being the same: a higher temperature.
Added cirrus added ~6W/m^2 calculated from 0.4 F higher water temperature by thermometer over the no added cirrus radiation water at night of about 8 hours.
This is simple thermodynamics 1LOT, 2LOT yet the confusion over myth of heat makes it into 1500+ comment debate.
One cannot credibly discuss more complex thermodynamics until one can credibly discuss his test. That credibility will be enhanced by forcing yourself in comments to drop the myth of heat as an entity.
Ball4,
Typical obfuscation. I said find me ONE physics textbook with a sample worked out problem showing a cooler blackbody heating up a warmer one. The problem must show initial and final T1’s and T2’s. You simply will not find one.
Backyard experiments don’t count.
tim…”They are solid state devices used in a variety of detectors, including IR detectors. I havent done extensive research, but they detect incoming photons, NOT HEAT. Basically they are like CCD detectors, generating a charge when a photon hits the detector”.
Incoming EM gives an electron enough energy to escape it’s bond to an atom and the electrons can be gathered into a current. The surface has to be prepared to allow the electrons to be ripped from their bonds.
In a semiconductor device, like a photo diode, there is a complex relationship between doped semiconductor regions that determine if a semiconductor is a P-type (lack of electrons) or an N-type (excess of electrons). The extra energy allows electron flow, depending on the type. EM contacting the surface gives the electrons the required energy to overcome a potential hill inherent between a P- and N-type junction.
They are still detecting individual photons — and not via classical thermodynamical means, as you just explained.
Kristian
The more I read the more correct it seems Ball4’s view of heat is. Your own source says heat is calculated.
What you think radiant energy fluxes are (you feel they are merely mathematical constructs and do not exist). Your claim is there is only a unidirectional heat flux.
Your own books do not support this notion. Read 1-4 Emissive Power.
Also read up on Prevost Law.
test
not let me post the whole comment
Kristian
Read this one:
https://plstrento.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/pnlstdmeccanismi.pdf
Chapter 9 page 385.
All sources state bidirectional energy flows and a calculated, derived (not real) heat flow. Heat is the NET energy flow and does not exist in reality. The energy flows do, however exist in reality.
Heat fluxes can be very hard to calculate. Energy fluxes are quite easy. Only one variable to calculate and you have an energy flow away from the emitting surface. Simple and real and measurable.
Your heat flux does not exist and cannot be measured. It is a mathematical construct that needs to be calculated among potentially many variables including FOV. Read the page and learn.
Link me to one established textbook source that supports your claim that there exists in reality a heat flux between objects. No one can measure it and it changes based upon each object. Energy flux does not change based upon the surroundings since it is not an abstract calculation based upon a multiple of factors.
Anyway I await a link that will not show up. I have looked through many and not one supports your claim of a unidirectional flow of energy from a hot body to a cold. And no one has measured this abstract flow yet.
Where is your measurement of a 53 W/m^2 heat flux up from the Earth’s surface? Didn’t think so. I am not expecting to see it soon.
Norman…from your link…”In Chapter 3, we defined
heat as the form of energy that can be transferred
from one system to another as a result of temperature difference.”
They can define heat all they want, what they describe has already been defined by Clausius circa 1875. What they are describing is a macroscopic convenience that enables them to ignore what heat really is.
“Heat is the NET energy flow and does not exist in reality. The energy flows do, however exist in reality”.
That is absolute nonsense. Thermal energy exists and is just as real as any other energy. To claim it does not exist is pseudo-science.
Gordon Roberston
Yes thermal energy exists. That is not heat. Heat is a net energy flow, derived from complex calculations in some cases. Look at some textbook problems on multiple surfaces and how they calculate the heat flux for any of the surfaces. Each surface has a heat flux that can be calculated. If heat is moving into a surface (net energy is negative…energy emitted is less than energy absorbed) but it still is considered a heat flux. If a surface is losing energy it has a positive heat flux (energy emitted minus energy absorbed).
To make discussion or debate more productive it would help if posters used current textbook definitions of the terms they use.
Norman says, April 19, 2017 at 6:49 PM:
*Sigh*
And round and round we go.
No, Norman. That’s because you don’t what radiation REALLY IS and how it works.
The radiation field photon cloud is what “exists”. And the radiation field photon cloud is NOT divided into two macroscopic counter-streams. That is only a geometrically constrained, highly simplified mathematical MODEL of the movement of energy through it. Two arrows on a piece of paper. In reality, there can only be TWO different kinds of movement through the radiation field:
1) The movement (direction and intensity) of EACH INDIVIDUAL PHOTON through each point in 3D space, or
2) The probabilistic/statistical average of ALL such individual photon movements, which is the NET movement of radiant energy through the radiation field/photon cloud; the net photon flux, which is – of course – UNIdirectional.
IOW, there are only TWO “real” movements of energy here, one MICROSCOPIC (quantum, disorderly super-mega-multidirectional; chaotic, random) and one MACROSCOPIC (thermodynamic, orderly unidirectional).
The net macroscopic movement is the radiant HEAT, Norman. And is all we ever physically detect in the real world.
You could also read my response to you here:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/#comment-933
I even tried to explain this to you several times in the past already. Like here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/11/uah-global-temperature-update-for-october-2016-0-41-deg-c/#comment-229807
One has to watch the pea very carefully with Kristian, in 1) and 2) his comment carefully matches the text books.
Then suddenly, without warning, inserts the myth of heat and magically, mythically, paranormally changes radiant energy to radiant heat, an ancient dogma entity that does not exist in nature but Kristian claims can be detected.
Had Kristian not invoked the myth of heat in last paragraph, his 10:22pm would have matched experiments; just drop the heat term Kristian and you will not create 1500+ comments trying to explain real (non-mythical) physics to you from actual tests.
Massimo and Norman have made progress in digging into relevant experiment, Kristian not so much.
Still wrong Kristian.
In the atmosphere, there are photons going up, and photons going down. (Their horizontal components aren’t important here.)
These photons carry energy.
Therefore, there is an upward flux of energy, and a downward flux of energy.
These are real, not mathematical constructs. Proof: detectors can measure each of them (as did Feldman, and Philipova, and all the other papers I’ve cited).
Kristian
All the textbooks support David Appell’s point. Maybe it helps you to think in terms of AWAY from and TOWARD in terms of macroscopic energy flows. You gave an example of a super cold detector that would detect energy from all directions. Yes but ONLY energy directed toward it, the photons moving toward it. Photons all have direction. The surface has photons moving Toward it and Away from it. This if bidirectional there is no other directions photons can move and interact with the surface (Earth in this case). If photons are moving toward the surface they will be mostly absorbed because of the high surface absorbitvity of IR for Earth surface materials (like water). You have so many photons/sec-area striking the surface. That is a flux and it is macroscopic.
No textbook supports you position on this. You use it to prove the GHG concentration is not significant so your flawed thinking has actual effect on your world view. You somehow have concluded that just a little GHG is all you need to produce a GHE and then mass of atmosphere is the major player.
Nothing supports your conclusion or your view in textbooks. How would mass prevent IR emitted from the surface from leaving the system? So instead of a 240 W/m^2 upwelling flux at TOA you would measure a 398 W/m^2 flux (for a time until the surface cooled because the energy make up is far too low to sustain this outward flux).
It is my same argument with the “massers” on Venus. If atmospheric mass were the cause of Venus high surface temperature how come satellites are not receiving a 16000 W/m^2 flux circling Venus? This IR would not be impeded by a massive nitrogen atmosphere.
Your support for your theory comes from your own blog and your own posts on Roy Spencer. You have done no experiments to measure or prove there exists a Unidirectional heat flux. I have never read about such measurements, all textbooks describe this heat flux as a derived value based upon how much energy a surface is losing minus how much it is gaining from its surroundings.
You are very much like C*o*t*t*o*n. He never experiments, he uses his own blog and his own posts to prove his conjecture. You do the same. Link me once to a textbook that supports your understanding of radiant heat transfer, but you have not been able to and all the links you have provided support Ball4 and not you.
Time for you to open up the textbook and reread the material to see where you went off the rails and came up with your Mass generated GHE that is not logical or scientifically sound.
David Appell says, April 20, 2017 at 10:50 PM:
Haha! Classic Appellian logic. “Therefore, there is an upward flux of energy, and a downward flux of energy.” LOL! Thanks for the laugh, David.
No. Therefore there are photons coming in and photons going out. At each point in time. The instantaneous NET exchange is what we “see”. There are NO two separate macroscopic fluxes. There are only individual photons, and a NET flux of photons. There is nothing else. The NET flux of photons at the surface is simply the probabilistic/statistical average of ALL photon movements IN/OUT, the instantaneous, continuous, simultaneous quantum exchange at the surface. This constitutes the NET exchange. That’s the radiant HEAT, David, and nothing else. The two-way flux idea exists only inside your head. It is a mental construct. A highly simplified, mathematically derived model of reality. The radiation ITSELF is a totally different creature.
Again, you have only TWO options here: 1) individual photons (the MICROscopic perspective), or 2) a net flux of photons (the MACROscopic perspective). Everything in between is merely creations of the human mind.
Sorry.
No, they can’t. They ONLY ever detect a NET flux of photons. In order for them to single out individual photons coming IN, the NET flux of photons needs to be coming IN to the detector, preferably as close to a pure radiant heat flux as possible.
Sorry, no. They all detect radiant HEAT from a cool sky to a super-cooled detector, distinctly NOT “back radiation” from a cool sky to a warm surface.
Still wrong, David.
“They all detect radiant HEAT from a cool sky to a super-cooled detector…”
Radiant heat cannot be detected as exists only in mythology. The AERI uses dewar filled liquid N2 to detect very weak intensity (W/sr) radiant energy, as it is a precision instrument.
Dr. Spencer’s test did not need liquid N2, was not as precision as AERI & still detected the back radiation from the cirrus as in Dr. Planck’s treatise: the radiant energy from object A (cirrus) to object B’ (sfc water tub).
Only by Kristian’s alchemy is radiant energy turned into radiant heat.
“Therefore there are photons coming in and photons going out.”
Kristian does get that right per experiments published in Planck’s treatise, since photons carry energy hf and are commonly called radiation (wave aspect) there is only radiant energy in each photon coming in & going out and, as Norman points out, no radiant heat is detected, radiant energy is detected, then only from energy flux calculations detect the ancient mythology of an entity termed heat.
Kristian should take Norman’s advice and study up in this field using experimental evidence provided by Dr. Spencer and Dr. Planck. And the AERI team. And the CERES team, so forth.
Had Kristian written 10:38am without heat term, then he would have been correct (no myths) except that would then agree with DA, Dr. Spencer, Norman and Dr. Planck so Kristian invokes a myth to explain physics his way opposite to experiment.
Also the standard $30 Ryobi IR002 IR energy gun I have is not super-cooled and routinely detects back radiation from passing cloud. It is not that sensitive to detect all the other weaker intensity (W/sr) radiant energy AERI can detect.
IR002 does not detect heat flow; I have to do a calculation to detect mythical heat following the mythological procedures of the 1800s.
Kristian says:
“Therefore there are photons coming in and photons going out. At each point in time. The instantaneous NET exchange is what we see.”
This is exactly where you’re wrong.
A detector pointed upward measures downward moving photons, AND NOT UPWARD MOVING PHOTONS.
Which is what Feldman, Philipona, and the rest have done.
David Appell says, April 21, 2017 at 5:34 PM:
Exactly, it detects downward-moving PHOTONS inside the radiation field, where the NET movement of ALL photons is UP. It does, in other words, NOT detect a distinct downward-moving radiative FLUX. The two are NOT the same thing, David.
MICRO vs. MACRO. Quantum vs. thermo.
Sorry, I should’ve been a bit clearer. Distinguish between the radiative transfer “sky=>detector” and the radiative transfer “surface=>sky”. Distinguish also between “we”, as in us normal, macroscopic creatures, and the “quantum detector” operating at MICROscopic levels.
Kristian says:
“Exactly, it detects downward-moving PHOTONS inside the radiation field, where the NET movement of ALL photons is UP. It does, in other words, NOT detect a distinct downward-moving radiative FLUX. The two are NOT the same thing, David.”
Still wrong, Kristian.
They do detect distinct downward-moving photons. Those photons have energy, meaning there is a distinct downward energy flux. That energy is transferred to the surface when the photons strike it, warming the surface.
This is so simple it’s hard to believe anyone can botch the understanding of it.
David Appell says, April 23, 2017 at 2:22 PM:
Little point in engaging further in this kind of “Do not! Do too!” exchange, is it?
You don’t read what I write. You’re just repeating your initial non sequitur: “They detect photons, THEREFORE they detect a flux.”
Then I can only repeat what I’ve pointed out from the start:
No, David. When they detect individual photons, that means they detect individual photons to the detector, NOT a separate power flux of radiant energy from atm to sfc, which is something else entirely.
MICRO vs. MACRO. Quantum vs. thermo.
The sfc ONLY EVER LOSES energy in its thermal exchange with the atm above. It NEVER GAINS energy.
You should read about radiation and radiative heat transfer, David. You appear to know nothing at all.
But you are but a sorry little troll, we all know that. So a willingness to learn is probably not part of your “job description” anyway …
“Little point in engaging further in this kind of “Do not! Do too!” exchange, is it?”
Correct as Kristian does no experimenting to learn about these matters. Dr. Spencer’s experiment and the similar experiments Planck referenced in his treatise show that Kristian is wrong about: “(Sfc) NEVER GAINS energy.”
Kristian should experiment with radiation and radiative energy transfer in the lab and out in the backyard as Dr. Spencer did. A willingness to learn about nature in this field is obviously not part of Kristian’s “ambition” anyway…
Ball4 says, April 24, 2017 at 6:44 AM:
So what part exactly of “Spencer’s experiment” shows us that the warmer surface actually gains energy from the cooler air above, actually warming it in the process?
Kristian: ?
The warmer sfc water in view of the cooler atm. IR energy was 0.4 F higher in temperature than the nearby sfc water not in view of the atm. IR after about 8 night time hours demonstrating the added water constituent KE calculated to ~6 W/m^2 of energy absorbed in the sfc water in IR view of the cooler atm.
When the added cirrus showed up middle of night, they added about 0.1 F to the sfc water in cirrus view, I’ll let you calculate the energy absorbed for practice (less than 6 W/m^2).
Pretty simple Kristian, this is similar test Dr. Planck referenced, performed in the not so modern lab developing the equation you wrote for q/A. You should go read those experiments, do one yourself.
“MICRO vs. MACRO. Quantum vs. thermo.
The sfc ONLY EVER LOSES energy in its thermal exchange with the atm above. It NEVER GAINS energy.”
To expand a little bit …
MACROSCOPICALLY, The sfc ONLY EVER LOSES (net) energy in its thermal exchange with the atm above. It NEVER GAINS (net) energy.
MICROSCOPICALLY, the sfc LOSES energy JUST OVER HALF OF THE OCCURRENCES of thermal exchange of photons with the molecules in the atm above. The sfc GAINS energy JUST OVER HALF OF THE OCCURRENCES of thermal exchange of photons with the molecules in the atm above.
Averaged over space and time, the NET exchange is always from the warm surface to the cool atmosphere. This MACROSCOPIC averaged exchange of energy (“heat”) is important and valuable and interesting, but is not the only way to describe what is happening. The MICROSCOPIC two-way photon exchanges are ALSO important and valuable and interesting.
Embrace the two views, don’t pit them against each other!
Ball4 says, April 24, 2017 at 7:43 AM:
Troll Ball4: ?
Er, there was no warming of any water at any time during the experiment. The water in the one basin simply LOST LESS energy per unit time, meaning, it COOLED more slowly.
So I ask you again, troll: Where do you see the energy GAIN in warmer from cooler, causing actual warming (as in “a rise in absolute temperature”), in Spencer’s experiment?
Tim Folkerts says, April 24, 2017 at 10:14 AM:
Seriously, Tim. I’m getting a bit tired of you. Can you please READ what I’m writing. I AM embracing both views. My problem with this issue is ONLY in the way confused people like Norman USE the “two-stream approach” to radiative transfer.
This hadn’t been an issue in the first place if it hadn’t been for people like YOU, who really should know better, perpetuating the confusion of people like Norman who don’t really understand the subject well enough. You let him stay confused. You LET him think that a separate energy flux from the atmosphere directly raises the temperature of the surface just like the Sun, that is, by HEATING it. Why?
Please read this, my latest response to him on my blog:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/#comment-933
Kristian, I meant the “embrace both” as a general comment to all in this thread. Too often people seem stuck in one mode (microscopic vs macroscopic; “heat = U” vs “heat = Q”) and rather than opening up and recognizing other views, they simply dig in their heels.
For the record, I think you do see both views on “one directional” vs “two directional” flows.
Kristian asks: “Where do you see the energy GAIN in warmer from cooler, causing actual warming (as in “a rise in absolute temperature”), in Spencer’s experiment?”
Apparently, my words went over Kristian’s head. I’ll then try to be as basic as possible with the actual data. So anyone accomplished enough to read an x-y graph can check.
See the green difference graph? 19:21 (pm) local to 05:51am local. One water has a 0.4F KE energy GAIN in Dr. Spencer’s experiment, its absolute temperature increased over the other water.
See the black curve trend down about 0.1F consistent with added cirrus photon energy from when the cirrus showed up? If Kristian were right “((sfc) NEVER GAINS energy” the black curve would not have reversed up trend to trend down from added photon energy absorbed in the warmer water when the added cirrus showed up. One of the warmer waters could not view the cirrus so did not absorb the cooler cirrus photon energy, then the other water in view increased its absolute T by 0.1F over the other water.
In Dr. Spencer’s words: It doesn’t matter whether you call it “reduced rate of cooling”, or “warming”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.”
“As can be seen in the 5 minute temperature data overnight, the cooler with the IR shield stayed a little warmer. The relative faster cooling of the unshielded cooler was slowed when high-level clouds moved in around 1:30 a.m. (as deduced from GOES satellite imagery).”
Plug each body in to Planckian formula the sky, water, cirrus and find out why (yes, q/A for each water will be negative all night) as the theory will be consistent with test from which it was derived. This test on the atm. is very similar to Planck’s referenced experiments using dry ice for cavity temperature of his BB radiation source and steam for cavity temperature also of his BB radiation source.
This exercise should teach why the red and grey curve do not overlay and why the black curve trended down due the cooler cirrus added photon energy absorbed in the warmer water turned into thermometer measured KE of the water body constituents. Should also teach why the red and grey curves trended down all night.
q/A = σ(T_h^4 T_c^4)
q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4)
I see I have to reiterate.
Troll: Both water surfaces COOLED, only one by slightly LESS than the other.
When something cools, it LOSES energy. There is no gain. By definition.
Saying that the one water surface “warmed over the other” is nothing but sophistry by the use of duplicitous language. And it only shows what a troll you really are. Because no one can be THIS obtuse.
No water surface warmed. And so no water surface gained any energy.
Something getting “warmer” means (straight from the dictionary):
“To raise slightly in temperature; make warm”
The temperature actually goes UP when something warms. Something cooling less (from initially equal temperature) over a certain period of time than something else still doesn’t warm. It still cools. Its temperature still drops. Only less. Yes, if you measure the temperature of each at the end of the cooling period, the one will come out with a higher T than the other, and so is “warmer” (adjective) than the other. However, it hasn’t “warmed” (verb) from its OWN initial state. It has COOLED. IOW, it has LOST energy, not gained it.
This is nursery school physics. And it still goes over our little troll’s head.
Kristian, no I don’t read most of what you write, because it’s obviously very very wrong.
You wrote:
“No, David. When they detect individual photons, that means they detect individual photons to the detector, NOT a separate power flux of radiant energy from atm to sfc, which is something else entirely.”
A sequence of detection individual downward photons *IS* an energy flux.
Honestly, what is your goal here?? You’re trying to deny reality.
Kristian:
The observations of Feldman et al, that I’ve cited many times now, used spectroscopic measurements from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) instrument.
That instrument is described here:
“Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer. Part I: Instrument Design,” R. O. Knuteson et al, JTECH 2004.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JTECH-1662.1
From the second page of that paper:
“The AERI is a ground-based Fourier transform spectrometer
(FTS) for the measurement of accurately calibrated
downwelling infrared thermal emission from the
atmosphere.”
You’re welcome to read the rest of the paper for details.
Kristian tries to save face when presented with test data of a gain in energy: “Both water surfaces COOLED, only one by slightly LESS than the other. When something cools, it LOSES energy. There is no gain. By definition.”
It doesn’t matter whether you call it “reduced rate of cooling”, or “warming”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.
David,
Then I guess you won’t read this either. But here’s my response to your last inane comment (it couldn’t get through here):
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/comment-page-1/#comment-937
What is it with this site!? Nothing goes through!
Well, another response to your nonsense, David, that can’t be posted here directly:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/what-caused-the-current-toa-radiative-imbalance/comment-page-1/#comment-938
Ball4 says, April 24, 2017 at 3:03 PM:
As I said, even nursery school isn’t basic enough for this particular troll.
Ball4, when something COOLS, its temperature goes DOWN, say from 300 to 298K. It cools because it LOSES energy.
When something WARMS, its temperature goes UP, say from 300 to 302K. It warms because it GAINS energy.
Both water surfaces COOLED. Hence they BOTH had their temperature go DOWN. Hence they BOTH lost energy.’
Meaning: NONE of them GAINED energy in the process.
Ha, Kristian resorts to simply making up data when Dr. Spencer’s test data is readily available. Shows Kristian is unable or doesn’t want to learn from test. Which is why Kristian never experiments, he’d rather just make things up, it is easier.
Let me dumb this down for Kristian using his own words and Dr. Spencer’s actual test data:
When something WARMS, its temperature goes UP, say from 74.5F to 74.9F. It warms because it GAINS energy.
As the data shows. From the IR source of the shield vs. the IR source of the clear sky, an 0.4F higher temperature was measured, recorded by data logger (red vs. grey curve).
When something WARMS, its temperature goes UP, say from 72F to 72.3F. It warms because it GAINS energy.
As the data shows. Black curve. In this case, only 0.3F higher temperature; not as much higher temperature than before 0.4F due the IR gained from the cirrus in view of the other water not shielded.
In Dr. Spencer’s words: “It doesn’t matter whether you call it “reduced rate of cooling”, or “warming”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.”
“As can be seen in the 5 minute temperature data overnight, the cooler with the IR shield stayed a little warmer. The relative faster cooling of the unshielded cooler was slowed when high-level clouds moved in around 1:30 a.m. (as deduced from GOES satellite imagery).”
All consistent with a negative overnight q:
q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4)
Meaning: BOTH of the waters GAINED some energy at times during the night each showing same result: a higher (0.4F, 0.3F) temperature in the data graphs. In the process of the night time experiment.
This is all too obviously complicated for Kristian, but I think with proper work, some thought and encouragement he can figure this stuff out, it is not hard, just complicated. If Kristian would run experiments, he would learn even faster about nature.
Ball4 says, April 25, 2017 at 11:29 AM:
You will note that the second chart (the one that the deceitful little troll refers to above) plots the temperature DIFFERENCE over time between the two water surfaces AS THEY BOTH COOL. The first plot is what is relevant to the question of whether there was a GAIN or a LOSS in energy over the night. In BOTH cases, there was an almost perfectly consistent loss, and a significant one at that (8.5-9 degrees Fahrenheit or almost 5 degrees Celsius).
No gain.
Our little troll then goes on to cite Spencer verbatim and STILL he doesn’t get it!
“The relative faster cooling of the unshielded cooler was slowed when high-level clouds moved in around 1:30 a.m. (as deduced from GOES satellite imagery).”
From which the troll absurdly concludes:
Uhm, no. It means BOTH of the waters COOLED all through the night, thus LOSING energy all through the night. Neither gained energy during the night. “Cooling less” doesn’t tranlate to “gaining energy”. Not in this universe, it doesn’t. It translates to “LOSING LESS energy (per unit time)”.
BTW, here’s my response to Spencer’s “argument” to “counter” my pointing out that both basins are in fact cooling, so the IR isn’t doing any warming at all. Spencer:
“It doesn’t matter whether you call it “reduced rate of cooling”, or “warming”, the result is the same: a higher temperature.
When an object warms, it doesn’t know whether it’s energy source has increased, or its energy sink has decreased. The effect is the same.”
Ignoring the fact that none of the water surfaces actually did warm!
Me in response:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body-part-ii/#comment-194002
“Indeed, the effect is the same. But it is not the LW doing the warming. The LW is doing the cooling. The SW is whats doing the warming.
I’m not talking about the effect at all. OF COURSE a better insulated, constantly heated object will be warmer than a lesser insulated, constantly heated object. But it is not the insulating layer doing the warming. It’s the heater.
Yes, it’s semantics. But it’s important semantics. Because the way you describe it confuses people who don’t know the physics behind the different mechanisms at work (which are fundamentally different, in fact, opposite in direction). Which is most people …
ALWAYS stick with “reduced cooling” when talking about LW, NEVER use the terms “heating” or “warming”; those are reserved for SW. And you’ll be fine.”
I think we need a new rule in this discussion.
Any use of the word “warmer” must include what two objects/conditions/times are being compared.
The ending ‘er’ is called the comparative form for a good reason — it compares two situations. Without knowing the two situations, there is no clarity
For example: a tank of water is warmer …
* than it was an hour ago.
* than the other tank of water next to it.
* than it would have been if there were no clouds overhead.
Concur Tim 1:16. Kristian obviously will never in his own way understand the physics in the experiment: “Neither gained energy during the night.” He doesn’t want to.
It is relatively very easy to see that Kristian is wrong or the red curve would have plotted on top of the grey curve. The black curve would not have changed from + to – slope.
I agree writing your 3 items carefully would help Kristian to understand the science; most anyone else can get the meaning in context, unfortunately not Kristian. Note I am not trying to belittle Kristian in any way with words, I want to encourage him to experiment and take data. There is a wonderment of nature around us to observe and learn from.
q/A can be negative as well as positive as it is energy (joules/sec-m^2).
Tim,
I agree. However, this discussion is distinctly about GAIN vs. LOSS in (internal) energy, and so the “warmer” term – in this particular discussion – will specifically mean: a higher temperature at the end than at the beginning for one and the same object.
If something COOLS, then its temperature drops because it LOSES (internal) energy. If something WARMS, its temperature rises because it GAINS (internal) energy.
The global surface of the Earth does NOT gain any (internal) energy in its thermal exchange with the atmosphere above. The surface COOLS to the atmosphere (insulation). It WARMS from the Sun (heater).
Can’t we just all agree on this pretty basic fact?
I’ll agree to the basic facts shown in the experimental data, q/A negative all night for both waters, the red curve thermometer data shows a higher temperature (+0.4F) overnight for the water viewing the shield vs. the water viewing clear sky then cirrus filled sky: a higher red curve temperature at the end (by 0.3F) for one and the same object.
Had that one and the same object not had the warmer shield in its view that one would have a lower temperature at the end (by 0.4F), the grey curve.
The results have always been the same no matter anyone’s wordsmithing: a higher temperature by 0.4F, after cirrus 0.3F higher temperature.
Same physics measured at global L&O surface of the Earth which does gain (internal) energy in its radiative energy exchange with the atmosphere above. The surface also radiates losing kinetic energy to the atmosphere & space. Just like the experiment. Both L&O and atm. WARM from the Sun, as the experiment would have shown if continued past sunrise. Governing ideal eqn. (add emissivity to make it real):
q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4)
Following the new rules, a tank of water is warmer…
* than if clear sky had prevailed (the black curve +0.1F).
* than the other tank of water next to it (the red curve +0.4F).
* than it would have been if there were no (cirrus) clouds overhead (the black curve +0.1F).
Ball4,
Sorry, but that request of mine wasn’t directed at you. You’re but a troll. I addressed normal people with an actual interest in these matters. Your interest here is only to disrupt, obfuscate and misdirect.
I will stop feeding you now.
Ball4 says
Following the new rules, a tank of water is warmer
* than if clear sky had prevailed (the black curve +0.1F).
* than the other tank of water next to it (the red curve +0.4F).
* than it would have been if there were no (cirrus) clouds overhead (the black curve +0.1F).
But the ‘tank’ of water covered by the radiation shield is COOLER than when it started. So saying it is “warmer” or it was “warmed by the radiation shield” is a bit of a stretch here. I am sure you can see that language about “warmer” could be confusing.
Kristian says:
If something WARMS, its temperature rises because it GAINS (internal) energy. …
Cant we just all agree on this pretty basic fact?
Just to be extra-clear, I would add the word “net” to a few places in your statements. Temperature rises when an object gains NET (internal) energy.
The shielded water *did* gain *some* energy from the radiation shield (it absorbed photons that came from the shield); it just always lost more simultaneously. The NET change in internal energy of the water was negative even while the radiation shield was sending a steady stream of energy into the water. I am sure you can see that language about “only losing energy” could be confusing.
Tim: “But the ‘tank’ of water covered by the radiation shield is COOLER than when it started.”
Correct Tim, as I wrote “q/A negative all night for both waters”
“So saying it is “warmer” or it was “warmed by the radiation shield” is a bit of a stretch here.”
Not any kind of stretch Tim, that is what the data shows 74.5F to 74.9F, 0.4F warmer just before the cirrus show up. The exact point Dr. Spencer was trying to make in the title: “Can Infrared Radiation Warm a Water Body? Part II” Yes, the red curve with added IR energy absorbed in the water (backradiation if you will) vs. clear sky is warmer than the grey curve, all night.
“The shielded water *did* gain *some* energy from the radiation shield (it absorbed photons that came from the shield)”
Correct, whereas Kristian is wrong writing: “NONE of them GAINED energy in the process.”
I agree if Kristian adds “net”; he’s had plenty of opportunity, but he won’t ever learn & agree to do that or hasn’t yet. I hope that changes as we encourage him to experiment and prove to himself net is important, ideally:
q/A = σ(T_h^4 T_c^4)
q/A is T_h^4 net of T_c^4 and q/A can be negative as all night in both water tanks. As shown also in the experiments referenced in Planck’s treatise, from dry ice Tc to steam Th at room T.
Geez, q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4)
Tim Folkerts says, April 26, 2017 at 1:19 PM:
I’m sorry, Tim, but this only takes this to a new level of stupidity, you know that? There is no such thing as “NET internal energy”! There is only “internal energy” [U]. The content of a system’s internal energy either stays the same, increases or decreases. There isn’t a separate increase and a separate decrease to be observed inside one and the same energy (heat or work) transfer. It all (the energy exchange) happens simultaneously. At all times. It is ONE fully integrated process. So the NET is all there is. Macroscopically.
Saying that the surface only loses NET internal energy in its thermal exchange with the atmosphere is completely redundant. You might as well say that it transfers “net heat” to it. Talking about useless, sophistic semantics.
The surface loses internal energy. And that’s it. Period. Its U (and thus its T) goes DOWN and only down. It doesn’t go a little bit up, but then a little bit more down. That’s not how it works. And you know that. The whole concept of two discrete macroscopic fluxes, somehow working independently from one another, inside one is but a mental construct, a simplified mathematical model. In reality, there is only the net exchange.
Yes, there were always more photons going OUT. Simultaneously. Which means: There was no macroscopic gain in energy. Just as there was no increase in temperature. And so the shielded water did NOT gain any energy from the radiation shield.
There is NO gain in energy if U goes DOWN! Then there is ONLY a loss!
What happened was simply that the shielded water LOST LESS energy per unit time than the unshielded one.
If you insist on claiming that the surface actually gains energy from the atmosphere when it evidently doesn’t, then the confusion on this subject will persist; laymen will continue walking around thinking that the atmosphere heats (raises the temperature of) the surface directly by radiating down on it, just like the Sun does.
It doesn’t. The surface warms from the Sun (its heat source) and cools to the atmosphere (its (main) heat sink).
One more try. Then I think we are done.
Every time the surface absorbs a photon, the internal energy increases. Every time it emits a photon, the internal energy decreases. The surface is continuously gaining and losing photons, ie gaining an losing energy. The NET exchange of photons determines the overall change in energy [ignoring for the moment conduction, convection & evaporation].
I perhaps should have said “net changes TO the internal energy” rather than “net change OF the internal energy”. But I think the idea is clear. There ARE microscopic energy exchanges. They go both ways. The internal energy changes as a result of both energy ADDED to the system and energy REMOVED from the system.
You are — of course — welcome to *prefer* discussing net macroscopic changes, but that does not negate that energy is constantly flowing both directions. It is a fine way to discuss what is happening. But is it not the only fine way to discuss what is happening. And shouting about it won’t stop the flow of photons (and energy) from the atmosphere to the surface.
Kristian: T_w=T water in the tank at the recording thermometer, T_s=Tshield both higher than T_a=T effective atm. Down is arbitrarily assigned positive flux.
Red curve:
-qRed/A = σ(T_s^4 – T_w^4)
Grey curve:
-qGrey/A = σ(T_a^4 – T_w^4)
-qGrey more negative than -qRed since Ta is lower that Ts, so red curve water at 74.9F is made 0.4F higher temperature than 74.5F Grey water by absorbing the Ts photons which Grey curve water does not absorb.
Red curve water gains more internal KE from Ts photons overnight than Grey curve water. Experiment shows curves do not overlay. Tim explains the physics in words.
Who’s playing the semantics game here, Tim? That’s you.
I KNOW you understand perfectly well what I’m talking about and still for some reason you seem desperate to maintain the general state of confusion on this subject.
I’m the one promoting CLARITY. You’re promoting muddled thinking.
You say:
No, Tim. You’re mixing things up. Single photon absorp tion and emission events are NOT thermodynamic phenomena. There’s no direct link between either of them and a change in a system’s U (which is specifically a thermodynamic (macroscopic) function of an object or region). Why? Because when you look at and analyse individual photon absorp tion/emission events, you are viewing them IN ISOLATION. You have the narrowest scope possible. If you focus on a photon being absorbed and ignore everything else that happens at the same time, then you might very well conclude that the absorp tion does indeed increase the total amount of energy contained inside the system absorbing the photon. All else being equal. You might assume that the system’s U is higher by a tiny amount after the absorp tion event than it was before.
But is this necessarily the truth, Tim?
Imagine you have your hand stretched out with the open palm facing up. In your palm lies, say, two dimes. Two people are standing on either side of your hand, one holding a single dime, the other one nothing at all.
Here’s what happens next: The person holding the single dime places it in your hand at the EXACT same moment as the other one grabs the two that were there already, removing them from your hand.
My question to you, Tim, is the following: Did you ever have THREE dimes in your hand during this exchange?
The answer is of course “no”. First you had TWO. Then you had ONE. And that’s it. The first of the original two was simply exchanged with another one, while the second was lost.
What you (and others) do, Tim, is looking at, interpreting, ONE event at a time. Theoretically. Mathematically. You analyse its effect IN ISOLATION from everything else. You estimate its effect AS IF the other (opposing) one didn’t happen at the exact same time.
No, Tim. The “energy flows both ways” concept is but a mental construct, a highly simplified mathematical model of reality. It’s simply derived from one way of picturing the radiation field geometrically, as split into TWO hemispheres.
In reality, the photons move in ALL directions, not just the two. The NET movement of ALL those photons (intensities and directions) is the radiative FLUX, the actual macroscopic flow of radiant energy through the radiation field. As I’ve pointed out at least a dozen times now:
There are only two options here:
1) MICROscopically, the energy transfer is SUPER-MEGA-multidirectional; it follows EACH individual photon.
2) MACROscopically, the energy transfer is UNIdirectional, the statistical average of ALL photons movements through the field.
Utter disorder vs. order. Quantum vs. thermo.
Yes, 2) is the NET movement. The average of ALL photon movements. But the net is all there is, macroscopically. Mathematically you will make it easier for yourself – in certain cases – if you consider two opposing hemispheres (or “directions”), but that is just YOU deliberately imposing one particular geometric constraint on the field in your analysis of the transfer.
You’d do well to adopt the astrophysical approach to the whole subject of radiative transfer. The radiative FLUX is the actual macroscopic transfer of radiant energy through an imaginary plane or “surface” inside the radiation field (say, somewhere between the core and the outer edge of a star). It is described only in terms of a full sphere integration (4π). Then, of course, you might theoretically consider this full sphere to be a composite of two “directions”, an outward and an inward direction. But the NET flux is the FLUX. When you speak of the (radiative) flux, you’re referring to the NET flux, because you’re acknowledging that – IN REALITY – this is the actual macroscopic flow of radiant energy through the field, from core to outer edge.
Kristian says: “Imagine you have your hand stretched out with the open palm facing up. In your palm lies, say, two dimes. Two people are standing on either side of your hand, one holding a single dime, the other one nothing at all.
Heres what happens next: The person holding the single dime places it in your hand at the EXACT same moment as the other one grabs the two that were there already, removing them from your hand. …
But the net is all there is, macroscopically. ”
So … if “net is all there is” … then the net effect is that person one lost one dime, I lost one dime, and person two got two dimes. So … if “net is all there is” .. then “macroscopically” (to use your word) I gave one dime to the second person and the first person gave one dime to the second person. The first person never gave me the dime! Its your own words!
Furthermore, “exact same time” is completely artificial and unphysical. It would require that you knew precisely that the exchanges were exactly simultaneous, which you cannot know. Suppose I look close enough and figure out with actually happened first — then I could say if I ever had 3 or 1. [Not even getting into the relativistic idea that simultaneity is relative, and different observers could see the events happening in different orders!]
********************
If a single photon is not a ‘thermodynamic phenomenon’, then how many does it take? 10? 1,000? 10^6? 10^23? The fact is that there are not two completely distinct realms. There are continuous shades of gray between individual phenomena and thermodynamics.
Tim Folkerts says, April 27, 2017 at 7:22 PM:
*Sigh*
Why do you insist on trying so hard to ‘misunderstand’ what I’m saying all the time, Tim? It seems to be a thing of yours.
Because I’m sure you do understand the analogy here. It’s pretty straightforward, after all. And you’re not a stupid person. The two people standing in front of you is really just ONE. It’s the atmosphere. You’re the surface. The dimes are photons.
So, yes, the NET effect of the exchange is that the atmosphere doesn’t give you ANY energy at all (zero dimes), while you give IT some energy (one dime), but LESS energy than you would’ve handed to space in the same situation (two dimes).
OK. So use “simultaneous” instead, then. Your word.
Tim, please. Why so adamant about keeping up this charade? It’s only childish and silly, and ultimately serves no purpose other than creating an artificial impression of disagreement. Your own words:
“The shielded water *did* gain *some* energy from the radiation shield (it absorbed photons that came from the shield); it just always lost more simultaneously.”
If “simultaneous” is good enough for you, then it’s good enough for me.
However, confusion arises as soon as you start saying there’s both a “gain” in energy and a “loss” of energy at the same time, when in fact there is only a loss to be observed. Your “gain” and “loss”, after all, are only potential gains and losses, not real (as in ‘realised’) ones. Semantics. Sophistry. In reality, there’s an EXCHANGE in photons, not a separate “gain” and a separate “loss” of photons. The exchange of photons is continuous, instantaneous and simultaneous. There is no lead/lag relationship here. The result of the exchange is a (net) gain OR a (net) loss of (internal) energy.
LOL! More of the same. Yes, Tim, it’s all fundamentally random. It’s the quantum realm, after all. So you could never really tell for sure. Not in each individual case. But you KNOW that’s not what I’m talking about.
If you were to find out, then the photon coming in COULD indeed arrive before the two outgoing photons left. But it COULD just as well be the other way around too. OR, the incoming photon could arrive before the second outgoing photon left, but after the first one.
However, statistically/probabilistically, when averaging over ALL (or just a great number of) instances, the exchange is – plain and simple – simultaneous.
And you know this is what I was referring to.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of the “thermodynamic limit” in statistical mechanics, Tim.
In fact, I seem to remember we’ve had this exact discussion before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_limit
http://materias.df.uba.ar/ft3a2014c2/files/2014/10/Styer-What-good-is-the-thermodynamic-limit-2004.pdf
Massimo PORZIO
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/mit-k12/mit-k12-physics/v/heat-transfer
If this link starts the video a the beginning the point of interest is at 1:39.
I believe this might be the unidirectional heat flow Kristian imagines with radiant energy.
But consider. What if a lighter was at each end of the copper wire?
You would then see two bidirectional heat flows, away from hot to cold. What happens when they meet? The difference between radiant energy and heat flow via molecules is that molecules are not freely moving through each other.
Ball4 does explain it very well. Photons moving down from the atmosphere do not interact much with photons moving up from the surface. The energy the moving photons from the sky possess is in no way hindered by the photons moving upwards. Photons are bosons which do not obey Pauli Exclusion Principle.
https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-photons-usually-collide-if-aimed-at-each
Since the downwelling photons do not exchange energy with the upwelling there is no loss of energy in the two streams and they will be real and separate energy fluxes. You will not get this effect in matter since the fermions (mainly electrons at room temperature) do exchange energy when they collide. Huge difference in concept.
In matter you can see and measure a real heat flow from hot to cold (conduction). You would not be able to with photons as your energy carrier. Does this help?
Hi Norman,
maybe I’ve problems to explain this issue because of my bad English, anyways I try again.
The problem in measuring the one way photons in the thermal range is that the detector has its own temperature that fixes the outgoing photons flux from it.
The signal reported by any detector is a function of the instant internal flowing KE, which is always proportional to the result of the incoming energy minus the outgoing energy from the detector.
For this reason to establish the incoming flux you need to know the outgoing flux too, that it’s determined using the detector surface temperature or fixed by precisely regulating that temperature (in that case a constant value is subtracted to get the incoming photonic flux).
Under this perspective there is no way to measure directly a one way photon flux indeed. It’s always the net flux that is managed to get the incoming photonic flux subtracting the outgoing photonic flux, just inferring it by the instantaneous detector temperature.
Hope I’ve been a little clear.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo PORZIO
Thanks but that would not support Kristian’s claim that no such flux of downwelling IR exists. Even if you have to derive it by removing the upwelling flux of the sensor temperature a real and measurable flux does exist.
In the middle of the atmoshhere you would have a Kristian type photon fog. Photons going in every direction, up down, side to side. At the surface you would still have a real flux of energy being absorbed by the surface from the atmosphere and it would be close to what the derived flux of your instrument measured.
As David Appell had mentioned in a post above. Each photon carries a specific amount of energy. At the surface there are so many photons/sec-area hitting the surface. That describes a flux and since you are on the macroscopic scale of units (m^2, cm^2, ft^2, km^2 etc) there is a given amount of photons hitting the Earth’s surface from the atmosphere in this given area per second which can be converted to joules/second (watts). Which would be an integral of the number of photons per second and the energy of these photons to get a joule reading. You can figure out an area and convert it to Watts/m^2 hitting the Earth from the atmosphere. You can also get the upwelling flux in watts/m^2 and the amount emmited – the amount absorbed gives you a Net energy flow which textbooks call heat. This is the number that does not exist in the reality of photons as they do not collide or interact with each other much (they do under some conditions with matter present), A photon moving upwards will rarely exchange energy with a photon moving downward so the fluxes become real as they do not interact with each other.
Kristian is wrong by textbooks and Ball4 is correct. There is no photon flux moving upward by itself that is called heat that you could measure even with taking into account the sensor temperature. That is because the NET flow IS the mathematically derived concept. With just two surfaces with Field of View of 1 it is an easy calculation to derive a heat flux. With multiple surfaces at various temperatures it becomes a daunting task. Ask Tim Folkerts. He would have had to do such problems in his thermodynamics studies. Heat flux is the derived value. Does not exist in reality.
Hi Norman,
I think that it’s more a philosophical issue but I find a paradox in “Even if you have to derive it by removing the upwelling flux of the sensor temperature a real and measurable flux does exist.”.
IMHO if it’s “measurable” shouldn’t be “derived”.
Anyway it seems not to be a question of life or death.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“Under this perspective there is no way to measure directly a one way photon flux indeed.”
There is a way Massimo. Dr. Spencer measured directly a one way atm. photon flux with his 2015 experiment which did not use radiometers, he used thermometers. He has done other similar experiments.
Radiometers are a more convenient, less expensive way to measure independent DW and UW IR photonic energy flux. And you can mount them on satellites.
The debate here imo really boils down to whether the two DW and UW incoherent photonic fluxes can be usefully separated. They can not, although seemed obvious to even Maxwell, proof of that took more than 60 years but was finally established based on 2LOT arguments in the early 1950s. The history of that effort is a really good, humorous read.
HI Ball4,
I don’t want spend more time on this, because in the meantime I’m working on my business.
Anyways, AFAIK Dr. Spencer for that experiment you refer did a differential temperature measurements indeed. One on the unshielded bath (atmospheric net IR flux) and one on the shielded bath (local bath net thermal flux, where both shield and bath temperature were supposed to be almost the same).
The difference from the two temperatures reported the one way flux entity indeed, just supposing that the shielded bath had a zero net radiative flux.
Have a great day.
Massimo
No, there was no supposing of a 0 way flux Massimo, flux wasn’t even measured, only the temperature difference was measured.
Hi Ball4,
I know that probably Dr. Spencer didn’t reach a full 0 net flux because the atmospheric FOV wasn’t fully obscured by the shield, but that was the goal of that shield.
Anyways, decide yourself what is better for you (square brackets delimited words are added by me):
“There is a way Massimo [to measure directly a one way photon flux]. Dr. Spencer measured directly a one way atm. photon flux with his 2015 experiment which did not use radiometers, he used thermometers. He has done other similar experiments. ”
Or:
“No, there was no supposing of a 0 way flux Massimo, flux wasnt even measured [in Dr. Spencer 2015 experiment], only the temperature difference was measured.”
For me there is no preference, as I already said to Norman, luckily this is mot a question of life or death.
Have a great day.
Massimo
Massimo, the atm. backradiation photon DW energy flux was detected by thermometer measurements of degrees F water temperature change not radiometer measured W/m^2 of irradiation. The ~6 W/m^2 additionally absorbed from the cooler cirrus entering the view were then back calculated from the temperature change over 8 night time hours.
SkepticGoneWild
I moved your post down here because that line of debate was getting really long to reply on.
“Norm,
I am not a troll. Thankfully I took my university physics/thermo classes before the climate nutcases took over. I am not going to learn anything from some physics dork posting nonsensical comments on this website.
The earth/atmosphere has no energy of its own to provide. Its a passive system. The sun is all there is. The sun cannot warm itself up by reflecting back some of its own radiation onto itself. That would be a violation of the First Law. And how many cycles of self warming does this procedure go through? Sun heats earth, earth heats sun a little more. Warmer sun provide more warming to the earth. Even warmer earth heats sun more. When does this nonsensical cycle end?”
Why wouldn’t the Sun warm by reflecting back its own radiation. If you had a Dyson reflecting sphere around the Sun why do you think the Sun getting warmer would violate the 1st Law? If the Sun were just a hot ball with no internal energy production a reflecting sphere would not warm it, it would keep the temperature the same, the Sun surface would emit energy and receive the same amount back again. Since the Sun continues to generate energy it would certainly heat up if you prevented radiant energy from leaving the Sun system by reflecting it back. Why wouldn’t it?
This process is already going on in the Sun. The solar core is millions of C. It achieves this high temperature not because of fusion but because the energy cannot leave. The matter is so dense it creates a solid shield that keeps the gamma rays in the core and the temperature hot. If they left as they were generated the fusion process would stop. It is the restriction of gamma rays that maintains the hot core temperature.
https://futurism.com/photons-million-year-journey-center-sun/
Nice example using the Sun….
Norman…”Since the Sun continues to generate energy it would certainly heat up if you prevented radiant energy from leaving the Sun system by reflecting it back. Why wouldnt it?”
The Sun is so hot in places that hydrogen no longer exists as a proton-electron pair. Electrons in stars get boiled off the nucleus and the solar wind is a plasma of those protons and electrons as they get blown off.
Plasma is a state of matter when it reaches very high temperatures. It has it’s own rules. You cannot treat the Sun as a simple very hot body, you have to go into plasma physics.
The heat of the Sun is the degree of agitation of those proton and electrons. To agitate them even more you’d have to heat the protons and electrons to an even higher degree and that is highly unlikely to come from energy reflected back to the Sun.
It’s the same with the Earth’s surface. For one, the energy from back-radiation is insufficient to raise electrons in surface atoms and molecules to higher energy level, a requirement of warming.
For another, everyone seems to argue that only GHGs can absorb IR of the wavelength emitted by the surface. If that’s the case, what on the solid surface will absorb the back-radiated IR from much cooler GHGs?
If any atom or molecule in the Earth’s surface can absorb any IR it encounters then so can nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. What is it in the surface that will absorb back-radiated IR?
There is clearly a misunderstanding of how energy is absorbed and emitted at the atomic level, and I put myself in that category. Clearly, this stuff is over our heads but rather than admit that and try to learn we all act like authorities.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with people debating science that is beyond their understanding in order to learn but in Roy’s blog we are ad homming each other in our delusion that we know exactly what we are talking about.
A bit of humility coupled with sharing of research would go a long way to helping us all understand the questions before we rush headlong into answers that make little sense.
Gordon Robertson
I have some understanding of EMR emission. I have linked you to numerous links to help you understand it. It seems you ignore my links or efforts and keep repeating unscientific claims.
Gordon Robertson
I had a longer post but the blog won’t let me post it even if I break it up.
Norman, here is a Gordon quote that doesn’t agree with your links: “For one, the energy from back-radiation is insufficient to raise electrons in surface atoms and molecules to higher energy level, a requirement of warming.”
Clearly in your links, back radiation has sufficient energy at terrestrial temperatures to raise the quantum energy levels of rotation and vibration modes in atm. molecules & also translational KE of water molecules as demonstrated by Dr. Spencer’s experimental data.
Also Gordon’s “What is it in the surface that will absorb back-radiated IR?” can be answered by surface water as shown by Dr. Spencer’s test. If he had used surface dirt, the same answer would have been obtained, nothing in physics says it wouldn’t. Gordon should go out in his backyard and do similar testing on his own.
Gordon says:
For one, the energy from back-radiation is insufficient to raise electrons in surface atoms and molecules to higher energy level, a requirement of warming.
Wrong. IR changes molecular quantum states of vibration and rotation, not the usual atomic states that are taught in high school.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Plasma is a state of matter when it reaches very high temperatures. It has its own rules. You cannot treat the Sun as a simple very hot body, you have to go into plasma physics.”
Baloney. Macroscopically, plasmas still follow the S-B Law. You don’t need the details of internal stellar astrophysics to use the S-B Law to treat the Sun as an energy source as seen by the planets.
Robertson wrote:
“For another, everyone seems to argue that only GHGs can absorb IR of the wavelength emitted by the surface. If thats the case, what on the solid surface will absorb the back-radiated IR from much cooler GHGs?”
Seriously.
If you don’t know, then go study it, instead of writing here like it’s an issue completely mysterious to physics.
Has that option ever occurred to you, Gordon?
I can’t link to this response because it’s hidden behind a Facebook firewall of sorts. I got to it through nefarious means.
It’s by a mechanical engineer.
“Absolutely heat is a form of energy. Specifically, heat is the energy associated with the mean kinetic energy of the molecules in the system of interest. We can correlate this quantity of heat to the temperature of a substance and in this absolute form it’s known as specific heat.
Heat can be transferred from a region or substance of high temperature to lower temperature through the exchange of electromagnetic radiation. Through a vacuum, this is just known as radiative heat transfer. When is happens between molecules in a fluid, it’s known as convection, and when it occurs within the lattice or structure of a solid, it’s known as conduction.
Regardless, it’s all radiation. When we’re talking about in a gas, as two molecules get close to each other, instead of actually colliding, two electrons (the only part of the atom, and therefore, the molecule that regularly interacts with anything else) on the outermost edge of a molecule will actually exchange a photon=a packet of electromagnetic radiation. The electron from the molecule of higher kinetic energy (the faster one) will emit the photon thereby reducing its total energy and causing it to slow down. The receiving electron will absorb this energy which will cause it’s molecule to speed up.
In the case of a solid, the same is true except for the fact that the molecules are bound in place-free to vibrate but not move from their central location until they gain a sufficient quantity of kinetic energy that they can break free from the solid lattice they are in, but not the weaker attractive forces between molecules and gravity. This is known as melting”. Given sufficient high kinetic energies, the molecules can break from each other and truly exist as single units. This is known as vaporization. It should also be noted that even in a sample well below the average energy required for molecules to break free from each other, there will still be individual molecules that from time to time will have sufficient energy to break free. When the population isn’t sufficiently hot but periodic molecules break away, this is known as evaporation. Sublimation occurs less frequently when a molecule rises to this energy in a solid.
So, heat can be used to change the phase of matter and at the temperature of phase change, it will preferentially break the bonds of fusion in a solid or vaporization in a liquid before it increases the temperature of the substance. As heat is withdrawn, it will do the opposite.
Many forms of energy will convert into heat such as mechanical (though friction), electrical (through resistance), chemical (exothermic reactions), and so on. Indeed, heat is the ultimate fate of most energy through entropy into eventual low availability.
Heat can also be converted into mechanical energy using heat engines and various thermodynamic cycles, directly into electricity via thermoelectric generation, and into chemical energy via endothermic reactions as well as the aforementioned phase change phenomena.
Heat is without question a form of energy and although at the quantum scale, it’s really a version of kinetic energy, it is still conserved, converted, and storable and transferable”.
I am open to what he is saying that ultimately it’s all radiative transfer. Obviously heat is transferred electron to electron in a solid body just as electrical charge is transferred electron to electron is an electrical current.
An electron is not just a particle orbiting a nucleus, if in fact it orbits at all. An electron is a negatively charged particle and it’s much larger counterpart in the nucleus, the proton has an equal positive charge. That charge travels much faster (near speed of light) in electron to electron transfer in a copper wire electrical circuit than the actual electron drifts through a copper lattice (about a mm/sec).
Obviously, with heat transfer, electron to electron, something else is transferred and it could be a photon of energy if you believe photons exist. I am not sure I’d call that radiation, then again, I have no idea what goes on at the atomic level.
BTW…to give credit where credit is due, the statement I quoted came from Brian McCalla, Managing Partner / Owner at BCM Engineering.
He was quoting on this page:
https://www.quora.com/Is-heat-a-form-of-energy
Based on the other replies I’d say many scientists today are sadly misinformed about heat, or thermal energy. One reply from a teacher reveals a school board’s attempt to brain wash students by not allowing them to call thermal energy heat.
“One reply from a teacher reveals a school board’s attempt to brain wash students by not allowing them to call thermal energy heat.”
Hahaha wasn’t me. Maybe the anti-myth movement really is growing! Therm-odynamic intern-al energy physically is KE of the constituent particles since Clausius 1857 said so.
Gordon, you make an EXCELLENT case for using symbols and equations for defining ideas, not words. Words are subject to misinterpretations. Words can be used differently by different people.
“Heat” has become rather a poster child of pointless discussions. The simple fact is that 1) few people understand thermodynamics well and 2) “heat” is indeed used differently in different contexts. So just go the the 1st Law and say which symbol you mean.
ΔU = Q + W
U: translational, rotational, and vibrational energy of the particle of the system — named “internal energy” in most technical settings, but colloquially called “heat” or “thermal energy” in many settings.
Q: an amount of energy that enters a system from some other system due to temperature differences. This is universally called “heat” in technical work.
W: an amount of energy that enters a system from some other system due to mechanical means. W = F*d = work done on the system. [NOTE: there are two common sign conventions here. Some write ΔU = Q – W where W is the work done BY the system.]
***************************
Gordon, clearly you like to use the nomenclature where “heat” means “U”. You are welcome to do this. Just know that many name things differently. In particular, nearly all textbooks use “heat” to mean “Q”.
…but confusingly called “heat” when “thermal energy” will be clear in many settings.
This is confusingly called “heat” in technical work.
You are not welcome to add confusion.
In particular, not all textbooks confusingly use the myth of “heat” to mean “Q”. Clausius 1st memoir tried to stop all the confusion over the myth in 1857 defining thermodynamic internal energy as the KE of any object’s constituent particles, so far no joy.
—–
Perpetuating the myth of heat is worthless Tim, now even you, in addition to Kristian, are pointedly making the myth situation worse not more clear. There is no gain from this activity.
“In particular, not all textbooks confusingly use the myth of heat to mean Q. “
In fact, no textbooks do this. There is “Q” in that equation. Everyone agrees with that equation (give or take your favorite sign convention for W). “Q” is not a “myth”.
“In fact, no textbooks do this.”
My Prof.s book: Q is the energy transferred to (from) a system.
Bohren 1998 p. 23: Q is the rate of change of internal energy of the system as a consequence of a temperature difference between it and its surroundings.
Well, that’s none +2, I can find many, many more similar with a visit to the college library. Any texts, internet sites defining Q only as heat entity are simply confused, they are not following Clausius 1857. A myth has crept in behind in those.
Concur Q is not a myth, heat is a myth of the 1800s, there is only thermodynamic internal energy (constituent KE) in a body after Clausius 1857 1st memoir.
” Any texts, internet sites defining Q only as heat entity are simply confused .. ”
But even the ones you quoted do not discuss some separate “heat entity” that you seem to be imagining. They are saying in words what the equation ΔU = Q + W is saying.
Internal energy of a system (U) can change. The amount that the internal energy changes (ΔU) when no work is done by/on the system is labeled “Q”. This amount of change in the internal energy is due to temperature changes. HEAT == Q.
The texts are defining “heat” as the change of internal energy. NOT as some separate entity.
[We will skip over the OTHER unfortunate convention that the second source uses Q to me the RATE of change of U, not the CHANGE of U. I prefer dQ/dt for the RATE of change of U. ]
**********************************************
Since Q is a process, it would be much better to use a form like “heating”. For example, “heating was done on an object, raising its internal energy”. So that it is parallel with phrasing like “work was done on an object, raising its internal energy.”
But I have learned it is useless to wage a one man war on nomenclature.
“there is only thermodynamic internal energy (constituent KE)”
PS, internal energy of a solid includes the “spring energy” of the moving atoms. The heat capacity of a solid is TWICE as much as you would calculate just from the KE itself.
Tim, I am not writing the dogma of mythical heat is NOT deeply ingrained, it is. This unfortunate dogma leads to a great deal of unnecessary confusion in blog posts/comments. AllALL that can be avoided by dropping heat term and using energy term in its place. The whole point of Dr. Spencer’s 2015 atm. experiment was to reduce that confusion.
“The texts are defining “heat” as the change of internal energy.”
I haven’t found a modern one yet that does, Q (sometimes Q dot) is uniformly defined as internal energy change over time w/o exception (not anywhere near exhaustive). Actually, if any text YOU find does use your words then it is necessarily claiming an entity called heat exists in a body.
That is contrary to Clausius 1857 KE of constituents and my Prof.: “…a body never contains heat”. Not that they both may be wrong, but I am not aware of an experiment proving them wrong. Heat entity has never been isolated other than KE of constituent particles since Clausius 1857.
Another one I just found Salby p.82: “q, equals the energy transferred “into” the system”.
So find a modern text for us that really is defining “heat” as the change of internal energy and quote its exact words. Most likely on close reading they ALWAYS really mean Clausius’ KE of constituent particles, i.e. energy if you watch the pea closely.
Yes, a body contains constituent particle PE back and forth with KE between those constituent particles as you note in addition to mgh.
Ball4 says, April 22, 2017 at 9:05 PM:
Priceless! We who know what heat is in physics and thus know how to apply it properly, we aren’t confused at all. It is a VERY simple concept. YOU, however, are still wallowing in your own confused ways, I see …
You clearly don’t UNDERSTAND the simple standard thermodynamic concept of heat, so you wan’t no one to use it, in order for you not to feel so confused. But it is in NOT taking in and using the concept of heat that you end up confused on the matters we’re discussing here. As deeply confused, in the end, as you are.
But good luck to you, on your bizarre one-man crusade against the fundamental thermodynamic concept that is heat [Q], known by all physicists all over the world. And used by many of them; those working in the relevant fields. Folkerts put it very well when he said:
“(…) I have learned it is useless to wage a one man war on nomenclature.”
You will just have to live with the fact that the concept of heat is very much alive and well in the physics world of today. And here to stay. And you will therefore just have to accept that we will keep employing it (correctly) also in the future.
None of us are here for your comfort …
Kristian asserts w/o evidence: “As deeply confused, in the end, as you are.”
Kristian should find it very easy, almost trivial, then to simply cite or perform a test physically demonstrating any confusion in what I have written. Understanding thermodynamics was hard, long effort won by extensive experimentation. Yet Kristian presents no tests verifying his comments.
After my prodding, if Kristian has any ambition at all to post correct science, then his comments will improve in accord with test.
I know of no examples, no tests in which invoking a mythical substance called heat leads to increased physical understanding. In fact, invoking the myth subtracts from understanding by deluding many into thinking Kristian has explained what is observed, whereas all Kristian has done is invoke a nonexistent entity.
Ball4 says, April 23, 2017 at 10:33 AM:
and:
OK. Case in point right above: You are the only one here calling and pretending heat to be some kind of “mythical entity”. Everyone else knows it’s simply the energy tranferred spontaneously from one region to another by virtue of a temperature difference between those two regions, always from higher to lower. It is NOT energy transferred as a result of temperature. It is specifically energy transferred as a result of a DIFFERENCE in temperature.
In radiative transfer:
q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4),
where the righthand side contains the temperature difference*, and the lefthand side contains the resulting radiative (energy) transfer, the radiant heat flux.
*Really the difference in “radiative intensity”, the radiation equivalent to a temperature difference.
Once again, as always, Kristian does not cite or perform a test to support his assertions. Clearly:
In Planckian radiative energy transfer:
q/A = σ(T_h^4 – T_c^4)
The righthand side contains the difference in radiative energy flux* (joules/sec per m^2) of system h and its surroundings c. It very well could be system h is lower in temperature than its surroundings c & this radiative transfer equation is still correct as Planck explained in his treatise (Body A, B, B’).
The lefthand side contains the rate of change of internal energy of the h system as a consequence of a temperature difference between it and its c surroundings, q per m^2. (joules/sec per m^2).
Then Kristian resorts to alchemy and paranormally converts the lefthand side into radiant heat flux. For that step, he has no test data. And it is only heat flux colloquially if the system h is at a higher temperature than its surroundings c. Otherwise I suppose it is cold flux.
Consider a physical container of N2 gas. q/A in the gas cannot be decomposed into the product of the number density of molecules times their speed times the quantity of heat that each molecule carries. One can, of course, determine the flux of KE because each molecule has a definite KE. Then one has an energy flux, there is no need to relabel it as a heat flux. Molecules carry translational, rotational, vibrational, potential energies. Thus, the total energy flux is a well-defined physical quantity; wherever the indefinite term heat flux (or cold flux) is encountered it can be properly replaced by energy flux.
*Kristian misuses intensity term which properly has the units W/steridian.
Gordon Robertson says:
“Obviously heat is transferred electron to electron in a solid body just as electrical charge is transferred electron to electron is an electrical current.”
That’s the phenomenon of conduction — it is not radiative transfer.
Gordon, in solids, energy transfer takes place via phonons, not photons.
“For example, “heating was done on an object, raising its internal energy”. So that it is parallel with phrasing like “work was done on an object, raising its internal energy.”
Well, then, so colding was done on an object, lowering its internal energy? If I cool an object does than mean cold was added to it? Why isn’t work thought of as an entity added or removed? Why isn’t work though of as a massless, colorless, odorless entity passing between bodies? Does heat rise? Does cold lower?
Be brave, drop heat term, stick with defining: Q is the rate of change of internal energy of the system as a consequence of a temperature difference between it and its surroundings.
To echo what Kristian said …
Ball4, I think you are basically just looking for ways to misinterpret and create confusion. Language is limited; science borrows words and then redefines them; there are always ways to state things more precisely. Terms like “heat”, “heat flow”, “heating” and “heat exchange” all can lead to miscommunications because none precisely convey the meaning of Q to all people in all contexts.
But no one is going to be so precise as to say “change of internal energy of the system as a consequence of a temperature difference between it and a second system” every time they want to discuss the issue. It is perfectly legitimate to define a word in a particular way in a particular context.
The only REAL problem is that people define “heat” in many different ways. In informal settings, just try to understand (and perhaps mention standard definitions to make sure people are on the same page). In formal, scientific settings, look to see how the terms are being defined in that particular textbook/paper/lecture.
“Terms like heat, heat flow, heating and heat exchange all can lead to miscommunications because none precisely convey the meaning of Q to all people in all contexts.”
Concur Tim. Do not understand why you write any effort to reduce miscommunication is somehow leading comments to “create confusion”.
“But no one is going to be so precise as to say “change of internal energy of the system as a consequence of a temperature difference between it and a second system” every time they want to discuss the issue.”
As Tim writes, define “George” to mean that (like text authors do at the beginning of the book, chapter, paragraph) or more commonly just “Q” (or Q dot), then invoke your definition in accord each and every time.
“In formal, scientific settings, look to see how the terms are being defined in that particular textbook/paper/lecture.”
Concur. Dr. Spencer’s blog is more like what you write than the avg. dinner party blog.
Kristian
I was reading your posts way up there to Tim Folkerts and Ball4.
If you would listen one time to Ball4 (I do not believe he is a troll as you do, I think he is trying to educate you in real physics and not the slightly altered physics you believe is the real deal, mainly because you made it up and your strong ego rejects any attempt to show your view is not correct…you do not accept textbook data stating clearly your understanding is not correct, wrong in fact…maybe you should think about it, you have Ball4 who took actual higher level physics, Tim Folkerts who is advanced in physics, David Appell who is a PhD physics major all saying you are wrong but you think they are the wrong ones and you are right..that is the time to reexamine your thought process and see if it makes sense, yours does not!)
Now if you would expermiment as Ball4 and I suggest you would see your thoughts are illogical and wrong. You can’t do that because you are a C*o*t*t*o*n mentality. If you come up with the idea it is right and everyone else but you (including every textbook, not just one, that I have read or looked at) is wrong!
You can prove in one night of experiment your thoughts are flawed and time to correct the errors. Take a syrofoam insulated container with top open to NIGHT SKY (no solar input) filled with ice and measure the temperature change. Monitor the system with thermometers about to monior for any and all heat flows to the ice and elimate their effect. Do the test in the summer when the NIGHT TIME SKY is emitting a high amount of DWLWIR.
You will find that the atmosphere IR is adding energy to the ice and melting it and it will keep warming until it is emitting energy at the same rate as it receives from the sky above.
Get off your Hippy John Lennon error thinking “above us only sky” and understand there is a real energy flux coming down from the sky.
The atmosphere is indeed adding energy to the Earth’s surface all the time. If this energy flux is less than the surface emission the surface cools, if the atmosphere energy flux is greater than the surface emission the surface warms. It is really simple, in all textbooks and the few people that respond to yoru comments are all saying you are wrong. Insist on your misguided thought process, One day you might get an itch to actual experiment and the day you do you will say “How wrong was I!”
Until the day you get off your computer and do some actual testing have a nice day!
Norman, the thing is — from all I see Kristian is not wrong per se. (Or at least is rarely wrong). He just chooses to focus (too exclusively in my opinion) on a macroscopic view of the universe.
As an analogy, suppose the wind is blowing steadily from the north at @ 1 m/s. Any normal person would say the air is moving southward @ 1 m/s. A scientist (or a smarta$$) might say the air is moving every direction at 100’s of m/s. Microscopically, individual air molecules are moving this fast in all directions. Macroscopically, the movement is uniformly southward. Kristian is like the normal person saying the air is indeed moving south.
Similarly, the net macroscopic energy flow is always from warmer to cooler. Microscopically, photons are flying both ways. To say that “Q” is only from warm to cool is taking a perfectly reasonable macroscopic view.
PS. Using an example with cold ice is not disproving Kristian’s position. When the surface is colder than the air, then the net flow would indeed be into the ice and Kristian would expect that the ice would gain energy.
PPS. I have run into people who espouse some nonsensical views like “the photons just know that the other side is warmer and so they refuse to be emitted in the first place” or “photons will just reflect away if the second surface is warmer”. These would be wrong, but i don’t see Kristian saying such things.
Tim Folkerts
Thanks for you thoughtful reply. If Kristian did actually believe that the amount of GHG were quite significant because they would greatly affect his view of a unidirectional flux (53 W/m^2 heat flux from Earth to atmosphere with GHG present at current concentrations). He does not accept this. He thinks you need just some an it creates this situation where more does not make a difference and it is the mass of the atmosphere that is responsible for the much higher equilibrium temperature of the Earth’s surface.
Also textbooks do strongly indicate a macroscopic energy flux away and toward a surface. You integrate the number of photons (energy carriers) that strike an area/time and this is indeed a macroscopic flux of energy flow into and out of a surface.
The air example is not comparable to photons since gas are leptons and photons are bosons. Bosons can pass through each other without exchanging any energy.
Also the air molecules are not really moving in every direction at 1000’s m/sec since they only can move about 90 nanometers before colliding with another particle and exchanging energy and direction. Air particles could not make two macroscopic wind flows since they cannot move through each other. In very much less dense air you could have two opposite particle flows that would add to measureable macroscopic flows since collision would be much more rare.
If you understand how Kristian thinks then help translate it for me. I asked him if he thought and increase in GHG would increase surface equilibrium temperature but he only said it was possible but not reality. I do not think he accepts the GHE that the GHG are what are establishing the higher equilibrium Earth surface temperature so I would think his view is unscientific and incorrect.
1) Kristian is ‘wrong’ in the sense of ONLY accepting the macroscopic perspective as ‘real’ or ‘correct’.
2) Yes, air is different since air molecules actually collide.
3) *BOTH* the concentration of GHGs AND the total amount of atmosphere matter. Increasing the amount of CO2 by 10x would have a noticeable impact on temperature. Increasing the amount of N2 by 10x would (I am almost certain) have a much bigger impact on global temperatures. So Kristian is mostly correct here.
Tim Folkerts
Thanks again. Can you explain the physics or direct me to a link that would help me to understand why an increased concentration of N2 would raise the global temperature considerably. I think it might initially because of compression like in a bike tire, but once it cooled off I am not sure why it would sustain a higher temperature as it seems a passive effect.
The bottom of the oceans are at tremendous mass and pressure but very cold, I do not see exactly how a high mass pressure leads to higher temperatures. It certainly might but I am not understanding the physics. More mass of an inert material would not be able to stop energy from leaving so I am not sure how it would help increase the equilibrium temperature.
Norman, two basic reasons are:
1) “Pressure broadening” increases the ability of GHGs to absorb IR.
2) A taller atmosphere means that the lapse rate leads to a greater temperature difference between the top and bottom. The top will be cooler and the bottom warmer.
Tim Folkerts
Thanks. But your point on taller atmosphere may not lead to a warmer surface. It might just do what happens over the tropics, a much colder Tropopause temperature. I still do no agree that the lapse rate sets the surface temperature. I have always read that the surface temperature, with a lapse rate, sets the upper air temperature at any elevation. The anchor is the surface temperature. So if the troposphere was much taller you can have exactly the same surface temperature in both cases, just a much colder Top and it would seem to decrease the atmosphere opacity since no new GHG are being added in the 10x N2 atmosphere, it means the partial pressure of CO2 and H2O would decrease and the path length would have to be longer to achieve the same absorbtion/emission status so it seems it would be exactly the same for the GHE, because of the decreased density of GHG in such an atmosphere the effective TOA emission temperature may be the same. I will have to think on it more. I am glad you responded, it stimulates thought.
“I still do no agree that the lapse rate sets the surface temperature. I have always read that the surface temperature, with a lapse rate, sets the upper air temperature at any elevation.”
But the total energy to space must balance the total energy in to the surface if the temperature is to stay steady. If the top got colder with the bottom staying the same, then the energy radiated to space would decrease. (And of course, then the whole thing would warm until the radiation balance was restored with higher temperatures throughout.)
Tim 9:59am: 3) Atm. opacity increases by the product of total pressure and constituent extinction coefficient, mixing ratio. Increasing CO2 partial pressure (pp) adding 10x amount is small affect on total pressure however 10x N2 pp is going to have huge affect on total pressure thus atm. opacity at surface.
Ball4
I am not sure I follow your logical conclusion. If you added 10x nitrogen the pressure would go up, yes. But the concentration of CO2 would go down so I think its partial pressure would be the same. You would have much less PPM CO2 in a given number of atmospheric molecules. The mixing ratio of CO2 would decrease by 10 times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixing_ratio
Question is why do you think the opacity at the surface would increase? The nitrogen is not absorbing the IR, the pressure broadening effect would change the absorbitivity some but by how much?
Norman, at 10x amount of N2 that would be about 7.7 atm. Would have to run the numbers with N2 extinction coefficient I’m guessing though atm. would come out to be opaque at surface looking up for quite a distance.
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