CLIMATE concerns look surreal when you examine modern assumptions (“the settled science”) on the basis of first principles like conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer, specific heat (where water is king) and density. To me, they paint a picture 180° contrary to the greenhouse theory consensus.
In my view, the earth’s surface can do nothing except heat the air molecules that surround it, and thus be cooled in turn (convective transfer follows, of course, but the surface must heat the air first). Yet the prevalent gossip is all about how air molecules heat the surface. That alone is surreal.
Listed below is mostly a collection of what various academic and engineering sources say about heat transfer, i.e., the conditions by which Body A is able to raise Body B’s temperature. While they don’t explicitly refute the IPCC’s notion of back-radiation, they DO insist that if A is radiating 100 watts per square meter at B and B is radiating 50 at A, heat transfer follows a one-way path from A to B. That is, B alone gets hotter and no “mutual heating” occurs. By contrast, observe what the IPCC depicts: mutual heating.
One-way heat transfer renders null and void the repeated assertion that A (the earth’s surface) gets hotter by thermally exciting B (IR-reactive gases). The unalterably more-to-less flow of thermal energy is the very essence of the second law of thermodynamics and it prohibits “mutual heating,” meaning that “radiative forcing” by IR-reactive gases is entirely a product of the imagination, a complete reversal of cause and effect.
Moreover, if earth’s surface temperature then shifts focus to heat RETENTION rather than heat GAIN, the FIRST thing to investigate is a substance called water, which covers 70% of our planet, is 800 times denser than sea-level air, and is FAMOUS for retaining heat! Solids are roughly 2000 times more dense than air and must also be considered.
In any case, hinging the whole affair on trace gases that intercept a small portion of the earth’s IR spectrum is so outlandish a premise I’m amazed that anyone can offer it with a straight face. Gases are the runt of the litter, the least able to hold onto heat and the first in line to confront the vacuum of space. Light passes through air at 99.97% of its optimum speed and yet we propose that a few of the gases it contains CONTROL the earth’s emission to space? As I say: surreal.
1. Professor M. Quinn Brewster, University of Illinois: Thermal Radiative Transfer and Properties
Like conduction, thermal energy is in harmony with the second law of thermodynamics such that, in the absence of work, thermal energy is radiated spontaneously from higher temperature to lower temperature matter.
http://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Radiative-Transfer-Properties-Brewster/dp/0471539821/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216732467&sr=1-1
2. Heat transfer
Thermal energy flows from higher temperature to lower temperature. This process is called heat transfer.
There are three ways heat flows:
heat conduction,
convection, and
thermal radiation.
http://dev.cpo.com/home/Portals/2/Media/post_sale_content/FPS%203rd/PresentationSlides/U4/FPS3Chpt11Heat.ppt
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vrije University, The Netherlands
Radiation
If the two bodies are in thermodynamic equilibrium no net heat transport takes place and the two bodies are at equal temperature
http://www.nat.vu.nl/envphysexp/REAL%20Experiments/Heat%20radiation/Radiation_Theory.html
4. Pyrotechnic Chemistry, by Kurt Kosanke, I. von Maltitz, B. J. Kosanke, Ron A. Hancox, B. Sturman, R. J. (2004)There are three mechanisms by which energy can be transferred from reacting to pre-reacting layers: conduction, convection and radiation. […] In radiation, thermal energy is passed from hotter to cooler regions as long wavelength light (infrared).
http://www.amazon.ca/Pyrotechnic-Chemistry-B-J-Kosanke/dp/1889526150
5. Heat Transfer
Heat will always be transferred from higher temperature to lower temperature independent of the mode.
http://www.energymanagertraining.com/GuideBooks/1Ch2.pdf
6. Heat is transferred from high temperature areas to low temperature areas by conduction, convection and radiation.
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/bsi/88-2_e.html
7. Heat transfer is the net change in energy as a result of temperature differences. This energy is transferred in the direction of decreasing temperature until thermal equilibrium (equality of temperatures) is achieved. The basic mechanisms involved in this process include radiation (the transfer of energy in the form of electromagnetic waves) and conduction (the transfer of kinetic energy).
http://science.jrank.org/pages/3269/Heat-Transfer.html
8. Radiation heat transfer takes place when bodies with temperature gradients are separate in space. All bodies emit radiant heat continuously, and the intensity of the emission depends on the temperature and the nature of the surface. Heat transfer by radiation becomes increasingly important as the temperature of an object increases.
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37806/36119103.pdf?sequence=1
9. Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation that consists of quanta and waves, to be precise, photons and waves, like light’s propagation. Thus, the radiative heat transfer can take place through vacuum. The energy always moves from a warm system to a colder system.
http://biocab.org/Heat_Transfer.html
10. Radiation heat transfer is concerned with the exchange of thermal radiation energy between two or more bodies. Thermal radiation is defined as electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of 0.1 to 100 microns (which encompasses the visible light regime), and arises as a result of a temperature difference between 2 bodies.
http://www.efunda.com/formulae/heat_transfer/radiation/overview_rad.cfm
11. Temperature is a measure of the amount of energy possessed by the molecules of a substance. It is a relative measure of how hot or cold a substance is and can be used to predict the direction of heat transfer.
What is Heat Transfer? “Energy in transit due to temperature difference.”
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/Webcourse-contents/IISc-BANG/Heat%20and%20Mass%0Transfer/pdf/M1/Student_Slides_M1.pdf
12. Heat transfer is a study of the exchange of thermal energy through a body or between bodies which occurs when there is a temperature difference. When two bodies are at different temperatures, thermal energy transfers from the one with higher temperature to the one with lower temperature. Heat always transfers from hot to cold.
http://www.tufts.edu/as/tampl/en43/lecture_notes/ch1.html
13. As a result of heat transfer, hotter objects tend to become cooler and cooler objects become hotter, approaching thermal equilibrium.
…There are three modes of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. All heat transfer processes occur by one or more of these three modes. Infrared thermography is based on the measurement of radiative heat flow and is therefore most closely related to the radiation mode of heat transfer.
…Radiative heat transfer is unlike the other two modes in several respects:
1. It can take place across a vacuum.
2. It occurs by electromagnetic emission and absorption.
3. It occurs at the speed of light.
4. The energy transferred is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature difference between the objects.
http://spie.org/samples/TT75.pdf
14. Heat is thermal energy that is transferred between two bodies due to a difference in temperature. Heat transfer is the process of increasing the kinetic energy of a material’s particles from a material of high temperature to one of lower temperature. It can also be thought of in the opposite direction of cooling an object by slowing down its particles. Heat can be transferred to other materials through conduction, convection and/or radiation.
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/heat_transfer.htm
15. HEAT TRANSFER: form of energy transfer due to temperature difference
higher temperature —-> lower temperature
stops when two mediums reach the same temperature
Dr. Saziye Balku
http://mechatronics.atilim.edu.tr/courses/mece310/ch8mechatronics.ppt
16. Heat Transfer, in physics, process by which energy in the form of heat is exchanged between bodies or parts of the same body at different temperatures. Heat is generally transferred by convection, radiation, or conduction.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567280/heat_transfer.html
17. Winthrop University, South Carolina
Heating methods
Temperature difference: Energy always moves from higher temperature regions to lower temperature regions
Energy-form conversion: Transfer of heat by doing work
Heat flow
Three mechanisms for heat transfer due to a temperature difference
• Conduction
• Convection
• Radiation
Natural flow is always from higher temperature regions to cooler ones
http://bohr.winthrop.edu/faculty/lipinski/link_to_webpages/courses/tillery/ch04.ppt
18. Heat Transfer: Transmission of energy from one region to another as a result of a temperature difference between them. Energy transfers from high temperature region to low temperature region. (2nd law).
http://ocw.kfupm.edu.sa/user/DADME315/ME305notes.doc
19. Heat transfer in engineering consists of the transfer of enthalpy because of a temperature difference. Enthalpy is the name for heat energy, to distinguish it from other sorts, such as kinetic energy, pressure energy, useful work. There has to be a temperature difference, or no heat transfer occurs. (If we insist on moving enthalpy from a cold body to a hotter one, we will have to do extra work, as in the case of a refrigerator. This invariably involves some other process, such as mechanical work, and cooling by expansion of gases, but within the overall activity heat transfer always goes from the hotter to the cooler.) The temperature difference is called the driving force. Other things being equal, a greater temperature difference will give a greater rate of heat transfer.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Heat_Transfer/Introduction
20. Heat is energy or more precisely transfer of thermal energy. As energy, heat is measured in watts (W) whilst temperature is measured in degrees Celsius (°C) or Kelvin (K). The words “hot” and “cold” only make sense on a relative basis. Thermal energy travels from hot material to cold material. Hot material heats up cold material, and cold material cools down hot material. It is really that simple. When you feel heat, what you are sensing is a transfer of thermal energy from something that’s hot to something that is cold. http://www.g9toengineering.com/resources/heattransfer.htm
21. Modes of Heat Transfer
Heat transfer can be defined as the transmission of energy from one region to another as a result of temperature difference. Heat conduction is due to the property of matter which causes heat energy to flow through the matter. Heat convection is due to the property of moving matter (naturally or under force) to carry heat energy from higher temperature region to low temperature region. Heat radiation is due to the property of matter to emit and absorb different kinds of electro-magnetic radiation.
http://www.ironwoodelectronics.com/articles/article4.html
22. Fundamentals of Heat Transfer
1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics involves the conservation of energy. It states that – within a closed system where no other energy material can enter or leave – energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Although energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can be transferred to work other forms of energy.
Transferring heat energy is subject to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The 2nd Law (again applying to a closed system) says that – for a spontaneous process – there is a net increase in entropy (i.e., a measure of the disorder that exists in a system).
Three alternate but equivalent ways to describe the 2nd Law are:
1. Heat flows spontaneously from a hot body to a cool one. (Example: A hot microprocessor or laser diode is cooled by flow of heat into heat sink or cold plate.)
2. It is impossible to convert heat completely into useful work. (Example: In a combustion engine, a certain heat component must always be exhausted without performing work.)
3. Every isolated system becomes disordered in time. (Example: In conduction when hot and cold bodies first contact each other, the system is somewhat ordered. Hotter molecules move faster than cooler molecules. But, once the entire system attains a uniform temperature, this order is lost.)
Expressed in mathematical terms, any of the above statements imply the other two.
The 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics govern the various modes of heat transfer: conduction, convection and radiation.
Radiation
In radiation, heat flows from a higher temperature body to a lower temperature body when the bodies are separated in space, even across a vacuum.
http://www.lytron.com/tools_technical/notes/heat_transfer_fundamentals.aspx
23. University of Nebraska, Physics Department
When an object is in equilibrium with its surroundings, it radiates and absorbs at the same rate. Its temperature will not change.
http://www.physics.unomaha.edu/sowell/phys1110/Lectures/Chap11/HeatTransfer.pdf
24. Valdosta State University, Georgia
Heat is a form of energy whose magnitude depends on the total energy of motion of the molecules within a substance or object.
Temperature is a measure of the average energy of motion of the molecules within a substance or object. It is an indicator of the tendency of a substance to transfer heat energy since heat energy always moves from higher temperature to lower temperature.
http://www.valdosta.edu/~pbaskin/phys1111ch12notes.doc
25. Students will understand that, on its own, heat travels only from higher temperature object/region to lower temperature object or region. Heat will continue to flow in this manner until the objects reach the same temperature.
Heat energy is the disorderly motion of molecules. Heat can be transferred through materials by the collisions of atoms or across space by radiation. If the material is fluid, currents will be set up in it that aid the transfer of heat. To change something’s speed, to bend or stretch things, to heat or cool them, to push things together or tear them apart all require transfers (and some transformations) of energy. Heat lost by hot object equals the heat gained by cold object.
http://www.grayson.k12.ky.us/Teachers/EOP%20-%208th%20Science%20Curriculum/MG%20Science%20Unifying%20Ideas.doc
26. Boston University, Physics Department
Heat transfer in general
We’ve looked at the three types of heat transfer. Conduction and convection rely on temperature differences; radiation does, too, but with radiation the absolute temperature is important.
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Heattransfer.html
27. National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton UK
Heat flows from a region of high temperature to a region of low temperature. Heat transfer occurs by three main methods: Conduction and convection, which require matter (atoms/molecules) to provide a pathway for heat transfer, and radiation, which does not.
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/JRD/SCHOOL/002/mt002a_2.php
28. California Institute of Technology, Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
How Does Heat Travel?
Heat can be transferred from one place to another by three methods: conduction in solids, convection of fluids (liquids or gases), and radiation through anything that will allow radiation to pass. The method used to transfer heat is usually the one that is the most efficient. If there is a temperature difference in a system, heat will always move from higher to lower temperatures.
…Objects emit radiation when high energy electrons in a higher atomic level fall down to lower energy levels. The energy lost is emitted as light or electromagnetic radiation. Energy that is absorbed by an atom causes its electrons to “jump” up to higher energy levels. All objects absorb and emit radiation.
When the absorption of energy balances the emission of energy, the temperature of an object stays constant. If the absorption of energy is greater than the emission of energy, the temperature of an object rises. If the absorption of energy is less than the emission of energy, the temperature of an object falls.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/transfer.html
IN summary, I can no longersee how we got it into our heads that the earth’s surface temperature is due to the IR-response of a few trace gases, a response which immediately ceases when the stimulus is turned off! Via conduction and convection, an atmosphere merely makes a heated surface cooler than it would be otherwise. In addition, a planet’s liquids or solids lose heat over a 2-dimensional area, whereas a gas radiates in 3 dimensions. This geometrical factor alone handicaps the ability of a gas to conserve thermal energy, irrespective of how relatively massless it is.
Alan Siddons
Holden, Massachusetts
Detail of UN/IPCC illustration http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/FAQ.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What a load of utter quackery. Really !
There’s a whole science of measuring back-radiation at the Earth’s surface. At night in cloud free conditions.
So tell us Alan – what’s being measured? And how can it be even measured if it has no energy?
And the Earth’s surface can selectively decide somehow where it gets it’s photons from?
Talk about surreal.
But hey this is the sort of looney stuff that makes denialists so. Go publish in E&E – the denialists’ journal of choice. That way you can be guaranteed to get published. Alas body serious will listen.
Luke,
How can you be so sure that a 0.00001 part of the atmosphere is producing any measurable effect?
Do you think that the horrendous expense of adopting Plan A is going to make any difference?
We should, by all means, seriously be trying to wean ourselves of finite resources but this way?
“What a load of utter quackery. Really !”
Luke walks into kitchen.
Puts tea in pot.
Fills pot with boiling water.
Puts lid on pot.
Lid doesn’t make pot hotter.
Lid gets hot.
Pot gets cooler.
QE effing D.
As the atmosphere is ALWAYS at a lower temperature than the earth’s surface, but I repeat Alan’s point.
Bollocks
The concentration is irrelevant. You can still make a formal calculation. That’s what is done. And it only comes to a few watts.
Guys not even Lindzen and Spencer deny this stuff. You’re off on the looney fringe.
Q fing nonsense Spanglers – put brain in gear. Firstly convection and conduction is not radiation.
Secondly – put very thin reflective film around light bulb. Temperature of bulb surface is heaps higher. Go on tell me it’s insulation.
If you don’t embrace net radiation – tell us how the Earth works out which photon is which. Must be a very smart planetary surface indeed.
Are you guys that dense?
Luke, you don’t get it.
Perhaps if I said that it is a polished S/S pot it would be more obvious but the principle is the same regardless of material.
As the lid is applied it radiates the heat back to the pot which reduces the pot’s cooling but naturally does not heat the pot.
The lid gets hotter and the pot loses that heat.
The energy source is external as with the earth and not at all like bulb wrapped in reflective film which has an internal energy source.
Luke, and SJT (who is surely lurking around somewhere)
Just face it …. the hysterical epidemic has had its day.
Go away.
Dr Duck is a quack – hahahahahaha – time for duck season.
Spanglers – you’re still talking about conduction and convection – not radiation.
So tell me Spanglers – all that night time back radiation that you and I can easily measure. What’s it doing? How can we even measure it.
Or perhaps Luke, if I pour coffee at 90°c into a vacuum flask and leave it half an hour the coffee will start to boil?
NET heat transfer is from hotter to cooler and never, excepting some work input as in a frig, in the reverse direction!
Clausius must be turning in his grave!
Argument from ignorance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Luke: “The concentration is irrelevant. You can still make a formal calculation.”
Okay. Let’s see what probably one of your favourite source, the Environmental Media Services founded Relclimate.org sais (EMS serves leftist campaigns, as the Cindy Sheehan campaign) :
realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/08/climate-feedbacks/langswitch_lang/po
“In the absence of any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 would result in an increase in global surface temperature of ~1 K.”
+1 degree C.
The direct effect from double concentration CO2 (in 100 years). It will be no more if the Earth radiates more energy when it becomes warmer, which it does. That equals negative feedback.
(Note: Realclimates figure ~1 K due to a “flat Earth” energy balance equation, where instead the semi-transparent (instead of semi-infinite) model shall give a lower direct impact.)
Luke,
You cut me to the quick with your devastating logic.
Loser.
My point is that the AGW scare is more fundamentally a sociological phenomenon than it is a scientific one.
The AGW epidemic has many of the characteristics of an hysterical epidemic
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/showalter-hystories.html). It will probably be recognised as one of the greatest follies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with alternative and complimentary medicine coming second on the list.
The whole AGW episode is the sort of absurdity that gives succour to the discredited theories of sociologists of knowledge, postmodernists, and sundry relativists and constructionists, by demonstrating how nonsense can be achieve widespread consensus.
However, one good thing about science is that it is, by and large, self correcting, a process which is underway now as the sociological consensus driving AGW hysteria is increasingly being shown to be scientifically wanting.
So tell me Spanglers – all that night time back radiation that you and I can easily measure. What’s it doing? How can we even measure it.
Well Luke, we’re getting plenty of it at the moment with all this wet weather.
Does it increase the warming or reduce the cooling?
Spangles,
Much ado is made about the downwelling IR but say that, being somewhat tired of measuring the IR that is raining down on us from the heavens, we then, on the spur of the moment, point the machine to the ground.
Well whaddya know, it too is emitting IR.
Which will be the stronger signal? The one coming from the ground or from the sky?
And to follow a point I raised in the climate sceptics forum, electric currents also generate IR, but electric currents passing through the atmosphere will, er, gee, how do I put this, transmit IR to CO2, which then starts to emit it’s usual signature IR spectrum.
So how can one work out where CO2 is getting its IR from – terra firma or atmospheric electricitity, or both, and which would be the larger source of IR.
Luke; ghgs are photoluminescent and remmit isotropically; noone denies that some clear-sky atmosphere radiation reaches the surface; the dispute is about the effect; this paper refutes Philipona;
http://miskolczi.webs.com/2004.pdf
Alan Siddons is neither a bad person nor a bad wizard, but he is a bad writer. His piece reminds me of an old joke:
Have you heard about the Polish Mafia? They make you an offer that you cannot understand!
My background is in analytical chemistry, and I had a difficult time making out the main points that Alan was trying to make–or trying to refute. After reading the first few paragraphs, and skimming random bits and pieces thereafter, I wasn’t motivated to wade through the codswallop. I did pick up a few smells however. There was the half-baked smell of straw man argument. I also smelled a QUALITATIVE argument–loaded with emotional projection–directed at a QUANTITATIVE issue.
Like Alan, I am very bah-humbug about Anthropogenic Global Warming Disasterism. Yes, the AGWDers do occasionally make pseudoscientific claims. For example, there’s a woman at NOAA who claims–in so many words–that one of these days, heat from the ocean is going to come out and bite us in the arse. She has a PhD in atmospheric chemistry, and should know better than that.
But on the whole, I’m embarrassed to have Alan on my ‘team’. If I had the time, I would be inclined to read a well-crafted argument, like Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth. Jennifer, thanks for the link to the review in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Bravo Larry. These silly arguments seem unable to decide whether
1. There is no back radiation (ignoring easily made observations) or
2. There is radiation, but it doesn’t heat anything (??) or
3. There’s radiation and it contains heat, but you aren’t allowed to say it’s warming anything.
I think Alan’s proposing 3, but its hard to tell.
Anyway, on these occasions Richard Lindzen’s occasional clarity is a bonus:
While the atmosphere is relatively transparent to shortwave radiation (sunlight) it is nearly opaque to infrared radiation, owing to the presence of certain trace gases and of clouds. Much of the infrared radiation passing upward from the Earth’s surface is absorbed and reradiated, both upward and downward. Because the surface therefore receives not just solar radiation but also infrared radiation from the atmosphere and clouds, it is much warmer than it would be in the absence of the atmosphere.
Yes Nick, much warmer, about 8C;
http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/153_Regulation.pdf
page 3.
On the existence of backradiation – you can google “Downwelling infrared” and look at the first hundred of many hits. You won’t find much lately on simple observations – we’ve moved on, and it isn’t publishable any more. You’ll hear from people using the backradiation to explore lots of other issues. But back over 50 years ago, papers were published recording observations( and methods), and this is just one example.
Coho, I presume you’re working that out from his statement that the GE is only a quarter of what it could be, because of LH and convection. But check the bottom of p 2. There he says that pure radiative blocking would boost the temp to 77C. It’s that high figure that he’s taking 1/4 of. There’s no doubt there that RL backs the conventional 33C figure. As he must – it’s easily calculated, and has been quoted for about a century.
Onya bike Donald Duck you faux-sceptic goosey gander – we have more than enough tedious philosophical bozos on here to last a lifetime. Do go on. Yawn. Why jump to the conclusion that the climate science necessarily links to catastrophism and carbon taxes.
AGW can’t win. For right wingers it must be wrong. ANd for lefties it must be right (err left). Truth somewhere in the middle.
Gordon – It doesn’t boil but it does lose heat more slowly eh. Great example and thanks for playing.
Magnus – yep about 1C (but shhhh – don’t tell the others here – they’re in denial mate). But don’t be a drongo eh? That’s a massive amount of energy in itself which can change global circulation patterns. See SST anomalies as a guide. Now about additional feedbacks ….
And thanks Nick for being more patient and professional than I, and reminding the drongos here yet again of some very very basic stuff.
But that’s why they call the blog anti-AGW devotees denialists. Deny everything.
I’ve seen the term strawman bandied about a bit but I’m wondering if any of those who have been using it actually know what it
means so here is a great example in fact a series of 3
“and reminding the drongos here yet again of some very very basic stuff.”
At least this drongo knows better than to use a light bulb in alfoil as an analogy for AGW.
LOL,
So far no actual constructive counterpoint has been offered against Alan’s presentation.
Just a lot of huffing and puffing.
Nick: Professor Lindzen is merely restating a 19th century theory about why a greenhouse gets so warm. Since glass is transparent to sunlight but opaque to heat-radiation, it was believed that an inequality between incoming and outgoing radiation set up a special kind of heating regime. This theory was disproved, however: radiative inequality does NOT generate extra heat. Yet this false belief became the basis of modern atmospheric theory — from glass to gas.
If a solid enclosure with measurable disparities between shortwave transparency and longwave opacity cannot perform as advertised, then, what justifies believing that an open, turbulent atmosphere does what a greenhouse does not? Nothing.
“This theory was disproved, however: radiative inequality does NOT generate extra heat. ”
Bravo, it doesn’t. No one ever said it did. It just slows down the emission of heat. A blanket doesn’t generate any heat, but it makes you warmer.
Sorry to nit pick will blanket does not make you warmer, it keeps you warmer.
It’s not an AGW analogy Spanglers ! Wise up.
Lindzen certainly does believe in the radiative forcing associated with GHGs. To try to pretend he thinks it works as per a glass greenhouse is utter hogwash.
Nick again: A 77° average surface temperature due to the purely radiative impact of the greenhouse effect? Let’s look at the numbers, then. According to the accepted Kiehl-Trenberth radiation budget, the earth’s surface averages 168 watts per square meter for solar absorption. K-T has the surface lose much of that energy by convection and evapotranspiration, though, so that 324 W/m² of back-radiated power brings the surface up to 390 W/m², corresponding to 15°.
But in this case we’ll reduce convective and evapotranspirative heat loss to zero, which leaves us with the original 168. Now, within these parameters, how much extra back-radiation is required to bring the surface up to 77°? SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY FOUR W/m², for a total of EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY TWO W/m², which corresponds to 77°.
(Bonus question: If the greenhouse effect generates enough radiative power to raise the earth’s temperature to 77°, but most of this heat is dissipated, then why is there no sign of this excess energy being blasted away from the earth? Satellites only see the earth emitting 240 W/m².)
I remind readers that the average solar irradiance for a blackbody earth — one that absorbs every photon the sun can provide — is 342 W/m², corresponding to an average temperature of 5.5°. Yet Lindzen’s estimate conjures 852 W/m² out of nothing. There comes a time when certain experts must be asked, “Can’t you smell the excrement you’re shoveling?”
I agree with the blanket analogy the AGWers are using.
Now, let’s compare two blankets.
Blanket #1 contains XX tons of IR absorbent (not reflective) material.
Blanket #2 contains an extra 0.00X% (by mass) of IR absorbent material.
How much warmer will the blanketed object be if Blanket #2 is used?
“In my view, the earth’s surface can do nothing except heat the air molecules that surround it”
In your view, Alan Siddons, do the air molecules that surround the Earth’s surface emit radiation a) upwards only; b) downwards only; or c) in all directions equally?
If a or b, please explain how. If c, please explain what you think happens to the 50% of the radiation emitted downward.
“If the greenhouse effect generates enough radiative power to raise the earth’s temperature to 77°, but most of this heat is dissipated, then why is there no sign of this excess energy being blasted away from the earth?”
???
Luke “Guys not even Lindzen and Spencer deny this stuff. You’re off on the looney fringe”.
Lindzen claims radiative transfer is an irrelevant mechanism. Spencer claims precipitation systems are the main mechanism.
Gavin,
He is asking where the 612 w/m 2 is.Since the Satellite sees about 240 w/m2 being emitted.
“Lindzen claims radiative transfer is an irrelevant mechanism. Spencer claims precipitation systems are the main mechanism.”
That wasn’t the question. The question was, do they agree with back radiation or deny it.
“Lindzen claims radiative transfer is an irrelevant mechanism. Spencer claims precipitation systems are the main mechanism.”
That wasn’t the question. The question was, do they agree with back radiation or deny it.
Siddons is arguing the basic first principles. The scientists on his side disagree with him. They accept the first principles, and disagree on the magnitude of the effects of those first principles.
Irrelevant Gordon – don’t divert onto other topics – you guys are DESPERATELY and stupidly denying basic measurable physics.
The tell tale is that none of your crap is ever published. (except for trash comics like E&E)
And it never will be. All just noise on a blog somewhere.
Sunset – the Keil Trenberth diagram is there for Alan to colour in which bits are wrong (include measurements not theoretical bullshit as to why). http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Atmosphere/images/radiation_budget_kiehl_trenberth_2008_big_jpg_image.html
Stop trying to divert us into answering non-questions. Or why don’t step up and do a guest post for Jen showing us where the diagram is wrong. Please critique the literature too – we wouldn’t want some basic empirical measurements embarrassing your non-argument.
Luke,
Alan already referred to the KT numbers.It looks like you are not paying attention.
Quoting Alan from a few hours ago on page 3:
“Nick again: A 77° average surface temperature due to the purely radiative impact of the greenhouse effect? Let’s look at the numbers, then. According to the accepted Kiehl-Trenberth radiation budget, the earth’s surface averages 168 watts per square meter for solar absorption. K-T has the surface lose much of that energy by convection and evapotranspiration, though, so that 324 W/m² of back-radiated power brings the surface up to 390 W/m², corresponding to 15°….”.
Quoting Luke:
“Stop trying to divert us into answering non-questions. Or why don’t step up and do a guest post for Jen showing us where the diagram is wrong. Please critique the literature too – we wouldn’t want some basic empirical measurements embarrassing your non-argument.”
Gavin posted this “???”. I then chimed in with what I thought he is asking about.Apparently you think that it is bad to further the discussion.Does a food pellet fall out of your floppy disk tray? Lighten up fella!
I have not seen your counterpoint to Alan’s presentation.Maybe you have none and instead do your anklebiting b.s. Such as ad hominems.A weak appearance to be making on a good blog.
LOL.
Nick Stokes “Anyway, on these occasions Richard Lindzen’s occasional clarity is a bonus: ”
Nick, if you’re going to quote a scientist, the least you could do is provide a direct quote from him rather than from half a paper found on his site, or from an example he is using to the opposite. Also, how about some respect for a professor who teaches at MIT and has 40 years experience in atmospheric physics?
l964-l965. Research Associate in Meteorology, University of Washington.
l965-l966. NATO Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Meteorology, University of Oslo.
l966-l967. Research Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research.
l968-l972. Associate Professor and Professor of Meteorology, University of Chicago.
October-December l969. Visiting Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Tel Aviv University.
February-June l975. Visiting Professor of Dynamic Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
January-June l979. Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Department of Meteorology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
September l980-June l983. Director, Center for Earth and Planetary Physics, Harvard University.
July l982-June l983. Robert P. Burden Professor of Dynamical Meteorology, Harvard University.
July l983- . Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
June 1988- . Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He’s taught at MIT for 25 years. Considering the standards at MIT, that says it all.
Here’s what Lindzen actually has to say about the GFE:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ArmstrongGreenSoon08-Anatomy-d/Lindzen07-EnE-warm-lindz07.pdf
“When it comes to global warming due to the greenhouse effect, it is clear that many approaches are highly oversimplified. This includes the simple blanket picture of the greenhouse effect shown in Figure 1. …….
The general idea proposed in the oversimplified treatments is that adding man made greenhouse gases to those naturally present will cause the temperature to increase further. The doubling of CO2 is used as a benchmark for estimating the sensitivity of climate to such increases. It is generally acknowledged that simply doubling CO2 should lead to a warming of about 1 degree Centigrade. However, in current models, the natural greenhouse substances (water vapor and clouds) act in such a manner as to greatly amplify this warming. This is referred to as positive feedback. There is something very seriously wrong with this oversimplified picture. Namely, the surface of the earth does not cool primarily by thermal radiation.
The situation is more nearly akin to the schematic shown in Figure 2. The main greenhouse gas, water vapor, generally maximizes at the surface in the tropics and sharply decreases with both altitude and latitude. There is so much greenhouse opacity immediately above the ground that the surface cannot effectively cool by the emission of thermal radiation. Instead, heat is carried away from the surface by fluid motions ranging from the cumulonimbus towers of the tropics to the weather and planetary scale waves of the extratropics. These motions carry the heat upward and poleward to levels where it is possible for thermal radiation emitted from these levels to escape to space.”
***
He goes on to explain a point in the atmosphere, tau, at which radiation is possible. Then he concludes:
“Contrary to the iconic statement of the latest IPCC Summary for Policymakers, this is only on the order of a third of the observed trend at the surface, and suggests a warming of about 0.4 degrees over a century. It should be added that this is a bound more than an estimate”.
“Thus, the claim that models cannot account for recent warming without external forcing is held to imply the role of human forcing. To be sure, current models can simulate the recent trend in surface temperature, but only by invoking largely unknown properties of aerosols and ocean delay in order to cancel most of the greenhouse warming.”
***
No matter what you think of Lindzen, he’s one of the world authorities on atmospheric physics, yet the clowns who model, like Schmidt, speak of him with contempt. That, to me, is not just arrogance, it expresses an outright ignorance of the science, and a deep immaturity.
“Nick, if you’re going to quote a scientist, the least you could do is provide a direct quote from him rather than from half a paper found on his site, or from an example he is using to the opposite. Also, how about some respect for a professor who teaches at MIT and has 40 years experience in atmospheric physics?”
Once again, you are avoiding the issue. The Greenhouse Gas Effect is real, the only dispute is the magnitude of change that CO2 will cause. Alans ‘first principles’ are wrong on that basis.
Lordy me you’re a tedious denialist Sunset – Alan has not shown what is out of balance to generate his fanciful position AT ALL..
Don’t bother requoting his words at me. I read it. Doesn’t make sense. Unless you like to balance equations looking at one end only. Of course if you understand – you can explain it !
“How much warmer will the blanketed object be if Blanket #2 is used?”
Blink,
Exactly! It has yet to be identified and measured but let’s go for Plan A.
Alan Siddon “Yet Lindzen’s estimate conjures 852 W/m² out of nothing”.
Alan..I’ve never seen such a figure in anything Lindzen has written. I think he mentioned a surface temperature of 77 C if there was no convection to cool the surface. Even with convection, black sand can get so hot it will scorch your feet. I’ve been in water at 40 C in a thermal pool and it wasn’t scorching anything, so 77 C doesn’t seem out of range for the Earth’s surface under certain conditions.
BTW…I agree with your article. One reason is what I keep harping about. How can gases that account for 1 % of atmospheric gases trap all the surface radiation? They can’t, so where does the rest of it go? Second, any radiation emitted from the surface is a loss, and since that loss heated GHG’s in the atmosphere, there’s no way they can be part of a positive feedback. That’s what upholds the 2nd Law as well. The AGW mob are not allowing for losses in the atmosphere and surface.
““How much warmer will the blanketed object be if Blanket #2 is used?””
I have no idea where you get your figures from, but the blanket is being doubled in size. I take it you also accept Siddons contribution is completely wrong.
RW “…do the air molecules that surround the Earth’s surface emit radiation a) upwards only; b) downwards only; or c) in all directions equally?”
This is part of the problem according to G&T. AGW is treating photons as simple vector fields and you can’t do that. Photons have momentum and no mass. To me, that’s just saying we don’t know what’s there, but we need to represent EM as a particle, so this is the best we can do. This is a quantum physics problem, not something to be solved by mechanics.
Another thing forgotten is that a cooler body (the atmosphere) radiates at a lower energy level than a warmer body (the surface). There are losses built into that fact itself.
The IPCC sucks.
Luke commented:
“Onya bike Donald Duck you faux-sceptic goosey gander – we have more than enough tedious philosophical bozos on here to last a lifetime. Do go on. Yawn. ”
Luke, thanks for the constructive comment and breathtalking rhetoric. I’m in awe of your brilliance.
Really, you and SJT are getting increasingly shrill and desperate.
gavin ““If the greenhouse effect generates enough radiative power to raise the earth’s temperature to 77°, but most of this heat is dissipated, then why is there no sign of this excess energy being blasted away from the earth?”
gavin…why don’t you take some time and read Lindzen. He explains it all. The heat is moved away by convection (winds, thunderclouds, etc.). Heat is moved by those methods from the tropics to the cooler polar regions. The atmosphere is a highly complex system and the IPCC rocket scientists are over-simplifying it.
“This is part of the problem according to G&T. AGW is treating photons as simple vector fields and you can’t do that. Photons have momentum and no mass. To me, that’s just saying we don’t know what’s there, but we need to represent EM as a particle, so this is the best we can do. This is a quantum physics problem, not something to be solved by mechanics.”
That comment makes absolutely no sense at all. The radiation ends up somewhere, even if a photon at the quantum level is hard to nail down.
Luke “The concentration is irrelevant”. Well what about 0% or 100% of CO2 are those two figures irrelevant? Of course the concentration is relevant. Put the brain into gear get the comment accurate.
SJT “Once again, you are avoiding the issue. The Greenhouse Gas Effect is real, the only dispute is the magnitude of change that CO2 will cause. Alans ‘first principles’ are wrong on that basis”.
I wish you’d stop blabbing this sort of nonsense. Prove it!! Show me the math that reveals how gases that makes up 1% of the atmosphere can have that much of an effect on temperature. Then show me how they trap the heat. I don’t want a theoretical model, I want actual physics.
Use your head, SJT. The surface is emitting IR from every nook and cranny and you’re claiming GHG’s, making up 1% of the atmosphere, manage to corral all the IR.
How about if we start by claiming none of us have the slightest idea how the atmosphere got an average of +15 C?
“Lordy me you’re a tedious denialist Sunset – Alan has not shown what is out of balance to generate his fanciful position AT ALL..
Don’t bother requoting his words at me. I read it. Doesn’t make sense. Unless you like to balance equations looking at one end only. Of course if you understand – you can explain it !”
Translation:
I have no counterpoint to post against Allan Siddons guest post.Therefore all I have left is be a troll and hope nobody will notice.
You are hurting the cause of the AGW camp with your childish attitude.You are running on empty.
Your objections,skimpy and insulting they have been.Fails to convince anyone.I think you have no idea what in the hell Alan is writing about and chose to bluster with irrational comments instead.
So how does insulation work?
I once was heating a metal on a large filament in high vacuum to vapor coat a substrate. I did not have enough power to boil the metal. I put a shiny tube around the filament with a hole in it so the substrate would still see the filament. The temperature then went high enough to allow me to coat the substrate. Back reflection from the tube, which was cooler than the filament, made the filament become hotter. The net flow of energy was still from the filament to the tube and beyond so there was no violation of the 2nd law.
I am trying to understand if CO2 absorbs more radiation from the sun than it does from the earth. The earth’s peak radiation is at about 10 um. The sun radiates more 10 um radiation than the earth does. Now what happens?
Gary
That is because too much energy was going to trying to heat the surroundings rather than the metal, a problem you solved by:
concentrating the energy by reflection works rather well but try not to confuse reflection, that is not dissipative, with insulation or absorption and re-emission which are both dissipative.
Gary P,
” The sun radiates more 10 um radiation than the earth does. Now what happens?”
Hey, maybe that is the source of all that downwelling Luke bathes himself in!!
Even with that much IR downwelling, and the paucity of GHG’s above the tropopause (comparatively), the tropopause is still cooler than above and below!!
Makes you wonder if all those excellent radiative atmospheric types really know what they are talking about. If they do, what is missing to account for what we HAVE measured!!
By the way Luke, is the temp of your measuring device hotter or colder than the source of the IR you are measuring??
Oh, the gentleman who mentions the reradiation down??? There wouldn’t be 50% going down to the earth even if it was an infinite plain. To get 50% reradiation to the earth you would need the earth to be a half globe with the atmosphere closing it!!!! As soon as a GHG molecule is above the rim, the amount of reradiation returning to the surface goes below 50%.
“I am trying to understand if CO2 absorbs more radiation from the sun than it does from the earth. The earth’s peak radiation is at about 10 um. The sun radiates more 10 um radiation than the earth does. Now what happens?”
This diagram tells the story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Alan “Nick again: A 77° average surface temperature due to the purely radiative impact of the greenhouse effect?”
It’s hard discussing with you guys – you’re all over the place. What happened there? Cohenite was the one citing Lindzen there, saying that he said the temp rise due to GE was only a quarter of what it would be without convection (at least, I think that’s what Coho meant). So I pointed out that, no, RL was referring to a much larger base figure that he had calculated, and the 33C stood. So now I’m supposed to defend RL’s 77C?
Well, I’m not sure about his arithmetic, but it’s probably right. What you dismally fail to understand, is that whatever the effect of GHG. there is a steady 235 W/m2 flowing through the system (discounting reflection). It comes in as SW and exits as IR. And that’s all you’ll ever measure from space. The exiting IR is upward, which makes nonsense of your use of the 27 citations. They are all correct, but don’t contradict the GE. Nett heat flows from warmer to cooler. There are linked forward and back flows, as there often are.
So, depending on the absorptivity of the GHG, you can get a small or a large back flow. The difference (forward-back) will always be 235. If the backflow is large, so will be the forward flow, which means the surface has to get very hot (eg RL’s 77C).
For duck’s sake KookyKat – borrow a pyrgeometer – go outside on a cloudless night and tell us what the measurement is !
Nick Stokes – your patience is commendable.
Gary P,
Yes, the Sun radiates more 10μ IR per m2 of its surface than the Earth does. It radiates more of just about everything. It’s hot.
But we’re a long way away, and 10μ IR is only a tiny fraction of the 1365 W/m2 that arrive at TOA. The radiance at 10μ coming down is a minute fraction of the radiance going up. A detailed solar spectrum is here. It’s already tiny at 4μ; 10μ is off the scale.
So absorption of sunlight by CO2 is insignificant.
Gordon, you are just completely muddled. I’ve quoted (approvingly) Lindzen clearly refuting this silly post, so I don’t see how you improve your case by rattling of a long list of his qualifications. You say that traces of GHG couldn’t absorb significant IR (based on??) but quote Lindzen saying “There is so much greenhouse opacity immediately above the ground that the surface cannot effectively cool by the emission of thermal radiation.”.
And if my reference to RL’s “occasional clarity” set off your rant, then OK, I take it back. RL stands out as a beacon of clarity among the sceptics.
Nick Stokes,
“Gordon, you are just completely muddled. I’ve quoted (approvingly) Lindzen clearly refuting this silly post”.
Oh? Dick Lindzen refuted “this silly post”?
How?
“This is part of the problem according to G&T. AGW is treating photons as simple vector fields and you can’t do that. Photons have momentum and no mass. To me, that’s just saying we don’t know what’s there, but we need to represent EM as a particle, so this is the best we can do. This is a quantum physics problem, not something to be solved by mechanics.”
Unfortunately, Gordon, that’s just meaningless babble. If by G&T you mean the preposterous paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner, then I advise you to read any atmospheric physics text book from the last thirty years or so. You do not need quantum physics to understand the properties of planetary atmospheres. You certainly don’t need quantum physics to answer my very simple question. No answer from Alan Siddons yet; I wonder why not.
“Another thing forgotten is that a cooler body (the atmosphere) radiates at a lower energy level than a warmer body (the surface). There are losses built into that fact itself.”
Who has ‘forgotten’ this?
“The IPCC sucks.”
Er.. yeah. I think we can see that your views are informed by something other than science.
Louis: Lindzen’s refutation (amazing to have to spell this out):
AS:Light passes through air at 99.97% of its optimum speed and yet we propose that a few of the gases it contains CONTROL the earth’s emission to space? As I say: surreal.
RL: While the atmosphere is relatively transparent to shortwave radiation (sunlight) it is nearly opaque to infrared radiation, owing to the presence of certain trace gases and of clouds.
AS:“One-way heat transfer renders null and void the repeated assertion that A (the earth’s surface) gets hotter by thermally exciting B (IR-reactive gases).” and “Yet the prevalent gossip is all about how air molecules heat the surface. That alone is surreal.”
RL:Because the surface therefore receives not just solar radiation but also infrared radiation from the atmosphere and clouds, it is much warmer than it would be in the absence of the atmosphere.
AS:In any case, hinging the whole affair on trace gases that intercept a small portion of the earth’s IR spectrum is so outlandish a premise I’m amazed that anyone can offer it with a straight face.
RL: While the atmosphere is relatively transparent to shortwave radiation (sunlight) it is nearly opaque to infrared radiation, owing to the presence of certain trace gases and of clouds.
Gordon: A temperature brought about by radiative means is a simple matter to calculate. The formula used for earth as a “blackbody” is this: Kelvin = (I ÷ 5.67)^0.25 × 100
For “I” you simply divide solar power to earth (1368 W/m²) by 4 to get 342. That will yield a temperature of 279 K (rounded), ergo 5.5° Celsius.
For earth as a body that reflects 30% of the light, thus absorbing 70%, just multiply 342 by 0.7. Inserting 239.4 for I gives you 255 K, the minus 18° temperature that’s always cited.
Now that you get the idea, see what the formula demands for 77°, or 350.15 Kelvin. Shifting the terms gives you the reciprocal equation: Irradiance = (K ÷ 100)^4 × 5.67
Throw in 350.15 for K and you get an irradiance of 852 W/m²!
So this is what Lindzen is saying, that in the absence of other heat dissipating influences and in radiative terms alone, the greenhouse effect is able to induce 684 W/m² on top of the 168 that the surface takes from the sun.
My other point is that IF such an astounding amount of heat gets DISSIPATED, making the surface temperature more bearable, this thermal energy has to go SOMEWHERE. Since there is only one ultimate avenue of exit, space, satellites should be seeing the earth emitting an incredible amount of infrared radiation. But the proof is in the pudding and Lindzen is quite obviously wrong.
Although he may be TRYING to convey that we have nothing to fear from the greenhouse effect because it gets so dissipated, Lindzen is actually attributing a GIGANTIC power to it. As you say, however, there’s no evidence that this 1% is doing much of anything at ALL.
Alan S: “Since there is only one ultimate avenue of exit, space, satellites should be seeing the earth emitting an incredible amount of infrared radiation. But the proof is in the pudding and Lindzen is quite obviously wrong.”
Again, you’re just missing the elementary physics here. The greenhouse effect, no matter how strong, does not change the power of the outgoing infrared. That is just, on average, 235 W/m2, balancing the 235 SW coming in.
In Lindzen’s hypothetical no-LH atmosphere, yes, there is 852 W/m2 emitted from the surface. But there is 617 W/m2 returned via backradiation mostly from the warmer, lower atmosphere. Nett radiation from the surface is now 235 instead of 168, because all the nett flux from the surface has to be IR. The reason the atmosphere emits asymmetrically (617 down, 235 up) is that it emits up mostly from its much colder upper radiative surface.
Refer to http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Kiehl_Trenberth-1997_Fig7.jpg
While you presume to remind me of elementary physics, you fail to notice that dissipated energy doesn’t simply disappear. Look up the 1st law. Even granting the magical generation of 852 radiant units from 235, you still have a bookkeeping problem. If 390 somehow “adheres” to the surface (because it really doesn’t go anywhere from there) and 235 go into space, then you have 227 units missing in action. That’s nearly the power of sunlight itself. Face it, professor Lindzen isn’t making any sense, not even by Alice-in-Wonderland greenhouse standards.
Alan,
No, again RL is describing a hypothetical situation. The 390 doesn’t apply any more; instead emission from the 77C surface is (as calculated by you) 852 W/m2. And the back-radiation is 852-235=617. Nothing missing.
Now you’re just being obtuse. WITHOUT surface dissipation: 852 generated, period, and 235 go into space. WITH surface dissipation: 852 generated, 462 removed from surface, and 235 go into space. Hawk your rubbish on somebody else.
“A blanket does not make you warmer, it keeps you warmer.”
Jan Pompe’s remark is more subtle than it looks. His is a crucial distinction because air currents cool us and our surroundings so constantly that we seldom think about it. And it is this inattentiveness that preconditions us to easily accept greenhouse effect explanations which confuse the familiar reduction of CONVECTIVE heat loss with the production of radiative heat GAIN. A physical greenhouse merely slows down the normal cooling rate by limiting the volume of air in which heat loss is occurring. So here’s a key feature to notice as the argument jumps to the atmospheric theory of a greenhouse effect, that proponents will concede that the atmosphere provides no physical canopy, no actual pane of glass or blanket that confines heated air.
What’s left, then? Radiant energy itself. Rather than confining a fixed number of vibrating air molecules, the atmospheric “blanket” they’re arguing for is a RADIATIVE canopy under which infrared photons accumulate, and this extra energy buzzing around raises the temperature of all bodies under the canopy.
Thus the greenhouse effect amounts to a “light battery” or generator that is continuously being fed by solar radiation, continuously being discharged at an EQUAL rate by terrestrial radiation, and yet is continuously AMPLIFYING the radiant energy inside it. As the Kiehl-Trenberth model shows, http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Kiehl_Trenberth-1997_Fig7.jpg
235 units go in, 235 go out, and 324 are generated in between.
So the question naturally arises, “Is this even POSSIBLE?” Can photons of LIGHT be collected and multiplied like this? Can you turn on a flashlight, say, put it inside a reflective thermos, close the lid, and convince yourself that a million watts of radiative power will eventually be generated if you wait long enough? For that matter, has anyone ever INVENTED a device that captures light, like capturing wind in a bottle?
Or do the laws of thermodynamics forbid this? You decide.
As for me, I’ve come to understand that blackbody equations are unable to predict a physical body’s temperature to begin with — minus 18° for the earth is a meaningless figure. No physical object radiates at a blackbody’s rate, for one thing. And why? Because a real body has DEPTH: its response to light is not merely to heat up and immediately radiate the same amount in turn but to conductively store the heat it acquires. Considering that the ocean alone is able to hold and circulate heat for decades, when does IT reach a point of equilibrium with the radiation it has absorbed? Yet radiant energy budgets give it a year.
I wash my hands of the accepted explanation. Sayonara, greenhouse effect.
“I wash my hands of the accepted explanation. Sayonara, greenhouse effect.”
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, is still there. We are still not living on a snowball, the ‘greenhouse’ exists.
“So the question naturally arises, “Is this even POSSIBLE?” Can photons of LIGHT be collected and multiplied like this? Can you turn on a flashlight, say, put it inside a reflective thermos, close the lid, and convince yourself that a million watts of radiative power will eventually be generated if you wait long enough? For that matter, has anyone ever INVENTED a device that captures light, like capturing wind in a bottle?”
A solar panel collects the energy of photons and turns them into electricity.
Your question about the flashlight doesn’t work in the sense that the flashlight has only a few batteries to run it. It will collect as much energy as the batteries can provide, assuming you have a perfect thermos, that prevents ALL radiation. You end up with no extra energy, only the energy converted from one form to another. If you have a long running power source, like the sun, and no energy can escape, you will wind up with something as hot as the sun. Your experiment has to consider radiation, and the energy source.
SJT: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, is still there.
You’re in a different world here, mate. Reality is an optical illusion caused by alcohol deficiency.
This is another thread that separates the sceptics from the knee jerk deniers. The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a 150 year old theory that has been confirmed repeatedly by scientific experiments and observations. There is no practicing climatologist or meteorologist who objects to it on grounds that fundamental physics is violated.
When scientifically educated people persuade themselves that generations of physicists are wrong about this it clearly has nothing to do with science or rational thought.
“You’re in a different world here, mate. Reality is an optical illusion caused by alcohol deficiency.”
“When scientifically educated people persuade themselves that generations of physicists are wrong about this it clearly has nothing to do with science or rational thought.”
Nick and Eric,
Do you think that ridiculous, alarmist predictions by the AGW experts might have something to do with this?
It could be said that you are a bit like muslims; until you criticise your own fundamentalists you will have a credibility problem.
To what degree the GHG system works is not known so we should all be sceptical.
Spanglers – stop talking dross – exactly what predictions of alarmism. IPCC references pls.
Having been shafted totally on the stupidity of this silly post – you’ve been hit for six old son – bilge which Siddons will never get published anywhere other than E&E – just another denialist crank ranting on –
so now you have decided to lay smoke and change the topic.
“When scientifically educated people persuade themselves that generations of physicists are wrong about this it clearly has nothing to do with science or rational thought.”
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/csiro-climate-experts-defiant/1486721.aspx
SD; when I reflect on my years in support of various large enterprises, I am quite certain these guys are putting it all on the line at this critical time as did Pearman and co before.
Be wise in your retirement too.
RW “You do not need quantum physics to understand the properties of planetary atmospheres”.
So much for your understanding of electromagnetic radiation and its propagation. With regard to textbooks on the atmosphere, I have quoted The Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation by Bohren and Clothiaux. The text devotes the first 3 chapters to the emission and absorption of photons. There is no way in climatology to describe the action of a photon without using quantum mechanics. We are talking about phenomena with a wavelength of millionths of an inch interacting with atomic structure.
G&T took exception to that. Excuse them for being real physicist, but they take cavity radiation seriously. A blackbody resonator is an ideal that involves energy being absorbed into a resonant cavity under very specific conditions. They are claiming a volume of CO2 with sides equal to the wavelength of the photons interacting with them does not describe a cavity resonator. Even Planck was clear that his equation does not apply at the atomic level, that a surface must be several orders larger than the wavelengths involved. Yet, climate scientist are using the equations of Planck, Stefan and Boltzmann as if they were dealing with perfect blackbodies.
You come along and insult their work, but neither you nor anyone else around here has the ability to say why they are wrong, so you resort to rhetoric and ad homs.
Planck started quantum mechanics by describing the quanta of energy required to describe energy levels in an atom. Stefan and Boltzmann followed that line therefore they are describing quanta. Wherever did you get the notion that blackbody radiation and photon emission/absorption was not in the domain of quantum mechanics?
Gases are described by their statistical energy levels and the same method is used to describe photons. There is no way to describe an individual atom or photon, it has to be done using statistical methods and that is quantum mechanics. G&T, one of whom is an expert in vectors and tensors, claims the study of the interactions between photons and atoms in the atmosphere cannot be described by the simple one-line drawings used by climate scientists. They require far more complex treatment using Feynman diagrams.
I’m really getting fed up with you AGW advocates who come in here quoting math functions and not having the least idea what they represent, or why they are wrong. Nick Stokes and Eric Adler are using math to argue what feedback is and neither has a clue as to what it is. Neither does Gavin Schmidt of NASA, nor does it seem, the entire modeling community.
Alan Siddons “So this is what Lindzen is saying, that in the absence of other heat dissipating influences and in radiative terms alone, the greenhouse effect is able to induce 684 W/m² on top of the 168 that the surface takes from the sun”.
Alan…Lindzen is a very approachable guy. Why don’t you write him at MIT and see what he has to say about that? I don’t know why you have an issue with the 684 W/m² because I think all those calculations are BS anyway. I don’t think anyone knows what the initial conditions were on the Earth or knows the much about how heat is distributed in the atmosphere.
As far as I’m concerned there are far more complex reasons why we enjoy the current + 15 C average temperature. I don’t buy into the simplified model of the GHE for the simple reason that gases accounting for 1% of the atmosphere could not possibly have that kind of effect. As Stephen Wilde implies, the N2 and O2 that make up 98% of atmospheric gases are most likely behind the heating. We’re so hung up today in this radiative nonsense that we’re not even considering the likelihood that the oceans are warming the N2 and O2 directly.
“As far as I’m concerned there are far more complex reasons why we enjoy the current + 15 C average temperature.”
Which doesn’t exist, apparently.
Alan Siddons “Can photons of LIGHT be collected and multiplied like this”?
This is the whole point, Alan. G&T, and Bohren, in The Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation, imply this is nonsense.
To put in my own two-bits worth, how can gases that represent 1% of the atmosphere possibly trap the total amount of energy emitted by the surface? WV is sparse in desert regions and in cold regions in the winter. The relative humidity on the Canadian prairies in winter runs under 20%. You can generate static sparks from walking on rugs of up to 40,000 volts, the sparks being blue in colour. With such a low density of WV, which is by far the major GHG, what’s to stop desert regions and cold regions radiating straight to space? Please don’t anyone try to tell me ACO2, which is 3% of a 0.04% density, can do that.
According to Bohren, it is clouds that have the highest emission of IR because they have relatively large droplets of water. He claims a cloud has an equivalency in water to a thin sheet of pure water. He did an experiment in which he pointed an IR meter at clear sky in 20 C weather, and got a reading of – 50 C. Pointing at clouds raised the temperature to – 3 C. I daresay that on a really hot summer day, the clouds would back-radiate 10 C or more, but there’s no way they are going to radiate 100% of solar radiation, as the IPCC and NASA imply. Something is seriously wrong.
Gordon – it’s most tiresome when sceptics like yourself pretend to be all sciencey and quantitative then resort to the teensy weensy argument. “Oh it’s all so small”.
That’s hardly a physics calculation is it. Your pants are around your ankles mate.
SJT “A solar panel collects the energy of photons and turns them into electricity”.
You’re talking about the photo-electric effect, which creates a current by dislodging electrons from certain elements that allow their free electrons to be emitted by light. When a photoelectric element absorbs a quantum of light with a specific energy level, it raises the energy level in an atom of the material and an electron is emitted. That’s a different process than the absorption of a photon by CO2.
To speak of anything collecting photons is wrong according to Bohren in The Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation. G&T are adding that it’s wrong to define gases in the atmosphere as cavity resonators that collect photons. Planck did not know how this process worked and I seriously doubt if anyone knows how it works, even today. So talking about the atmosphere as a blanket, or a collector of photons, is rubbish.
IMHO, people are taking far too much credit for understanding how EM interacts with matter.
Gordon,
In about 1866, Tyndall measured the absorption of IR by trace gases like CO2 and H2O. There was no quantum mechanics then, and none was needed. He just measured it. His results have stood for 150 years. But now, in 2009, Gordon Robertson, Esq, has decided that no, 1% is too small. Can’t be. All those people who actually measured stuff were wrong.
And you still haven’t reconciled your insight with Dr Lindzen’s clear quotes:
There is so much greenhouse opacity immediately above the ground that the surface cannot effectively cool by the emission of thermal radiation.
While the atmosphere is relatively transparent to shortwave radiation (sunlight) it is nearly opaque to infrared radiation, owing to the presence of certain trace gases and of clouds.
Gavin, these blokes have pushing the AGW barrow for a long time fuelled by their GCM predictions a la Hansen & Co.
AGW fundamentalists.
They’ve never had any trouble getting their message out. The MSM loves them.
“Be wise in your retirement too.”
I’ve been retired for over 30 years and have never worked harder or had more fun. I’ll admit I sure could be wiser but when I look around……
Gordon,
Nick Stokes and Eric Adler are using math to argue what feedback is and neither has a clue as to what it is.
You’ve been making a bombastic fool of yourself on this site, with all kinds of wandering, contradictory assertions. I actually have a PhD in mathematical control theory. Please list your qualifications to back your claim of knowing so much more than all the scientists you dismiss.
Nick Stokes “I don’t see how you improve your case by rattling of a long list of his qualifications…”
Because you made a snide comment that he has ‘occasional’ clarity. That bothers me because the mob you get your information from don’t have a fraction of his experience with atmospheric physics. Before all this AGW nonsense began, Lindzen was highly regarded in the area of atmospheric physics. Suddenly, because a load of virutal scientists show up, many of whom are mathematicians, Lindzen is suddenly no good?
The rest of my rant at you was based on what Lindzen said about the transportation system in the atmosphere that move heat around. There is an entire field called meteorology that is being ignored here. People have been studying that stuff for decades and Lindzen is one of the most qualified in the field. Climate science is relatively young and it stands to reason that mistakes are going to be made, especially when it is flooded by virtual scientists from other fields.
With respect to the GHE, I don’t know what to think. I think it’s reasonable that atmospheric gases have a lot to do with the temperature being as high as it is. However, I’m asking simple questions and receiving no answers. How does 1% of atmospheric gases control that much warming? How does back-radiation from that 1% account for the same level of incoming energy as solar radiation? If that’s possible, why are we not using GHG’s as insulators and as heat sources?
I really think climate scientists who subscribe to the AGW paradigm are out to lunch, especially the modelers. I don’t think many of them, perhaps none of them, have an adequate understanding of basic physics, as G&T have implied.
If you think that’s outlandish, consider what’s going on with SJT’s favourite anti-argument. In the field of HIV/AIDS research, Peter Duesberg, a molecular biologist, was highly regarded in the world as a viral researcher. He won the California Scientist of the Year Award and the American Medical Center Oncology award for research on cancer. He was admitted to the National Academy of Science and in the same year he won a seven-year Outstanding Investigation Award from the National Institute of Health.
One would think that when a scientist of that emminence steps forward and claims HIV could not possibly cause AIDS, people would at least listen. No way. People were outraged, and he has lost all his funding and has been reduced to teaching undergarduate lab classes. All SJT can do is attack the guy even though he knows nothing about the arguments put forward by Duesberg, nor is he interested. This is the same approach he and many others have to skeptics.
I don’t want to get into this here out of respect for Jen’s blog, but let me say a couple of things so you’ll know what I’m on about. The HIV/AIDS paradigm was released in 1983 with no peer review. One of the scientists co-credited with finding HIV, Luc Montagnier, later admitted HIV could not cause AIDS on it’s own, and that he had not isolated HIV. The other one, Robert Gallo, had tried to prove cancer was caused by a virus and only made a fool of himself. He claims to have isolated HIV but he can’t show how.
We are now 25 years down the road from that announcement and we are no closer to finding a cure for AIDS. Vaccines have not worked and there are no tests for the virus. The tests we have test for proteins produced by the immune system and are ‘thought’ to come from HIV. In the mid-90’s a new test, called the viral load test, was instituted using the PCR method for DNA amplification for which Kary Mullis won a Nobel. Mullis said the said the test could not be applied like that, but even if it could, why did they need to amplify DNA to find HIV? If it’s there as they claim, why were they still looking for it in the mid-90’s and why hasn’t a cure been found?
OK, enough of that. I fear we are going through exactly the same lame exercise today with the CO2/warming paradigm. It certainly is taking the same route as HIV/AIDS, with scientists like Lindzen being ostracized and discredited by people who know nothing about what they are talking. Even the paradigm is not working, with the warming in the atmosphere having leveled off the past 10 years. That proves my point, that the density of ACO2 is far too weak to make a difference.
I can respect you as a person, and I do. You have patience and you try to put your points across civilly. What bugs the hell out of me, however, is that you are groping in the dark. Call me what you will…I know I’m a scientific duffer. Before you put down the likes of Lindzen, however, you better be really sure about your facts. As a fellow human being with an interest in science, I would expect you to oppose this nonsense of seeing a scientists discredited, whether that be in climate science or the HIV/AIDS paradigm. I put Hansen down, and his boy-wonder Schmidt, but I’d never want to see either lose his job or credibility over his scientific opinions.
I couldn’t give a damn about being right about HIV/AIDS, or whether I’m talking rubbish. The point is that people have been dying for 25 years of a horrible ailment and scientists are carefully guarding a paradigm that has done nothing to help them get well. In the same manner, climate scientists are doing the same, and I think it’s damned ignorant.
Nick Stokes “I actually have a PhD in mathematical control theory. Please list your qualifications to back your claim of knowing so much more than all the scientists you dismiss”.
I had a math prof tell me once that it was possible to take the square root of -1. When I asked him to show me, he laughed condescendigly. I said I respected you in my recent post, I’ll have to take that back.
I have already admitted that I only have a few years as an undergrad in electrical engineering. I make no pretensions about being an expert in anything. However, I am an expert in electronics at the technical level. I have worked with feedback circuits and you obviously have not. I’ll stick with my opinion that you have no idea what it is practically, or how it works, and it’s people like you who are causing all the problems with this computer modeling nonsense.
Why don’t you stick to your math and leave climate science to the experts like Lindzen. I should have known you were a mathematician when you made that crack about him.
Nick
I thought your speciality was PDEs and CFD those two go hand in hand but we don’t see to many PDEs being used in control theory ODEs in abundance of course.
However most control theorists, that I know, are quite aware of the difference between active and passive systems and know the equations we use to describe real systems do imply/assume an arbitrary internal or auxiliary power reservoir to drive the gain which is very necessary for feedback. Most know that water doesn’t spontaneously run up hill, heat does not spontaneously go from cold to hot, and electrical signals do not go from low electrical potential to a higher one (whether AC or DC).
For feedback to occur naturally it does require that output potentials are greater than input. You have shown on several occasions that you do not quite have a grasp of this physical barrier to spontaneous feedback in natural systems.
And why out of the whole range of climatologists and meteorologists you might pick from – why would you choose Lindzen.
Coz dear Gordon as it simply suits your POV. Hardly a science argument is it.
Like your ongoing reference to teensy weensy is not a science calculation – it’s simply pure rhetoric.
“climate scientist are using the equations of Planck, Stefan and Boltzmann as if they were dealing with perfect blackbodies”
Where on earth would you get such a notion from? Gordon, I really don’t think you understand the words you are typing. If you start by being ignorant of climate science, then put your trust in pseudo-papers that make bizarre demands for Feynman diagrams to be used in wildly inappropriate contexts, then you’ll come to conclusions that place you firmly in cloud cuckoo land.
“You come along and insult their work, but neither you nor anyone else around here has the ability to say why they are wrong”
Er, yes I do, but I am not sure you have either the physics knowledge or the open mind required to understand. If you seriously, honestly, unironically believe that there’s no such thing as a greenhouse effect, well first of all I pity you and I mean that seriously, but second of all why do you think that the night side of the Moon is about 100K colder than the night side of the Earth?
“I’m asking simple questions and receiving no answers. How does 1% of atmospheric gases control that much warming?”
If you think you are receiving no answers, you must have your fingers in your ears. I recommended before that you read any atmospheric physics text book from the last thirty years. I recommend it again.
Alan:
Been on vacation and have purposefully ignored AGW for a whole week! Just noticed this thread. I don’t think you are representing correctly what the AGW-freaks are SAYING. Most of them are NOT actually SAYING that the back-radiation is causing heating. They are only SAYING that it prevents heat from being lost as fast. HOWEVER, their screwy little radiation diagrams seem to be SHOWING something else (at least to me). The seem to SHOW that the backradiation ADDS to the solar radiation, thereby producing the 390 watts. And I also think that is baloney.
Thought experiment: Two rods made of an extremely good conductor, like diamonds. One rod is 1 meter long, the other is 1/2 meter long. One end of both rods is heated to 100 C; the other is at 0 C in a vacuum. Both are insulated on their sides with a perfect insulator, so that all heat has to go from the warm end to the cold end through the rod and the heat has to be radiated to the vacuum.
1.) If heat is added continually at the warm ends of both rods, virtually the same amount of energy flux would be radiated to the vacuum.
2.) If the heat was turned off, the short rod would cool faster than the long one, because it had less thermal storage capacity.
a) Now, one could not say that the long rod stayed warm longer because of backradiation, but one could say that it remained warm longer because the energy in the neighboring atoms made it cool less quickly.
3.) Replace the solid substance in the rods with a fluid:
a) Water. Now heat would be lost by both conduction and convection. But you can still say that the long rod remained warm longer because of the extra heat stored by the additional water molecules.
b) Air. Same thing as water.
As you mention in your post, heat storage is what is important, and the radiation is simply a measure of how much heat is stored. The rate of cooling is controlled almost entirely by conduction and convection. Perhaps there is a very tiny effect of backradiation.
RW:
“Er, yes I do, but I am not sure you have either the physics knowledge or the open mind required to understand. If you seriously, honestly, unironically believe that there’s no such thing as a greenhouse effect, well first of all I pity you and I mean that seriously, but second of all why do you think that the night side of the Moon is about 100K colder than the night side of the Earth?”
Pretty strong words. Can you tell us why you are so sure of yourself, sir?
You don’t seem to bright to me, because of your Earth/Moon question. How can you compare a planet with an atmosphere and water with a “planet” that is a rock?
“There is so much greenhouse opacity immediately above the ground that the surface cannot effectively cool by the emission of thermal radiation.
While the atmosphere is relatively transparent to shortwave radiation (sunlight) it is nearly opaque to infrared radiation, owing to the presence of certain trace gases and of clouds.”
Yes, the surface cannot effectively cool by the emission of thermal radiation, so it cools almost entirely by convection. True greenhouses prove this conclusively; if it were not for convection the surface of the Earth would be the same temperature as the inside of a closed greenhouse. Radiative cooling is painfully slow at ambient temperatures, which is why automobile “radiators” depend on air flow (convection/conduction), not on radiation.
Also, the radiation nuts seem to keep forgetting the other 98% of the molecules in the atmosphere, which have to be in LTE at all times. The GHGs simply allow for extremely rapid thermalization of the other 98% of the molecules in the atmosphere. The energy
Jae: Their “screwy little radiation diagrams” are the SOURCE of the problem, I think you might agree. One simply cannot convert a sphere to a flat plate that receives 4 times less irradiance and get away with it. For instance, a 1368 W/m² dose of sunlight on an ideally-absorptive HEMISPHERE, will amount to half that irradiance when averaged over its surface area. This would yield 331 Kelvin. Now, since a theoretical blackbody continuously emits 100% of the radiation it absorbs, it has no provision for storing heat. One is thus forced to conclude that the shadow side of a blackbody sphere has to be around 3 K. This body’s average temperature is therefore 167 K. Yet dividing irradiance by 4 to illuminate the whole sphere at once yields 279 K. And factoring in reflection gives you the standard 255 K figure.
What I’m getting at is that the very method of determining a sphere’s temperature is arbitrary from the start, a wild stab in the dark. Irradiance and temperature do NOT follow neatly together; they are easily parted. For the reasons you’ve also outlined, therefore, scientists have NO IDEA what the earth’s “base temperature” is or should be, because it just can’t be done on paper. Heat retention on a rotating planet of rocks and circulating water is a key parameter, yet no one even knows at the moment how to approach such a problem.
Step one in greenhouse heating theory is a false step, then. Minus 18° is a meaningless figure.
Alan Siddons, if you ever took a course in astronomy you’d find that calculating planetary temperatures with and without rotation, atmospheres and albedo is quite trivial. Saying it “just can’t be done on paper” is laughable.
You are clearly labouring under many serious misconceptions. Here’s one of the most obvious:
“Now, since a theoretical blackbody continuously emits 100% of the radiation it absorbs, it has no provision for storing heat” – no, the definition of a black body does not imply that it radiates away all its energy instantaneously. If you know that power = energy/time then you would realise that your idea would imply that a black body would radiate with infinite power for an infinitesimal time, which is clearly nonsense. This mistake makes your conclusion entirely wrong.
And given that you don’t believe in a greenhouse effect, I pity you as I pity Gordon Robertson. Why do you think that the night side of the Moon is about 100K colder than the night side of the Earth? If you need a hint, look at jae’s response which missed the point completely, even while dancing around it.
Gordon: Bohren? That’s a new name for me. Thanks, I’ll look him up. I’m inclined to agree with him about clouds. Visual albedo is very misleading; the tiny water droplets in a cloud are very IR-absorptive, and IR is half of what the sun radiates to earth. That source of heat has barely begun to be explored. In my view, a cloud doesn’t keep a night-time landscape warmer by “back-radiating” surface energy but simply by radiating on its own. It’s a result of water’s latent heat: as a cloud slowly cools, it releases the thermal energy that went into its formation and the landscape becomes a beneficiary. Much the same occurs in seaside locations, as a cooling ocean releases the heat it was storing during the day.
Alan:
“In my view, a cloud doesn’t keep a night-time landscape warmer by “back-radiating” surface energy but simply by radiating on its own. It’s a result of water’s latent heat: as a cloud slowly cools, it releases the thermal energy that went into its formation and the landscape becomes a beneficiary. Much the same occurs in seaside locations, as a cooling ocean releases the heat it was storing during the day.”
I wonder if radiation has ANYTHING to do with it. Maybe the primary reason why the landscape under a cloud is warmer is that it caps convection and changes the lapse rate.
RW:
I didn’t miss (“dance around”) any point; I just don’t agree with the point you are intimating. You simply cannot compare a planet with an atmosphere to one without one, because the very presence of the atmosphere proves that there is a lot of energy stored. And that has to increase the temperature. See Thieme’s work. Moreover, since water and air are quite transparent to visible radiation, the energy from such radiation is virtually all ABSORBED in those media–very unlike what happens when the visible radiation strikes a rock and is immediately reflected or re-irradiated.
RW:
BTW, I’m still waiting for one of you geniuses to ‘splain to me why the maximum temperature in your favorite tropical area, where there is always a MAXIMUM amount of GHGs, rarely exceeds about 33 C; whereas, in deserts of similar latitude and altitude, Ts often exceed 50 C, even thought GHGs are at their MINIMUM levels.
There’s about 1200 watts direct radiation from the sun in such areas at noon–equivalent to a BB temp. of 91 C. If you add all the magic “backradiation” that putatively exists in the tropical areas, the seas should be boiling away. AGW physics simply makes no sense–on numerous fronts.
With all due respect Nick I think I’ve been verballed here;
“Cohenite was the one citing Lindzen there, saying that he said the temp rise due to GE was only a quarter of what it would be without convection (at least, I think that’s what Coho meant). So I pointed out that, no, RL was referring to a much larger base figure that he had calculated, and the 33C stood. So now I’m supposed to defend RL’s 77C?”
Actually, on reflection, RL is a bit hazy here; he says
“As it turns out, if there were only radiative heat transfer, the greenhouse effect would warm the Earth to about seventy-seven degrees centigrade rather than to fifteen degrees centigrade. In fact, the greenhouse effect is only about 25 percent of what it would be in a pure radiative situation.”
So, there appear to be 3 possible figures or amounts that RL is offering here for the GH effect instead of the conventional 33C;
1 15C
2 25% of 77 or 19.25C
3 25% of 15C or 3.75C
In any event RL does not accept that the 33C that AGW asserts through such luminaries as Arthur Smith and Dr Nick is correct; the GH effect is only responsible for a proportion of that amount; that being the case what is responsible for the rest?
Sorry, there is a 4th alternative;
4 25% of 33C or 8.25C [my original supposition].
Coho – well, semiverballed; I said I wasn’t sure what you meant, and you’re not sure what RL meant. I think it’s a variant of 2; 25% of the diff between 77C and -18C, which is about 25C. And I think that’s low, but his “quarter” could be rough.
But 33C isn’t an “AGW figure”; it’s been around for ages. As I said in another thread, you’ll find it clearly set out in this 1916 account of a paper by Emden (sec 5).
What I’d like to know is this: if “greenhouse” gases absorb heat radiated from the surface, they themselves must become warmer. Given that they are hundreds of degrees warmer than space, why wouldn’t they preferentially radiate their heat in that direction, just as the surface would do if the gases weren’t in the way? There seems to be an assumption that these gases preferentially radiate their heat back to the surface, even though the temperature gradient in that direction isn’t nearly as large.
Well Nick, I don’t know whether to admire or feel sorry for someone who has handy a ready reference to a 1916 edition of Monthly Weather Review; anyhow, on p453;
“The agreement with observation would still be advantageous if we consider that we can compensate temperatures that are too low by a decrease in the water-vapor content of the stratosphere.”
RL will be pleased that his Iris effect was verified in 1916.
“What I’d like to know is this: if “greenhouse” gases absorb heat radiated from the surface, they themselves must become warmer. Given that they are hundreds of degrees warmer than space, why wouldn’t they preferentially radiate their heat in that direction, just as the surface would do if the gases weren’t in the way?”
The radiation from a greenhouse gas molecule is radiated in a random direction. It has no concept of a direction of space, or where something is hotter or colder. The surface of the earth can’t radiated in any direction, it can only radiate away from itself.
“RL will be pleased that his Iris effect was verified in 1916.” ??????
Luke, I want you to write this out a hundred times for homework tonight:
“Electrons cannot travel from positive to the negative, air cannot flow from low to high, water cannot run uphill, heat cannot flow from cold to a hot and I’ve got to be nice if I want to be heard.”
Little will fails to recognise irony for 303rd time.
Bayrunner – why don’t you wipe your nose and write 1000 times net is net. Denialist turd.
Apart from being concerned about the quality of cohenite wit since his day one on the blog, my appreciation of jae and alan siddions goes down with every post they make on this thread. Its just little issues piling up in the rhetoric that drown them all in the end.
“One simply cannot convert a sphere to a flat plate -”
Well one can, provided its a small plate and part of some calculus that ends up tilting our little plate about 180 degrees. Besides the ideal black or grey body is only there for newbees.
Somebody, hand me a larger hammer!
“Luke, I want you to write this out a hundred times for homework tonight:
“Electrons cannot travel from positive to the negative, air cannot flow from low to high, water cannot run uphill, heat cannot flow from cold to a hot and I’ve got to be nice if I want to be heard.””
I’ll just make a note that you disagree with Spencer, Christy and Lindzen on a fundamental piece of science.
Let’s look at one simple premise.
a) A “cool” body will still emit radiation, (even if it is not as much as a body that is warmer than it).
b) When that cool body emits that radiation (as photons), it will be in a random direction.
c) A randomly directed photon can head towards a hotter body than where it started from.
d) A photon hitting any body, will add energy to that body.
“Little will fails to recognise irony for 303rd time.”
When you deal with somone who takes G&T seriously, it’s always hard to know if they are being serious or not, since most of what they say is absurd.
SJT (whoever you are): G&T are both well-respected PhD physicists. What are your qualifications for mocking them?
Jae,
You repeatedly call the whole galaxy of climate scientists a bunch of morons, afflicted with all sorts of bad motivations. What are your qualifications for making this assessment?
Ha ha! Well respected by whom, exactly? Both of them appear to have published few papers, and generated very few citations. You don’t need a PhD to see how stupid their paper is. What’s nice is that it provides a very convenient way to spot idiots. Anyone who takes them seriously is an idiot. There is no need to beat about the bush; the stupidity is quite blatant enough that anyone with a basic science education can spot it. Anyone who takes them seriously is an idiot.
Do you want to learn about why they are stupid, to avoid looking stupid yourself? If so, take my advice and read any atmospheric physics text book from the last thirty years.
You did indeed miss my earlier point. You quite obviously can compare two rocky bodies, one with and one without an atmosphere, and the comparison tells us something about the difference between them – the atmosphere. Seriously, go and read a text book – your misunderstandings are currently catastrophic. You need to stop arguing from ignorance.
You’d also find an answer there to your question about desert v. tropical temperatures. Have you been to any hot deserts, or any tropical places? Did you look up, at all? Here’s a clue – in one of them, you’d probably have seen some clouds. In the other, you probably wouldn’t have. Do you know which would have been which?
Who is this ‘Thieme’ of whom you speak?
Nick states:
”
Jae,
You repeatedly call the whole galaxy of climate scientists a bunch of morons, afflicted with all sorts of bad motivations. What are your qualifications for making this assessment?”
Nick, that is very unfair. I may have done so a couple of times in desperation, but that is not my MO, or my basic philosophy. I try to stick to the facts. If you can prove otherwise, have at it.
RW:
Why don’t you put up some facts or references, for a change. You are evidently only a mouth-breathing arm-waver.
Here’s one of Thieme’s papers. Google “thieme climate” for more: http://www.geocities.com/atmosco2/atmos.htm
Oh, and RW states:
“You’d also find an answer there to your question about desert v. tropical temperatures. Have you been to any hot deserts, or any tropical places? Did you look up, at all? Here’s a clue – in one of them, you’d probably have seen some clouds. In the other, you probably wouldn’t have. Do you know which would have been which?”
I’m talking about cloudless days. The max in your tropical paradise is only about 33 C; whereas, it’s over 50 C in the desert. Why? I’ll give you a possible clue: the GHE probably has more to do with heat storage and convection than it has to do with radiation.
That’s not a paper. It’s a website, and it’s nonsense. You’re going wrong right at the very start by simply not having the ability to filter out nonsense.
I recommended that you read an atmospheric physics textbook. It doesn’t look like you have started to do so. If you do, you will find many answers, and if you read it with an able brain and open mind you will be able to stop embarrassing yourself. Here is a recommendation:
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521629584
“SJT (whoever you are): G&T are both well-respected PhD physicists. What are your qualifications for mocking them?”
Well respected by whom? Not other physicists. The denialosphere, for sure.
“I’m talking about cloudless days. The max in your tropical paradise is only about 33 C; whereas, it’s over 50 C in the desert. Why? I’ll give you a possible clue: the GHE probably has more to do with heat storage and convection than it has to do with radiation.”
Write it up in a paper, then, and get if published. Your opinion alone isn’t going to carry any weight.
SJT:
No, my opinion carries no weight, but it might possibly turn a light on somewhere, one never knows. But I reserve the right to express my opinion, as long as Jennifer doesn’t mind. Is that OK with you?
I did note that you have no answer to my question. 🙂
RW:
I can find the textbooks all by myself, thank you. I have probably read more about atmospheric physics than you think I have. Certainly more than you have, judging by your simplistic comments.
See the latest thread for feedback on what others think of your ad-hom posting style.
Comment from: RW April 14th, 2009 at 5:38 am
In your view, Alan Siddons, do the air molecules that surround the Earth’s surface emit radiation a) upwards only; b) downwards only; or c) in all directions equally?
If a or b, please explain how. If c, please explain what you think happens to the 50% of the radiation emitted downward.
I’m not Alan Siddons, but I can answer your question. Air molecules emit photons randomly if the emission is spontaneous. However, incoming or outgoing photon streams with the appropiate frequency induce the air molecules to emit photons into the same direction as the incoming or outgoing intensity of phothon streams. This is known in physics as induced emission. So your question is irrelevant.
“No, my opinion carries no weight, but it might possibly turn a light on somewhere, one never knows. But I reserve the right to express my opinion, as long as Jennifer doesn’t mind. Is that OK with you?”
When did I say you didn’t? What you are doing is making a claim, but offering no evidence.
One important thing that should be always considered is that heat transfer in Earth’s atmosphere system doesn’t happen only by radiation; for example, convection affects the directionality of radiation. The mechanism is quite simple. Hot masses of air ascend, cold masses of air, descend. During nighttime, hot masses of air do not remain stuck on the surface, but rise up and lose their heat as they get higher altitudes in the atmosphere.
What Nasif said. Think about it, radiation freaks!
”
One important thing that should be always considered is that heat transfer in Earth’s atmosphere system doesn’t happen only by radiation; for example, convection affects the directionality of radiation. The mechanism is quite simple. Hot masses of air ascend, cold masses of air, descend. During nighttime, hot masses of air do not remain stuck on the surface, but rise up and lose their heat as they get higher altitudes in the atmosphere.”
Do you think climate scientists aren’t already aware of that, that they don’t factor these considerations into their models? The only way energy from the sun, that arrives by radiation, leaves the earth, is by radiation.
Comment from: SJT April 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Do you think climate scientists aren’t already aware of that, that they don’t factor these considerations into their models? The only way energy from the sun, that arrives by radiation, leaves the earth, is by radiation.
I don’t know where your assumption came from. I didn’t talk a single word about the scope of knowledge of climate scientists either the way energy leaves the earth. I’ve just explained how convection affects the directionality of radiative heat transfer into the atmosphere on trying to expand my answer to RW. 🙂
Dear SJT:
You say: “What you are doing is making a claim, but offering no evidence.”
The evidence is in the temperature records out there. I am summarizing the ones for the USA and Protectorates. Here are the data for your entertainment: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/sum2/state.html
Have fun analyzing it, and let me know if you can prove I’m wrong. One thing you did right is not talk about how “freezing” the deserts are at night (which is a complete myth).
Nasif convection affects the directionality of radiation.
This isn’t exactly true. Convection is an alternative mode of upward heat transport. But, as RW suggests, GHG molecules and small parcels of air emit uniformly in all directions. They have no way of doing otherwise.
However, they don’t absorb equally from all directions. There is generally hotter air below radiating more strongly than cooler air above. Since the air has a heat balance between absorption and emission, there is an upward directionality in nett flow.
Comment from: Nick Stokes April 17th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
This isn’t exactly true. Convection is an alternative mode of upward heat transport. But, as RW suggests, GHG molecules and small parcels of air emit uniformly in all directions. They have no way of doing otherwise.
Of course, convection affects radiation: Qw = h [Tw(x) – Tm(x)] + (ε/1 – ε) [σT^4(x) – J(x), where J(x) is radiosity.
However, they don’t absorb equally from all directions. There is generally hotter air below radiating more strongly than cooler air above. Since the air has a heat balance between absorption and emission, there is an upward directionality in nett flow.
Let me highlight it again, incoming or outgoing photon streams with the appropriate frequency induce the air molecules to emit photons into the same direction as the incoming or outgoing intensity of photon streams do. This phenomenon is known in physics as induced emission.
Now let’s consider a parcel of air which moves up toward higher altitudes. As photon stream directionality is upwards, so the emission from that air parcel does and it also takes a way upwards.
Sources:
Peixoto et al. 1992. Physics of Climate. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Michael F. Modest. 2003. Radiative Heat Transfer. Elsevier (USA).
Nick
In a nutshell then radiant heat preferentially radiates to space where it is a tad cooler than anywhere on the surface – for now.
Nasif Of course, convection affects radiation: Qw = h [Tw(x) – Tm(x)] + (ε/1 – ε) [σT^4(x) – J(x), where J(x) is radiosity.
Could you define some of this notation please? And match up the brackets? I’m assuming it should be: Qw = h [Tw(x) – Tm(x)] + (ε/(1 – ε)) [σT^4(x) – J(x)]
Induced emission is usually relevant at much higher frequencies. Do you have any evidence that it is significant at these intensities and IR frequencies?
And a bit more detail in your sourcing?
And Jan, the nutshell is actually Rosseland radiative trandfer.
Comment from: Nick Stokes April 17th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Could you define some of this notation please? And match up the brackets? I’m assuming it should be: Qw = h [Tw(x) – Tm(x)] + (ε/(1 – ε)) [σT^4(x) – J(x)]
I don’t understand your question. “Define some of the notation”, like what? This expression: h [Tw(x) – Tm(x)] is for convection. The other one, (ε/(1 – ε)) [σT^4(x) – J(x)] is for radiation, and it is applied to obtain the net flux of energy from air. There are other formulas, but this one is more smooth for not so sophisticated computers.
Induced emission is usually relevant at much higher frequencies. Do you have any evidence that it is significant at these intensities and IR frequencies?
Let me see if I understood this question. You’re asking me for significant evidence on intensities of solar photon streams and IR frequencies? Yes, I have it:
Ibv = h 1/4π [(Aul / Bul) / (gl *Blu / gu *Bul) e^hν/kT – 1
Otherwise, Bul would trend to zero and the intensity would be governed by Wien’s distribution, which has been falsified long time ago.
Nasif
Well, ultimately my question about the radiation formula is, how does it show that convection affects radiation? It seems only to show that you add convective heat gain and radiative heat gain to get total volumetric heat gain (I assume that is what Qw is, per time). But by defining I mean the normal courtesies extended in scientific discourse – where Tw is ,,,, Tm is … etc (even where x is …). That might help explain why you have ε/(1 – ε) instead of ε, etc. And why you subtract the radiosity. If that’s too much to ask, you could give a link.
And on induced emission, again it’s not enough to produce a planck radiation formula, haphazardly bracketed. My question is, can you show that induced emission, as opposed to the normal spontaneous thermal emission, is significant. It’s not as if you’re propounding mainstream atmospheric physics here.
Nasif – stimulated emission would be a factor worth considering if a) a large fraction of the molecules in the air were in an excited state, and b) a large fraction of the photons travelling upwards had frequencies exactly equal to the energies of the excited states.
Neither of these are true. Your point is irrelevant. Alan Siddons has yet to answer the question. I wonder why?
jae – I don’t believe for a second that you’ve genuinely read any atmospheric physics text books. If you have, you certainly haven’t understood them.
Nick
Not to mention Schwarzschild, Miskollczi and the send law in general, the minimum energy principle in particular (for diabatic systems).
Comment from: Nick Stokes April 17th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Nasif
Well, ultimately my question about the radiation formula is, how does it show that convection affects radiation? It seems only to show that you add convective heat gain and radiative heat gain to get total volumetric heat gain (I assume that is what Qw is, per time). But by defining I mean the normal courtesies extended in scientific discourse – where Tw is ,,,, Tm is … etc (even where x is …). That might help explain why you have ε/(1 – ε) instead of ε, etc. And why you subtract the radiosity. If that’s too much to ask, you could give a link.
If you don’t take into account convection, your numbers would go up like into a furnace. The formula was constructed from experimental-observational data. Energy balance for the atmosphere system states that the heat flux is dissipated by conduction, convection and radiation.
Air is an opaque flowing medium, i.e. it absorbs SWR and it always moves; consequently, convection affects radiation in the real system (air) because in this system radiation enters only as a non linear boundary condition. Hence, convection and conduction change the radiative flux and vice versa.
And on induced emission, again it’s not enough to produce a planck radiation formula, haphazardly bracketed. My question is, can you show that induced emission, as opposed to the normal spontaneous thermal emission, is significant. It’s not as if you’re propounding mainstream atmospheric physics here.
Of course it is enough. Have you seen that the figure considered in the formula is the energy of a single photon? Besides, think in the main source of heat for Earth, is it enough as to produce a photon stream or not? Obviously, Planck applies because we are considering photons.
Out of Topic: I see you don’t like how physicists make use of brakets on their books and writtings. I can deduce you don’t like them because you have pointed that twice out.
Once again, Out of Topic: I’m not propounding mainstream atmospheric physics here. I’m promoting basic knowledge on Thermal Physics:
Cess, R. D. The Interaction of Thermal Radiation with Conduction and Convection Heat Transfer. Advances in Heat Transfer. Vol. 1., Pp. 4-47. Academic Press, New York.
Gordon you forgot the main thing : the “very thin reflective film” around the tea pot.
I am definetly sure that within LESS than half hour the water will be boiling. 😉
Comment from: RW April 17th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Nasif – stimulated emission would be a factor worth considering if a) a large fraction of the molecules in the air were in an excited state, and b) a large fraction of the photons travelling upwards had frequencies exactly equal to the energies of the excited states.
Neither of these are true. Your point is irrelevant.
Um… It is induced, not “stimulated”, things quite different.
a) Aren’t they excited?
b) One photon is enough.
Oh! You must tell Potts, Manrique, Engel, Modest, Cess, etc. that the induced emission is irrelevant in heat transfer science.
The next assumption of RW has drawn my attention:
b) a large fraction of the photons travelling upwards had frequencies exactly equal to the energies of the excited states.
Is it true? No, not true. All Einstein coefficients counts for equilibrium radiation where the radiative intensity is equal to Iv. It’s a matter of u to l.
RW assumes air molecules are not excited and that they may have E = 0. Interesting attempt!
I’m worried about some people resort to the minimization of observable and observed phenomena that has a great influence on our knowledge about heat transfer just because those phenomena don’t fit with our imagination. The world is not as we wish it is, or as we imagine it. Perhaps for that reason we fought against those things that nature exhibits in each one of its parts which are against our beliefs. Things as induced emission and the modification of heat radiant flux by other modes of heat transfer would not have to be debated given that extensive literature exists on the matter and that nature shows it every second.
Rw observes:
“jae – I don’t believe for a second that you’ve genuinely read any atmospheric physics text books. If you have, you certainly haven’t understood them.”
I’m curious as to why you are so concerned about what I have read and so unwilling to just address my questions or explain where I’m wrong. Is it impossible for you to write one single comment without some type of ad-hom?
jae, I can’t easily explain where you are wrong because you have neither the knowledge to understand nor the willingness to learn.
Nasif – if you’re talking about fluorescence, then that too is quite irrelevant. Atmospheric molecules warmed by radiation from the ground emit radiation in all directions equally. Thus, about half of it reaches the ground again. This is simple, obvious, easy, observationally-confirmed physics. Your attempts to question it are laughable.
Comment from: RW April 18th, 2009 at 3:54 am
Nasif – if you’re talking about fluorescence, then that too is quite irrelevant. Atmospheric molecules warmed by radiation from the ground emit radiation in all directions equally. Thus, about half of it reaches the ground again. This is simple, obvious, easy, observationally-confirmed physics. Your attempts to question it are laughable.
Nope… I’m not talking about fluorescence. What a pitty that you know nothing about induced emission. This dissagreement from you about something which is well known in physics only demonstrates that you talk randomly for see if any of your negative assumptions strikes.
The whole matter on induced emission has been ignored, whether intentionally or not, by the IPCC and AGWers in general. I cannot picture a physicist who could not know about Einstein coefficient for spontaneous emission, Einstein coefficient for induced emission, degeneracies from high energy states and low energy states, etc. No confusion on this stuff; it’s not fluorescence. It’s just that photon streams drive the directionality of radiation and it’s quite simple because spontaneous emission never occurs alone.
“photon streams drive the directionality of radiation”
Nonsense. You really don’t know what you’re talking about; you’re just babbling. Atmospheric molecules warmed by radiation from the ground emit radiation in all directions equally. Thus, about half of it reaches the ground again. This is simple, obvious, easy, observationally-confirmed physics.
RW:
“jae, I can’t easily explain where you are wrong because you have neither the knowledge to understand nor the willingness to learn.”
Now there is a logical ad-hom to think about! 🙂
Comment from: RW April 18th, 2009 at 7:13 am
“photon streams drive the directionality of radiation”
Nonsense. You really don’t know what you’re talking about; you’re just babbling. Atmospheric molecules warmed by radiation from the ground emit radiation in all directions equally. Thus, about half of it reaches the ground again. This is simple, obvious, easy, observationally-confirmed physics.
Check the references and formulas I have given through this discussion. What you expose on this plot is that you know nothing on heat transfer science. I’ve given references and formulas on this phenomena. It’s a matter of checking them out. The fact that you consider the work of great physicists is “nonsense” and “babling” only reveals that you have not revised the literature on the issue. 🙂
Comment from: RW April 18th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Focus on bolded lines:
Atmospheric molecules warmed by radiation from the ground emit radiation in all directions equally. Thus, about half of it reaches the ground again. This is simple, obvious, easy, observationally-confirmed physics.
Explain and expand mathematically what your asserting.
Nasif
RW did not say that great physicists are babbling. He said that you are babbling. And he’s right. You have no idea how to present a properly defined equation or formula. Your formulae make no sense at all. Your idea of reference is vague name-dropping. Your idea on induced emission in the atmosphere is most unusual, yet you have given not the slightest quantitative explanation.
Comment from: Nick Stokes April 18th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Nasif
RW did not say that great physicists are babbling. He said that you are babbling. And he’s right. You have no idea how to present a properly defined equation or formula. Your formulae make no sense at all. Your idea of reference is vague name-dropping. Your idea on induced emission in the atmosphere is most unusual, yet you have given not the slightest quantitative explanation.
And given that I know the information from the work of great scientists, and copied the formulas exactly as they were written by those authors, my conclusion is that you both RW and Nick Stokes, are antiscientific people.
I think I have found the source of your problem. You’re basing your “arguments” on the next definition taken from an Online Dictionary:
stimulated emission (stmy-ltd)
The emission of electromagnetic radiation in the form of photons of a given frequency, triggered by photons of the same frequency. For example, an excited atom, with an electron in an energy orbit higher than normal, releases a photon of a specific frequency when the electron drops back to a lower energy orbit; if this photon strikes another electron in the same high-energy orbit in another atom, another photon of the same frequency is released. The emitted photons and the triggering photons are always in phase, have the same polarization, and travel in the same direction. Also called induced emission.
Do you have a single real scientific reference which contradicts the fact, found by many scientists, that photon streams affect the directionality of radiation?
Have you read a single one of the references I’ve provided?
In the moment that you, RW and Nick Stokes, define each one of the terms on the next formula, I will take your arguments as valid:
Ibv = h 1/4π [(Aul / Bul) / (gl *Blu / gu *Bul) e^hν/kT – 1
If you cannot define or cannot recognize a single term on the formula above, you would be demonstrating that you know nothing about heat transfer science and your arguments are simply biased.
I repeat, I have given references about induced emission and how photon streams change the isotropy of spontaneous emission. Read them and show scientific arguments against those authors.
Time is over. I gave RW and Nick Stokes about 3 hours for answering my question. No response, so… sorry! 🙂
SJT “Do you think climate scientists aren’t already aware of that, that they don’t factor these considerations into their models?
That’s what Spencer and Lindzen are claiming. I’ll go one further, I don’t think climate modelers collectively have a clue what their doing. They are a load of wannabee physicists without the training.
RW “I recommended that you read an atmospheric physics textbook”.
Three guesses, you read Pierrehumbert, Pierrehumbert and Pierrehumbert, who is a geophysicist, a wannabee physicist who has found his niche in the religion of computer modeling.
Pete “There seems to be an assumption that these gases preferentially radiate their heat back to the surface, even though the temperature gradient in that direction isn’t nearly as large”.
Pete…I highly doubt GHG’s, except clouds, which are technically not gases, radiate much of anything. Water vapour makes up about 1% of atmospheric gases and that Satanic gas, CO2, accounts for all of 0.04% of the atmosphere. You can’t see through clouds, and solar energy has trouble getting through them because clouds are made up of water droplets, which are huge compared to individual atoms and molecules. On a clear, day, there are molecules of water vapour in the atmosphere but they don’t stop anything of consequence.
One day, when I’m not so lazy, or too busy being lazy, I’m going to calculate the theorized average distance between CO2 molecules based on their density of 380 ppmv(38 CO2 molecules in 100,000 molecules of air, with 1 ACO2 molecule per 100,000). Then I’m going to calculate how many photon wavelengths at roughly 10 millionths of an inch can fit between those molecules.
Picture a stadium at night, with no lights, holding 100,000 people, with 38 of them wearing pink suits and one of them wearing purple, while all the rest have white suits. Now take a flashlight and shine it from centre field, and see what your chances are of hitting any one of the 38 pink suits or the one purple suit. The flashlight is a simulated beam of photons.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take for these AGW clowns to put their math away and look at how ridiculous are the physical conditions they are trying to describe.
Alan Siddons “Heat retention on a rotating planet of rocks and circulating water is a key parameter, yet no one even knows at the moment how to approach such a problem”.
Alan…have you ever considered what it would have meant if the Earth did not rotate? Half of us, the stupid one’s like the AGW crowd, would be living in the dark, as they are today. Many other would live in the constant light, while some might flit back and forth from light to dark.
There would have been no need for time and there would have been nothing to base it on. Yet people trudge merrily along as if it’s a fourth dimension. It’s the rotation of the Earth that has many convinced of today and tommorrow based simply on day and night. With the ability of the brain to create such powerful illusions, is it any wonder that many scientists can’t move beyond the illusions and become aware of what is real?
“There would have been no need for time and there would have been nothing to base it on. Yet people trudge merrily along as if it’s a fourth dimension. It’s the rotation of the Earth that has many convinced of today and tommorrow based simply on day and night. With the ability of the brain to create such powerful illusions, is it any wonder that many scientists can’t move beyond the illusions and become aware of what is real?”
Gordon, *you* *don’t* *have* *a* *clue*. You are creating this fantasy in your head, without *any* reference to what scientists actually think, or do, or know. I would suggest you try to get in touch with your peak scientif body in your country, and see if you can actually ask some questions of those doing the research. You will be greatly surprised.
Nick Stokes “In about 1866, Tyndall measured the absorption of IR by trace gases like CO2 and H2O. There was no quantum mechanics then, and none was needed. He just measured it. His results have stood for 150 years. But now, in 2009, Gordon Robertson, Esq, has decided that no, 1% is too small”.
Nick…why be so selective? If you’re going to quote Tyndall from 150 years ago, why do you have no interest in the scientists collated by Beck, who have claimed CO2 densities have been over 400 ppmv several times in the past couple of hundred years? If that’s true, it sure throws a wrench into the AGW theory.
You did not say where Tyndall studied the gases? Was it in a lab or in the atmosphere? I’m not closed-minded to good science. If the guy did judicious experiments and got valid results, I’ll listen. With respect to quantum theory, however, you can’t talk about atmospheric radiation theory, involving photons, without bringing in quantum theory. When climate scientists talk about back-radiation from GHG’s which make up 1% of atmospheric gases, and claim a back-radiation of 100%, equivalent to solar radiation, I’m going to hold my nose.
RW “….climate scientist are using the equations of Planck, Stefan and Boltzmann as if they were dealing with perfect blackbodies”
Where on earth would you get such a notion from?”
From Planck himself. Read some of his stuff. He made it clear that he did not understand how his theories worked and thought at times that he’d simply fluked onto it through mathematical coincidence. I admire his honesty, because that, to me, describes quantum theory perfectly. Planck also stated that photon theory did not apply at an atomic level where the sizes of the atoms are in the order of the wavelengths of the photons. I got that from reading Bohren, G&T and other sources on the Net.
The GHG’s in the atmosphere are being treated as surfaces, in fact, that’s what the GHE is based on, surfaces radiating against each other using blackbody radiation. A blackbody radiator is a hypothetical construct that absorbs all radiation through a tiny opening and emits back through the opening. The absorbed photons resonate inside the container, or cavity. Kircheoff’s emission and absorption equations are based on the theoretical cavity. GHG’s are not surfaces and calculating radiation and absorption form them is not straight forward.
Theoretically, a blackbody radiator should radiate all frequencies across the spectrum, peaking with energies in the light spectrum. The Sun is the closest thing we have to a blackbody radiator because of it’s intense heat. Cooler bodies, have a much narrower spectrum in the IR range, and they tend to radiated with discontinuities. That condition is not covered by Planck’s equation, so liberties are being taken.
Also, as G&T point out, Boltzmann’s constant is not a universal constant. It applies only to pure blackbodies, and neither the atmosphere nor tthe surface are anywhere near to being a blackbody. The constant should therefore be adjusted for the conditions, but that is not being done, leading to my insistence that the theory is being applied wrongly.
SJT “Gordon, *you* *don’t* *have* *a* *clue*. You are creating this fantasy in your head, without *any* reference to what scientists actually think, or do, or know”.
I’ve been trying to talk to you about Peter Duesberg, but you discredit the man based on rhetoric from clowns. I call them clowns because they carry on arrogantly make ludicrous claims about a virus that no one has seen, 25 years after it was announced it had been found. In the same manner, scientists like James Hansen continue to make absurd statements about disaster based on glacial theories from 100’s of thousands of years ago.
I’m very concerned about the state of science and the mockery being made of it by people unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. Computer modelling is a virtual science based on the imagination of scientists, many of whom have no grasp of basic physics. The mathematician Gavin Schmidt, is so arrogant he thinks nothing of expounding on theories in physics of which he understand no more than I do. He thinks nothing of making snide remarks about Richard Lindzen, a man with over 40 years experience in atmospheric physics, and who teaches at MIT. Stephen Shcneider, another famous AGW advicate, thinks nothing of suggesting a scientist should lie to uphold a paradigm or favour the output of a computer model when real data suggests otherwise.
One thing is true about what you say, one of us doesn’t have a clue.
Nasif Nahle – you’re rather pleased with your one idea, aren’t you? Sadly it’s contradicted by observations. If you understand science, you’ll understand that this means you need to find a new idea. If you’re in need of a primer on the fundamental basics of the greenhouse effect, then try reading this:
http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/252.html
Gordon – “G&T”, of which you seem very fond, is a joke. It’s probably a lot like Sokal, and you’ve fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. Then again, maybe you’re doing a Sokal on Ms Marohasy and the merry band of anti-science zealots that post here. If so, well done, but sadly I don’t think this is the case.
“that’s what the GHE is based on, surfaces radiating against each other using blackbody radiation” – complete and utter nonsense. I don’t know why you think this, but I can see how stunningly ignorant you are of physics from this astonishing paragraph:
“Theoretically, a blackbody radiator should radiate all frequencies across the spectrum, peaking with energies in the light spectrum.”
No. Black body emission can peak anywhere, and the location of the peak depends only on the temperature of the black body. Look up Wien’s displacement law.
“The Sun is the closest thing we have to a blackbody radiator because of it’s intense heat.”
Its heat has nothing to do with it. It approximates a black body because it’s dense enough to be optically thick across a large range of wavelengths.
“Cooler bodies, have a much narrower spectrum in the IR range, and they tend to radiated with discontinuities.”
Black body curves for cooler bodies are in fact broader, not narrower. Discontinuities have nothing to do with temperature, only with departures from the conditions that give rise to black bodies.
“That condition is not covered by Planck’s equation, so liberties are being taken.”
Simply nonsense. No-one is even using the Planck equation to study the climate.
CO2 is a trace gas that makes up only a small fraction of our planet’s total atmosphere (0.038 %). It would therefore seem to require something of a leap of imagination to believe that adding the vanishingly small fraction of CO2 from human activity to that trace amount somehow serves as a powerful driver of the Earth’s climate. On the other hand, the Sun is a variable star and contains 99.8% of the mass of the solar system.
Global temperatures in fact have been trending down over recent years while human emissions of CO2 have continued rising by about 5%. This disconnect between rising emissions and falling global temperature trends clearly supports what a growing number of scientists have been saying for some time; namely, that the two are not related.
The anthropogenic global warming hypothesis has no scientific validity and there is therefore no imperative necessity for humanity to reduce its CO2 emissions. On the contrary, there is good reason to believe that human emissions of CO2 produce largely beneficial effects in so far as higher concentrations of the gas are known to boost the condition and growth of plant life.
To feed an expanding world population, lowering atmospheric CO2 concentrations would appear to be just about the worst idea imaginable. A higher concentration of CO2 is to be preferred and will cause no harm to life or to the planet. Experiments have shown repeatedly that even the most delicate of plants thrive in CO2 concentrations of 2,000 ppm or more.
Within the framework of thermodynamics, CO2 can absorb only a certain amount of energy from one secondary source (Earth’s surface is not a primary source of energy) and carry that load of absorbed energy to another system. CO2 molecules reach a higher temperature from the absorption of photons (absoptivity) which are released immediately (emissivity), so CO2 does NOT “trap” or generate heat in the atmosphere as the alarmist’s here would have us believe.
If we increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2, without changing the load of heat transferred from the Earth’s surface to the air, then we will have a greater number of available microstates to where energy will be dispersed. In which case, the amount of energy absorbed by each molecule of CO2 will not increase, but will decrease because energy will be diffused or transferred among a greater number of microstates.
CO2 is a conveyor or transporter of energy NOT an energy source. Heat is energy in transit and temperature is the measurement of the kinetic energy of the particles – or, in other words, the internal energy of the system.
“CO2 is a trace gas that makes up only a small fraction of our planet’s total atmosphere (0.038 %). It would therefore seem to require something of a leap of imagination to believe that adding the vanishingly small fraction of CO2 from human activity to that trace amount somehow serves as a powerful driver of the Earth’s climate.”
Your use of “therefore” implies that you believe that the effect of things is always in proportion to their concentration. I invite you to ingest a very small quantity of plutonium.
Your definition of vanishingly small is eccentric. Almost 40% of the CO2 in the air you are breathing right now would not be there but for human activity.
If you require a leap of imagination to understand science from 150 years ago, then you have a remarkably infertile imagination. Look up John Tyndall.
LOL. Bottom line, SJT, RW, Nick: Where’s the warming that your physics predicts? All your hypotheses are crap unless confirmed empirically. No statistically signif. heating for 12 years; RAPID cooling for the past 7. Where’s the heat hiding, folks?
RW: surely you can find a better primer than that propaganda piece you cited. What everyone, including Steve McIntyre, is looking for is a decent exposition of the physics behind your falsified hypothesis. Oh, G&T have done that and they show the hypothesis is bunk.
Hm, yes, where is that warming?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:48
I feel sure that graph sloping off up to the right must mean something. What do you think it means?
“G&T” is a joke, for heaven’s sake. You’ve been hoaxed! If you’d only educate yourself in basic physics you’d realise it. It makes me cringe to see you not just being ignorant but loudly and proudly proclaiming your ignorance over and over again.
“Your use of “therefore” implies that you believe that the effect of things is always in proportion to their concentration. I invite you to ingest a very small quantity of plutonium.”
Comparing CO2 with plutonium is like comparing a banana with a barracuda – an utterly specious argument. Unlike plutonium CO2 is not a toxic substance – it does not have the potential of plutonium to kill living cells by altering their structure or physiology. When levels of CO2 were 4000 ppmv or more in past geological eras, for example during the Permian Period, life flourished, with no sign of the “runaway global warming” we are being told that a doubling of the current concentration will cause further down the time line just over the horizon. Consequently, such a high concentration of atmospheric CO2 cannot be considered poisonous or “pollution”.
You haven’t really thought that through, have you, tom? You haven’t thought to question what the Sun was doing way back in the Permian, or what kind of life existed back then. And who is telling you that there will be ‘runaway global warming’? Have you somehow got the impression that someone is predicting infinite temperatures? Specify what you mean, or what you think you’ve been told, please. It seems to me that your misconceptions probably come about through listening to the wrong people. The wrong people are those who promote and believe in anti-science, and they include the owner of this website.
Comment from: RW April 18th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Nasif Nahle – you’re rather pleased with your one idea, aren’t you? Sadly it’s contradicted by observations. If you understand science, you’ll understand that this means you need to find a new idea. If you’re in need of a primer on the fundamental basics of the greenhouse effect, then try reading this:
It’s not my idea, it’s the result of experimentation, on which AGW lacks excessively. I’ve shown algorithms, procedures, real literature which you can explore, etc. If you assure that heat transfer science is contradicted by observations, show me how is it. Otherwise, your words and assertions will be taken just like hollow wordiness.
You can measure infrared radiation from a clear sky at night. Thus, your ideas are proven irrelevant. Deal with it, and move on.
Comment from: RW April 19th, 2009 at 7:49 am
You can measure infrared radiation from a clear sky at night. Thus, your ideas are proven irrelevant. Deal with it, and move on.
Hah! Are you saying that by measuring the outgoing radiation during nighttime cancels natural processes? It is precisely those measurements what supports the existence of photon streams and induced emission, induced absorption, spontaneous emission, etc.
RW: LOL! Where oh where did you find that curve you linked? Please let us have at least a reference to the crap. YOU are the joke on this forum, because you keep picking on others about their science, but you cannot counter with any of your own “science”! And that is par for the course in what is known as “climate science” these days. What precious little citing you do amounts to absolute junk, like the latest link. Just counter my post about why it has been cooling for 7 years. You and your ilk have been humbled by Mother Nature (more specifically by Her Sun). You are finished from a science standpoint, unless it starts warming, big time, very soon. Of course, you still have your religion and Obama to keep pushing the nonsense….LOL, AGAIN!
Luke “There’s a whole science of measuring back-radiation at the Earth’s surface. At night in cloud free conditions”.
Sp..Luke…you have an IR meter with different readings on it?? One part of the dial reads, “this radiation came from CO2 and this part from ACO2”. Radiation is radiation. Anything you measure on a clear night is no doubt coming from N2 and O2. They don’t absorb IR, but they do warm, and any warm body gives off IR.
You keep talking about those back-radiation measurement but I never hear you explaining it. Can’t be that complicated, can it?
RW:
I just realized what is going on. You are, maximum, 15 years old, right?
And I doubt that Luke is over 9 years old. Hey Luke?
RW “Black body emission can peak anywhere, and the location of the peak depends only on the temperature of the black body. Look up Wien’s displacement law”.
You’re making a fool of yourself. A blackbody is defined as the probability distribution of energies (absorption or emission) from ZERO to INFINITY times the area of the blackbody. That’s Planck’s distribution function. Since no energy source has that ideal range, it will build up and peter out somewhere along the distribution between zero and infinity. Wien’s Law simply slides the distribution along the probability range based on it’s temperature.
What is it we’re talking about here? Is it not solar radiation and the subsequent IR from the surface? I don’t know how well this equation will transmit over the net -> A ∫ P(ω) dω, with the integral from 0 to infinity. For solar radiation, the maximum is in the range of light frequencies, and the Sun’s probability distribution takes its shape and maxima based on its heat, which is a measure of it’s temperature. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of it’s gases. The solar spectrum is a measure of it’s radiant energy per unit frequency.
For emission, the Sun is a near perfect blackbody since it’s high temperature gives it a broad range of emissitivity. A lower temperature black body would have a much narrower band, and the surface/atmosphere emissions fit within the probability distribution curve of the Sun’s energy, but at a much lower amplitude. It is absolutely stupid to infer that back-radiation of any kind, has the equivalent energy of solar radiation.
Re the Sun as a blackbody, you said, “Its heat has nothing to do with it. It approximates a black body because it’s dense enough to be optically thick across a large range of wavelengths”.
The only thing that’s thick around here is you. You just finished quoting me Wien’s Law. What does it say? lamda = b/T ( λ = b/T). What’s that big T in the denominator? What do you think the P(ω) in Planck’s function stands for? It’s the probability distribution of ‘energies’ that a blackbody absorbs/radiates per unit frequency.
You have fallen prey to what most students get hung up on. They study formulae and problem sets without having the slightest idea what they are doing.
You also said, “Black body curves for cooler bodies are in fact broader, not narrower. Discontinuities have nothing to do with temperature, only with departures from the conditions that give rise to black bodies”.
Is that a fact? Then why do the absorption/emission curves for H20 and CO2 fit within the IR portion of solar radiation frequencies? Why does the WV spectrum overlap the CO2 spectrum? What about the spectra for other gases like O2 and N2? The radiation is discontinuous and overlapping. Try integrating over all that from zero to infinity.
It’s the atmosphere as a whole that is being considered a blackbody, not the individual gases and molecules of gases. That’s why I mentioned the the atmosphere-surface problem as two plates radiating against each other. That’s how the radiation budget is calculated, theoretically, using models such as those. I don’t know what you deluded yourself into thinking the theory came from.
If the atmosphere is treated as a surface, or blanket, or whatever you want to call it, the inference is that it is a solid body that absorbs and radiates energy. But it’s not. It’s made up of molecules and atoms of gases, and the radiation must interact with those particles individually. That’s where those physicists G&T come in, who you refered to as a joke. They are claiming you cannot treat gases as a surface when they are in a limited quantity within a volume with sides the length of photon wavelengths.
The physicist/metworologist, Craig Bohren, refers to the blanket/trapping argument as a metaphor, at best, and just plain silly in the worst case. He refers to the back-radiation theory as hypothetical. That’s what you and your religious sect don’t get. You are preaching rhetoric based on computer model nonsense. There is no physics to back it up.
“If the atmosphere is treated as a surface, or blanket, or whatever you want to call it, the inference is that it is a solid body that absorbs and radiates energy. But it’s not. It’s made up of molecules and atoms of gases, and the radiation must interact with those particles individually. That’s where those physicists G&T come in, who you refered to as a joke. They are claiming you cannot treat gases as a surface when they are in a limited quantity within a volume with sides the length of photon wavelengths.”
It’s not, it’s just described as that to help people understand what is happening and why. To attack a metaphor is absurd in the extreme.
SJT re the atmosphere as a blanket, etc., “It’s not, it’s just described as that to help people understand what is happening and why. To attack a metaphor is absurd in the extreme”.
You keep saying that but you don’t demonstrate an understanding of the problem. The radiative balance is calculated as if two surfaces were radiating against one another. The Earth’s surface is macroscopically a surface but the atmosphere is not. The atmosphere has a temperature/pressure/density gradient and it is comprised of several different gases with different spectra and energy levels. Not only that, it’s temperature varies greatly from point to point on the Earth and 2/3 of the surface is ocean with it’s own temperature gradient and diversity.
To make matters more complex, no one knows how all those gases interact with radiation in the atmosphere. All we have is a theory based on a universal equation that takes in gas laws, etc.
If you know of a solution, why not share it?
Ah, you guys crack me up.
Nasif, at night you can measure infrared radiation from a clear sky. If you think carefully about where the sky is, and where you are, you’ll realise that the radiation you measure is not ‘outgoing’ as you seem to think.
jae, are you blind? The graph I linked to states very clearly that the data is the HadCRUT variance-adjusted global mean temperature. As for the “cooling for 7 years”… do us a favour here. Calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
Gordon, you’re babbling, again. You obviously have no idea what a black body is. The Sun would be a reasonable approximation to a black body whatever its temperature was. The atmosphere does not behave like a black body, and no-one thinks that it does.
“Anything you measure on a clear night is no doubt coming from N2 and O2. They don’t absorb IR, but they do warm”
So you are simultaneously claiming that downward radiation from the atmosphere is impossible, can’t be measured, doesn’t exist, and that it comes from N2 and O2. Interesting. So, in your opinion, how do N2 and O2 warm if they don’t absorb IR? Do you know what the spectrum of a mixture of N2 and O2 at ~300K looks like?
Gordon, They don’t absorb IR, but they do warm, and any warm body gives off IR.
RW is right, this is just babble. Have you not heard of Kirchhoff’s law, that for each frequency band, the emissivity and absorptivity are the same? If N2 and O2 aren’t absorbing, they aren’t emitting.
This stuff about radiation budgets being calculated from surface models is complete nonsense. Ever heard of liune-by-line (LBL) codes like Modtran? They compute the absorption and emission of thin layers of gas – not as surfaces, over a large range of narrow frequency bands. This is compared with the huge number of surface spectral measurements; the comparison is good. It needs to be – Modtran is US military software. That’s the basis of downwelling IR as used in atmospheric budgets. You have no idea about this science.
And RW is right that the Sun is a BB emitter because of its optical thickness. It’s Kirchhoff’s Law again; if there is enough gas to absorb all the incident radiation at a given frequency, then it will emit as a black body – that’s where the “black” comes in. The only deviation for the Sun is that the temperature varies a bit through the region from which the radiation is emitted.
Eli Rabett organises a rebuttal to G&T
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/04/end-of-road-thanks-to-everyone-who.html
RW: Check this out. Look at some more of Lucia’s posts to see how far off the IPCC models have become. It ain’t warming any more, by all measures (even Artic Ice, now)! http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/tropospheric-temperature-trends-for-march/
Looks like there is to be more arm-waving 101 from Eli.
You guys kill me, too. 🙂 What we need is an explanation of why the “blanket” hypothesis isn’t working for the last 7 years. There’s plenty of CO2. What gives, AGW-freaks? Could the quiet Sun have something to do with it? When are the extremists going to admit that there is at least SOME chance that the Sun affects our climate?
“RW: Check this out. Look at some more of Lucia’s posts to see how far off the IPCC models have become. It ain’t warming any more, by all measures (even Artic Ice, now)!”
Lucia has no idea. She keeps comparing the models to short term trends.
jae:
Calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
This is not a trick question. It should be simple thing for you to do, if you have the data and if you have a basic knowledge of maths and statistics. If it is too hard for you, then your easier cop-out question is this: do you think that when the climate system responds to an external forcing, every single year should be warmer than the preceding year until a new equilibrium is reached?
“When are the extremists going to admit that there is at least SOME chance that the Sun affects our climate?”
You’d have to be very ignorant to think that anyone has ever said anything else. If you think the sun is everything and greenhouse gases are nothing, then why are temperatures currently warmer than they were during the last solar minimum? Why were temperatures during the last one warmer than those during the ~1986 minimum? Why were temperatures during the ~1986 minimum warmer than those during the ~1975 minimum?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:12/from:1950/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:12/scale:0.001/from:1950
SJT and RW: You are so full of nonsense! Did you not do your homework and look at lucia’s analyses? Are you ignoring all the satellite data and GISS, and believing in only HADcrut, which doesn’t even correct for UHI? SSTs are down, ice levels are up, air temperatures are down (and your “physics hypotheses” have absolutely no “room” for this to happen). You have some serious “catching up” to do on the real world in 2009. You need to read something besides RC, Tamino, and rabbit-talk. Try lucia’s site, Anthony Watts, and ClimateAudit, for a change. Then come back and try to be realistic.
It seems that you’d rather just make noise than answer the simple questions. I’ll repeat them:
1. Calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
2. Why are temperatures currently warmer than they were during the last solar minimum? Why were temperatures during the last one warmer than those during the ~1986 minimum? Why were temperatures during the ~1986 minimum warmer than those during the ~1975 minimum?
Blankets
RW. Do you have ADHD or what?
“1. Calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.”
Again, see Lucia’s site. I see cooling, and I see virtual FALSIFICATION of the GCMs.
“2. Why are temperatures currently warmer than they were during the last solar minimum? Why were temperatures during the last one warmer than those during the ~1986 minimum? Why were temperatures during the ~1986 minimum warmer than those during the ~1975 minimum?
Well, I don’t know, and I don’t think you do either. That’s the point. Why was the MWP warmer than today? (Oh, shit, I suppose you will fight about that, also, given your inability to think for yourself).
Just a little quote from American Thinker:
“2008 was the coolest year and March 2009 was the coolest March of the century.”
How do the AGW high-priests explain this omen?
““2008 was the coolest year and March 2009 was the coolest March of the century.””
You are way behind the times, jae, they were the coolest of the millenium. 😉
jae – yes, I know you think you see cooling. I’m asking you to quantify that. Recommendations to read websites are not required. Simply calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find. This is the fourth time I’ve asked this simple question.
“Well, I don’t know, and I don’t think you do either”
Nice of you to admit your ignorance. I, however, do know. The dominant cause is rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. Since 1975, CO2 concentrations have increased from 330 to 385 ppm. This corresponds to a forcing of 5.35*ln(385/330) = 0.8 W/m². Climate sensitivity is generally reckoned to be about 0.75K/W/m², which would suggest that this rise in CO2 should have caused about 0.6°C of warming. And do you know roughly how much warming there has been since the 1970s? If so, do tell us.
Perhaps I can help you to put 2008 and March 2009 in perspective. We do have a lot more temperature data than just the past 10 years. If you look at the entire global temperature data set you find this:
1. 2008 was the 9th warmest year in ~130 years of instrumental data. The warmer years were 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
2. March 2009 was the 11th warmest March in ~130 years of instrumental data. The warmer Marches were in 1990, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
What strikes you about the dates of the 10 warmest years, and of the 11 warmest Marches?
“What strikes you about the dates of the 10 warmest years, and of the 11 warmest Marches?”
He’s talking about this century ;).
RW: Here is a plot for GISS and HADcrut. http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/giss-feb-reported-trend-since-jan-2001-still-negative/
“What strikes you about the dates of the 10 warmest years, and of the 11 warmest Marches?
Nobody is arguing that there has not been a gradual warming over the last 100 + years. It is the CAUSE of the warming that is in question. THere is a correlation with OCO, but it is very poor. It was arguably hotter in the ’30’s than now. Many attribute the gradual warming to coming out of the Little Ice Age and part of a cycle such as the one that produced the MWP. There is absolutely no proof that CO2 has caused any warming.
For the fifth time:
Simply calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
“THere is a correlation with OCO, but it is very poor”
When you say “poor”, you must mean “good”. See for example here.
“It was arguably hotter in the ’30’s than now”
Not even remotely. In future, check the <a href=”http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.1/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12″?data before opening your mouth and you’ll have a better chance of not looking ridiculous.
“Many attribute the gradual warming to coming out of the Little Ice Age”
Attributing warming to warming is not intelligent or useful.
“There is absolutely no proof that CO2 has caused any warming.”
Oh, but there is. CO2 is a strong infrared absorber. This has been known for 150 years, and its IR absorptivity cannot be questioned. Its concentration in the atmosphere is increasing. This has been known for 50 years, and the ~100ppm rise in CO2 since industrial times cannot be questioned. Putting these two simple absolute facts together, it is easy to see that CO2 has caused warming. There is no possible doubt about that.
RW:
What caused the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period? Methane from horse farts?
I rest my case.
Comment from: RW April 20th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Oh, but there is. CO2 is a strong infrared absorber. This has been known for 150 years, and its IR absorptivity cannot be questioned. Its concentration in the atmosphere is increasing. This has been known for 50 years, and the ~100ppm rise in CO2 since industrial times cannot be questioned. Putting these two simple absolute facts together, it is easy to see that CO2 has caused warming. There is no possible doubt about that.
What’s strong and what’s not? Total IR absorbancy of CO2 is 0.001; why you say it is a strong infrared absorber? You cannot assure on scientific descriptions “this thing is strong and that is not”.
On your final assertion, which I have bolded, absolute is avoided in scientific descriptions.
It’s not easy to see something which doesn’t exist. CO2 has NOT caused warming because its thermal properties are not enough for causing any disturbance on Earth’s climate. I cannot make a super-gas from something so weak. If you were talking about the Sun and the oceans perhaps you could be right if you had said that Sun and oceans are the drivers of climate on Earth; the latter has been carefully observed, measured and described by scientists since two centuries ago. But no, you’re not talking about the main source of energy for Earth, neither about oceans, but on a mythical idea.
RW:: Nice link for you: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GLOBAL_COOLING.pdf
“” Comment from: SJT April 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
““How much warmer will the blanketed object be if Blanket #2 is used?””
I have no idea where you get your figures from, but the blanket is being doubled in size. “”
This is crap!
It’s stupid to suggest that the mass of the “blanket” is being doubled in size! The mass of CO2 in the atmosphere might be doubling, but the mass of total IR absorbent material in the atmosphere is growing by an immaterial fraction.
Ah, Nasif, you’re back. Have you worked out yet what it is that’s being measured when you detect IR emission from a clear sky at night?
“Total IR absorbancy of CO2 is 0.001”
There’s a nice example of a figure being pulled out of an arse. As Tyndall found 150 years ago, you only need a very small quantity of CO2 in a column of air to completely absorb all radiation at certain wavelengths. That is what we mean by a strong absorber.
jae – for the sixth time:
Simply calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
Like I said, links to websites are not what we are after. Simple mathematics is all that we require. Is it that you can’t do the calculation, or that you don’t want to?
Comment from: RW April 21st, 2009 at 9:03 am
Ah, Nasif, you’re back. Have you worked out yet what it is that’s being measured when you detect IR emission from a clear sky at night?
“Total IR absorbancy of CO2 is 0.001″
There’s a nice example of a figure being pulled out of an arse. As Tyndall found 150 years ago, you only need a very small quantity of CO2 in a column of air to completely absorb all radiation at certain wavelengths. That is what we mean by a strong absorber.
Well… Hottel found experimentally values for CO2 absorbency-emissivity at differnt Pp 55 years ago (100 years after Tyndall); he didn’t dismiss Pp, Cp, Cv, etc., which AGWers dismiss together with EIEC. Total emittancy of carbon dioxide is 0.001; compare this figure with the total absorbency of water vapor, which is 0.39. WV total absorbency is 392 times higher than total absorbency of carbon dioxide. Perhaps you think that carbon dioxide behaves like a blackbody?
The latter is just a demonstration on how AGWers invent ciphers and constants which diverge from real data. If RW thinks the value of ε for CO2 is higher than 0.001, it’s time he demonstrates it by simple algorithms based on observation and experimentation.
OTOH, is there a single post debating the nature of IR? No, so RW’s comment about what I’m measuring during a clear sky night is pathetic.
Nasif – you, like Gordon, are babbling. Do you understand what radiative transfer is? You can investigate the effects of CO2 on radiative transfer in the atmosphere using MODTRAN. Your belief that “its thermal properties are not enough for causing any disturbance on Earth’s climate” springs purely from ignorance.
Given that you believe that the atmosphere doesn’t radiate downwards, where does the IR that you can measure from a clear sky at night come from?
“The sunspots and cosmic rays have a 79 percent correlation with our thermometer record since 1860. Meanwhile the CO2 correlation is a mere 22 percent. I love repeating that comparison! The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change already admitted in 2001 that it’s modeled “scenarios” cannot accurately predict cloud impacts on temperatures.”
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3285
And only 1 in 3 people in the USA now believe in the AGW disaster, despite the billions of dollars invested by NGOs in hype. Perhaps the environmental-extremists will at last be recognized for what they are: leaches on the ass of progress.
Comment from: RW April 21st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Nasif – you, like Gordon, are babbling. Do you understand what radiative transfer is? You can investigate the effects of CO2 on radiative transfer in the atmosphere using MODTRAN. Your belief that “its thermal properties are not enough for causing any disturbance on Earth’s climate” springs purely from ignorance.
Given that you believe that the atmosphere doesn’t radiate downwards, where does the IR that you can measure from a clear sky at night come from?
Ha-ha-ha… The unique person here who doesn’t know on heat transfer science is you.
Science is not a matter of beliefs, but of real observed from nature phenomena. Please, good sir, show scientifically that the CO2 has a TE higher than 0.001 at its current Pp and that EIEC has no effect on thermal radiation. Thanks…
Keep on babbling, Nasif.
jae, I checked the correlation between hadcrut temperatures and sunspot numbers since 1860. R-squared = 0.03. Between CO2 and temperature since 1958 (when the Mauna Loa record started), the correlation is very good – R-squared = 0.71. ‘climaterealists.com’ is lying to you, and sadly you are much, much too stupid to realise it.
By the way, for the seventh time: simply calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set. Calculate the error on the trend, using an appropriate model of the noise characteristics of the data. Tell us what you find.
Er, RW, you appear much, much too stupid to even read my post. It refers also to COSMIC RAYS, not just sunspots. So show your work, and we will see who is stupid. Also, show your work on the CO2 correlation.
I already showed you a calculation of the trend. I’m too rusty on statistics to analyse the noise characterisics. If you are so adamant about this, you would show your results. Again, show your work, instead of just arm-waving.
You appear to be just another angry liberal “believer,” who is being buried by opposing science (the only thing you CO2/AGW freaks have left to support your story are compter models, which have been falsified in many ways). SSTs are down, atmospheric temperatures are down, glaciers are growing, sea-levels have stabilized, Artic and Antartic ice is growing, and the Polar Bears are happy. Too bad.
You are also facing a public, where only 1 of 3 individuals now think AGW is even a serious problem and where the majority has placed “climate change” at the very bottom of their list of environmental concerns. And even environmental concerns are now down at 8th place, IIRC. Your “side” has over-hyped the issue to the point that the average Joe is laughing at the whole “hypothesis.” Only the little kids care, and they can’t vote. I would say that you have now completely lost the argument, LOL. It will be pure suicide for many Congressmen to enact any legislation that actually decreases CO2 emissions significantly. The best they can do is “pretend” to be cutting carbon emissions, without increasing costs (IOW, armwaving).
It’s the Sun, stupid!
Comment from: RW April 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 am
Keep on babbling, Nasif.
Incapable of demonstrating that ε of CO2 is higher than 0.001 and that Bul doesn’t exist just because you don’t even know what those 101 Physics terms mean?
ε = Total Emittancy
Bul = Einstein Induced Emissivity Coefficient.
Well, now you can google them and come again with a copy and paste and “your” explanation. Please, come with a real scientific dialogue, not ideas from your imagination.
Nasif:
“Well, now you can google them and come again with a copy and paste and “your” explanation. Please, come with a real scientific dialogue, not ideas from your imagination.”
Don’t hold your breath. It seems to me that RW is just waving his/her arms in the wind. Notice that there is never an equation, graph, citation, link, or any data. Just words, and most of them are ad-homs. It is laughable! I would guess 17 years old, based on the language and lack of substance.
Jae… Indeed, lol!
Many scientists have found errors on calculations of the proponents of the idea that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming. One of the more grave errors resides on believing in a downwelling photon stream which, as AGW proponents say, warms the surface. However, when we analyze the issue of downwelling radiation emitted by the atmosphere, we find that such heating up of the surface by greenhouse gases doesn’t exist.
The problem with AGW idea is that AGWers think that the Earth is isolated and that the heat engine only works on the surface. They don’t take into account that heat incoming from the Sun is transferred by conduction from the surface to the subsurface layers, where it is stored until the sun declines and the incidence of direct solar radiation disappears, this is, during nighttime.
During nighttime, the heat stored in the subsurface is transferred by conduction towards the surface, which is colder than the materials not exposed at the surface of the ground. The heat transferred from the subsurface layers to the surface is then taken by the air through convection and it warms up. The upwelling photon stream affects the directionality of the radiation emitted by the atmosphere driving it upwards, i.e. towards the upper atmospheric layers and, from there, towards the deep space. This process is well described by the next formula:
Fsh = -ρ (Cp) (Ch) (v (z)) [T (z) – T (0)]
Where F is for Sensible Heat Flux, ρ is the density of air, Cp is specific heat capacity of air at constant pressure, Ch is the heat transfer coefficient (it’s 0.0013), v (z) is the horizontal wind speed across z, T (z) is the temperature of the surface, and T (0) is the temperature of air immediately above the surface.
The “minus” sign means that heat is absorbed by the air. For example, the sensible heat flux for a region where the temperature of the surface is 300.15 K, the temperature of air is 293.15 K and the horizontal wind speed is 40 m/s is 0.439 kJs/m^2.
I want to make clear that this formula applies for oceans and land, although on land it’s preferable to use Cd instead Ch. Anyway, Cd ≈ Ch ≈ 0.0013.
The sensible heat flux is, day and night, directed upwards, that is, from the surface to the atmosphere (Peixoto & Oort. 1992. Page 233).
Except for some small regions on Earth where the temperature of air is higher than the temperature of the surface, the heat is always transferred from the surface to the air because of the next effect which is enforced during daytime by solar photon stream:
Iav = h 1/4π [(Aul / Bul) / (gl *Blu / gu *Bul) e^hν/kT – 1 (Modest. Second Edition: Pp. 288-310).
And these are only the tip of the iceberg.
“The problem with AGW idea is that AGWers think that the Earth is isolated and that the heat engine only works on the surface… babble babble babble”
The problem with you, Nasif, is that you haven’t got the faintest idea about any science relevant to climate from the last 150 years.
jae:
“show your work on the CO2 correlation.”
1. Get data.
2. plot CO2 vs temperature
3. fit line, do statistics
“I’m too rusty on statistics to analyse the noise characterisics”
Finally, the admission of ignorance. If you were not ignorant and could do basic calculations, you’d find that for global temperatures over the last seven years, the error on the “trend” is larger than the magnitude. Therefore, there is no statistically significant trend.
Hahaha… You have no arguments against science. What kind of science is this?
RW “scientific” argument “The problem with you, Nasif, is that you haven’t got the faintest idea about any science relevant to climate from the last 150 years.” Get lost.
RW “…the error on the “trend” is larger than the magnitude. Therefore, there is no statistically significant trend”.
UAH said something similar. They said the average decadal trend since 1998 has been 0.04 C, an insignificant warming. Now we are in agreement.
RW “Nasif – you, like Gordon, are babbling. Do you understand what radiative transfer is?”
One thing is clear, you have no idea what it is, or anything else about physics.
Hi Gordon,
having a statistically non relevant trend over 10 years is not the same as having it over 30 years! Moreover, the satellite data are noisier than GISS or HADCRUT, so in a sense this is not too surprising.
Actually the Antarctic sea ice is also a highly fluctuating quantity, because it is not bounded by land. It’s quite difficult then to make some reliable trend even over a few decades. The Arctic, being surrounded, is much more deterministic.
Concerning the greenhouse effect, I can honestly tell you it’s not violating any principle of thermodynamics. I think actually nobody in its right mind (including the “skeptic” researchers) thinks the physical ground of the GE is not coherent with physics.
Comment from: Flanagan April 24th, 2009 at 4:17 pm:
Concerning the greenhouse effect, I can honestly tell you it’s not violating any principle of thermodynamics. I think actually nobody in its right mind (including the “skeptic” researchers) thinks the physical ground of the GE is not coherent with physics.
Perhaps the warming effect (WE, not GE) of the atmosphere is correct in the sense that even during nighttime the surface warms the atmosphere; however, AGW idea is violating principles of thermodynamics. Just consider the mythical downwelling radiation during nighttime, which is offered by AGWers without considering convection and conduction. I know what you could say because the tale is the same everywhere, so I ask you to consider the sensible heat flux, the conduction of heat from subsurface materials to the surface during nighttime and the photon streams.
Flanagan “having a statistically non relevant trend over 10 years is not the same as having it over 30 years…”
With all due respect, my interest is science, not statistics and noise. The UAH satellite data shows clearly that the average warming has not only leveled off, it is diminishing. Roy Spencer just noted on his site that March 2009 is the coolest March in the NH and the Tropics in the past 3 years. The temperatures are supposed to be going the other way, as CO2 density increases.
“Concerning the greenhouse effect, I can honestly tell you it’s not violating any principle of thermodynamics”.
I did not say the GHE was violating the laws of thermodynamics, I said the AGW theory that back-radiation is warming the surface to a higher temperature than it is heated by solar radiation is violating the 2nd Law. I don’t think the GHE is a viable theory at all. The notion that GHG’s accounting for about 1% of the atmosphere can act in some way to trap heat or back radiate an amount equivalent to solar radiation, as NASA maintains, is ludicrous.
I can buy into the theory that clouds are a significant absorber of heat because they contain enough water (not vapour) to contain and radiate heat. How they work in the overall scheme of things is not clear. My position is that no one knows to a high enough degree why the atmosphere is at an average temperature of +15 C.
Nasif “They don’t take into account that heat incoming from the Sun is transferred by conduction from the surface to the subsurface layers, where it is stored until the sun declines and the incidence of direct solar radiation disappears, this is, during nighttime”.
Nasif…what do you think of Stephen Wilde’s theory that N2 and O2 pick up surface heat through conduction?
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1487&linkbox=true
That would make a lot more sense than GHG activity since N2 and O2 make up 97% of the atmosphere.
RW “Simply calculate the “trend” in global temperatures over the past seven years, using your favourite data set….”
Why? It’s been done by one of the premier data set providers in the world, Roy Spencer. Why do we need your crap? Spencer’s satellites cover 95% of the atmosphere whereas Hadcrut, Gisstemp, etc., use data sets with a far lower and more unreliable coverage.
““It was arguably hotter in the ’30’s than now” Not even remotely. ”
Rubbish!! The hottest year in US history is 1934 and several of their hottest years is in that era. I know, I know, you’ll whine that’s not global. I keep trying to get you to look at the temperature contour maps on the UAH site so you can see that globality is a myth. There is no global temperature, there is only a statistical average that involves as much cooling as warming. The hottest 1934 year in the US is as viable as any other part of the globe.
Why was 1934 the hottest year? Was it caused by CO2? No. Why was the Arctic as warm in the 1920’s as now? CO2? No. You AGW freaks don’t want to answer such inconvenient questions. You throw around statistics as if math makes a difference. Just remember Mark Twain’s observation, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”.
RW “Gordon, you’re babbling, again. You obviously have no idea what a black body is. The Sun would be a reasonable approximation to a black body whatever its temperature was. The atmosphere does not behave like a black body, and no-one thinks that it does”.
Are you a troll, or just another mathematician? I gave you the Planck formula that defines a blackbody and you tell me I have no idea what one is. Don’t talk to me, go talk to Planck. He’s dead, but he’d make infinitely more sense than you. The blackbody is based on his formula for radiative probability distribution.
If the atmosphere does not behave like a blackbody, then why are climate scientists applying Boltzmann, Planck and Kircheoff to it? Those formulae apply only to blackbody radiation.
Nick Stokes “Gordon, They don’t absorb IR, but they do warm, and any warm body gives off IR. RW is right, this is just babble. Have you not heard of Kirchhoff’s law, that for each frequency band, the emissivity and absorptivity are the same? If N2 and O2 aren’t absorbing, they aren’t emitting”.
Nick…you’re talking like a mathematician. Who said N2 and O2 are not absorbing? They are absorbing energy from the surface through conduction and a process that carries the warmer air aloft. Radiation is only one form of heat transfer. The satellites measure tropospheric temperatures from O2. How does it get it’s heat? Please don’t tell me it gets it from GHG’s, which account for 1% of the atmosphere.
What makes more sense: that gases accounting for 97% of the atmosphere are involved in heating it, or that gases accounting for 1%? I know where I’m putting my money.
When I was taught weather theory in high school, I was taught that warm ‘air’ rises. No one mentioned warm GHG’s rising. I understand the basic theory of precipitation, that water vapour rises, condenses, and forms rain or snow. However, WV is a part of air, not a separate entity. It rises with the N2 and O2 when heated by the surface by conduction in the boundary layer.
I don’t know why you consider that babble.
SJT “Eli Rabett organises a rebuttal to G&T…”
Talk about babbling. Just Rabett’s coverage of Clausius and the 2nd Law reveals neither he nor any of his contributors have the slightest idea what the 2nd Law means. Listing Peirrehumbert, a geophysicist, as an expert source, is pure humour.
Rabett just doesn’t get the obvious. Energy supplied by the surface to heat the atmosphere is a LOSS OF ENERGY at the surface. Rabett is describing a positive feedback where an essential source of amplification is missing. That’s why G&T refered to the process as a perpetual motion machine: the process is creating energy that is not there.
Roy Spencer has addressed that in his latest blog, but I have to respectively disagree with Roy. he has pointed out that climate scientists have re-defined positive feedback and it’s actually a negative feedback. At least Roy admits that. People like Rabbett have no idea what is involved in feedback.
The loss of energy at the surface has to be made up before the surface can heat beyond the temperture it was heated by solar radiation. You cannot add solar radiation a second time to a quantity that represents a loss of surface heat. The solar radiation was used to heat the surface and part of that heat was used to heat the atmospheric GHG’s. The heat represented by the GHG’s is not an independent source that can be added to solar radiation. If anything, the back-radiation is only making up the losses that created it.
Rabbett is obviously confusing the heat contained in the water of clouds with atmospheric WV and CO2. Besides that, the GHG’s are far too rare to make a difference. Also, they are warmed by a different frequency spectrum than they emit at.
I certainly hope Rabbett doesn’t consider submitting that nonsense to a physics journal. I can see it being accepted by the Journal of Climate, but not a serious physics journal.
Nick Stokes “And RW is right that the Sun is a BB emitter because of its optical thickness. It’s Kirchhoff’s Law again; if there is enough gas to absorb all the incident radiation at a given frequency, then it will emit as a black body – that’s where the “black” comes in. The only deviation for the Sun is that the temperature varies a bit through the region from which the radiation is emitted”.
Nick…I have tried being polite with you because you seem to be a decent guy. RW is a nincompoop (a silly, foolish, or stupid person) and you’re beginning to insult my intelligence. Although I place no value in ego, I wont sit around and be talked down to by a mathematician who is seriously confused about physics. I have watched you arguing feedback with Jan Pompe and I know you have no idea what it is. Now you’re lecturing me on blackbody radiation.
The Sun approximates a blackbody radiator because it emits a broad specturm of energy which satisfies Planck’s function. The radiated energy is due to vibrating atoms, not optical depth. Optical depth may be a function of the gas and temperature but it is not the source of the broad-range of radiative emission frequencies.
Comment from: Gordon Robertson April 25th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Nasif “They don’t take into account that heat incoming from the Sun is transferred by conduction from the surface to the subsurface layers, where it is stored until the sun declines and the incidence of direct solar radiation disappears, this is, during nighttime”.
Nasif…what do you think of Stephen Wilde’s theory that N2 and O2 pick up surface heat through conduction?
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1487&linkbox=true
That would make a lot more sense than GHG activity since N2 and O2 make up 97% of the atmosphere.
I agree with Stephen’s article, except for the name he gives to the process, but my disagreement on how he’s labeled the effect has nothing to do with science.
The next statement has lifted some doubts about Stephen’s thesis:
“There is always a net loss of heat on a daily basis from atmosphere to space regardless of any atmospheric greenhouse effect. ”
This is true because every region of Earth alternates day and night every day; for example, when in meridian W 90 is noontime, it is midnight in meridian E 90. However, one cannot say that the sensible heat flux towards the outer space during daytime in any meridian is higher than during nighttime because the solar photon stream on the illuminated side induces the photon emission towards the surface. Nevertheless, the amount of photons induced towards the surface from the atmosphere is sensibly small and it is far lesser than the emission induced by the surface photon stream from the atmosphere towards the outer space on the dark side of the Earth. Nevertheless, the net loss of heat is given regardless any atmospheric warming effect. Earth is not a thermo.
As for conduction as the main heat transfer mode from the surface to the atmosphere, the assertion is supported by observation and experimentation. The radiation meassured in the atmophere during nighttime is not “downwelling” radiation, but upwelling radiation from the surface (land and oceans) which is captured by atmospheric gases by convection. I have made many meassurements with radiometers and I have never meassured any “downwelling” radiation.
The real process happens when the surface transfers energy towards the atmosphere by conduction, i.e. the surface is a conductive donator of energy, while the atmosphere takes the energy by convection, i.e. the atmosphere is convective acceptor and conveyor of energy. The effect is more evident when the ground is saturated, i.e. when it doesn’t absorb any more water.
Regarding the assertion on N2 and O2 like the main conductive “acceptors” of photons in the atmosphere, it’s enough with seeing the thermal conductivity coefficients (k) of N2 and O2, which is 0.02583 W/m K for N2, and 0.02658 W/m K for oxygen. In comparison, carbon dioxide k is 0.017 W/m K, which is lower than k of N2 and O2. On the other hand, k of water is 0.6 W/m K. So, it’s clear that water thermal conductivity is 9x higher than k of CO2.
However, the prevalence of water is more evident if we consider the free thermal convective coefficient (h obtained from |∆Q|/|A (∆T) (∆t)|) because h for water is 20 to 100 W/m^2 K at 300 K, while h for the dry mixture of air, under the same conditions, is 0.5 to 2.5 W/m^2 K. Thus, the convective maximum potential of water overwhelms by 40 times the dry air convective maximum potential, yet if one forces air convection with a fan (up to 30 W/m^2 K).
Concluding, I agree with Stephen on his assertion that the warming effect of the atmosphere is due to water in its three phases, not to air.
Well concerning the temperature trend: statistics is science, I’m quite sure of that. Here is a paper that might interest some of you. It shows how a single realization of a globally coupled model looks like:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/csi/images/GRL2009_ClimateWarming.pdf
The model was created in 2003. The paper shows, in order to close that kind of discussions, that models do predict long periods of seemingly flat temperatures, even decreasing temperatures, which in any case does not prevent the long-term trend to be positive. This particular example for example predicts a flat temperature over the 2000-2010 period. It even predicts a 20-year long flat temperature period during the 21st century – but nevertheless the trend is there.
Just to say it doesn’t make sense to take a few years, or even a decade, to discuss the evolution over a century.
Comment from: Flanagan April 27th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Just to say it doesn’t make sense to take a few years, or even a decade, to discuss the evolution over a century.
And it doesn’t make sense to take 34 years for discussing the evolution of climate on Earth over a millenia.
Where is this 34 years coming from? I can already count 150 years of direct temperature measurements. And if you thrust temperature reconstructions, yan can go back to several centuries before now…
Comment from: Flanagan April 28th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Where is this 34 years coming from? I can already count 150 years of direct temperature measurements. And if you thrust temperature reconstructions, yan can go back to several centuries before now…
That’s a personal question. I trust science and scientific reconstructions, so I can go back to million years back. Don’t you?
The greenhouse theory as proposed by Arhenius 1896 was never proven theoretically and practically and was based on an incorrect understanding of how a actual greehouse worked, but is assumed correct by many contemporary climatologists, it remains an unverified hypothesis so criticism is valid. There are also many papers on MODERN greenhouse theory, particulary in easter europe, in this modern understanding the greenhouse effect is driven by atmospheric mass, convection with greenhouse gasses only playing a small role (around 10%) above the lower troposphere. This theory is based on know laws of physics and observation, and most important makes sense, it doesnt break the laws of thermodynamics. The IPCC greenhouse effect is a perpetuem mobile of the second kind, and proven wrong by observation i.e. no observable hot spot and increasing outgoing longwave energy.
Black ball equations to work out the temperature of the earth without a atmosphere are not appropraite for the earth and ignore the moderating effect of the sea, which effectively controls the throughput of energy and the overall energy balance.
Do not attack people who question current scientific concesus (or dogma even), this kind of open thought is encouraged in other fields of science as it enables the advancemet of science, even if proven wrong, it helps support the alternative hypothesis. Remember, concesus is the last hiding place of bad sciece. If we always assumed current scientific understanding is right, we would still think tectonic drift is impossible.
Hot objects are not “spatially aware” any more than a block of wood “knows” that it is supposed to move in the direction of greatest force when two opposing forces are applied
to the block of wood!
Heat Radiation is accomplished by propagating EM fields.
EM fields are Force fields, in fact the Electromagnetic Force is one of the four fundamental forces.
EM fields carry “Photon Energy”.
Photons have zero Mass.
Is it so surprising that opposing EM fields and corresponding Forces will only move the zero mass Photon energy in the direction of the larger force?
The “block of wood” analogy should be apparent except that, unlike a “block of wood”, a Photon has zero mass.
Hot objects produce a larger EM field (and force) than Cold objects so heat energy can only flow from Hot to Cold!….The direction of the larger force!
This is really what 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is fundamentally saying!
“Second Law of Thermodynamics: It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not
flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c3
When you AGW’ers say that Heat can flow from Cold to Hot it’s like saying the “block of wood” will move in the direction of the weaker force!
————————–
Electromagnetic Fields are Vector fields.
When opposing EM vector fields are summed, there can only be ONE resultant EM Vector Field.
The Magnitude will be (Larger Field – Smaller Field) and will always be in the direction of the Larger field.
——————
Measuring Back-Radiation:
1. Direct measurements require the detector to be cooled below the atmospheric temp.
2. Indirect measurements measure the loss of energy (eg.Thermistor) to the cooler atmosphere.
3. Solar Ovens (parabolic mirrors will concentrate solar and IR energy at a focal point) and should work at night if back radiation actually reached the Earth.