MOST scientists sceptical of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) accepted that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; they simply don’t believe it is very potent relative to other natural forces. But there are a group of physicists, most notably several of the authors of the book ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory’ who even argue against the greenhouse effect theory.
For some weeks, every Friday, I have been publishing an essay from one of these scientists a Mexican Nasif S. Nahle – though Nahle is not an author of ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon’. When I first started publishing Dr Nahle I received emails from various sceptics suggesting that in promoting his work I was doing a disservice to the sceptic’s cause; that I should not be challenging the basic accepted physics of back radiation.
The essence of greenhouse theory is that thermal radiation from the earth’s surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated including back towards the earth’s surface. As a result of this back radiation the temperature of the earth is higher than it would be if direct heating by solar radiation were the only warming mechanism.
Dr Nahle argues that there is no warming from back radiation and one reason is because heat cannot flow from a cooler area (the atmosphere) to a warmer area (the earth surface).
I have enjoyed posting essays from Dr Nahle as he argues from first principles, and with examples, and he engages with his critics in the comment threads. In short, he provides food for thought.
And given the importance of back radiation to greenhouse gas theory, I have been surprised that there has not been a more definitive rebuttal of his core argument in the comment threads. Indeed it is irrelevant to argue that he is wrong because his work is not published in the peer-reviewed literature, or that it does not accord with what is written in mainstream textbooks or that it is too specific.
I am keen to publish more essays on this important topic, particularly from the more mainstream perspective that is in defence of back radiation as a core part of anthropogenic global warming theory.
***********
This morning I noted the following comment from Bob Ashworth with reference to Dr Nahle’s work:
“I am an old chemical engineer who has worked in coal conversion and combustion my whole life. Nasif is correct.
The IPCC adopted the work completed by Kiehl and Trenberth [1] of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder Colorado to show how radiative forcing from greenhouse gases causes the earth to warm. Here is a statement from that paper:
The long wave radiative forcing of the climate system for both clear [125 W/m2 (watts/square meter)] and cloudy (155 W/m2) conditions are discussed. We find that for the clear sky case the contribution due to water vapor to the total long wave radiative forcing is 75 W/m2, while for carbon dioxide it is 32 W/m2.
Really, when the average water vapour concentration in the lower troposphere is around 2.5 volume % (or 25,000 ppmv) and carbon dioxide concentration is less than 400 ppmv? The CO2 concentration is only 1.6% of the water vapour concentration. In the Hottel and Egbert correlation the only difference between water vapour and carbon dioxide regarding the radiation effect is their partial pressures. Partial pressures of gases are proportional to their volumetric concentrations. Based on this and using the water vapour effect as a basis at 75 W/m2 then the CO2 effect would be 1.2 W/m2, not the 32 W/m2 stated.
The Kiehl and Trenberth work also violates both the first (can’t get more energy out than you put in) and second (heat transfer is only from a hotter to cooler body, never vice versa) laws of thermodynamics.
Bob Ashworth”
[1] Kiehl, J. T. and Trenberth, K. E., 1997, Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 197-208. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/abstracts/files/kevin1997_1.html
Posts from Dr Nahle are here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/author/nasif-s-nahle/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Dr. Nahle is of course correct;
Let me expound on a concise comment from Bob Ashworth;
“The Kiehl and Trenberth work also violates both the first (can’t get more energy out than you put in) and second (NET (emphasis added by this author) heat transfer is only from a hotter to cooler body, never vice versa) laws of thermodynamics.”
As an engineer that has both prepared and reviewed proper “energy” budgets for manmade satellites that are currently orbiting the Earth I can assure you that we use the detection of “net energy gain” as a quality check on our calculations. To explain further, we use the existence of “net energy gain” in our calculations as a “red flag” that indicates to us that we have made a mistake in our calculations. Our training teaches us that any calculated “net energy gain” is unphysical and cannot accurately represent reality.
So what engineers use as a quality check on our “models” has been transformed by the climate scientists into a “new” revelation about the future of the climate of the Earth. When we detect “net energy gain” in our calculations, we quietly stop calculating and review our assumptions about how the fundamental equations of physics are being applied. We do not run around in a panic telling everybody that they must restrict their use of carbon based fuels.
Of course, engineers have a responsibility to make our predictions closely match the reality of how our designs actually perform. For some of us in the engineering field human lives literally depend on our predictions every day, not one hundred years in the future.
Unfortunately, many in the climate science field have decided that the engineers that have been delivering useful and reliable products based on our current understanding of the laws of thermodynamics are “full of it” and could not possibly understand something as complex as “climate science”. Perhaps they are correct, but would you like to fly on an airplane that is (paraphrasing the IPCC) “very likely” to remain airborne?
So, in summary, “back radiation” does exist, as does “back conduction”, however neither one causes a “net energy gain”. Due primarily to the massive thermal capacity of the oceans (and also to the large thermal capacity of the rocks) the presence of “back radiation” only changes the response time of the climate. Ironically enough it actually causes the gases in the atmosphere to warm up faster after sunrise and to cool down faster after sunset. This is a simple consequence of that fact that the “greenhouse effect” causes slightly more energy to flow through the atmosphere at the speed of light (quite speedy) versus the speed of heat (aka thermal diffusivity) which is comparatively sluggish. This effect is so small that we probably could not afford to spend enough money to attempt to quantify it.
Cheers, Kevin.
Is the greenhouse gas theory actually reliant on back radiation? Or does the surface warming stem from a slowing of the convection of heat away from the earth’s surface owing to the warmer troposphere? I ask sincerely. It’s hard to get a clear explanation of the specifics of the greenhouse gas theory from the warmists.
A colder body will not transfer heat by conduction to a hotter body. However heat (long wave radiation) will transfer from a colder body to hotter body (unless the colder body is at absolute zero). Of course there will be a much greater flow from the hotter body to the colder body.
The following statement may be more appropriate: An increase in heat in a body, experiencing no external energy input (e.g. sun), and due to heat transfer between 2 bodies, is only from a hotter to cooler body, never vice versa.
“Dr Nahle argues that there is no warming from back radiation and one reason is because heat cannot flow from a cooler area (the atmosphere) to a warmer area (the earth surface). ”
By that logic, is it impossible to see objects that are colder than you are, because the electromagnetic radiation can’t “flow” from a cold object to your warmer eyes?
Jen,
Considering the rather heated exchange going on at Nasif’s post on your blog, it would be great if we could see something that defends back radiation.
I mean something that proves that CO2 does have the properties that the AGW model must be assuming it has.
I’m not exactly sure that the AGW models are doing that, but it does appear that they must be.
As with all these finely worked computer models, it is very important that all the raw data that is being fed into the highly complex formulas is correct.
If it’s not correct, then the computer model can’t give the correct answer because the models don’t have the capability to question the inputs.
Neither do they have the capability to question the answer.
That is definitely the responsibility of the programmers and the people who key in the inputs.
As Tinsley and Heelis (1993) show, 1 to 4 pica amp electric currents are continually flowing from the ionosphere to the earth’s surface, and could be considered the driving force for cloud formation etc.
While 1-4 pica amps per square meter might seem a small electric current, one has to bear in mind that electrical forces are also 10^39 times greater than the gravitational force. Hence the measured atmospheric current of 1-4 pica amps/m2 is still significant and still 10^27 times greater than the gravitational force. Completely ignored are the other electrical current vectors in the x and y directions.
What is not realised is the fact that electric currents passing through matter also generate heat (IR) and it is quite clear that the simplest explanation for the downwelling atmospheric IR comes from the atmospheric electric currents and not from a supposed irradiating gas that Nasif has shown is physically impossible.
The back radiation is real but it does not come from CO2 itself but is possibly a reaction by CO2 to the continued flow of electrical energy from the ionosphere to the earth’s surface. After all the electrical current has to heat something up.
With World temperature records and graphings so utterly corrupted, confused and overlapping that one can find a graph to suit any argument, the best way of destroying the AGW CO2 conspiracy is to destroy the grounds for attributing warming to the effect of CO2. Dr. Nasif S. Nahle’s papers do this very nicely and elegantly. I pray that they will be peer-reviewed and survive successfully to become the game changing gambit.
I really like Nasif’s Posts because in a way he explains some of the things I would really like to know.
I have a friend who (nearly) fell for the ChemTrails thing, and please don’t start that particular furphy.
I explained to him that they were totally harmless vapour trails, caused by the heat of the jet turbines burning fuel, and the large heat that comes from the exhaust into the surrounding cold Atmosphere. (and bear with me this does have a point)
I explained to him that with altitude, the temperature drops around 1C for every 1000 or 1500 metres, and at the height commercial aircraft fly at, the air may be well below zero, so that turbine exhaust freezes the water particles in the air, hence those trails are virtually long clouds. (best I could explain it)
That being the case we have suspended water vapor in the air, even at that altitude.
Lower down we have clouds, again suspended water. Water is H2O, just slightly heavier than the air it is ‘in’, hence heavier than air, just slightly, it floats at that altitude, and varying altitudes for the different types of cloud, Cirrus, Stratus, Nimbus and Cumulus. As those clouds reach ‘saturation’, then that suspended water vapour falls as rain, well and truly heavier than air now in those large droplets.
Now CO2 is virtually three times heavier than the the air it is ‘in’.
Hence if those clouds float at certain heights, why would something almost three times heavier be acting as a significant heat blanket ‘up there’ when H2O is not considered as such, even though water vapour is still recognised as a Greenhouse Gas, and 51 times more prevalent than CO2.
As that CO2 is emitted from the stacks, it is incredibly hot, and rises, the hot air rising principle, and, as it gains altitude, surely it too must cool, and being heavier than the air it is in, surely it would fall back towards the surface.
I can understand some compounds considerablt heavier than air can and do make their way ‘out there’ and stay out there, and such would also be the case with CO2, but surely not all of it.
Now, I don’t mind making a fool of myself, and I can hear one guy in particular laughing his head off, and sharpening his pen to roundly disabuse me, but these are things I have a need to know, and that’s why I look forward to those Posts from Nasif.
Tony.
“1C for every 1000 or 1500 metres”
Try a thousand feet/1degree C Tony!
Yes, my apologies.
I see that temperature drop should be around 6.5C per 1000 Metres.
Tony.
I like Nasif’s posts as well
http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/blackbodyslayer.pdf
I’ve always been interested in what Claes Johnson says
His conclusion (on page 29 of the link says)
Global climate can be described as a thermodynamic system with gravitation
subject to radiative forcing by blackbody radiation as described in
Chapter 18. Understanding climate thus requires understanding blackbody
radiation. A main lesson of this chapter is that “backradiation” is unphysical
because it is unstable and serves no role, and thus should be removed
from climate science, cf. fig. 4.
Since climate alarmism feeds on a “greenhouse effect” based on “backradiation”,
removing backradiation removes the main energy source of climate
alarmism.
and in this comment
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/07/no-backradiation-no-radiative-forcing.html
but this is the comment which I am especially interested in
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/06/moon-effect-called-greenhouse-effect-on.html
I’d like to know what others more informed than I am think of his findings
and here’s a comment I put on another blog some time ago
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/climate/disproving-agw/
The references are:
http://climatephysicsforums.com/topic/3292392/1/
■Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, in IJMP(B), Vol 23, Iss 3, Jan 30, 2009, pp 275-364, doi:10.1142/S021797920904984X.
Also freely available at arxiv as arXiv:0707.1161v4
Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature, it is taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper, the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33° is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
Then there’s a comment and a reply
■Comment On “Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”, by Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith And Jörg Zimmermann, in IJMP(B), Vol 24, Iss 10, Apr 20, 2010, pp 1309-1332, doi:10.1142/S021797921005555X
At the Rabbet Run Labs of Eli Rabbet you can find a sequence of drafts of the rebuttal up to pretty much as published.
Abstract
In this journal, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner claim to have falsified the existence of an atmospheric greenhouse effect.1 Here, we show that their methods, logic, and conclusions are in error. Their most significant errors include trying to apply the Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to only one side of a heat transfer process rather than the entire process, and systematically ignoring most non-radiative heat flows applicable to the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. They claim that radiative heat transfer from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface is forbidden, ignoring the larger transfer in the other direction which makes the complete process allowed. Further, by ignoring heat capacity and non-radiative heat flows, they claim that radiative balance requires that the surface cool by 100 K or more at night, an obvious absurdity induced by an unphysical assumption. This comment concentrates on these two major points, while also taking note of some of Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s other errors and misunderstandings.
■Reply To “Comment On ‘Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics’ By Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith, Jörg Zimmermann”, by Gerhard Gerlich And Ralf D. Tscheuschner, in IJMP(B), Vol 24, Iss 10, Apr 20, 2010, pp 1333-1359, doi:10.1142/S0217979210055573
Abstract
It is shown that the notorious claim by Halpern et al. recently repeated in their comment that the method, logic, and conclusions of our “Falsification Of The CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” would be in error has no foundation. Since Halpern et al. communicate our arguments incorrectly, their comment is scientifically vacuous. In particular, it is not true that we are “trying to apply the Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to only one side of a heat transfer process rather than the entire process” and that we are “systematically ignoring most non-radiative heat flows applicable to Earth’s surface and atmosphere”. Rather, our falsification paper discusses the violation of fundamental physical and mathematical principles in 14 examples of common pseudo-derivations of fictitious greenhouse effects that are all based on simplistic pictures of radiative transfer and their obscure relation to thermodynamics, including but not limited to those descriptions (a) that define a “Perpetuum Mobile Of The 2nd Kind”, (b) that rely on incorrectly calculated averages of global temperatures, (c) that refer to incorrectly normalized spectra of electromagnetic radiation. Halpern et al. completely missed an exceptional chance to formulate a scientifically well-founded antithesis. They do not even define a greenhouse effect that they wish to defend. We take the opportunity to clarify some misunderstandings, which are communicated in the current discussion on the non-measurable, i.e., physically non-existing influence of the trace gas CO2 on the climates of the Earth.
So what’s the current status of ‘back radiation’ does anyone know?’
that was my comment and there are some interesting replies
Jeniffer; whoever takes on this task needs a better grasp of the concepts than our friend Nasif who seems driven to say there is no AGW from CO2. I expect the other person to start with Planck’s Law, black body radiation, isotropy, the thermodynamic paramaters of CO2 and so on but without reference to the energy density of deep space. However I don’t expect a simple gas v H2O proportional back radiation analsys as CO2 has a larger than life impact on climate change and that’s about control of other variables.
Debbie; I suggest a look at this “Adding up the Greenhouse Effect: Attributing the contributions”
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/adding-up-the-greenhouse-effect-attributing-the-contributions/#more-888
Val,
For once Luke is correct with his Phillipona citation – the downwelling IR is quite real but its explanation isn’t, as Nasif shows. While the vertical component of atmospheric electricity seems small, it’s only part of the total electric currents flowing through the atmosphere but no one is studying this. Just remember that dust devils generate electric fields of 10,000 volts/m laterally, as do cyclonic lows, torndadoes, and other atmosphere vortex effects. And we know that millions of amperes of electric current enter into and out of the earth’s polar regions as measured by satellites, and science in general totally rejects this known source of energy as having any role in the weather and other parts of the earth-system?
thanks Louis; wish I knew as much as you!
Does this help?
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadGreenhouse.html
‘I received emails from various sceptics suggesting that in promoting his work I was doing a disservice to the sceptic’s cause; that I should not be challenging the basic accepted physics of back radiation.’
They have their reasons, no doubt, but it’s not a good look. I find the Denialati is more open to new ideas and have no nest to feather.
I am somewhat reluctant to reply to these blogs for they soon deteriorate into “attack the messenger” and not the message. Firstly I would like to state that I am a skeptic of AGW. Why? Because 35 years in chemical engineering working in heat transfer and process modelling has taught me all the pitfalls. Sometimes model results from well described chemical and physical process have to be questioned and discarded let alone anything as complex as climate.
Secondly debating the concept of AGW is not going to be won by denying well accepted physical phenomena. BS on the warmist side should not be met with BS on the skeptic side.
From my own modelling I have estimated a 0.6C increase in response to a doubling of CO2 and this is with the increase feedback due to higher moisture content. This is along way from 4C.
Heat transfer through absorbing media is a well established phenomena use in the design of furnaces. The “greenhouse effect” is a special example of this very same phenomena but on a much more complex scale. Despite what is being said CO2 and H2O do absorb radiant energy and re-emit it. When Nasif says” there is no warming from back radiation and one reason is because heat cannot flow from a cooler area (the atmosphere) to a warmer area (the earth surface).” I know he does not understand the greenhouse effect. What he says is true , back radiation does not heat the surface, the sun does this. But what back radiation does is reduce the NET flux, repeat NET flux from the surface to the atmosphere. If the surface absorbs 250 w/m2 and re-radiates this then at equilibrium at every elevation the NET flux outward is 250 w/m2. If the back radiation increases this reduces the NET flux. The only way the NET flux can return to 250 is for the surface to increase emitted radiation which it does by increasing temperature. That increase in NET comes from the sun. The best analogy I can come up with is an electrically heated element. Say my element is 1m2 and supplied with 250 w of power. It will radiate at 250w/m2 If my element is not insulated and radiation is the only method of heat loss it will reach an equilibrium temperature Ti. If I now insulate the element the temperature will rise but I still have only 250 w power supply. This hasn’t changed. What has changed is the resistance to heat loss. The radiant heat loss at the surface of the insulation will still be 250 w/m2 but because of the resistance of the insulation the element temperature must rise to satisfy the energy balance. The equivalent to low thermal conductivity of insulation is back radiation.
I would also like to address errors in Nasif’s previous note on emissivities. The assumption of black body with emissivity of 1 with no atmosphere is not in conflict with greenhouse. The surface of the earth radiates with an emissivity close to 0.95 whether there is atmosphere or not. The emissivity of the atmosphere ranges from 0.6 at the surface to about 0.02 at the top The greenhouse effect surpresses the effective emissivity to about 0.58.
The emissivity of CO2 is not negligible at ambient temperatures. Hottel does not say this. The graph of CO2 emissivity at low pL values stops at around 550R because of measurement accuracy. the line may be extrapolated to lower temperatures. The emissivity contribution of CO2 at the surface is about 0.09 and water vapour about 0.5. The emissivity falls with altitude because of the falling partial pressure.
If you want to argue against the greenhouse effect you will fail. The argument is about the magnitude if the CO2 effect. I do not believe the GCM’s have the radiation physics right let alone dealing with convective heat transfer at the surface , albidos etc.
Val
Unfortunately I keep proving how little I do know about this extremely interesting aspect of science – and Gary’s explanation of how “greenhouse” gases reduce the net flux outwards seems correct as well, but it is an explanation based on physics in the absence of the electrical domain – a gas greenhouse effect is put forward as the explanation of the observation of the observed temperatures using Victorian era physics – the pre electricity era. Introduce plasma physics into the system and new insights become available.
What is not widely understood is the physics behind plasma double layers, and the earth is encapulated by such “walls” isolating it from the plasma of space these plasma walls are the result of electric currents between the various bodies of non plasma immersed in space plasma.
I tend to partly agree with Gary that the GCM’s actually don’t have the BASIC physics right, let alone the radiative physics, and that is another topic. The problem is measuring the atmospheric electrical effecs since in the quiescent state the numbers are extremely small – pica-amperes per square metre, when its in plasma dark current mode, and then into mega-amperes when it jumps from dark current mode to arc mode, by passing the glow mode – an enormous signal dynamic range that is beyond the range of most instrumentation.
Gary,
I agree with you.
It would be much better if we focused on the message rather than personally attacking the messenger.
We do need to question those models.
If they haven’t got the raw data correct, they will not be giving the correct answer.
Gavin,
Thanks for the link.
It also points out that there are too many variables and we can’t necessarily isolate one factor like CO2 when we study global temperature fluctuations.
We can’t even isolate water vapour, even though we know it is a major factor.
It has more to do with how they all interract with each other and, despite all the excellent research that has been done, we haven’t got it all figured out yet.
What an amazing load of bollocks except for a rare show of good taste by sinkers.
I’m amazed Jen is still flogging this dead dingo.
Excellent measurement of back radiation here… http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-40-15-2376
Spectroscopically validated here http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=FTS-2009-FWA4
and http://www.arm.gov/publications/proceedings/conf12/extended_abs/evans-wfj.pdf
and
ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf
So tedious – so boring – so empirical.
Can we now get back to fighting about the carbon tax or critique my latest video
Gary, in the book “Process Heat Transfer” by Prof Donald Kern Hottel’s graph’s for CO2 and water vapor are reproduced and these go down to 100F and upto 3500F. Bob Ashworth, at 100F the radiation due to water vapor in Hottel’s graph is more than three times that of CO2 at the same product of partial pressure and beam length ie the emissivity is more than three times as high. As I have indicated that using an atmospheric height of 8 or 11km and the present average volumetric percentage using average temperatures and pressure results in an absortivity/emissivity for CO2 which is insignificant. My calculation for water vapor is about 0.4. Clouds of course have higher emissivity.
I disagree with Gary’s comment about debating AGW. If one complies to the code ethics one is obliged to point out if concepts are fatally flawed. Money is now being wasted and the efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions could very well cause harm in such areas as food production.
There is a very good case that CO2 has no effect. Please again look at Dr(Ir) Van Andel’s aticle http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CO2_and_climate_v7.pdf
I have 16 Pink Floyd albums, and after that, I’m glad you won’t get to critique them!!!!
Tony.
Dr. Spencer on his website has already done this in a completely understandable discussion and even did an experiment to demonstrate this. Perhaps you could just repost this.
@Gary…
You say:
I would also like to address errors in Nasif’s previous note on emissivities. The assumption of black body with emissivity of 1 with no atmosphere is not in conflict with greenhouse. The surface of the earth radiates with an emissivity close to 0.95 whether there is atmosphere or not. The emissivity of the atmosphere ranges from 0.6 at the surface to about 0.02 at the top The greenhouse effect surpresses the effective emissivity to about 0.58.
Systems with TE of 1 don’t exist in the real world. The Earth doesn’t radiate with emissivity 0.95; careful measurements give a real emissivity of 0.82. Astrophysics calculations reveal that the emissivity of the atmosphere is not 0.6, but 0.04 at the surface and 0.001 at the top of the atmosphere.
If one wish the total emissivity of the carbon dioxide, we must use the tables of Hottel and Leckner and apply the derived formula from their experiments. The formula that I applied to calculate the total emissivity of the carbon dioxide.
The emissivity of CO2 is not negligible at ambient temperatures. Hottel does not say this. The graph of CO2 emissivity at low pL values stops at around 550R because of measurement accuracy. the line may be extrapolated to lower temperatures. The emissivity contribution of CO2 at the surface is about 0.09 and water vapour about 0.5. The emissivity falls with altitude because of the falling partial pressure.
Hottel says it. The emissivity of carbon dioxide and water vapor falls to almost zero to ambient temperature. The emissivity of 0.0017 was calculated also at one meter altitude and at 7000 m altitude. The partial pressure of the carbon dioxide on the surface is 0.00039 atm.
If you want to argue against the greenhouse effect you will fail. The argument is about the magnitude if the CO2 effect. I do not believe the GCM’s have the radiation physics right let alone dealing with convective heat transfer at the surface , albidos etc.
Yes, we will fail because it is a political agenda and the AGW proponents manipulate numbers at will. Science numbers reveal that the carbon dioxide effect of warming doesn’t exist and that the AGW idea is not real.
🙂
Hottel’s graph stops at 500 Ra, which are 5 °C. Gary is a quite confused or is trying to confuse you.
As is stated above by many of the scientists and engineers is that “the greenhouse gas effect’ at best is a “hypothesis that has never been proven by creditable scientific experiments” Thus in reality it is a Fairy-tale. The last person to do any meaningful experimental work was John Tyndall in the 1860’s and his conclusion was because H2O absorbed IR thus the “ghg” effect existed. His statement also said that all the other gases in the atmosphere where insignificant. Well he did not know of the Bohr model -work of Niels Bohr -Nobel prize in 1922-23.and many others that prove that the “ghg’ effect is a “fairy-tale”.
Most of the above blogs contain scientific facts about thermodynamics. Climatology is not a science it is a bunch of historians pretending that studying temperature records and then using Flat screen “crystal balls models ” to fortune tell the future temperatures 100years from now. This is not science!
Section 10. The Demonstration
Mann-made global warming is a hoax,because the “greenhouse gas effect” is a fairy -tale.
The Hypotheses (ghg effect) that failed and the experiment that demonstrates why the Hypotheses (ghg effect) fails!
Dear Dr. H. Lewis:
I am aware that you do not believe in the “greenhouse gas effect” We need an experiment that proves that the ghg effect does not exist. Would you please review the experiment that I have performed that I believe proves that the “ghg effect” does not exist. Review the logic and the math etc. I have shared this with several other physicists including Dr. Charles R. Anderson and Gerlich & Tscheuschner and others.. If you can find the time I’d appreciate your comments and your time.
Berthold Klein P.E.
The Hypotheses (ghg effect) that failed and the experiment that demonstrates why the Hypotheses (ghg effect) fails!
By Berthold Klein P.E November 16, 2010 revision 11-19-2010 revised 11-24-2010
The hypotheses of the “greenhouse gas effect” is the process where a combination of IR absorbing gases including Water/vapor/liquid/solid, CO2,CH4, NO2 and others are super insulation and cause the atmosphere to be 33 degrees warmer than would be explained by the “black body “temperature.
How is this done? The hypothesis says that the IRag’s absorb the IR radiation then it is “back radiated to earth causing the earth to be warmer by the resonating of this heat energy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the magic caused by the “greenhouse gas effect” as has been said the truth is in the detail.
As others have not started to define “The greenhouse gas effect” lets start with what are the “features that should be testable!” Because water/liquid, vapor,solid (H2O /lvs) is different than gases IRag’s as CO2 ,Ch4,NO2 and others -this will deal first with the non H2O ,IRags.
Critical features:
1. The IRags absorb the IR radiation and thus prevents it from escaping into space reducing the rate of atmospheric cool- it causes the air to be warmer.
2. The IRags will “back radiate” IR radiation to earth to cause increased heating of the surface.
3. The IRags will heat up by the absorption of the IR radiation thus heating the air.
4. The IRag’s have different levels of “back-forcing”. Having ask others how this is determined,( no answer yet) ,it is assumed that someone has reviewed the amount of IR that a particular molecule absorbs by a spectrophotometer analysis then comparing this to the absorption of CO2. (I have not seen any experimental data that the “back-forcing” relates to absorption).(an assumption based on The Bohr model however a time factor is needed)
5. The higher the concentration of IRags the greater the amount of “back-radiation” the higher the “global atmospheric temperature will become.(were is the experimental data )
6. The concentration of CO2 found in million year old Ice cores can be used as proof that the “ghg effect” exists. When there is no experimental data that proves that the “ghg effect”exists.
7. Where does this lead?
We all know that the “greenhouse” effect exist. Anyone that has gotten into a hot car on a sunny day.(summer or winter). Has walked into a store with south facing window , its temperature will be much higher than a car ,or window in the shade. This is caused by confined space heating- this was established in 1909 by R.W. Wood a professor of Physics and Optics at John Hopkins University from 1901 to 1955.
What experiment could be performed to “prove” that the ”greenhouse gas effect exists.
All the AGW point out it is impossible to simulate what actually happens in the atmosphere therefore they propose using computer models, the problem with “computer models” is that unless all the factors that effect the atmosphere are included into the program it is “garbage in is garbage out”. When this is tried there are no computers made that have sufficient capacity to handle all of the factors. Many of the factors are not even fully know yet. Then the big guess is what are the factors to include and which are really of minor importance and can be left out and still get usable results. To data no one has come up with the “right model”
Using the list of “critical factor” lets see if there are some way of indicating if the concept may exist.
To use the concentration of IRags in the atmosphere for testing does not work otherwise there would not be the controversy that exists today. In the field of engineering and research there is the use of “models” that are either similar in behavior or can be proportioned to a larger or smaller series of events that relate to an actual set of events.
As the amount of heating that is supposed to be is on the order of fractions of a degree per year- we need a more dramatic experiment to show that the concept actually exists. If the experiment at a much higher concentration does not demonstrate the effect then the Concept does not exist. If the concept works at high concentration then it can be tried with lower and lower concentrations until a threshold of effects is reached.
Some numbers are needed now: By definition 10,000 ppm is 1%, therefore 100 % equals 1million parts per million( 1×10^+6) . The atmosphere is supposed to contain 400 ppm (round Number) therefore a concentration of 100% CO2 is 2500 time that of what is in the atmosphere. If the effect exists it should be much easier to measure and demonstrate.
Now it is claimed that CH4 is from 23 to 70 time the effect of CO2,thus using the lowers figure by using a concentration of 100 % CH4 ,the effect should be 57500 time stronger that using CO2. It is claimed that NO2 is 100 time more powerful that CO2 thus it should cause 250,000 X the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere
As CH4 is found to be about 2ppB ( 2 X 10^ -9)in the atmosphere , a concentration of 100 % CH4 should give a results that is 5 X 10^ + 10 times what exists in the atmosphere.
Now if CH4 is 23 times the effect of CO2 another longer chain hydrocarbon molecule will be even more powerful thus the proposed experiment shown below was done with 100 % butane.
The experiment shown below substituted “natural gas” a mixture of 70% CH4 about 29% CO2 and the remainder is H2 and other trace gases. This is readily available for test purposed from any natural gas stove. Now 100 % CO2 is available for several sources, but one that is not too expensive is from any Paint ball supply store, another is from a supplier of Dry ice. Do not use Alka Seltzer as you have to put this in water to get the CO2 thus you have a mixture of CO2 and water and water vapor – you are not testing the effect of CO2 only. Discussion of H2O/lvs in the atmosphere will follow later.
The natural gas mixture should have a combined effect of less that 100% CH4 by a weighted average of 70% CH4+ 29% CO2or 3.500000725X10+9 times the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. If this occurs the temperature increase must be measurable.
How does the experiment contain the high concentration of the IRags for this test? Having reviewed several experiments that contained the IRags is glass containers then they measures the increase in temperature of the gas which had increased, they claimed this increase was do to the “ghg”effect, they are absolutely wrong. The cause of the temperature increase was do to the heating of the glass by its absorbing the IR and the glass heating. ( A Master’s thesis (peer reviewed) with this information is available on request). Another failure of these tests were their including a black cardboard inside the containers, thus additional heating of the IRag’s from conduction of heat from the black cardboard. (They created a Greenhouse effect-confined space heating)
The proper way to contain the high concentration of IRags is in a thin walled material that will not absorb the IR and heat. The experiment used crystal clear Mylar balloons. They are available in various sizes, several 20 inch diameter(major diameter) were chosen. If you want you can use larger ones to contain larger numbers of IRag molecules.
Now lets discuss the experiment.
1. Fill the balloons with the various IRags ,and one with dry air as a control.
2. Let the balloons reach ambient temperature. If you are going to use sunlight let it adjust outside in the shade.
3. Use an IR thermometer to check the temperatures of each balloon, use a digital thermometer that reads to 0.1 degree to check air temperature in the shade. Record data.
4. Take a large black mate board or a large black cloth or sheet and lay it on the ground in the sun. Use the IR thermometer to check the temperature as it raises in the sun. Record the data. When it appears to reach a maximum then go to step 5.
5. Suspend the balloons over the black background (about 1 foot above) and measure the temperature of the balloons initially. Record the temperature.
6. Measure the temperature of the black background in the “shadow” of each of the balloons also measure the temperature of the black background outside of the “shadows” of the balloons.
Now lets repeat the Critical factors and note the result of my test to the critical factor.
Critical features:
1. The IRags absorb the IR radiation and thus prevents it from escaping into space reducing the rate of atmospheric cool- it causes the air to be warmer. The air between the balloons and the black background did not change temperature.
2. The IRags will “back radiate” IR radiation to earth to cause increased heating of the surface. The black background did not change temperature either in the “shadow”of the ballons containing the high concentrations of IRags or outside the shadow. The temperature of the black background heated to 20 t0 30 degrees above ambient before the balloons were placed over the black background. When this was done outside in bright sun light the black background heated to 130 to 140 degrees F. Similar temperature can be measured from black asphalt. When the experiment was done with the 500 watt power shop light (see below)inside the black background went from ambient of 70-72 degrees to 100 -110 degrees. Again when measuring the temperatures of the black background with the IR thermometer there was no measurable temperature difference anywhere along the surface.
3. The IRags will heat up by the absorption of the IR radiation thus heating the air. The balloons did not warn any warmer than ambient. The IRags in the balloons will not warm because that would be a violation of the Bohr Model.
4. The IRag’s have different levels of “back-forcing”. Having ask others how this is determined,( no answer yet) ,it is assumed that someone has reviewed the amount of IR that a particular molecule absorbs by a spectrophotometer analysis then comparing this to the absorption of CO2. (I have not seen any experimental data that the “back-forcing” relates to absorption; an assumption based on The Bohr model however a time factor is needed.) As there was no temperature difference under any of the balloons, there was no stronger “back-forcing” because the IRag absorbed more IR radiation.
5. The higher the concentration of IRags the greater the amount of “back-radiation” the higher the “global atmospheric temperature will become. (Were is the experimental data )
6. The concentration of CO2 found in million year old Ice cores can be used as proof that the “ghg effect” exists. When there is no experimental data that proves that the “ghg effect”exists the “ice core data is meaningless..
Specifications of the IR thermometer: model: MTPRO laser-Micro Temp; temperature range: -41degree C/F to 1040 degrees F. IR range 5 to 16 nm. Angle of view D:S =11:1 cost about $60.00. many other models available.
I have thought about several refinements, but it would not change the bottom line that the “ghg effect” is a fairy-tale.
I’m sure that the AGW’s will not believe this proves that the “greenhouse gas effect does not exists , therefore I challenge them to come up with an experiment that they claim “proves the existence of the “greenhouse gas effect”.
As an alternate light source the experiment has been performed with an incandescent light. By using a 500 watt shop power light which because of the temperature of the filament approach the spectral characteristics of the Sun light ( should have more long wave IR because of a lower temperature) It was place one(1) meter away from the balloons to avoid conduction and convection heating of the balloons. As is stated above there was no difference in the final results.
Now let’s talk about water( H2O/lvs):
Yes H2O/lvs has a major effect on weather conditions, where I’m at in Northern Ohio it just started to rain, if it gets any colder we will have snow or sleet. Of course tomorrow it may be sunny and clear. As is said in the Great Lakes region if you don’t like the weather wait 15 minutes and it will change. Now the “climate” has not changed for the last 300 years just as the Indians.
Any way lets look a H2O/lvs in the atmosphere : If its clear the humidity can be from near 0 % relative humidity to 100%. Now if it ‘s cloudy the “relative Humidity” can vary from 30 to 100% depending on temperatures, Now we know that the air temperature where the clouds are forming is at or below the “dew point”, now as the H2O vapor cools to form clouds there is a release of energy( Heat of condensation), if the general air temperature is low enough ( below freezing) more energy is released as ice or snow is formed. This energy has to be dissipated either as IR radiation or as lightening or probably high winds or tornado.
This is only one phase of the complex weather conditions when H2O/lvs is being evaluated another is the solar heating of clouds both day and night. During the day the warming of the top of clouds is obvious but it is also relevant that in spite of significant solar absorption the “clouds “ have not absorbed enough radiation to convert the water or solids back to vapor; there is probably a rapid turbulent exchange of energy in both directions from evaporation/ sublimation to condensing, to freezing. This is why “climatologists” can not get the correct “sign” on the “forcing” it is a constantly changing set of conditions, non are wrong and non are correct.
Now lets add the next variable- solar heating at night of the clouds. Having taken IR radiation measurements at night for the last year at many different times by solar time it is apparent that when the sun goes down below the visible horizon , the clouds are still receiving solar energy. This has been confirmed by both measurements and visible lighting (multiple colors ) of the clouds. The clouds and the atmosphere cool until about 2:00 am when there is measurable increases in cloud temperatures and air temperatures. This warming continues until daylight is visible. The degree of warming is related to the time of year and what is happening with the jet stream and arctic storms.
There are other factors that are being monitored by real astrophysics researcher that are showing that Solar flares, and different type of radiation have an effect on cloud formation,this is only a beginning of learning about our atmosphere.
There is no way in the world of Fairy-tales that CO2 can have an effect on weather or “climate”
The nice thing about this experiment is that it can be done by high school physics classes or freshmen college physics lab classes . It would teach a very important lesson in that “not all experiments have to have a “positive” end result to be meaningful.
Mann-made global warming is a hoax,because the “greenhouse gas effect” is a fairy-tale.
Gavin,
” However I don’t expect a simple gas v H2O proportional back radiation analsys as CO2 has a larger than life impact on climate change and that’s about control of other variables.”
Please tell us all about these magical properties that only CO2 posses???
Luke,
when are you going to show us that what they claim to be measuring is actually “backradiation” from CO2?? I’ve been around with a few other gents and they haven’t managed to show us this one little item. Something about the design of the instruments. Maybe you have the goods??
After you have verified that what they are measuring is actually downwelling LW FROM CO2, you can direct us to the observational data showing that it actually makes a measurable difference in the amount of energy being emitted by the surface? I mean, if all that downwelling energy is hitting the surface, it MUST be coming back out, right???
Kinetic energy is continuously emitted and absorbed by all mass in the universe, but a cooler body can never heat a warmer one. A cooler body can slow down the cooling of a warmer body but not supply heat because the warmer body always loses more kinetic energy than it receives from the cooler body. Many can’t see this for some unknown reason.
Bob you said “kinetic energy” is continuously emitted.
K.E. = 1/2*m*v^2 so am sure you did not mean that.
See http://judithcurry.com/2010/12/02/best-of-the-greenhouse/ and scroll down to “Radiative-convective perspective” for my take. (Or see http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/#comment-16901 for the unedited version.) The greenhouse effect is not primarily about backradiation.
The statement of the second law given above is incorrect (although fairly close). If heat could never flow from cold to hot, refrigerators couldn’t work. What the second law says is that *net* heat cannot flow *spontaneously* from cold to hot without work being done on the system from outside. Obviously, a refrigerator moves heat out of the cold interior, but it doesn’t happen spontaneously. You have to push it. As the differential heating between equator and pole drives convection cycles that compress and expand air as it falls and rises, the atmosphere acts in a similar way to the compressor of a refrigerator.
As others have said, if you put a hot object and a cold object side by side, both will emit heat which will be absorbed by the other, but the hotter object emits *more*, so the *net* flow is definitely from hotter to colder. However, the hot object loses (net) heat *more slowly* as a result of the cold object being there, because of the (non-net) heat emitted by the cold object that it absorbs. If it has a fixed amount of heat incoming (from the sun) and loses it more slowly (because its surroundings get in the way), the temperature rises until it emits enough to balance the loss.
The two issues are separate. Radiation and the second law is more or less as claimed by the AGWers, but it has limited applicability to the actual greenhouse effect because convection short-circuits any build up of heat near the surface, and it is the limits to convection, not radiation, that fix the surface temperature relative to that of the middle atmosphere. Both sides get it wrong.
It’s odd, isn’t it, that even after all this time, so many people on both sides don’t know how the greenhouse effect really works?
Kuknkat – the background radiation comes from a variety of absorbers – not just CO2. Theory as verified by the spectral analysis gives you the relative contribution.
e.g. http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf
Also interesting http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
“We found that daily L d increased at an average rate of 2.2 W m−2 per decade from 1973 to 2008. The rising trend results from increases in air temperature, atmospheric water vapor, and CO2 concentration.” …..
Luke,
Those links you supply say that the measurements are ‘blackbody calibrated’.
Doesn’t that validate what Nasif is saying?
I’m assuming you understand how ‘calibration’ of instruments work?
Even if they give different results at different atmospheric pressure, if they have been ‘calibrated’ to register CO2 as a black body with an emissivity of 1 then they can’t change that until someone changes the way they are calibrated.
It’s still about making sure the inputs are right.
It still leaves me asking the same questions.
Does CO2 have an emissivity of 1 in our atmosphere?
Do the climate models assume an emissivity of 1 for CO2?
If Nasif is correct and that emissivity figure is wrong then the models are in serious need of updating.
@Nullius in verba…
As others have said, if you put a hot object and a cold object side by side, both will emit heat which will be absorbed by the other, but the hotter object emits *more*, so the *net* flow is definitely from hotter to colder. However, the hot object loses (net) heat *more slowly* as a result of the cold object being there, because of the (non-net) heat emitted by the cold object that it absorbs. If it has a fixed amount of heat incoming (from the sun) and loses it more slowly (because its surroundings get in the way), the temperature rises until it emits enough to balance the loss.
The quantum second law clearly specifies that the thermal radiation is always dispersed from the system with lower available energy microstates (“hotter”) towards the system with the higher available microstates (“colder”). The problem is that the concept of heat has been taken incorrectly.
Rolle. Thermodynamics. 2006. Page 77.
Castellan. Physical Chemistry. 1998. Page 109.
Engel and Reid. Thermodynamics. 2007. Pp. 16-21.
Heat only exists when thermal energy traspounds the boundaries of a system. Otherwise, it is not heat, but internal energy of a system.
Rolle. Thermodynamics. 2006. Page 77.
Castellan. Physical Chemistry. 1998. Page 109.
Engel and Reid. Thermodynamics. 2007. Pp. 16-21.
If you have a third and a fourth system implied, the thermal energy will always be dispersed from the system with the lowest number of available microstates towards the systems with higher numbers of available microstates.
No way to violate the second law of thermodynamics, not even inside the climate “science” of AGW.
NSN
Nullius; I agree with your view that radiative transfer of heat is secondary to convection; the Chilingar paper also agreed with this view:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/15567030701568727
Chilingar was pilliored by Tamino, eli and even Steve McIntyre [unfortunately they have all pulled down the links to heir respective critiques], but a more balanced discussion is here:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=252066
This may be of help.
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf
Debbie – ” if they have been ‘calibrated’ to register CO2 as a black body with an emissivity of 1″ – Nope !
Don’t you find it strange Debbie that we can measure what is supposed not to exist and that it quite well agrees with theory. For heavens sake ! And that our advocates here can make 100 excuses not to draw the climate science community’s attention to such things in a short note to Nature or GRL.
Rolling around the floor laughing Debbie. Sceptics creds = 0.0 You’re dealing with eccentrics and 5th columnists.
Anyway, the whole issue will probably remain academic because now we have contrails to worry about.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/03/30/3177693.htm
@Luke…
Sorry, Luke, but your “Nope!” is absolutely wrong. All the instruments based on IR are callibrated as black-bodies. The problem the technicians have found is that, as black bodies don’t exist in nature, they have not found appropiate materials more efficient than the alley zirconium-titanium, with an emissivity/absorptivity of 0.97.
Please, read well the technical sheets before talk.
🙂
@Cohenite and Nullius…
You’ve touched a very important point. We do know from observation, that the main heat transfer process at the boundary layer surface-atmosphere is conduction, followed by convection, and that radiation at this level is insignificant.
Thanks for this!
NSN
@Nullius in Verba March 31st, 2011 at 6:31 am You are wrong about refrigeration. I suggest you read an engineering text book. Work is put in to compress a gas. This heats it. Then the gas is cooled (by convection and radiation in lower temperature air or in commercial units with water) so that it condenses (this can also be work input). The liquid it then pumped to the inside of the refrigerator where it is expanded under vacuum and the gas evaporates. The expansion cools the gas below the temperature inside the refrigerator. The driving force of heat transfer is always from higher to lower temperature and never the reverse. Most of the heat is removed due to the evaporation. The temperature of the evaporation depends on the pressure (or vacuum).
In simple terms work is input to reduce the temperature of the working fluid below that inside where heat is to be removed and work is input to cool the working fluid by removing heat outside.
The lapse rate is an indication of cooling of the atmosphere by expansion. The cold upper atmosphere can never transfer heat to a warmer earths surface or to warmer parts of the atmosphere. There is no instrument that directly measures radiation. Any instruments that measures a positive heat flux from a colder atmosphere is either measuring emissions from surrounding warmer surfaces or has been wrongly programmed and wrongly calibrated. Programming with the blackbody Stefan-Boltzman equation is an example of inherent error.
luke, you need to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG_7zK8ODGA
This is the best overview and critique of AGW by one of the world’s leading climate scientists.
Luke,
In answer to your question:
I do find it a little strange that the science and nature journals do not have notes from many of the references we now have on this and other blogs.
Many of them are reputable, referenced, tested and well written.
I’m not convinced it’s because they haven’t sent them notes. I would imagine it has more to do with publishing and editing decisions.
Publishing and editing is definitely not a ‘science’.
Publishing and editing is about selling to the masses.
Even niche publications are driven by that.
Science journals and nature journals are becoming more popular as climate science becomes more and more politicised. They are selling more and they love what it’s doing for their bottom line. They also love the fact that the MSM are buying stories and articles from them.
Wouldn’t you if you owned them?
I would love to believe that they were interested in providing balance, but unfortunately I know that is not the case.
They are interested in being popular and widening their distribution.
That does not mean that they don’t print great articles and have contributed to everyone’s understanding of many different science and nature topics.
The people who control what does and doesn’t get published are not scientists.
No offence to Nasif, but his article would not be considered a good choice because it is full of complex mathematical equations that would make the majority of new and interested readers just glaze over. The MSM wouldn’t dream of touching it.
I would love you to give me a considered answer to my question/s?
They were:
Does CO2 have an emissivity of 1 in our atmosphere?
Do the climate models assume an emissivity of 1 for CO2?
Maybe you avoided those questions because you don’t know?
That’s fine, but if you do know the answers I am genuinely interested.
Excellent vid, cohers.
Luke, the MJO pulsates with the solar cycle.
el, Courtillot is the real deal; and I forgot to alert Louis to Courtillot’s discussion of the electric effect in the atmosphere which begins at the 26 minute mark.
luke, be warned; don’t come back with a cut and paste of the RC critique of Courtillot which some idiot at Jo’s has put up; it stinks.
@Debbie…
No offense taken. Actually, I do know that if I only had said: “The carbon dioxide has not the emissivity potential to warm the Earth”, I would be absolutely disarmed before AGW hordes. That is why I include laborious maths with the support of those “reputable, referenced, tested” (words taken from your post) scientists’ experiments and algorithms.
NSN
cohenite
Thanks for the link, I particularly liked his admission that, “we do not know all” unlike the
other side maintaining “the science is settled”.
But what he knows is clearly explained and convincing, I really wish Luke or others would point to similar
presentations sticking to known facts and avoiding ad-homs .
From the Canberra Times, March 18 2011.
‘Professor Garnaut took aim at climate sceptics, pointedly referring to comments made last week by Liberal Senator Nick Minchin that he believed the Earth was cooling.’
”Statistical evidence of a warming trend is clear,” he said. ”But the Australian airwaves still resounded late last week with talk of the earth cooling. There is no point covering up the truth. We are living through an awful contest between knowledge and ignorance.”
Oh… the irony!
Luke,
It would appear from the information from Courtillot that you probably can’t answer my questions because you’re not allowed access to the raw data.
He maintains that only 3 places have access and everyone else who is working with these models are expected to accept them at face value.
Is that correct?
If that is correct, it would make it rather difficult to question the inputs and validate them wouldn’t it?
Garnaut says this: ”Statistical evidence of a warming trend is clear,” he said. ”But the Australian airwaves still resounded late last week with talk of the earth cooling. There is no point covering up the truth. We are living through an awful contest between knowledge and ignorance.”
Garnaut relies on the Breusch and Vahid paper for this nonsense; David Stockwell has completed a rebuttal of B&V’s conclusions and his paper should be available shortly.
Every example of so-called evidence for AGW is flawed or a lie; it really is astounding.
“I do find it a little strange that the science and nature journals do not have notes from many of the references we now have on this and other blogs.
Many of them are reputable, referenced, tested and well written.
I’m not convinced it’s because they haven’t sent them notes. I would imagine it has more to do with publishing and editing decisions.
Publishing and editing is definitely not a ‘science’.
Publishing and editing is about selling to the masses.”
“Many of them are reputable, referenced, tested and well written.” HAHAHAHAHAA – what by you?
What utter rot Debbie – who do you know among your friends that subscribes to GRL or Nature or Science. UNREAL !!! Totally silly comment.
Most journal papers are incredibly boring except for those with serious interest.
Nasif – not what I said !
Cohenite,
You’ll find an earlier comment here by me on Tinsley and Etc with 1-4 pica-amperes /sq. m atmospheric electricity, and I was aware of it. Supports my contention of the source of the down welling IR.
Luke,
So I guess you’re not going to answer my question/s because:
a) you didn’t like my answer to your question or,
b) you are unable to answer them?
That’s fine, I’ll ask someone else 🙂
Nullius in Verba says
…..”As others have said, if you put a hot object and a cold object side by side, both will emit heat which will be absorbed by the other, but the hotter object emits *more*, so the *net* flow is definitely from hotter to colder. However, the hot object loses (net) heat *more slowly* as a result of the cold object being there, because of the (non-net) heat emitted by the cold object that it absorbs.”……
This is wrong.
If you are participating in a debate about science we must use definitions like HEAT correctly.
Heat as defined, in any competent physics or heat transfer, can only flow spontaneously from a higher temperature object to a lower temperature object.
Heat also has the thermodynamic property of an ability to do work in the given situation.
So for instance with a steam engine absorbing heat from the higher temperature reservoir it can convert some of this heat into kinetic energy or electrical energy or whatever .
The unused heat energy is deposited in the lower temperature reservoir.
Try to do this process in reverse and its impossible as the 2nd law predicts.
Nullis is confusing radiation with heat.
Correctly stated a higher temperature object will radiate to a lower temperature object more radiation of a a higher quality than it receives from the colder object.
This difference in radiative flux is what we call HEAT.
The updated K&T diagram shows 333 W/m^2 of downward IR radiation. Since the diagram assumes all radiation to be equal in regard to W/m^2 with no emissivity assigned to the 333 number what is the out come.
333 = e*SB*T^4
assume e=1
this give a T of the orginiator of the downward IR of 277 K or 3.68 C. Thats cold
assume e=.1
T = 492 K or 219 C
So that cannot be right.
via Wien’s Law
v = b/T (in K) b= about 3000
CO2 at 15 micro
3000/15 = 200 K or -73 C
HMMM
q/A = e * SB * 200^4
333 = e * 5.67^-8 * 200^4
e= 3.67
This is very close to 3.68
So according to K&T CO2 has an emissivity of 1 for the updated energy budget calculation.
Comment to Tony: Water vapor is lighter than Air-H2O has an atomic weight of 18 compared to O2 with an atomic weight of 32 and N2 with an atomic weight of 28. This is very important as it has a major effect in weather. The higher the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere the lower the barometric pressure thus we have “a low pressure zone” stormy weather. The lower the amount of water in the atmosphere the “higher” the barometric pressure- “sunny weather.
Clouds form when the atmospheric temperature is at or below the Dew point based on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere in that region of the sky. Clouds can be made up of water,water vapor, or ice crystals and stay suspended by both a buoyancy effect( differences in molecule mass versus the “fluid” in which it is suspended and by direction of travel of the atmospheric masses- updrafts and downdrafts and horizontal velocities( wind currents).
We are told by the Bohr model-Nobel prize 1922-23(when they meant something real) that when a 3 atom or more molecule absorbs radiation (including IR) the molecule does not “heat” the energy goes into internal activity of either the electrons or the nucleus. The molecule does not move any faster in the atmosphere thus no increase of atmospheric Heat.(kinetic energy-the energy of moving objects)
Clouds can absorb Solar energy because water(liquid and solids ) can heat when it is exposed to all forms of radiation- our microwave ovens are proof of this, but the vapor phase follows the gas laws as described by the Bohr Model-no heating of the vapor.
Having spent many nights walking my dogs summer and winter from 8:00 pm to 2:00 am carrying an IR thermometer taking reading in all directions I can attest that IR radiation is going in all directions from downward radiation from the O2, N2, clouds, from trees, from building, from airplanes overhead, from cars,buses trucks etc, anything above absolute Zero – the Kirchhoff black body radiation is present. You cannot tell if the IR is coming from all these other object or CO2 or any other IRags.
Most of these object are within a very narrow range of absolute temperature therefore they are radiating IR at a very narrow range similar to the wavelengths absorbed and radiated by CO2 and water/l/v/s.
There are many reasons that the atmosphere and earth are warm but CO2 is insignificant- yes the Earth is warmer than 10,000 years ago but CO2 is not the Cause changes in solar radiation can and have been correctly identified as the cause of “global warning, global cooling( less radiation) and after many years of weather changes -climate change”! Unless we can get AL Gore Michel Mann,John Cook, and Jim Hansen to close their mouths and stop lying about Mann-made global warming. The world will cool of and get back to the reality that there is no identified (provable)“climate change “ in the last 150 years except colder and longer winters. Weather changes are within the range of normal variations.
Having lived through almost half of this period (72 years old) weather in Northern Ohio,USA is just as variable as ever- wait 15 minutes and it will change.!
More information and details can be found in the following references. List of references:
The paper “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect within the frame of physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner is an in-depth examination of the subject. Version 4 2009
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern Physics
B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275{364 , DOI No: 10.1142/S021797920904984X, c World
Scientific Publishing Company, http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.
Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.
Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl-Ing Heinz Thieme This work has about 10 or 12 link
that support the truth that the greenhouse gas effect is a hoax.
R.W.Wood
from the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL shelf mark p340.1.c.95, i
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
By Alan Siddons
from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST
The below information was a foot note in the IPCC 4 edition. It is obvious that there was no evidence to prove that the ghg effect exists.
“In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.”
After 1909 when R.W.Wood proved that the understanding of the greenhouse effect was in error and the ghg effect does not exist. After Niels Bohr published his work and receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The fantasy of the greenhouse gas effect should have died in 1909 and 1922. Since then it has been shown by several physicists that the concept is a Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Obviously the politicians don’t give a dam that they are lying. It fits in with what they do every hour of every day .Especially the current pretend president.
Paraphrasing Albert Einstein after the Publishing of “The Theory of Relativity” –one fact out does 1 million “scientist, 10 billion politicians and 20 billion environmental whachos-that don’t know what” The Second Law of thermodynamics” is.
University of Pennsylvania Law School
ILE
INSTITUTE FOR LAW AND ECONOMICS
A Joint Research Center of the Law School, the Wharton School,
and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Pennsylvania
RESEARCH PAPER NO. 10-08
Global Warming Advocacy Science: a Cross Examination
Jason Scott Johnston
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
May 2010
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection:
http://ssrn.
Israeli Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv: ‘There is no direct evidence showing that CO2 caused 20th century warming, or as a matter of fact, any warming’ link to this paper on climate depot.
Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory [Kindle Edition]
Tim Ball (Author), Claes Johnson (Author), Martin Hertzberg (Author), Joseph A. Olson (Author), Alan Siddons (Author), Charles Anderson (Author), Hans Schreuder (Author), John O’Sullivan (Author)
Web- site references:
http://www.americanthinker.com Ponder the Maunder
wwwclimatedepot.com
icecap.us
http://www.stratus-sphere.com
SPPI
The Great Climate Clash -archives December, 2010 , G3 The greenhouse gas effect does not exist.( not yet peer reviewed).
many others are available.
The bottom line is that the facts show that the greenhouse gas effect is a fairy-tale and that Man-made global warming is the World larges Scam!!!The IPCC and Al Gore should be charged under the US Anti-racketeering act and when convicted – they should spend the rest of their lives in jail for the Crimes they have committed against Humanity.
The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb.”
Benjamin Franklin
Debbie
You have not read in detail any of the evidence I have presented. Nasif’s proposition is something like asking what’s the integral of an aardvark ? It’s meaningless.
Asking someone who knows a little about the subject
“………. , it makes no physical sense draw parallels between the “emissivity” of CO2 in a laboratory setting with that in the free atmosphere, as emissivity is not an intrinsic property of any gas but rather depends on both path length and wavelength.
In short, the note is evidently not written by someone who has a technical grasp of the subject matter. ” …..
In short Nasif knows nothing about modern radiative transfer codes and does not test his ideas with experts by publishing in relevant literature – preferring to bamboozle bloggers.
It’s pure bunk and not how the physics works or is solved.
And here we have the usual sceptic sophistry line – collect a few selected factoids, make a hypothesis, and avoid testing it with the big end of town.
@Luke…
You have not read in detail any of the evidence I have presented. Nasif’s proposition is something like asking what’s the integral of an aardvark ? It’s meaningless.
I have read in detail your fairy tales. There are not a single evidence about what they say.
Give me a single evidence that the results of the experiments by Hottel, Leckner, Lapp, Ludwig, Sarofim, etc., are “meaningless”. Scientific proofs, Luke.
AGW is not a theory, neither it is a hypothesis, it is a fairies tale that goes against science.
😀
@ Luke…
You say:
“In short Nasif knows nothing about modern radiative transfer codes and does not test his ideas with experts by publishing in relevant literature – preferring to bamboozle bloggers.
Demosntrate, SCIENTIFICALLY, that the radiative transfer codes that I applied in my calculations are bunk.
😀
Nasif,
Please do not misquote me. I said 550R not 500R but I will concede that this figure was from memory and the true temperature is 700R (116C) for a pL of 0.006m.atm. In fact here is the CO2 emissivities from Hottel and Sarofim Fig 6-9 p229 and the lower temperature limit of the data.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
1.52 0.2 5
0.61 0.175 5
0.3 0.155 5
0.12 0.13 5
0.03 0.088 5
0.012 0.065 5
0.006 0.042 116
0.003 0.031 116
0.0015 0.021 138
0.0006 0.01 338
0.0003 0.005 477
The lower pL values may be extrapolated to 5 C quite easily.
The surface emissivity I quoted of 0.95 is for water and considering the earth is 75% covered it is not a bad guess To get 0.82 requires the other 25% to have an emissivity of 0.43. Could be true but looks on the low side.
Musing on it further I think I know where you are coming from. The emissivities you are quoting are absorptivities of short wave solar radiation. The low figures for the atmosphere confirm the transparency of the atmosphere to solar radiation.
Emissivity equals absorptivity only when a body is in radiative equilibrium with its surroundings and is confined to black body or long wavelength radiation. You cannot equate shortwave absorptivity to long wave emissivity.The atmosphere is not in equilibrium with the sun, it is in equilibrium with the earths surface and rest of the atmosphere. As an example if the shortwave abs of CO2 is 0.004 it will absorb 1365*0.002 = 2.73 w/m2 of solar energy. This is a small addition to the normal earthly long wave absorption. . It then does not emit this with an emissivity of 0.002. It will emit long wave with an emissivity of say 0.09. The same amount of energy is emitted as absorbed.
In summary I think you have quoted absorptivities for short wave radiation and mistakenly applied Kirchoffs law to state emissivity equals absorptivity.
@Luke…
You say:
In short Nasif knows nothing about modern radiative transfer codes and does not test his ideas with experts by publishing in relevant literature – preferring to bamboozle bloggers.
Again, show me your numbers.
I showed relevant literature from highly reputed authors. Show us SCIENTIFICALLY, not by down-and-out snivelings.
You cannot? Well, I win, you lose.
😀
@Gary…
You say:
Please do not misquote me. I said 550R not 500R but I will concede that this figure was from memory and the true temperature is 700R (116C) for a pL of 0.006m.atm. In fact here is the CO2 emissivities from Hottel and Sarofim Fig 6-9 p229 and the lower temperature limit of the data.
No, I’m not misquoting you. Effectively, the research by Hottel and later by Leckner was conducted taking into consideration a range of temperatures from 500 Ra (5 °C) to 5000 Ra (2505 °C). If you see the tables, you will notice that the emissivities for carbon dioxide are null below 1400 Ra (505 °C) and the authors clearly say that at such partial pressures (0.001 atm to 0.02 atm) –which are by much higher than the partial pressures than the actual partial pressure of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (0.00038 atm)– is unmeasurable because it is insignificant.
You cannot extrapolate “easily” because the total emissivity is not linear with partial pressures and temperatures.
On the other hand, the numbers you present:
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
1.52 0.2 5
0.61 0.175 5
0.3 0.155 5
0.12 0.13 5
0.03 0.088 5
0.012 0.065 5
0.006 0.042 116
0.003 0.031 116
0.0015 0.021 138
0.0006 0.01 338
0.0003 0.005 477
Are not real because the charts stop at 0.01 atm. Sorry, but your numbers you give below 0.012 atm are flawed. The way to know the total emissivities of gases is the formula that those authors, so many times cited by me, derived from their experiments, which is the formula I applied to make my calculations.
🙂
“The quantum second law clearly specifies that the thermal radiation is always dispersed from the system with lower available energy microstates (“hotter”) towards the system with the higher available microstates (“colder”).”
The net transfer is from hotter to colder. Everybody agrees with that. Nobody is arguing with it. If your point is simply that “heat” ought to be defined always as the *net* transfer, it becomes an empty argument. It’s saying that the conventional physics is right, it’s just being described using the wrong terminology. That would be pedantry for its own sake.
“Heat as defined, in any competent physics or heat transfer, can only flow spontaneously from a higher temperature object to a lower temperature object.”
If you have only two objects, that’s arguably true. But it is perfectly possible to set up a system the heat transfer between one pair of objects drives the reverse heat flow between another pair, ‘spontaneously’ in the sense that it happens quite naturally without work being applied from outside.
The *real* second law is actually about *entropy*, and says that the overall entropy increases. For a *pair* of objects, net heat flowing from the hotter to the colder increases entropy. But when you have *three or more* bodies, all or some of which can exchange heat with the others, the condition that the overall entropy increases does not imply that *every* net transfer between bodies has to be from hotter to colder (if you can even specify all the flows pairwise like that). You’re taking a simplified special case of the definition and extending it beyond its domain of validity.
And I’d note that terms like ‘specific heat capacity’ use the word ‘heat’ in another sense, for internal energy. It’s not a single simple universal definition.
“Try to do this process in reverse and its impossible as the 2nd law predicts.”
A heat engine run in reverse is called a heat pump, and is perfectly possible. A heat engine transfers heat from hot to cold and outputs work. A heat pump has work done on it which it uses to transfer heat from cold to hot. What’s impossible is a *partial* reversal in which you reverse the heat transfer but leave the work going in the same direction.
“You are wrong about refrigeration. I suggest you read an engineering text book.”
Sigh. Why does everybody assume that nobody else already *has?*
“Work is put in to compress a gas. This heats it.”
Technically, it increases its temperature adiabatically, and the word adiabatic means ‘without heating’. But I know what you mean.
Yes, I *know* how it works. If you take the transfer at each interface separately – from cold sink to heat pump, and from heat pump to hot sink – you do indeed get hotter-to-colder thermal transfer. But taking the heat pump as a whole, the transfer is from colder to hotter, with the input of work. It’s perfectly possible, the second law only says you have to supply work to do it. There has to be a larger increase in entropy elsewhere to exceed the local reduction in entropy between heat reservoirs.
@Gary…
Now, let’s examine each number by you given in your post:
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
1.52 0.2 5
It is the almost (it is only 0.23) emissivity of the carbon dioxide at 2000 Ra, that is at 838 °C.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.61 0.175 5
It is almost (the real value is 0.15) the emissivity of the carbon dioxide at 2000 Ra, that is at 838 °C.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.3 0.155 5
It is almost the emissivity (the real value is 0.1) of the carbon dioxide at 1750 Ra, that is 699 °C
And your data goes worst from here on:
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.12 0.13 5
At 0.12 atm, which 308 times higher than the actual partial pressure of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere</b<, the emissivity of the carbon dioxide found by Hottel, Leckner and Lapp is 0.08 at 500 Ra, not the 0.135 that you extrapolated.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.03 0.088 5
The mentioned authors found that at 0.03 atm of partial pressure and 550 Ra (33 °C), the carbon dioxide showed a total emissivity of 0.055, not that 0.0885 that you say.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.012 0.065 5
At such partial pressure, the authors found that the carbon dioxide stopped emitting below the temperature of 550 Ra, i.e. 33 °C.
pL (m.atm) emissivity at temperature (C)
0.006 0.042 116
This figure is absolutely flawed because Hottel and the other authors reported an emissivity of 0.02 at 33 °C temperature. Notice that 0.006 corresponds to a mass fraction of carbon dioxide of 6000 ppmV.
The lowest partial pressure at which Hottel and the other authors found the carbon dioxide emitted was 0.001 atm, that is 1000 ppmV, and they found that the lowest temperature at which the carbon dioxide emitted with such partial pressure was 1450 Ra, i.e. 533 °C
Again, to know the total emissivity of the carbon dioxide at its current concentration and ambient temperature, you MUST apply the formula provided by those authors, who derived it from experimentation and observation.
All the best,
🙂
@Nullius in Verba…
It seems you have invented another entropy. 🙂
Guys; simply, I don’t get Nasif’s frequent resort to escapes with partial pressures nor do I go with others playing with references from authors based any where around blogsphere and bookstalls.
Nasif; I don’t like your term REAL as used to support any view in developing physics either
@Nullius in Verba…
Heat? What’s your definition of heat?
Entropy? What’s your definition of entropy?
Clue: Heat only exists when it trasponds the boundaries of a system.
Another clue: Entropy has to do with energy microstates.
Now, your answers.
🙂
@Gavin…
Sorry for my “reals”, but is valid to use “reals” in contrast to “fake”, to “false”, to “flawed”, etc.
🙂
Mate; thats jargon at it’s worst and not befitting a scientist or a practical engineering type like me
Somebody please; help Nasif find a term for the opposite to “bull-dust”
@Gavin…
No science comes from your arguments on my bad English. Heh! By the way, I consider engineers are good people. They know more on science that some climatologists.
Perhaps “real” is a useful term in contrast to your “bull-dust”.
Please, read my comment on Gary’s extrapolations.
😀
The dust flown about after my post has placed it between hubble-bubble comments. My analysis in response to Gary’s numbers is in Comment from: Nasif NahleApril 1st, 2011 at 5:49 am
Nasif – you’re simply full of nonsense. No publication. No peer review. And your whole proposition is irrelevant. Assembling a few factoids and gluing them together is not science and not relevant to how climate model radiation routines work as SoD has reminded you..
@Luke…
The dust flown about after my post has placed it between hubble-bubble comments. My analysis in response to Gary’s numbers is in Comment from: Nasif NahleApril 1st, 2011 at 5:49 am
😀
Luke
“No publication. No peer review. ”
I can’t understand your obsession with peer review and certain publications.
It has been proven time and again, that it’s not that easy to get published when the
reviewers are against you.
Nasif maybe wrong or maybe right, I can follow the math but not necessarily the conclusion
he draws.
But you are, on the other hand, simply saying that there are NO valid or good ideas outside “published peer reviewed” literature, that is plainly wrong too.
As to gavin’s homespun “non wisdom” Please! cease and desist already!
“Perhaps “real” is a useful term in contrast to your “bull-dust”.’
Well and modestly put, Nasif.
Nullius, who appears to have some knowledge on the subject, says this:
“But taking the heat pump as a whole, the transfer is from colder to hotter, with the input of work. ”
That is a big qualification; “with the input of work.” If the heat pump did not have electricity produced by work external to the heat pump the transfer would not work; the heat pump seems to me to be a disingenuous example to illutrate the error of the claim that heat can only go from hotter to warmer, as opposed to radiation where the transfer is a net transfer.
Unlike a heat pump molecules do not have an external source of electricity [with apologies to Louis]; they contain a certain energy level which can be transferred by conduction or emission, or, has been overlooked, work such as is done by LTE convectional uplift. A CO2 molecule which has transferred its energy via any of the 3 above methods will not continue to transfer anything to any other CO2 or other gas molecule until it is reexcited by photon collision and/or absorption.
In short, CO2 is only a heat pump in the sense that it has no internal power source and requires an external power source; so I don’t think Nullius’s example is a good one.
SoD mentioned earlier that he wasn’t a scientist, so in my book he is no more than a ‘kitchen table’ scientist like most of us.
Steve McIntyre had a look at his blog and said it began ‘with many useful posts outlining the fundamentals of sensitivity of CO2, drawing heavily on Ramanathan’s work on radiative-convective models in the 1970s. (They describe him as the “great Ramanathan”.)
Yeah, that explains a lot.
I must agree Jonathon Wilkes. yes indeed, publication and peer review is critical. But surely science is done outside of that domain too, that is, scientists must be able to form hypotheses and discuss/argue them in fora similar to the blogworld. Such discussion must be relevant even if not yet published. ALL ‘published’ must once have begun as ideas, calculations, experimentation and observation – ideas hardly spring forth well formed in journals as though of divine creation.
Clearly – and I cannot judge – Nasif may be onto something. Or he may not. But all the Lukey handwaving in the world does not contribute to our learning. if he disagrees, then show us why in detailed form. Because Nasif is hardly short of detail, and from what I’ve read his grasp of the subject does appear strong. He certainly wasn’t fazed by that Mark character at SoD. That was quite amusing to read, poor old mark was literally foaming at the mouth.
No Luke, if you think he’s wrong, demonstrate why it is so, and show your work. Otherwise my friend you are no different to denialists who happily dismiss detailed science with a few well chosen mouthoffs.
Just found this graph which shows CO2 follows temperature with a 5 month lag.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
Jennifer; I reckon it would be interesting if Grant Petty (the US climate author) took up your “back radiation challenge” after reading his late post on Nasif’s previous thread then searching “Grant Petty 2011” on the internet but I don’t expect we can get a prompt response (this week).
JW & others; I once did a fair bit in physics theory and practice but don’t care to return to to the pure derivation, calculus etc because I can’t risk being that intense again in retirement. In fact over my last decades at work I literally flew much of the radiation spectrum only by the seat of my pants.
Luckily I was well grounded when the rot set in third time round and I could retire early and thus avoid another restructure in thinking along the latest government policy path. By then IT had caught up with us (those still handling users with emissions) and automated our calcs
BTW as an example electronics design engineers world wide in the 1970’s were supposed to burn out on average in about every 7 years and be too brittle to retrain and remain competitive. particularly in commercial electronic enterprise.
Nullis says
” it’s just being described using the wrong terminology. That would be pedantry for its own sake.”
He then confuses further normal meaning given to Heat as defined, in any competent physics or heat transfer textbook.
Look at his example below
…. “But it is perfectly possible to set up a system the heat transfer between one pair of objects drives the reverse heat flow between another pair, ‘spontaneously’ in the sense that it happens quite naturally without work being applied from outside.”……
Which I would suggest is ……”That would be pedantry for its own sake.”
Normal thermodynamic statement;
Your first pair high temperature to low temperature involves heat transfer and could drive a steam engine to produce work for example electrical energy.
The second pair low to high temperature will not happen spontaneously.
You can however use the electrical energy to force a transfer from low temperature to high.
This is an example of a heat pump.
Cohenite,
I’m not taking issue with your reasoning here re nullius, but the idea of a heat pump is somewhat problematical when applied to CO2.
The whole problem lies in the belief that CO2 absorbs IR, stores it, and then leaks it outwards.
It is a fact that CO2 has a high specific heat and that with an input of one unit of energy it’s temperature (essentially kinetic) rises more than water which, by definition, has a specific heat of 1; CO2 is about 2, I recall.
So if one increases the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere (assuming everything else being equal), then that atmosphere’s temperature will, and must rise but only in the case of a closed system that is the hall mark of the laboratory experiment. (Performing experiments on a gas in an open system is not possible physically, only intellectually). In any case proposing an atmosphere of 100% CO2 will not produce a runaway thermal event, since we know, from measurement, that CO2 can only increase in temperature by a finite amount, given the assumed energy inputs.
But if you increase the amount of CO2 in air but maintain a constant source of energy into the system, then this fixed energy now has to be shared by more CO2 molecules, so the thought goes, and the temperature must rise. Not so fast – if CO2 is the only radiative variable in this thought experiment, then having a constant input but an increasing CO2 variable must then imply that the temperature remains constant, since “Ie” the input of energy, being finite, then has to be spread out to N CO2 molecules, and if N doubles but Ie remains constant, then the energy each molecule of CO2 receives is then Ie/2N; ergo the temperature remains constant. The global temperature then only increases if the overall energy input into the system increases.
Which is a refutation of the CAGW hypothesis from first principles.
Hi Louis, re: your last paragraph and no increase in the energy within the system; the pro-AGW crew of course say that backradiation increases the energy in system.
Cohenite,
Exactly, impossible physcially but quite so in the imaginal world they think they exist in.
Cohenite,
Temperature is a description of the overall thermal state of a system.
@Grant Petty…
By the way, thanks for supporting my paper kindly published by Dr. Jennifer Marohasy on her reputable blog.
I was waiting for the final part of the dialogue, but it seems it is needed just now. The point where you support my thesis is when you wrote:
“If you want to debate the role of CO2 in global warming, at least do yourself and your readers the favor of doing your homework first. Start by understanding that no gas has an intrinsic emissivity, and so your comparison of emissivity in a laboratory with that in the free atmosphere is meaningless, because it doesn’t take into account the different in the size of the sample.”
That is precisely what I did not do when I calculated the total emissivity of the carbon dioxide. As the total emissivity of gases is extrinsic, I took into account the carbon dioxide partial pressure in the Earth’s atmosphere and its instantaneous temperatures.
The experiments are useful, believe me. Experimentation in labs or in nature verifies or falsifies our hypotheses, which, if they are verified, become into theories, or laws in some cases.
It seems that the “Glory” for AGW idea would be to have an “intensive” carbon dioxide total emissivity of 1, judging from the models and graphs on spectral absorptivities of the atmospheric gases and the absorptivities introduced in calculations.
I do prefer to consider instantaneous (real) magnitudes and introduce them in my calculations (sorry Gavin for my “real”, but it was necessary).
This humble scientist wants to thank you again for your support to his paper. Thanks, Professor Grant!
🙂
Louis, I hope no one picks up the (typing?) error with respect to specific heats. Specific heat or heat capacities vary with pressure and temperature. The variation for liquid water is slight and close to 0C and 1 atm the specific heat is close to 1 kcal/kg/C or 1 btu/lb/F or 4.186 kj/kg/C. The variation is much greater for gases. There are formulae to work them out. At if you are old fashioned there are nomographs. At close to 0C and 1 atm the specific heat (or Cp) of water vapor and CO2 are very similar on a volumetric basis ie about 0.39 and 0.38 kcal/std m3/C respectively. The formulae are normally given for kg mole whicg can be converted to volume (which is measured) by knowing 1 kg mol equals 22.4 std m3. On a mass basis Cp of water vapor at 0C is 0.486 kcal/kg/C while CO2 is 0.192 kcal/kg/C.
Hope that helps
In my last post my final statement was not fully correct. I should have said that since the emissivity I calculated was above 1 and could not be right that showed they must have used 1 as the emissivity for the Keihl&Trenbreth budget.
Further if I was not rushed I should have continued and used the 276.8 K in the Wein’s Law formula to show that given that the frequency of that temperature is 10.8 micro. This is outside the CO2 absorption capabilities.
I should not hurry and I should proof read.
From someone who is not a scientisit but who is nevertheless extremely interested in this topic and the heated debate around it:
A HUGE thankyou to all who have contributed to this post with references and explanations and answers to questions.
I at least have a much clearer ideas about the points of contention and the questions we need to keep asking if we truly want to unluck the climate puzzle.
(and sorry Luke, but you need to be a little careful when you make unfounded accusations about who does and doesn’t read these references and what their friends may or may not read. I do note however that you eventually did attempt to answer my questions, thanks for that)
One of the things I like the best about this blog is that most people are prepared to spend time answering questions, explaining theories and supplying further references.
Thankyou to Nasif and all the others who have taken the time to do that.
And of course, thanks to Jennifer for allowing the space for people to do that.
Debbie – any decent scientist will always look at alternative lines of evidence and explain apparent anomalies. If you had read the references you may have made a perceptive comment.
Grant Petty http://www.sundogpublishing.com/AtmosRad/index.html has told us on Nasif’s previous thread that his basic thesis is a non-question.
As I have repeatedly offered evidence – that the back radiation is distinctly measurable. And spectroscopic measurements of that radiation show the components and the changes over time – and those measurements are close to models based on theory. You obviously believe in ongoing coincidences.
Luke,
So am I supposed to point out that this latest reference just takes me to a sales pitch or advertising blurb about Petty’s book to prove that I do follow up on the ‘detailed references’?
I have one here that actually poses an argument that can be followed up with further references.
http://drtimball.com/2011/climate-change-debacle-a-product-of-ignoring-failure-and-negative-results/
Nasif also posed an argument and backed it up with further references. He has also made comments about Petty’s work.
So did several other contributors at this post.
As I said earlier, this has now made it much clearer for me about the points of contention and the types of questions we should be asking.
I don’t ‘obviously believe’ anything yet Luke.
For me, the jury is still out examining the evidence and asking for more.
One thing I definitely don’t believe is ‘the science is settled’.
If for you, that translates to believing in ongoing coincidences, then so be it.
Cementafriend,
It was a typo error but not to worry about anyone picking it up – main point I was driving towards was that the earth is not a closed system, and if any increase in thermal state occurs, then that’s because of an increase in energy passing through the system itself, not to some cockamamy CO2 theory.
@Luke…
You say:
Grant Petty http://…… has told us on Nasif’s previous thread that his basic thesis is a non-question.
Luke, Luke… I have read Grant’s book. Sorry to tell you, but it seems you have not read it.
On the other hand, if the total emissivity/absorptivity of the carbon dioxide is “meaningless”, how do you and Grant calculate the load of energy that the atmosphere absorbs and emits? Big LOL!
🙂
@Luke…
Unless AGW proponents would be using a total absorptivity/emissivity of the carbon dioxide of 1.0, which would make the carbon dioxide a non-existent black body.
Have you noticed that AGW proponents talk about “absorption bands” and “emission bands”? What are they referring to?
In sum, the greenhouse hypothesis, if based on blackbodies, is a fantasy.
Here two questions to you:
1. If the total emissivity/absorptivity of the carbon dioxide is “meaningless”, how do you and Grant calculate the load of energy that the atmosphere absorbs and emits?
2. Have you noticed that AGW proponents talk about “absorption bands” and “emission bands”? What are they referring to?
Please, answer those questions.
🙂
@Louis Hissink…
You got it! Well done. It is the transit of thermal energy from one thermodynamic system to another thermodynamic system what warms up the world (radiation, convection and conduction), not the imaginary “greenhouse” effect.
NSN
Debbie – you just dodged the question – and not an advert – merely a reference for context (sheesh!).
Nasif – well one can measure it ! You don’t have to calculate …. AGAIN “As I have repeatedly offered evidence – that the back radiation is distinctly measurable. And spectroscopic measurements of that radiation show the components and the changes over time – and those measurements are close to models based on theory.” ….
You see Nasif – all you have to do is simply explain why my references are not inconsistent or where the authors have confused themselves.
But nah – you’re just gonna brow beat us to death … and given the rest of the climate community doesn’t have your knowledge as a peer reviewed paper the net result for change is zero point zero.
Nasif,
Why thank you!
Going back to first principles always works, though I see that the latest physics texts are full of cartoons and not so much text, so I can see why the younger generation of scientists make the errors that they do. While a cartoon might be the equivalent of a 1000 words, it’s those words that make it true or false.
Sorry Luke, there is no instrument that measures back radiation. In fact there is no instrument that directly measures radiation. The instruments measure a voltage difference or a differential current. This is related by calibration to a temperature. From the temperature, radiation is calculated using the Stephan-Boltzman equation. It is impossible to know the source of the radiation. Dr Roy Spencer in his experimant tried to eliminate sources other than in the direction of his instrument but was unsuccessful. Then there is the question of the base temperature. Kopp and Lean made some improvements http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL045777.pdf to find lower radiations from the sun but sophisticated instruments like that can not be used in the field. The temperature outside has be be separately measured and the zero of instruments adjusted. Then there is the question mark of the emissivity in calculating with the S-B equation. Finally, as with Dr Roy Spencer measurements there is a time lag due to the heat capacity of thermopile, thermisters or what ever is the measuring device. Anyone who measures a positive heat flux from a cold sky at night has a problem with understanding of instruments and the way to adjust them to get a sensible result.
Scientists appear not to understand errors. Further, there is good evidence that some scientists are manipulating data to fit preconcieved ideas. Engineers have to deal with errors all the time and should not believe any result unless they have satisfied themselves the result is verifiable. A registered professional engineer is accountable for his actions in law.
Nasif, did Grant Petty make a comment on this thread, or are you referring to a comment of his on another post?
Nasif,
I give up. You read things into replies which are just not there. My figures are not, repeat not extrapolations. They are figures from the graphs used by chemical engineers in heat transfer and furnace design for the last 50 years. Note pL is not, repeat not partial pressure but the product of partial pressure and path length. When related to the atmosphere modelling the path length may be 100m. At 1 atm this give a pL of 0.0385 of the lower atmosphere.
Gary. you’re not the first to become exasperated with Nasif’s “debating techniques”. Check out the links at this comment:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/?cp=3#comment-478331
That sceptics should rely on such a person speaks volumes.
I don’t rely on anyone RW, least of all you.
Sorry Cementsy – you’re far from updated and a long way from home. And you had better ring Davos up and tell them – the whole international radiation study effort needs you to tell them to stand down.
And you are who again?
You obviously believe that whirlwinds seem to assemble the same answers from different lines of evidence. Quiet some coincidences I’d think. LOL !
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-40-15-2376 You obviously have problems with absolute calibration.
luke, you have presented Philipona’s calibration paper before; the key part of the abstract is this:
” The calibration of the ASR is based on a reference blackbody source traced to absolute temperature standards. The pyroelectric detector has no window to prevent thermal and spectral transmission effects. Scanning the sky with a narrow viewing angle and integrating with the Gaussian quadrature, rather than taking hemispherical measurements, prevent errors related to the cosine effect.”
I have directed you before to the problems with this part of the paper, especially in regard to Robitalle’s papers:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/02/a-profitable-discharge-of-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-2/?cp=2#comment-473528
Give it up; back-radiation exists but it cannot be measured accurately. As Louis has neatly explained backradiation cannot increase the energy in the system; the AGW premise is that backradiation delays the restoration of an equilibrium; the lack of any stored heating as Trenberth has noted, indicates that any such delay is not noticeable in the variations produced by nature.
@Gary…
If you’re referring to the atmospheric partial pressure of the carbon dioxide at 100 m, my answer is YES and NO.
0.0385 is the proportion of carbon dioxide in the lower layer of the troposphere (Mauna Loa). The partial pressure of the carbon dioxide at one meter would be 0.00039 atm. Then you multiply this number by 100, which is the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, the answer to your question would be yes, up to this point. However, we have a temperature, so the effective partial pressure of the carbon dioxide is not 0.00385 atm, neither 0.0385 atm – m at 100 meters of altitude. The formula to obtain the partial pressure of a gas, in a mixture of gases, is as follows:
(pCO2L) m = (0.225 * t^2) * (paL) 0
I should tell you that this formula changes when t < 0.7.
For example, if we have t = 0.153 (depending on the instantaneous temperature and the standard temperature plus 100), a proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 0.0385%, and an instantaneous temperature of 300 K, we will find a partial pressure of the carbon dioxide of:
(pCO2L)m = (0.225 * t^2) * (0.0385) = 0.0056 atm cm
The subscript “m” means that we are introducing the geopotential altitude (average mean beam length), 99.9984 m, for your calculation.
If you consider a geometric altitude of 1000 m, you will have a very different situation because you would have a different temperature. If the atmosphere of the layer above the surface (at 1.5 m above the surface) is 300 K, at 1000 m it would be 288.15 K, and the partial pressure of the carbon dioxide at such altitude would be:
(pCO2L)m = (0.225 * t^2) * (0.0385) = 0.0052 atm cm
However, if you go up to a geometric altitude of 7700 meters (geopotential altitude of 6992.3002 m), the partial pressure of the carbon dioxide would be 0.00286 atm cm.
You can graph the obtained data at different temperatures and you’ll find very interesting characteristics of the atmosphere.
NSN
Typo here:
However, we have a temperature, so the effective partial pressure of the carbon dioxide is not 0.00385 atm, neither 0.0385 atm – m at 100 meters of altitude. The formula to obtain the partial pressure of a gas, in a mixture of gases, is as follows:
Bolded should have said:
However, we have a temperature, so the effective partial pressure of the carbon dioxide is not 0.000385 atm, neither 0.0385 atm – m at 100 meters of altitude. The formula to obtain the partial pressure of a gas, in a mixture of gases, is as follows:
Nasif; what precicely is average “beam length” when applied to light or radiation in general and how does one find it??
I’m begining to wonder if you ever practiced physics in any part of the spectrum.
Cohenite – you’re not published in this area and your opinion is worthless waffle. A state of the art instrument and 3 independent methods and you’re looking for loose change in an abstract. Pullease. Write the refutation and get published or piss off.
Luke
Its truly a major step forward to try to get the pyrgeometers to give similar readings for similar conditions.
After 50 years of troubled history what most people would regard as a given for ANY measuring device is still being worked on.
What is in doubt is what the voltage readings mean.
Read the excellent description of the problems with this instrument by cementafriend above.
“Clue: Heat only exists when it trasponds the boundaries of a system.”
“Trasponds”?
Assuming you mean what I think you mean, I think I already said that.
“Another clue: Entropy has to do with energy microstates.”
Incorrect. Entropy is a far more general principle – for those particular systems where the number of available states varies with energy level, energy is connected to entropy. But it can apply to other variables too.
And again, that doesn’t contradict anything I said.
“In short, CO2 is only a heat pump in the sense that it has no internal power source and requires an external power source;”
CO2 is definitely not a heat pump, and I didn’t say it was. I suggested that the atmosphere driven by convective cycles could act as a heat pump. This effect has nothing to do with CO2.
The external power source is the differential heating between equator and poles. (Or between land of different colours, between land and sea, between land under clouds and unshaded land, etc.) This drives convective cycles, which force the expansion and compression of air.
@Gavin…
The “mean beam length” is the length scale to account for the effect of geometry in the evaluation of radiative heat transfer between a warm gas volume and its boundary. (Hottel and Egbert. 1972).
NSN
@Nullius…
Incorrect. Entropy is a far more general principle – for those particular systems where the number of available states varies with energy level, energy is connected to entropy. But it can apply to other variables too.
First argument, NO. Second assertion, NO and YES.
No, entropy is not a more general principle. Here you are confusing contextual interpretations with the real concept of entropy. But don’t worry, many are confused also.
NO, entropy is everywhere, it is a universal concept.
YES, entropy refers to the energy microstates of every and all systems in the observable universe.
The quantum physics concept is not ambiguous like the contextual applications of entropy, such as complexity and order. It has a determined directionality and it determines the arrow of change.
That’s why I said that you had invented new entropy. Nullius, the concept of entropy has nothing to do with its contextual interpretations. The essence of this important concept is related exclusively to the microstates that the energy can adopt as it is dispersed or diffused. Hence the directionality we observe macroscopically, from the warmer to the colder, and never vice versa. If you say that a warmer system is heated up by a colder system, you would be violating the second law of thermodynamics because this concept is all about the energy microstates.
From Einstein theory, if you live in a unchanging universe, you would not appreciate time; well, you would not exist.
Sorry for my bad English; besides I coppied wrong the word. I meant, that the heat exists only as it crosses the boundary of a thermodynamic system. If that energy is inside the system, it is not heat. Heat is energy in transit when a gradient of temperature exists between a warm system and a cooler one:
“Heat is energy transferred from one system to another solely by reason of a temperature difference between the systems. Heat exists only as it crosses the boundary of a system and the direction of heat transfer is from higher temperature to lower temperature.
http://www.ecourses.ou.edu/cgi-bin/ebook.cgi?doc=&topic=th&chap_sec=01.3&page=theory
Let me tell you that all astronomers, astrophysicists, phsycists, astrobiologists, biophysicists, biochemists, chemists, nuclear physicists, biologists, etc., know this is the real concept of heat, all of them, except AGW climatologists, who say that the heat, a process function, can be stored and that the kinetic energy is heat, when every scientist on this world knows that the kinetic energy is internal energy, a state function.
NSN
Here the correct text:
The heat only exists when the energy transposes the boundaries of a system, and this only happens when a temperature gradient exists. The latter determines the specific directionality in all process of heat transference.
I made a mistake as I copied the word “transposes”. Sorry.
NSN
@Gavin…
I’m begining to wonder if you ever practiced physics in any part of the spectrum.
You continue throwing offensive qualifications on my person. If you didn’t know what the mean beam length is, then you are who never practiced physics in any part of the spectrum, not even basic physics.
😀
Nasif, maybe you should do a post on line broadening, wings absorption, saturation and the log effect of CO2 ‘heating’?
@Cohenite…
Indeed, it’s a good idea. I will do it. Thanks for your suggestion.
NSN
How boring and done many times.
Pity empirical reality dispenses with unpublished theories of eccentrics.
@Luke…
What an obssesion that of yours… Heh! Soon, you’ll get a surprise, Luke.
It is reality; accept it. It is not so beautiful as your fantasies are, but it is reality.
🙂
http://www.omsj.org/corruption/physicist-proves-co2-emissions-irrelevant-in-earth%E2%80%99s-climate
How does this stack up with your work Nasif?
Sorry Luke I have no idea if he’s been published in a mainstream journal.
I’ll guess you’ll let us know.
He is a physicist however.
http://climaterealists.com/?id=7457
And this one as well?
He’s discussing what black bodies can and can’t do.
Debbie; Miskolczi is well known and his importance understood by the alarmists; Miskolczi’s work is peer reviewed in 4 papers from 2001 to 2010; he has never been rebutted at a peer reviewed level although there are many piddling so-called refutations in the blogsphere; none by luke though.
Apologies Nasif: Perhaps I did not make my intention clear as it seemed you were abusing the concept of mean beam by chosing long path conditions over short path radiation in mixed gases i.e. close to the furnace flame where we should find the traditional boundary condition, not half way through our almost transparent atmosphere (no soot!) and into cold space.
Debbie – published in the Hungarian Journal of Chook Farming and Energy and Environment (yech)
ROFL ! We’re hardly talking serious Debs.
Tedious stuff well refuted here
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ferenc_Miskolczi
It’s a big conspiracy Debbie
Pathetic luke; Stokesies’ pale little whinge and as for the van Dorland non-peer-reviewed dummy spit; on page 2 of their drivel they say:
“As a next step using his quasi radiative equilibrium model, Miskolczi calculates the relationship between outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and the infrared flux originating from the Earths surface (Su). The relationship is a function of infrared optical depth (τA) only”
This is wrong; on page 17 of Miskolczi’s 2nd paper, figure 10:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf
Miskolczi measures changes in “the true greenhouse-gas optical thickness”. This is made up of two parts which are depicted in Figure 10. The first is τA which is defined as “the total IR flux optical depth” [page 5 Miskolczi 2007]. This is a measure of the total amount of infra-red or LW radiation which is absorbed between the surface and the TOA. The second is A which is the flux absorbance [page 3 Miskolczi 2010] and is a measure of what wavelengths of LW are being absorbed and transmitted in the atmosphere.
This is about as profound a misrepresentation/mistake/inability to understand what Miskolczi is saying as you could get, yet you still unashamedly reference them as disproving Miskolczi; you have no shame luke.
The rest of the ‘paper’ merely restates the SH and OLR disputes
Do go on Coho – I have in recent weeks cited a number of empirical references which blows this utter twaddle into the weeds. Not even Steve Short would give it two bob and you know it. 5 /10 for mock indignation.
“cited a number of empirical references ”
Incited agnotology more likely.
Some detailed discussion relevant to this thread at Judith Curry:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/04/02/week-in-review-april-2-2011/#comments
esp towards the bottom of the page.
Just put a comment at the bottom after Fred Moolten comment. I suggested that he looks at the following http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CO2_and_climate_v7.pdf from Dr(Ir) Noor Van Andel who is a chemical engineer who understands heat and mass transfer which is a core chemical engineering subject.
(Performing experiments on a gas in an open system is not possible physically, only intellectually).
Would disagree since I have performed such an experiment. The CO2 was in a bottle with a small hole in the lid. Since CO2 is heavier than air it stayed in the bottle during the experiment. Also, during the heating the CO2 was continually expanding therefore there was no mixing with outside air. A second identical bottle with regular air was prepared and both were exposed to the same amount of heat from 150 watt heat lamps.
In these bottles with vented lids the heating curve of both gases was identical–both reached 7 degrees C above room temp. I repeated the experiment with sealed bottles and both became warmer; the air reached 16 degree C above room temp and the CO2 reached 22 degrees above room temp. The temperature differential between air and CO2 in experiments such as this, in which CO2 is heated in a confined space, has been touted as empirical evidence of the greenhouse effect.
I attributed it to a difference in the expansion coefficient of CO2 vs air. Since CO2 is heavier than air it expands with greater force than does air when warmed and therefore creates greater pressure when heated within a confined space. The ideal gas law demands that a gas under greater pressure will be warmer even though they both may contain the same amount of thermal energy.
In the real world atmosphere there is no such confinement. CO2 in the air when heated (by any means) simply expands to a larger volume and ascends with the rest of the heated air without adding any extra warmth to the surrounding air.
So, what is back-radiation? Just like in the table top experiment, in which greater pressure resulted in greater warming, the compression of the lower atmosphere by gravity causes the lower atmosphere to be about 33 degrees C warmer than it is at its center mass, which is about 5.5 km up. Back-radiation is the atmosphere’s natural response to this heating. Emitting IR radiation is what warm things do to cool themselves off, therefore, back-radiation is what radiative cooling of the lower atmosphere looks like.
Stated another way, back-radiation is an “effect” not a “cause.”
Carl
Back Radiation exists, but it is not due to greenhouse gases. It arises because of convection plus radiation from clouds. The whole of the astmosphere is heated by convection from the earth during the daytime, enhanced by turbulence., and the heat is emitted as radiation to a declining extent as the heat is transmitted up the atmosphere. At each level the heated atmosphere emits half of its radiation to outer space and half back to the earth.
Also water is evaporated and condensed higher up and the resulting clouds also radiate half of their heat upwards and the other half back,
At night there is a measure of reversal. Roy Spencer has recently observed that clouds warm the earth at nighyt. Deposition of dew and frost adds extra wamth and winds warmed by day, a bit more.
There is no need for greenhouse gases at all.