As a dissenting physicist, I simply can no longer buy the notion that CO2 produces any significant warming of the atmosphere at any rate.
I’ve studied the atomic absorption physics to death, from John Nicol’s extensive development to the much longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.
Even if every single IR photon absorbed by a CO2 molecule were magically transformed into purely thermal translational modes , the pitifully small quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t add up to much additional heat. And if the aforementioned magical 100% transformation from radiation into “heat” were true, then all arguments concerning re-emission ( source of all the wonderful “greenhouse effect” cartoons with their arrows flying in all directions ) are out the window.
More and more, I am becoming convinced that atmospheric heating is primarily by thermal conduction from the surface, whose temperature is determined primarily by solar absorption. I get a lot of email from laymen seeking simple answers ( I’m sure you all do as well ). My simple reply goes like this:
1. The sun heats the earth.
2. The earth heats the atmosphere
3. After the sun sets, the atmosphere cools back down
With a parting comment: If we were to have 96 continuous hours without sunlight, temperatures would likely be below freezing over all the world’s land masses. The warmest place you could find would be to take a swim in the nearest ocean. There is no physical process in the atmosphere which “traps” heat. The so-called “greenhouse effect ” is a myth.
Jim Peden
Jim is Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the “100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year” and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Perhaps Jim might care to measure the long-wave downward energy flux at the surface. I look forward to him posting his results.
While he sits around waiting, he might read the IPCC AR4 which contains references to many papers which observationally prove the roll of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Jen, as a “climate expert” you should know that this post denies basic observational fact.
Shows what happens when you don’t cath up with the latest science. He has completely missed on the ‘enhanced greenhouse’ effeect, and completely ignores positive feedback effects.
And he’s that much of an idiot that he even gives “Gerlich & Tscheuschner” creedence.
SJT says: “And he’s that much of an idiot that he even gives “Gerlich & Tscheuschner” creedence.”
“Credence” is the correct spelling.
Jim Peden also states “….[the] longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.”
Er, that implies that he DOESN’T give it much credence!
Calling someone who is an aknowledged atmospheric physicist an “idiot” says more about you than him. You may disagree with his views, but idiot he is not.
On the other hand…
If anyone could provide links to resources that would be great.
David I am especially interested in any sources that show empirical proofs of climate sensitivity to CO2 and perhaps that show the mathematics behind the chemistry of CO2 heating. Not that I would understand the math theory, but I have friends who might.
I am under the impression that there is no real proof of CO2 capacity to heat the atmosphere, thus we have speculation ranging from almost nil to 6c or 8c. And the IPCC own estimates have changed too.
Bob Brown said last week on RN that we will soon be in a “runaway greenhouse heating” climate crisis if global CO2 emissions are not cut by 90% before 2050. Perhaps he is still working with the Venusian based 1970 theory? So you can see why we need some help with this.
And, if I may ask what is probably a stupid question. I am aware that some very large greenhouse operations in North America use CO2 concentration of over 2000ppm perhaps higher even, yet system engineers have told me that there is no measurable CO2 warming effects inside these buildings. One SE went so far to suggest that if anything it probably caused cooling (though it hadn’t been measured) as plant growth accelerated.
Furthermore, I was told that CO2 concentration inside of office buildings in cold or hot climates where the windows are closed and circulation less than optimum are often in the 1000ppm range.
Does this qualify as some sort of observational evidence that CO2 concentrations above what is already in the atmosphere at this time (~ 350ppm) have little to no further forcing effect on the atmosphere?
Jim Peden has a very refreshing viewpoint. Whether sunlight is the sole and ultimate source of atmospheric heating, it is verifiable that terrestrial energy absorbed by CO2 doesn’t heat the earth’s surface in turn.
Kirchhoff’s Three Laws:
1, A hot opaque body produces a continuous spectrum 2, A hot transparent gas produces an emission line spectrum 3, A cool transparent gas in front of a continuous emission source produces an absorption line spectrum.
And in this third case, what happens to the energy absorbed — is it “trapped”? Of course not, that energy simply radiates off in all directions, creating a gap in the linear light beam you’re observing but not diminishing the quantity of light being emitted.
Since carbon dioxide produces absorption lines over the earth’s continuous blackbody spectrum, this means that CO2 is a cooler gas standing in the way. The very fact that CO2 ABSORBS terrestrial infrared means that it’s cooler. That’s how transfer works, being a movement from greater to lesser energy. Can a cool body heat a warm body, then?
A block of ice also radiates infrared. Place that block next to a room temperature object, however, and the ice’s thermal emission won’t make the object any warmer. Thermal energy flows DOWN a gradient, from hotter to cooler, not up a gradient from cooler to hotter.
For CO2 (or any similar gas) to be capable of heating the earth, it would have to be at a higher temperature. Its spectral characteristics alone show that it isn’t.
Alan Siddons
Wes,
John Nicols:
http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.doc
G&T:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v3
“I am under the impression that there is no real proof of CO2 capacity to heat the atmosphere,”
I should think if the atmosphere was only warmed through contact/convection we’d have warm feet and cold noses.
The real question is does it slow down the cooling of the surface. My opinion is that it doesn’t by as much as some people are saying.
Jan; Arthur Smith has a critique of the Gerlich paper;
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf
Smith’s paper, IMO, is wrong in its assumptions about albedo and therefore emissivity.
Following on from what Alan observes about a cooling effect from CO2 absorption and reemission, it seems that must happen as the CO2 reemits, losing energy, and whatever kinetic heating occurs at that level is converted to potential energy as the air body rises.
An additional matter which has bugged me is the role, if any, that N2 plays; it may be inert to radiative transfer but is it a heating factor through conduction with its contact with the surface; warm feet and runny noses etc; anyway, here is an interesting take on the whole mess; the ‘hot-water bottle’ earth!
http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=1487
Nobody knows today’s world temperature.
Nobody has a forecast of the world’s temperature for tomorrow.
Long-range forecasts (for a decade) may have utterly failed, and probably have, but
nobody knows the world’s temperature today.
At least we can forecast the weather about 2 or 3 hours in advance. Certainly helps more than than the gorebull warmenists have got up to.
And have you come up with data to support your notion of Arctic seals being able to adapt to less ice and snow for breeding, Schiller? No? Oh that’s right, you were intentionally lying to the readers of this blog you so admire. Carry on as usual Schiller. LOL!
Wes – silly stuff – look at http://www.soyface.uiuc.edu/images/SoyFACE_Brochure.pdf – I should say look it proves the greenhouse effect – the CO2 fertilised part of the crop is warmer !!!! But it’s just a change in stomatal conductance.
Similarly your greenhouse analogies are irrelevant – why – coz greenhouses are dominated by convection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect – see real greenhouses
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
And what do indoor CO2 levels have to do with the greenhouse effect ?? – no solar radiation as well as a convection issue.
As an aside it seems increased atmospheric Co2 may make plants more susceptible to frost damage.
Travis,
I truly enjoy your “harp”ing on the seals thing.
Do you ever get the sense that you’re not on topic?
Your antics reinforce the general impression that greenies are inflexible and dogmatic, which is something I find quite generally instructive.
Many thanks!
Schiller I am on topic when you raise points of ‘nobody knows’. It’s all well and good for ‘nobody’ else to know something, but hey Schiller I don’t think anyone here expects you to make a knowledgeable contribution that is supported by evidence. But isn’t that what you expect of others? Hmmm? Your antics reinforce the general impression you are a fraud and ignoramus. Something I find amusing. Many thanks.
Water vapor, not CO2 is the significant extra on this planet… It is the gas that makes a cloudy night warmer than a clear night…But only for as long as it can exist in gas form… Once the Water vapor precipitates out of the atmosphere….. It gets cold. Damn cold.
There is no point trying to compare Venus with Earth…. or Mars… There is no other planet that has water in it’s triple point temperature range… And don’t forget that water has some very unique properties that relate to it’s storage of energy and release….
Water vapor is literally everything to this planet…. The Suns energy and water vapor.
Anthropogenic sources of CO2 are insignificant…. and certainly it’s effects have not been observable in the climate system. Only theorised.
….Travis… About seals and their ability to adapt to change and information of such. Prof. Bob Carter,
,will give you an idea of the changes that polar bears and therefor seals would have had to adapt to in the last several million years.
Travis, how long do you think seals have been in existence on Earth?… 1,2,3 million years?…. Now considering that the Holocene maximum a mere 10 thousand years ago was Warmer than now. Considering that it was warmer 5 thousand years ago…. and considering that it was warmer 2 thousand years ago…. I’d say that seals adapt very well indeed.
Travis,
You would do well to learn a few things from ignorance. Such as, it is better to ask a question, than to flail about embarrassingly in an attempt to denigrate the question.
As you are a greenie, you are of course accustomed to drawing grandiose, world-challenging conclusions from data which are nonexistent or false.
So, of course, I understand how you so easily become outraged by straight-forward questions about facts.
Is there a picture of you somewhere? I am sure, in advance, that you would be an ideal poster-boy!
Caption: “Don’t ask me why, but I’m against it!”
Perfect.
The comment by Jan Pompe that “if the atmosphere was only warmed through contact/convection we’d have warm feet and cold noses” reminded me of a summer many years ago when I worked as a looktoutman on a fire tower. The tower was about 70 m high. Even on the hottest days it was cold up in the cabin, and even with the windows shut to keep out the wind, I always wore a sweater and often a greatcoat. The phenomenon of the “freezing lookoutman” was well known in those days. Is there data on the rate of decline in temperature as you move away from the earth’s surface?
Luke, I asked for proof that CO2 at the molecular level absorbs and holds heat according to the basic premise of AGW theory and what is climate’s sensitive to this forcing?
You offered a link to Soybean fertilization and Wikipedia and one to a guy talking about why glass houses get hot.
If that is the best that you got, thanks anyway. BTW, there is usually lots of solar radiation in a glass house, except after the sun sets.
“Similarly your greenhouse analogies are irrelevant – why – coz greenhouses are dominated by convection.”
Convection? As in opened to the outdoors? How do you think they keep the CO2 levels at 2000ppm or more? Windows are closed. So your statement is irrelevant-why-coz it was dominated by convention.
Thank, Jan for On Topic links.
“The real question is does it slow down the cooling of the surface.”
Jan, good question. But the curious fact is that the earth can’t lose heat to space anyway. Heat is molecular vibration that gets passed from substance to substance. In the passing, one object cools while another warms. Lacking mass almost completely, space is unable to absorb heat. So the earth’s only option where space is involved is to emit radiant energy, the electromagnetic signal of heat — related but quite different.
Since the earth has no mirrors around it, only atmospheric absorber/emitters like CO2 molecules (see Kirchhoff above), nothing can hinder the earth’s outgoing energy. Thus the earth gives what it gets, emitting energy equal to what it absorbs from the sun — and emitting it at the speed of light. This is why satellite sensors see no sign of a greenhouse effect, no sign of emitting less than what it absorbs. There is no observable barrier. And actually, there’s no need for one because space isn’t “cold” to begin with. To the contrary, it’s a perfect insulator.
IMO one only has to think about the day/night temp differential on the Moon, Mars and Venus to know Jim’s view is a very simple one
cohenite: Arthur already knows what I think of his paper. I’ve raised exactly the same issues as you mention.
Wes – no wonder there are earthquakes with so many wankers out there – stop helping. I was not answering the question of CO2 at a molecular level – merely saying your greenhouses aka glasshouses was irrelevant. They warm by convection. The end ! Not worth two knobs of goat poop as a greenhouse effect analogy. The glasshouse analogy is often trotted out by droobs like Louis so it’s worth kicking it out of the stadium.
The Soya Bean thermal photo is an example of a ruse argument the other way which would purport that CO2 had warmed the area. Again stoopid as it’s just an effect of reducing stomatal conductance. Leaf loses less water and so is warmer vis a vis the surroundings. Dig it !
As to your question which I let go (I’m not just here to be your research assistant)- well physicists do know that CO2 absorbs in the infra-red and that the compound has various vibrational modes. I don’t think anyone is disputing that are they?
As for “holds” heat – I’m not sure that’s a good analogy either. As I understand it the “excited” molecule can pass energy to other gases by collision or re-radiate the captured photon. 50% would be downwards. I would suggest that CO2 recycles some of the escaping radiation which shifts the radiation balance of the Earth.
And I have been known to quote Philipona’s paper which shows the change in downward longwave on cloud free days was close to theoretical for greenhouse theory.
Of course this still doesn’t get to CO2 sensitivity as you have to get through clouds, water vapour feedbacks, albedo changes etc etc (another whole argument).
Anyway Jan and Cohenite can come in now and re-educate me on things quantum. Hopefully to which Eli will interject on the inevitable ruses.
But Wes – banging on about silly arguments like glasshouses or CO2 indoors is a waste of time.
“This is why satellite sensors see no sign of a greenhouse effect, no sign of emitting less than what it absorbs.” got a supporting reference?
Might be somewhat old but what about
………………………………………………………..
Increases in greenhouse forcing
inferred from the outgoing longwave
radiation spectra of the Earth in
1970 and 1997
John E. Harries, Helen E. Brindley, Pretty J. Sagoo & Richard J. Bantges
Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College,
London SW7 2BW, UK
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The evolution of the Earth’s climate has been extensively
studied1,2, and a strong link between increases in surface temperatures
and greenhouse gases has been established3,4. But this
relationship is complicated by several feedback processesÐmost
importantly the hydrological cycleÐthat are not well understood5
±7. Changes in the Earth’s greenhouse effect can be detected
from variations in the spectrum of outgoing longwave radiation8
±10, which is a measure of how the Earth cools to space and
carries the imprint of the gases that are responsible for the
greenhouse effect11±13. Here we analyse the difference between
the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as
measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We ®nd
differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in
atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12.
Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a signi®cant
increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with
concerns over radiative forcing of climate.
NATURE |VOL 410 | 15 MARCH 2001
Luke,
Greenhouses do not warm by convection. They warm by radiation, by direct sunlight! The glass actually stops convection from taking place, hence retaining the warmth inside the glasshouse/greenhouse.
So your statement that they warm by convection is arrant nonsense.
Gerlich and Tscheuschner said it well when they criticised Arrhenius’ “greenhouse effect”.
They said a greenhouse effect is when you close your car on a hot day.
The earth’s atmo, that is rotational, turbulent, open and chaotic is nothing like that at all.
The science on which AGW is based is more debatable than ever yet even gory bleeders like Jim the great adjuster won’t debate it.
“Not interested” was the stern reply.
Even the “hockey team” are having second thoughts.
[but only in private it seems]
There once was a dendrochronologist,
A confirmed paleoclimatologist
Who for proxy sublime
For the fullness of time
Was a passionate tree ring apologist.
But even old farmers dissented
Knowing this was but logic demented.
Anyone with a mind
Could easily find
‘Twas rainfall their spacings augmented.
Well gee Louis – so the Sun comes in through the glass and then what happens – you tell us … come on …
Luke,
Why do greenhouse remain warm during the night?
Because the glass enclosure stops the convection of the internal air with the outside air.
And no, the warm air outside the greenhouse does not convect the heat into the greenhouse either.
Now if you want to twist the description to confuse people, then the heat is transferred internally by convection inside the greenhouse, but this not what you implied – that they warm by convection – implying that the transfer of heat fom the sun is by convection through the glass.
It’s all really an issue of Lukian semantics.
Of course the roof stops the convection of air to the outside. No problem.
But how does the air in the glasshouse warm? And why are plant pathologists concerned with convective cells and air flow patterns in the glasshouse for movement of fungal spores.
Perhaps people even try to measure such things.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH1-45BC91H-2R&_user=613232&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000032020&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=613232&md5=2349601da05a817a4dc6ebd6e8b76489
So in your haste to thwart me I suggest you have not thought about it one iota – nor spent any time in a glasshouse.
So I suggest that there is a fair bit of convection in a glasshouse taking warmth from the floor, benches, fittings and plants heated by the Sun.
Lift the roof vents and the hot air escapes (by convection)
So arrant nonsense ? A simple apology will suffice.
(And there is some convection off the outside glass too, and some have played with films and glasses that reflect more long wave too).
Alan – “But the curious fact is that the earth can’t lose heat to space anyway.”
So where does the heat go?
“Heat is molecular vibration that gets passed from substance to substance. In the passing, one object cools while another warms. Lacking mass almost completely, space is unable to absorb heat. So the earth’s only option where space is involved is to emit radiant energy, the electromagnetic signal of heat — related but quite different.”
OK you just said that the Earth cannot lose heat and now you are saying it can – so what is it?
“Thus the earth gives what it gets, emitting energy equal to what it absorbs from the sun ”
Well you have one thing right. It does do this however this contradicts your opening statement where you said the Earth cannot lose heat.
Finally the three Rs of heat are convection, conduction and radiation. Try to put these together.
> blah, blah, blah…how long do you think seals have been in existence on Earth?… 1,2,3 million years?…. Now considering that the Holocene maximum a mere 10 thousand years ago was Warmer than now. Considering that it was warmer 5 thousand years ago…. and considering that it was warmer 2 thousand years ago…. I’d say that seals adapt very well indeed.
‘I’d say’ doesn’t cut it. You are drawing on the past for conclusions about the present and it would appear that like Schiller you have not read recent literature. How long did those animals have to adapt to their present mode of life vs how long they have to deal with changing conditions now? See
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003200.html#comments
Unlike Schiller you have at least posted some information. He just raves because he likes the sound of his own voice, or because he is the village idiot.
>As you are a greenie, you are of course accustomed to drawing grandiose, world-challenging conclusions from data which are nonexistent or false.
RAOTFL! You have assumed I am a ‘greenie’ and then accuse me of making ‘grandiose, world-challenging conclusions’! Priceless!!!
Oh, there are lots of photos of me around Schiller. I’ll tell you what, you ask the questions and then find the information to answer them – after all, that is what this is all about, remember? That is what most others here do and expect of each other.
Back to topic…
Yorkie,
“Is there data on the rate of decline in temperature as you move away from the earth’s surface?”
As recreational pilots we work on 2C/1000 feet, or about 6.5C/1Km, but its not linear, depends on height.
I’m sure this is the same with commercial flying.
You must have felt the wind up at that height, although according to the gradient it was about 1C cooler.
Luke you said of glasshouses: “They warm by convection.” No one owes you an apology, o master of the gratuitous ad hominem.
Louis is right, glass houses are cooled by increasing convection and warmed by reducing convection.
Well, Luke, I suppose you are right about greenhouses not being anything like the real CO2 greenhouse effect at all, just a metaphor.
However, you missed my point about mega-sized glasshouses filled with 2000ppm of CO2 completely. I’m not talking about the greenhouse metaphor but an ad hoc experiment in filling a glass room the size of 6 football grounds with 2000ppm of CO2.
The system engineers assigned to monitor and control these environments know exactly how much heating is going on inside them according to controlled convection, radiative heating from the walls, gear and plants, solar IR inputs, humidity, etc. What their moncon software did NOT adjust for is the so-called greenhouse effect of CO2 concentration. When asked why not? Don’t know. Didn’t need too. Was not a measurable effect. The crops had to be kept at an optimum temperature so even .25c anomalous warming could be important and be adjusted for..CO2 concentration levels in commercial greenhouses is administered with no consideration to temperature.
So here’s my silly lay person question to the physics literati here:
You’d think, if the extra 100 ppm of CO2 human activity will add the atmosphere in the next 50 years will lead to 2c to 4c of atmospheric warming, then adding more than ten times as much to a greenhouse (the size of 5 or 6 football fields) should have a measurable effect on temperature, even with leak convection. ?
Nope not really. What’s your reference Wes. Need a reference for these mega-stadium sized glasshouses.
Wes – Louis backed down. He knew what he had said. Otherwise you can explain how the air inside warms.
Ender, you’re a good example of ignorance masquerading as wit. If you can’t distinguish between molecular vibration (heat: transferable by conduction) and electromagnetic propagation (the earth’s only means of conveying energy to space), I certainly can’t help you. Here’s a clue, however: Vibrate a molecule and it emits EM. This EM can make another molecule vibrate. But the two things are not the same. Heat is not light. The earth cannot lose heat to space.
“So where does the heat go?” you ask. I bet you also wonder why your lap disappears when you stand up. You haven’t got a clue.
Yorkie,
At 70m above the surface the temperature can be above or below that at the surface. During the day, once convection has started, assuming no condensation(no point in the lookout being in cloud) the lapse rate of temperature will be about 1 deg C per 100m (dry adiabatic). During the night as the surface cools by radiation a surface temperature inversion will form as long as there isn’t too much wind keeping the near surface layers mixed. So at night the temperature at 70m may be quite a few degrees warmer than that very close to the surface.
When the ground is dry and there is a lot of insolation the layer near the surface may have a very steep superadiabatic lapse rate. The air in this layer is very unstable. This layer can be a few hundred meters deep at times.
Luke,
Both the things in the greenhouse and the Earth surface warm by absorbing radiation. This heat is transferred to the air by conduction. The warmer air in the surface layer is then unstable and so convection begins whereupon the warm air rises and is replaced by colder air from above or laterally. Convection tries to cool the surface. In a greenhouse convection is limited due to the physical barrier of the glass so replacement cool air from above or laterally cannot arrive. Hence the air in the greenhouse gets hotter until there is an equilibrium between the radiation entering and heat loss due to conduction and consequent convection from the glass.
Eyrie – you would agree that convective currents move air around in glasshouses. I don’t disagree with your other comments on glasshouses.
luke; you are wrong about greenhouses; listen to uncle Louis, or read this;
http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Kondis-Greenhouse.html
And about CO2;
http://www.ipr.res.in/~othdiag/fir/stability/node12.html
Alright Alan, I’ll bite, where does my bloody lap go?
Alan… You’re playing word games I remember from 1st year Physics class.
It’s all “energy transfer” whether it is by conduction (direct molecular energy transfer) convection (direct transfer coupled to mass transfer and mixing), or radiation (EM energy transfer).
And to quibble, “Space” as we know it is not a pure vacuum. You send a photon out in any direction and eventually it will interact with something (though perhaps not while this planet still exists). So a warm body does “lose heat” to [all that stuff out there in] space. So, draw an imaginary control surface around a warm body, stipulate that there are no conductive or convective heat transfers across that control surface, and designate what is outside the control surface as “space.” The warm body gradually loses thermal energy (i.e. “heat”) and the transfer must be to “space.”
DaveK
So Cohenite – there are no convective currents in a glasshouse? All the air inside is heated by conduction is it?
And how does the CO2 reference help, fascinating through dipole moments are?
Luke, the way they cool glasshouses is open the vents and convect outside with inside air. Obviously, heat flows around inside the enclosed building through convection currents, Doh. No one ever imagined that the air is heated conductively, except you.
The way they heat these glasshouses is to close the vents to end convection with outside air. Now can you move along with the real topic? An apology to Louis would be nice.
luke;
“Continuing the sequence, the confined greenhouse atmosphere is convectively heated through molecular collisions with hotter opaque surfaces; its composition is at least 99.95% by volume nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor and argon. Carbon dioxide, only about 0.035% of the trapped hot air, is insigificant in this role. Drivers of mobile greenhouses recognise this principle too, when they crack open windows of their parked vehicles to partially disable the trap. Any gas can convectively transfer heat, but no gas can possibly mimic greenhouse entrapment of hot air. A greenhouse-carbon dioxide analogy has no logical basis.”
What is it about this you don’t get?
I thought you were interested in double degeneracy?
Luke
I haven’t backed down at all – I am simply not playing your game of sematics. I could not care less how heat is distributed INSIDE a greenhouse.
But convection is not the method that energy/heat gets INTO a greenhouse.
No apology at all.
“….the increase in global temperature due to a doubling of carbon
dioxide is (0.27)(3.7) = 1 ◦ C.”
http://home.comcast.net/~eng95/Doubling_CO2.pdf
Does this paper add up?
Wes
Richard Lindzen stated that theoretically the doubling of CO2 is 1 degree Celsius, so I suspect the paper to which you refer follows Lindzen’s statement.
Wes; the paper seems to have the same defects as Arthur Smith’s critique of Gerlich’s paper; ie, averaged albedo and therefore emissivity; this is, IMO, a flaw which afflicts IPCC and AGW thinking; Kirchhoff, the Virial Theorem and conservation of energy operate at regional levels, which is why we have weather; to average their effects means that you cannot incorporate -ve feedbacks to warming or cooling; and what we are seeing in reality are feedbacks which can can counter energy imbalance and system asymmetries; to illustrate what can happen with estimates of forcing which try to average what should not be averaged one has only to look at the diversity of forcing estimates expressed as increases in temp based on the doubling of CO2;
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html
Lordy me – yes Wes I agree.
Cohenite in the context of a glasshouse I agree.
Sunlight enters the glasshouse, warms the surfaces and fittings. The surfaces and fittings conduct heat to the boundary layer next to them and convective eddies and convective cells warm the glasshouse air.
So convective currents warm the inside of the glasshouse.
The warmth is maintained as this closed system cannot convect that heat into the surrounding atmosphere.
Ever felt how hot the air is inside a glasshouse that’s closed?
Louis – you may not care but it’s MOST important.
An apology from all of you would be appropriate. Drongos. 🙂
“”….the increase in global temperature due to a doubling of carbon
dioxide is (0.27)(3.7) = 1 ◦ C.” ”
Enhanced greenhouse effect.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Good on ya, for that fair dinkum apology, Luke. I have a lot more respect for you now. You’ve got class.
Alan – “Ender, you’re a good example of ignorance masquerading as wit.”
Thank you – you people are so polite.
“If you can’t distinguish between molecular vibration (heat: transferable by conduction) and electromagnetic propagation (the earth’s only means of conveying energy to space), I certainly can’t help you. Here’s a clue, however: Vibrate a molecule and it emits EM. This EM can make another molecule vibrate. But the two things are not the same. Heat is not light. The earth cannot lose heat to space.”
So the Earth cannot radiate energy?
“”So where does the heat go?” you ask. I bet you also wonder why your lap disappears when you stand up. You haven’t got a clue. ”
You opened your post by stating that they Earth cannot lose heat to space and yet you then said that vibrating molecules emit EM which transfers the heat into space.
Perhaps you should clarify what you are saying before saying other people do not have a clue.
Hint – Stefan Boltzman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan-Boltzmann_law
“The real Earth does not have this “gray-body” property. The terrestrial albedo is such that about 30% of incident solar radiation is reflected back into space; taking the reduced energy from the sun into account and computing the temperature of a black-body radiator that would emit that much energy back into space yields an “effective temperature”, consistent with the definition of that concept, of about 255 K.[3] However, compared to the 30% reflection of the Sun’s energy, a much larger fraction of long-wave radiation from the surface of the earth is absorbed or reflected in the atmosphere instead of being radiated away, by greenhouse gases, namely water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane.[4][5] Since the emissivity (weighted more in the longer wavelengths where the Earth radiates), is reduced more than than the absorptivity (weighted more in the shorter wavelengths of the Sun’s radiation), the equilibrium temperature is higher than the simple black-body calculation estimates, not lower. As a result, the Earth’s actual average surface temperature is about 288 K, rather than 279 K. Global warming is an increase in this equilibrium temperature due to human-caused additions to the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
SJT; goodness me, Spencer Weart’s effort is still being wheeled out; Motl has fun with it;
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/06/realclimate-saturated-confusion.html
And his comments are even more to the point;
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lumidek/6529479513990054138
Ender; read my comment about the sins of averaging albedo and emissivity; in the real world equilibriums don’t increase.
cohenite – the comments are to the point.
“Spencer Weart here. For the record, I wrote my book on “The Discovery of Global Warming” without differential equations etc. so that ordinary people could read it. I hold a PhD in physics & astrophysics, and the graduate course I took in radiative transfer (which is what this is all about) was one of the most difficult ones I had to pass. It ain’t simple.
“in the real world equilibriums don’t increase.”
They don’t? So everything that is approx in balance never ever changes in response to outside changes? They just stay the same?
The interesting thing about the post here is that it entirely fails to address, or even mention, the main arguments in the realclimate.org essay. Pierrehumbert and I tried to explain things clearly, and I hope that readers will take a look and perhaps understand why the world is getting warmer. The warming, by the way, is exactly as predicted a quarter-century ago by several scientists, notably Jim Hansen, who did not gain but LOST government funding as a result of his public warnings.”
Opps mucked that post up – this is it
cohenite – the comments ARE to the point.
“Spencer Weart here. For the record, I wrote my book on “The Discovery of Global Warming” without differential equations etc. so that ordinary people could read it. I hold a PhD in physics & astrophysics, and the graduate course I took in radiative transfer (which is what this is all about) was one of the most difficult ones I had to pass. It ain’t simple.
The interesting thing about the post here is that it entirely fails to address, or even mention, the main arguments in the realclimate.org essay. Pierrehumbert and I tried to explain things clearly, and I hope that readers will take a look and perhaps understand why the world is getting warmer. The warming, by the way, is exactly as predicted a quarter-century ago by several scientists, notably Jim Hansen, who did not gain but LOST government funding as a result of his public warnings.”
“in the real world equilibriums don’t increase.”
They don’t? So everything that is approx in balance never ever changes in response to outside changes? They just stay the same?
ender; which equilibrium are we talking about; between earth and the universe; southern and northern hemisphere; MDB and Nth WA? The notion of ‘greenhouse’ requires an average temp so that people can be beat up by saying the average temp will increase if CO2 from man continues to increase; Weart has been rebutted because average temp is a myth, a fallacy, a statistical construct to hang other surreal model constructs on; how unreal it is is indicated by many things; I have referred to the multifarious estimates of CO2 forced temp increases; another is here;
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/average-temperature-vs-average.html
Motls compares the average value of the fourth power of temperature with the fourth power of the average temperature; but what is crucial to his analysis is that he incorporates regionalism, what he calls non-uniformities; the results show that compensatory mechanisms, -ve feedbacks, which are regionally based, compensate for variations of irradiance (the indicator of so-called ‘greenhouse’ flux), which are also regionally based; the lesson from this is that internal indices can change, but with constant solar imput, those indices will be counterbalanced; the extent of the counterbalance will reflect the extent of the change of the indice; increasing CO2 and other anthropogenic GH’s, is a minor change, so some reduction in RH, reactive halogen activity, cyanobacteria etc, will do the trick; of course if an indice the size of the volcanic eruptions which ended the Caroniferous period were to occur, some extra ice would be expected.
“compensate for variations of irradiance ” no they patently don’t…
I mean getting advice from a string physicist is about as good as getting advice from George Pell. In mean does his acid supplier design his web site too? Or is it a Balkans thing?
All Motl has made a case for in his post is a more detailed model called a …. “GCM” ooooo
ROTFL !
Yes, they patently do!
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/gavin-schmidt-corrects-for-enso-ipcc-projections-still-falsify/
Actually, luke, you miss the main point of Motls’ calculation of the difference between the average value of the 4th power of temp and the 4th power of the av. temp; this difference is 9W/m2; what is happening to that energy? If it were being absorbed and not emitted from the earth, Motls’s point of much greater temp increases would have occurred; they haven’t, as lucia shows; don’t you think that difference is a measure of the -ve feedbacks which you so blithely say patently can’t compensate?
MOPPING-UP THE LAST CRUMBS OF AN ANTIQUATED PARADIGM – CLIMATE NO CHANGE
Who will speak for science when the barbarian is already inside the gate?
Science today, that triumph of humanity over primitive superstition, that monument to the
evolutionary miracle of the human brain, is now being debased by barbarians.
The Church of green warming religions is very big in Christian Europe. Everyday anythings are now blamed on warming and reported uncritically by media. The dumbed-down, trumped-up science is the modern religious medicine used to mesmerise the masses. Institutionalised across the globe, politicians and activists of all persuasions, present their arguments in terms of what ‘the trumped-up science’ is telling them to do. The so called “world’s best thinkers” have grabbed and promoted this moral agenda emphasising sinful behaviour change over technological innovation – purchasing the absolution of carbon offsets for their sins.
Climate environmentalism is a political mission with a religious agenda, offering disciples the delicious prospect of being in the right and running things under the motherhood banner of saving the planet – very attractive to the young and fearful old. Activists demand the high moral ground, with an epitaph chanting “O Mother Earth… pardon me for trampling on you.” Any movement enforcing this degree of moral certitude is a sign of uncertain things to come.
The science of future climate is in its infancy and is multi-disciplinary, no one branch knows the whole story. The truth is – climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable and modellers don’t expect to do well. We are being asked to take irreversible actions today, to produce un-testable postulates for tomorrow, based on computer simulated predictions in excess of 100 years. Very iffy stuff! When the Western world became increasingly pessimistic about Man’s carbon footprint, science was hijacked to decode nature’s message. The more scientists research global climate, the more we learn how much they don’t know. The more alarmists talk, the more we realize they know even less.
We live on a majestically dynamic planet with intertwining complexes. Scenarios for future climate involve natural equations of infinite variables. Fluctuations in the Sun’s intensity is arguably the controlling factor in Earth’s climate. To assume human induced carbon emissions alone will significantly alter predictions is pretentious pseudo-science. Advocating carbon change will change the way you live, but will not change future climate. To accept the mantra of evil carbon is to invite the death of nationalism to dinner.
That’s the thing about history…when you live it, you’re rarely there. Real science is alive and lives in time. It is what it is. Not what it should have been or would have been. It is what it is. So enjoy the journey, because the destination may not be that great. Look at the best educated generation in history… all dressed up with nowhere to go. Superstition is the mantra of the day. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Science, that once esteemed bastion of knowledge and fertile pillar to truth, has been neutered into the floppy-dick instrument of global politics and vested activists. Not only does the censorship of science render it impotent, it also looses its ability to objectively inform the public, producing an atmosphere of deafness towards insight and freedoms. What is at risk is not the climate but freedom. Today we live in the most censored of times.
Is it not high time we entered a dialogue to awaken an audience to the enveloping clouds of non-news that invade our everyday? “Global warming” is only a vehicle that exemplifies part of the way the system works. It is the insidious procession of the erosion of human rights through the co-verted use of selective censorship, that we should be most interested in. Climate science is in the van-guard of such a procession.
The scientific method is not perfect but it does “sophisticate the superstition” and provides a method upon which to gauge progress and proximity of truth. The funnelling of science to deliver a prescribed outcome happens everywhere everyday. In the past, science has arguably aided well for prescribed beneficial outcomes. But the stakes are sky high and connived in the case of global warming. The western world is not going to cripple itself to iron-out injustice. The moral or philosophical question here is, does the end justify the means or the start of a slippery slope? The real question is, what will they pick on next using “science” to substantiate their stance?
Or as an and/or to -ve feedback, the 9W/m2 could be going the way of Miskolczi’s conservation of energy, Kirchhoff and Virial Theorem.
Eddy; your rhetoric ehoes The Forbidden Planet; mankind has one foot on the stars and the other in the primeval forest, quaking and baying at the moon; damn the id!
“The Church of green warming religions is very big in Christian Europe.”
Churches have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with faith. I only accept AGW because there is convincing scientific evidence for it.
Yes Cohenite – that’s why you use a GCM and not a few lines of Excel. You solve the problem formally and explicitly. Off you go now.
“Jim Peden also states “….[the] longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.””
It means between those opinions, it doesn’t add up. His only problem with G&T is they are longer winded.
“Jim Peden also states “….[the] longer winded dissertation by Gerlich & Tscheuschner and everything in between, it simply doesn’t add up.””
“It means between those opinions, it doesn’t add up. His only problem with G&T is they are longer winded.”
That is an illogical conclusion. To paraphrase: he states that G&T are longer-winded, but then he also says that despite reading across that spectrum of papers, he finds the CO2 argument does not add up. There is no logic to your assertion that Peden’s only problem with the paper is that it is long winded. How do you know that was his ONLY problem with the paper? You don’t, of course, but that wouldn’t fit in with your stance of vilifying anyone who questions AGW.
I am only an engineer but concur with Peden:
The motivation behind use of Beer-Lambert for calculation of GHG transfer functions is the pratfall opening to a comedy of errors.
The law was developed for estimating signal attenuation and reached its final form in 1852, before Maxwell, Planck, and modern physics. It is ‘electromagnetically’ naive.
Transmission and absorptance bear no explicit physical relation to emissivity and absorptivity of the medium. Using the optical depth of the atmosphere rather than finding the instananeous cross-section of the molecules is another opening face-plant:
Low temperature and pressure GHGs absorb weakly and share any energy not emitted instantaneously–as they do in signal’s transmission. So as before the average kinetic energy of the gas, the temperature, is the same and spontaneous emission does not occur. Kirchoff’s Law does not magically require CO2 to emit the energy it absorbed as the gas is not in thermal equilibrium.
So Beers fails to distinguish electromagnetically between absorption and emission.
The state change of water by means of convection controls atmospheric heat transfer. Evaporation sweeps up the heat at the surface and condensation deposits it high in the troposphere.
Okay, Ender, I’ll try again. Go for a walk on the South Pole in the dead of winter and you’ll encounter a cold substance persistently pressing on you at nearly 15 pounds per square inch. The substance making contact with you steals heats from your body unbearably fast. In other words, you are transferring heat to the air and this transfer is killing you. If earth were in a similar situation, there’d certainly be a need to isolate it from such a dramatic rate of heat-loss. But the earth is not in a similar situation. There is no substance pressed against it, there’s only a vacuum at 0 pounds per square inch that is incapable of absorbing heat. An object in a vacuum has only one means of cooling down, by radiating light. Since a vacuum can’t accelerate this process, the object retains its temperature for quite a long time — because no heat-transfer is possible, only radiation.
This is how a thermos sustains a temperature. It surrounds the contents with a vacuum. But the premise of greenhouse theory is that the earth needs to be isolated from the “cold” of a vacuum. It starts off with this misconception and proceeds from there, conjecturing that an atmosphere must act like a blanket and block the exit of heat to space. False assumption, false theory. Garbage in, garbage out.
Alan, you explained that well.
Ender better take a hat with you on that walk.
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/89606.html?bannertypeclick=miniWeather2&MR=1
“SJT; goodness me, Spencer Weart’s effort is still being wheeled out; Motl has fun with it;”
Motl has no idea, and completely ignores Weart’s argument, which is why the ‘painting the room’ argument doesn’t apply. He also ignores the fact that, despite the logarithmic reduction in effect, we are not at the top of that curve yet, and are well on the way to doubling the CO2 concentration.
How does Motl deal with this?
“Update: Ray Pierrehumbert has added Part II. It contains more physics but it is still largely non-quantitative. A relatively non-controversial description of these effects including facts about saturation is summarized by breathtaking statements that the saturation argument is “fallacious”. It’s like believers who are looking at the very same orbiting planets but who see, unlikely you, an old man – God – with long white hair. I just can’t understand how someone can be so entirely irrational about things that are as ordinary as the weather undoubtedly is. There are things in between Earth and the Heaven and the troposphere is apparently one of them. :-)”
He appeals to emotions. Good one, Motl. Deride them for explaining complex issues in a way that even I can finally start to understand, then rebut it with completely empty waffle.
SJT: “He appeals to emotions. Good one, Motl.”
It’s a valid appeal to humour. You don’t expect anyone to take RobesPierre Humbert’s rebuttal of a strawman argument seriously do you?
Gary and Alan; fine posts.
Gary; I wonder wether you could clarify something? You say;
“So as before the average kinetic energy of the gas, the temperature, is the same and spontaneous emission does not occur. Kirchhoff’s Law does not magically require CO2 to emit the energy it absorbed as the gas is not in thermal equlibrium.”
When the kinetic energy, temp, and the potential energy of the ascending body of gas, are combined does not Kirchhoff require that that body of gas be in thermal equilibrium with other gas layers of the atmosphere? Jan Pompe recently linked a nice graph showing this at;
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/gpiracerx/PettyFig8-2.jpg
But the useful thing now seems to have disappeared, unfortunately.
Alan – Lets return to the 3 methods of transferring energy – conduction convection and radiation.
http://www.mansfieldct.org/schools/MMS/staff/hand/convcondrad.htm
Convection.
“The substance making contact with you steals heats from your body unbearably fast.”
Conduction.
“But the earth is not in a similar situation. There is no substance pressed against it, there’s only a vacuum at 0 pounds per square inch that is incapable of absorbing heat.”
The molecules of the atmosphere conduct the energy from the surface to the top of the atmosphere.
Radiation
“An object in a vacuum has only one means of cooling down, by radiating light. Since a vacuum can’t accelerate this process, the object retains its temperature for quite a long time — because no heat-transfer is possible, only radiation.”
All of which conspire to keep the energy received from the sun in balance with the energy radiated by the Earth.
Greenhouse gases such as water vapour and CO2 intercept some of the outgoing energy which the Earth has to compensate for by heating up and radiating more energy from the TOA. That is why the observed value for the global average temperature is some 33deg above the calculated black body temperature because the Earth because of albedo and the ocean/atmosphere is not a black body.
Please read the attached link as you seem to have a tenuous grip on the concepts of energy.
Gary & cohenite
Kirchoff’s law doesn’t require the gas to emit the energy it absorbed *if* it is not in equilibrium.
Sad thing is Kirchoff’s law can only be shown to hold true for black bodies which is a trivial case anyway. Mostly when Kirchoff’s law is cited what is really meant by it is Stewart’s law or Stewart’s formulation of Kirchoff’s law which states essentially that bodies in thermal equilibrium are in also in radiative equilibrium.
Jan; I can see I’m going to have to give up my day job and do this full time; Stewart’s Law states that when an object is studied in thermal equilibrium, its absorption is equal to its emission;
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0805/0805.1625.pdf
Paras 3., 3.1.1 and 3.2 are instructive as they deal with carbon and soot; so, if earth was in thermal eqilibrium when AGW began, it cannot be removed from equilibrium by virtue of internal processes of absorption and emission.
Cohenite: “Stewart’s Law states that when an object is studied in thermal equilibrium, its absorption is equal to its emission;”
Thanks I’ve read the paper. if it’s absorption is equal to it’s emission it’s in radiative equilibrium. It’s just common sense.
cohenite:
Attempting, with my tenuous grasp, to describe further:
The black body has a characteristic curve of emission dependent only on its temperature.
Solids, particularly Kirchoff’s plane solids, are analogous but at reduced emissivities=absorptivities as the kinetic energy is transiting their lattice and is ‘immediately’ available for emission.
The dimensionless constants e=a are also related to the time required to emit or absorb.
Their frequency/wavelength curve is of modified shape and displaced toward higher temperatures as their e=a falls.
Gases e=a are dependent on the pressure and temperature, requiring a different graph against temperature for each pressure.
It is only at high pressures and temperatures, e.g., the solar surface that the black body analogy for gases becomes congruent to reality.
At 1Atm, 350ppm and 25 degrees C the e=a constant for CO2 is 9*10^-4, a very small value in comparison to green leaves at 0.94.
The fluence through any cube of air within the first few 100 m of the ground (at night) would then be a resultant vector overwhelmingly outward bound.
If Kirchoff’s law applied, and all the radiative flux into the cube were matched by that leaving the space, all of the resulting vector remains outward bound simply accounting for probability.
But we know that a vanishingly small portion remains in the cube because the temperature rises. Therefore the atmosphere is not in thermal equilibrium.
This energy is available for random emission, for conduction or if the ‘cube’ is warmer or cooler than surrounding cubes, for convection.
Gary; I’m running faster and staying in the same place; you cover Wien, SB and Planck as they apply to emission and absorption; I know you’re not keen on Beer and I link elsewhere to a paper from a fellow engineer, Michael Hammer, who uses Beer to critique IPCC forcing figures for a doubling of CO2, so I’ll leave him out of this. The key is;
“The dimensionless constants e=a are also related to the time required to emit or absorb.”
The guts of AGW is that at atmospheric pressure, the half-life of CO2’s excited state is many times the length of time between collisions; there is no chance that the absorption will be saturated because the rate of excitation due to thermal radiation is many orders of magnitude slower than the rate of collisional deexcitation; there will always be CO2 available to absorb because of this rate differential, which is compounded by additional CO2. Jan offered a solution to this in a recent exchange with serial antagonist, eli; the solution was a thermal equilibrium between layers of CO2 by virtue of potential energy caused by the warmed air rising, and compensating for the higher temp of non-opaque, clear windows. Jan had some neat diagrams, but this one is no longer there;
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/gpiracerx/PettyFig8-2.jpg
Where has it gone Jan?
Stewart’s Law seems to offer another solution to AGW’s heat trap, but we always seem to come back to the retained heat, “vanishingly small”, ender’s greenhouse. Jim Peden offers his solution to this by observing that if the sun switched off for 96 hours the earth would be frozen but the oceans would still be ‘warm’; that sounds nice; when I was a surfer, night-surfing was always a thrill; with no moon-light though, I better wear a miner’s helmet.
cohenite:
Is failure to ‘saturate’ a problem?
CO2’s emissivity doesn’t change with increasing concentration, staying about 1/2 that of H2O with varying temperature. At 600 degrees C it has risen to 0.07, H2O 0.14.
Unless the CO2 emits instantly as part of a wavefront it will lose its energy via conduction. After absorption, it can rapidly absorb at the same wavelength again, but does not retain the energy long enough to emit.
CO2’s random emission remains.
“The motivation behind use of Beer-Lambert for calculation of GHG transfer functions is the pratfall opening to a comedy of errors.
The law was developed for estimating signal attenuation and reached its final form in 1852, before Maxwell, Planck, and modern physics. It is ‘electromagnetically’ naive.”
Who said the IPCC was?
AGW says if a layer of CO2 is not saturated it retains the ability to absorb and is opaque to IR; increasing CO2 adds to the absorbance sensitivity of that layer; we have discussed a few of the mitigating factors to that scenario; decreasing relative humidity is another; with less vapor the CO2 opaqueness becomes relatively minor in the atmosphere as there is more clear windows for the IR to pass through; alternatively, if the opaque layer warming causes vapor to rise and condense, then increased cloud albedo becomes a negative feedback, as does rain scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is a game of chess.
cohenite: “Where has it gone Jan?”
DeWitt who had it posted in photobucket appears to have closed his account. i have saved it on my hard drive though I’m wondering if he ran into copyright issues.
It is here too but it may not last either
http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=268#p5125
“; increasing CO2 adds to the absorbance sensitivity of that layer;”
It does this by pressure broadening after about 220 ppm (when Beer’s law starts to break down) so it absorbs more by absorbing over a wider bandwidth the process is symetrical the pressure broadening also widens the emission band, so if increasing concentration increases absorption it increases emission.
“This is a game of chess.”
A zero sum game!!!
For all you IPCC fans I suggest you read this article. http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm?renderforprint=1
If math is not to your liking skip down to the conclusion. The paragraph prior to the conclusion says “On this brief analysis, it seems that no great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be “policy-relevant”. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate “global warming”, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.
For all you IPCC fans I suggest you read this article. http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm?renderforprint=1
If math is not to your liking skip down to the conclusion. The paragraph prior to the conclusion says “On this brief analysis, it seems that no great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be “policy-relevant”. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate “global warming”, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.
For all you IPCC fans I suggest you read this article. http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm?renderforprint=1
If math is not to your liking skip down to the conclusion. The paragraph prior to the conclusion says “On this brief analysis, it seems that no great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be “policy-relevant”. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate “global warming”, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.
Sorry about the triple post. I was getting an internal server error but the posts appear to have happened regardless.
No worries charlie98, 3 x shite still just equals shite.
cohenite “Where is it?”
here
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/gplracerx/PettyFig8-2.jpg
there was an error in your link (I decided to actually look for it this morning.
My intuition would diverge from Mislozci; I don’t believe increase in CO2 between 330 and 450ppm will negatively effect H2O vapor concentrations. It’s simply too minor an influence, but the feedback would be negative in this range. Sorry if this is not especially helpful.
Gary: “My intuition would diverge from Mislozci;”
Intuition is not always reliable
here specific humidity charts for mid to high troposphere
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/JanPompe/spechum.jpg
charted from data obtained here
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Timeseries/timeseries1.pl
the chart shows general decline of specific humidity since 1950.
Data prior to 1980 is not considered reliable.