“The water vapor (from evaporation) produces the positive feedback warming (yes water vapor is a GHG; the most important one); and the subsequent cloud formation; (liquid and solid water), produces the negative feedback cooling via albedo enhancement, and ground level solar blocking. The combined effects of evaporation and precipitation (which must balance over time), maintain the cloud level that supports the earth’s mean temperature range. Most of the heat the ocean is transferring to the atmosphere is due to evaporation, which cools the ocean slightly and increases the water vapor in the atmosphere. Then when the water vapor condenses to rain, it gives up that heat to the atmosphere.”

We can only add that the air temperature transients are faster as the thermal mass in the air is small compared to the thermal mass in the oceans.

Then there is that final other portion that doesn’t get past the surface “skin” that is involved in evaporation. Well the UV part of the spectrum is already highly attenuated before it reaches the surface, and yes it is absorbed relatively quickly, but the part of the spectrum that contains 99% of the ground level insolation penetrates readily into the se water; so in fact the bulk of the ocean incident solar energy IS captured in the ocean and converted to heat content of the ocean’s upper layers

Interesting read George….if I am reading you correctly you are describing a part of the UV spectrum, if so would you happen to know what part of the UV spectrum is doing all the “work” ?

Geoff Sharp (04:54:51)

I tried to get at that point a while back but the replies were unhelpful. Either I was failing to get the point across or there was ‘avoidance’.

We all know that total TSI varies very little.

Of the TSI a lot gets reflected in the air or obstructed before it gets to the ocean surface. Of the portion that gets to the ocean surface much is reflected by the ocean surface and another portion fails to get past the region involved in evaporation.

Only a tiny portion of TSI actually gets deeply enough into the ocean to make any difference to ocean energy content and some wavelengths are more successful than others.

If one identifies the tiny proportion of the limited number of specific wavelengths that are able to affect ocean energy content we must find that it is only a tiny part of TSI. “”"

I have no idea who wrote the above; or if it is joint authorship. If someone is citing someone else’s posting; it can be helpful to use some delimiter to identify who wrote what. In ordinary English Grammar that is often accomplished by using quotation marks (S/he said this” phooey !”)

I use this “”" Phooey ! “”" just to make it plainly obvious.

But as to the above writings by whomever; the observations are quite false.

First off, starting from a solar “constant” value of about 1366 W/m^2 in the mean earth orbit; by the time it reaches the surface it is about 1000 W/m^2, and that is for cloudless skies; so perhaps 25% is absorbed my the atmosphere (or scattered), and maybe 20% is due to water vapor, in the 750nm-4.0 micron region of the solar spectrum. So I wouldn’t call 25% “a lot”
Then there is this statement:- “”" Of the portion that gets to the ocean surface much is reflected by the ocean surface and another portion fails to get past the region involved in evaporation. “”"

This is wrong on both counts. Water has a solar spectrum diffuse reflection coefficient of about 3%; it is only 2% for normal incidence. nobody would call 3% reflectance loss “much”.
Then there is that final other portion that doesn’t get past the surface “skin” that is involved in evaporation. Well the UV part of the spectrum is already highly attenuated before it reaches the surface, and yes it is absorbed relatively quickly, but the part of the spectrum that contains 99% of the ground level insolation penetrates readily into the se water; so in fact the bulk of the ocean incident solar energy IS captured in the ocean and converted to heat content of the ocean’s upper layers.

The very strong surface (skin) absorption of the ocean is reserved for the long wave IR emissions from the atmosphere (or clouds).

So it is quite incorrect to depict the oceans as the repository for only a small amount of the solar energy incident on the earth’s surface; they in fact collect most of it.

George

This suggests the discovery of a new weather/climate phenomenon, where more precipitation results from less clouds.

If increased amounts of moisture are transported to the equator (where it is presumably hotter) that would seem to argue for more moisture retention in the atmosphere, so less prcipitation.
I would expect that the more precipitation; which results from more evaporation caused by increased mean global surface temperature (see Wentz et al July-7 2007 SCIENCE), would occur at cooler latitiudes; or alternatively at higher altitudes ove land; the monsoons for example.

I do agree with the part that increased precipitation will dissipate the rain bearing clouds, and let more solar energy reach the surface, so that it warms again to yeild more evaporation. But that is the negative feedback cooling part of the water cycle that maintains earth’s temperature range.
The water vapor (from evaporation) produces the positive feedback warming (yes water vapor is a GHG; the most important one); and the subsequent cloud formation; (liquid and solid water), produces the negative feedback cooling via albedo enhancement, and ground level solar blocking. The combined effects of evaporation and precipitation (which must balance over time), maintain the cloud level that supports the earth’s mean temperature range. CO2 just watches from the sidelines.

George

Louis Hissink (04:18:47) :

following on from my previous, assume the Earth as a leaky capacitor, in circuit with the Sun and Solar System, think about Faraday motors, Plasma, and you should find enough tools to explain things differently to that of our Victorian predecessors who only knew of gravity.

Sounds great. Any coherent theories on offer?

———

I am not an acquaintance of Louis Hissink, but I do follow his blog:http://geoplasma.spaces.live.com/

Pertinent to this discussion would be “Global Warming in a Climate of Ignorance” here:

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=aapprbh6

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

Zeke the Sneak

Mean temperature is very tightly constrained by Stefan-Boltzmann/Kirchhoff to a quite precise relationship with the sun’s effective temperature . Climate is complex chaotic engine constantly driving to satisfy that balance . From the perspective of mean temperature the details of how climate gets the job done is no more necessary to understand than the particular paths of molecules in a gas are to it’s mean temperature .

I get the impression that many of the climate models fail to connect themselves to the SB/K constraints . Until that is done , and done correctly ( incorrect statements of SB/K abound ) it will be impossible to claim any science is settled .

“What Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga were doing was stylistically different, but it was all “fundamentally the same.””

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html

He also said about climate models,

“The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world we live in.”

He is probably right.

I think several of my ideas meet both observations and the basic physics better than the current models. Even the couple ocean/atmosphere ones.

The critical observation behind everything I say is that the air circulation systems always move latitudinally after the oceanic phase change at 25 to 30 year intervals.

So far I seem to be the only person treating both phenomena as part of a single process and trying to explore the logical implications of that.

I have found that those logical implications fit very well with what we actually observe throughout the climate system.

I suspect that there may be some good physics in your flywheel analogy. First a flywheel has two types of energy, potential (P= mgh) and kinetic (K=½ mv²), and energy dissipation due to friction with air which may be either laminar or turbulent. Second, there is a beautiful analogy with both a thermal system and an electrical RLC circuit. Finally the thermal analogy of your flywheel covers the nifty fact that the oceans may be modelled as a system with a large thermal mass and the air as a system with a small thermal mass. [This is more than an analogy!] What is fascinating is that although the different analogies are completely different, the understanding and the equations are nearly the same.

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/08/global-cooling-has-begun-bob-foster/

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/08/sunspots-just-part-of-the-story-fred-singer/

Of course not. I was pointing out that the statement by the article that UV varies 5-8% is incorrect. The variation of UV can be no larger than (total variation of TSI = 1.5 W/m2)/(amount of UV=105 W/m2) = 1.5/105 = 1.5% and is actually less as some of the total variation is not in the UV.

OK, thanks Leif. The differing ways that we use English sometimes makes it difficult to identify a hypothetical statement versus a factual one. I had interpreted your statement regarding 8 W/m^2 as factual when you meant it to be hypothetical.

However I suspect it is the oceanic flywheel that is responsible for driving climate by altering the rate of energy release to the air then the air circulation flywheel acts very quickly to negate or minimise the oceanic effects.

The size of the oceanic flywheel also explains why solar variability is insufficient to drive climate changes on it’s own except over long time scales. The smallness of solar variability extends such time scales even more.

So, the ocean flywheel would prevent rapid climate changes from solar variability except that the solar variability is so small that that function of the oceans is hardly needed.

However the power of the ocean flywheel is two edged. Small changes in the oceans seem to produce changes in the rate of energy emission to the air which then cause the small air flywheel to respond very quickly just as we see in the way the air circulation systems all shift latitudinally in response to oceanic phase shifts at 25 to 30 year intervals.

I really don’t see why it is a problem for some to accept that all the global air temperature changes we have observed can be accounted for by oceanic behaviour.

There need be no significant change in the temperature of the planet if energy is just being shunted at differing rates between the two main components of water and air.

Thus we can obtain the climate changes we observe without any need to postulate a direct link with solar variability.

It is the physical properties of the oceans and air which dictates the size of any oscillations within the system. Not necessarily anything to do with the sun at all except for the provision of the initial energy content and the setting up of a long term background trend.