The "f" in Lindzen/Choi is an equilibrium factor and NOT a dynamic feedback-loop factor.

They do make the point that as f approaches 1 the "relative" (as opposed to "absolute") stability of the system becomes pretty low — intuitively this does seem less realistic for a life-sustaining atmosphere as old as Earth's.

The underlying system dynamics are only crudely discussed in the text of the paper, strictly in terms of the various time responses that are assumed in order to justify the validity of the atmospheric response measurements. These largely seem to rely on earlier work of their (i.e. Lindzen's and Choi's) own earlier work. They have nothing to do with "f", and indeed if "f" were part of a dynamic feedback system then the system would have to include dynamics/delays (described by differential equations with respect to time, since it takes time for energy transfers to take place).

Before reading the paper, I myself was confused by the discussion of a "positive" feedback factor, assuming this referred to an overall dynamic system feedback rather than an equilibrium-equations factor.
The final graph/curve of the paper shows that the IPCC models fall pretty closely to the curve described the simplified equilibrium equation dT= dTo / (1 – f). This implies that the models can be reasonably well approximated or described in this way, although some clearly incorporate small deviations from the simple equation.

Any criticism of the paper's quantitative conclusions will have to rely upon verifiable invalidation of the underlying assumptions and/or the measurement methods (in the form of a published paper). It seems to be implied (by Lindzen/Choi) that the IPCC models, in terms of feedback, are based purely upon theoretical hypotheses and/or model-tuning (the latter being essentially fraudulent if not done transparently).

I cringe when looking at that KT09 paper and those graphs made up from imitating it. They imply accuracies for incoming solar, outgoing solar and albedo are known to 0.1 accuracy. Albedo is known to vary and that affects the outgoing. They have chosen a very low value for albedo as compared with practically all measurement studies, just under 0.3. There is debate on whether the SORCE satellite at 1361 is correct or previous satellites at 1367W/m^2 have the correct value. Averaged, that’s over 1, not 0.1 W/m^2 uncertainty. From this they deduce there’s a 0.9 W/m^2 imbalance in the overall budget, like a rabbit out of the hat. It’s not statistically significant beyond 0 for their uncertainties which must be greater than 1W/m^2 based upon incoming alone and considering the variations in albedo, it’s a lot more than that.

As for their cartoon, the numbers are in the ballpark. I think they are high in incoming absorption and low in cloud albedo. Differences between kt09 and kt97 all seem to be in the same direction – that direction is the same as the promoted view points. The segegration between power flowing from the surface and reradiation is neither relevent nor clear in understanding. Radiative transfer is radiative transfer and emission is simply a part of that. Do you think a photon or sensor exiting the atmosphere cares if it was emitted at 30,000 ft or at the surface or that one could ever distinguish between origin?

(1) All values are not known or measurable to perfect precision, so yes, there will be some variability in the values. The ability to measure the various radiative fluxes from satellites is getting better all the time. In particular, the link you gave here http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/radiation_facts.html seems to be to an older chart than the one from Kiehl & Trenberth (in fact, I found it on one page dated 1998). I think http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php is also newer but I am not exactly sure.

(2) You are not correctly reading some of the charts. For example in reference to http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/radiation_facts.html , you say “If earth had to radiate all the heat it received, then 51% should be the radiation that leaves the earth’s surface”. In fact that is what the chart shows. 23% leaves via water vapor, 7% via conduction and rising air, and 21% (net) via radiation (of this 21%, 6% is radiated directly out into space and 15% is “radiation absorbed by the atmosphere” that is subsequently emitted into space). [I know that diagram is a little confusing in regards to the 15% because they didn't put a directional arrow meaning that it could mistakenly be seen as an extension of the "absorbed by atmosphere" component of the incoming solar energy...but it's not.] Another thing to note is that this diagram is a bit different in how it breaks things down than the one from Kiehl and Trenberth in that it only shows the NET flow of thermal radiation from earth to atmosphere whereas Kiehl and Trenberth break it down into the amount that the gross amount that the earth emits and then the amount that the atmosphere emits that goes back to the Earth.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php

shows 6% reflected by the surface

whilst this:

http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/radiation_facts.html

shows 4% reflected by the surface.

these equations are made up according to context and are all different scores from the same institution.

these anomalies could all be cleared if the measurement was the actual radiation that earth gives at its average temperature 0f 59F

http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif

shows 51% absorbed by land and oceans. 41% radiation from the surface and 64% from the atmosphere

If earth had to radiate all the heat it received, then 51% should be the radiation that leaves the earth’s surface

25% of incoming solar radiation leaves the surface as evaporation according to NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php

What I dispute is that incoming radiation has to balance outgoing radiation as though thermal energy were a mechanical fixed constant.

The same for the production of human heat, which is its own generator. Why are these values measured more than a 1/4 of terrestrial matter which is much cooler?

As for sunlight, TOA, it’s about 341w/m^2 but only about 266 W/m^2 ever reach the surface on overall average, excluding incoming absorption.

To try to use radiative theory while ignoring ‘re-radiation’ is something unrelated to anything. The 70% is clear sky transmission which amounts to around 270W/m^2 outgoing radiation. You’ll note that this is way too much for current balance – based upon around 235 W/m^2 average incoming after clouds and atmospheric albedo has removed its portion from the total 341 w/m^2 incoming. You should also note that this is also not nearly enough for a planet with no cloud cover to balance if one had an average of 341 w/m^2 coming in and an albedo of only 0.08 which is the total surface albedo.

Whether it was mentioned or not, your 60% number is referring to the overall average composed of about 40% clear skies and 60% cloudy (with some sort of averaged cloud effect value). Cloudy skies emits power from well into the troposphere where temperature and hence power is somewhat lower – less than 235w/m^2 and the weighted average is what must balance.

This is not related directly to albedo, it’s simply happens to be a similar value. You’ll note it doesn’t actually provide balance but rather provides balance only by the combination of clear and cloudy sky fractions and clear and cloudy sky emissions. Clear sky emissions from the surface, cloudy sky emissions are essentially done from cloud tops.

thats odd, as NASA’s energy flowchart says that 25% leaves as evaporation.

25% of what? The 80 W/m^2 that leaves by evapotranspiration represents ~16% of the energy that leaves the earth’s surface. However, it represents about 23-24% of the energy that is incident from the sun at the top of the atmosphere.

Before the AGW theory was concocted, it was known that most heat leaves by convection.

Well, since the AGW theory in some form has been around since at least Arrhenius around 1900, God knows what people thought on overall earth energy balance before it. However, the quote that you give was apparently lifted from this site: http://nov55.com/41r.html which is by some crank who calls himself an “independent scientist” and who doesn’t even believe in relativity ( http://nov55.com/eins.html ). His claims about clear skies indicating convection whereas overcast indicates stability is pretty close to being backwards! (The real truth is probably more complicated than any simplistic statement like this but, as a general rule, clouds are associated with convection and clear skies indicate a relatively stable atmosphere.) Why do you go around trolling for garbage on the internet and then accept it as gospel? Is that what being a “skeptic” means to you?

“It is common knowledge that nights cool down a lot more when the sky is clear than when there is an overcast. There is a tendency to assume that the overcast absorbs infrared radiation from the surface of the earth holding in heat. it is convection, not radiation, that accounts for the overcast holding in heat.

An overcast means there are stable layers, and convection is not occurring. A clear sky means convection is occurring. Since the earth is warmer near the surface, there is always a lot of convection unless blocked by layering of air masses.”

I guess it all depends on what acounting procedures are used

*real* measurements of radiation!

please link to them

You do need to be careful using the term ‘adjusted’. Apparently, you mean a temperature equilibrium condition has been reached. In climate science, ‘adjusted’ has degenerated into being a synonym of ‘fudged’.

The term “adjusted radiative forcing” is the standard terminology. See, for example, http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11175 for a lot more discussion on radiative forcings (which I have only briefly glanced at myself).

Your comment to surface radiation escaping being 17% doesn’t ring right although I don’t distinguish between what would be called re-emission and the original surface emission as radiative transfer is radiative transfer. What I find is that 70% of the power amount emitted at the surface makes it to the 70km mark.

Yes…I was talking about original surface emission that has escaped from through the atmosphere without being absorbed at all. If you look at Kiehl and Trenberth’s diagram ( http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/Atmosphere/images/radiation_budget_kiehl_trenberth_2008_big.jpg ), you see that about 60% of the surface radiation eventually makes it out of the atmosphere when one includes absorption and re-emission within the atmosphere. I am not sure where you are getting 70% from; it is true that this escaping IR radiation is ~70% of the incoming solar radiation (although, since we have radiative balance to a good approximation, this is really just equivalent to saying that the earth system’s albedo is ~30%).

P Wilson: I think it goes without saying that you continue to spout utter and complete nonsense here. The split in energy leaving the earth’s surface is that ~4% leaves via thermals, ~16% via evapotranspiration, and ~80% via radiation, as Kiehl and Trenberth’s diagram shows. And, it is simply wrong to claim that there is no observational evidence to support these numbers. There are lots of measurements of radiation…and even the evapotranspiration number can be obtained simply by knowing the latent heat associated with the phase change from liquid to vapor (and vice versa) along with the average amount of precipitation (or, equivalently, the average amount of evaporation) over the surface of the earth.

70%, 41% 17% radiation are all figures from different math flowcharts of energy budgets. Radiation from earth is calculated by adding the amount radiated into the atmosphere from earth to the amount radiated durectly into space then dividing it by the percentage reflected from earth and clouds to give 41% in the case of NASA’s flowchart.

These are math equations that don’t simulate what happens. In fact there are many wildly different math results for radiation according to different stories/simulations. If it were a real number it would be easy to measure by virtue of measurement of objective reality and we’d all be able to use it. Normal temperature matter at earth equilibrium doesn’t give off that much radiation. Its a figure generated to balance the mathbooks or energy budget ledger. 99% heat leaves by evaporation and convection – whilst that puts radiation at 1%, of this 1%, c02 intervenes with less than 8%, although most normal matter in equilibrium gives off little radiation anyway. It needs to be understood that the radiation something gives off is a function of its temperature and nothing else.