Unified Climate Theory May Confuse Cause and Effect

Ira says
The figure shows two cases involving a sealed, non-insulated container, with a Volume, V, of air:
(A) Store that container of air in the ambient cool Temperature Tr of a refrigerator. Then, increase the Number n of molecules in the container by pumping in more air. the Pressure (P) within the container will increase. Due to the work done to compress the air in the fixed volume container, the Temperature within the container will also increase from (Tr) to some higher value. But, please note, when we stop increasing n, both P and T in the container will stabilize. Then, as the container, warmed by the work we did compressing the air, radiates, conducts, and convects that heat to the cool interior of the refrigerator, the Temperature slowly decreases back to the original Tr.
Ira, the flaw of your analogy is that the atmosphere is not a sealed, closed system. “Packets” of air warmed at the surface rise, expand, and cool and then the process repeats as the “packets” descend, compress, and heat. This is a continuous, infinite process which can entirely account for the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ on the basis of the adiabatic lapse rate alone.

I strongly suspect your are both correct and both miss the mark at the same time. Both are dealing with or using, admittedly, highly oversimplified models. Models that were developed and designed for static or tending toward equilibrium conditions. Make no mistake the gas laws and everything else are just models. The atmospheric density and therefore pressure plus kinetic energy is real, the IR movement in and out is real. The atmosphere is a huge fluid system. Our understanding of fluid dynamics is another one of those closed system models that work very well, only when in that constraint. I think this discussion is valuable and important if for no other reasons then it illustrates or reminds us that we know far less then any of of think we do.

The core assertion is that the mass of the atmosphere varies, and this results in temperature change. Add 1 bar of CO2 to the atmosphere, or 1 bar of N2, and the results therefore should be the same. According to C. Jinan’s theory, however, the CO2-rich version would be cooler, as it radiates into space more readily. What say you?

Terrific Article.
Well well well It seems that the pseudo scientists at the IPCC are being schooled in the concept of cause and effect. At Last.
To demonstrate this I suggest a beer study.
Take 2 bottles of beer. Place one in a cold fridge and leave the other on the counter for an hour or 2.
Open the cold one. Notice it fizzes just a little bit. Only a little of the 2.75 vol/vol of CO2 comes off.
Open the warm one. Notice that it boils over onto your counter evolving much of the CO2 that used to be in solution.
(now drink both beers, waste is a tragedy)
As ocean temperatures increase, the solubility of CO2 decreases increasing the atmospheric concentration because the CO2 is coming out of the ocean. Warming causes CO2 rise. Not the other way around.
Because the so-called AGW scientists are busy out there perverting the discipline of science, we need more Ira Glicksteins to re-teach the ideal gas law (Boyle’s law), and the laws of partial pressures Dalton’s Law and Henry’s Law.
Don’t assume the advocates of AGW understand any of what Ira wrote. They are anti-science and militant social activists.

I endorse this post and deprecate the referenced post.

Some excellent points, and I think that this “Unified Climate Theory”, will be fairly quickly placed into the “hmmm…interesting” dustbin of quirky science sidebars. Your desire to see the so-called “Official Climate Team” put into its proper place belies the undercurrcent of thought shared of course by many skeptics, but I fear such desires shall go unfulfilled. Greenhouse gases warm the planet above a level it would otherwise be without them. The only issue is how much warming we can exspect from a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial levels, and the key area of uncertainty here is the full nature of feedbacks, slow and fast, and more specifically the role of clouds.

Yes, some good thoughts y Ira. I guess many readers mul over the basic ideas and have questions that need answers, and also comments that can be good or just red herrings. I n the “temporary” heat increase due to pressure, I wonder why Venus doesn’t seem to demonstrate the point and it’s high temperature never seems to dissipate.

Whatever the eventual merits of the Unified Theory proposed are shown to be, the figures A and B above are less than convincing criticism. Contrasting an uninsulated but leak proof container in the two senarios is bogus. it is obvious that had both been perfectly insulated as well as leak proof, the results would have been identical.

Humm?, you folk are way above my pay grade. Some questions and assertions. Our atmosphere has no container, like in the “B” experiment. It is the volume of matter compressed by gravity that appears to create the medium which responds to insolation. Therefore the more masss in the atmosphere, the denser the reactive volume of matter is. (Like fuel and oyegen in a car cylinder, but contained only by gravity)
A car that revs it engine increases its heat, true that, however it also increases its water and air cooling flow. Can the earth’s heat engine do the same thing? Sure some of the energy goes to heat, but some goes to a more rapid cooling through convection and evaporation, an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle. (A negative feedback if you will)

Climate is a system which has multiple positive and negative feedbacks with time lags. It is quite hard to separate causes and effects because causation might go to both directions like warming > moisture > clouds > cooling. Instead of simplified cause and effects we should have systems thinking. There are multiple simultaneous equations that work seamlessly together.
In physics we love simplicity and ignore minors factors and still get great theories to describe Nature. It would be great if we can explain the observations of the climate in our solar system by thermodynamics alone.

The word ‘energy’ is ambiguous. Your analysis turns on such an ambiguity. You quote Nikolov:
“NTE should not be confused with an actual energy, however, since it only defines the relative (fractional) increase of a planet’s surface temperature above that of a SPGB. Pressure by itself is not a source of energy! Instead, it enhances (amplifies) the energy supplied by an external source such as the Sun through density-dependent rates of molecular collision. This relative enhancement only manifests as an actual energy in the presence of external heating. [Emphasis added]”
Nikolov is trying to take account of the ambiguity but he does so clumsily. In comparing NTE with the energy from the Sun, he is careful to say that the former is not an actual energy while the latter is actual energy. This is correct, as I will explain.
In the Earth-Sun system of radiation balance, no energy is created on Earth. All energy comes from the Sun. This presents a problem. What is one to say when talking about energy that is created on Earth? But we do that all the time. We say that windmills create electrical energy and we know perfectly well what we mean. And we know that we are not talking about the Earth-Sun system of radiation balance. If we want to be technical we can present the equations (physical hypotheses) that explain how windmills create energy. Now our problem of ambiguity is solved. We can subscript our words and explain that ‘energy1’ takes its meaning from the physical hypotheses that explain the Earth-Sun system of radiative energy and that ‘energy2’ takes its meaning from the physical hypotheses which explain generation of electricity. Nikolov needs to do the same.
Nikolov should specify the physical hypotheses, in this case simple equations based on the Ideal Gas Law, and explain that when he claims that energy is created from atmospheric pressure he is referring to these physical hypotheses. Unfortunately, Nikolov’s set of physical hypotheses might not pan out as he had hoped, as Dr. Glickstein explained above. But someday someone just might come up with a set of physical hypotheses which explain how energy is created within Earth’s atmosphere and apart from any consideration having to do with the Earth-Sun system of radiative balance. When that happens, we must not make the error of citing the Earth-Sun system and criticizing them for misunderstanding the concept of energy.
Warmists insist that energy cannot be created on Earth. Anyone who says otherwise is criticized as misunderstanding physics. This authoritarian insistence on definitions, if taken seriously, rules out the possibility of any system of physical hypotheses which explain creation of energy in Earth’s atmosphere. Of course it also rules out creation of electrical energy on Earth, but they would be unwilling to discuss that matter.
The lesson here is that when someone asserts that energy is created in Earth’s atmosphere, and apologizes by calling it ‘energy2’, we should not be like the Warmists and jump down his throat. Instead, we should encourage him to explicate his set of physical hypotheses and ask if we find the meaning of “create energy” in those physical hypotheses. The physical hypotheses that make up a science are always the ultimate source of the meaning of terms in that science. The terms are never the source of meaning because terms are subject to ambiguity.

typo: “nuclear (fission) or fusion”

“Nevertheless, I congratulate Nikolov and Zeller for having the courage and tenacity to put this theory forward. Perhaps it will trigger some other alternative theory that will be more successful.”
What theory is needed and for what?
I believe it would nice and useful if we had a theory allowing us to predict habitable zones
for any star system. I think if Nikolov, Zeller, or anyone else wants to apply their theory, I would like their input on modeling at atmosphere of dwarf planet starship:
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Sky_dragon/index/
For purpose of climate policy it seems to me we enough knowledge.
We currently in a warm period. This warm period wasn’t caused by
human activity. The amount of warming caused by humans is insignificant
globally. Human activity does cause a significant amount warming
on local or regional basis. This is loosely called Urban Heat Island affect.
Human could not cause significant global warming or cooling, if they
were trying to do this. We lack the technology and wealth to cause
global warming or cooling by say 10 C. And probably unable to change
global temperature by a mere 1 C.
Due to our apparent incompetence we see ourselves in an automobile
as passenger traveling down a road-having no able to control the car,
and this causes backseat driverism.
If we can drive this car, we would not be panicking.
Fortunately, we don’t actually need to control global temperatures, but
if we did need to do this, we wouldn’t hire the current crop clowns attempting
to do this by amateur hour soapboxing.
To summarize the human species has been existing in ice age period lasting
million of years. Some theories suggest that this cold period “explains” how we
evolved as humans. But few deny we have been in this colder period for
millions of years, or that during this period there been shorter periods of
warming and cooling, which called glacial and interglacial periods.
A significant aspect involved with this cold period and it’s cyclical cooling
and warming is explainable due to the location of land masses. The slow
movement of plate tectonic relates to the millions of years of colder climate.
The short cycles are related to orbital variation- specifically earth’s axis
procession. Those affects due to plate tectonic and procession are not
wild ideas, rather they are accepted. The amount or scale of these affects
can be quibbled about, but there general dominates is undeniable scientific
facts. And one has to start with these as one’s starting point.
A very relevant fact in regard to 20th and 21st century climate is we recovering
from cool period which was probably caused by the Sun’s activity, period
is called the Little Ice Age. The LIA is clearly marked by advancement and retreat
of glaciers around the world. And generally the present global temperatures
indicate we have or nearly have recovered globally from this period of cooler
temperatures.

I think that Ira has misunderstood. The cause of the heating at the surface is gravity constraining molecular kinetic energy most strongly at the bottom of the atmospheric column by creating pressure. Work is done and heat generated due to the kinetic energy fighting to overcome the gravitational and pressure constraint.
Pressure is a consequence of gravity acting on the mass of molecules and at a specific temperature the kinetic energy manages to defeat the pressure constraint and escape to space.
Adding GHGs inroduces more kinetic energy by virtue of their higher thermal capacity but if the pressure remains the same that extra kinetic energy just escapes to space faster and temperature (or rather the energy content of the mass of molecules) fails to increase.
To put that in a more general context:
i) AGW theory states that the greenhouse effect is caused by gases in the air with a high thermal capacity warming the surface by radiating energy downwards.
ii) The Nikolov paper describes the greenhouse effect in the way I have always understood it i.e. ALL the molecules near the surface (of whatever thermal capacity) jostle more tightly together under the influence of gravity (and the pressure that it induces) and share kinetic activity (provoked initially by solar irradiation but actually being a consequence of all energy transfer mechanisms combined) amongst one another until that kinetic energy can escape to space by radiative means albeit slightly delayed by all the jostling about.The delay results in a temperature rise because more energy is packed into a smaller space by the effects of gravity and the consequent pressure.
The beauty of ii) is that it decouples the greenhouse effect from the matter of composition leaving atmospheric density as the controlling factor at any given level of solar irradiation. It is the matter of composition that so distresses AGW proponents but in fact it is irrelevant. ALL molecules at or near the surface are involved whether they be GHGs or not.
There has been some confusion caused by Harry Huffman, Claes Johnson and others by virtue of their contention that there is no greenhouse effect when actually they mean that i) above is untrue whilst they accept ii) to be true (I think).
So there is a greenhouse effect but it is not significantly affected by GHGs. In so far as GHGs do have an effect it is negated by faster removal of energy to space by various means (especially evaporation on a water planet) because pressure places a limit on the amount of kinetic energy that can be retained by gases at the surface and as soon as that limit is reached the excess energy immediately leaves the system by whatever means is most readily available.
.

Sorry, but the suggested logic: Accident >>CAUSES>> Traffic Jam >>CAUSES>> Police is the correct interpretation, is manifestly inadequate.
Accident >> causes >> traffic Jam A, which traffic jam has theoretical life cycle of its own.
Accident >> causes >> taffic jam A, Plus Police >> causes >> traffic jam B, which traffic jam has a unique life cycle all of its own and which may be radically different (the police certainly hope so!) than traffic jam A.
Love the WUWT blog, but have to rush off for a cold beer, as it has finally warmed a little in Sydney!!
Oh, Happy New Year everyone,
The Bear

The Poles have higher airpressure than the equator.

Ira Glickstein,
I read the “UCT” by Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller in terms of a scientific paper explaining long term climatic events not as an explanation of any sort of correlations. As temperature is of consequence incurred between the processes of pressure interactions not as cause or effect, remove the result from the process and the process will still be there, I’m not saying your interpretation is wrong, I understand what your explaining and I agree, just that any measurement (such as temperature) of an on going process does not explain the process, I’d like to see less use of “temperature” in scientific papers as a cause or effect or as part of a conclusion because it is after all just a temporary aperture from the start and end point of measurement, also temperature measurements could be then used as an indicator, but only once a process is understood, but I still believe temperature can not be used an indicator for trends in long term climatic changes as it would be like trying to count all the hairs on a persons head by plucking a random amount at a time, counting them and trending the amount of hairs.
I’m a bit rushed this morning, very interesting, lots of ideas and counter debate that I could read for hours.

Dr. Glickstein – you state that the average temperature of the moon is 250 degrees absolute.
Dr. Nikolov and Dr. Zeller – you state that it is 150 degrees absolute.
Which is correct?

I am puzzled by the debate here about ‘creation’ of energy within the Earth system.
Surely it is obvious that when solar irradiation reacts with matter constrained within the Earth’s gravitational field there will be a conversion of some of that solar irradiation to kinetic energy (vibrational movement of the molecules) and some of that energy to heat.?
The proportions are pressure dependent.
In the absence of gravitationally induced pressure ALL the solar irradiance would get converted to kinetic energy instantly and the molecules would fly off into space.
The higher the gravitationally induced pressure the more kinetic energy is required to break the gravitational bond between the body of the Earth and the molecules of gas.Thus one observes more heat as evidenced by a higher temperature.
At Earth’s atmospheric pressure of 1 bar some goes to kinetic energy and some to heat and it is that atmospheric pressure which determines the proportions. That isn’t ‘creation’ of heat or of ‘new’ energy. It is simply an apportionment of the solar irradiation into different forms dependent on the prevailing level of gravitationally induced pressure.
That is the true greenhouse effect as I have always understood it and it is therefore pressure dependent and not composition dependent.
If the gas molecules have a higher thermal capacity then those specific molecules will accrue more kinetic energy than others and add disproportionately to the pool of kinetic energy that is available to defeat the gravitationally induced pressure which is restraining their exit to space.
However if pressure does not change then the only outcome will be more radiation to space and NOT a rise in system energy content.That increased radiation to space is achieved by energising ALL the available means of energy transfer namely conduction, convection, radiation and on a water planet the phase changes of water which greatly accelerates the efficiency of the other energy transfer mechanisms.
As Nikolov says, the effects of GHGs are thus cancelled out.
One does however observe that faster outflow of energy from the watery Earth due to GHGs in the form of a larger or faster water cycle which brings me to my broader work available elsewhere.
Nonetheless that faster outflow of energy from more GHGs is infinitesimal compared to the consequences of solar and oceanic variability as I have explained in detail previously.

Dr. Glickstein – when a gas is heated, it tends to rise.
Gravity exerts a counter force, trying to pull it down.
In so rising, work is done.
The temperature of the gas increases.
As the gas rises, it has more room, as each succeding layer of the atmosphere has a larger dimaeter.
An expanding gas gives up heat.
Half of this is radiated out to space, half reflected back down (to simplify).
The cooled air declines and is replaced by warmer air which in turn etc etc.
Is this not why the atmosphere is warmer nearer the surface than higher up.
The circulation is a perpetual motion maching, fuelled by the incoming radiation from the sun.
So in a laboratory, a gas that has been pressured and left, will cool down again, because the work done in compressing it is ended.
In the atmosphere the process never ends.
That is why it is hotter lower down in a real world atmosphere.

erl happ says:
December 29, 2011 at 11:52 pm
“Reduce its density to non significant values and the medium can not conduct or accept radiation.So, its temperature will fall.”
The thermosphere has an insignificant density and it’s temperature is reaches into the thousands of degrees.
What’s up with that, Erl?
PLEASE do not make stuff up as you go along. THINK McFly!

Ok Ira, I have noticed that you have a bit of trouble reading “between-the-lines” of another person’s written words, especially when their words gets in the area of physics. So here is what I read within their text after applying everything in context.
You read it as:

According to Nikolov, our Atmosphere
“… boosts Earth’s surface temperature not by 18K—33K as currently assumed, but by 133K!”

I read it as:
According to Nikolov, the pressure of our Atmosphere at the surface

“… is the sole factor, in conjunction with limited volume by the gravitational field, that allows a higher level of stored static (constant) kinetic energy in the air at the Earth’s surface (P•V is energy as joules) and this higher static level in the stored kinetic energy also likewise manifests, by the ideal gas law, as a corresponding increase in temperature at Earth’s surface, not by 18K—33K as currently assumed, but by 133K! This increase in the stored static kinetic energy is maintained by the constant radiative field flowing through this matter from both the sun and from the surface.”

Something close to that.
Maybe you should take a course in how to apply context when you read such deep material. I saw the same flaw in your understanding in radiative energy transfer within our atmosphere in your previous posts months ago.

Stephen Wilde says:
December 30, 2011 at 1:03 am
“I think that Ira has misunderstood. The cause of the heating at the surface is gravity constraining molecular kinetic energy most strongly at the bottom of the atmospheric column by creating pressure. Work is done and heat generated due to the kinetic energy fighting to overcome the gravitational and pressure constraint.”
I think you misunderstand what “work” is, Stephen. If work can be accomplished merely by being located within a static gravity field at a constant location we’re talking abouty a perpetual motion machine. Ding ding ding. Red flag! No free lunches. The only way to get useful energy from gravity is to move through the field towards the center of mass. It takes energy to move away from the center of mass. If you think you’ve found a way to get around that then you’re wrong and need to think again. Think again, Stephen. You’re smarter than that.

tallbloke says:
December 30, 2011 at 4:07 am
“Ah, the big guns of the lukewarmer camp are out in force today. :)”
Yeah, funny how that happens when cranks get published on high profile skeptic blogs. This is what gives us a bad rep.
“More work and more clarification of terms is definitely needed, but I sense value in the work of Nikolov and Zeller.”
Well isn’t that just special. Is that like sensing a disturbance in the force, Obi Wan?
Or maybe it’s like the bobbies sensed clues in your router.
For crying out loud. Just because you like the conclusion doesn’t mean you need to agree with the source. Even Willis called it the right way this time.

The article states “While it is true that rising CO2 levels do have a positive feedback that contributes to slightly increased Temperatures” – but it is not true and we have now moved beyond this. Back radiation has been proven to have no warming effect. See: http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html
Hence, since both your theory and the “Unified Climate Theory” incorporate a false concept, the remaining logical fails.
One of the best examples of the failure of carbon dioxide to have any effect can be seen in Arctic temperature records which show (a) higher temperatures in the 1930’s and early 1940’s than at present and (b) a huge rise prior to 1930. Yet carbon dioxide is supposed to have its greatest effect in the Arctic. Also Northern Ireland records from 1790 show a long term linear trend of 0.6 deg.C per century with absolutely no hint of a hockey stick. (See links and plots at http://climate-change-theory.com )
So we know that carbon dioxide is not the cause of any warming. But in addition, we now have Prof.Claes Johnson’s proof that backradiation cannot warm the surface and Prof Nasif Nahle’s experiment (soon to be plural) confirming it..
So, without any warming effect at all for any trace atmospheric gas, or water vapour (a bit of a mouthful now that we need to refrain from using the term GH) the power source is switched off and those “models” grind to a halt, while the so-called “greenhouse effect” crumbles into tiny little pieces. I never knew I was so sadistic.

“I think you misunderstand what “work” is, Stephen. If work can be accomplished merely by being located within a static gravity field at a constant location we’re talking abouty a perpetual motion machine.”
The molecule is not static. It is constantly in motion as it vibrates with kinetic energy. The gravitational field is constraining that energy so work is being done via the constant interaction between the two forces involved.

A couple of questions regarding pressure. Will a faster rotating planet have less atmospheric pressure than identical one spinning more slowly? Centrifugal vs gravitational forces. What effect does solar wind fluctuations have on atmospheric pressure?

I propose an experiment…
Go outside, place several 1 meter tall closed glass cylinders on a black surface. Start with the following contents:
Nitrogen at 1 bar
Nitrogen at 2 bars
CO2 at 1 bar
CO2 at 2 bars
Measure the gas temperatures. Refine the experiment based on what you learn. Repeat.
When you learn something, write a paper.

OMG, sharing a blog with `Tallbloke’.
What an honour!
And nice to be able to deduce the British constabulary did not take all of his computers!
Cheers,
The Bear

Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along says:
December 30, 2011 at 4:21 am
“Yeah, funny how that happens when cranks get published on high profile skeptic blogs. This is what gives us a bad rep.”
Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along, for all I know, you have just popped into existence – I would remember a person or thing called Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along had I encountered it before. So, Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along, you have NO reputation by now. And, may I say that, Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along, somebody who calls himself Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along goes right into the “obnoxious” bin for me.

Ira says:
“The only heed Nikolov seems to give to GHG and those measured radiative energies is that they are insufficient to raise the temperature of the Surface by 133K.”
This is not right. They don’t deny the radiative heating of the surface due to heat trapped and re-emitted by greenhouse gases. In fact their equation (3) describes the effect for the one layer model they start with. However they claim that this radiative heating of the surface is entirely offset by convective cooling – and they give a pair of equations (4) modifying (3) to include an additional term for convective cooling. They also claim: “This decoupling of heat transports is the
core reason for the projected surface warming by GCMs in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations. Hence, the predicted CO2-driven global temperature change is a model artifact!” That is the GCM’s solve equation 3 and then (I assume) handle convection separately instead of using their equation (4). This is actually a pretty extraordinary claim!
My own concern with this is that the extra term introduced into equation (4) is hardly explained at all. The term it looks like cp * rho * (Ts – Ta) * gbh and the value of ‘cp’ is not given and gbh=0.075m/s is not supported. Still it’s only a poster so work in progress and quite likely the interpretation is well-known!
Another thing is that the one layer model is an approximation – to overthrow the existing theory you would certaily need to work it though using a continuous thick model of the atmosphere.
I’ll study it some more because it is the first thing I have seen since Svensmark to offer a different view of long term climate change. And it is pretty accessible too. They should not call it UTC though because those letters are taken for Universal Coordinated Time!
In the Gas Law PV = nRT the ‘n’ stands for the number of moles of the gas not the number of molecules as Ira said.

Another way to look at it is that if you change the ambient pressure, the temperature rise in the cylinder would be permanent, similar to case B.

Generalizing, it sounds like in addition to cause and effect juxtaposition, the argument is between atmospheric pressure/heat generation in the UTC paper versus atmospheric density/heat retention in the Glickstein paper.
There are still so many variables and interpretations preventing “settled science” from breaking out.
In our area the ground temperature 2 or 3 meters below the surface stays at a fairly constant 10 degrees Celsius, and rises as the measurement goes deeper ( to a few thousands of degrees below the crust, not millions as Algore estimates. LOL ). This in spite of atmospheric temperatures of +35 or -15 degrees C.
Our planet still contains a vast amount of slowly decreasing internal latent heat caused by gravitational pressure/friction during planet formation, and radioactive decay. I haven’t seen an energy balance equation that accounts for the dissipation of this energy. Surely it’s not constant, and has an impact on the atmospheric and oceanic energy balance.

sorry for all of the posts but now that I look closer your case A cannot satisfy the ideal gas equation and therefore must be false- assumming n,V and R are constant, T and P simply MUST be proportional or you are not in a gaseous system. or, you have disproven the IGE which would be quite remarkable.
the exception here would be for a liquid-gas system, like in a propane tank, where the IGE does not apply.

Excellent intro (will go back and finish reading in a bit, but had to get this thought down). “Something”>>>Temp>>>CO2. And that “Something”=Energy.
I mean duh. The problem with the green house gas theory (if you want to turn it on its head) is that GHG is similar to H20, in other words they both play temporary heat sink. The GHG does not for-all-time trap thermal energy, any more than H2O does. It holds it up for a while.
As I noted in the unified climate theory, you have to look at:
(1) the different mechanism and surface area for energy loss (and please don’t forget ‘work’)
(2) the actual total solar and core energy flux value (the solar is only coming in on a fraction of the hemisphere at full strength, the rest attenuated by the angle of incidence)
(3) the physical structures doing the absorbing and emitting in layers (beginning with oceans and land, going to atmosphere and finally dealing with the radiation and plasma belts).
All of these factors hold some solar energy from direct re-emission into space and provide a Tc baseline (temp of core) that gives us our balanced climate.
This is so obviously the case given the seasons! While all the factors on the Earth are the same (core temp, ocean volume, air mass, radiation and plasma belts) what happens is the solar flux is reduced as the angle of incidence increases in the NH winter, and increases at the same time as the solar angle of incidence increases in the SH. What drives this change in basic atmospheric. SST and land temps?
Solar flux. If there was going to be a heat trap that effected temp it would be the oceans first, by a couple billion tons. CO2 – by mass – cannot compare to the Earth’s water in terms of trapping energy. It is so obvious it is still hard to believe people have not worked it out.
Look at the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere and compare it to the mass of H2O in the atmosphere and the oceans, and then do some computations on how much stronger a heat sink CO2 would have to be to overwhelm the mass of Earth’s water. You will quickly find yourself in science fiction land.
Your relationship goes Solar Flux>>Regional Temperature>>CO2, which when integrated over many years and significant changes in the solar flux being emitted at the source (or getting through the barriers of Earth’s atmosphere) you will see global changes on long time scales.

I was looking for more of what Nikolov and Keller had done in the past and ran into something odd.
Google nikolov keller and check out the 3rd link from the bottom of the second page of hits.

The processes of evaporation/condensation/freezing/melting control temperature and the rate of loss of energy to space. Water vapor does not behave as a perfect gas. Think wet adiabatic laps rate. Water vapor is lighter than air and transports the energy gained in evaporation upward to condense into clouds, further transported upwards to freeze near the TOA where the energy radiates to space. Also, these processes transport CO2 up to the TOA by absorption in clouds and being released as the water freezes. Think about radiation as “line of sight and speed of light”. These other processes are slowing down the rate of energy loss.

Chris B says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:50 am
“Our planet still contains a vast amount of slowly decreasing internal latent heat caused by gravitational pressure/friction during planet formation, and radioactive decay. I haven’t seen an energy balance equation that accounts for the dissipation of this energy. Surely it’s not constant, and has an impact on the atmospheric and oceanic energy balance.”
Rocks are such good insulators the rate at which internal heat leaks out to the surface and the rate at which it dissipates once it reaches the surface makes it negligible for most purposes. It averages 65 milliwatts/m2 for continental crust and 100 mw/m2 for oceanic crust.
On Venus it’s a different story. The top of the rocks there are blanketed with CO2 at 1400psi surrface pressure. CO2 has a strong absorption band at 4um and the surface temperature of Venus happens to be 900F which has a peak thermal emission frequency of 4um. The high insulation coefficient of rock doesn’t end at the surface on Venus. 90 bar of CO2 with thermal emission right in its absorption sweet spot makes it a highly effective insulator. This is why the surface temperature of Venus is so high. The temperature gradient from molten core of the planet to top of the crust isn’t as steep as it is on the earth because there’s a continuing layer of very effective insulation on top of the rocks on Venus where on earth the insulation is very poor after the rocks stop.

peter2108 says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:38 am
“In the Gas Law PV = nRT the ‘n’ stands for the number of moles of the gas not the number of molecules as Ira said.”
There’s a fixed number of molecules (or atoms) in a mole called Avagadro’s Number which is something you learn in the first week of chemistry class in high school. So N actually is the number of molecules but the units are, as you said, in moles. The distinction is pedantic in nature IMO.

jorgekafkazar,
I’ve never seen Jupiter’s excess heat being attributed to radioactivity before – there’s an awful lot of it. It’s commonly blamed on “contraction” which I assume is fuelled by gravity and the same process that gives birth to stars.

Please Do Not Make Stuff Up As You Go Along says:
December 30, 2011 at 4:07 am
erl happ says:
December 29, 2011 at 11:52 pm
“Reduce its density to non significant values and the medium can not conduct or accept radiation.So, its temperature will fall.”
The thermosphere has an insignificant density and it’s temperature is reaches into the thousands of degrees.
What’s up with that, Erl?
PLEASE do not make stuff up as you go along. THINK McFly!
——————
Please tell the rest of the story. One would not experience temperatures at this level in the thermosphere because there is virtually no gas pressure thanks to the rarified atmosphere (presumably the medium to whih erl happ is referring). From Wikipedia (sorry)
“The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day. Even though the temperature is so high, one would not feel warm in the thermosphere, because it is so near vacuum that there is not enough contact with the few atoms of gas to transfer much heat. A normal thermometer would read significantly below 0 °C (32 °F), due to the energy lost by thermal radiation overtaking the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact.”
Interesting that you would borrow a line from a famous fictional bully to end your missive.

Foundations tremble,
Collapsing superstructure,
Dust blows all about.
==================

Ira,
I think you have missed a bit here, or are looking at the same phenomenon in a different direction. When solar radiation introduces energy into the atmosphere, in an open system, the natural desire of the gas is to expand. If there is no other force operating on the gas then all it would do is expand, and not heat.
Gravity is, for all intense and purposes an elastic restraint on the expansion of that gas. It isn’t as final as a piston or sealed jar, it does allow some expansion, but it all restricts free expansion and forces the atmospheric pressure to rise in comparison to a free state.
The increase in temperature can indeed be categorized as temporary as you say, but that is no different than the temporary heating provided by the GHE. Absent solar radiation the Earth would cool off rather quickly. It’s Gravity, in effect, that amplifies the effect of solar radiation on climate in this Unified Theory.

Ira, Thank you for your enlightening post. I appreciate the thought and polite open discourse of all participants.
I know just enough science to follow the arguments, but not enough to predict. I do think the example is slightly off, where A is an open system (or more open) by allowing heat to leave the tank, and B is a closed system, even though in the example it is obviously a larger, but still a closed system because the pressure increase remains constant. Can you comment?
Thanks again and keep up the good work.

I’ve never seen such a confused welter of comments, brought on by the confusing presentation by Nikolov & Zeller, but not helped very much by Glickstein, who I am sure knows his thermodynamics, but who hasn’t made his central point(s) stand out either while losing track of what may be correct in the Nikolov & Zeller article. One of their points–again, it is their bad for not making more clear what their main points ARE– may have something to do with the response of an atmosphere at density to insolation and other “forcings,” –gad, I hate that term– rather than to the forces which have put the atmosphere under pressure in the first place. Hope that it gets straightened out before the RC crowd pile on in an attempt to bury the good with the bad.

R. Gates says:
December 29, 2011 at 11:04 pm
“Some excellent points, and I think that this “Unified Climate Theory”, will be fairly quickly placed into the “hmmm…interesting” dustbin of quirky science sidebars. Your desire to see the so-called “Official Climate Team” put into its proper place belies the undercurrcent of thought shared of course by many skeptics, but I fear such desires shall go unfulfilled. Greenhouse gases warm the planet above a level it would otherwise be without them. The only issue is how much warming we can exspect from a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial levels, and the key area of uncertainty here is the full nature of feedbacks, slow and fast, and more specifically the role of clouds.”
____________________________
Pardon, R. Gates, but the effects of a doubling of CO2 is not the only issue, but is merely a question on the way to the only issue.
The issue becomes: are any effects from a doubling of CO2 actually harmful and if so, what do we do about it?
In the freely- accessible dialogue and literature of the CAGW advocates, there is a continuous undercurrent of and calling for a rush to tyranny and attendant death to many millions, if not billions of human beings. Indeed, the desire to implement the loss of individual freedoms and willful depopulation of the planet is often explicitly and boldly stated, as if the rest of us should willingly acquiesce and thus relinquish our lives and freedoms to make life better for a self- aggrandizing class of elites who would (in their vision) remain untouched and without need of remorse.
Using your terms, “Your Desire” to implement dark days for mankind becomes the only issue.

This is just silly. Temperature and Pressure are just ways of expressing things. They are not things in and of themselves. For instance pressure is simply an expression of force over an area. It doesn’t say what the force is or what caused the force. Temperature is simply an expression of heat transfer. It doesn’t say what’s causing the transfer. Temperature is a measure of the average translational kinetic energy associated with microscopic motion of atoms and molecules. The flow of heat is from a high temperature region toward a lower temperature region. Temperature is proportional to the average kinetic energy of each atom….
The argument of pressure causing or not causing temp change is vapid. Look at the force, look at what is being transferred and look as to why. Temp and pressure is just shorthand for expressing other things.
Next up in the argument, Amps and volts! Which is more important to watts!?!

“Correlation does not prove causation.” Keep repeating this over and over.
How very true. How many times have various posts pointed this out? In addition, multivariate analyses suffer from so much multicolinearity (as in the accident, traffic jam, police example) because there are sooooo many variables impacting upon climate, and simultaneously upon one and other, that predicting climate is, at the present time, with present data and technology, pretty much a fools errand. This applies to both AGW fanatics and all of the various theories proposed here by skeptics.
The real answer is that climate is changing but the causes are presently undefined and not predictable. Time series cyclicality can be somewhat interesting but since even the dependent variable measurements are suspect, such are not extremely enlightening.
The crime is basing public policy which negatively impacts real people and the world economy upon fantasy science.

@Joe Zeise December 30, 2011 at 4:59 am
That’s the first thing that hit me about Ira’s experiment as well. The inside of the refrigerator is not a system at equilibrium, as it uses external energy (probably from Evil Coal) to remove the additional heat from pressure increase and vent it to the outside. Of course the temperature is going to revert to whatever the refrigerator is set to.

Here’s the spherical cow model that I think N&Z are roughly trying to present:
1) Draw an envelope that coincides with the tropopause.
2) Greenhouse radiative physics govern above the envelope (tropopause).
3) Below the tropopause, convection governs transport, and adiabatic compression governs temperature.
In this model, you determine the tropopause temperature by greenhouse calculations, and then you determine surface temperature by adiabatic compression. So while you don’t get any heat out of raising the pressure, you do increase the temperature.
At least that’s what I think N&Z were trying to say. If so, it’s plausible, but needs more work to be sure. But the increase in temperature as you go down doesn’t require addition of heat.

Willis:
In a word: Synergy?

The black body temperature of a planet is not necessarily its temperature at ground level. Some planets do not have a ground. I would guess it is the temperature at the “average altitude” of emissions to space. I don’t know how the “average altitude” is calculated, but it is probably somewhere over the ground. Now, under this “average altitude”, you expect to find an adiabatic lapse rate. So the ground will automatically be warmer than the black body temperature.
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say we build an opaque membrane at the top of our atmosphere. The temperature of this membrane would be calculated like the temperature of a planet without an atmosphere because there is no atmosphere on top of the membrane. But you would still have an adiabatic lapse rate under the membrane. So the ground would be warmer than the membrane.
The pressure and the temperature of a given gas are in fact a single quantity. The bottom of the atmosphere is warmer just like it has a higher pressure. This higher temperature cannot be used to produce energy just like its higher pressure. In fact, the pressure/temperature by molecule(momentum) is higher at a higher altitude. It is only the sum of pressure/temperature that is higher at the bottom. If you could build a huge tower containing a gas with a different adiabatic lapse, there would be heights where the temperature inside the tower would be different than the temperature outside. So it would be possible to create energy. But this is only because the adiabatic lapse represent an insulation and you can create energy between two points that are insulated differently from a hot body. This insulation might be explained by the fact that pressure/temperature of a gas is a property of single molecules that are attracted by gravity, therefore pressure/temperature is attracted by gravity. Just like the spin of a particle is a property of that particle. So it is more probable to detected the spin of a particle near a massive object than midway to the moon.
In conclusion, it is not surprising for a planet with an atmosphere to be warmer. The exact explanation and how much warming you should expect seems to be a subject of debate to this day.

JPS says:
December 30, 2011 at 8:49 am
JPS, I’m sure you are wrong here. As the number of air molecules increase, the weight (gravity’s pull on the mass of molecules) would compress them, resulting in higher pressures. To get Ira’s theoretical doubling of volume would take much more than twice the number of molecules due to this compression. Ira’s assertion that temperatures would ultimately equilibrate back to what they formerly were is the real question.
[JPS, I meant to double the WEIGHT by doubling the number of molecules. You are correct that doubling the volume would require adding more than twice the number of molecules. I am sorry that my poor choice of words caused confusion, Thanks for the correction. Ira]

Dan:
unwittingly you have rebutted your own rebuttal- I dont see a gravitation term in the IGL- the way it is being applied here is for is for a CLOSED, HOMOGENEOUS system. the atmosphere is clearly not that. Im not arguing the practical result of what he proposes, I am saying his model is wrong.

Old one on this thing of grinding down the point of needles to two or less atoms.
Visual:
Clean 8 1/2″ X 11″ blanch white paper.
100,000 grains of black pepper.
100,000 grains of house fly dung.
Sort by size and report the size distribution.

Thanks, Ira – the venusian gasball stuff is hansen’s leftovers with sagan backwash.
temperature and pressure have this relationship: PVT = PVT
heat is nowhere in that formula mmk?
you can’t convert watts to degrees, mmk?
pressure in an enclosed space is determined by temperature. pressure without enclosure is determined by gravity.
so the venus freaks who believe in post normal reversals of cause and effect have gravity creating heat (heat isn’t created, either – it comes from somewhere it was previously).
this kind of very fundamental error in the ability to think (disregarding the temporal relationship of cause and effect – nothing more basic than that) is a property of a very broken brain – so badly broken that it can be said to be reliable – reliably insane.

A few , perhaps 3 or 4 contributors here have got the point. The rest are thrashing about in the dark.
I here repeat an earlier post that has got lost in the ‘noise’ I have amended it slightly for,I hope, greater clarity.
If it is flawed would someone please say why or how because the issue is integral to the entire AGW hypothesis.
“Surely it is obvious that when solar irradiation reacts with matter constrained within the Earth’s gravitational field there will be a conversion of some of that solar irradiation to kinetic energy (vibrational movement of the molecules) and some of that solar irradiation to heat.in the form of more longwave radiation passing between those molecules and the larger environment.?
The proportions are pressure dependent.
In the absence of gravitationally induced pressure ALL the solar irradiance would get converted to kinetic energy instantly and the molecules would fly off into space.
The higher the gravitationally induced pressure the more kinetic energy is required to break the gravitational bond between the body of the Earth and the molecules of gas.Thus the molecules can carry more kinetic energy in a hotter environment without flying off to space and so one observes more heat as evidenced by a higher temperature.
At Earth’s atmospheric pressure of 1 bar some goes to kinetic energy and some to heat and it is that atmospheric pressure which determines the proportions. That isn’t ‘creation’ of heat or of ‘new’ energy. It is simply an apportionment of the solar irradiation into different forms dependent on the prevailing level of gravitationally induced pressure.
That is the true greenhouse effect as I have always understood it and it is therefore pressure dependent and not composition dependent.
If some of the gas molecules have a higher thermal capacity than other molecules then those specific molecules will accrue more kinetic energy than others and add disproportionately to the pool of kinetic energy that is available to defeat the gravitationally induced pressure which is restraining the exit of the kinetic energy to space.
However, if pressure does not change then the only outcome will be more radiation to space and NOT a rise in system energy content.That increased radiation to space is achieved by energising ALL the available means of energy transfer namely conduction, convection, radiation and on a water planet the phase changes of water which greatly accelerates the efficiency of the other energy transfer mechanisms.
As Nikolov says, the effects of GHGs are thus cancelled out.
One does however observe that faster outflow of energy from the watery Earth due to GHGs in the form of a larger or faster water cycle which brings me to my broader work available elsewhere.
Nonetheless that faster outflow of energy from more GHGs is infinitesimal compared to the consequences of solar and oceanic variability as I have explained in detail previously.”

Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says:
December 30, 2011 at 9:35 am
“In climate, I suspect we know what to measure and we know where to measure it… If we are diligent about it we will some day understand the relationships of all the components that make up what we all love and live with our climate.”
____________________________________
If modern climate research was directed at finding what role the various components actually play, rather than trying to reach an apparent goal of securing more funding by reaching predetermined conclusions, then your comment would be more than just wishful thinking.
Take heart! The young turks are beginning to make their presence felt.

Strewth, am i the only one that gets it. It is as they said nothing to do with energy or work.
Analogy. A lens provides neither work nor energy but use it to focus light and you raise the local temperature to cause a fire to ignite.
Second analogy, in your microwave, the power passes through the air, leaving it cool but heats the denser molecules of water in the food such that it cooks.
This is all that they are saying, a denser air at ground level causes increased temperature from the same heat radiation passing through it. Matters not it constituent gas parts.
We know from the time of the dinosaurs that it was warmer and they air must have been denser because of the huge insects and flying reptiles. Both of which needed denser air to perform.

davidmhoffer says:
December 30, 2011 at 9:05 am
R. Gates;
I don’t disagree with.the importance of some of your additions, but 1-4 are being studied every day, 5 is unimportant to the actual science,>>>
Unimportant? The behaviour of “the team” is unimportant to the actual science? Tell that to the researchers whose actual science never got funded because of “the team”, tell that to the editors of academic journals that lost their jobs because of “the team” and tell that to the next generation of scientists who will begin their careers based on a completely false premise.
———-
The laws of physics don’t change because of the actions of a group of scientists. Thousands of scientists are conducting research every day that have nothing to do with the behavior of the so-called “Team”. Skeptics need their demons and distractions and so they focus on the “evils” of the Team. All this does not change the science.

richard verney says:
December 30, 2011 at 10:30 am
I completely fail to understand why anyone would consider that a planetary atmosphere devoid of GHGs would have no bearing at all upon the planet’s temperature.
Can you explain away my example? Gravity is a constraint on the free expansion of atmospheric gasses, without gravity would the planet even have an atmosphere? Of course not.
As such, gravity, in resisting free expansion, is responsible for solar energy turning to heat, otherwise the atmosphere, absent a planet, would simply expand. This is a more elastic version of the closed jar CO2 example so misused by warmists where CO2 heats more rapidly than air simply because CO2 has a great expansion pressure when energized.
But at some point gravity is insufficient to hold back the expansion of atmospheric gasses, and at that point (like water at 100° C) added energy doesn’t contribute to heat, it contributes to expansion. As such, CO2, Nitrogen, and any other gas in existence has a set ability to be heated under normal atmospheric conditions before it breaks the surly bonds of gravity and simply expands instead.
In some way, however, there is room for AGW in this theory, but only if humanity is releasing enough CO2 (or any gas) into the atmosphere to increase to atmospheric mass in a non-negligible way.

Ira, nice effort, but does not apply exactly nor correctly.
Not to insult your intelligence, or the others here who are brilliant thinkers, however; as a pilot with advanced degrees in aeronautics the following is partially why I disagree with your container example through simple observations.
Death Valley vs. surrounding mountains. I ask why it is warmer in the basin than the hill tops that surround. The atmosphere is thicker, deeper and more dense. Correct?
Gravity pulls atmospheric high pressure air downward, compressing it. It warms on the way down. As it descends it causes low pressure areas to form through the Coriolis effect. Cause and effect. Correct?
Thunderstorm are produced by an accelerating column of rising air that does not cool relative to the temperature of surrounding air that the rising air passes through, as that air returns to the surface, it compresses and forms a hot spot leading the storm, which helps feed the system. Correct?
Consider the SCUBA tank being filled and vented; the air heats through compression and cools when decompressed. Gravity is the atmosphere’s compressor, the sun heats the surface inconsistency causing different rates of heating. Correct?
Across the planet valleys are warmer than hill tops, across the planet high pressure areas are descending air masses that compress. The atmosphere is thicker and thus warmer at the equator adding to the warmth in that band. Correct?
Venus has a thicker atmosphere than earth: warm place. Earth has less atmosphere, cooler than Venus. Mars has even less atmosphere, much colder than both Venus and Earth. Both Venus and Mars have greater than 90% CO2 atmosphere, yet one is hot, one is cold due atmosphere density. Correct?
Jupiter has massive atmosphere, hot. In all instances, the atmospheres are warmer at lower altitudes. Correct? It might be colder way out at Neptune, but the same applies. Correct?
We are not in a closed canister. We are in a system of chaos with unforeseeable variables.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 10:29 am
“The laws of physics don’t change because of the actions of a group of scientists. Thousands of scientists are conducting research every day that have nothing to do with the behavior of the so-called “Team”. Skeptics need their demons and distractions and so they focus on the “evils” of the Team. All this does not change the science.”
______________________
The ‘Laws of Physics’ have nothing to do with your post. Instead, you’ve fashioned the phrase into another of your typical red herrings. Your post is just one more of your attempts to denigrate skeptics and downplay the legitimacy of their concerns, while you try to deflect criticism of “the team”.
While you have repeate4dly demonstrated a remarkable talent as a rhetorician, the thrust of your efforts has unmasked you and revealed you as nothing more than a shill.

@R. Gates
thetempestspark says:
December 30, 2011 at 3:34 am
If you took two quantities of CO2 of equal volume, both quantities had a temperature of 1°C and mixed them both together what would the temperature be as a result of doubling one quantity of CO2 with the other?
——-
R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 8:14 am
What about the volume? Did you force one into the volume of the other? If you did, then of course work was done on “the system” by the application of a force over a distance and of course the temperature would go up. Pv=nrt, but work must be done when compressing a gas! If however, you simply open a valve between the two containers then of course nothing would happen.
——-
“Did you force one into the volume of the other?”
Under earths physical condition, mix the two quantities of CO2 of equal volume, no compression of gases, just an normal atmospheric factor of displacement.
“If however, you simply open a valve between the two containers then of course nothing would happen.”
Is your answer that There would be no temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 of equal volume under equal conditions?
Good to hear!

Willis, refer to an appendix that defines the terms in terms presently accepted as common to relatively enhanced vernacular amplifications, actual to external dependence with internal manifestations. 🙂

Ira Glickstein;
I agree with your article for the most part though the analogy is limited in that, as others have discussed, there’s no lid on the earth’s atmosphere. So, while the relationship between T and P is as you explained it, the earth’s atmosphere can expand and contract as it is not constrained to a finite volume which makes calculating the actual end result of any given combination of T and P rather complicated.
But two other points, first to your comment on average T vs T^4, I think this is much more significant because without proper explanation it distorts the perception the public has of the science. For example, the IPCC claims a sensivity of 2 to 4 degrees for CO2 doubling, based on 1 degree coming directly from CO2 doubling = 3.7 w/m2. To get to two degrees, they assume a minimum of an additional 3.7 w/m2 from positive feedback. What they are vague about is at what temperature they are calculating this, the average reader assuming they mean relative to earth surface. They do not. Their calculation is versus the “effective black body temperature of earth” which is about -20C. So using their numbers we can demonstrate how misleading T versus T^4 actually is by calculating the effect of an extra 7.4 w/m2 (the lower limit of their estimate) on various temperatures using SB Law:
T = -20C = 253K
+7.4 w/m2 = +1.99 degrees
T = +30C = 303K
+7.4 w/m2 = +1.17 degrees
t = -40C = 233K
+7.4 w/m2 = +2.54 degrees
In other words, sensitivity on a nice hot day is (+30) is less than half of the sensitivity on a bitterly cold day. I think that is significant.
Switching gears and going back to energy balance, there’s another way of looking at things that I’ve always advocated. If we assume that increases in CO2 affect upward bound LW radiation from earth, but that the amount of energy abosrbed by the earth system from the sun remains unchanged, then once a new equilibrium is established, the “temperature” of the earth as an “everage” remains UNCHANGED.
Suppose earth is in energy balance recieving about 235 w/m2 “on average” from the sun and radiating the same, 235 w/m2. Then CO2 doubles, throwing the energy balance out of whack temporarily. Provided that the energy being received doesn’t change as a result (which is debatable) and that pressure and volume of the atmosphere alse stay the same (even more debatable) what would be the before and after equilibrium radiance of the earth?
Before => 235 w/m2
After => 235 w/m2
Provided we assume no change in the amount of energy absorbed in the first place, no change in pressure, and no change in the over all thickness of the atmosphere, there would be (at equilibrium) a change in the “effective black body temperature of earth” of precisely zero. What WOULD change is the altitude at which the “effective black body temperature of earth” occurs (currently roughly 14,000 feet above sea level). This in turn would affect the temperature gradient from earth surface to TOA, but not the “average” temperature of earth as seen from space.
Of course, pressure DOES change, thickness of earth atmosphere DOES change and absorption of downward LW originating from the sun DOES change. But calculating those changes is a couple of degree levels above my skill set.

Willis Eschenbach says:
December 30, 2011 at 11:23 am
Willis, I really appreciate your analyses, but here you’re just throwing up your hands. You are probably right, but it would help folks like me to know why. I asked a while ago why a pressure cooker might not kinda sorta be a way to look at what they are talking about. It seems to me that, at least in the case of pressure cookers, pressure “enhances (amplifies) the energy supplied by an external source” (i.e. by causing the temperature to be higher, which is what I think they are saying).
This addresses all of your bullet list:
• How on earth does one either “enhance” or “amplify” energy through ‘molecular collisions”? I’m assuming they mean that at higher pressures, the higher densities retain more heat. For a given volume, this is expressed as a higher temperature. (In the case of a planetary body, the volume is somewhat constrained by gravity).
• Why do the “molecular collisions” only “relatively enhance” energy? I’m guessing (literally) that they mean a larger input will result in a larger output. The temperature gain from the higher pressure is relative to the energy being input.
• How does “relatively enhanced” energy differ from “actually enhanced” energy, or from plain-vanilla garden variety “enhanced energy”? It’s actually enhanced, but relative to the input energy?
• How does “relatively enhanced” energy “manifest as an actual energy”? I think they meant to say it manifests as a higher temperature.
• Why does it only manifest itself when there is “external heating”? With a pressure cooker, if you turn the stove off, the whole process stops and the pot cools down to ambient temperature.
• Why does anyone pay the slightest attention to this pseudo-science? Because this is fascinating and interesting to me and others, even if Erinome says we should just trust Phil, Michael, Gavin, and the rest of the team that can follow the math.

Ira says: “The warm black surface also heats the bottom of the glass cylinder by conduction.” I do not agree with this statement because I recall that glass is not much of a conductor of heat, therefore the bottom of the glass warms via the gas being in contact with it. Example: molding glass parts in laboratory work with the old gas burners along with a few burnt fingers from not remembering which end was hot. 🙂
Ira says: “Would the “Enhanced” effect due to double Atmospheric pressure cause great permanent warming? Answer: we already know that increasing the size of the atmosphere increases the surface temperature all else being equal. We have both Venus and Mars as example. We have variations in our atmospheric pressure that exhibit the change in temperature based on altitude.
Ira says: “Perhaps a “tipping point” even? I do not think so but I would like your opinions.Answer: I agree, there is not a run-away “tipping point” as suggested by AGW advocates. however an increase in atmosphere mass will cause warming, all else equal. If there was this tipping point issue, Venus would exhibit an accelerating warming, which it is not. Thus an equilibrium is presently the case, all else equal.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 12:11 pm
“Of the course, the radiative “greenhouse” properties of CO2 in terms of warming the earth are quite separate from pressure and volume issues. The best estimate for the temperature effects from a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm is about 3C globally, with of course more amplification of this at the polar regions.”
________________________________
Would you care to prove that assertion (3C globe temperature rise)?

Oh for word parsing. If I have a light bulb cooking at some given voltage amperes (watts) and I increase the er ah I mean enhance the voltage, then does the wattage increase and it become brighter, warmer? What voltage increase, I mean, enhancement is significant? And what is significant?
I might be inclined to copy / paste to a word doc, then replace the words enhance and enhanced with increase and increased or whatever word makes us happy campers. Same with other word choices that help with understanding the writer. Best of all, it is the responsibility of the writer to take care to be clear, as Willis is making point of.

So, earth 4.5 billion years old or so, so sun shine on earth said 4.5 billion years.
So, how much sun transfered energy remains stored in/on/within said 4.5 bilion year old earth.
So, how does this amount of 4.5 billion years of stored energy get free of taxes and the earth?
This energy lust to be free for sure.

highflight56433;
Death Valley vs. surrounding mountains. I ask why it is warmer in the basin than the hill tops that surround.>>>
There are most likely multiple factors but I would guess the big one would be lack of convection. Death Valley being encircled by steep mountains, convection is supressed. Cool air that would normally flow sideways across the ground from elsewhere and cause the hot air to rise just has no entry point like it would on a prairie or seaside landscape. “Wind” is just air moving from a high pressure zone to a low pressure zone, with convection causing a low pressure zone at the bottom that ought to pull surrounding (cooler) air into it which in turn allows the hot air to rise. No source of cool air to come in at the bottom, and the low pressure zone in turn inhibits the rise of the hot air.
Less convection = less cooling = hot hot hot temps. Same effect can be observed at, for example, the Dead Sea.

R. Gates says:
December 30, 2011 at 12:11 pm
“Of the course, the radiative “greenhouse” properties of CO2 in terms of warming the earth are quite separate from pressure and volume issues. The best estimate for the temperature effects from a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm is about 3C globally, with of course more amplification of this at the polar regions.”
…and Zig Zags are doubling the CO enhancement effect, raising the global polar lunar amplification pressure gradient by a thermal factor quantifier base modifier.

Well, Ira, you have been much kinder to this article than I would have been. Someone on the Judith Curry site once said
“Actually, the Gerlich and Tscheuschner, Claes Johnson, and Miskolczi papers are a good test to evaluate one’s understanding of radiative transfer. If you looked through these papers and did not immediately realize that they were nonsense, then it is very likely that you are simply not up to speed ”
And I must confess, this was my reaction to this article. I lost count of the posts that say something like ” I don’t understand the maths (or I haven’t bothered to read it) but I think this is a ground-breaker (or deserves a nobel prize). It is disappointing to see that such posts vastly outnumber those that point out that the article is simple nonsense.
So, what’s wrong with it? First we get a diagram of the Idealized Greenhouse Model, which is not explained and seems to play no further part in the discussion [Maybe it is there to give a bit of scientific credibility]. Then we get to calculate the Earth temperature without an atmosphere. It is pointed out that using average insolation is not accurate (correct) and uses the rather pretentious term of Hölder’s inequality, no doubt to impress the scientifically illiterate who are lost already.Given that, it is not clear how we got from equation(1) to equation(2). An extra pi seems to have crept in without explanation and the denominator 4 has moved outside the fourth power term. There is a double integral but only one parameter Mu to integrate over, although it indicates a phi term should be included as well. So I have to unpick this myself. One integral is over the range 0 to 1, it doesn’t say what this is so I assume it to be the range of cosine values. The first integral is over 0 to 2pi. What is this? Perhaps rotation in the plane of the surface of the incident radiation? But is this valid anyway? Are all angles of incident radiation equally likely? What is the angle of incidence on the dark side of the planet? Does not the albedo vary with the angle of incidence as well – seeing that we are doing it ‘properly’? This whole section needs to be clarified, otherwise it looks likes a smoke and mirrors exercise.
Never mind, after all that we end up with the ‘wrong’ answer 133K instead of 255K. I say wrong because no other textbook on physics agrees with this. But now comes the amazing bit. Based on this wrong answer Nickalov and Teller resort to the argument of inconceivability, “Can a handful of trace gases which amount to less than 0.5% of atmospheric mass trap enough radiant heat to cause such a huge thermal enhancement at the surface? Apparently Nickolov and Teller cannot conceive this so they announce that Greenhouse Gas Theory must be wrong (although that came to the correct answer).
There may be valid objections to the theory of catastrophic run-away global warming, but this is not one of them.
So what do you think the reaction to this ground-breaking, nobel prize post will be on ‘realclimate’, for example? Do you think they will be trembling in their boots or rolling in the aisles with laughter?
I do not think the sceptic argument is in anyway advanced by proving that most of those who espouse it do not understand basic physics.

highflight56433;
Oh for word parsing. If I have a light bulb cooking at some given voltage amperes (watts) and I increase the er ah I mean enhance the voltage, then does the wattage increase and it become brighter, warmer? What voltage increase, I mean, enhancement is significant? And what is significant?>>>
Good question. You’ll hate the answer….
E (volts) = I (current in amps) * R (resistance in ohms)
P (watts) = E * I
given that E=IR
P = IR * I
P = I^2*R
If we double E, then I doubles, and if I doubles, then P increases by a factor of 4. Right? Nope.
When E doubles the insantaneous power would rise by a factor of 4, but then would fall off. As the temperature of the filament increases, R of the filament also increases, reducing I until some new equilibrium is reached. You can demonstrate this to yourself with a cheap ohm meter and an incandescent bulb. A 100 watt bulb ought to draw just under 1 amp at 120 volts giving it a resistance of a bit over 100 ohms. Measure the actual resistance of the bulb “cold” and you’ll find it is a fraction of that. When you flip on the power switch, the initial current is enormous until the filament heats up and increased resistance reduces the current. This is the reason that incandescent bulbs almost always burn out right when you turn them on. The stress on the filament of the sudden heating eventually snaps the filament.
Now, if you increase the voltage to say double, does it become brighter and warmer? Of course it does. But not as brighter and warmer as one might think. Plus, define “brighter” and “warmer”. Since all frequencies contribute to “warmer” any additional watts are by definition included in “warmer”. But is you are relying on LW to do the cooking and classing visible light (SW) as “brighter” one gets a slightly different answer. At higher temperatures, the filament would emitt in a spectrum biased more toward SW than at lower temps.

Ira’s opening discussing a closed system is clearly misleading. A couple of commenters have pointed out the effect of pressure on the lapse rate. Any atmosphere will warm a planet. What is not clear is the relative impact of GHGs. Nikolov’s paper suggests the impact is zero, which to me doesn’t ring true.

Will says:
December 30, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Hmmm. I must be getting something right to attract an ad hominem of that intensity.

The thermosphere is the biggest of all the layers of the Earth’s atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and directly below the exosphere.
The temperature of this layer can rise to 1,500 °C (2,700 °F)
the pressure of this layer is virtually zero.
hot – but no pressure…
how about the ideas of thermal conductivity and thermal mass. so what if there are no thermometers, just joules and watts? heat is heat. temperature is not.

I defy anyone to tell me what that means. It’s not energy, just a “relative enhancement” but it “manifests itself as an actual energy in the presence of external heating”.
———-
I’m with you on this Willis. This kind of hand waving sets off my crank detector.
The assertion that increased molecular collision rates allow an extenal energy source to provide an enhanced temperate is at odds with simple molecular physics and the kinetic theory of gases.
The claim that thermodynamics explains things is just put out there with no explanation.
Elementary mistakes like Jules and degrees Kelvin speak of people whose background in physics is weak.

Ira,
Because I work with spectrometers on a daily basis, I have to say that phrases such as the following;
“(4-CO2) The CO2 absorbs some of the LWIR, and warms.”
constantly appearing in blogs on both sides of this “debate”, not to mention the Wiki article on the “greenhouse effect”, are REALLY starting to tick me off.
So here is a little challenge for ALL of you savants. Nearly 150 years ago, the likes of Kirchhoff, Stokes, Bunsen, Maxwell, and others realized and confirmed experimentally certain characteristics of the interactions of EM waves with particles. First was that resonance lines are particle specific, for instance, CO2 CANNOT absorb the resonance line emissions of an H2O molecule. Second was the equivalence of emission/absorption resonance lines. If you identify an absorption line of a particular species of particles, you have also found an emission line. These apply to ALL ranges of the EM spectrum, INCLUDING the thermal infrared, but, to be clear, NOT to the acquisition of INTERNAL “thermal” energy by means other than radiatively. This is only about EM RADIATION.
So here is the challenge, to ANYONE. Please give the name of the person(s), the year, the specific particles, and the specific wavelengths involved, which were found to violate these principles, along with the name of the journal(s) in which this proof was published.
I won’t hold my breath.

Dr Burns says
Ira’s opening discussing a closed system is clearly misleading. A couple of commenters have pointed out the effect of pressure on the lapse rate.
———–
Ira is correct but I think there is some general confusion between two separate issues.
1. The surface temperature of the planet determined by the planet’s energy balance.
2. The temperature profile between the surface and top-of-atmosphere, determined by, as you say, the lapse rate and which in turn is determined by atmospheric convection.
I think it would be useful if people toddled over to Wikipedia and picked up the lapse rate formula, plugged it into a spread sheet and graphed the temperature profile for different surface temperatures T0 and atmospheric densities.

UncertaintyRunAmok says:
December 30, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“So here is a little challenge for ALL of you savants. Nearly 150 years ago, the likes of Kirchhoff, Stokes, Bunsen, Maxwell, and others realized and confirmed experimentally certain characteristics of the interactions of EM waves with particles. First was that resonance lines are particle specific, for instance, CO2 CANNOT absorb the resonance line emissions of an H2O molecule. Second was the equivalence of emission/absorption resonance lines.”
You are right and WUWT has addressed Kirchhoff’s Law here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/co2-heats-the-atmosphere-a-counter-view/
When Ira says “CO2 absorbs some of the LWIR” he conveniently forget the near-instantaneous and COMPLETE re-emission of the energy. CO2 is not a heat-trapping gas.

UncertaintyRunAmok says
“(4-CO2) The CO2 absorbs some of the LWIR, and warms.”
———-
Unfortunately I don’t understand your point.
The statement about CO2 is good enough.
Your claim about resonance lines is not quite correct. It would be correct if absorption/emission lines had zero width, but they don’t. Zero width emission lines is an approximation for atomic spectra and by the time you deal with molecular species you have to deal with significant band overlap.
Given the gas kinetic collision rates and vibrational state lifetimes it’s fair to say that CO2 molecules absorb IR, transfer that energy to the air via collisions, pick up that energy again via random collissions and remit that energy again as IR. In short it’s a soup of molecules and radiation.

Kevin Kilty says
This linear profile is not consistent with radiative exchange but is rather the hallmark of convection and lapse rate.
———-
I have puzzled about this myself. My provisional answer is that the IR and atmosphere are strongly coupled to each other. While the IR could in principle determine the temperature profile, it is coupled to the atmosphere and the atmosphere simply undergoes convection to remove to perturbations caused by IR absorption and emission.
This is consistent with the idea that in the lower atmosphere the air is able to transfer heat more rapidly than radiation. I should probably verify that last statement.
Currently I am at the point where I need to write some computer code with some actual physics to completely understand all of the factors and I don’t have the time.

Is there a Unified Theory as to the definition of “heat” ?
Last I heard, it seemed rather unsettled ?
I must say that the comments on this thread seem to confirm its fleeting qualities 🙂
Good stuff everyone.