Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
Climate scientists are obsessed with carbon dioxide. The newly released Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that “radiative forcing” from human-emitted CO2 is the leading driver of climate change. Carbon dioxide is blamed for everything from causing more droughts, floods, and hurricanes, to endangering polar bears and acidifying the oceans. But Earth’s climate is dominated by water, not carbon dioxide.
Earth’s water cycle encompasses the salt water of the oceans, the fresh water of rivers and lakes, and frozen icecaps and glaciers. It includes water flows within and between the oceans, atmosphere, and land, in the form of evaporation, precipitation, storms and weather. The water cycle contains enormous energy flows that shape Earth’s climate, temperature trends, and surface features. Water effects are orders of magnitude larger than the feared effects of carbon dioxide.
Sunlight falls directly on the Tropics, where much energy is absorbed, and indirectly on the Polar Regions, where less energy is absorbed. All weather on Earth is driven by a redistribution of heat from the Tropics to the Polar Regions. Evaporation creates massive tropical storm systems, which move heat energy north to cooler latitudes. Upper level winds, along with the storm fronts, cyclones, and ocean currents of Earth’s water cycle, redistribute heat energy from the Tropics to the Polar Regions.
The Pacific Ocean is Earth’s largest surface feature, covering one-third of the globe and large enough to contain all of Earth’s land masses with area remaining. Oceans have 250 times the mass of the atmosphere and can hold over 1,000 times the heat energy. Oceans have a powerful, yet little understood effect on Earth’s climate.
Even the greenhouse effect itself is dominated by water. Between 75 percent and 90 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor and clouds.
Yet, the IPCC and today’s climate modelers propose that the “flea” wags “the dog.” The flea, of course, is carbon dioxide, and the dog, is the water cycle. The theory of man-made warming assumes a positive feedback from water vapor, forced by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
The argument is that, since warmer air can hold more moisture, atmospheric water vapor will increase as Earth warms. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, additional water vapor is presumed to add additional warming to that caused by CO2. In effect, the theory assumes that the carbon cycle is controlling the more powerful water cycle.
But for the last 15 years, Earth’s surface temperatures have failed to rise, despite rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. All climate models predicted a rapid rise in global temperatures, in conflict with actual measured data. Today’s models are often unable to predict weather conditions for a single season, let alone long-term climate trends.
An example is Atlantic hurricane prediction. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its 2013 hurricane forecast, calling for an “active or extremely active” hurricane season. At that time, NOAA predicted 7 to 11 Atlantic hurricanes (storms with sustained wind speeds of 74 mph or higher). In August NOAA revised their forecast down to 6 to 9 hurricanes. We entered October with a count of only two hurricane-strength storms. Computer models are unable to accurately forecast one season of Earth’s water cycle in just one region.
The IPCC and proponents of the theory of man-made warming are stumped by the 15-year halt in global surface temperature rise. Dr. Kevin Trenberth hypothesizes that the heat energy from greenhouse gas forcing has gone into the deep oceans. If so, score one for the power of the oceans on climate change.
Others have noted the prevalence of La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean since 1998. During 1975-1998, when global temperatures were rising, the Pacific experienced more frequent warm El Niño events than the cooler La Niñas. But the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a powerful temperature cycle in the North Pacific Ocean, moved into a cool phase about ten years ago. With the PDO in a cool phase, we now see more La Niña conditions. Maybe more La Niñas are the reason for the recent flat global temperatures. But if so, isn’t this evidence that ocean and water cycle effects are stronger than the effects of CO2?
Geologic evidence from past ice ages shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide increases follow, rather than precede, global temperature increases. As the oceans warm, they release CO2 into the atmosphere. Climate change is dominated by changes in the water cycle, driven by solar and gravitational forces, and carbon dioxide appears to play only a minor role.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
A great post, thanks.
Simple, testable, explanatory. and there all along.
I always love this quote from the late Dr. Reid Bryson, aka the father of Climatology:
“You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.”
http://www.uncommondescent.com/off-topic/father-of-climatology-calls-manmade-global-warming-absurd/
Not new:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/our-saviour-the-hydrological-cycle/
Published by Stephen Wilde July 17, 2009
And this:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-hot-water-bottle-effect/
June 25, 2008
But isn’t the water cycle created by the Sun? I don’t know how the Sun can create the water cycle if the IPCC K-T diagram says the sun provides only 168 W/m^2 of input power, which is only -40F if converted into a temperature that sunlight would induce on a surface if totally absorbed. -40F can’t melt ice, can it? But direct sunshine DOES melt ice, doesn’t it? And create the water cycle? I guess the energy from the water cycle must come back to help create the water cycle in the first place.
To quote distinguished WUWT contributor Dr. Tim Ball, former Professor, University of Winnipeg: “The analogy I use is: ‘My car is not running very well, so I’m going to ignore the engine which is the sun, and I’m going to ignore the transmission which is the water vapor, and I am going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel which is the human produced CO2.’ The science is that bad.”
Somewhere in our darkest past, there was an optimum climate…everywhere on the planet. If we could just decide what that climate was and how we can get back to it…dial it in as we have been told we have the power.
Of course they are obsessed with carbon dioxide because it is the one thing they can tax. If they can get it taxed then they can get paid for more research and after all, that is what matters the most to them.
Simple Physics. Water has a high heat capacity and can hold heat. Air has a low heat capacity and cannot hold heat, and consequently cannot heat oceans. Therefore oceans heat the air as heat leaves the ocean
@P Wilson – the low heat capacity of air means that it loses heat very quickly, which means that it can heat the oceans very quickly. If the air couldn’t lose heat very quickly, it wouldn’t warm the surface, and then the sun could only heat the surface to -40F.
Another interesting post. Is there an estimate for the total energy generated by the water cycle? It would be illuminating to compare that with the total energy generated by human beans. My guess is orders of magnitude smaller. Any one know?
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:11 pm
@P Wilson – the low heat capacity of air means that it loses heat very quickly, which means that it can heat the oceans very quickly. If the air couldn’t lose heat very quickly, it wouldn’t warm the surface, and then the sun could only heat the surface to -40F.
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Nonsense! The low heat capacity of air means that if it encounters cold water, it doesn’t contain enough energy to raise the water temperature.
Reblogged this on Power To The People and commented:
CO2 is Not The Enemy – Fuel Poverty Is
@bones – but the air is obviously heating the water somehow…air is the main source of heat for the oceans. The K-T energy budget shows it – air provides two to three times more heat to the oceans than the sun does. I think you must be wrong about air’s heat capacity and ability to heat something with higher heat capacity than it. Air is the main thing heating the oceans.
Anomalatys. Air cannot heat oceans. The sun does. Oceans release this heat to thermalize the air above it, as nature’s way is upwards. That’s why when the sun goes down, the air temperature goes down (because air cannot hold heat) whilst oceans remain warm (because water retains heat)
@P Wilson –
Well, even if the thermal capacity from air can’t heat the oceans, radiation from the air can heat the oceans…the energy budget shows it…air provides 2 or 3 times more heat to the oceans than the sun does.
not so. The sun goes directly through air regarding radiation, due to the electromagnetic – in the shortwave – range, to heat land and oceans. When heat -re-radiates in the longwave, it does so by land and oceans heating the air, as air isn’t invisible to longwave radiation
Mayby you all should cut the climate scientist some slack. They are only human.
“In his book Human Universals (1991), Donald Brown defines human universals as comprising “those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exception”, providing a list of 67 items[
The emergence of these universals dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the first evidence of full behavioral modernity.
Among the cultural universals listed by Brown* (1991) are:
Myth, ritual and aesthetics
Divination
Attempts to control weather
Dream interpretation
Beliefs and narratives
Proverbs, sayings
Poetry/rhetorics
Healing practices, medicine
Childbirth customs
Rites of passage
Music, rhythm, dance
Play
Toys, playthings
Death rituals, mourning
Feasting
Body adornment
Hairstyles
*Donald E. Brown is an American professor of anthropology (emeritus). He worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is best known for his theoretical work regarding the existence, characteristics and relevance of universals of human nature. In his best known work, Human Universals, he says these universals, “comprise those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exceptions.” He is quoted at length by Steven Pinker in an appendix to The Blank Slate, where Pinker cites some of the hundreds of universals listed by Brown. In area studies his doctoral research on the structure and history of Brunei was foundational.
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:11 pm
@P Wilson – the low heat capacity of air means that it loses heat very quickly, which means that it can heat the oceans very quickly. If the air couldn’t lose heat very quickly, it wouldn’t warm the surface, and then the sun could only heat the surface to -40F.
Where does the air get the heat it loses to “warm the surface” or “heat the oceans”?
In the many years that I have been an adjunct prof of geology in addition to my career as a water resources consultant (and now the director of water and environment for a, dare I say it, natural gas frac’ing company), I have spent inordinate time per semester on the hydrologic cycle because it is so important to Earth processes. This post is a very succinct and relevant ‘sound bite’ easily readable in a couple minutes, and easily understood by everyone. This is the kind of communication which has been needed to counter the shrill, emotional cries of apocalypse over the past 25 years.
Well done – most people tend to want to convey too much technical information to bolster their case. Herein we see the power of “less is more”.
Thanks
“When heat re-radiates in the longwave, it does so by land and oceans heating the air”
And also by air heating the land and oceans.
“Where does the air get the heat it loses to “warm the surface” or “heat the oceans”?”
Well it has it. The air has a temperature and so it has heat, and it will heat the land and oceans with it. The air GETS heated from the land and oceans, but then with that heat it also heats the land and oceans.
air does not heat oceans. The sun heats oceans that the oceans retain, due to its relatively high heat capacity. It takes a lot of energy to heat something with a high heat capacity. Air has a very low heat capacity, meaning that it cannot heat water. That heat in the air that the air cannot retain goes upwards.
it makes little sense to speak hypothetically by proposing “If the air couldn’t lose heat very quickly” since that isn’t a valid argument.
Simply put, the sun heats oceans. Water retains some of that heat, that in turn regulates the temperature of the atmosphere
The problem with this explanation is that there’s no way to concoct a semi-plausible guilt-based pseudo-religion with it.
Its something like a storage heater, if you like. It takes several hours to produce heat but when it does, due to the high heat capacity of the storage, you can turn it off and it retains heat to heat your room. The air in the room doesn’t heat the storage heater.
Well, the K-T diagram shows the air heating the oceans with radiation from the air, at about 2 or 3 times the power of the Sun. So, obviously the air is heating the oceans somehow, or else there is something wrong with the K-T energy budget.
“The air in the room doesn’t heat the storage heater.”
But insulation makes the heater hotter.
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:36 pm
@P Wilson –
Well, even if the thermal capacity from air can’t heat the oceans, radiation from the air can heat the oceans…the energy budget shows it…air provides 2 or 3 times more heat to the oceans than the sun does.
Your comments are really like a candid camera episode aren’t they. You say silly stuff just to see who would say something. OR you forgot the sarc at the end of you comments. ‘Cause really no one can say the things you say and mean it.
Guys, radiation from the air heating the oceans, as shown in the IPCC K-T energy budget, etc., is just the greenhouse effect. The energy budget shows that air heats the surface with 2 or 3 times the power of the Sun.
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:36 pm
—————————————————
One can but hope and pray that you simply forgot the “/sarc” tag on your last few comments. The empirical evidence is stacked against your claims.
1. Tmax of the airless lunar surface, even when adjusted for longer diurnal cycle, contradicts your claim of -40F.
2. how do you heat a plastic tub of water with a hair drier? Pointing the hair dryer at the surface of the water does not work as the energy is rejected by the skin evaporation layer. Pointing the the hair dryer at the side of the plastic tub however does work.
3. Incident LWIR does not heat nor slow the cooling of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cooled as shown by this simple experiment you and other readers can build and try for themselves –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
Radiative physics is fine, it has just been misapplied to a moving gaseous atmosphere over a moving liquid ocean. There is a slight radiative GHE on earth, most notable over the land at night. However the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
your understanding of thermodynamics are in reverse, i’m afraid. I can’t find a simpler way to express it. If you heated a boiler of water to 30C then the air above it would see a rise in temperature. If you turn off the heat and let the water cool then the air will also cool. That’s why they use water in boilers instead of air. Because air has a low heat capacity that cannot heat water. Flame can heat water in a pan, and the sun can heat oceans and land, but air cannot heat water. Since water has some 1000 times the heat capacity of air, meaning it has not the thermodynamic energy to heat water
^^@anomalytis
@P Wilson: air does a fine job of transferring heat, either heating or cooling by convective transfer. It’s low heat capacity means it is not efficient as other fluids with both higher density and heat capacity. I heat my house by forced air, I can peal paint with a hot air gun, and even ignite the wood if the volume of hot air is excessive and I can melt ice by exposing it to warmer air. The low heat capacity means you need a large mass (volume) of air to work quickly. If air couldn’t transfer heat to a cooler mass, how would it remove heat (transfer) from a warmer mass, say as with your car radiator.
If I put an open container in an ice-water bath and let it equilibrate with the bath temperature (0°C), then place ice in the container it will melt. If is use a fan to move more room temperature air across the ice, it will melt faster.
“slight radiative GHE” ??????
The energy budget shows the GHE provides 2 to 3 times as much heat as the Sun does to the surface! Hardly slight.
But for the last 15 years, Earth’s surface temperatures have failed to rise, despite rising atmospheric carbon dioxide…..
…at the exact same time that CO2 levels should have had the most effect
insulation doesn’t make the heater hotter. It slows the escape of heat from theroom.
I’ve been having much of the same argument with a commenter on another blog site. He claims that CO2 is the single driving force of greenhouse effect. he also believes that the moon is not warmed because there is little CO2 there. he also claims to believe that all the CO2 present from those levels during 1850, thus all CO2 gained since 1850, are man-made.
I’ve asked him how he can tell one CO2 molecule from another, but he can’t tell me. I’ve asked him how something that is 0.03% of our giant atmosphere can heat our atmosphere. He also believes that natural processes provide no warmth at all.
The inanity it burns.
He probably also signed the Zombie-Blog’s petition to have Carcinogens added to our water supply like so many others did.
Great! Now you have gifted the Chicken Little Alarmists a new religous icon.
All those modern electricity generating plants with their hourglass shaped exhuast stacks are belching – Wait for it Kate Blanchet and Michael Katon Aussie actors/activists; not insidious “greenhouse gas” pollution but mostly – water vapour!
So now these deluded folk can keep using the powerstation stacks as icons and blame the upwardly thrusting columns of water vapour for AGW.
Bob Greene. You are in fact using a heat source with a hair dryer to melt ice. In terms of volume there is a lot more ocean than air. So when the temperature of the air goes down when the sun passes, you are arguing that the oceans ought to cool down to the air temperature, since all of a sudden the air has more heat capacity than oceans.
Anomalatys
The heat capacity of water is more than 3200 times larger than air. Therefore the energy released by a one degree celsius drop in air temperature would only be enough energy to raise the temperature of the same volume of water by 1/3200th degrees celsius (that’s 0.0003 degrees celsius)..
The atmosphere stores almost no energy at all. The storage of energy in the oceans is enormous. The oceans drive the atmosphere, not the other way round. Water is truly remarkable stuff, chemically and physically. Air (and CO2) are not.
Direct sunlight, away from the tropics at the north and south edges of the Hadley cells, can heat the surface of the earth (not the air, the actual rocks and sand) to over 70 degrees celsius even though the sun is not even directly overhead Sunlight is hot, not cool. GHE is trivial by comparison.
In the tropics, without the power of the water cycle, cloud formation and convection to cool the surface to around 30 degrees, sunlight could heat the surface of the earth to around 88 degrees celsius (or even more without cloud to change the albedo). GHE is trivial by comparison.
Yep. Global average precipitation is about 1000 mm/annum. One obviously has to evaporate that much water in advance to have it come down later. That’s 1000 kg/m². Heat of vaporization for water is 2.26 MJ/kg, so heat going to evaporation is 2.26 GJ/m² per annum. Length of mean tropical year is 31,556,925 sec. Therefore corresponding heat flux is ~72 W/m². Compare it to average TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) at ToA (Top of Atmosphere) of 340 W/m² or its absorbed and thermalized portion, 238 W/m². Direct forcing of CO₂ doubling is assumed to be 3.7 W/m², average geothermal heat flux is 0.08 W/m², can be as high as 0.3 W/m² in certain regions.
@Anomalatys
Loving it. Just loving it. You’re like a cat with the world’s stupidest mouse, which is being slain.
Anomalatys, your body is roughly 70% water. much like the Earth’s surface so let’s use your body as a test. If the sun doesn’t directly heat the surface then why are you cooler in the shade than when exposed to direct sunlight?
Water Vapor Feedback
The other major feedback is water vapor, which approximately doubles the 1 deg of first principles warming in the models. Here the modelers believe they are on firmer ground than for cloud feedbacks, since there is plenty of observational evidence that warming is associated with more atmospheric water vapor, on average, in the lower troposphere, due to increased surface evaporation caused by warmer temperatures.
But even in the case of water vapor feedback, the situation might not be as simple as they believe. By far the biggest impact of water vapor on the Earth’s ability to cool itself is in the middle and upper troposphere, where it is precipitation processes – not surface evaporation — that determine the water vapor content.
Most of the air at these altitudes was detrained out of precipitation systems, which removed most of the vapor as precipitation. This is why the water vapor content at those altitudes is so low.
So, what determines the efficiency of precipitation systems? If warming increases their efficiency at removing vapor, there could be a slight drying of the middle and upper troposphere at the same time that the lower troposphere becomes more humid. The net result would be negative water vapor feedback, even though the total absolute amount of water vapor in the troposphere has increased (because a tiny decrease in upper tropospheric vapor causes more cooling than a large increase in lower tropospheric vapor causes warming).
This possibility is nothing new; it’s been known for decades (see an extended water vapor feedback discussion here). Long-term weather balloon data we have extending back to the 1950s actually shows lower tropospheric moistening and mid-tropospheric drying, at least suggesting the possibility that multi-decadal climate change involves negative, not positive, water vapor feedback. Miskolczi’s (2010) results of a constant greenhouse effect were basically due to the observed decrease in upper tropospheric water vapor exactly offsetting the greenhouse enhancement of increasing CO2 in the last 50 years.
The above is thoughts from Dr. Spencer, who I agre with on this matter.
Amount of Heat Required to Rise Temperature
The amount of heat needed to heat a subject from one temperature level to an other can be expressed as:
Q = cp · m · dT (2)
where
Q = amount of heat (kJ)
cp = specific heat (kJ/kg.K)
m = mass (kg)
dT = temperature difference between hot and cold side (K)
Example Heating Water
Consider the energy needed to heat 1.0 kg of water from 0 oC to 100 oC when the specific heat of water is 4.19 kJ/kg.K (kJ/kg.oC):
Q = (4.19 kJ/kg.K) · (1.0 kg) · ((100 oC) – (0 oC))
= 419 (kJ)
Note cp of air is 1.005
ThinkingScientist says:
October 7, 2013 at 2:13 pm
“Anomalatys
The heat capacity of water is more than 3200 times larger than air. Therefore the energy released by a one degree celsius drop in air temperature would only be enough energy to raise the temperature of the same volume of water by 1/3200th degrees celsius (that’s 0.0003 degrees celsius)..
The atmosphere stores almost no energy at all. The storage of energy in the oceans is enormous. The oceans drive the atmosphere, not the other way round. Water is truly remarkable stuff, chemically and physically. Air (and CO2) are not.”
***********
Permit me to relate a real-life situation that I believe clearly illustrates the concept that water is way more important than air in determining ambient air temperature.
Duluth, MN is located at the mouth of the St. Louis River, which empties eventually into Lake Superior. The lake that “never gives up her dead” is an extremely cold body of fresh water. Even in the summer months, life expectancy in the water is measured in minutes. I used to live over the hill in Cloquet, MN, about 20 miles west of Duluth. I’ve started out the day in Cloquet in the summer time with the air temperature about 80. Drop down over the hill into Duluth on the same day, and it likely will be 55 – 60.
That big mass of cold water doesn’t blink at the warm air around it, and doesn’t accept any of it either.
I agree completely. It is easy for the general public to forget that Earth is a water planet and water rules. GK
Of course the point is, we humans can’t be blamed for the water cycle or what it does. They wanted something to blame humans for, some “sin” to hit us with and justify the taking away of our toys (technology, advancement, civilization). Blaming us for water just doesn’t sound the same.
Hey G-Karst. I take it you are a karst guy. Living in the Lehigh Valley PA, that was a LARGE part of my livelihood for many years.
seems to me that Desserts are very real test beds for the effect of water vapor in the air. In extremely dry deserts you get radical temperature changes when the sun goes down and the temperature plummets.
“But isn’t the water cycle created by the Sun? I don’t know how the Sun can create the water cycle if the IPCC K-T diagram says the sun provides only 168 W/m^2 of input power, which is only -40F if converted into a temperature that sunlight would induce on a surface if totally absorbed. -40F can’t melt ice, can it? But direct sunshine DOES melt ice, doesn’t it? And create the water cycle? I guess the energy from the water cycle must come back to help create the water cycle in the first place.”
The Sun when it’s direcly over head and on clear sky has solar flux of about 1000 watts per square meter. If you measue this solar flux about 1 foot under water, it also around 1000 watts per square and as you deeper in the water [there still solar flux at 100 meters] one has less solar energy.
If you stop the sunlight from going deeper in the ocean, so have the water a meter or so deep
and have bottom which dark material [dark mud] than you basically have a solar pond.
A solar pond in texas in the winter will have water temperature beneath the surface which is
about 70 C and in summer this average temperature can be more than 80 C.
What causes these high temperature is the sunlight at around noon and it maintains such temperature because the surface is cooler than the water a meter below the surface, and the heat gradient caused by salt water prevents the warm water from rising.
Now, go back to ocean, below a meter most the sunlight is passing thru the water, and at certain deep no sunlight reaches. So what happen to the energy of sunlight which passes thru the first
meter of water? If it very slightly per second warms the water in 100 meter column of water, that heat doesn’t return to the surface [within a day or months]. So such numbers as “168 W/m^2”
isn’t the amount energy warming the surface which in on second radiates and in one second radiate back towards space. Instead most of it goes in ocean and takes a long time before it’s radiated towards space.
So the bottomless “solar pond” of ocean don’t reach the sond pond’s high temperature, but they
would tend to keep more heat per square meter of ocean surface area.
Because a solar pond will reach a certain temperature it can’t warm higher whereas the ocean has 100 meter of water it can warm up a little bit every day, and year after year.
So Ocean not a good solar pond in sense it create a large temperature difference, which could use to drive a turbine or purify water, or whatever, but better at storing heat an solar pond- and solar pond very good at storing heat for days or weeks. The ocean is something that stores heat on scale of centuries, compared to weeks for a shallow solar pond.
Sometimes I feel we are flogging a zombie horse.
@PWilson –
Further proof of what you say is the fact that the west coasts of North American and Europe have much milder climates than farther inland. It’s because the oceans control air temps, not CO2.
And not vice versa, either.
As I have written and said many times, in comparison to water in all of its forms: the ocean, clouds, snow and ice cover, CO2 is about as significant as a fart in a hurricane.
Its not alarming like the climate science community suggests, and the temperature sensitivity to CO2 concentration is less than what the science community suggests, but CO2 emissions do affect temperature. Water vapor fluctuates wildly with temperature on a daily and seasonal basis. Water greatly exceeds CO2’s influence, but increased CO2 concentration is more of a constant ever present low level influence and more evenly distributed across the globe. Not so with water vapor. CO2 is re-absorbed by plants and the ocean, but its residence time is relatively long. The surface water supply can already be considered infinite compared to the amount of water vapor that the total atmosphere could hold, i.e 100% RH even at temperatures much higher than today.
To understand why the radiative green house hypothesis is in error, you only need to be able to answer the following simple physics questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
4. Is convective circulation including water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
Konrad,
I like it.
An individual (I assume he is an alarmist) posted a rebuttal to this article in the comments section of the Washington Times website where the article appeared:
“This article hinges on the assumption that the CO2 cycle and the H2O cycle are not intimately intertwined. This is a false assumption. Conversely, CO2 is absorbed by the ocean. Clearly plowing an ill thought out agenda of ideological fixation is so boring………………”
Not being a scientist myself, does someone understand what he is hinting at? What does the CO2 cycle have to do with the water cycle and the gist of this article?
Well, when I notice a a change in climate and sea levels in particular (I live right by the sea) I will start to worry. Until then…
I respect the scientific method but as William Burroughs once said “There is no job too dirty…”
You are are not Gods, far from it.
Re: atmosphere heating water and vice versa
The atmosphere cannot directly heat the ocean. It can, however, slow the rate of cooling. So, if the ocean is receiving a constant source of energy (i.e. from the sun) and downwelling IR from the atmosphere increases (via an enhanced greenhouse effect) then it is possible that the oceans will warm. By how much is the big question.
It is worth noting, though, that the increase in OHC since the 1950s is more or less consistent with the estimated CO2 forcing over the same period.
This chart is a fine visual example of the enormous difference between the Atmosphere and the Ocean when it comes to heat capacity:
Energy Content Atmosphere vs Ocean
http://globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1103-post-9653.html#pid9653
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:46 pm
Don’t you realize you are talking in circles? All of the “heating” you speak of is a null effect. K-T shows ~78 W/m² of solar energy being directly absorbed by the atmosphere gases. Of that one half radiates downward to the surface. Take the ~161 W/m² + that 39 W/m² half and you have the ~200 W/m² warming of the surface. That 200 plus the upward half from the atmosphere radiated upward is the ~239 W/m² the satellites measure in LWIR from our planet. Please stop unnecessarily confusing this thread. Ok?
Transpiration (hydrological sourced) accounts for ~1/2 of the upward transfer of energy. The other 1/2 is from LWIR but don’t forget the “window” radiation that directly exits ever second from the surface. That is around 66 W/m² of that 200 W/m² leaving from the surface and only ~33 W/m² being LW cooling from radiation that interacts recursively absorbed and re-radiated upward. The downward component of that has already been accounted for.
Yes, the water cycle dominates. Most of what you see in LW in T-K’s energy budget cancels out and is that “null” effect, changes nothing and just maintains the local temperature, and is VERY misleading, just ignore it and that is proper, stick to the ‘net’ effects.
So you end up with ~3 parts of cooling by water related processes, ~1 part cooling by non-window radiation and we must live with that fact as much as IPCC whats you to “believe” otherwise.
I can get more exact by figures from papers (± a few W/m² here and there) but you will find, in general, that is what is reality.
Posted on my blog at http://conservefewell.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/the-maddening-world-of-climate-change/ Has anyone offered a credible refutation or critique of Goreham’s scholarship?
Ha! A post one agree with in part!
Yes on the power of the oceans on the climate, no on this being a score for one mechanism at the expense of the other mechanism, they occur side by side.
This means the others kind of agree with Trenberth. Ocean circulation patterns with upwelling cold water in the east pacific cause a change in the relative temperature difference between air and water and therefore heat exchange, in this case leading to relatively more energy being in the ocean than in the atmosphere (as opposed to situations without such upwelling cold waters).
This is evidence that ocean patterns influence surface temperatures (who’d have thought that!) but not that CO2 has no warming effect. Ocean patterns primarily influence distribution of heat within the system. CO2 causes an energy imbalance for the whole earth system.
Anyways, you are very close to mainstream climate science. Compare:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/apr/24/reuters-puzzled-global-warming-acceleration
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jun/07/global-warming-puzzle-pieces-assembled
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jun/24/global-warming-pause-button
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/28/global-warming-oceans-known-unknowns
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/03/global-warming-pacific-ocean-puzzle-piece
But, the main reason give precedence to CO2 over water vapour is that water vapour gets washed out of the atmosphere quickly while this is not the case for CO2. It doesn’t matter if the air is dry or moist, the CO2 is still there and doing what physics says it does.
Regards, Sisi
Actually a great deal of the heat does return to the surface the following night. There is an effect in tropical oceans called overturning which occurs a few hours after sunset. In this effect, the surface water – which has been cooling since the sun went down – becomes more dense than the water beneath it. This leads to the cool surface water sinking to its density level and the warmer water beneath the surface rising to the surface to give its heat up. Some small amount of heat is added to the ocean, but not nearly as much as the 168 W/m^2 quoted. Of course if too much heat is locally absorbed into the water, that water expands, causing sea surface elevation to rise and the heated water to begin flowing downhill. As I understand it, this and tradewinds are the main drivers of the warm surface currents.
Sisi,
CO2 does not cause any measurable global warming.
Stop reading the Guardian and you will do fine.
Try and heat a bucket of water by directing a hair dryer at the surface — it just does not happen – the above article and at http://www.newclimatemodel.com/our-saviour-the-hydrological-cycle/ are excellent
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:36 pm
@P Wilson –
Well, even if the thermal capacity from air can’t heat the oceans, radiation from the air can heat the oceans…the energy budget shows it…air provides 2 or 3 times more heat to the oceans than the sun does.
————————————————————————————–
LOL. It always amazes me the naivety of those with no background in the physical sciences how they worship the nonsense served up by the now discredited IPCC. Even when it is pointed out to him that he is mistaken he persists. Brainwashing with a most successful example.
Reblogueó esto en Blog de Mariano Vargasy comentado:
Ojo al dato!
The K-T energy balance diagram has the Greenhouse Effect at 155 W/m2.
Water Vapor in the atmosphere is responsible for more than 100 W/m2 of this amount.
So again, it is water.
—–
But in terms of the water vapor feedback, it is assumed to be a 7.0% increase in water vapor per 1.0C increase in temperatures. However, water vapor feedback is only coming in at between 2.4% per 1.0C (in Hadcrut4) and 4.6% per 1.0C (in RSS/UAH average troposphere temps).
http://s17.postimg.org/6jl2b984f/Hadcrut4_vs_TCWV_1948_Aug_2013.png
And then, why does that matter. The entire theory of global warming depends on this 7.0% showing up. If the feedback is in the range of the empirical evidence to day, global warming can only be between 1.0C to 1.6C per doubling. Furthermore, we see what happens to water vapor levels when the Greenhouse Effect is completely gone – when we get down to -33.0C. In the theory, there is virtually no water vapor left but the empirical data to date still leaves a substantial amount left. So, the math just does not work for 3.0C per doubling. Water vapor is still the biggest greenhouse gas there is, no matter how much CO2 is left, even if it is Zero.
This is the first time this chart will have appeared anywhere. Might be self-explanatory but I can post about it more if needed.
http://s18.postimg.org/tug1h4svt/CC_Relation_Implication_TCWV_vs_Empirical.png
It is estimated that at least 505 thousand cubic kilometers of water falls as precipitation each year. Which is so much water it would cover whole Earth with ~1 meter thick layer of water. And this water must be evaporated each year from the sea and land surfaces. Given the water latent heat of vaporization (2.26×106 J/kg)
5.05×1017 kg x 2.26×10^6 J = 1.14×10^24 Joules
(at least ~70.8 W/m2 average energy flux from the sea and land surfaces in form of purely latent heat – good to note that this figure is still significantly lower than the latent heat estimation made in so called Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget.)
Let’s compare the figure to an estimation how much heat the Earth surface yearly received in average from the sun (1361.1 / 4 x 0.7 = 238.19 W):
238.19W x 5.10072×10^14 Joules x 31556926 [seconds in year] = 3.83×10^24 Joules
The comparison shows that only for precipitation cycle is consumed about 30% of the total heat absorbed at the surface from the solar shortwave and is transported as latent heat via evaporation way from the sea and land surfaces somewhere up to the atmosphere where it again condenses and releases the latent heat, heating so the atmosphere there.
Anomalatys, How do you evaluate the following? ‘War is Peace’, ‘Lies are Truth’, ‘Obedience is Freedom’?
Just wondering.
CO2 is the primary coolant of the upper atmosphere. It, and water, block e.n.o.r.m.o.u.s. volumes of sunlight coming in from sun-side top of atmosphere.
Now watch very carefully and you’re going to experience the transmogrificational, transcendent joy, of having your plus-isms match up to your minus-isms.
The Sun is shining on half the spherical atmosphere-planet complex 24/7/365.
That ratio of light IN
to light OUT
never varies enough for you to have to take off your shoes.
On the non sunlight influenced regions’ vs the sunlight impinged regions there’s a boundary layer where some light creeps around, but not much, and it’s less than a mile back that way so normalize that boundary to a standard and give yourself sunlight in, on an area, of average intensity. It’ll be more intense in the middle, less intense to the sides, get it strapped in as some value. A numerical one.
IF THE SIDE on the INSIDE of the atmosphere is giving off less on average than the amount of sunlight being BLOCKED FROM EVER GETTIN’ IN thair, perfesser,
your “it really is heating if Ya’ll look again” fake science immediately undergoes a fatal bullet through the major malfunction box that has the label on it saying, “If YOU TRY THAT, YOUR STORY’s gonna have a MAJOR MALFUNCTION.”
Oh
yes,
it
will.
You had better be HOLDING IN,
an amount IDENTICAL to,
or BIGGER than
WHAT THE INFRARED GASES BLOCK – keep OUT –
or YOU’VE
got a COOLING problem.
Not a problem, cooling.
Not us,
not the scientific method.
Your story
and you, have a
problem.
That’s called
COOLING when that CO2 is responsible for keeping OUT more sunlight than it keeps IN, translated into earth light. Because the earth is indeed a flashlight and the intensity of the energy it gives off is SO SMALL,
that YOUR PERSONAL HUMAN MONKEY EYES CAN’T SEE IT.
But boy howdy professer Bore Hole, you can see that sunlight so brightly you can barely stare into it even when it’s almost set and just risen. MUCH of that time you can’t make that human primate stare into that sun without EYE DAMAGE.
What’s the chance of your eyes being damaged staring into the intense infrared light the earth gives off professor B.H. Backerd?
Them Backerdisms gonna boil all our eyes out from the heat uh… feckt of them magic gaises?
No that”s not going to happen Mr. Climatologist because you’re either seriously misinformed about which way a thermometer goes when one refers to heating or cooling,
or you’re just some wacktard activist who respects nobody and nothing until you’re made to respect it.
But respecting it in the long haul you will my friend, and you will deny you ever thought otherwise.
The infrared resonant gases are coolants.
CO2 and WATER INTERCEPT LIGHT BEFORE IT HITS THE GROUND.
That means they are coolants.
Not maybe,
not Thursday,
not sometimes,
not could be.
If you block OUT more energy than you block IN,
you are a COOLANT.
If you block more energy IN than OUT
you are a WARMING mechanism.
Ya see how that works?
Now again you don’t even have to take off your Al Gore Effect Green Energy Backerdism Harvester mittens:
The earth is effectively HEATED hemispherically but obliquely by the Sun.
The earth is COOLED facing the sun by CO2 STOPPING SUNLIGHT from getting IN.
The CO2 blocks an energetically dense stream of infrared coming IN so it stays OUT.
THAT is called COOLING when that happens. You can say it, you just hate it.
Now: SOME light, gets in, and is converted to EARTH light: a much less dense energy stream that has similar frequencies to sunlight but at a much lower density per unit’s area. Meters, miles, millimeters, whatever.
Don’t be frightened we’re all here to support you admitting you’ve been having trouble facing the causes of global cooling.
Now watch: you won’t be afraid, and indeed, since you’ll stop blathering libtard stupidity, people are going to think you attended an exorcism and got some sympathetic vibrations from the good witch doctor and might have a hope of one day having some sense again:
When there is a very intense stream of sun infrared being blocked at all times over – give or take half – the earth’s hence the atmosphere’s area
and half of that is being blocked, and half is getting in,
some of that is going by: half of it, and part of THAT, is hitting the earth but bouncing OFF.
So the space where those molecules are, is filled with a LOT of sun source light, and it’s bouncing a LOT of it off and out into space.
On that hand, that’s called coooooooLing, you can say it, co000OOooL. CooLinG.
There ya go!
Now on the other hand the earth, is ALSO giving off a stream of infrared light but there is much, much MUCH less of it, per area you sample. Just fractional amounts.
When the CO2 isn’t kicking sunlight out to space in the UPPER atmosphere
and is instead kicking sunlight out into space in the LOWER atmosphere,
YOU’VE LEARNED, THAT’S called COOLING.
Look at the big brain on PHILiP….!
But when the CO2 is kicking light back to EARTH, that’s called WARMING isn’t it?
I said that’s called warming professer and I expect you’re gonna agree or we’re gonna be at loggereads over stupid and which way a thermometer points, when.
So WHICH do you think the CO2 does MORE OF?
Do you think CO2 BLOCKS more SUN light OUT?
Or do you think the CO2 block more EARTH light, IN?
WHICH of THOSE ENERGY STREAMS, in YOUR PERFESHUNUhL UhPINyuN
is MORE ENERGY RICH?
Because if YOU’VE got a problem with the fact the one from the SUN is more ENERGY DENSE
then I and I’m sure quite a few here are going to INVITE YOU to an EXPERIMENT where you walk outside and stare at the sun for a few afternoons,
then go stare at some beautiful dirt for a few,
and you can come back and GIVE US YER ASSESSMENT, Perfesser Bore Hole,
on which energy stream’s most energy dense.
Now it’s NOT going to be a real good test in the sense the sunlight’s got a lot more light of other colors and you’ll go blind,
but on the other hand, the world will be saved from another person who thought a class of gases keeping half the energy of the sun from ever reaching the planet, on the one hand –
and then functioning as a phase change refrigeration system helping release whatever gets in
is a giant heater on,
in the sky,
over all our heads,
too big not to believe in,
too tiny to move a meter.
If you have some kind of problem wit the concepts that have been related to you, why don’t ya go find the s.m.a.r.t.e.s.t. Mann yew no,
and send him to explain how blocking more light out than in
is a giant heater in the sky.
Too big not to believe in
Too tiny to move a meter.
Among other scientific disciplines, Electronic Engineering specializing in the generation, transmission, capture, processing and analysis of electromagnetic energy through the atmosphere and space and also, the industrial compounds I need to make that happen
awaits with breath abate.
I’m sure the entire room’s throbbing with eager anticipation of the scintillating backerdistical back & forthisms that are gonna roll off his befuddled fingers to explain to us all, how thim
Backerdisms
is uh gonna boil our eyes out
before we even can close our eyes to the truth and deny it.
We keep waiting.
Apparently so does N.O.A.A.
Here’s where they checked their own story of Backerdisms and found there were fewer Backerdistical Rays than when they started counting.
Yeah N.O.A.A. was SURE them CO2’s was uh.. gonna boil all our heads before we could get our hats on so they… set out sophisticated Backerdistical sensors at ground zero for MoronMade Global Goofyisms.
Guess what Perfesser Bore Hole?
They put the sensors out in ’96 or so and FOURTEEN YEARS LATER, when they wrapped it up around 2010,
Thair was less uh them Backerdisms.
Now aint that plumb magical?
Yew bet it is.
So you go ahead and find the guy who’s going to explain to me how them Backerdisms is POWWWWurFuL.
Powerful.
From another realm in this life, REAL sciences, extend a mocking “HOWDY!” to the Magic Gais crowd.
=====
John Phillips says:
October 7, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Its not alarming like the climate science community suggests, and the temperature sensitivity to CO2 concentration is less than what the science community suggests, but CO2 emissions do affect temperature. Water vapor fluctuates wildly with temperature on a daily and seasonal basis. Water greatly exceeds CO2′s influence, but increased CO2 concentration is more of a constant ever present low level influence and more evenly distributed across the globe. Not so with water vapor. CO2 is re-absorbed by plants and the ocean, but its residence time is relatively long. The surface water supply can already be considered infinite compared to the amount of water vapor that the total atmosphere could hold, i.e 100% RH even at temperatures much higher than today.
The all important LINKS:
N.O.A.A. LOOKING IN VAIN for MAGICAL BACKERDISMS growin’ an’ growin with them CO2s!!!
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim&
N.A.S.A. confessing CO2 is the MAJOR BLOCKER of INCOMING I.R. in the UPPER atmosphere.
is currently an INACTIVE website due to Federal shutdown.
Google for yourself: N.A.S.A. proves CO2 COOLS UPPER ATMOSPHERE.
Of course magically in the lower atmosphere it don’t block nairy what got by up at thuh top. It’s awl warmin
awl thuh
time.
YaW.
Pfft…
Sisi says:
October 7, 2013 at 5:16 pm
Do you just make this stuff up as you go along, is someone even less well educated but more imaginative pulling your strings?
What possible impact could water vapor’s getting “washed out” have, since it’s replaced? In the tropics, CO2 can have little or no effect, due to the usually high concentration of water vapor in those latitudes, which completely swamps the effect of CO2. Only in the very driest air, ie above the cold polar deserts or over the very driest, lower latitude hot deserts, can CO2 have any effect.
In the tropics, which receive the most solar radiation, water vapor reaches 40,000 ppm, vs. CO2’s at most 400 ppm of dry air, obviously less of the actual (humid) atmospheric composition there.
@dbstealey
I read the following here:
I noticed that this resembles scientific explorations why surface warming might have plateaued and I gave links (yes! links to the Guardian, off all places! Heaven forbid!) that discuss the ocean-surface warming link.
You say:
Why do you feel the need to tell this to me? Why didn’t you tell Steve Goreham that you have fool-proof evidence that CO2 cannot warm the earth? Steve seems to think it might.
“Martin Mlynczak and his colleagues over at NASA tracked infrared emissions from the earth’s upper atmosphere during and following a recent solar storm that took place between March 8-10. What they found was that the vast majority of energy released from the sun during this immense coronal mass ejection (CME) was reflected back up into space rather than deposited into earth’s lower atmosphere.
The result was an overall cooling effect that completely contradicts claims made by NASA’s own climatology division that greenhouse gases are a cause of global warming. As illustrated by data collected using Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER), both carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), which are abundant in the earth’s upper atmosphere, greenhouse gases reflect heating energy rather than absorb it.
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” says James Russell from Hampton University, who was one of the lead investigators for the groundbreaking SABER study. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.
According to the data, up to 95 percent of solar radiation is literally bounced back into space by both CO2 and NO in the upper atmosphere. Without these necessary elements, in other words, the earth would be capable of absorbing potentially devastating amounts of solar energy that would truly melt the polar ice caps and destroy the planet.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/040448_solar_radiation_global_warming_debunked.html##ixzz2h5gyciJm
By golly the comments in this post are confusing even for an old hillbilly engineer, I have lurked for several years and can generally follow everything but the post on the Carboniferous period threw me a curve ball and now the comment section of a relatively simple water cycle explanation does the same. At my age you hold up fingers and count them to make sure something in the brain didn’t go haywire.
All of this causes a person like me to reflect on simple concepts to make sure I don’t end up thinkin like some folks in climate religion.
The sun is very important in climate change. Remove the sun and the air will not heat any water. I go back to the concept that the sun is the source for 97% of the heat I am feeling and I doubt anyone in the general populace will believe anything that does not put the sun in proper focus,
I believe I understand how green house gases work but water vapor and CO2 have some unusual characteristics if I am not mistaken. Tuning water into water vapor takes a lot of heat and it must take that hear from near all of those ground weather stations as well as the ocean. Now heat rises and the water vapor condenses back to water due to lapse rate. Not all of it but a lot. That water vapor gives up a lot of heat but the lapse rate stays about the same. That heat sure as hell did not come back down so water vapor must be a net negative as far as heat goes at the temperature stations. Its more complicated than that but not to joe six pack. I think this was the jist behind many of the comments but I am not sure.
Now CO2 can be turned into a solid at relatively low pressures and higher (cold to me) temperatures. Seems to me about 233 deg K. That sounds way hotter than -40 degrees C or F. Seems to me that if there is heat being transported down (salinity? or them thar waves that T guy talked about) then CO2 would also go down like the Titanic. If the CO2 does not all react will it precipitate out below say 100 meters and some of it settle out on the bottom of the ocean? Seems to me some crazy sequestering schemes made big missile like objects out of frozen CO2 and dropped them over the side of a boat in deep water. They sank quick enough to get below a depth where they would stay a solid on the ocean floor supposedly. Isn’t this the principle behind methanhydrates not dissolving?
Anyway I want some of what them heat goes down by convection guys are smoking seein as I count all 10 fingers and after reading and typing want to count a different number of fingers every time..
“Brent Fewell says: October 7, 2013 at 5:16 pmBut, the main reason give precedence to CO2 over water vapour is that water vapour gets washed out of the atmosphere quickly while this is not the case for CO2”.
While water vapour gets washed out of the atmosphere quickly, it’s replace with water vapor just as fast. CO2 also gets washed out as well and replaced.
@milodonharlini
Nice way to start a discussion! Thanks! Much appreciated!
It is only replaced to the extent that it is because greenhouse gases like CO2 make sure that it is warm enough for the evaporation to happen. Figure the rest out for yourself. I am not interested in discussion with you any further.
“It is only replaced to the extent that it is because greenhouse gases like CO2 make sure that it is warm enough for the evaporation to happen”
See guys? It is just like I was saying. If it wasn’t for radiation from the atmosphere, from CO2, evaporation wouldn’t happen because sunshine at 168 W/m^2, or -40F, isn’t strong enough to evaporate water…or thus create the water cycle. It is heat from the atmosphere which creates the water cycle, and evaporates water, etc. This is climate science 101…standard, TRADITIONAL science.
Sisi says:
October 7, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Increasing CO2 in the tropics above a low level (less than 200 ppm) doesn’t make the air or surface any warmer, since the effect is swamped out by the water vapor, so you’ll have to try some other lame excuse.
@old construction worker
Who is Brent Fewell?
I have never seen CO2 been rained of the sky. If you have, please show me
Anomalatys says: @ October 7, 2013 at 1:29 pm
@bones – but the air is obviously heating the water somehow…air is the main source of heat for the oceans….
No The ocean is warmed by the sun. The Shorter the wavelength the further the energy penetrates. GRAPH
I suggest you get a bit of basic understanding of the subject.
The Earth’s Energy Balance: Simple Overview
List of other Energy Balance articles
Radiative Heat Transfer: Simple Overview
Radiative Heat Transfer: Medium Overview, Part 1 of 2.
Radiative Heat Transfer: Medium Overview, Part 2 of 2.
Anomalatys says:
October 7, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Sisi says:
October 7, 2013 at 6:59 pm
CO2 in the tropics has very little effect on heating the atmosphere, & in any case, the tropics & earth haven’t warmed for going on 20 years, despite increasing CO2 (allegedly).
Why not educate yourselves in actual, observational science, not GIGO models, instead of getting taken in by the IPCC’s & Guardian’s rent-seeking, ideologically-driven lies? For starters:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/another-ipcc-ar5-reviewer-speaks-out-no-trend-in-global-water-vapor/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/if-there-was-no-co2-how-much-would-the-tropics-cool/
Sisi,
There has never been any data showing that CO2 causes global warming.
It might — but if it does, the effect is too small to measure at current concentrations. Almost all of the effect from CO2 happens in the first 20 ppm. But at current concentrations [around 400 ppm], raising CO2 even 30 – 40 ppm makes no measurable difference.
Stop reading the Guardian They are about as scientific as a witch doctor, and they are not telling you the truth. Read this site for a while, and you will begin to understand that there is nothing either unusual or unprecednted happening. What we are observing today has happened repeatedly in the past. So relax. It’s OK. Runaway global warming is a fairy tale.
Climate alarmists have ulterior motives in trying to scare you. They are self-serving. But real scientists will tell you that there is nothing wrong with the climate. It will be the same long after we’re all gone.
You also say: “I have never seen CO2 been rained of the sky. If you have, please show me.”
Rain drops contain a high concentration of CO2.
Sisi says:
October 7, 2013 at 7:06 pm
In that case, then you’ve never seen rain at all.
Distilled water (from which the CO2 has been removed) has a neutral pH of 7. Normal, unpolluted rain has an acidic pH, down to about 5.7, because CO2 & water in the air react to form the weak acid, carbonic acid.
Boy, you have a lot of elementary facts about the world to learn.
@dbstealey
The story above the line is lacking. (I consider the story above the line to better than what is usually presented here 😀 ). So Long!
@ Stephen Wilde says:
October 7, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Not new:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/our-saviour-the-hydrological-cycle/
Published by Stephen Wilde July 17, 2009
Agreed— And if memory serves, the subject was also thoroughly discussed in Professor Ian Plimer’s tour-de-force, “Heaven and Earth.” I have to say, however, I completely agree with
@Glenn THompson
that your article was the most concise, cogent, accessible description I’ve read to date of the Water Cycle, and I loved your answers to the alarmists. Unfortunately, your efforts were completely lost on one who seems never to have heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and insists that the air heats the sea 2-3 times greater than the sun, because some “energy budget” that the IPCC came up with says so, and because the sun heated the ocean which heated the air which then turned around and heated the sea again (2-3 times more intensely than the sea heated the air the first go-round, it appears), and various other circular arguments that appear to be based upon a terrible misunderstanding of even the incorrect theories the alarmists toss about. If you never saw an example of brainwashing before, well…
I was reminded of a woman we encountered while diving at Cayman Brac, my brother and I, 25 years ago. We encountered a huge spiny lobster, and we weren’t the only ones to see it, from the discussion at the bar following the dive. One of the other divers pointed out that spiny lobsters aren’t really lobsters, and that they’re more closely related to crawdads and shrimp (quite true). But this woman kept insisting, “But it was an Arthopod!” as if to suggest that calling it anything else was wrong, or perhaps to disagree that it was related to crawdads or shrimp. Several of us agreed, “Yes, it’s an Arthopod, but…” and she started to get more shrill. The whole taxonomy thing that Linnaeus came up with, you know, starts with kingdom, has phyla in there somewhere, ends with genus and species? was totally lost on this woman—we couldn’t begin to make a dent in her certainty that we were WRONG, it was an arthopod (even though we AGREED with her), and NOT a lobster of ANY sort (and there we all disagreed with her).
You can lead the gal to knowledge, but you can’t make her drink. Or maybe that was the problem? One rum punch too many?
Thanks again to Stephen Wilde for two excellent articles, and yet ANOTHER site on which to lurk… Thank you, sir!
Anomalatys says:
Anomalatys, you do know, don’t you, that the 168 W/m^2 is but an average globally and over all times, day and night, and most places on this Earth between 40N and 40S latitudes receive some ~1000 W/m² when the sun is high, PLENTY to evaporate water. Even up to the arctics this occurs but to a lower wattage per area. You really fell for the IPCC storyline didn’t you? I mean, you are really screwed up in the real physics of planetary atmopsheres.
I just want to say that some of the comments on this post are the worst I’ve ever read on this blog, and I’ve read quite a few.
There are several commenters with different names posting nonsense tonight. I don’t recognize the names: but, I have seen similar verbose posts, especially on Dr Spenser’s website. This type of behavior reminds me of a post on another website that I read. The post identified 22 items. I am listing three of the items for your consideration.
22. Distracting or Absurd Statistics. With this technique, the writer attempts to drag the reader into a debate about what the reader is even seeing. This is usually used when the propagandist is falling behind and must hurry to destroy correct understanding of events.
There are many other techniques, as the last century has been a golden age for this sort of duplicity. The Internet has accelerated the development of new techniques because the web tends to shorten the useful life of these media scams.
15. Fogging an Issue/Total Nonsense. Sometimes certain groups have an interest in making sure that as few people pay attention to an issue as possible. A good propagandist can write a long, nonsensical article for the purpose of confusing the majority of readers, who themselves work hard all day. It doesn’t take much for them to see a catchy headline, then begin to dig into a long rambling article, then throw their hands up and say “I don’t have the extra energy to decipher this!” The reader is correct, the fault is with the propagandist.
7. Unproven “Facts”. This is used when you are frantic to prove a position that is weak (or outright false). Cite impressive sounding “studies”, “reports”, and “experts” as “proving” your point. The key here is to never mention the study’s name, location, where copies can be found, or the conditions specific to the experiments. Again, the Internet cuts both ways and this technique is short term. In the past you could get a lot farther with convincing but false facts.
The entire list can be found here:http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20130826.aspx
@SRV
No drinking while posting.
Rered Engineer John,
That was a fascinating link. Thanx for posting. Bookmarked.
==============================
Anomalatys, Sisi, S.R.V.: you folks are new here. You have a lot to learn.
“What does the CO2 cycle have to do with the water cycle and the gist of this article?” (CD at 4:41pm)
1. Great place to start learning (for those who are genuinely seeking science truth) is Dr. Murry Salby’s April 18, 2013 Hamburg, Germany lecture. As a non-scientist, I highly recommend this. Do as I did, take notes as if you are sitting in Dr. Salby’s lecture hall — it will help you to remember what you are hearing.
You will learn a lot!
Watch this more than once as I did; it was much easier to understand the second time.
2. @ CD — you may find the above lecture especially helpful at 36:30 and from about 54:10 to 57:30 (my truncated Salby lecture notes follow to help you decide if watching the video might answer your above Q — Note: the underlying, more important issue (rather than the “intertwining” of CO2 and water) is the relatively weak influence of total (net) CO2 (much less of human CO2) on energy transfer on earth):
[36:30] CO2 Carbon Cycle Estimated Budget
[54:10] Global-Mean Energy Budget
[55:35] … ALL the other GHG’s (methane and CO2 included) absorb only 4 W/m2 or 1% of the absorption) – atmosphere, turn, also emits LW radiation, 322 W/m2 (94% GCG’s of water vapor/clouds), offsetting the cooling emitting of LW by earth.
[57:00] Earth also mechanically (conduction and convection – depends on ocean circulation) transfers energy away from surface (balancing input): 106 W/m2 (=heat transfer by NON-CO2 GHG’s, i.e., 2 orders of magnitude greater than what CO2 (<4W/m2) could possibly do).
dbstealey says:
October 7, 2013 at 8:16 pm
“Anomalatys, Sisi, S.R.V.: you folks are new here. You have a lot to learn.”
D.B., Learning has nothing to do with it. They are Drones, in the Ant or Bee sense, performing a function for the collective. Facts, truth and knowledge are irrelevant to them, they have their mission.
What is hilarious is that they would attempt to peddle their perpetual motion schemes at a convention of Physicists, or weight-loss wonder ills at a convention of personal trainers.
‘ills’ = ‘pills’
Sure, take the word of a guy who misspells “precedence” on the front page of the website dedicated to his hack science group.
REPLY: Hmmm let’s see… take the word of somebody who uses their real name but makes an alleged (no citation given) simple spelling mistake, or take the word of an angry person who hides behind a fake pseudo-name. Gosh, tough choice – Anthony
“Bill says:
October 7, 2013 at 1:03 pm”
Water has been taxed for decades, especially in countries like Australia and the UK.
Janice Moore says:
October 7, 2013 at 9:33 pm
1. Great place to start learning (for those who are genuinely seeking science truth) is Dr. Murry Salby’s April 18, 2013 Hamburg, Germany lecture.
Except that Dr. Salby is completely wrong on several counts, including the cause of the increase of CO2 (which are humans, not temperature or vegetation) and about the diffusion of CO2 in ice cores… See my comment at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/21/nzclimate-truth-newsletter-no-313/#comment-1346717
and following comments.
-Owen in GA says:
October 7, 2013 at 5:20 pm
gbaikie says:
October 7, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Now, go back to ocean, below a meter most the sunlight is passing thru the water, and at certain deep no sunlight reaches. So what happen to the energy of sunlight which passes thru the first
meter of water? If it very slightly per second warms the water in 100 meter column of water, that heat doesn’t return to the surface [within a day or months]. So such numbers as “168 W/m^2″
“Actually a great deal of the heat does return to the surface the following night. There is an effect in tropical oceans called overturning which occurs a few hours after sunset. “-
After the top surface has cooled, then this denser cooled surface would fall to be replaced by warmer water below it.
Plus wave motion mixes the top 100 meters of ocean.
The ocean water will reach some balance [roughly speaking] just as solar pond will reach a balance.
So with solar pond in Texas, when there is less sunlight during the winter, a solar pool
will maintain an average temperature of about 70 C. In this situation of solar insolation during a period of time- the heat will of course more or less balance every day- if it didn’t balance you would not have a near constant temperature.
Now If you were to add cold water, to the solar pond in the winter and thereby lower the temperature below 70 C, it will warm back up to 70 C. The lower you cause this warmer water to cool the more heat is added into the solar pond each day.
And we know with our ocean the cold polar water, falls towards the equator, and vast currents of surface water flows poleward. So it’s engine which powers climate. Whereas one could use solar pond as engine to power whatever want to use it for.
So globally there a vast amount water being mixed and basically is stays at near constant temperature in such short time periods as a year or so.
So not arguing that the earth’s energy budget isn’t on average nearly constant.
The overturning during the nighttime is part of the reason the ocean surface has a near constant temperature- there is cooler water being added from it cooling at surface and falling and being replaced less dense warmer water.
So when ocean temperature is balanced no net heat will be added.
The ocean is currently not balanced, as your world is still cold from the time of last glacial period- glaciers, ice caps, and average entire ocean temperature of about 3 C. The last interglacial period became considerably warmer than our interglacial period- and it’s a good guess our interglacial will eventually reach similar levels [in terms glaciers/ice caps/warmer ocean].
Now suppose one start from premise that ocean should be cooler than it is, or instead of having warm ocean surface temperature- being the top 100 meters, the surface ocean were to be thoroughly mixed [not something normally possible] so that the surface was same temperature as deep ocean- so making the surface water around 3 C.
With such a cold ocean almost all the solar energy will stay in the ocean until such time as the ocean returns to the situation we have now- a warm surface ocean temperature.
As the average ocean surface temperature [down to 100 meter depth] approaches our current temperature the amount heat added decreases- or there is energy available at night, which keeps surface warmer at night [and since it’s warmer loses more energy at night].
Or said differently, if tomorrow we were to *somehow* get a cooled condition in average global air temperature so matches the same as middle of last glacial period- ocean water in the top 100 meter would lose some heat, but it will be a slow process of losing this heat- it would take centuries- for entire ocean somewhere in ballpark of thousand years or so per 1 C.
You could get somewhat quick change in air temperature, but not in ocean temperatures.
And to get actual glacial or interglacial period temperatures conditions requires a long time.
So we two different conditions: air temperature over the last 8000 year are very gradually decreasing, but since sea level is slowly rising over last thousands of year, we know that ocean temperature continue to increase over this same period and will continue even if it were to get quite cold in the coming decades.
Or if instead we were to get Hansen’s crazy hot, ocean will also, not warm rapidly.
Good point, Patrick (at 11:04pm), but… as far as the impact on the manufacturing sector goes, it will only hurt the water-powered sawmills, flour mills, … and the snow cone wagon at the fair (THAT is a bummer).
Taxing “carbon” is taking the economy by the scruff of the neck, shoving it down onto the pavement, and putting a heavy, jack booted, foot on its back. But, take heart, boys and girls! Don’t you worry. Tune in next week when U.S. Industry will get back on its feet and live to see another day — in India.
(really make you wonder why union members vote Dem. EVERY time — headshake)
ACTUALLY, seriously, take heart. THE TIDE IS TURNING — CAGW is on the WAY OUT.
Truth has won. It’s just a matter of mopping up operations, now.
Remember, it was over a YEAR after “D-day” (June 6, 1944) that the Allies were done fighting in Europe. Hang in there! Victory is assured. It is just a matter of time.
Bear in mind, all of you over 50 — in every age of human history, people of our age have started to grow more pessimistic — OPTIMISM IS A CHOICE: make it.
Pessimism has the false air of wisdom. In reality, it is simply an old woman’s or an old man’s fears. It is not wiser. It is simply choosing to live in despair instead of choosing to live in hope.
You can’t control much in this life, but you can control your attitude. Defeatism is powerful.
Keep your demoralizing, “we’ll never beat the giants,” comments to yourself.
This team is going to WIN — any of you who do not agree can
take off that uniform and
leave it on the field and
don’t let the door —
OKAY, COACH MOORE, THAT’S ENOUGH — I OWN THIS BALL CLUB AND ALL THOSE WHINERS GET TO STAY ON THE TEAM.
(Disclaimer: that wasn’t really A-th-y)
#(:))
For anyone new to WUWT, Ferdinand Englebeen‘s opinions are NOT representative of those of the WUWT Science Giants. He shows up virtually every time Dr. Salby’s work is mentioned like a modern-day Neville Maskelyne maligning John Harrison. Persevere in reading on WUWT for at least a month, and you, too, will see why F. E. is wrong 90% of the time.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:12 pm
———————————————————
Ferdinand,
many readers of climate blogs are familiar with your claims that it is not just that variations in atmospheric CO2 that can be determined from ice cores but also that actual atmospheric concentration can be determined. Many readers would also be familiar with claims that ice core diffusion problems can be dismissed along with plant stoma records and the early direct chemical measurements of Beck and others. It should be clear why many readers accept that ice cores do record lower frequency historical CO2 fluctuations and show that historical atmospheric temperature changes always proceed CO2 changes, but remain sceptical that ice cores can determine exact historical CO2 concentration in ppm. It would not be prudent to claim the science is settled on this.
Some readers would also be sceptical of Dr. Salbys claims that current CO2 increases during the period of electronic measurement cannot be attributed to humans. However human CO2 emissions are thought to be less than 5% of annual natural emissions. Further, biological CO2 sinks are known to vary in capacity with varying CO2 levels. We observe a significant (25%) annual variation in NH CO2 levels. Without better CO2 budgeting of the biosphere and oceans, it would also not be prudent to dismiss Dr. Salbys claims at this time.
The question of attribution of atmospheric CO2 increases must at this time remain open. However this does not stop the AGW question being solved in the meantime. All you need to be able to do is answer these simple physics questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
4. Is convective circulation including water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
I understand you have put a lot of effort into ice cores, but when it comes to the question of whether AGW is even physically possible, they actually don’t matter.
Janice Moore says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:44 pm
Ferdinand Englebeen‘s opinions are NOT representative of those of the WUWT Science Giants.
I am certainly not at the same level as Willis Eschenbach and other giants frequently publishing here, but as far as I know, several of them, including Willis, agree that humans are the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The main difference is that Willis has very little patience for this kind of lost arguments, while I have a lot: explaining again and again why humans are the cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere…
BTW, if Salby is right about CO2 migration in ice cores, then the 300 ppmv measured during interglacials would have been 3000 ppmv, but as averaging doesn’t change the average over the resolution time, that would imply that the CO2 levels during glacials would be negative, effectively destroying all life on earth…
Konrad says:
October 8, 2013 at 12:12 am
However human CO2 emissions are thought to be less than 5% of annual natural emissions.
Non-argument: the 5% is one-way additional, the 95% is in, but 97.5% is out, thus largely circulating without much impact on levels (removing more than adding).
We observe a significant (25%) annual variation in NH CO2 levels.
The global seasonal variation is about +/- 5 ppmv, that is just over 1% of global CO2 levels, but again that is in and out, the residual (~2 ppmv/yr additional) is what counts. Humans add about 4 ppmv/yr. The year by year variation is +/- 2 ppmv/yr around the trend:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
About your questions:
1. Yes.
2. I suppose yes, but haven’t studied that in detail.
3. Probable, but haven’t studied that in detail.
4. Quite certain, but haven’t studied that in detail.
5. Yes and no: in the statosphere yes, but slightly more energy is retained in the troposphere by GHGs, which increases the height where most of the energy is emitted to space. CO2 IR emissions decreased over the years:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI4204.1
6. Yes, see the difference in diurnal temperature for clear skies between a desert and a humid environment (even less with clouds).
@Steve Goreham, well said! The tail wagging the dog indeed.
I have often used the analogy of tossing a pebble into the Ocean raising sea-level. But yours is great because it touches upon politics, where that famous phrase gets a lot of mileage.
Listen Guys,
This is really serious. We’ve been worrying about CO2 and now we have to worry about water too!!
If we are going to staop global warming we must never:
a) Wash our car.
b) Water our crops
c) Use the Lavatory
Lobby the EPA to make water a dangerous substance that need regulation! Bring on the water tax!
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
October 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
———————————————
Ferdinand,
Firstly, congratulations. You are the first from the pro AGW camp to attempt all 6 questions.
You are close to correct on 1 to 4. For question 5 I think you may have fallen for the ERL argument. It doesn’t work. Rising air masses are always radiating more strongly than the gases at the altitudes they are rising through. The ERL fudge is static atmosphere stuff. Our atmosphere however exhibits strong vertical circulation below the tropopause.
Sadly you got question 6 wrong. The question did not refer to land, but to oceans which cover 71% of the earth’s surface. The gas / liquid interface is a special condition. LWIR cannot penetrate more than 100 microns through the skin evaporation layer of liquid water. All that incident LWIR does to liquid water is trip some molecules in the skin evaporation layer into vapour sooner than they otherwise would, with evaporative cooling countering any temperature stagnation faster than conduction can transfer it to the liquid below.
You can try the empirical experiment for yourself –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
– Start with water at 40C and run for 45 min. Now repeat with a square of LDPE (microwave safe cling wrap) floated on the surface of each water chamber. When the water can cool by radiation, conduction and evaporation, LWIR has no effect. When conductive and radiative cooling is allowed, but evaporative cooling is prevented (LDPE film 90% LW transparent) the effect of LWIR is measurable. Typically 1.5 C in 45 min. Land is not the same as ocean. Trenberthian energy budget cartoons showing “surface” are completely wrong.
However, regardless of question 6, consider your close to correct responses to 1 to 4. Now go back and look at the “basic physics” of the “settled science”. Did they increase the speed of tropospheric convective circulation, and thereby mechanical energy transfer from the surface, for increasing concentrations of radiative gases? No, they did not. Epic fail, and the Internet record of this is permanent.
PS. While I may be a sceptic, I’m still an environmentalist. The only vehicles my partner and I own are kayaks and mountain bikes. I call cars petrol burning ego boxes. You have expertise in polar ice cores. I say to you that the clean energy future we both want is in the empirical evidence you ignored. Flux tunnelling events every 8 minutes. Solar wind. Holes in the magnetosphere. It’s in your ice cores. Look again.
***
Konrad says:
October 8, 2013 at 5:01 am
The gas / liquid interface is a special condition. LWIR cannot penetrate more than 100 microns through the skin evaporation layer of liquid water. All that incident LWIR does to liquid water is trip some molecules in the skin evaporation layer into vapour sooner than they otherwise would, with evaporative cooling countering any temperature stagnation faster than conduction can transfer it to the liquid below.
***
Increased LWIR can’t “cool” anything — it adds heat. Granted, if you increase air-speed over water, evaporation would increase & cool the surface, but in that case there is no “added” heat. The question is how much of the increased LWIR shows up as a combination of increased water skin temp and latent heat from water vapor produced. This should follow simple rules of water skin temp & the resultant water vapor partial pressure, all else being equal.
RC Saumarez suggests in jest that the EPA be lobbied about the dangers of water.
You’re too late RC. The idiotic bureaucracy is already in place, at least here in the UK.
Paste the following into your search engine, and then click on ‘water’:
babec.org/files/MSDS/water.pdf
Read and be prepared to be amazed. Is any organisation safe from regulations dreamed up by dimwits? I imagine the company’s scientific and technical staff had a good laugh putting this little lot together.
beng says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:20 am
——————————————–
Perhaps you should try the empirical experiment.
And
Learn.
(full instructions on receipt of post paid return postcard.)
Konrad says:
October 8, 2013 at 5:01 am
You are the first from the pro AGW camp to attempt all 6 questions.
Sorry, but I am hardly pro-AGW: I am a skeptic on everything said by everyone, until convinced by evidence. That makes that I accept that some extra CO2 in the atmosphere will heat the surface somewhat. How much? Not much, the empirical (and physical) evidence gives not more than around 1 K increase for 2 x CO2. And I am very skeptic about all climate models, which all have been proven wrong.
But I am as skeptic about a non-human cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere: the evidence that humans are the cause is rock solid and all alternatives I have heard of, all fail one or several observations…
About your point 5: Satellites show a decrease in outgoing radiation in one of the CO2 band(s). That means that some energy is retained in the troposphere, wherever that may be: increased skin temperature of the sea surface, more evaporation and/or more convection. In all cases, that gives that more energy is retained somewhere in the system, until the temperature increased sufficient to put more energy into other outgoing IR bands besides the CO2 band(s)…
IMHO,This article was kinda like a ‘cloudburst’…hopefully nobody was having a parade.(IPCC ar5 report…paper dosen’t do well wet.)Water happens to be my favorite compound.
Sources for my opinion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phase_diagram_of_water.svg
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-psychrometrics-properties-t_8.html
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Physical_Properties_of_Matter/Atomic_and_Molecular_Properties/Intermolecular_Forces/Unusual_Properties_of_Water
and commonsence.
Thanks for the interesting articles and comments.
***
Konrad says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:50 am
beng says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:20 am
——————————————–
Perhaps you should try the empirical experiment.
***
Irrelevant. The ocean doesn’t have plastic wrap on top.
Learn.
Already did, on this matter, decades ago (isn’t engineering great?). All you need is the 1st Law of Thermo (energy conservation), the thermodynamic characteristics of water, and the Clausius–Clapeyron relation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius%E2%80%93Clapeyron_relation
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:56 am
——————————————–
There can be no answer form the A-train satellites. They are not fit for purpose.
You need to try the empirical experiment. There is no heat hiding in the oceans.
beng says:
October 8, 2013 at 7:39 am
“Irrelevant. The ocean doesn’t have plastic wrap on top”
—————————————————————————–
And that, in case you missed it, is entirely the point 😉
Liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool reacts in a different manner than other materials to incident LWIR. LWIR, even if emitted from a cooler material, can slow the cooling rate of most materials. It just does not work at the surface of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Do the experiment.
Learn.
The answer is not in the text books, and it certainly is not on wikipedia.
It’s simple enough…if CO2 was a driver then temps would have increased during the last 15 years not stalled and dipped. Therefore the logarithmic nature of CO2’s heat creation is plain to see. The warmers have become so obsessed with their radioactive forcing they have forgotten commonsense and the only reason we are having this argument is due to the predicted Tropical Hotspots not being there. And if you want to know why your climate playstations are always wrong…try factoring in negative feedback…you know clouds, rain, volcanic ash…iris effect et al.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
October 8, 2013 at 6:56 am
I can be convinced that most of the alleged ~115 ppm increase in CO2 concentration since c. AD 1850 is attributable to human activity. But IMO all available evidence suggests that the effect of this increase on global temperature & other climatic metrics is at most negligible, largely beneficial & certainly not catastrophic. Nor can science at this point have high confidence that the net sign of all man-made effects is even to warm rather than to cool the planet.
Nicely done but not new. It does not address the question of whether doubling of CO2 will increase the mean global temperature by 2C (for example), and how that might be known. In other words, that’s a non-quantitative description of one of the heat flows in the climate system, and no quantitative evaluation of how the heat flows will change if CO2 concentration doubles.
@Carbon 500
Thanks for that! At least they said it with a straight face.
The trouble is that what I said isn’t a jest – it is likely to be taken up by some officious bureaucrat in the EPA or the EU commission as something that needs to regulated (of course some of it is, but you ain’t seen nothing yet).
I am reminded of a story about a new administrator at the National Physical Laboratory (UK) who wanted to know what these scientists were up to. He was assured that they were developing a new “Linear metric comparator”. When he asked what this was he was told that the key component was a prismatic rod, inscribed with metric data. Impressed, he went away.
When the BPL started to use their new rulers ……………….
Please see Jan Veizer 2005 – Full article at:
http://www.gac.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/GACV32No1Veizer.pdf
Pages 21-22: The hydrologic cycle, in turn, provides us with our climate, including its temperature component. On land, sunlight, temperature, and concomitant availability of water are the dominant controls of biological activity and thus of the rate of photosynthesis and respiration. In the oceans, the rise in temperature results in release of CO2 into air. These two processes together increase the flux of CO2 into the atmosphere. If only short time scales are considered, such a sequence of events would be essentially opposite to that of the IPCC scenario, which drives the models from the bottom up, by assuming that CO2 is the principal climate driver and that variations in celestial input are of subordinate or negligible impact….
page 25: Again, while CO2 may act as an amplifying greenhouse gas, the actual atmospheric CO2 concentrations are controlled in the first instance by the climate, that is by the sun-driven water cycle, and not the other way around.
Anyone know of any night time studies of how the earth loses heat during the night? Is it possible that the earth releases any extra energy into space during the night and then starts accumulating it again next morning?
Steve: Unlike the models used to forecast the coming week’s weather, climate models do not forecast hurricanes. In climate models, the atmosphere and ocean arre divided into cells much too big to accurately model a hurricane. The “failure” of this year’s Atlantic hurricane forecast says nothing about the ability of climate models to forecast climate change. Although the IPCC and CAGW alarmists frequently mis-represent the output from climate climate models, you don’t aid the cause of skeptics by unfairly linking hurricane forecasts to climate change projections. (If you weren’t the executive director of the CSCA, I wouldn’t nitpick.)
Climate models do forecast some large-scale weather patterns that have shown a correlation with the number of Atlantic hurricanes in the past: wind shear and SST in the Main Development Region, ENSO and AMO. The forecasts of ENSO and SST were reasonably accurate (and forecasting the AMO doesn’t require much skill since it takes decades to change). However, the forecast for wind shear was incorrect due to the Madden-Julian oscillation – a phenomena not reproduced by climate models. There have been 11 named tropical storms so far this year, so we will probably end up within the 13-20 range predicted with 70% confidence this May. NOAA failed to predict that so far only 2 of these 11 would develop into hurricanes and 0 would become major hurricanes . Historically, a much larger fraction strengthen. However, climate models certainly don’t have the resolution needed to predict how often tropical storms will strengthen into hurricanes!
NOAA certainly doesn’t properly describe the uncertainty in their hurricane forecasts: A 70% confidence interval from HINDcasts of hurricane activity doesn’t tell us anything about their ability to FOREcast hurricane variability in the coming season. As far as I know, all forecasting methods have soon no skill.
The question of attribution of atmospheric CO2 increases must at this time remain open. However this does not stop the AGW question being solved in the meantime. All you need to be able to do is answer these simple physics questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
Yes
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
The condensation and evaporation of water, yes, otherwise no
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
Same as above. Or no.
4. Is convective circulation including water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
Yes.
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
No.
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
Something like 10-20% would be significant, so yes.
Or something radiating into 2 K sky will radiate more energy, as compared higher temperature sky- if sky is same temperature the surface would loses little to no heat. The Venus surface loses
little heat- Venus clouds are heated a lot by the sun and radiate a fair amount of heat. Clouds what is being warmed then cooled at nite. What important aspect on Earth and Venus are droplets of liquid in a the atmosphere. And the acid droplets of massive clouds on Venus is sole reason, Venus is much hotter than it seems it should be.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
October 7, 2013 at 11:12 pm
I thought about addressing this, but it’s been gone over a thousand times. And time, right now, is on Salby’s (and my) side. The human emissions and atmospheric concentration are currently diverging, while the atmospheric concentration continues to track the integral of temperature as Salby demonstrated.
With declining temperatures, we will not have to wait too much longer before the fact that humans have little impact on CO2 levels becomes undeniable. Even to the most gung-ho warmist. Even to Ferdinand.
gbaikie says:
October 8, 2013 at 11:36 am
———————————————–
Only 1 out of 6?
And how on earth did you get 5 wrong?
gbaikie says:
October 8, 2013 at 11:36 am
———————————————–
Only 1 out of 6?
And how on earth did you get 5 wrong?
I must be brilliant.
I assume I got #1 question correct.
As for #2, obviously any gas convects heat- and all greenhouse gases are a trace gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
The moisture of air [despite being a trace component] is controlling element in determining lapse rate. There nothing particular unique about H20 in air other than it condenses and evaporated at temperature found on Earth’s temperature and pressure [though, it notable it has higher specific heat and higher latent heat than most gases or liquids].
It’s the involvement of water which causes hurricanes- one of the most convective phenomena on Earth. And presence of water is involved with tornadoes- the next most dramatic convective phenomena.
And in terms of thermal lift used by gliders it a warmed surfaces which commonly used.
There is no known convective process unique to CO2 or other non-condensing
greenhouse gas [though CO2 is a condensing gas in some environments not typically found on Earth- and CO2 both reacts and mixes with H20].
And #3. It’s related to #2
As #4, I can’t see how one disagrees with my answer.
Perhaps #4 is correct answer and #1 is one I got wrong.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says, October 8, 2013 at 6:56 am:
“About your point 5: Satellites show a decrease in outgoing radiation in one of the CO2 band(s). That means that some energy is retained in the troposphere, wherever that may be: increased skin temperature of the sea surface, more evaporation and/or more convection. In all cases, that gives that more energy is retained somewhere in the system, until the temperature increased sufficient to put more energy into other outgoing IR bands besides the CO2 band(s)…”
No, it does not mean that some energy is retained in the troposphere. That is a very common way of misinterpreting those spectrums. They don’t show total OLR power density flux at ToA. They simply tell us that a smaller portion of the total OLR flux emitted to space is going through this band. The total OLR is not reduced. That has rather increased in step with global temperatures since at least the mid 80s (ERBE/CERES). OLR at ToA is determined by 1) surface temperature, 2) atmospheric temperature and humidity, and 3) clouds. I would also include winds.
I have been saying this almost 5 yrs on, posted as comments many times on different articles posted on WUWT; and is published in my blog. But your explanation about ‘Rain Cycle’ is wrong that’s why we have climate change problems. Correct explanation of rain cycle will show the solution to climate change. Rain Cycle according to your diagram is impossible, so we need new explanation. For answer click on my name.
I have been saying this almost 5 yrs on, posted as comments many times on different articles posted on WUWT; and is published in my blog. But your explanation about ‘Rain Cycle’ is wrong that’s why we have climate change problem. Correct explanation of rain cycle will show the solution to climate change. Rain Cycle according to your diagrem is impossible, so we need new explanation. For answer click on my name.
For an additional surprise, look up what has transpired (!!) with global RH and Absolute Humidity over the last few decades.
“””””……BBould says:
October 8, 2013 at 10:54 am
Anyone know of any night time studies of how the earth loses heat during the night? Is it possible that the earth releases any extra energy into space during the night and then starts accumulating it again next morning?……””””””
So just when is it night on earth, and when is it next morning. Since the moon is not big enough to occult the earth, it is never night on earth. Now sometimes it is night on some parts of the earth but never on the whole earth.
Konrad 10/7 4:21pm: “To understand why the radiative green house hypothesis is in error…”
The radiative green house hypothesis basic science is not in error; high quality historical experiments are proof, though the water cycle GHE magnitude is not as well established as a calculator shows to 12 decimal places. None of those 6 questions are particularly relevant though interesting to think through. Technically, all Konrad needs to understand water cycle GHE is optical opacity of an atm. in the SW & LW IR bands to come up to speed on the GHE subject and experiment. Read a good textbook; I recommend Caballero on line or Bohren theory & experiments 2006.
For history ref. listing, experiments and radiative science discussion this guy will also serve to increase Konrad’s kitchen table experimental expertise in the top post subject:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49706427503/pdf
I have been saying this almost 5 yrs on, posted as comments many times on different articles posted on WUWT; and is published in my blog. But your explanation about ‘Rain Cycle’ is wrong that’s why we have climate change problems. Correct explanation of rain cycle will show the solution to climate change. Rain Cycle according to your diagram is impossible, so we need new explanation. For answer click on my name.
devbahadurdongol.blogspot.com
“kitchen table experimental expertise”
Trick if you were going to try to denigrate and smear, why on earth would you of all people use “kitchen table” as your attack?!
Remember when you claimed that removing energy from a fluid column could not cause convective circulation? The Internet does. Forever.
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Konrad says:
January 23, 2013 at 10:55 pm
Trick says:
January 23, 2013 at 4:49 pm
“Nothing in Konrad’s cinnamon/beer can/ice water bath contraption can change these physics. I suppose at least Konrad got some human wants/needs fulfilled from the experiment by emptying the beer can.”
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Trick,
That will not work either. You made a direct claim that I would need to add energy to speed up convective circulation in the atmosphere. You provided truly spectacular bafflegab to that effect here –
“Your strawman; well stabbed only if you can ‘splain the source of the created energy within the control volume of earth/atm. causing net speed up (more f*d ) diffusion and advection because as you write only constant radiative energy flux gets in/out to deep space (at LTE I might add).”
And doubled the stupidity here –
“Takes energy to increase mass’ speed, an acceleration. F=ma, energy = F*d. QED, Konrad creates energy in control volume.”
I responded with a simple experiment showing how to generate convective circulation by REMOVING energy from a fluid here –
“- get a large glass container of hot water and mix a ¼ teaspoon of finely ground cinnamon into it.
– wait until Brownian motion slows till the suspended particles are barely moving.
– now suspend a beer can full of ice water in the top 50mm of the hot water to one side of the clear container.*
– watch as convective circulation develops in the container.”
Trick, you keep getting the basic physics of convection spectacularly wrong. You claimed I needed to add energy to drive convection. I gave you an empirical experiment showing how to drive convection by removing energy from a fluid. Will you admit that you got the basic physics of convection wrong?
You lost a physics debate to some hot water, ice and a ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon!
Konrad 1:31am – Your google-fu is strong. But your physics are weak. Your experiments remain AFAIK non-ISO9000 compliant.
“..REMOVING energy from a fluid here…..mix a ¼ teaspoon of finely ground cinnamon into it.”
Still can’t see that adds energy into the control volume not removes energy. My point at 9:46am withstands your kitchen table cinnamon test: “The radiative green house hypothesis basic science is not in error..” contrary to conclusions you draw from uncontrolled household tests.
Now, if you were to get an ISO9001 process approval cert. for your lab, followed proper processing techniques with auditing, and still discovered something the atm. physics text book world has overlooked & can be independently verified then, well, you might have something of interest.
Because it is possible to use a tabletop glass of ice water, non-ISO processing of a rubber compound with some compression to form a proper physics view text book experts had overlooked:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/01/28/the-challenger-disaster-and-a-cup-of-ice-water/
Trick says:
October 12, 2013 at 7:09 am
“Still can’t see that adds energy into the control volume not removes energy.”
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There is none so blind…..