Guest essay by Mike Jonas
A look at Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity from a logical perspective.
Introduction
This article is the fourth in a series of four articles.
Part 1 of the series (Part 1) is here
Part 2 of the series (Part 2) is here
Part 3 of the series (Part 3) is here
In Part 1, simple mathematical formulae were developed to emulate the carbon dioxide (CO2.) contribution to global temperature change, as represented in the computer climate models.
In Part 2, the formulae were used to have a look at the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA).
In Part 3, the formulae were used to have a look at the period used in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth.
Part 4 looks at the major components of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). ECS is key to all of the findings of the IPCC and to the computer climate models.
Note : This article does not say anything new, or claim to find any new results. It has all been said many times before. But it does look at ECS from a logical perspective.
Equilibrium climate sensitivity ( ECS)
Equilibrium climate sensitivity ( ECS), is defined in the fourth IPCC report (AR4) as follows :
In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration.
ECS is extremely important. It effectively is the one single factor that determines how much the global climate is warmed by increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Anyone who doubts the importance of this in the climate models needs only to read the commentary about CO2 being the “control knob” of climate, see eg. [6] [7].
How ECS is estimated
The fourth IPCC report explains how ECS is estimated:
Due to computational constraints, the equilibrium climate sensitivity in a climate model is usually estimated by running an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a mixed-layer ocean model, because equilibrium climate sensitivity is largely determined by atmospheric processes. Efficient models can be run to equilibrium with a dynamic ocean.
In other words, ECS is estimated by running climate computer models. Now of itself that isn’t as bad as it might sound to those who are already sceptical of climate scientists and the state of climate science. Obviously for complex systems some kind of computer model is needed.
Nevertheless, there is good reason to be concerned about this process. Firstly, computer models of complex systems are notorious for deviating from reality over multiple iterations, and these computer models use a very large number of iterations. Secondly, a lot of the processes cannot be modelled, either because they are not understood (eg. clouds) or are too complex (eg. biochemical processes) or both. For these, the models use parameterisations, which are basically guesses expressed as mathematical formulae. But worst of all, the IPCC reports repeatedly say that these are determined by observation:
The development of parameterisations has become very complex (e.g., (Jakob, 2010)) and is often achieved by developing conceptual models of the process of interest in isolation using observations and comprehensive process-models. [AR5 Box 9.1]
[..] methods for providing probabilistic climate change projections [include methods based on] large model ensembles that provide projections consistent with observations of climate change and their uncertainties. [..] Short-term projections are similarly constrained by observations of recent trends. [AR4 TS.5]
It is therefore common to adjust parameter values [..] in order to optimise model simulation of particular variables or to improve global heat balance. This process is often known as ‘tuning’. [AR4 8.1.3.1]
Results from forward calculations are used for formal detection and attribution analyses. In such studies, a climate model is used to calculate response patterns (‘fi ngerprints’) for individual forcings or sets of forcings, which are then combined linearly to provide the best fit to the observations. [AR4 9.1.3]
The problem here is that observations include temperature measurements and factors that relate to temperature, and many of these can only be used by assuming that they are caused directly or indirectly by CO2. So we have the absurd situation that the climate models supposedly show the 20th century warming to have been caused by CO2, but key elements in the models are themselves based on the implicit assumption that the warming was caused by CO2. In mathematics, that’s the ‘circular logic’ fallacy.
Components of ECS
Well, let’s look further into ECS and how it is arrived at. ECS has three major warming components :
- The warming generated by CO2 itself. This comes from increased downward infra-red radiation (IR) from increased quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was described originally by Arrhenius [5], and is generally accepted as very solid physics by climate scientists and climate “sceptics” alike. The generally accepted value of this component is 1.2, ie. the forcing from doubled CO2 on its own would raise global temperature by 1.2 degrees.
- Water vapour feedback. The theory is primarily that the increased temperatures caused by increased levels of CO2 will increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere . Water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, so this will cause further warming. (AR4 TS.2)
- Cloud feedback. The hypothesis is that as temperatures rise, clouds change in a way that further increases temperature.
The warming from these components is eventually balanced (“equilibrium”) by the increased rate of heat loss that comes from the higher temperatures.
Quantification
The IPCC report AR4 quantifies the feedbacks in para 8.6.2.3 :
Using feedback parameters from Figure 8.14, it can be estimated that in the presence of water vapour, lapse rate and surface albedo feedbacks, but in the absence of cloud feedbacks, current GCMs would predict a climate sensitivity (±1 standard deviation) of roughly 1.9°C ± 0.15°C (ignoring spread from radiative forcing differences). The mean and standard deviation of climate sensitivity estimates derived from current GCMs are larger (3.2°C ± 0.7°C) essentially because the GCMs all predict a positive cloud feedback (Figure 8.14) but strongly disagree on its magnitude.
So – if CO2 raises the temperature by 1.2 degrees, then water vapour and related changes will raise the temperature a further 0.7 degrees (1.9 – 1.2), and clouds will change in a way that raises temperature another 1.3 degrees (3.2 – 1.9).
Water Vapour Feedback
The atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour increases with temperature increase. AR4 FAQ3.2 :
a well-established physical law (the Clausius-Clapeyron relation) determines that the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by about 7% for every 1°C rise in temperature.
This leads to increased precipitation [3]:
Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 ± 5% per degree of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate models
Wentz et al 2007 [2] indicates that the water cycle increase in the climate models is even lower (1% to 3%).
So – the climate models have far too low a value for the water cycle increase. Why does this matter? An increased water cycle transfers more energy from the surface to the troposphere, thus more energy is lost to space, and hence the temperature is reduced. By placing the water cycle increase at an unrealistically low level, the climate models operate on an unrealistically high feedback, and hence on an unrealistically high ECS.
Support for this analysis also comes from Forster and Gregory [8] :
There is preliminary evidence of a neutral or even negative longwave feedback in the observations, suggesting that current climate models may not be representing some processes correctly if they give a net positive longwave feedback.
The Cloud Feedback Challenge
The challenge that the cloud feedback hypothesis has to overcome is that no-one really knows how clouds behave or what effect they have on temperature.
The IPCC has a lot to say about clouds in its AR4 report :
TS.4.5 – Cloud feedbacks (particularly from low clouds) remain the largest source of uncertainty.
Box TS.8 – parametrizations are still used to represent unresolved physical processes such as the formation of clouds and precipitation [..] Uncertainty in parametrizations is the primary reason why climate projections differ between different [climate models].
TS.6.4.2 – Large uncertainties remain about how clouds might respond to global climate change.
7.5.2 – Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates and the relatively poor simulation of boundary layer clouds in the present climate is a reason for some concern
8 – Executive Summary – important deficiencies remain in the simulation of clouds and tropical precipitation (with their important regional and global impacts).
8.3.1.1 – Outside the polar regions, relatively large [re mean surface temperature] errors are evident in the eastern parts of the tropical ocean basins, a likely symptom of problems in the simulation of low clouds. The extent to which these systematic model errors affect a model’s response to external perturbations is unknown, but may be significant
8.3.1.1.2 – Given that clouds are responsible for about half the outgoing SW radiation, these errors are not surprising, for it is known that cloud processes are among the most difficult to simulate with models
8.6.3.2.1 – The sign of the climate change radiative feedback associated with the combined effects of dynamical and temperature changes on extratropical clouds is still unknown.
That was just a small selection of the IPCC’s statements on the knowledge of clouds – see [4] for the full set. And they don’t even know how much cloud there is:
3.4.3.2 – the effects of known and unknown artefacts on ISCCP cloud and flux data have not yet been quantified. Other satellite data sets show conflicting decadal changes in total cloud cover [..] In summary, while there is some consistency between ISCCP, ERBS, SAGE II and surface observations of a reduction in high cloud cover during the 1990s relative to the 1980s, there are substantial uncertainties in decadal trends in all data sets and at present there is no clear consensus on changes in total cloudiness over decadal time scales.
Cloud effect on radiation
Clouds affect temperature primarily by intercepting incoming and outgoing radiation. The basic mechanisms are conceptually simple :
In simple terms, there is a very neat symmetry. At Earth’s surface, for a given change in cloud cover, the percentage change in outgoing re-emitted radiation that is direct is the same as the percentage change in incoming absorbed radiation that is direct. Similarly for indirect radiation. So there is no net change.
Now that is indeed over-simplified, but the incoming vs outgoing differences are very subtle (no wonder the climate models have problems with them). The chief differences are
1. Incoming and outgoing radiation contain both shortwave (SW) and longwave or infra-red (IR), but the proportion of IR in outgoing radiation is higher. So clouds can theoretically have a net effect if they affect SW and IR differently. NASA Earth Observatory [1] gives a good explanation.
2. The distributions of incoming radiation and outgoing radiation are slightly different. They are both greatest at the tropics and least at the poles, but there is a difference. So clouds can theoretically have a net effect if their distribution changes.
Calculation of cloud feedback
From AR4 8.6.2.3 as quoted above, cloud feedback supposedly contributes 1.3°C ± 0.55°C to ECS (to 3.2°C ± 0.7°C from 1.9°C ± 0.15°C). Note that the low end of the range is strongly positive, even though they admit in AR4 8.6.3.2.1 (quoted above) that they don’t even know what sign it has!
Given how subtle the effect of clouds is, and given that there is so little known about it, how is this 1.3°C ± 0.55°C cloud feedback calculated?
The answer is given in the IPCC quotes above – they simply guess :
parametrizations are still used to represent unresolved physical processes such as the formation of clouds and precipitation [..] Uncertainty in parametrizations is the primary reason why climate projections differ between different [climate models].
Basically, there is an up-front assumption that virtually all of the 20th-century global warming was caused by CO2 (“How ECS is estimated”, above). In order to satisy that assumption (as quoted above, they call it “tuning”), they have to find about three times as much warming as they can get from CO2 itself (ECS 1.2). They speculate that water vapour contributes a further 0.7 of ECS, although, as explained above, this needs some pretty heroic assumptions about the water cycle. They then fiddle with the cloud parameters until they get the results they desire. The process is not supported by actual physics. That is why the models all differ so much in their treatment of clouds.
An additional curiosity is that an increased water cycle would suggest more clouds, not less, making a high positive cloud feedback even less likely. As NASA Earth Observatory [1] says:
The balance between the cooling and warming actions of clouds is very close although, overall, averaging the effects of all the clouds around the globe, cooling predominates.
Logically, a cloud feedback of +1.3 degrees looks like a very long stretch indeed.
Conclusion
Climate models’ estimations of ECS are implicitly based on the assumption that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2. Therefore any assertion that the models show that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2 is invalid (circular logic).
In addition, the climate modellers and the IPCC have
(a) used an unrealistically low water cycle, resulting in an unrealistically high value for CO2-driven global warming, and
(b) built on the almost complete lack of knowledge about clouds, in order to claim that clouds add a large amount to CO2-driven global warming.
The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted), plus or minus an unknown but probably modest amount of feedback from water vapour etc, and from clouds. Knowledge in this area is so weak that even the sign of the feedback is not known.
In other words, of the mid-range claimed ECS of 3.2 degrees per doubling of CO2, nearly two-thirds is either unrealistic or sheer speculation.
Footnote
One final point; a delicious irony (mathematically speaking) :
· As shown above, there is an implied assumption in the models that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature. That assumption is demonstrated very clearly in Part 1, where all of the post-industrial warming is assumed to be caused by CO2.
· But when the results of the models are then compared to past surface temperatures, as was done in Part 2 and Part 3, it is found that CO2 plays little part in temperature change.
So, the assumption that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature leads to the finding that it isn’t.
Mike Jonas (MA Maths Oxford UK) retired some years ago after nearly 40 years in I.T.
References
[1] NASA Earth Observatory, Clouds and Radiation http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Clouds/
[2] Wentz et al, How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?, https://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5835/233.abstract Science 13 July 2007: Vol. 317 no. 5835 pp. 233-235 DOI: 10.1126/science.1140746
[3] Durack et al, Ocean Salinities Reveal Strong Global Water Cycle Intensification During 1950 to 2000, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/455 Science 27 April 2012: Vol. 336 no. 6080 pp. 455-458 DOI: 10.1126/science.1212222
[4] The full set of IPCC AR4 statements about clouds is at IPCCOnClouds (PDF)
[5] Arrhenius, S., 1896: On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature on the ground, Philos. Mag., 41, 237–276.
[6] Lacis ert al, Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract Science 15 October 2010: Vol. 330 no. 6002 pp. 356-359 DOI: 10.1126/science.1190653
[7] R B Alley, The biggest control knob: carbon dioxide in Earth’s climate history, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFM.A23A..01A American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #A23A-01
[8] Piers Mde F. Forster and Jonathan M. Gregory, 2006: The Climate Sensitivity and Its Components Diagnosed from Earth Radiation Budget Data. J. Climate, 19, 39–52. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3611.1 http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3611.1
Abbreviations
AR4 – (Fourth IPCC report)
AR5 – (Fifth IPCC report)
CO2 – Carbon Dioxide
ECS – Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IR – Infra-red (Radiation)
SW – Short Wave (Radiation)
“•Water vapour feedback. The theory is primarily that the increased temperatures caused by increased levels of CO2 will increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere . Water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, so this will cause further warming. (AR4 TS.2)”
Therefore, if there has been increased levels of water vapour in the atmosphere for the past 65 years, such an observation should prove the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis? Have any studies been done to confirm this?
I did not get that Jim.
If water vapor increases but temps to not rise in parallel, this is a refutation, not a confirmation.
But one can infer from historical information that increasing water vapor cannot lead to catastrophic warming, or even have a positive feedback that causes ever more warming.
if this was true, the earth would have long since had this occur, since water vapor has increase for many reasons and at many times. It has not.
Well, not exactly; it would only prove that water vapour increases as temperature rises, as it has over the last century.
However, it doesn’t seem to have increased water vapour levels at all.
http://s24.postimg.org/s1pn56mb9/Water_Vapour.png
in the specific humidity graph on the climate4you page that that graph comes from, you can see what is going on. there is an increase in water vapour in the lower troposphere due to increases in surface temperature, but as you get higher in the troposphere there is a reduction.
the reduction of water vapour level in the entire column shows that the response to a warming surface is not to increase the temperatures at the top of the troposphere (a positive feedback) like the models predict, but a negative one where cloud formation or rain or a combination of both work against the surface changes.
You may also be interested in this from Vonder Haar:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052094/full
And this from Solomon et al.
Abstract
Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000–2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% as compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor is an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
Definitely no correlation between water vapour and CO2 – hence no feedback.
AGW RIP.
” in the specific humidity graph on the climate4you page that that graph comes from, you can see what is going on. there is an increase in water vapour in the lower troposphere due to increases in surface temperature, ”
Maybe, if rel humidity stays the same it could be because every night when it cools off, water is removed from the air, so it is regulated regardless of how much specific humidity goes up during the day.
That’s a fascinating graph. It does show a significant water vapour increase from 1990 to 1998, which very likely was caused by global warming. But what happens then? Over a coupe of years it rapidly returns to the long-term mean, and is remarkably stable. This despite no fall in temperature.
This strongly suggests that the water vapour is regulated by a strong and very effective negative feedback mechanism. But what could this feedback be? The sad thing is that climate science may not know because it is hopelessly obsessed by CO2.
My guess is that the real-world ECS (not the results of a laboratory experiment) is a small fraction of a degree. If the ECS were a degree, or several degrees as the IPCC maintains, then, surely, the ice core data should show this clear as day. But it shows no such thing. It shows that CO2 is driven by temperature with an 800 year lag. As far as I’m aware the ice cores do not show a CO2 change followed by a corresponding temperature change. If Nature’s million year laboratory experiment, otherwise known as ice cores, does not show any CO2 warming, then it’s not happening.
” This strongly suggests that the water vapour is regulated by a strong and very effective negative feedback mechanism. But what could this feedback be?”
It’s regulated by the limit of 100% rel humidity at the minimum temperature every night. The following day only part of that water is available for evaporation.
Water is strongly regulated.
Especially at higher altitudes, where it has decreased, counter to Global Warming Assumptions. See. paullitely.com
All water vapor is not equal. The upper troposphere matters most, because that is where the WV GHG ‘fog’ ‘lifts’. AR4 was certain UTrH remains roughly comstant because that is what models produce. Supported that with meta analysis sample bias. Turns out is wrong. Increased water cycle lowers UTrH. The reason there is no tropical upper troposphere hot spot despite being in all the models.
But I thought the hot spot had been found:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/tropospheric-hot-spot-found-having-trouble-uploading-dont-edit-yet
In their model homogenation minds. Jo Nova and her commenters (me included) tore that Australian paper apart. Just awful. And, it was the principal author’s second attempt at the hotspot.
@Jim Stevens
The new dataset was the result of extending an existing data record and then removing artefacts caused by station moves and instrument changes. This revealed real changes in temperature as opposed to the artificial changes generated by alterations to the way the data was collected.
No climate models were used in the process that revealed the tropospheric hotspot. The researchers instead used observations and combined two well-known techniques — linear regression and Kriging.
“We deduced from the data what natural weather and climate variations look like, then found anomalies in the data that looked more like sudden one-off shifts from these natural variations and removed them,” said Professor Sherwood.
“All of this was done using a well established procedure developed by statisticians in 1977.”
http://www.newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/climate-scientists-find-elusive-tropospheric-hot-spot
JimS, mebbe Ya fergot the /sarc tag?
Yirgach,
‘As well as confirming the tropospheric hotspot, the researchers also found a 10% increase in winds over the Southern Ocean’
Seem the TROPICAL hotspot is geographically embarrassed.
“””””…..
JimS
August 1, 2015 at 10:00 am
“•Water vapour feedback. The theory is primarily that the increased temperatures caused by increased levels of CO2 will increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere . Water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, so this will cause further warming. (AR4 TS.2)” …..”””””
Let me suggest: The theory is primarily that increased temperatures caused by any cause will increase the amount water vapor in the atmosphere. (Wentz et al confirmed this by experimental measurement; in the SCIENCE paper you reference). Water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas, so there is absolutely NO NEED to invoke any thing about CO2 as far a increasing water vapor.
The problem with your thesis is that increased water vapor in the atmosphere caused by increased warming (Clausius-Clapeyron) , DOES NOT lead to more warming
It DOES lead to more CLOUDS, which reflect, block, absorb, more incoming solar radiation, so it results in cooling; not warming. Clouds are a negative feedback; not a positive feedback.
g
If anything this should refute AGW, as water vapor is far more potent as a greenhouse gas, based both on its spectral response, as well as the fact there is a far greater amount of it in the atmosphere. Burning carbon-based fuel actually releases more H2O than CO2, so if AGW were true, that plus higher temps causing more evaporation into the atmosphere would leverage faster increases in temperature. But that has not been the case. If anything, the 18+ year pause is evidence of that.
Just a question–I have oft seen an early am cloudless sky form daytime clouds. If there are more daytime clouds would not this affect the balance?
Max
So to summarize parts 1 through 4:
CAGW is almost, but not completely, 100% a bunch of malarkey.
Does that about capture it?
Thanks for the hard work and informative series, Mr. Jonas.
Hi. The link to part 3 appears to be broken. I can’t access on my Mac, though parts 1,2 and 4 have satisfactorily down-loaded. Can you investigate?
It’s at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/31/the-mathematics-of-carbon-dioxide-part-3/
thanks
OK, I waited until the fourth posting on CO2 for an explanation but I still have an unanswered question:
A black body (at any temperature) cannot increase the temperature of a different body to a higher temperature than its own. It doesn’t matter how big the first body is compared to the second, it still cannot raise the temperature of the second body above its own temperature. In other words, you can double the size of the emitting body so that it emits twice as much IR but it does not make any difference to the temperature of the second body.
CO2 absorbs IR at the 15 micron wavelength. 15 microns equates to a black body emitting at a temperature of -80c. It doesn’t matter how much CO2 is in the atmosphere absorbing 15 micron IR, it still won’t increase the temperature of the earth above -80c.
But, it seems that ‘everyone accepts’ doubling CO2 will lead to a +1.2c change in temperatures. Where am I going wrong? Can anyone explain this in layman terms?
Yes it can, because CO2 is not behaving as a black body. Think of it more as a radio transmitter. Does a laser tube have to be white-hot to cut trhough steel? No, it doesn’t, because the energy source is electronic excitation of gas atoms, not thermal excitation.
However, in a conventional oven the resistive heating element cannot heat the food to a higher temperature than itself because black body laws apply there.
the energy of a 15 micrometer wavelength photon = 20 THz = 0.0826 eV = ~960K in terms of temperature
Imagine that you are some infra-red energy leaving Earth – being radiated out after the sun had warmed Earth’s surface. You discover that you are heading straight for the sun. If you indeed hit the sun, then your energy will be added to the sun’s energy, thus warming it (though not by much admittedly) in contravention of your “law”. How do you avoid hitting the sun in order to preserve the law?
The point is that the net heat transfer is from sun to Earth. The law has always been about net transfer, not about each individual component.
Nonsense. The cold earth cannot warm the hot sun. But we seem to agree that heat transfer is always from hot to cold.
Would everyone please learn enough of the basic difference between radiation and conduction to discuss this topic properly?
That does seem to be the crux of the disagreement: Is it true that a low energy photon cannot be absorbed by a higher energy material, or is the net transfer of energy the limiting principle?
Is the “law” in question is the second law of thermodynamics?
I do not believe that this law explicitly states what some people “take it to mean”.
This seems to be one big giant stumbling block in many conversations about climate. Educated people ought to, IMO, be able to come to an agreement about what the physical laws of the universe say and do not say can and cannot happen.
“The second law of thermodynamics asserts the irreversibility of natural processes, and the tendency of natural processes to lead towards spatial homogeneity of matter and energy, and especially of temperature. It can be formulated in a variety of interesting and important ways.
It implies the existence of a quantity called the entropy of a thermodynamic system. In terms of this quantity it implies that
When two initially isolated systems in separate but nearby regions of space, each in thermodynamic equilibrium with itself but not necessarily with each other, are then allowed to interact, they will eventually reach a mutual thermodynamic equilibrium. The sum of the entropies of the initially isolated systems is less than or equal to the total entropy of the final combination. Equality occurs just when the two original systems have all their respective intensive variables (temperature, pressure) equal; then the final system also has the same values.
This statement of the law recognizes that in classical thermodynamics, the entropy of a system is defined only when it has reached its own internal thermodynamic equilibrium.
The second law refers to a wide variety of processes, reversible and irreversible. All natural processes are irreversible. Reversible processes are a convenient theoretical fiction and do not occur in nature.
A prime example of irreversibility is in the transfer of heat by conduction or radiation. It was known long before the discovery of the notion of entropy that when two bodies initially of different temperatures come into thermal connection, then heat always flows from the hotter body to the colder one.
The second law tells also about kinds of irreversibility other than heat transfer, for example those of friction and viscosity, and those of chemical reactions. The notion of entropy is needed to provide that wider scope of the law.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, in a theoretical and fictional reversible heat transfer, an element of heat transferred, δQ, is the product of the temperature (T), both of the system and of the sources or destination of the heat, with the increment (dS) of the system’s conjugate variable, its entropy (S)
\delta Q = T\,dS\, .[1]
Entropy may also be viewed as a physical measure of the lack of physical information about the microscopic details of the motion and configuration of a system, when only the macroscopic states are known. The law asserts that for two given macroscopically specified states of a system, there is a quantity called the difference of information entropy between them. This information entropy difference defines how much additional microscopic physical information is needed to specify one of the macroscopically specified states, given the macroscopic specification of the other – often a conveniently chosen reference state which may be presupposed to exist rather than explicitly stated. A final condition of a natural process always contains microscopically specifiable effects which are not fully and exactly predictable from the macroscopic specification of the initial condition of the process. This is why entropy increases in natural processes – the increase tells how much extra microscopic information is needed to distinguish the final macroscopically specified state from the initial macroscopically specified state”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
The inverse law ensures that the cooler radiating body cannot raise the temperature of the warmer body but it does ensure that the warmer body cools more slowly than it would if no second radiating body was present.
But if you put a much smaller and cooler body in the shadow formed by the second coolest body and put a large convex lens between them you could theoretically raise the temperature of the colder body above the temperature of the intervening body. But that’s because you have broken the inverse square law and focussed heat from a large crosssection onto a small area.
So Mike Jonas is correct but one can find a way to fiddle the result.
No Mike Jonas & you are not correct. Thought experiment:
Which microprocessor is hotter:
a) a microprocessor without a heat sink on it
b) a microprocessor with a heat sink, ie second colder body on top increasing radiative surface area & convection?
Increasing CO2 increases both radiative surface area & convection.
OK Bernard, you may be aiming at the prize for the dumbest comment but you won’t win, other competitors will be along soon.
Must try harder
MikeB your comment serves no purpose and is derogatory.
Bernard asked an interesting question. You can see from the resulting comments that there are issues. My view is that the disputes/misunderstandings arise mainly from the distinction between transfer and net transfer. I have been working through articles on the 2nd law, and to my mind they tend to be poorly explained, and this has compounded the problem. In this (better) article http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/09/27/the-real-second-law-of-thermodynamics/ an example is given of two bodies :
“This says that two bodies separated in space both emit radiation. And both absorb radiation from the other body (see note 2).
The challenging concept for some is the idea that radiation from the colder body is absorbed by the hotter body.
We start with Example 1 above, but this time we consider an exchange of radiation and see what happens to the entropy of that system.”
The article goes on to do the maths and show compliance with the 2nd law. It then goes on to look at atmosphere – surface transfers, which is exactly the issue in climate science. IMHO this article gets it right, but I suspect that there will still be a dispute…….
Mike Jonas claims SoD etc have the science correct on entropy. No he doesn’t. Transfer of heat energy from cold to hot requires a continuous, impossible *decrease* of entropy, forbidden by the 2nd Law.
hockeyschtick – you need to distinguish between transfer and net transfer. If the transfer between a hot body and cold body was ONLY from cold to hot, then you would be right. But as the article points out, when you look at everything that is going on, then there is compliance with the law. I note your comment below “A photon from a lower frequency/temperature/energy body cannot transfer any HEAT energy to a higher frequency/temperature/energy body”. It doesn’t sound right, but I will need to check it out – or maybe someone else may care to comment?
MJ: It is absolutely correct that zero HEAT energy E=hv can be transferred from cold to hot. You are confusing, like many people here, heat energy & radiation. They are not the same. Radiation from a cold body does indeed go to hotter bodies, but zero of the low-Energy photons can be thermalized/increase the temperature of the hotter body because all of those low-E microstates in the hot body are already completely saturated. This is very basic quantum theory and explains the 2nd Law of thermodynamics on a quantum basis. There is no such thing as “net” HEAT transfer. HEAT transfer is one-way only hot to cold. Any alleged HEAT energy transfer cold to hot requires an impossible decrease of entropy.
I am thinking that for my own edification, I will have to start at the beginning and look at how the three laws and especially the second law were derived and empirically tested.
I know that quantum effects can make photons behave in some ways that are more than just a little peculiar, but do not know if perhaps quantum mechanics is involved here in a way which could change the discussion.
But I suspect it possibly could be.
I think I must have been daydreaming through those physics lectures dealing with the laws…and I never took any classes specifically dealing with the history of physics…except physical chemistry.
But I do recall reading some books by Bertrand Russell and others about some of the following timeline when I was in grade school.
I got out of the habit of consulting wikipedia, but for some stuff it appears that maybe it is OK as a first source of references.
This is interesting…a good place to start looking into this from first sources and principles:
“1859 – Gustav Kirchhoff shows that energy emission from a black body is a function of only temperature and frequency
1862 – “Disgregation,” a precursor of entropy, was defined in 1862 by Rudolf Clausius as the magnitude of the degree of separation of molecules of a body
1865 – Clausius introduces the modern macroscopic concept of entropy
1865 – Josef Loschmidt applies Maxwell’s theory to estimate the number-density of molecules in gases, given observed gas viscosities.
1867 – Maxwell asks whether Maxwell’s demon could reverse irreversible processes
1870 – Clausius proves the scalar virial theorem
1872 – Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal development of distribution functions in phase space, and publishes his H-theorem
1873 – Van der Waal gave his famous equation of state
1874 – Thomson formally states the second law of thermodynamics.
1876 – Josiah Willard Gibbs publishes the first of two papers (the second appears in 1878) which discuss phase equilibria, statistical ensembles, the free energy as the driving force behind chemical reactions, and chemical thermodynamics in general.[citation needed]
1876 – Loschmidt criticises Boltzmann’s H theorem as being incompatible with microscopic reversibility (Loschmidt’s paradox).
1877 – Boltzmann states the relationship between entropy and probability.
1879 – Jožef Stefan observes that the total radiant flux from a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature and states the Stefan–Boltzmann law.
1884 – Boltzmann derives the Stefan–Boltzmann blackbody radiant flux law from thermodynamic considerations.
1888 – Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states his principle that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will be to counteract the perturbation.
1889 – Walther Nernst relates the voltage of electrochemical cells to their chemical thermodynamics via the Nernst equation.
1889 – Svante Arrhenius introduces the idea of activation energy for chemical reactions, giving the Arrhenius equation.
1893 – Wilhelm Wien discovers the displacement law for a blackbody’s maximum specific intensity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_thermodynamics
Hockeyschtick said “but zero of the low-Energy photons can be thermalized/increase the temperature of the hotter body because all of those low-E microstates in the hot body are already completely saturated. This is very basic quantum theory and explains the 2nd Law of thermodynamics on a quantum basis.”
Why wouldn’t the low-E microstates in the hot body emit energy and be free to recieve low energy photons from outside?
If the received photon does not become heat what happens to the energy when it reaches the hotter body? Does it reflect or pass through? If all the received photons don’t get reflected or pass through and you continue with a net increase of photon energy resting in the hotter body what does happen to it. The body would be slowly getting more massive because it is absorbing some energy and we can hang around for billions of years?
hockeyschtick:
zero of the low-Energy photons can be thermalized/increase the temperature of the hotter body because all of those low-E microstates in the hot body are already completely saturated.
Not my best knowledge (far too many years ago), a (more or less) blackbody emits IR radiation in a whole spectrum from low to high energy content, depending of the microstates of each individual atom.
A colder body does the same, be it that the Gaussian curve maximum is somewhat shifted to the lower energy spectrum.
If a photon of a part of the spectrum of the colder body hits the warmer body, its energy may be higher than of the microstate it hits (with average a 90% chance if the spectra overlap 90%).
I don’t see much reason why not most of the photons of the low temperature body can’t be thermalized.by the warmer body.
Ferdinand I just spotted this from hockeyschtick August 1, 2015 at 9:02 pm “If a photon with insufficient quantum energy to raise said electrons to a higher orbital arrives, it can either be reflected or release an equivalent photon of the same energy as that which was “absorbed.””
What Hockeyschtick seems to be saying is that an incoming photon can release a photon of equivalent energy to that absorbed. That means that the EM output of the hotter body has emitted at least one more photon than it would have. Now measuring the hot bodies EM output dividing by sigma and taking the fourth root would indicate an increase in temperature compared to what would have happened without the presence of the cooler body. Nuff said, we are right.
“Nuff said, we are right.”
Uh no, if a low-E photon is “absorbed” by the completely saturated low-E microstates & orbitals of a higher-E body, it has to simultaneously eject a photon of the exact same wavelength/frequency/Energy as that absorbed, due to the Pauli exclusion principle of basic quantum theory. Thus there is no change whatsoever in the energy content/temperature of the hotter body due to a low-E photon from the colder source. This explains the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics on a quantum basis.
Please read about the Pauli exclusion principle, 2nd Law, etc. in the reference I just posted. The Pauli exclusion principle prohibits more than 2 electrons from being in the same atomic or molecular orbital at the same time. In the hot body, those low-E orbitals are already completely filled with 2 electrons (of opposite spin), thus an incoming low-E photon cannot be thermalized.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-pauli-exclusion-principle-of.html
” Uh no, if a low-E photon is “absorbed” by the completely saturated low-E microstates & orbitals of a higher-E body, it has to simultaneously eject a photon of the exact same ”
This only applies to electron orbits, not to thermal emission by a blackbody, same with Pauli exclusion principle, that applies to electrons orbits, not thermal energy.
Now maybe you’re talking about a mixture of gausian blackbody emission interacting with line emitters in a gas, but Co2’s 15u emission is from dipole vibration, and I could never get Phil to identify the temperature the molecule has to be to allow that mode of absorption /emission.
I even tried to start with a single Co2 at 0k, and then allow it to capture a single 15u photon, it might be 193k, but I don’t think it has to be.
Micro: The Pauli exclusion principle & quantum theory applies to both molecular and atomic orbitals. Vibrational energy also has a quantum threshold just like orbitals, thus a low-e photon cannot excite a higher-e vibrational mode, & once again the low-e photon cannot be thermalized.
“A black body (at any temperature) cannot increase the temperature of a different body to a higher temperature than its own. It doesn’t matter how big the first body is compared to the second, it still cannot raise the temperature of the second body above its own temperature.”
Bernhard, like many other you are confusing (and it is a genuine confusing as ‘thinking it is the same as’) heat conduction and energy radiation.
A hot or cold object radiates energy in the form of IR no matter what the temperature except at absolute zero. This is a fact of life and the physical universe. All objects, hot or cold, radiate energy. They to not radiate ‘heat’ and they do not radiate ‘hat at a certain temperature’.
It is true the heat will not flow from a colder end of a rod tot raise the temperature of the hot end unless it has an oscillating sound wave inside (in which case it can, actually, but that is another story).
Placing a 100 degree object (assuming equilibrium) in a cold room will demonstrate a certain cooling effect as the cold walls don’t radiate much energy back to the hot object. Put a bunch of 50 degree objects between the 100 degree object and the cold walls, and the hot object definitely cools at a lower rate.
If the hot object is being continuously heated by a 100 watt electrical energy source, the surface temperature of the 100 degree object will rise above 100. That rise is directly caused by the effect of the 50 degree objects radiating energy back to the hotter object.
Any claim that a 50 degree object will not radiate energy towards a 100 degree object is false. This is entirely different from the clear statement that the low temperature end of a rod cannot heat the hot end of the same rod by conduction. Conduction of heat and radiation of energy are not the same processes.
Crispin,
The heat flow equation is as follows:
Q’ = A*σ*(Thot4 – Tcool4)
Two black body objects at the same temperature result in Q’ = zero. How do expect a cooler body to warm a warmer body if two bodies at the same temperature do not transfer heat to each other?
So you somehow think that the laws of thermodynamics are different for conduction and radiation? Violations of the Second Law typically lead to violations of the FIrst Law as well.
Bernhard is not confused and your points do not invalidate his statement.
Radiative exchange is always about the net transfer between objects. Unless an object has zero energy available, it is a radiating body. The net exchange between it and any other body is determined by the temperatures of the two bodies, and their respective areas. Energy is traveling in both directions, but the net exchange is what determines whether a body is absorbing or losing energy.
The distinction you seek is heat flux. Hotter has more. Colder has less. These are the ‘bulk quantities’ that ‘move’. Temperature is a symtomatic resultant. Sum them. Heat flux always flows from hotter to colder. Sun radiates to Earth. Earth radiates to space. Space is really cold, based on the cosmic microwave background temperature. Sun does not care about Earth radiating to Sun, although it of course does. Sun’s flux is ginormous. Earth’s flux is puny. The net sum of these two fluxes just happens to keep Earth a life habitable planet for (from onset of the oxygenation event from the evolution of cyanobacteria and phytoplankton in whichever order) at least 2.3 billion years.
That isn’t the issue. CO2 has increased from 280 to 400 ppm. That results in a marginal increase in energy absorption by CO2. That slight increase in energy absorption is quantifiable and is estimated to be measured around 3W/M^2 if I remember right. (see the other post for the calculation). The question becomes, is that slight increase in energy absorption, energy of a wavelength that is already absorbed by H2O, result in the warming of the oceans? That is a highly quantifiable calculation. Facts are IR at 13µ to 18µ absorption is already saturated by H2O. That is proven by the extreme temperature variation of a desert vs a rain forest. Both have 400 ppm CO2, but have dramatically different levels of H20.
Facts are calculate out the marginal energy absorption by CO2 when it increased from 280 to 400ppm, put that in the context that H2O is already saturated, and you begin to see the basis for the greatest scientific hoax since the Piltdown man.
Radiative exchange is always about the NET transfer between bodies. Not just one way. Unless a body has zero energy available, it will be radiating some amount, but the net exchange between it an anything else will be determined by temperatures of the two bodies, and their respective areas. Your assertion that 15 microns is associated with a particular temperature is incorrect, and CO2 absorbs across a broader portion of the spectrum than just 15 microns. Spectral response is more about quanta than temperature.
This is a common misunderstanding. Radiative transfer is indeed BI-directional between hot & cold bodies, BUT HEAT Energy transfer is one-way only from hot to cold. The reason why is basic quantum theory and physical chemistry. A photon from a lower frequency/temperature/energy body cannot transfer any HEAT energy to a higher frequency/temperature/energy body, because all of the lower-energy microstates in the hotter body are already saturated and thus that low-E photon cannot be thermalized/increase the temperature of the hotter body.
“Your assertion that 15 microns is associated with a particular temperature is incorrect, and CO2 absorbs across a broader portion of the spectrum than just 15 microns.”
False on two accounts. Any particular wavelength/frequency is indeed associated with a specific emitting temperature of a blackbody, easily calculated using Wein’s Law, which is derived from Planck’s Law.
In the LWIR wavelengths from Earth surface radiation, the only relevant absorption/emission band of CO2 is indeed centered at ~15 microns.
So, hockeyschtick, what happens to the photon from the lower energy object when it impinges in the higher energy object?
Does it just not get absorbed? I a asking ecause I would like to understand more about this.
From what I have gleaned over the years, I believe :
Photons are not like little ping pong balls, everyone should remember that, and can have some very counterintuitive behavior…impossible for a person to really fully comprehend. Travelling at the speed of light, the photon arrives at its destination at the same time it leaves it source…even if that source was billions of light years away.
Refer to quantum entanglement and even the relatively mundane particle wave duality-A photon leaving Earth and heading for the sun is also behaving as a wave and hence spreading out…it may go right around the sun, or decide not to leave if it does not like the destination.
Photons than cannot excite an electron to an available energy state will not be absorbed by an atom at all…or so I believe I have heard said.
In fact, all of this could be wrong or misquoted from sources I have read over the years. But I am pretty sure that quantum mechanics is impossible for e person to truly comprehend…there is no macro analogy for many of the principles…like a particle not existing in any particular place at any particular velocity, or tunneling, in which a particle surmounts a barrier has insufficient energy to surmount. or an electron having a fifty-fifty chance of being in one lobe or the other of a particular orbital…but zero chance of being where it would need to be to get from one lobe to the other! It would be like if I was in Fort Myers half the time, and Philly the other half…and never anywhere in between.
Someone can correct me now.
Isn’t the position simply that we do not know precisely what happens because there is no experimental data on the subject.
For sure, a cold body emits radiation, and a photon emitted from a cold body will ‘theoretically’ be absorbed by the warmer body, but that may be only half the story. The question is what does this do to the warmer body?
isn’t the issue whether a photon emitted from a cold body, which by definition has a lower energy state, when it is absorbed by the warmer body, can it excite the photons in the warm body (which by definition already exist in a higher energy state than the photon that was emitted by the cold body) into an even higher energy state?
If a photon emitted from a cold body having a low energy state cannot increase the energy state of the photons in the warm body, it is conceivable that the photons emitted from the cold body have no significant impact on the temperature of the warm body.
Consider: If you have a thick plate say at 80degC in a well insulated box which was filled with a non radiative gas say at a temperature of 40 degC, and then on one side of the plate one was to suspend a ball bearing at the same temperature as the radiative gas (ie., 40 degC) would the two sides of the plate cool at slightly different rates because whilst the plate was being cooled by conduction on both sides by the no radiative gas, one side of the hot plate was receiving the benefit of photons emitted from the ball bearing?
I do not know whether such an experiment would test what we are talking about, still less what the answer is, but I have never seen a summary of an actual experiment which gets to the heart of what photons emitted from a cooler body really do.
CO2 has a clearly defined absorption band between 13µ and 18µ. That band has a quantifiable W/M^2/µ. Increasing CO2 from 280 to 400 has broadened that band out slightly, maybe to 12.999µ to 18.001µ. The increase in energy absorption is negligible. That is the problem with this CO2 driven model. Increases in CO2 don’t necessarily absorb more radiation. Those bands are already saturated by H2O, except in the deserts and other very dry regions. Those regions get extremely cold at night because there is no H2O to absorb the energy, there is only CO2. Facts are if CO2 could dramatically alter the energy balance, H2O would be doing to to a much much much greater extent because it traps much much much more energy, and is much much more prevalent.
The Pauli exclusion principle limits the number of electrons that can occupy a given orbital/energy level at one time. If a photon with insufficient quantum energy to raise said electrons to a higher orbital arrives, it can either be reflected or release an equivalent photon of the same energy as that which was “absorbed.” Either way, the incoming low-E photon cannot be thermalized/warm/increase frequency/temperature/heat energy of the warmer body. This is the basis of quantum theory first proposed by Planck.
If there is no orbital which can accept it, then how can it be absorbed and re-emitted at all?
Remember that atoms are mostly vast amount if empty space.
[ All of the actual particles comprising the million mile wide diameter of the sun would make a sphere less than 7 miles wide (using the size of a 2 solar mass neutron star as a reference), unless one took the calculations of electron degeneracy pressure to indicate the size of an electron, in which case it may be more like the size of the Earth. Since I tend to think that it is the neutron degeneracy pressure calculations that indicate the true “size” of electrons and nucleons, I am going to go with 7 miles.]
This goes too for the plasma soup which comprises the sun, so a photon may not actually “hit” any particular object on a trip through the sun.
But I am pretty sure that at the level of studying individual photons, no one really knows. This is, after all, what Heisenberg proved, is it not? That it is impossible to observe an individual particle without disturbing it?
In any case, when the second law was expounded, it was based on macroscopic properties, not a study of what individual particles do, and I tend to agree with Rich Verney that there may be no actual way to answer such questions experimentally.
As Mr. Smith says, this is what I believe, which may be completely wrong…or not.
Whether that’s true or not (and I have my doubts) its much simpler than that. A colder object cannot warm a warmer object radiatively because for any timescale you wish to choose, the warmer object will lose more energy than the colder object can radiate towards it and have it absorb.
The only statement that can be made about cool objects “warming” hotter objects is that the hotter object will cool less quickly. Willis and I have had great arguments over this is the past and he never saw the value in being explicit about what was happening and always thought it was ok to think of it as true warming.
Look at what happens with general understanding when you do that, Willis 😛
“Whether that’s true or not, I have my doubts”
It is true, please see in the chemistry text linked below:
if a low-E photon is “absorbed” by the completely saturated low-E microstates & orbitals of a higher-E body, it has to simultaneously eject a photon of the exact same wavelength/frequency/Energy as that absorbed, due to the Pauli exclusion principle of basic quantum theory. Thus there is no change whatsoever in the energy content/temperature of the hotter body due to a low-E photon from the colder source. This explains the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics on a quantum basis.
Please read about the Pauli exclusion principle, 2nd Law, etc. in the reference I just posted. The Pauli exclusion principle prohibits more than 2 electrons from being in the same atomic or molecular orbital at the same time. In the hot body, those low-E orbitals are already completely filled with 2 electrons (of opposite spin), thus an incoming low-E photon cannot be thermalized.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-pauli-exclusion-principle-of.html
Like this:
Sun > Earth > Top of Atmosphere
Add CO2 to get this:
Sun > Earth > Wait > Top of Atmosphere
CO2 gets struck by long wave radiation from the surface and holds that energy or warmth in the atmosphere. It is eventually re-emitted. Delayed cooling which is warmth now.
CO2 only delays IR to space by a few milliseconds, also accelerates convection, which dominates radiative-convective equilibrium of the troposphere. At night this few millisecond delay “accumulation” of solar > Earth > atmospheric heat energy is lost to space & then cycle repeats.
This demonstrates one of the short comings in the K&T energy budget cartoon which assumes that solar is a 24/7 event.
However, in the real world in which we live, Earth receives a blast of energy from the sum only for 12 hours of the 24 hour day. If there is enough time during the 12 hours when Earth is not receiving any incoming solar energy for the energy built up during the course of the solar day to escape back to space then all that one is achieving is delaying the coldest time of the night, eg, from say 03:57 hrs to 03:58 hrs, or what have you.
But of course, the issue is complicated by the oceans which are slow to heat up, and slow to cool down and where the energy absorbed/heat is distributed in 3D (ie, to depth as well as polewards).
Not so.
15 micron wavelength does equate to the peak wavelength of the spectral radiance spectrum of a black body plotted as Wm^-2 / wavelength increment, versus wavelength, for a BB temperature circa -80 deg. C
But the average condensed surface temperature of earth is supposedly +59 deg. F or 288 K; have risen catastrophically to that high value from on +58 deg. F back in 1850.
And for that temperature the peak wavelength is more like 10.1 microns, rather than 15, and there is much more 5 micron radiation from the actual surface, than there would be at -80 deg. C
So your conclusion is wrong.
And at 288 K Temperature a BB radiator has a total radiant emittance of about 390 Wm^-2 , so a continuous flux input of 342 Wm^-2 certainly can’t raise a black body temperature to anything like +59 deg. F, or 288 K.
So Kevin Trenberth et al is way out of whack in his earth energy budget cartoon.
But a real extra terrestrial TSI of 1362-6 Wm^-2 certainly can heat the portion of the earth below it to much higher than 288 K just during the daylight hours.
Funny how the earth simply refuses to follow the computed average; but it is consistent, as it pays no attention to the average of anything. Isn’t even aware that there is such a thing as an average.
Well there is an “average” in one particular branch of mathematics, called statistical mathematics, or merely statistics.
But in the physical real world, there is no such thing as an average anything. It’s all fiction. (so is all of mathematics)
One place you are going wrong Bernard, is in asking for an explanation in layman’s terms.
There is no such thing.
Why don’t YOU instead read some books (there are plenty that laymen can read and grasp1) , so that you can understand it in the correct scientific terms.
Lay terms have lay meanings, and they may be quite different from the correct scientific terminology, that is used to ensure that we all talk on the same band, when discussion science issues.
You either learn to understand it yourself, or you just have to take somebody else’s word for it.
And I always caution that nobody should ever take my word for anything. Well other than I will never tell you anything that I do not personally believe.
g
George,
Thanks for your reply. Rest assured, I do put a lot of effort into researching the basic principles. The field is so vast however that I will often ask for an insight in layman’s terms to get me to the next level of understanding when I get stuck. I am also trying to put the logic into simple terms in order to explain things to other people. I am a firm believer that if you can’t explain it, you don’t really understand it.
This thread has been very informative. The exchanges between Hockeyschtick, Menicholas and others, have been the most insightful to me. C02islife actually started me on this path a few months ago.
hockeyschtick August 1, 2015 at 9:02 pm seems to have the answer to my question:
‘The Pauli exclusion principle limits the number of electrons that can occupy a given orbital/energy level at one time. If a photon with insufficient quantum energy to raise said electrons to a higher orbital arrives, it can either be reflected or release an equivalent photon of the same energy as that which was “absorbed.” Either way, the incoming low-E photon cannot be thermalized/warm/increase frequency/temperature/heat energy of the warmer body. This is the basis of quantum theory first proposed by Planck.’
With that input, I realise that I can ask a better question:
The sun, at a temperature of 5500c, emits a lot of radiation, causing the earth, which is a long way away, to absorb some of it and have a temperature of 15c. If a second sun suddenly appeared next to the first one, I think everyone on this thread would agree that the temperature of the earth would rise above 15c.
However, if, instead of a second sun appearing, a new planet suddenly appeared in the Solar System and it had a steady temperature of -80c, what would happen to the temperature of the Earth? Would it go up, down or stay the same? Based on the discussion on this thread, I think there would be disagreement on the answer. That was the point of my original question.
Many people would assume that because the planet at -80c is still emitting some IR, some of that would reach the earth and raise its temperature a bit above 15c. At the risk of embarrassing myself, I think hockeyschtick might say that the temperature of the Earth would not change.
If you accept that CO2 absorbs IR in those wavelengths consistent with emissions from a cold black body at -80c, this would have profound implications as it would seem to imply that increasing CO2 would not change the Earth’s temperature because it is already above -80c.
If hockeyschtick comes back and says the temperature of the Earth would rise then I would accept that and move on.
Bernard Lodge – I’ll stick my neck out here, and say that the second planet would increase Earth’s temperature (obviously by very little) – provided of course that it isn’t between a better radiation source and Earth. The reason is that Earth would be receiving radiation from the direction of the 2nd planet that it wasn’t receiving before.
Bernard says “Many people would assume that because the planet at -80c is still emitting some IR, some of that would reach the earth and raise its temperature a bit above 15c. At the risk of embarrassing myself, I think hockeyschtick might say that the temperature of the Earth would not change.
If you accept that CO2 absorbs IR in those wavelengths consistent with emissions from a cold black body at -80c, this would have profound implications as it would seem to imply that increasing CO2 would not change the Earth’s temperature because it is already above -80c.
If hockeyschtick comes back and says the temperature of the Earth would rise then I would accept that and move on.”
I’m baaaack after a nice holiday 😉
Bernard your interpretation is correct, as well as its profound implications for the CAGW scam: The temperature change of the +15C Earth from infinite amounts of -80C photons (e.g. CO2 emitting at 15um) would be Zero. All of the ~-80C low-Energy/lower orbital states of the +15C Earth blackbody are already completely saturated with the maximum number of electrons that can occupy that quantum level per the Pauli exclusion principle, thus, a photon from a -80C emitting temperature source CANNOT be absorbed/thermalized/increase lower-E electron orbitals/increase frequency/increase heat energy/increase temperature of the hotter +15C blackbody.
I will be posting in a day or two parts of a chapter scanned from a freshman college physics book that explains all of this in detail including why any lower-E photons cannot be “absorbed” by a high-E blackbody, and the Pauli Exclusion Principle, basic quantum theory, etc.
” All of the ~-80C low-Energy/lower orbital states of the +15C Earth blackbody are already completely saturated with the maximum number of electrons that can occupy that quantum level per the Pauli exclusion principle, thus, a photon from a -80C emitting temperature source CANNOT be absorbed/thermalized/increase lower-E electron orbitals/increase frequency/increase heat energy/increase temperature of the hotter +15C blackbody.”
Actually it depends on the material exposed to the 15u photons. Conducting metal, is not limited, a single Co2 molecule would be.
Here’s the college textbook excerpts I promised to post above explaining my comments, Pauli Exclusion Principle, etc. in much greater detail:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-pauli-exclusion-principle-of.html
Net heat transfer is always from warmer to colder (2nd law). But a cooler body can cause a warmer body to lose heat less quickly than it would otherwise have done. So the cooler body has not warmed the warmer body, but it has caused it to be warmer than it would have been had the cooler body not been there. When there is a continuous source of heat heating the warmer body, so the system is in equilibrium, placing the cooler body there can cause the equilibrium to shift to a warmer temperature. That is what is being alleged: that the warmer body is now less cool than it would have been – NOT that net heat has transferred from the cooler to the warmer.
But since language is often imprecise, some people say that the cooler body has “warmed” the warmer body – simply using imprecise language to describe the indisputable facts. Then other people say “2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS!!!!” and imagine they have disproved the plain facts. NB: Laws of physics are not laws about linguistic terms. So the 2nd law does not say “anything that is called “warming” of a warmer by a cooler body cannot happen.” No! It says that net heat transfer cannot flow from a cooler to a warmer body – just that, nothing more. It is a law about physical processes, not a law about what words we use to describe phenomena.
Yes, it has been confirmed. Here is a peer-reviewed article confirming the link between AGW from C02 and increased water vapor in the atmosphere.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/32/11636.short
@ Luke: that paper has been discussed here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/28/new-study-claims-to-confirms-water-vapor-as-global-warming-amplifier-but-other-data-says-no/
I love the name of that org. Pronounce it out loud … slowly. ’nuff said. 😉
Climate models’ estimations of ECS are implicitly based on the assumption that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2. Therefore any assertion that the models show that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2 is invalid (circular logic).
Bingo. And that explodes the entire apparatus.
Welcome to the Machine
by Pink Floyd
Water vapour has been considered a net “upflux” agent in classic meteorology. CO2 a “downflux”. Whence water vapour became a net downflux agent, eludes me. Again, I defer to Willis and his Thunderstorm/Thermostat hypothesis, as the TS’s are atmospheric “heat pumps” which pump energy from
the surface level, to the stratosphere and OUT. I think the AWG wonks are completely dis=in
Sorry…got posted before I finished the last sentence. (Microsoft error). disingenuous with regard their models, as I have found scant evidence of any inclusion of the “heat engine” effect of TS’s on the balances, yet back of the envelope calculations indicate they COULD be providing a +5% addition to net output.
Probably more. There is more to the story than convection and precipitation. There is also the impact UTrH and cirrus (Lindzen’s ‘drying’ adaptive infrared iris). None of which can be modeled owing to computational limitations on grid cell size, so parameterized– with parameters fitting a natural warming cycle similar to ~1920-1950.
“The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted),”
There is very little about climate “science” that is “pretty solid” if it is generally accepted, and CO2 sensitivity is certainly not “pretty solid”. If it were, someone would be winning prizes proving that fact.
“… hundreds of rocket and atmospheric scientists, physicists, and aeronautical engineers who created the gold standard and final 1976 version of the US Standard Atmosphere Database (created during the ice age scare of the 1970’s and just one decade prior to the global warming scare of the 1980’s) in effect were “deniers” of any significant “radiative forcing,” “heat trapping,” or “radiative imbalance” from any greenhouse gases in their physical chemical calculations of the temperature profile of Earth’s entire atmosphere from the surface all the way to the edge of space at ~100 kilometers altitude.”
and from a different post …
“This massive effort was critical to the entire space program and aeronautics, and hundreds of rocket scientists, physicists, meteorologists, aeronautical engineers, and atmospheric scientists contributed to this project necessary to physically model and then verify with millions of observations from weather balloons, research flights, and rocket launches, that their physical 1-D vertical model of the atmosphere was correct. The 1958 first edition of the US Standard Atmosphere was followed by revisions, mostly of the far upper atmosphere at the edge of space, as more data became available from the space program, with revisions published in 1962, 1966, and the final 1976 version still widely used as the gold standard today. ”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-us-standard-atmosphere-model.html
I was taught in university (early 70s) about the earth’s “weather machine” and the earth’s climate in terms of the solid, accepted science that the many experts who put together the US Standard Atmosphere used. Since radiative forcing warming the earth was not used at all in explaining the earth’s temperature and the US Standard Atmosphere was considered crucial and essential to the space race and to aviation in general — where is any darn proof that they were wrong? Being “generally accepted” now hardly seems like proof to me. Many have demonstrated that one can explain the earth’s temperature without appeal to radiative warming at all, and in fact it is radiative cooling that we see the ghg do.
The debate over how the earth’s climate works is most certainly not over.
However, the whole series was appreciated. Thanks Mike Jonas.
~ Mark
Thank you Mr. Jonas. It seems that Earths water likes to keep the Earth at a fairly stable temperature at the distance from the Sun that we are. With or without GHGs.
In my opinion the biggest thing these people missed was the increase of water vapor also increases the convection cycle. Something that CO2 is powerless to stop.
When you boil water, its temperature rises to 100 C, then stops rising until all of the water is gone. If you condense the steam and return it to the pot, it stays at 100 C forever, no matter how much you turn up the heat. That is the situation we have on earth. The water vapor in the atmosphere is mixed with inert gas, mostly nitrogen, so instead of “boiling” warm water humidifies the air. The warm humid air gains buoyancy and rises until the laws of nature cause it to again form liquid water and rain out. And, the surface equilibrium is that of water boiling at reduced pressure. What happens if the sun’s radiation increases? It rains more. What happens if we add more CO2 to the atmosphere? Nothing.
MikeB wrote: “OK Bernard, you may be aiming at the prize for the dumbest comment but you won’t win, other competitors will be along soon.”
MikeB was right. The oceans do not boil.
I think you missed the part that went: so instead of “boiling” etc.
“The warm humid air gains buoyancy and rises until the laws of nature cause it to again form liquid water and rain out. And, the surface equilibrium is that of water boiling at reduced pressure.”
Um, did you mean to write “…reduced temperature…” rather than pressure?
And most precipitation, almost all of it, begins not with water but with ice crystals that grow due to variations in vapor pressure between ice and water at very low temps. If clouds were only liquid water, there would be a lot less rain on the planet.
Pochas, what do you suppose causes the cyclical variations in the climate, such as ice ages and interglacials, and other less dramatic fluctuation, if not changes in the amount of radiation received from the sun?
You seem to be saying that the changes caused by the Milankovitch cycles cannot cause the temps of the earth to change.
Plus, as noted, water does boil at a lower temp at reduced pressure, but at the surface, the boiling point remains pretty much the same. Boiling refers to a specific process…evaporation of a liquid below it’s boiling point is not the same thing as boiling.
And, one more thing, plenty of things happen when CO2 is increased. Just ask any plant or tree.
Nothing I said above precludes climate variation from Milankovic cycles, tidal effects, TSI variations, variation in solar spectral composition, plate tectonics, volcanism, even galactic cosmic rays. All have happened and will happen and life goes on. There is just no evidence that CO2 is an important player (except as plant food) or that there is any threat to civilization short of a major meteor impact or nuclear war. And I think we’ll survive even then.
Otay.
pochas: What happens if we add more CO2 to the atmosphere? Nothing.
I think that you are wrong about that. Low in the atmosphere, where the air is dense, when CO2 molecules absorb radiant energy they transfer that energy to nearby N2 and O2 molecules, warming the atmosphere above what it would be without CO2. Add CO2 and you get increased warming at that altitude and density, hence increased specific humidity. Increased warming also decreases the density, leading to an increase in the rate of convection away from the surface toward the upper troposphere. So CO2 increases both the advective/convective and evapotranspirative transfer of energy from the surface. “energy balance” models that ignore those two energy transfer rate increases overestimate the amount of surface radiation necessary to restore energy transfer balance after increases in CO2 — in my opinion.
Agreed. In addition, the models falsely assume that relative humidity remains constant while specific humidity increases. As Miskolczi has shown, relative humidity goes in the opposite direction from specific humidity to maintain homeostasis. Falsely assuming that relative humidity remains constant leads to exaggerated warming in models, and is disproven by observations.
CO2 increases the heat capacity of the atmosphere and reduces the lapse rate which brings the surface temperature closer to the -18 C temperature at the equivalent emissions altitude.
Right, pochas, and your other comments as well 🙂
How come CO2 is not figured into the lapse rate formula?
hockeyschtick: Agreed.
With what did you agree? I wrote that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would warm the surface and near surface atmosphere. I contrasted that wih pochas’ claim that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no effect.
You are right, Matthew. I had it in my head that CO2 has a high heat capacity and this is wrong. Actually it has a negligible effect on lapse rate. The real actor on lapse rate is water vapor with a Cp of 1930 J/(kg * deg K) compared to air at 1010.
At least two “blockquotes” need fixing in the OP.
[Fixed. I think… ~mod.]
“The warming generated by CO2 itself. This comes from increased downward infra-red radiation (IR) from increased quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was described originally by Arrhenius [5], and is generally accepted as very solid physics by climate scientists and climate “sceptics” alike.” No it is not accepted by sceptics, particularly those who are physicists. CO2 cannot generate warming. Only the sun is providing energy. Back radiation from a cold atmosphere to a warm surface cannot warm the surface.
Back radiation from a cold atmosphere to a warm surface cannot warm the surface.
What’s warmer? A warm surface surrounded by an atmosphere at an average temperature of -20 C? Or a surface surrounded by outer space at an average temperature of -270 C?
Once you’ve worked out which one would be warmer, you can start trying to figure out how that is possible.
“Back radiation from a cold atmosphere to a warm surface cannot warm the surface.”
It can if the surface is not a liquid. Even water ice can be warmed by back radiation.
The missing part is that back radiation presumes forward radiation, after all the molecule is an isotropic source of radiation. How is it that in the models increased back radiation from a putative average altitude is not matched by an equal amount (slightly higher actually) of forward radiation from that same putative average altitude? After all there are more radiators, right? If it is included in the models, does the temperature of the radiating altitude drop or rise? Monckton says it stays the same. I say it drops. The lapse rate investigation in Japan says the lapse rate drops from 6.5 k/km to 6.3 deg k/km which infers that it rises, unless the effective radiating altitude also rises..
Increasing the CO2 concentration increases the emissivity of the atmosphere – it radiates energy more efficiently at all altitudes. So does increasing the water vapour concentration. Thermals dominate heat transport by water vapour which condenses and freezes. On other planets it is dominated by methane thermals which condense and freeze. Somewhere, nitrogen is the carrier.
The surface heating effect of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is grandly overestimated; in the case of the IPCC, grandly overstated.
Why does black ice exist in shaded areas on winter roads if back radiation can warm the ice?
Not exactly, weak IR bounced in any direction will increase in equal measures the energy along its path. Does that effect describe warming, not exactly. But it does suggest a net increase in IR. The question is ; is that tiny net increase considered a primary climate driver? Unlikley.
Well, I got that challenge done rather fast, HS. You refer to Lectures volume 1, chapter 40, wherein Feynman explains many of the consequences of Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics for gasses, using Earth’s atmosphere for experimental illustrations. Lets go through each subsection in turn, with some ending quotes from my 2006 print edition of his Lectures on Physics. I skip his math insofar as possible.
40.1 The exponential atmosphere.
He explicitly ignores convection, then answers “two questions: how are the molecules distributed in space, and how are they distributed in velocity?”. Concludes that pressure decreases with altitude, and so does temperature. GOSH! Feynman uses statistical mechanics to derive the observed pressure and temperature lapse rates. A tour de force. Nothing about GHG. Imagine being a CalTech freshman then!
40.2 Ludwig Boltzmann statistical mechanics.
Extends the ‘special case’ of 40-1 Earth atmosphere to the general case. Just math. So Boltzmann rules everywhere (Venus and Jupiter and all other stuff). Nothing about GHG effects of IR transparency. in
40.3 Evaporation of a liquid
Shows that evaporation of a liquid depends on the pressure and temperature of its atmosphere according to statistical mechanics. Another stunner, physical proof that freeze drying works and that water boils at lower temperatures at higher altitudes. So freeze dried foods take longer to prepare at altitude–something every senior Boy Scout learns by experience at Philmont Ranch in New Mexico.
40.4 Distribution of molecular speeds.
OK, a lot more math on more complicated stuff. Does only the ‘vertical’ molecular velocity distribution. Conclusion, equation 40.9 equals 40.7 approximates what was concluded in 40.1. Higher in the atmosphere must be a lower pressure and a colder temperature. (Remember, the whole chapter excludes convection). Nothing to do with GHG. Although Feynman does note his solutions are independent of molecular mass, just assuming the atmosphere average molecular weight for calculation purposes.
40.5 Specific heat of gases
A riff on PV/T=k ( the ideal gas law). Sort of proves it again using statistical mechanics, and then riffs that he really hasn’t (silly students), because his theoretical calculations diverge a bit from experimental observations… the genius of Feynman on full display in microcosm. In my humble opinion. Had not spotted that section before. Another brilliant example of his thinking about science.
40.5 The failure of classical physics
Explains why, quantum mechanically, 40.5 ‘failed a little bit’. I quote from the first sentence of the last section of this brilliant lecture on philosophy of science in general:
“This is the first time that we have really deduced by comparison with experiment, that there was something wrong with classical physics, and we have looked for a resolution of the difficulty in quantum mechanics in much the same way as it was done originally.” And of course he found it.
Always liked V2, Ch 41, section 41.6 (flow of wet water, as opposed to 41.5 flow of dry water). as the epitome of Feynman. His last paragraphs there are colloquially known as his ‘sermon on equations’. The last paragraph, cited verbatim for WUWT followers who have not read it, is relevant for climate science:
“The next great era of awakening of human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the qualitative intent of equations. Today we cannot. Today we cannot see that the water flow equations contain such things as the barber pole structure of turbulence that one sees between rotating cylinders. Today we cannot see whether Schroedinger’s equations contains frogs, musical composers, or morality—or whether it does not. We cannot say whether something beyond it like God is needed—or whether it is not. And so we can all hold strong opinions either way.”
HS, nothing in your cited chapter supports your assertions about GHG, nor in your web stuff on same.
I regretfully but forcibly call BS. Your kind give our ‘side’ a bad name. Learn some physics. Learn how to be prudently skeptical. Stop spouting transparent nonsense, easily checked. STOP your silly stuff!!!
I really could care less rvistan what your obviously ill-informed high-school level opinion is, completely devoid of any mathematics, and clueless that Feynman derived the gravito-thermal GHE temperature gradient in a pure N2/O2 atmosphere using only gravity/mass pressure/density/heat capacity & without one single radiative transfer equation or greenhouse gas. As to “learn some physics” ad hom, I learned this basic physical chemistry & physics some 35 years ago in getting a degree in physical chemistry & minor in physics. I really could care less what your opinion is of the works of Feynman, Maxwell, Clausius, Carnot, the U.S. & International Standard Atmospheres, etc etc.
Amen!
Maxwell, Clausius, Carnot, and Feynman all proved the “greenhouse effect” is due to the atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure/heat capacities gravito-thermal “GHE,” NOT radiation/Arrhenius radiative GHE, which also falsely assumes radiation dominates convection; it does not.
This is a second attempt to reply to you. iPad flamed out just before dinner. Old iPad, big flames.
WRT your Feynman assertion, please now back it up. Here, for all WUWT skeptics. I own the 2006 (corrected equations) print edition, so well thumbed that some of the backing is now loose. Three Volumes, each about 50 chapters (V1 is 51) and each chapter several sections (corresponding to a single CalTech lecture 1961-1963). Rather famous. And indelible.
So, which volume, which chapter, which section(s) support your assertion just above?
Frankly, you are wrong. Always have been. Do not grok physics. And that sort of stuff just empowers the other side to say all skeptics are nutters, when actually most of us are not.
Cut the cr*p out. Get with a real counter program. Please. You damage the argument with your stupid unsupportable stuff.
Unless, of course, you can cite the volume, chapter(s), and section(s) supporting your Feynman assertion.
@ ristvan August 1, 2015 at 4:03 pm
I went to his site and scrolled down a post or two and found this:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/feynman-explains-how-gravitational.html
The Feynman Lectures entire Chapter 40 on the Statistical Mechanics of our atmosphere.
Excerpts here
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/feynman-explains-how-gravitational.html
Entire Chapter 40 here:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/physicist-richard-feynman-proved.html
YOU are embarrassing yourself rvistan with your failure to understand basic physics, physical chemistry, radiation & heat transfer, & quantum theory.
The Maxwell, Clausius, Carnot proofs of the gravito-thermal GHE are also on my site via the search box.
Thankyou. i will reatidy chapter 40 (volume 1) and getnback here. Probably tomorrow.
HS, iPad failed for the second time here. Thank you for the reference, and the link to your site. I will study them both and then respond tomorrow. How ‘science’ should be done. Sorry about the garbled first reply. Maybe time for a new iPad?
Threading fail. Detailed response is above, not below. HS, you are just wrong concerning Feynman. See the detailed misplaced comment.
hockeyschtick, I read the essay here: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/feynman-explains-how-gravitational.html
There are a bunch of omitted topics. What happens when the surface of the Earth is heated from above by radiant energy from the sun? How is that changed if a large fraction of the Earth is covered deeply by water? What then are the effects when when you consider the advection/convection and evapotranspiration? Now, to complete the picture, what happens when you add CO2?
That’s all for the simplified case of a flat surface.
This of course proves the science is settled since understanding with 100% certainty the uncertainty is absolute certainty of any conclusions from the uncertainty.
Using circular logic then bolsters the claims of the science since circular logic bolsters any possible claim anyone could ever make. No one would claim proof of werewolves existing is the fact that werewolves exist, but apparently in climate science this is now advanced scientific methodology.
To attain the final government seal of approval you appeal to consensus or popularity; the many examples of werewolves in popular culture and fiction could only have occurred due to the existence of werewolves.
There we go. Done. We have settled CO2 as the primary driver of warming as well as werewolves existing.
Welcome to the insane asylum.
Well the IPCC fails to elaborate that it is them that is ignorant of the effects of cloud feedback.
When looking for a feedback effect; you look at the INPUT signal which is what feedback from the OUTPUT will modify.
You do NOT look for a feedback at the OUTPUT of the system, to see how the OUTPUT modifies the OUTPUT.
The INPUT to the climate system is solar spectrum energy; TSI at 1362-6 Wm^-2.
The OUTPUT of the climate system is the Total radiant emittance of the earth to outer space. xxxxx.xx Wm^-2
BUT !! the gosinter is only about half of the earth surface at any one time.
The gosouter is ALL of the earth surface, all of the time.
BUT !! every different part of the earth surface has a different total radiant emittance to space, from every other part of the earth surface.
Clouds directly affect the amount of INPUT of solar spectrum radiant energy.
Clouds, only have minor secondary effects, in modifying the OUTPUT total radiant emittance to space at each location.
But don’t quote me on that, and don’t tell the IPCC. I like to know that there are ignoramuses out there like the IPCC. It sometimes gets me thinking, I might have a little smarts. Excuse me; that’s a very little smarts.
g
In climate science, there really is confusion as to what a real feedback is.
Perhaps this explains why the IPCC fails to see that in total, the sum of all feedbacks must be negative, or we would not be here today discussing matters.
But all warmistas seem to believe that the past is irrelevant, and just because the Earth has been relatively stable for all this time, even recovering after all manner of shocks and catastrophic events, that now everything is different…because of people. That what we do is completely unnatural and not comparable to anything which ever occurred before.
I am not sure why they feel this way, but I suspect that it is lack of understanding of Earth history.
“For these, the models use parameterisations, which are basically guesses expressed as mathematical formulae”
The expression “Fudge Factor” comes immediately to mind and all is revealed. ‘Hasso’ is attained – the eighth stage of enlightenment in Buddhist teaching where ‘all is revealed’ as I understand it.
Mike Jonas,
The water vapor cycle and the water vapor feedback are different things. An error in one does not imply an error in the other.
If I tell you that every month I spend all of my take home pay, but no more, and that the average balance in my checking account is $10,000. What is my take home pay? You can’t tell.
Water vapor feedback depends on the amount of water in the atmosphere; it is like the average balance in my checking account. The cycle is how much goes in and out; it is like my take home pay and spending.
The physics behind the water vapor + lapse rate feedback is solid. There is good reason to believe that the models do a decent job of calculating it. There are independent tests of the method of calculation. And there are observations that support the result of a “clear sky” feedback leading to a sensitivity of 1.9 C. http://scienceofdoom.com/2015/04/30/clouds-water-vapor-part-eight-clear-sky-comparison-of-models-with-erbe-and-ceres/
The problem is with the clouds. You correctly identify some of the reasons, although what is in the models is much better than that they “simply guess”. Because of the key role of clouds in the water cycle, it seems likely that inadequate treatment of clouds is the cause of errors in the water cycle.
I am surprised that you don’t mention Lindzen’s Iris effect, which seems to be able to explain at least part of the water cycle problem as well as producing a negative feedback. http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/26/modeling-lindzens-adaptive-infrared-iris/
The part that is “unrealistic or sheer speculation” is the 1.3 K from clouds, which is 40% of the 3.2 K total, not 2/3. 40% is plenty to knock the legs out from climate catastrophism. It is also what is needed to bring the models in line with observations.
“The physics behind the water vapor + lapse rate feedback is solid. There is good reason to believe that the models do a decent job of calculating it.”
Not even wrong.
1) The models falsely assume radiative forcing controls the lapse rate. It absolutely does not. The lapse rate equation
dT/dh = -g/Cp
is dependent upon gravity (g) and heat capacity at constant pressure Cp only, not radiative forcing. GHGs cause increased Cp, which is inversely related to change in temperature dT, thus an increase of CO2 or water vapor causes a negative lapse rate feedback & cooling. The wet adiabatic lapse rate is 1/2 the dry, proving water vapor is a negative feedback cooling agent by up to 25C at the surface.
hockeyschtick ,
“The models falsely assume radiative forcing controls the lapse rate.”
That is false. S. Manabe and R.F. Strickler, J. Atmos. Sci., vol. 21, 361-385, (1964).
“The lapse rate equation
dT/dh = -g/Cp”
No, that is the dry adiabatic lapse rate equation.
“is dependent upon gravity (g) and heat capacity at constant pressure Cp”
Wrong. Cp in that equation is specific heat, not heat capacity. Check your units.
“GHGs cause increased Cp”
Cp is 1000 J /kg/K for dry air and 840 J/kg/K for CO2. 840 is smaller than 1000. But it really does not matter since the 16% difference in Cp times the 400 ppmv CO2 in air means that CO2 changes Cp by 0.0064% and changes the dry adiabatic lapse rate by 0.0006 K/km. Insignificant.
“The wet adiabatic lapse rate is 1/2 the dry”
Wrong. The wet adiabatic lapse rate depends on temperature. A reasonable average is about 2/3 the dry.
“proving water vapor is a negative feedback”
Right! Sort of. Even a watch with a dead battery is right twice a day. There are two water vapor feedbacks. One is due to IR absorption and is positive; the other is due to lapse rate changes and is negative. Combined they are positive. You can find the numbers in IPCC AR5. Or, for the combined effect, in the article above.
Wrong wrong wrong:
“The models falsely assume radiative forcing controls the lapse rate.”
That is false. S. Manabe and R.F. Strickler, J. Atmos. Sci., vol. 21, 361-385, (1964).
Wrong. Manabe falsely assumed a fixed lapse rate of -6.5K/km based on an average of observations. This results in exaggerated warming in models. This false assumption and at least 10 other false assumptions in that paper are totally debunked in my post on Kimoto’s papers.
“The lapse rate equation
dT/dh = -g/Cp”
“No, that is the dry adiabatic lapse rate equation.”
Of course that is indeed the dry adiabatic lapse rate equation, which can be expanded to derive the wet adiabatic lapse rate equation!
“is dependent upon gravity (g) and heat capacity at constant pressure Cp”
“Wrong. Cp in that equation is specific heat, not heat capacity. Check your units.”
TOTALLY wrong:
http://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_do_gases_have_two_specific_heats_of_Cp_and_Cv_while_solids_and_liquids_have_only_one
“GHGs cause increased Cp”
Cp is 1000 J /kg/K for dry air and 840 J/kg/K for CO2. 840 is smaller than 1000. But it really does not matter since the 16% difference in Cp times the 400 ppmv CO2 in air means that CO2 changes Cp by 0.0064% and changes the dry adiabatic lapse rate by 0.0006 K/km. Insignificant.
Sure it is indeed negligible. The important thing is that it shows the SIGN of the effect is increased CO2 is -, not +.
“The wet adiabatic lapse rate is 1/2 the dry”
“Wrong. The wet adiabatic lapse rate depends on temperature. A reasonable average is about 2/3 the dry.”
Wrong again. The average moist adiabatic LR is ~5K/km, the dry is 9.8K/km, almost exactly double as I said.
“proving water vapor is a negative feedback”
Right! Sort of. Even a watch with a dead battery is right twice a day. There are two water vapor feedbacks. One is due to IR absorption and is positive; the other is due to lapse rate changes and is negative. Combined they are positive. You can find the numbers in IPCC AR5. Or, for the combined effect, in the article above.
Agreed the lapse rate is a negative feedback. The alleged positive feedback from WV back radiation is a myth, has a “BB” peak emitting temperature of ~217K, which is colder than any part of the atmosphere. I’ve already explained a million times why radiation from a colder BB cannot be thermalized by a warmer BB.
“You can find the numbers in IPCC AR5.”
Oh my sweet lord. The IPCC in an appeal to authority. Wow in high heels.
( I can not spell stilts or I would have used that rather than high heels.)
Mike M – Yes, Water cycle and water vapour feedback are different things. Without a water cycle, an ocean temperature increase would result in an extra bit of evaporation and hence more water vapour in the atmosphere as per C-C. This would happen just once. But with a water cycle, there’s a continuous process of evaporation condensation and precipitation, so more evaporation at the ocean surface is continually needed to maintain the balance. It’s this water cycle that cools. It does it in much the same way that a refrigerator works : evaporation takes energy from the surface and condensation then releases it into the atmosphere from whence it dissipates, some of it going out into space. That’s why the water cycle is important, and why the models overestimate water vapour feedback if they underestimate the water cycle. NB. This is quite independent of the other issues re clouds.
Sorry, first sentence I should have said something like “Water cycle feedback and water vapour feedback are different components of the total water vapour feedback”. And, second-last sentence, “why the models overestimate total water vapour feedback if they underestimate the water cycle”. Too many concepts, too few terms.
This is the wrong analogy because when water vapour condenses up in the atmosphere, it releases the latent heat it took up there. And from there the energy radiates both up and down but the point is that its closer to getting away from the earth…so an increased water cycle should have a cooling effect at the surface.
Is it possible that doubling of co2 will not effect global temerature at all? Have the observed feedbacks for the lasr 30 years or so given any indication that the added co2 is driving temperature at all? Even if the global temps rise 2 f what will be the hard evidence that this is caused by co2 emissions? The temp hasn’t risen as much as they expected and has been flat for many years. So if the temps trend down enough in coming years and they can’t even fudge that trend, what then? It must be stressful being a pro agw climate scientist.
To answer these questions, Charlie, one would need to know what would have happened if everything else were the same, but CO2 had not changed at all.
Since we will never know this, it is clear, at this point and to me, that no one can say what if any effect increasing CO2 would or could have had over the past 65 years.
Looking at the past history of the planet and, specifically, at long term reconstructions of the temp and CO2 history of the atmosphere, one must conclude that CO2 and temp are independent variables. Over shorter time spans, including that represented in the ice core data, they are correlated, but this may be a result of how much CO2 is held in the oceans as the water temps varies, since temps reverse direction regardless of what CO2 is doing.
But not irregardless.
LOL!!!
The best ‘control experiment’ for this is that the temperatures rose similarly from 1910-1940. If the control experiment shows the same effect as the live experiment, then chances are the postulate is wrong.
Although in any case we are trying to measure a quantity, 1.2C, which is way below the noise floor of the system, of 10-30C daily variation and even larger seasonal variations. It is just as likely that CO2 does have a small effect, but that is swamped by other factors.
And don’t forget that post 1940s, the temperature began to drop.
I think this is a much better solution to the ‘problem’:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/erasing-agw-how-convection-responds-to.html
“I think this is a much better solution to the ‘problem'”
Yeah, just ditch the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I don’t see how the 2nd Law is breached by that description.
Stephen Wilde,
“At that point kinetic energy (KE or heat) matches potential energy (PE which is not heat) in any molecules present.”
Perhaps I misunderstood, but this sounds like the claim that at thermodynamic equilibrium the temperature varies with height. That violates the Second Law. The adiabatic lapse rate applies under conditions where the disequilibrium is sufficient to produce strong convective mixing.
Note that I am distinguishing between thermodynamic equilibrium and steady state.
Mike,
An atmosphere held within a gravity field around a sphere which must have uneven surface heating cannot become isothermal even without any radiative capability at all
There will always be convective overturning and a decline in temperature with height due to the pressure and density gradient with height.
There is no breach of any of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
If the planet is unevenly heated, the atmosphere will indeed not be isothermal. But there will likely be temperature inversions. There will almost certainly not be uniform adherence to the adiabatic lapse rate.
An atmosphere at thermodynamic equilibrium will be isothermal.
“So – if CO2 raises the temperature by 1.2 degrees, then water vapour and related changes will raise the temperature a further 0.7 degrees (1.9 – 1.2), and clouds will change in a way that raises temperature another 1.3 degrees (3.2 – 1.9).”
There is a fundamental problem here, in that ANY temperature rise of 1.2C, regardless of cause, will give rise to water vapour and cloud effects causing a further 0.7+1.3C of warming. The initiating temperature rise doesn’t have to be from greenhouse gases, it could be from cloud effects themselves. Since 2C is larger than 1.2C, that increase will then immediately cause a subsequently larger increase in cloud effects, without any need for CO2 or greenhouse effect. And, so on.
Such a system can never exist in a controllable state. An equivalent in electronics would be an op-amp with a feedback resistor from output to noninverting input whose value is less than the resistor between the signal source and the noninverting input, the inverting input being grounded. No input excursion within the supply voltage range will ever be able to pull it out of latch-up, so the circuit will effectively be useless.
In other words, when the positive feedback exceeds the signal input in amplitude, you have a system with infinite gain. If that situation existed in the atmosphere then the planetary weather would have run completely amok long ago, since it would take not 1.2C but only a microscopic fraction of a degree of warming to send the system out of control.
The fact that this observably doesn’t happen is a very strong indicator that the AR4 ‘positive feedback’ assumptions are completely wrong.
Yup:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/01/the-mathematics-of-carbon-dioxide-part-4/#comment-1998583
I’ve tried to explain this point to climate alarmists many times over, without success. They seem to think that CO2 causes cloud cover changes directly. No. Temperature does. So, if cloud cover changes cause warming, then the situation will be a runaway one. The only rational conclusion is that cloud cover changes are either neutral or cause cooling.
This has been an obvious flaw to me all along. If our climate is that unstable, then the temperature would have gone up a long time ago. Any perturbation of the temperature would trigger the feedbacks which are temperature dependent.
Ian,
The more clouds (area coverage) you get the greater the albedo which reflects the suns radiation and hence cools. On top of that, the cloud’s albedo itself changes due to the droplet size with the small droplet type clouds (the low and thick ones) can reflect up to 90% of the solar radiation according to even the climatologists rather than a low of maybe 10% for the high thin clouds. So, to me it looks like we are seeing a negative temperature feedback when we get more evaporation and more cloud formation — especially the clouds closer to the ground as we expect from increased evaporation.
“I’ve tried to explain this point to climate alarmists many times over, without success.” Ya, tell me about it. 🙁
Correct. A more detailed explanation is that clouds form when surface insolation is strong and lapse rate is high. The heated ground starts-up convection currents, and as these rise into colder upper air they have to drop their moisture. This process tends to be self-limiting since 8/8 cloud cover cuts off most of the ground heating.
Not entirely sure I agree with Ian MacDonald’s circuit analysis.
I see the analogy as an amplifier whose gain is a million, whose inverting input port is grounded, and whose non-inverting input port is connected through a one-ohm resistor to ground and receives the input voltage through a 3.08-megohm resistor. If the input voltage is 5.33 ln(2) = 3.7, that should result in an output voltage of 1.2 volts (if I didn’t flub my sums).
If you then provide a feedback resistance of 2.7 megohms, you should get an output voltage of 1.9 volts. Wiring another, 3.9 megohm feedback resistor in parallel with the first should raise the output to 3.2 volts.
I did the math hastily, so the numbers may not be quite right, but the point is still valid: positive feedback doesn’t necessarily make a system unstable.
Ian,
Very good description and example. To stretch it out a little, at what percentage in the atmosphere could co2, if it could ever get so large, ever hope to overcome water vapors ability to continuously cool the atmosphere and to maintain the relatively stable temperatures we usually have?
Also, to me, it seems that the co2 at levels that man is contributing could have no effect on temperature overall. Any effect that it has on temperature would become immediately part of the overall atmosphere and dealt with as heat already is, by being lifted up and cooled, mixed right in with Earths water vapor A/C system. Heat is just heat. Co2 doesn’t make special heat that acts differently.
Anywhere here I’m wrong about something…Anyone? This is my current understanding. If I’m wrong, lemme know.
Thanks
All in all, a very good look at what the models are, and how they work. Well done, Mike Jonas.
I find some things so strange as to be “Twilight Zone”.
Let’s start at the beginning, first post, first equation dealing with CO2:
1) dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co)
The ln() term refers to the absorption of IR by CO2. It explicitly ignores H2O which absorbs at the same wavelength, which must be accounted for if the ln-ratio effect is to be accounted for correctly.Simply put, if an IR photon is absorbed by H2O, it is not available to be absorbed by CO2.
We could improve the equation by adding the absorption due to water.
2) dF = 5.35 ln((C+{H2O}) / (Co+{H2O}))
where {H2O} is the concentration of water multiplied by a correction factor to take into account the differing absorption strengths of CO2 and H2O. After we do this, the (C/Co) ratio will be much closer to 1, and the ln() much closer to 0.
So we see that the IPCC models go right off the rails at equation 1!
Now we go to the Twilight Zone.
After explicitly ignoring water vapor in the base calculation which starts the process, they go ON and ON and ON about “water vapor feedback”, “increased water vapor”, and “enhanced water vapor feedback”.
{Rod Serling call your office}
Am I the only one who sees a huge problem with how things were done, right from the start?
An interesting experiment would be to calculate an ECS value with eqn. 2, and see what happens to those much paraded about values.
I can imagine 60 years from now when all this hysteria will most likely be a wash and a the but of an odd joke. Technology will be coming along and we might have a co2 concentration if about 550 to 600 ppm that is leveling out in trend. “You guys remember how bad our flowers grew on 300 ppm? You could barely keep some plants alive.” they will say. Knock knock who’s there Al Gore. I wish that was now.
If water vapor were a positive feedback, the system would have been driven to its maximum sustainable temperature (based on solar flux) by some excursion, caused by some random event (e.g. the Chicxulub asteroid impact) long ago. Clearly, the system must have negative feedback, and lots of it, to maintain the stability that it has maintained. I think Willis Eschenbach has remarked on the stability several times.
You would be correct if the terminology were precise. It isn’t. There are two issues. First, the CAGW gang calls a diminution in an overall negative feedback ‘positive feedback’. Nope, just dimished negative. Like NASA’s own view of the net cloud feedback being cooling. They assume less cooling with warming but have no observational supportnfor anynofbthemthree ways this might come about. Essay Cloudy Clouds. Confusing speed with acceleration causes accidents. Second, the Bode feedback equation is well behaved (i.e. does not run away) for a sum of correctly defined feedbacks less than about positive 0.75. AR4 ECS 3.2 implies a Bode feedback sum of 0.65. Lindzen first pointed this out.
“the assumption that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature leads to the finding that it isn’t.”
In other words, they cannot reject the null hypothesis.
I think we are about to come full circle with AR6 -100 (cough, hack, gag) reasoning. The next document will try to prove the (equally cough, hack, gag) theory that the heat that should have caused a more rapid warming pace in global temperatures is hiding in the ocean. Eventually that heat has to rise to the surface under calm conditions (read El Nino). I imagine this cabal of twisted reasoning heads will be telling us next that El Nino’s will become super duper extracalifragilistic monsters that will hang on for years and kill us all with heat. El Nino’s produce evaporation, storms and solar limiting cloud tops, eventually sending ocean heat over land where it is eventually lost to radiant cooling. Once heat is spent from that top ocean layer, the equatorial Pacific often falls into a La Nina event which normally leads to land cooling. To combat this natural cooling (which for some reason they consider to be poisonous to their cause), they will also propose new twisted thermo-fluid-dynamic laws to make it all look less pants-on-fire laughable and so they can choke it down the throats of gooberment officials.
There. I just laid out the next 100 years of gravy train for them so get crackin! The gullible are waiting!
Mike Jonas, the work you put into this series was well worthwhile. No new theories, just an excellent summary of IPCC theory vs empirical reality.
Mike Jonas:
Your very fine essay says
Ah, clouds in climate models really, really are a problem!
Ron Miller and Gavin Schmidt, both of NASA GISS, provide an evaluation of the leading US GCM. They are U.S. climate modellers who use the NASA GISS GCM and they strongly promote the AGW hypothesis. Their paper titled ‘Ocean & Climate Modeling: Evaluating the NASA GISS GCM’ was updated on 2005-01-10 and is available at
http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/research/ppa/2001/oceans/
Its abstract says:
This abstract was written by strong proponents of AGW but admits that the NASA GISS GCM has “problems representing variables in geographic areas of sea ice, thick vegetation, low clouds and high relief.” These are severe problems. For example, clouds reflect solar heat and a mere 2% increase to cloud cover would more than compensate for the maximum possible predicted warming due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the air.
Good records of cloud cover are very short because cloud cover is measured by satellites that were not launched until the mid 1980s. But it appears that cloudiness decreased markedly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s. Over that period, the Earth’s reflectivity decreased to the extent that if there were a constant solar irradiance then the reduced cloudiness provided an extra surface warming of 5 to 10 Watts/sq metre. This is a lot of warming. It is between two and four times the entire warming estimated to have been caused by the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. (The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that since the industrial revolution, the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has had a warming effect of only 2.4 W/sq metre). So, the fact that the NASA GISS GCM has problems representing clouds must call into question the entire performance of the GCM.
The abstract says; “the representation of cloud cover in the model has been brought into agreement with the satellite observations by using radiance measured at a particular wavelength instead of saturation” but this adjustment is a ‘fiddle factor’ because both the radiance and the saturation must be correct if the effect of the clouds is to be correct. There is no reason to suppose that the adjustment will not induce the model to diverge from reality if other changes – e.g. alterations to GHG concentration in the atmosphere – are introduced into the model. Indeed, this problem of erroneous representation of low level clouds could be expected to induce the model to provide incorrect indication of effects of changes to atmospheric GHGs because changes to clouds have much greater effect on climate than changes to GHGs.
Richard
Damn things won’t stay around long enough to study them! They must not like getting their temperature…taken.
we heard of the snowball earth, and now for the fireball earth
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03394/iran-iraq-heat-DEE_3394697b.jpg
the Telegraph :Scorching ‘heat dome’ over Middle East sees temperatures soar to 165F (72C) in Iran
Ooooh!!!! Scary desert temperatures!
…wait…never mind.
vukcevic what looks to be the reason behind this heat wave is that the jet stream has been very weak over this area recently. So the air has been allowed to just sit there over the middle east for days, so allowing the heat to build up into this heat wave. By the way the max temp got up to 52c not 72c.
taxed, that is the “heat index”, a combination of temperature and humidity, (don’t ask) now being used to frighten the living daylights out of the sheeples.
The telegraph: “It is just a few degrees lower than the highest ever recorded heat index, which was 178F (81C) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on July 8, 2003.”
The ground temp may have been 72C; the air temp (5′ up +/-) would have been 52C.
(does the 52C air above the ground heat up the ground? if we somehow increase the specific heat capacity of the air above the ground does the dirt get warmer?; does it cool slower?; is it measurable? is it “estimatable”?; if a bird flies by an disrupts the air does it blow the potential model out the door?)
MIke: It is mathematically inappropriate to discuss feedbacks in terms of degK or degC. Feedbacks measured in terms of W/m2/K can be added and subtracted, but not once you have converted to temperature. Feedbacks are found in the denominator of calculations that produce ECS.
It is far easier to understand feedbacks and ECS (dT/dW, where dW is forcing), if you think in terms of the “climate feedback parameter, dW/dT – how much net radiation to space increases for a given increase in surface temperature. It take centuries to reach equilibrium warming when determining ECS. The surface radiative response to a change in surface temperature is instantaneous, -3.2 W/m2/K. (The negative sign is for energy being lost. -3.7 W/m2/doubling divided by a no-feedbacks climate sensitivity of 1.15 K/doubling gives -3.2 W/m2/K.) However, surface emission dramatically changes as it travels through the atmosphere on its way to space: 390 W/m2 of surface OLR becomes 240 W/m2 of TOA OLR. TOA OLR is reduced or enhanced within days to months as rapid feedbacks develop: water vapor, lapse rate, cloud, and seasonal snow cover. (Clouds and snow effect both OLR and SWR.) Those feedbacks are measured in terms of W/m^2/K where K is surface warming. For example, observations of OLR emitted from clear skies measured from space indicate that water vapor plus lapse rate feedback amount to +1 W/m2/K and climate model say this is the sum of about +2 W/m2/K from water vapor and -1 W/m2/K from changes in the lapse rate. (More warming in the upper atmosphere than at the surface means more OLR emitted per degK of surface warming). Most of the debate is about cloud feedback. To calculate climate sensitivity, one needs to add all of the feedbacks to -3.2 W/m2/K and then take the RECIPROCAL (and optionally multiply by -3.7 W/m2/doubing of CO2 if you want your answer in terms of degK/doubling). The reciprocal of a sum is not the sum of the reciprocals.
Water vapor feedback alone raises ECS from 1.2 to 3.1 K/doubling, a change of +1.9 K/doubling. Lapse rate feedback alone decreases ECS from 1.2 to 0.9 K/doubling, a change of -0.3 K/doubling. Together the raise ECS from 1.7, a change of 0.5 K/doubling. The closer total feedback gets to +3.2 W/m2/K, the bigger the change each W/m2/K makes in ECS. If total feedbacks reach +3.2 W/m2/K, then a runaway greenhouse effect exists: A rise in surface temperature causes no change in TOA OLR and there is no limit to warming.
“Water vapor feedback alone raises ECS from 1.2 to 3.1 K/doubling, a change of +1.9 K/doubling ”
As I’ve explained before that is impossible since the water vapor feedback is driven directly by TEMPERATURE, not by carbon dioxide level. Thus any feedback which directly increases its OWN forcing by a value in excess of unity will ALWAYS result in a runaway situation, no matter how small the initiating change. The ‘tipping point’ if that were the case would be ANY temperature change, even a thousandth of a degree, which would amplify itself indefinitely in a chain reaction.
The fact that this has not happened suggests that water vapor has a stabilising effect on temperature.
Frank – you say “ It is mathematically inappropriate to discuss feedbacks in terms of degK or degC.“. The degK or degC feedback reference comes from IPCC report AR4 8.6.2.3.
One doesn’t say deg. K
Kelvin is an absolute Temperature scale.
One kelvin is a fraction of the boiling point of Helium.
“7.2.1.2 Effects of Clouds on the Earth’s Radiation Budget
The effect of clouds on the Earth’s present-day top of the atmosphere (TOA) radiation budget, or cloud radiative effect (CRE), can be inferred from satellite data by comparing upwelling radiation in cloudy and non-cloudy conditions (Ramanathan et al., 1989). By enhancing the planetary albedo, cloudy conditions exert a global and annual short¬wave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) of approximately –50 W m–2 and, by contributing to the greenhouse effect, exert a mean longwave effect (LWCRE) of approximately +30 W m–2, with a range of 10% or less between published satellite estimates (Loeb et al., 2009). Some of the apparent LWCRE comes from the enhanced water vapour coinciding with the natural cloud fluctuations used to measure the effect, so the true cloud LWCRE is about 10% smaller (Sohn et al., 2010). The net global mean CRE of approximately –20 W m–2 implies a net cooling.”
-20 W/m^2. Cooling ten times greater than CO2 warming between 1750 & 2011.
“The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted”
No it is not “pretty solid” and 2 papers by Kimoto show why this is a result of a false assumption that GHGs are blackbodies to which the Stefan-Boltzmann law applies, and the false assumption that the effective emissivity of the atmosphere is a constant. As Kimoto shows, these false assumptions led to a basic mathematical error in calculating the Planck feedback parameter, greatly exaggerating CO2 climate sensitivity.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/07/collapse-of-agw-theory-of-ipcc-most.html
I’ve started referring to Warmists as Water Vapour Convection ‘Deniers’!
Oh, that is clever.
+1
Look there is the scary ECS again. But you know what. ECS doesn’t matter as the equilibrium TIME is two to three hundres years, plenty of time to invent nuclear fusion.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/images/fig9-1s.gif
I love those wiggles and squiggles in the IPCC temperature predictions into the future, up to 500 years no less — they add a nice touch of authenticity.
They also prove that ECS is a purely academic issue, with zero importance for present day policymakers. Let that sink in.
“The warming generated by CO2 itself. This comes from increased downward infra-red radiation (IR) from increased quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was described originally by Arrhenius [5], and is generally accepted as very solid physics by climate scientists and climate “sceptics” alike” How so? This has been refuted experimentally many times, from Woods onward.
However, it has to be admitted, the spectacle of a skilled mathematician destroying AGW by its own false assumptions is delightful to watch. Which was, I am sure, the whole point.
I understand that the IPCC uses HAD 4 as the data set of choice. But HAD 4 shows about 0.8 C warming since 1850 , that’s over the last 165 years.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/offset/trend
But the Lloyd et al study found that the standard deviation over a century is about 1C. This IPCC author used the last 8,000 years of ice cores as a proxy. So how is just 0.8C warming over the last 165 years supposed to be unusual or unprecedented? And this slight warming comes at the end of a minor ice age. Here’s the Lloyd study.
http://multi-science.atypon.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.417
It’s a truly amazing lucky coincidence that computers and computer modelling has been possible just as dangerous human-caused global warming (Climate Change™) is taking off.
Imagine, if it had not been for computers and modellers we would be blissfully unaware that we are heading for a climate catastrophe.
Thinks: I may be confusing cause and effect there.
“The warming generated by CO2 itself. This comes from increased downward infra-red radiation (IR) from increased quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was described originally by Arrhenius [5], and is generally ACCEPTED AS SOLID PHYSICS (bold face added) by climate scientists and climate “sceptics” alike. The generally accepted value of this component is 1.2, ie. the forcing from doubled CO2 on its own would raise global temperature by 1.2 degrees.”
It is only accepted as solid physics by people who don’t properly understand physics, including many authors on this page. Arrhenius was falsified by experiment by Wood in 1909. These experiments have been duplicated recently by other scientists and there are numerous physicists who categorically reject the notion that molecules radiating at a lower frequency can increase the temperature of molecules radiating at a higher frequency due to basic laws of thermodynamics. Experiments with centrifuges simulating a gravitational field also verify that molecules with equal energy will form a temperature gradient in a gravitational field. This refutes the Greenhouse Effect theory absolutely.
You are channeling Doug C*tton. He’s been so roundly debunked here so many times that he’s been banned. Pay attention to rgb, ristvan, richardscourtney. Unlike Mr C*tton, when they point out an error I have made in the physics, I go and look it up and they’re right every time. Mr C*tton’s only claim to fame is his ability to dress total bull up as science and make it look credible.
With all due respect, you have no clue what you are talking about. Centrifuges and GHG effects! How about reading my response upthread to the HS gross misunderstanding (and that is charitable) of Feynman’s v1 chapter 40. Better, go read Feynman V1 c40 ourself. It is now on line, so no excuse like the bucks I paid at a Stanford book shop to biy the only copy and bring it back to the east coast. Read it for his prose, not his math (since it is evident you do not grok math).
You give us rational skeptics a bad irrational stink. Wise up or please go away in this climate change ‘war’. You are surely welcome to comment on HS blog, to join him in digging deeper delusional physics holes. BUT not here, at Judith’s, or anywhere else us rational folks frequent.
There are more than enough real issues (sensitivity, Eschenbach’s feedbacks, natural variations, policy consequences) to keep us occupied WITHOUT nonsensical distractions.
@ wickedwenchfan August 1, 2015 at 5:59 pm
I see that you have drawn comments that you are not welcome here, and that the back-radiation issue is settled and it exists just as James Hansen claimed — no matter what Woods showed in 1909. Yes, luke-warmers claiming that the “science is settled” brings a smile to my face as the hypocrisy is overwhelming. How many times have all of us gotten indignant at the alarmists hollering “the debate is over” as the “science is settled!”.
However, the debate-killers are right in claiming that there are many “skeptical” sites where skepticism is only welcome when it agrees with the basic IPCC claims of what CO2 does. So, be careful as the easiest way to “debate” is to silence the opposition. (see Stalin of the USSR for a good example of the technique)
no matter what Woods showed in 1909
What Wood showed in 1909 is that he didn’t understand what he was investigating in the first place, and designed an experiment to prove his ignorance. Even if that were not so, his equipment was no where near precise enough to measure anything given that the experiment completely lacked the scale necessary to measure the effect with the instrumentation he had. If you want a much more precise experiment done with equipment orders of magnitude more accurate than what Wood did, I suggest you start with this one:
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
I suggest you read carefully the conclusions drawn by Hug. You will arrive no doubt at a smug self satisfied “I told you so” at the point. I then direct you to the zip file at the top of the page where you will find a very well written explanation of all the short comings of the Hug experiment, many of which apply to Wood.
All of this appears on the web site of John Daly, though long since passed, his web site is one of the great collections of SKEPTIC evidence. I don’t call for your anyone’s banishment, but on this specific issue, if you want to howl that it isn’t settled science, then have the decency to read the science that settles it instead of howling about Wood experiments so poorly thought out that they display nothing more than the ignorance of Wood and the eagerness of charlatans on both sides to seize on shoddy science to support their belief system instead of using the scientific method to modify their belief system.
I started out where you are. It didn’t take very much research on my part to make me change my mind, and when I see total crap regarding Wood and centrifuges and the like, I shudder to think there was a time when that kind of garbage might have seemed logical to me.
@ davidmhoffer August 2, 2015 at 9:58 am
I am positive you did not “start out” where I am, and I am positive you are wrong. There is no warming of the surface of this planet due to back radiation from CO2. That is nonsense on stilts.
By the way, I have been reading on this debate since before Mr. Daly began his wonderful web site. It was one of the first I bookmarked. I doubt he would have backed up some warmist from Stanford over a properly controlled experiment as that of Professor Nahle. You? You no doubt would as luke warmers love “back radiation”. [self-snip bad words I would write here]
markstoval August 2, 2015 at 12:03 pm
@ davidmhoffer August 2, 2015 at 9:58 am
I am positive you did not “start out” where I am, and I am positive you are wrong.
You are wrong on both counts. The Wood experiment is a joke. For anyone who has studied physics the Wood experiment is the equivalent of adding 2+2=4 and jumping up and shouting See! 7=9!
This was compelling proof that a greenhouse is heated merely by the blocking of air convection with the outside environment
Correct. Which is why the GHE is poorly named. The physical process by which it operates has nothing to do with how greenhouses operate! That’s why it is frequently referenced as “the poorly name GHE”. How greenhouses work has NOTHING to do with the poorly named atmospheric GHE which is why the Wood experiment is meaningless.
Nahle’s findings were that in the three small greenhouses having covers of different materials (glass and plastic polymers) and upon one hour of solar exposure, the temperature differences were scarcely in the range of 1° to 1.5° C
Which demonstrates the ignorance of both Wood and Nahle as to what the poorly named atmospheric GHE actually is. If either of them did, they would understand that they cannot build a small apparatus (greenhouse or otherwise” that mimics the atmospheric effect. The atmospheric effect is spread across the entire height of the atmosphere. To directly measure it in the fashion proposed by Wood and Nahle, they would have to build an appropriate apparatus (and a greenhouse isn’t appropriate since how it works has nothing to do with the atmospheric effect) and said apparatus would have to be 14 km or more in height.
Which is why both Wood and Nahle are full of bull and you would have known that had you studied the actual physics or even just read the criticisms of the Hug experiment I pointed you to
It’s great hearing just the plain truth. Thanks for the efforts –
Hans
I don’t buy that for a second, and I don’t think empirical evidence will support it. We’ve had CO2 as high as 7000 ppm and we never got above 22&Deg;C, and we fell into an ice age with CO2 at 4000 ppm. Doubling CO2 has a minimal impact on the amount of energy it absorbs, and what IR it does absorb is already absorbed by H2O. The claimed impact of CO2 is much higher than H2O, yet H2O absorbs much much much more of the spectrum.
If clouds warm by 1.3 degree, that is the warmth that CO2 is absorbing, so it isn’t CO2, it is the fact that more visible light is reaching the earth. That would also explain why the oceans are warming. We are having record high daytime temperatures. That has nothing to do with CO2, and everything to do with more visible radiation reaching earth. Once again, what is warming the oceans is warming the atmosphere and it isn’t CO2. The irradiation of earth in the daytime makes any absorbed radiation irrelevant. No one has ever fried an egg on a car roof or gotten sun burned at night. The levels of energy during the day vs the night aren’t even close. There is enough energy during the day that plants can split an H20 molecule. Photosynthesis will never occur at night.
I’m beginning to think that climate “scientists” don’t understand differential equations and the mathematics behind multi variable linear regression models.
1) The absolute value of something is irrelevant in a differential equation. What is important is its CHANGE. Delta X results in a Delta Y, cause and effect.
2) CO2 has changed from 280ppm to 400ppm.
3) That has caused the absorption band of CO2 to slightly increase from its pre-industrial band of 13µ to 18µ. The increase in energy absorption is quantifiable.
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/co205124.gif
4) That broadening of the IR band allows CO2 to absorb an additional 3.2 W/m2 (if CO2 reaches 560ppm)
5) The dependent variable temperature also has a change, more importantly is the change in ocean temperatures.
6) The question then becomes can an extra 3.2W/M^2 or about 11BTUs applied over 60 years 12 hrs/day warm the oceans by about 1°C. That is rather simple mathematics.
Climate “scientists” do a great job getting people to chase their tails. They can throw out an infinite number of made up theories like forcing and other nonsense, but this entire issue can be resolved by determining if the marginal increase in energy absorbed by CO2 as it has increased from 280 to 400ppm result in warming the oceans by about 1°C. That is a highly quantifiable problem, and one that determines if CO2 caused warming is a hoax or not. Can CO2’s marginal contribution to the energy balance explain a 1°C increase in the temperature of the oceans?
I should have included this graph with the previous post. It shows that the marginal increase in energy absorption by an increase in CO2 is basically nothing. Past 200 it basically flat-lines. That means a zero delta for CO2 energy absorption, and last I looked, you can’t explain a change with a constant. That is why they are called constants.
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Figure5.png
Shouldn’t it be 24 hrs a day (not 12 hrs a day) since back radiation is a 24/7 event (albeit back radiation at night must be less than back radiation during the day since the energy radiated from the surface is less at night so there is less energy to reradiate at night)?
Conclusion
Climate models’ estimations of ECS are implicitly based on the assumption that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2. Therefore any assertion that the models show that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2 is invalid (circular logic).
In addition, the climate modellers and the IPCC have
(a) used an unrealistically low water cycle, resulting in an unrealistically high value for CO2-driven global warming, and
(b) built on the almost complete lack of knowledge about clouds, in order to claim that clouds add a large amount to CO2-driven global warming.
The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted),
PLEASE SHOW US WHERE THIS IS PROVEN IN A RELATIVE MAGNITUDE TO WATER, WATER VAPOR AND CLOUDS. IT SEEMS THE CO2 EFFECT WOULD BE DROWNED OUT.
plus or minus an unknown but probably modest amount of feedback from water vapour etc, and from clouds. Knowledge in this area is so weak that even the sign of the feedback is not known.
In other words, of the mid-range claimed ECS of 3.2 degrees per doubling of CO2, nearly two-thirds is either unrealistic or sheer speculation.
Footnote
One final point; a delicious irony (mathematically speaking) :
· As shown above, there is an implied assumption in the models that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature. That assumption is demonstrated very clearly in Part 1, where all of the post-industrial warming is assumed to be caused by CO2.
· But when the results of the models are then compared to past surface temperatures, as was done in Part 2 and Part 3, it is found that CO2 plays little part in temperature change.
So, the assumption that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature leads to the finding that it isn’t.
‘that they are caused directly or indirectly by CO2. So we have the absurd situation that the climate models supposedly show the 20th century warming to have been caused by CO2, but key elements in the models are themselves based on the implicit assumption that the warming was caused by CO2. In mathematics, that’s the ‘circular logic’ fallacy.
_____
and yes, you’ve shown the ‘circular logic fallacy’:
On CO2 doubling temps, as on green doomsdays, as on MainStreamMediaExaggerating.
as on politicians MANUFACTURING next polls yields.
____
‘circular locigal fallacy’ EVER is octroyed by interrests.
____
we’re heading into interresting times.
Hans
“climate models supposedly show…….”
If computer simulations (models) are just a sophisticated, iterative calculation, programmed by a human, they can only ‘Show us what we already know.’
Yes they can be programmed to present the data in convenient ways, which helps us poor humans understand large amounts of data, but they never ‘make things up’ – do they?
” Yes they can be programmed to present the data in convenient ways, which helps us poor humans understand large amounts of data, but they never ‘make things up’ – do they?”
Of course they do, if you are convence 2+2=5 under some special circumstances you can make your program do that.
GCMs do that by allowing supersaturation of water at the surface, they allow water vapor exceed 100% rel humidity.
Models merely output the projections resultant from the assumptions upon which they are based.
Should those assumptions be wrong, inevitably the resultant output must be wrong.
If models employ circular reason (as they do in climate science), model output proves nothing (although the output could be correct since circular reasoning is not inevitably wrong).
I’ve said countless times that any 1st Year Econometrics student could identify the problems in the IPCC models. The IPCC models are very similar to the models used on Wall Street and economics, in fact my understanding is that the original climate models were simply edited financial models. They are multi-variable linear regression models that use statistical techniques to “control” for factors. These statistical factors were designed for the social sciences because you can’t put a stock market or economy in a test tube. In a lab you physically control all the factors and you physically alter the independent variable and you measure the change on the dependent variable. You can’t do that with the climate. Everyone knows the bean plant experiment you do in 2nd grade where you change the light and you measure the height of the bean plant. No light the plant dies. Y=mX+b+e, where Y is the dependent variable, m is the relationship between the dependent and independent variable, X is the independent variable, b is the Y intercept, and error is the error. The multivariable linear regression models simply take that principle and apply it across multiple independent variables simultaneously. The formulas end up looking like Y = m1X1 + m2X2…miXi + b +e, where i=number of factors. The models then figures out the impact on Y the CHANGE in Y, for a CHANGE in X1 through Xi. The important things in these differential equations is that they require a CHANGE in both the Y and the X.
The obvious problem in the climate models is that they appear to be using the absolute value of CO2 and have made it a significant variable in their models. The IPCC model must be Temperature = a function of CO2, where temperature is the change in degree K and CO2 is the change in CO2 concentration. CO2 has increased from 280 to 400, a 40% increase and temperatures have increased by 1 degree or about 1K/300K = 0.33%.
The CO2 change is huge relative to temperature’s, but the important thing isn’t the concentration of CO2, it is the change in energy absorbed my CO2 that is important.
This is the chart of the change in CO2. The slope is about 1.5ppm/yr. Note the units are ppm or parts per million. Temperature is measured in degree K, but what is really important is the energy needed to warm something, which is W/M^2.
http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/keeling.jpg
Here is a chart of the change in energy absorption of CO2 for a change in CO2. This is the really important factor. Note how unlike the CO2 ppm chart which is linear, the absorption chart is logarithmic, and basically flatlines after saturation near 200ppm.
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Figure5.png
This graphic shows the marginal widening of the IR bands due to increasing CO2. The increase in area due to the widening is the increase in energy absorbed by CO2.
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/co205124.gif
If I treat CO2 as a linear factor and enter the ppm data, I will get the impact on temperature that a linear factor would produce. Y=mX+b. An increase in CO2 results in a linear increase in temperature (but is will have a very low R^2 if temperature isn’t linear as well). If you manipulate the temperature data to make it relatively linear, and you use CO2 in ppm, then you get a pretty good model with a high R^2…until the back tested data gets replaced with current ongoing actual data. Every firm on Wall Street has back tested models that are 100% perfect and can make you a fortune…if we repeat the past 10 or 20 years exactly. The IPCC “scientists” are learning what every financial firm on Wall Street knows, back tested models are garbage, and you get results like this.
http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/spencer-models-epic-fail2-628×353.jpg
The problem is they modeled degree K with ppm, and there is no real relationship between degree K and ppm. What they really should be modeling is changes in energy input W/M^2 and changes in temperature. The change in energy absorbed by CO2 is the variable they should be using in their models, not the change in CO2. Changing CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm results in a change in of about 3W/M^2. That change is applied 12hrs hours out of every 24hours (assuming that incoming radiation during the day makes the GHG effect irrelevant during daylight hours). The oceans have warmed about 1 degree K since 1960. The question simply boils down to can an increase in 3W/M^2 result in a 1 degree increase in the ocean temperature ceteris paribus? By doing so you are modeling W/M^2 with W/M^2, and that makes a lot more sense than W/M^2 with ppm. Basic science and econometrics 101.
There is much to ponder upon in your comments, but as some of Willis’s posts show, there is much more backradiation during the day than during the night. This is not surprising since the surface is hotter during the day and hence the energy radiated from the surface is more during the day, thus in turn leading to more energy being re-radiated during the day.
But one of the issues is how much of the back radiation is absorbed by the surface warming the surface given that about 70% of the surface is water and water is free to evaporate with resultant changes in latent energy.
Don’t forget that LWIR only penetrates a few microns in water and unless the energy absorbed within the top few microns of the oceans can be sequestered to depth at a rate faster than that energy in the top few microns would power evaporation, perhaps all that DWLWIR results in is feeding evaporation (leading to latent energy change and cooling).
In fact evaporation may be largely powered by DWLWIR since there is all but no direct solar energy in the top few microns of the ocean, in the sense that all but no incoming solar radiation (due to its wavelength) is absorbed in the top few microns. Solar energy is being absorbed at depth materially 40 cm to 6 m (and some of it is being absorbed even as deep as 100 m).
The top few microns of the oceans to the extent that they contain solar energy, this is the result of conduction/convection and ocean overturning which brings to the surface solar energy that has been absorbed at depth.
In fact the K&T energy budget cartoon does not describe where and how energy is absorbed in the system and if climate models are based on this, since that cartoon does not describe the real world, climate models could not possibly be expected to output projections which match with real world observations over the long run.
,
I’d like to note the wide range in surface temps from surface type, a 40F- 50F difference between grass and asphalt
Asphalt at this time of year still hasn’t lost all of its stored energy.
But you can see little impact to air temps.
If 40F increase for asphalt is hard to detect in air temps, there’s no way 3.7W /m^2 is detectable.
And surface temp as long as they’re not processed to show warming don’t.
That isn’t a joke. Here is the longest continual Thermometer record on earth. It shows no warming since the mid 1600’s. Ironically, this data exists, and yet the “Hockey Stick” doesn’t include thermometer data until after 1900, and even when it does, it is mixed with “proxies” until the 1980’s. Unfortunately that isn’t a joke. The temperature record used by the IPCC called the ‘Hockey Stick” doesn’t include thermometer records until after 1900.
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Central-England.jpg
Note the disclaimer on the “Hockey Stick.” IMHO this is clearly premeditated statistical fraud. If this was done at a Drug Company or a Wall Street Brokerage the person producing the report would be behind bars.
http://www.sustainableoregon.com/_wp_generated/wp8a0c3263.png
Having read the article and comments, I have two observations:
1. Feedbacks have to be negative, otherwise we would already have seen runaway warming. We haven’t, and that being so (IF it exists at a level to contribute anything worthwhile at all) where is the fabled positive feedback? Surely this observation alone drives a coach and horses through ‘climate catastrophe’?
2. Huge disagreement remains between multiple highly-qualified and credible personnel. To therefore claim ‘the science is settled’ as alarmists do is exposed as the bogus sales pitch it is.
Oh, and a third observation: thanks to WUWT and Mike Jonas for this series. Very interesting, especially the cat-fights below the line!
“The warming generated by CO2 itself. This comes from increased downward infra-red radiation (IR) from increased quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was described originally by Arrhenius [5], and is generally accepted as very solid physics by climate scientists and climate “sceptics” alike. The generally accepted value of this component is 1.2, ie. the forcing from doubled CO2 on its own would raise global temperature by 1.2 degrees”.
This puzzles me a little…is it a particular doubling, say from 200ppm to 400ppm ?
Or is it any doubling…..1.2 from 200ppm to 400ppm, 1.2 from 400ppm to 800ppm, 1.2 from 800 to 1600ppm etc?
Thanks for a generally illuminating series of articles.
Its complicated. It is logarithmic, not linear. These two charts demonstrate what is going on. Simply put, doubling from 10 to 20 doesn’t have the same impact as doubling from 200 to 400. It is like painting a window black. The first coat takes out 99% of the light. Each additional coat only takes out a fraction of 1%.
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/co205124.gif
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Figure5.png
Clouds are the final frontier. And there is another frontier connected to the creation process of clouds, namely forests and secondary molecules. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24572423
More obvious problems with the IPCC Climate models.
First, solar output is highly variable and it is measured by tracking sunspots. Second, solar output isn’t what is really important, solar output that reaches the oceans and surface of the Earth is what matters. You can’t warm the oceans, surface and atmosphere if you don’t reach the ocean, surface and/or atmosphere. The actual W/M^2 that reaches the earth is determined by 1) the radius from the sun to earth which alters the W/M^2 per steradian. As the earth’s orbit changes from circular to elliptical it also changes the amount of W/M^2 that reaches the earth’s surface. The same goes for the tilt and “wobble” around the earth’s axis. Another factor is if we are passing through one of the “fingers” of the galaxy. The key point is that it isn’t the solar radiance that counts, it is the solar irradiance of the earth’s surface that counts, and that is altered by the radius to the earth, the tilt and wobble of the axis, the fingers of the galaxy, cloud cover which is impacted by cosmic rays, particulate matter in the atmosphere and green house gasses like ozone, H20 and CO2.
1) The model is “mis-specified” meaning that it has reversed the independent and dependent variable. Temperature isn’t a function of CO2, CO2 is a function of temperature. This is demonstrated in every Chemistry 101 Class and is known as Henry’s Law. Simply take a Coke and warm it up and you will see Henry’s Law in action. The reason CO2 lags Temperature by 800 to 1500 years in every geologic record is because of Henry’s Law. It simply takes time to warm the Ocean coming out of an ice age to increase atmospheric CO2. The Smoking Gun regarding AGW is that there is no defined mechanism by which CO2 can lead temperature to emerge from an ice age. Temperature has to lead CO2…unless you have some huge Volcano, and then you are really opening a can of worms. Basically the current IPCC models are like a model that claims lung cancer causes smoking.
2) They appear to be deliberately under-specified, meaning they leave out highly significant variables like the sun, clouds and H20. Warmists will claim that it can’t be the sun because the sun’s output is constant, and a constant can’t cause a change. I fully agree with that statement, and that statement is far far far more applicable to CO2 energy absorption than the sun’s impact on the climate.
To put it another way it isn’t the output of W/M^2/steradian from the sun that counts, it is the W/M^2 that illuminates the earth surface that counts. If I have a fire and put insulation between me and the fire, I won’t warm much, regardless of how hot the fire is.
3)CO2 and H2O absorb the same 13µ to 18µ wavelengths, and H2O is far far far more effective at absorbing radiation. This is demonstrated by the temperature range of a dry desert being much higher than a rain forest. A desert can go from over 100°C in the day to under 0°C in the night. That is because only CO2 is present to “trap” the heat. Rain forests have the same CO2 content, but much much much more H2O, and there is very little heat lost between the day and night.
http://www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/amazon-rainforest-climate.html
H20 acts as a natural regulating mechanism, and uses radiation, conduction and convection to transport heat through the atmosphere. CO2, being uniform in the atmosphere, relies mostly on radiation. The key point is H20 is a far more potent green house gas than CO2 and has a far greater concentration and absorption spectrum, and in most cases is saturates the 13µ to 18µ wavelength range making CO2 irrelevant. Rain forests would be just as hot without CO2 as with it. H2O also alters the albedo of the earth. Temperatures can vari dramatically just by having a cloud pass over head. BTW, contrails have nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with H2O. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2010/0201/Airplane-contrails-and-their-effect-on-temperatures
Also, by not modeling H2O you effectively aren’t modeling the climate or atmosphere. H2O is by far the dominant influence on the climate both through ocean heat, atmospheric H2O gas and the reflectivity of clouds.
4) There is autocorrelation and most likely multicollinearity involved with the factors. The relatively linear temperature and CO2 clearly demonstrate serial correlation over the relatively short time period of the industrial age. H2O and CO2 basically are measuring the same thing when µ to 18µ wavelengths saturate the absorption.
5) The CO2 data used is linear as measured by ppm, whereas CO2’s impact on heat is logrythmic. They use linear data of ppm when they should be using the logarithmic data of CO2’s changes in W/M^2 .
6) They have manipulated the coefficients to make CO2 a significant variable when in reality it is an insignificant variable. That is why the models most likely show a high R^2 between changes in CO2 ppm and temperature, but when the real unmanipulated data is put into the models the relationship disappears. CO2 ppm has increased by about 15% over the past 20 years, yet temperatures haven’t changed at all. That is an R^2 of 0.00%. That is a problem. If however they had modeled the change in W/M^2 absorbed by CO2 as it went from 350 to 400 ppm, the change in W/M^2 absorbed by CO2 would have been basically zero, and that is consistent with a 0°C change in temperature.
7) The CO2 causes global warming is a doomsday model. CO2’s only impact on climate change is through absorbing radiation between µ to 18µ. If the relationship between CO2 ppm and temperature is truly linear, and CO2 is the main driver, there is no mechanism by which CO2 can’t result in runaway catastrophic heating. CO2 is uniform throughout the atmosphere, so more CO2 would result in simply more heat being trapped. Catastrophic warming has NEVER occurred in over 600 million years, during which CO2 reached 7000 ppm. We fell into an ice age when CO2 was 4000 ppm. Clearly there is something missing from the Temperature = Function of CO2 ppm model. 600 million years of history simply proves it wrong on a biblical scale.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
8) There is no mechanism by which the CO2 drives temperature model could have resulted in ice ages, or periods of stable or falling temperatures. The IPCC model is simply a dooms day model that doesn’t allow for cooling or for CO2 to ever decrease in the atmosphere. We’ve had billions of years of volcanoes producing CO2 and the net cumulative result is that CO2 has fallen from 7000 ppm to 400 ppm within the past 600 million years. Bottom line, something is seriously wrong with the IPCC’s understanding of the physics, dynamics, biology, chemistry and history of CO2 and our atmosphere.
Regarding clouds it is quite obvious what’s wrong with the CO2 theory.
Based on satellite readings can estimate the relationship between clouds and global temperatures.
http://climate4you.com/images/TotalCloudCoverVersusGlobalSurfaceAirTemperature.gif
When this linear fit is adjusted to global temperatures using changes in global low clouds, it results in this graph below.
Convincing evidence that virtually all the recent warming has been due to decreasing low levels clouds, with increased solar radiation penetrating the surface and warming the planet.
Note: a 7% change in cloud cover can erase 50% of the 1°C increase in temperatures that has occurred over the past 100 years. Now that is a significant variable to include in any model. Funny how the IPCC ignores it.
http://climate4you.com/images/TotalCloudCoverVersusGlobalSurfaceAirTemperature.gif
Ding ding ding!!!! We have a Winner!!! More solar radiation reaching the earth, the warmer it gets. Who would have thunk that? Obviously not the Einsteins in the Climate “Science” departments.” Problem is, if it is clouds and the sun, all the funding goes away and the Socialists/Marxists can’t loot the Oil, Gas and Coal industry. How will Sierra Club raise money once the big lie is exposed?
The climate models have been making poor predictions for decades.
The reason for that is they falsely assume CO2 is the “climate controller”, apparently starting in 1976, the magical year when 4.5 billion years of natural climate changes suddenly stopped, and CO2 took over !
An explanation of those climate models is a waste of time, since we know they have no predictive ability.
The models should be ridiculed, not studied and explained.
This series tried to explain the climate models.
So reading the articles was a waste of time.
The comments were much better then the original articles.
The author also makes this unproven, speculative statement in his conclusion:
“The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted) …”
I would like the author to explain how he “knows” a doubling of CO2 from 100 to 200 ppmv would increase the temperature by +1.2 degrees? (not specified, but I assume he meant Centigrade degrees)
I would also like the author to explain how he “knows” a doubling of CO2 from 200 to 400 ppmv would cause exactly the same +1.2 degrees increase?
It’s amazing how this author “knows” exactly what effect rising CO2 has on the rising temperature, to the nearest one tenth of a degree, while scientists all over the world don’t know this, and can only speculate on how quickly the “greenhouse effect” fades away as CO2 levels increase.
.
Some scientists believe most of the “greenhouse effect” is from the first 20 ppmv of CO2 in the air.
No one knows for sure whether CO2 rising above 400 ppmv would have enough of a “greenhouse effect” to be measurable.
But I guess the author “knows”.
I would also like the author to explain why he stoops so low that he must use a logical fallacy (appeal to authority) to justify this unproven, speculative statement in his conclusion = “(this part of science is pretty solid and generally accepted)”.
Geologists generally believe CO2 levels in the air during the past few hundred years are among the lowest levels in Earth’s history.
If they are correct, that means CO2 was at times much higher than today, yet there was no indication of any runaway greenhouse warming — in fact some geologists claim there were ice sheets at times when CO2 levels were similar to, or much higher, than today.
Do you arbitrarily dismiss all the work, of all geologists, concerning estimates of past CO2 levels?
A hint for the author, on clear thinking:
Forget all the math for a moment, and think about what the climate modelers are trying to do: They are trying to predict the climate up to 100 years into the future.
Now think about how often “experts” are correct when they try to predict the future — studies have shown their predictions are WORSE than flipping a coin.
We now have four decades of bad predictions from climate models — it’s not like they were invented this year — so we already KNOW they don’t predict the future well — and that means we didn’t need a four-part article to tell us that.
I’m happy to be proved wrong on this, but in all the years that I have been reading about climate science from all sides, there really has been general agreement on the general impact of CO2 on its own. So the statement that you take objection to wasn’t an appeal to authority but meant to be an indication that I was not taking issue with this particular element. I also find your repeated use of “exactly” curious, since my words were “about 1.2 degrees”. I accept that “about 1 degree” might have been better, but (a) the IPCC figure is 1.2 and (b) I didn’t want to be accused of deliberately understating it.
So, while I accept that I could have explained myself better, I submit that (a) this particular value is at the fringe, and (b) you have not understood the thrust of the articles. re (b) : you say “This series tried to explain the climate models. So reading the articles was a waste of time.” but the series wasn’t an explanation of the climate models but a test of them, and it concluded that the models were based on circular logic and that “the assumption that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature leads to the finding that it isn’t.“.
I agree that many comments have been good, but I’ll let your “better” go through to the keeper.
BTW the only way this nonsense gets the traction that it does is because the fox is guarding the hen house. The corruption in the “climate science” and some of the other social “sciences” is at best narrative promotion rather than real science. They start with a conclusion, and then work backward. The best way to solve this problem is to apply sound scientific methods of analysis to any research that is used to forward a political agenda and will require spending the public’s money. As it stands right now the elitist liberals/left wind activists that masquerade as “scientists” at our universities act as if the public treasury is their private bank accounts to fund their private agendas. What is needed is a Scientific Conclusion Verification and Validation Agency to test the validity of the research used to support a public policy. The role of the agency would to treat the research in the same manner a drug company gets FDA approval. The data and conclusion would be handed over, the data would be maintained in its original state and also scrambled to provide a “placebo” or “control.” The data would be stripped of any titles and they handed over to “blind” researchers to “test.” The results would then be reported and if the reported conclusion of this double blind testing doesn’t match the conclusion reached by the researchers, the funds would need to be returned, and the researchers would face possible prosecution. Facts are the Climategate emails expose outright fraud, and yet nothing is done about it. Nothing is done about it because the Universities face the possibility of loosing funding if this gravy train called Climate Change ever is exposed. That is a corrupt system and sooner or later it will be exposed. Thankfully if looks like we are headed for a few more decades of cooling, and if that happens, people will be forced to ask the questions to get to the bottom of how we wasted trillions of dollars on a lie. Climate change is a modern day Piltdown man, a modern day lyschenko. It is a fraud, and most be exposed. Once again, to accomplish that we need to have a Federal Agency that performs double blind tests on the data and conclusions reached by the researchers that receive public money.
The doubling CO2 is estimated from radiative flux measured by satellites at average 3.7W/m2. This is a generally accepted in climate science and corresponds to 1 c rise per doubling, but it has one problem that’s seriously doubts it.
Radiative flux is dependent on radiation pressure which in turn is hugely affected by atmospheric pressure. With atmospheric pressure remaining very constant this flux is treated as fact for CO2.
The main problem is how can we say the flux for CO2 is right when it is dependent on atmospheric pressure. How do we know how much of this is due to atmospheric pressure or CO2? For example if it was down to 50% of the atmospheric pressure than CO2 would only have a flux of 1.85 W/m2. In this scenario a doubling of CO2 would only give 0.5 c.
How are we sure it is wrong? If we use 3.7 W/m2 flux on any other planets in the solar system this value fails.
Only takes 12 doubling s of CO2 from current levels now (~400 ppm) to reach an atmosphere with 82% CO2. Earth in this scenario would have average temperature of 297 k. Venus has atmosphere 96% CO2 but has a average temperature 720 k. Clearly Earth is not going to reach even another 100 k with further increases in CO2 to match 96%. The 3.7W/m2 flux from CO2 only matches this planet at 1atm with current atmospheric composition, change it and it fails.
Sorry noticed would be 18 doubling to reach 52% CO2 and less than 19 for 96% atmosphere, but the principles behind the post still applies. [Earth 303 k at (52% CO2)]
I would hoist them by their own petard. The IPCC seems to support that number. The oceans have warmed by 1.0°C since 1910. Is there enough energy contained in 3.7W/M^2 to warm the oceans by a full 1°C? Simple answer…no way in hell.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1_s.gif
BTW, note how Ocean and Land temperatures march in lock step until 1985, and then begin to diverge. CO2 blankets the globe and can not cause a differential between land and sea. Something other than CO2 must be causing the divergence. My bet is that that something is the person adjusting the temperature data. To put it simply, there are statistical finger prints of fraud all over the data supporting the conclusions reached by the climate “scientists.”
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/global/2014/ann/timeseries/land-ocean-combined.png
The volume of the Oceans are “NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center estimates that 321,003,271 cubic miles is in the ocean. That’s enough water to fill about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon-sized milk containers!”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/spht.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/imgheat/shta.gif
We know from Argo etc that the deeper ocean has only warmed by some tiny fraction of 1 deg. So your calcs need to be aimed at some ocean surface layer, not the whole ocean. Not saying you won’t get the same result, just that you’ve put in too much ocean.
Thanks Mike, that is a calculation I’m working on right now. That complicates the calculation, but I doubt it will make much difference. 13µ to 18µ don’t even penetrate to the surface of the ocean, so I don’t think the physics are there to even warm the first 1cm of the ocean. Does anyone know depth is used as the “surface” of the oceans to which the temperature measurement is referring to?
The IPCC only claim humans caused warming since 1980’s and during that time global temperatures have risen on average 0.4c.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1979/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1979/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/trend/plot/uah-land/from:1979/plot/uah-land/from:1979/trend/offset:0.3/plot/rss-land/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/trend/offset:0.12
The IPCC are the biggest cherry pickers in the game and ignore the rising CO2 levels caused by humans decades before this time.
http://www.therm-eco.com/energy/images/CO2_Levels.jpg
I agree the warming of oceans even up to 0.4 c is too much for 3.7 W/m2 over ~35 years especially because of latent heat more or less cancels it out. It only increases evaporation at the surface skin meaning slightly more cooling lost through latent heat. The temperature above in the ocean atmosphere away from land with high water vapor concentration is only up to 0.5 c warmer than the surface, so it is hardly ever going to warm it. Above that the air cools with the usual lapse rate above oceans. All this is part of the Earth’s natural negative feedback’s and why runaway warming has never happened in the past before.
“Does anyone know depth is used as the “surface” of the oceans to which the temperature measurement is referring to?“.
I think the surface temperature (SST) really is the temperature right at the surface. But if you are working with heat content in a surface layer, the obvious thing to use is the thermocline. That’s easier said than done because its depth is far from constant, but for your purposes I would think that a reasonable average should suffice.
Correction 11 doubling s of CO2 82%, Earth 296 k.
Brian G Valentine August 2, 2015 at 3:10 pm
1,000,000 ppm = 1% CO2
Correction 1,000,000 ppm =100% CO2, so yes was correct first time. (thanks Brian)
Anyone want to do the math? Here is how far I’ve gotten so far:
From the above equation Q=cmDeltaT.
The specific Heat is 4.186joules/gram, there are 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon in the oceans. Each gallon weighs 3800 grams. That means it would take 1.38 X 10^20 joules to change the temperature of the oceans by 1°C. A joule is = Watt/sec. There are There are 3.15 x 10^8 seconds in 100 years, so it takes 4.4 x 10^ 28 Watts to warm the oceans. The surface of the oceans are 360,000 million square meters. Sorry, have to go to Soccer practice.
Don’t forget to include the extra amount of latent heat used in evaporating any extra water due to the 3.7W/M^2. I recall reading somewhere that about 1 meter / year of ocean is evaporated. How much extra should be added because of the extra 3.7W/M^2
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
What happened to part 3 the link doesn’t work?
Sorry, the Part 3 link didn’t go in correctly. It’s at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/31/the-mathematics-of-carbon-dioxide-part-3/
The hard part is convincing any layman that, as CO2 increases and clouds increase, the increase in clouds will also increase the earth’s temperature. Tough argument that one.
Joni Mitchell had it right:
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”
Passable CO2, is accused of becoming a genocidal, but has not yet determined the international tribunal, similar to what is located in The Hague to judge individuals on the basis of fake and well-paid “witnesses”. And why CO2 is to blame, because it needs to be eliminated to inject something better than nothing, “the judge genocide and their commanders” have great personal benefit, and this is opening up new sources of energy that they have good technology, such as they possessed in The Hague.
Only one nation is genocidal, and those who had previously decimated and the latest developments expelled from their homes, are exempt, so that in a future conflict could be used for the same purposes. Thus, CO2, should be placed in a new Hague and logistics companies, well rewarded. It is iterese entire čočječanstva who will not survive for long with these theories.
Hifalutn’ maths aren’t necessary, methinks. THE FOUR LAWS WITHOUT WHICH NOTHING WHATSOEVER THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE THAT HAPPENS, HAPPENS – at http://tinyurl.com/pvzva68 and a simple rule-of-three calculation at http://tinyurl.com/ot2hlp4 may illustrate.
Thanks Mike, looks like someone has already gone down a similar route.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sSnseCqFIqI/VY8geSRO9OI/AAAAAAAAEaQ/6NWjXNCIB9k/s400/GLOBAL%2BWARMING%2BSPREADSHEET%2B%25232.png
I would like to comment on the strength of CO2 as a GH gas, because I have published some studies on this subject. “co2is life” shows that CO2 really increases the absorption of LW radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface. Firstly I show Fig. 1, which shows the absorption graphs of major GH gases. http://www.climatexam.com/#!Dia1.JPG/zoom/c1vmg/image_1vfk
The curve of each GH gas in Fig. 1 above is calculated when it is the only gas in the average global atmosphere conditions. The total absorption is depicted by the purple line. Therefore for example the total absorption curve does not follow the green line of CO2 absorption curve, because it is essentially caused by the total absorption of H2O and CO2 present at the same time in the atmosphere. This figure shows that any impact of GH gases that could actually increase warming must do it in the wavelength zone from 7.5 µm to 14 µm in the so-called atmospheric window, because water absorbs totally LW radiation outside of this wavelength band.
The interesting feature is what happens to the total absorption curve, when the CO2 is doubled from 280 to 560 ppm. This is depicted in Fig. 2, where the curves are the net effects of CO2 absorptions: http://www.climatexam.com/#!Dia1.JPG/zoom/c1vmg/image_rdh
In Fig. 2 are depicted absorption graphs for various CO2 concentrations from 10 µm to 14 µm. In this wavelength zone 85-90% of absorption caused by increased CO2 concentrations occurs. Even by eye, it is easy to estimate that the absorption area increase from 379 ppm to 560 ppm is almost the same as the area from 280 ppm to 379 ppm. The warming effect is directly proportional to the total area caused by the GH gases between the x-axis and the total emission curve of the GH gases.
So what is the real warming impact of CO2? There have been references to the equation of Myhre et al.: RF = 5.35 * ln(C/280). I have found out only three papers also referred by IPCC on this relationship and one of these papers (Shi) specifies that the calculations were carried out in the constant RH conditions. My own calculations show the same thing. This relationship in the constant absolute humidity conditions is RF= 3.12 * ln(C/280). The transient climate sensitivity of CO2 calculated by IPCC is based on the double positive water feedback giving the average value of 1.85 degrees. My calculations give the value of 0.6 degrees (climate sensitivity parameter * forcing = 0.27 * 2.16 ~ 0.6 degrees). I get the same result using three different methods and two spectral calculator tools. I am not the only researcher showing these results (Monckton and Harde). Why many researchers get the CS value of about 1.2 degrees? Because they rely on Myhre’s equation without questioning that there is water feedback included.
Is this the final truth? It is not but it explains pretty well the errors in IPCC’s model. It is based on the double effects of water impact and therefore it is about three times too big (1.85 C versus 0.6 C). The CS value of 0.6 C is based on the constant absolute humidity of the atmosphere. From the humidity graphs like those of climate4you, we can see that even the constant humidity is not true.
The climate has strong negative feedback, because it can almost totally compensate different kind of disturbances. The Pinatube eruption is a good example. The insolation of the Sun decreased about 5 W/m2 during 1.5 years but the surface temperature effect was so small that it is difficult to notice from the annual fluctuations. The disturbance was bigger than the climate sensitivity value according to IPCC but the warming impacts were almost zero. The conclusion is: do not worry about the CO2, because the climate can compensate its effects.
co2islife August 3, 2015 at 5:05 am
The 3.7 W/m2 is for the TOA (top of atmosphere) and at the surface it is 1.0 W/m2.
The skin temperature is far less than 1 cm and only up to 1 mm and that’s why it would hardly ever warm the ocean to be noticeable.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/Minnett_2.gif
Wow, what a great source that compiles many of the flaws that I’ve highlighted in previous posts. This source pretty much confirms many of the scientific flaws we’ve been highlighting. Climate “science” is simply a fraud. When a non-Climate Scientist can identify the same flaws as an expert, that is pretty powerful evidence you are dealing with a fraud. Good science is simply good science. This “ain’t” good science.
http://www.climatexam.com/#!co2-contribution/c1vmg
Finally someone mentioned “Henry’s Law”
http://www.climatexam.com/#!Dia11.JPG/zoom/c1vmg/image_xhq
Thanks, that makes the case against CO2 even stronger. Facts are the Sun warms the oceans, and the oceans warm the atmosphere. It is that simple, and it has nothing to do with CO2.
BTW, thanks to who ever posted this link. It is a great source for testing these theories.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
To address the surface vs the TOA issue. Change the settings to looking up and set it to 0.1km to be close to the surface. Double CO2 from 400 to 800 and use tropical and no rain or clouds. The downward flux changes by 2W/M^2. Now change the relative humidity by 10%. The downward flux changes by 7W/M^2. CO2 is immaterial when H2O is present.
Arrhenius and fellow Swede Nils Eckholm thought that the amount of CO2 released could be controlled by burning coal; Eckholm thought, the added warmth could prevent a new ice age beginning. Almost at once Swede Knut Anderson argued in favour of water vapour as the main culprit; Tyndall had argued that 40 years before. As a result the idea that CO2 was the key fell out of favour. We cannot control the amount of water vapour in the air it rises and falls with the temperature of the oceans. That must mean that the temperature of the Earth’s surface and any resulting climate change is something beyond our influence, and which just has to take its course. this argument is current too.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Part 4
Executive Summary:
Conclusion
Climate models’ estimations of ECS are implicitly based on the assumption that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2. Therefore any assertion that the models show that the 20th century warming was caused by CO2 is invalid (circular logic).
In addition, the climate modellers and the IPCC have
(a) used an unrealistically low water cycle, resulting in an unrealistically high value for CO2-driven global warming, and
(b) built on the almost complete lack of knowledge about clouds, in order to claim that clouds add a large amount to CO2-driven global warming.
The reality is that a doubling of CO2 would of itself raise the global temperature by about 1.2 degrees (this part of CO2 science is pretty solid and generally accepted), plus or minus an unknown but probably modest amount of feedback from water vapour etc, and from clouds. Knowledge in this area is so weak that even the sign of the feedback is not known.
In other words, of the mid-range claimed ECS of 3.2 degrees per doubling of CO2, nearly two-thirds is either unrealistic or sheer speculation.
Footnote
One final point; a delicious irony (mathematically speaking) :
· As shown above, there is an implied assumption in the models that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature. That assumption is demonstrated very clearly in Part 1, where all of the post-industrial warming is assumed to be caused by CO2.
· But when the results of the models are then compared to past surface temperatures, as was done in Part 2 and Part 3, it is found that CO2 plays little part in temperature change.
So, the assumption that CO2 is the principal driver of global temperature leads to the finding that it isn’t.