This thread debates the Miskolczi semi-transparent atmosphere model.
The link with the easiest introduction to the subject is http://hps.elte.hu/zagoni/Proofs_of_the_Miskolczi_theory.htm
This thread debates the Miskolczi semi-transparent atmosphere model.
The link with the easiest introduction to the subject is http://hps.elte.hu/zagoni/Proofs_of_the_Miskolczi_theory.htm
I hate to sound facetious, but if Real Climate trashes Dr. M’s theory, then the good doctor is probably right.
I have not delved in this paper. But I do like the concentration on energy conservation and not this funny “radiative budget”.
Radiative budget reminds me of house budget where the incoming outgoing cash is counted and cards ignored. ( in an mostly cash economy ?)
OT but Chaiten has graduated, inconspicuously, but VEI 6 and still ticking.
These calderas being uncommon and their eruptions infrequent we are still due a couple more sixes this century.
Not entirely, I have an article (http://landshape.org/enm/another-theory-of-global-warming) arguing recent warming could be due to ultra-plinian eruptions and Miskolczi’s theory.
If the lid or blanket is acting as GHG, then 90% of the lid or blanket would be equal to a big hole. Lets say the lid is made of chicken wire. then some of the water vapor would condense on the wire and fall back into the pot. Therefore the heat transfer through the wire would be slower and at the same time the falling water would lower the temperature of the pot.
Michael H, this isn’t just a radiative analysis, it is an enrgy analsyis.
By externallities, I mean external to the radiative budget. This is an energy budget, not a tradiative budget.
The pot on the stove model is flawed because all it is measuring is how easily does heat move from the pot to the surrounding air.
That would be the same as measuring how well heat moves from the upper levels of the atmosphere into space.
Quite obviously, changes in CO2 would have no impact on this transfer.
Assuming that there is no heat loss from the sides of the pot. Which would make it analogous to a column of air, running from the surface to space.
The question we are asking is not, does the average temperature of the pot change, but rather, does the bottom layer of water in the pot get warmer.
If the salt that you are adding to the pot makes it harder for heat to flow from the point of heating, to the point of escape, then the heat gradient will change.
So, Rico, where’s you’re data proving runaway greenhouse? Your position seems to be that it is the only explanation which makes sense. Where’s your proof that warm periods are “more easily explained on the basis of gas concentrations in the atmosphere”.
If the atmosphere were warming, it would expand.
If it expands, the average space between molecules gets greater.
If the average space between molecules gets greater, then the distance an IR photon travels before being absorbed increases.
If the distance a photon travels before being absorbed increases, then the effective transparency of the atmosphere to IR also increases. In other words, at any altitude, if the atmosphere is less dense, the chances of a particular photon escaping to space without being absorbed increase.
Rico:
For starters theoretical variations on Milancovitch cycles are the best explanations available to explain gradual onset of ice ages and the relatively sudden interglacials, even the stadial/interstadial cycles during the interglacials. Not perfect, but close, which Robert mentioned “precession of the equinoxes.”
There are other problems with pinning the blame mostly on CO2 during the interglacials: There are discontinuities where CO2 & temperatures quite literally detrend from each other. This is important because CO2 can only drive so much temperature increase, it requires feedback from an increase in humidity to really drive temperatures upwards.
In the paleo record there are instances where water vapor unlocked during interglacial periods rises and falls in a pattern unrelated to CO2 levels. Both water vapor and CO2 levels lag temperature increases as well (again CO2 alone can’t cause such intense warming, only water vapor can).
http://i30.tinypic.com/izon5h.jpg
Look the graphic over. It’s very peculiar to see CO2 levels plateau while light oxygen (water vapor proxy for the drier ice ages & humid interglacials) tracks along. And when CO2 levels dropped precipitously, temperatures did not, but water vapor levels followed the temperature trends.
I wouldn’t say the light oxygen trend is conclusive, but it demonstrates how CO2 levels can’t be conclusive either when CO2 level have at times decorrelated while another variable was correlated. FWIW the Earth is verging on the end of a Milancovitch peak, which bears upon the data shown above.
A recent study found that the Antarctic is much drier than previously modeled, so the odds of a huge austreal thaw have fallen. That leaves Greenland, and the biggest problem in Greenland is soot deposition that heats the snow, esp. on the peripheral glaciers (the downstream terminus of glacial runoff). There are pictures of blackened ice bergs that demonstrate how intense the soot problem is in Greenland, it’s impressive. The same is true of the all sesquicentennial ice loss – up to 90 percent of it has been from sootfall.
Alan D. McIntire (16:53:17) :
In response to RICO: Temperatures in the past were also strongly
influenced by the location of continents and seas.
True enough, however, temperatures during the last interglacial appear to be higher even though the continents were, more or less, where they are today. Assuming a drift of 8 cm/year for 100,000 years, most places on the globe are within 800 Km of where they were back then.
Or am I missing something?
I read Nick Stokes’ thoughtful analysis at CA and at Niche Modeling. It was not only substantive but entirely free of the snarkiness that infects a lot of climate blog commentary. A very professional job and a valuable contribution.
It is noteworthy that each of the defects he finds in the paper seem to boil down to Miskolczi making broad assumptions about equilibrium, conservation and/or the triumph of (unspecified) negative feedbacks. I say it is noteworthy because even if Miskolczi has completely failed to do any of the heavy lifting required to specify and identify these elements of negative feedback and ultimate balance, merely assuming they exist produces a model whose predictions are probably currently closer to observed reality than the orthodox AGW GCMs: CO2 is up but temperature is not up at the surface nor in the troposphere and humidity is down. Even without the hum od a mainframe in the background, merely assuming Gaia is more accurate than merely assuming Gore.
Miskolczi’s alleged breezy assumptions about Kirchoff’s law and the virial theorem are well matched by AGW orthodoxy’s functional dismissal of negative feedback modeling. If nothing else Dr. M has provided some perspective on the gross incompleteness of climate science models. After Raypierre and Gavin unveil their long-anticipated snarkfest regarding Miskolczi’s math skills, perhaps they can include a sidebar about the increasingly apparent limitations of their own working assumptions and models.
George, That’s one of the best statements I have seen about the issues. It should be remembered that theories (aka models) are just theories, that observations trump theories, and that well structured statistical tests trump observations. All necessary, but the quality of evidence contributed very different.
I too would like to compliment Nike Stokes on a well-reasoned, thoughtful, and collegial discussion in Niche Modeling.
Nick Stokes (16:31:30): 1. The whole theme of the analysis as something that undermines current AGW practice is wrong. Dr Miskolczi’s modelling is of a gray-body atmosphere (no spectral lines or shapes).
If I read the material correctly, Dr M’s simulations *did* do a line-by-line analysis, which would take into account spectral lines/shapes.
Like annav (I have only skimmed through a few times) I find the “radiative budget” obtuse, but balanced equations- analogous to chemical reactions-which he retains, are silly too.
The paper does not appear to advance the discussion other than to point out one significant flaw: waving our hands over the H20 feed-back.
In his defence, his use of Kirchoff’s law, though cursory, has nothing to gain from AGW orthodoxy as the standard Beers-Lambert solution is trivially inadequate. Both preceded modern physics and I’ve never seen an attempt to transform absorptivity/emissivity of one to the other. They are simply assumed to be equivalent.
Mark N,
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, you’re right that a lot of the paper does not use (or need) a gray-body simplification. But the result that has attracted a lot of attention, that the mean optical depth of the atmosphere is constrained to be about 1.84, is necessarily gray-body, as is the reasoning leading to it. It is this result which is claimed to put a strong limit on the greenhouse effect.
FWIW way back at the beginning crosspatch asked about land use changes. While the earth was not paved over, the 19th century saw a huge amount of surface turned into farms in North America, Australia and Russia. You can see the effect in various climate records including global temperature. It is sometimes called the pioneer effect.
Nick Stokes pretty much has it. The assumption of a virial theorem is particularly weak IEHO. Also take a look at this.
So, Eli, are we getting a ‘cooling year that shows a significant drop from best curve fit’?
==========================================
Mark Nodine writes:
Mark, atmosphere models have taken convection and optical depth into account at least since Manabe and Strickler’s classic paper of 1964. Miskolczi’s paper is impressive only to someone who has never studied atmospheric radiation.
Crosspatch writes:
The theory was first proposed in a quantitative way by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. He thought global warming would be a good thing.
I’m a devout Christian who has never had a problem with evolution. In fact, most devout Christians don’t. I find your ad hominem attacks on AGW “believers” to be no more credible than your attacks on Christians. If you disagree with AGW theory, why don’t you try arguing against the theory, rather than attacking the people who hold it?
Stas Peterson writes:
The E.A. Milne infinite-atmosphere approximation says nothing at all about the surface temperature discontinuity, which, BTW, is a discontinuity in temperature, not a layer of vacuum between the atmosphere and the surface. The discontinuity is seen in any radiative equilibrium model which uses any version of the equation of radiative transfer. Try reading chapter 2 of Houghton’s The Physics of Atmospheres for a simple example. The discontinuity doesn’t exist in practice because the real atmosphere convects. In a temperature inversion you can indeed measure a temperature difference even between very low levels of air and the surface material. Try it some time, or talk to a meteorologist who has.
Also, no real atmosphere model for the past 50 years or so has assumed an infinite atmosphere, other than as a theoretical exercise. When such a thing is assumed (never in a model, but always as a theoretical exercise), it’s to provide a simplified starting point, as when we assume the sun is infinitely far away for purposes of explaining why rays of sunlight are roughly parallel at the Earth’s surface.
DAV posts something which illustrates a common misconception:
You’re assuming that any positive feedback must run away, which is not true. For something like water vapor amplification of CO2 warming, the series converges. It doesn’t diverge.
A series like 1 + 1 + 1 + 1… will run away to infinity.
A series like 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8… will never achieve 2, though it will get increasingly close to it.
George Tobin writes:
Which planet are you talking about? On Earth, temperatures have risen over the past 150 years, and humidity is up at a rate of about 0.9 millimeters of precipitable water per decade — consistent with the Clausius-Clapeyron law, and thus with a positive water-vapor feedback.
Dr. Miskolczi’s theory does NOT explain the evidence better than conventional climate models. It fails egregiously any test I can think of — current Earth, Venus, ice ages. In fact, it’s a bit of pseudoscience. For details try here:
Miskolczi
Well, BPL, on this earth temperatures have not been rising for the last seven years, and humidity fails your test recently, too.
===============================