Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
OK, a quick pop quiz. The average temperature of the planet is about 14°C (57°F). If the earth had no atmosphere, and if it were a blackbody at the same distance from the sun, how much cooler would it be than at present?
a) 33°C (59°F) cooler
b) 20°C (36°F) cooler
c) 8° C (15°F) cooler
The answer may come as a surprise. If the earth were a blackbody at its present distance from the sun, it would be only 8°C cooler than it is now. That is to say, the net gain from our entire complete system, including clouds, surface albedo, aerosols, evaporation losses, and all the rest, is only 8°C above blackbody no-atmosphere conditions.
Why is the temperature rise so small? Here’s a diagram of what is happening.
Figure 1. Global energy budget, adapted and expanded from Kiehl/Trenberth . Values are in Watts per square metre (W/m2). Note the top of atmosphere (TOA) emission of 147 W/m2. Tropopause is the altitude where temperature stops decreasing with altitude.
As you can see, the temperature doesn’t rise much because there are a variety of losses in the complete system. Some of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. Some is radiated into space through the “atmospheric window”. Some is lost through latent heat (evaporation/transpiration), and some is lost as sensible heat (conduction/convection). Finally, some of this loss is due to the surface albedo.
The surface reflects about 29 W/m2 back into space. This means that the surface albedo is about 0.15 (15% of the solar radiation hitting the ground is reflected by the surface back to space). So let’s take that into account. If the earth had no atmosphere and had an average albedo like the present earth of 0.15, it would be about 20°C cooler than it is at present.
This means that the warming due to the complete atmospheric system (greenhouse gases, clouds, aerosols, latent and sensible heat losses, and all the rest) is about 20°C over no-atmosphere earth albedo conditions.
Why is this important? Because it allows us to determine the overall net climate sensitivity of the entire system. Climate sensitivity is defined by the UN IPCC as “the climate system response to sustained radiative forcing.” It is measured as the change in temperature from a given change in TOA atmospheric forcing.
As is shown in the diagram above, the TOA radiation is about 150W/m2. This 150 W/m2 TOA radiation is responsible for the 20°C warming. So the net climate sensitivity is 20°C/150W-m2, or a temperature rise 0.13°C per W/m2. If we assume the UN IPCC canonical value of 3.7 W/m2 for a doubling of CO2, this would mean that a doubling of CO2 would lead to a temperature rise of about half a degree.
The UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report gives a much higher value for climate sensitivity. They say it is from 2°C to 4.5°C for a CO2 doubling, or from four to nine times higher than what we see in the real climate system. Why is their number so much higher? Inter alia, the reasons are:
1. The climate models assume that there is a large positive feedback as the earth warms. This feedback has never been demonstrated, only assumed.
2. The climate models underestimate the increase in evaporation with temperature.
3. The climate models do not include the effect of thunderstorms, which act to cool the earth in a host of ways .
4. The climate models overestimate the effect of CO2. This is because they are tuned to a historical temperature record which contains a large UHI (urban heat island) component. Since the historical temperature rise is overestimated, the effect of CO2 is overestimated as well.
5. The sensitivity of the climate models depend on the assumed value of the aerosol forcing. This is not measured, but assumed. As in point 4 above, the assumed size depends on the historical record, which is contaminated by UHI. See Kiehl for a full discussion.
6. Wind increases with differential temperature. Increasing wind increases evaporation, ocean albedo, conductive/convective loss, ocean surface area, total evaporative area, and airborne dust and aerosols, all of which cool the system. But thunderstorm winds are not included in any of the models, and many models ignore one or more of the effects of wind.
Note that the climate sensitivity figure of half a degree per W/m2 is an average. It is not the equilibrium sensitivity. The equilibrium sensitivity has to be lower, since losses increase faster than TOA radiation. This is because both parasitic losses and albedo are temperature dependent, and rise faster than the increase in temperature:
a) Evaporation increases roughly exponentially with temperature, and linearly with wind speed.
b) Tropical cumulus clouds increase rapidly with increasing temperature, cutting down the incoming radiation.
c) Tropical thunderstorms also increase rapidly with increasing temperature, cooling the earth.
d) Sensible heat losses increase with the surface temperature.
e) Radiation losses increases proportional to the fourth power of temperature. This means that each additional degree of warming requires more and more input energy to achieve. To warm the earth from 13°C to 14°C requires 20% more energy than to warm it from minus 6°C (the current temperature less 20°C) to minus 5°C.
This means that as the temperature rises, each additional W/m2 added to the system will result in a smaller and smaller temperature increase. As a result, the equilibrium value of the climate sensitivity (as defined by the IPCC) is certain to be smaller, and likely to be much smaller, than the half a degree per CO2 doubling as calculated above.
Dr.Bill (&Willis): Agreed. The earth would not have clouds without an atmosphere. But the surface albedo would be higher than that of the moon. Presumably we would have more snow and ice in a colder world. Since Earth is ~70% covered by water at the moment i would argue that the albedo would be closer to that of Jupiters moon Europa than that of the moon. Perhaps an albedo of 0.5 would be a nice round guess (that is actually higher than it is today.). In that case i get a difference 54degC.
Dear Dr.Eschenbach,
as Prof. Dr. G. Gerlich at the Technical Univerity of Braunschweig has shown in his Paper “Falosificartion of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects wirthin the Frame of Physics” that diagrams like the one of Kiehl and Trenberth are contradict to physics for the following reasons:
1. they connot represent radiation intensities,
2. they connot represent sourceless fluxes, i.e. divergence free vector fields in three dimensions, sice avanishing three-dimensional divergence still allows that aportion of the field goes sidewards,
3. thes do not fit in the framework of Feynman diagrams, which represent mathematical expressions clearly defined in quantum field theory,
they do not fir in the standard language of system theory.
Further if the calculation of the earth without atmosphere is done in the correct way (first take the 4th root of every temperature and than calculated the mean temperature), the mean temperature is -129° Celsius for 0,7 as usally assumed.
HelmutU (02:40:16)
Helmut, we’ve already discussed this paper upthread.
Leif Svalgaard (18:02:49) :
Francisco (17:52:28) :
J. Marvin Herndon, pictured at left, demonstrated in 1992 the feasibility of natural, nuclear fission reactors as the energy source
Recent measurements of geo-neutrinos rule out the hypothesis that most of the planet’s internal heat is generated by a uranium-fuelled nuclear geo-reactor in the Earth’s core.:
http://www.physorg.com/news187946006.html
========================
I’ve asked Marvin Herndon how he interprets those measurements, and below is his reply. Herndon continues to be adamant about the physical impossibility of convection in the earth’s core and mantle as a source of the earth’s magnetic field in the current standard earth model, as explained by him here: http://tinyurl.com/ylnjzur
Home page with links to much of his work is here: http://www.nuclearplanet.com/
This was his reply to my inquiry:
“No, those measurements do not [rule out the georeactor]. The last measurements said it ruled out georeactor energy output above 3 terawatts. From KAMland data, the limit was 6 terawatts. They only detected a small number of events (signals in their detector), from which they had to subtract estimates of background and signals caused by man-made nuclear reactors. There will have to be many, many more measurements before any statement can be made with confidence.”
“There is much wrong with textbook geoscience. I have now shown conclusively that convection in the Earth’s core and in the Earth’s mantle is physically impossible. If fact I have a new paper coming out soon.”
Willis Eschenbach
What would you expect a thermopile or some other radiation detector pointed vertically upwards to read(average ball park figure) given these conditions.
a. Radiatively insulated to exclude upward radiation.
b. In the middle of a desert.
c. Two hours before dawn.
d. Gentle or stronger wind.
I have always referred to it as the “fallacy of the false dichotomy,” Willis.
The “CO2 in the air from people is causing something to happen” concept is abysmally poor science, for which there is no evidence (and evidently impossible); anybody who believes otherwise has absolutely no comprehension of “geological time”
Willis: It is interesting that one branch of taxpayer funded science woul dhave us believe that geothermel heating has no impact on a planetary body’s surface temperature, whilst another would have you believe that it is sufficient to maintain life on distant moons.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215141510.htm
Excuses, excuses…. to spend other people’s money.
By the way, the mid-ocean ridges are 40,000km long, are spewing out lava at 1300Celsius along their entire length and have an efficient heat-exchange system called water to distribute the heat evenly over the planet.
Willis
“The UN IPCC says that the climate sensitivity is the temperature change divided by the change in downwelling TOA longwave radiation. That is to say, radiation that ORIGINATES at the TOA. So that’s what I have used. If you want to use the upwelling radiation as well you are free to do so … but then you are not measuring climate sensitivity as defined by the IPCC.
What is your source for this. The only definition I am aware of for Climate Sensitivity. whether it be the Charney Sensitivity or others is Temperature change per Doubling of CO2. Basing seisitivity on downwelling radiation levels seems strange. Source please.
If there are differing definitions then how are these differing definitions related so that we can compare Apples with Apples. From the diagram above, total downwelling is 321 w/M^2
Willis
“I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in the tropics, but if you, you would not say they were a third order effect “. Yes, I have lived in a semi tropical environment and locally a Thunderstorm is impressive, visceral, quite emotional. Which is all irrelevent. The question is what percentage transports due to thunderstorms contribute to the total transport over the entire globe. Again, quantitative assessments rather than emotive, local or qualitative ones.
“You raise an interesting point. The average surface air temperature is generally considered to be a reasonable approximation of the actual surface temperature. In general the surface is warmer than the air during the day, and cooler than the air during the night. So for the purpose of this first-order analysis, the difference in the averages doesn’t make a difference.”
I would say loosely, that the top surface of ground at nite should be about the same temperature as the air. And on the top surface of the ground [or tree top] in sunlight is much warmer than the air.
But as I said before, since about 70% of the surface of earth is covered by water*, one could almost not even bother considering land temperatures.
BUT if we are essentially measuring ocean temperature instead of land temperatures, there obvious a limits to how warm the water can get in terms of higher temperatures [and that will affect this whole blackbody type calculations].
E.g. The top surface of the sand of a desert could reach somewhere around 160 F during the day- such temperature aren’t possible in a ocean. One factor being that even though it’s not at the boiling point such higher temperatures have significant increases in the evaporation rate of water.
So in regard to a ocean the surface temperature I would say that it is normally about the same temperature as air temperature regardless of whether it’s day or day.
But then again, what is meant by ocean surface temperature- are we talking about to first 2 mm of ocean OR the top layer of the ocean thermocline.
Because when I say there are about the same temperature I mean the top 2mm of water rather than the top say, 10 or 20 meters of water.
* It should noted that as far the average temperature of earth the tropical region is the most important “in getting an average global temperature”- and I don’t have an reference or know off hand, what the percent of land vs ocean is in tropical region.
Ryan Stephenson (04:33:23) :
Willis: It is interesting that one branch of taxpayer funded science would have us believe that geothermal heating has no impact on a planetary body’s surface temperature, whilst another would have you believe that it is sufficient to maintain life on distant moons.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215141510.htm
Excuses, excuses…. to spend other people’s money.
By the way, the mid-ocean ridges are 40,000km long, are spewing out lava at 1300Celsius along their entire length and have an efficient heat-exchange system called water to distribute the heat evenly over the planet.
=======================
I agree. Never understood how this is so trivial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power
“The Earth’s internal heat naturally flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 terawatts, (TW,)[20] and is replenished by radioactive decay of minerals at a rate of 30 TW.[21] These power rates are more than double humanity’s current energy consumption from all primary sources”
Your argument is wrong!!
You can never assume that the downward radiation at TOA and temerparature rise are proportional. It is proven that they are not!!
Well, IPCC says that (radiative forcing)*(climate sensitivity) = (temperature rise),
but this is because this equation is a first-order equation, which is applicable only when radiative forcing and temperature rise are both small compared to their base values (150W/m^2 and 300 kelvin, in this case).
“Well, my body temperature decreased by 2 degrees after taking 2 tablets of medicine, so my body temp. should reduce by 10 after taking 10 tablets”.
You made exactly same mistake as this statement!!
Please do not decieve innocent people!!
Re: Francisco (Mar 18 06:10),
Terra watts sound grand, but in the context of the earths area, and the language of climatology, geothermal only amounts to something like 0.075/m^2. I checked it when I first got involved in this AGW stuff.
http://geophysics.ou.edu/geomechanics/notes/heatflow/global_heat_flow.htm
Not a player in the game.
CO2 though coming out of vents etc is another story.
In addition, all of the effects you mentioned are actually “included” in models referred to by IPCC.
Re: gbaikie (Mar 18 06:03),
E.g. The top surface of the sand of a desert could reach somewhere around 160 F during the day- such temperature aren’t possible in a ocean. One factor being that even though it’s not at the boiling point such higher temperatures have significant increases in the evaporation rate of water.
I live by the sea. In the summer air temperatures can be for a month from 37C to 40C the water is below 25C.
At night it is the opposite, particularly in autumn, when the water may be a steady20C while the air drops to 12 and 14C. In spring, the air may be 23C and the water 13C. Even in the oceans, winds from the land blow hot or cold and are not reflected in the surface skin temperature by several degrees.
Again I refer to the surface skin temperatures in
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/products/browsesurf1.html
they are different than the air temperatures. Unless one does the calculation, i.e. integrate over the provided data, one cannot assert that there is no global difference by handwaving.
But then again, what is meant by ocean surface temperature- are we talking about to first 2 mm of ocean OR the top layer of the ocean thermocline.
It is infrared at these temperatures that are being radiated, and the first mms of ocean or soil or vegetation is the important one.
Francisco (03:22:49) :
I’ve asked Marvin Herndon how he interprets those measurements, […] Herndon continues to be adamant There will have to be many, many more measurements before any statement can be made with confidence.
Fair enough, such measurements are continuing. I wonder what he would say if the continue to give the same result…
His statement: “I have now shown conclusively that convection in the Earth’s core and in the Earth’s mantle is physically impossible” rubs me the wrong way.
anna v (06:31:47) :
Re: Francisco (Mar 18 06:10),
Terra watts sound grand, but in the context of the earths area, and the language of climatology, geothermal only amounts to something like 0.075/m^2. I checked it when I first got involved in this AGW stuff.
==============
yes, I am aware of those figures. An often-quoted one is 0.9 (at realclimate). I have also seen much larger figures given at physics forums. I suppose it is small, but at a purely intuitive level, the notion that more than twice the total human energy consumption is coming at us from underneath sounds significant at least at first sight.
I find a lot of the approaches puzzling. For example, the following paper. They observe an increase of 24 mW/m2 in ground heat flux from Canada’s geothermal database over the last 200 years, and they attribute all that to changes in surface temperature, and apparently none of it to changes in geothermal heat flux coming up.
http://esrc.stfx.ca/pdf/halifaxtalk.pdf
From the abstract:
“Results from the analysis of Canada’s geothermal database indicate that the ground heat flux has increased an average of 24 mW/m2 over the last 200 years. Application of this method to the global geothermal data base allowed for a quantification of the global ground energy balance at the Earth’s surface for the
past few centuries. Preliminary global ground surface emperature and surface heat flux histories indicate that the Earth’s continents have warmed by about 0.5 K and
received an additional 26 mW/m2 of energy in the last 100 years.”
“geothermal only amounts to something like 0.075/m^2. I checked it when I first got involved in this AGW stuff.”
This calculation is clearly wrong. If it were true then there would be no possibility of lakes under Antartica, but there are. These lakes are created by geothermal heat counteracting the freezing effect of the overlying super-cooled ice.
Here’s another one for you. Every day massive volumes of water are hauled from one end of the earth to the other by the tides. This massive kinetic energy – where does it go? The laws of entropy tell you. Did you know that tidal forces due to the moon also cause the land to be pulled upward by as much as a meter too? It is these forces that cause heating on moons like Europa which orbits Jupiter. It causes heating on the earth too, but your article only mentions nuclear fission.
Re: Ryan Stephenson (Mar 18 08:05),
Tides also within the vocabulary of climate science give fractions of a Watt/m^2.
The link I found by googling, I had not saved my calculations.
Certainly over direct flues the heating will be important, but that is another story. Averaged over the area of the earth it is small.
Francisco (08:02:39) :
they attribute all that to changes in surface temperature, and apparently none of it to changes in geothermal heat flux coming up.
And that is correct. If you heat the surface, the heat will propagate downwards too. In fact, one can see the MWP in borehole temperatures as well: http://www.leif.org/research/T-Boreholes.png
(Emphasis mine)
Can you point to an article or source where this is actually measured (the quantitative measurement of atmospheric radiation of ‘heat’ energy ostensibly removed from the surface via convection)?
Joel Shore could not …
.
.
Willis Eschenbach (23:21:59)Sir, with all respect a thought process of constructing an idealized thermos is possible since you can imagine a material with an infinite R value, etc.
I know it won’t work that is the point. The earth and the thermos are in someways the same. A heated body surrounded by gas surrounded by a vacuum, as I tried to describe. If CO2 cannot heat or keep something warm via a thermos then heating an entire globe is utter nonsense.
Again, as I pointed out if CO2 could increase heat in some object then (and we have known this for over a hundred years) why has no body found a way to make money off the idea. A CO2 coat, a wrap for your house etc. Because it is a false idea. CO2 will not increase the heat in anything. As I said my thawed turkey will not get warmer than room temperature no matter how much CO2 is in my house.
I don’t know the patent process but if someone made a claim such as a product that with the aid of CO2 you got extra heat it would sure bring this to a head.
I wish I could put a smiley face on things so folks would know when I am pointing out what I think is a false hood in the CO2 causes warming theory. Or I could just say that I guess.
Enjoy your work very much. Thank you for it.
Regards, MKelly
Brian G. Valentine (17:07:48) (17:36:44) (19:25:34) (04:22:43)
Willis Eschenbach & others
I concur 100%. Gerlich & Tscheuschner are correct in their analysis. One of the best overviews of anything I have seen. A “must” read. Physics rooted in real testable observations. There is a lot in this paper there for anyone in any discipline. I am a Ham Radio Operator. I have been one for 37 years and the first at age 13 to get the basic licence here in Canada and Willis I will tell you that this paper is good I’d give it a 5 star rating with ease. The bits about electromagnetic radiation and the atmosphere are spot on the money. Above roughly the 10 meter band or 30 megahertz the atmosphere becomes transparent to radio waves. This is called “line of sight” communications.The wavelength becomes short enough that the ionisphere allows them to pass through unobstructed. Below 30 mhz you enter shortwave radio territory, the wavelength becomes long enough that the ionisphere reflects radio waves. IR’s wavelength is above 30mhz and since IR is electromagnetic radiation it to will also pass through the atmosphere unobstructed. There is no reflection. So called radiating layers are only implied and cannot be physically observed(two eyes). Gases by their nature disperse and diffuse. Whatever the scientists are measuring is not what they think it is. Backradiation is falsified and thus falls into the realm of pseudoscience. I’m callin ’em as I see ’em. Now back to my family.
Re: mkelly (Mar 18 08:51),
You will enjoy this
http://www.vermonttiger.com/content/2008/07/nasa-free-energ.html
Double glaze glasses for windows with CO2 instead of inert gases should be patented.
mkelly
I wonder if someone can point to references to specific lab experiments attempting to measure the amount of surface warming caused by a given increase in CO2 in a column of air that is receiving infrared radiation from below. Do the IPCC reports give references to these kinds of experiments?
If no such experiments have been made, how feasible would they be? If they are feasible, how expensive would they be in comparison with the total amount of money dedicated to fund AGW science?
Are any such tests being made at all?