From the University of Exeter, this press release below and not a peep in it about the El Niño earlier this year that would have helped to degassify CO2 from the warmer portions of the Pacific ocean. But hey, its got a connection to UEA, so we know it’s quality work, right?
Global CO2 emissions back on the rise in 2010
Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – the main contributor to global warming – show no sign of abating and may reach record levels in 2010, according to a study led by the University of Exeter (UK).
The study, which also involved the University of East Anglia (UK) and other global institutions, is part of the annual carbon budget update by the Global Carbon Project.
In a paper published today in Nature Geoscience, the authors found that despite the major financial crisis that hit the world last year, global CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuel in 2009 were only 1.3 per cent below the record 2008 figures. This is less than half the drop predicted a year ago.
The global financial crisis severely affected western economies, leading to large reductions in CO2 emissions. For example, UK emissions were 8.6% lower in 2009 than in 2008. Similar figures apply to USA, Japan, France, Germany, and most other industrialised nations.
However, emerging economies had a strong economic performance despite the financial crisis, and recorded substantial increases in CO2 emissions (e.g. China +8 per cent, India +6.2 per cent).
Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, lead author of the research, said: “The 2009 drop in CO2 emissions is less than half that anticipated a year ago. This is because the drop in world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was less than anticipated and the carbon intensity of world GDP, which is the amount of CO2 released per unit of GDP, improved by only 0.7 per cent in 2009 – well below its long-term average of 1.7% per year.”
The poor improvements in carbon intensity were caused by an increased share of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions produced by emerging economies with a relatively high carbon intensity, and an increasing reliance on coal.
The study projects that if economic growth proceeds as expected, global fossil fuel emissions will increase by more than 3% in 2010, approaching the high emissions growth rates observed through 2000 to 2008.
The study also found that global CO2 emissions from deforestation have decreased by over 25% since 2000 compared to the 1990s, mainly because of reduced CO2 emissions from tropical deforestation.
“For the first time, forest expansion in temperate latitudes has overcompensated deforestation emissions and caused a small net sink of CO2 outside the tropics”, says Professor Corinne Le Quéré, from the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, and author of the study. “We could be seeing the first signs of net CO2 sequestration in the forest sector outside the tropics”, she adds.
Editors’ notes
The Global Carbon Project
The Global Carbon Project was formed to assist the international science community to establish a common, mutually agreed knowledge base supporting policy debate and action to slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The project is working towards this through a shared partnership between the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and Diversitas. This partnership constitutes the Earth Systems Science Partnership (ESSP).
More information available at: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget
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Tim Folkerts,
Digoxin adult does is 300 ug / day. For a 90 Kg adult, this is 3.3 parts PER BILLION.
As you say, “small amounts can be important”, for which I’m thankful as it resolved a serious heart problem I had some years ago.
The silly argument that “CO2 is a trace gas” is bonkers.
I don’t have time to read all 101 responses, unfortunately, so this may have been brought up already, but couldn’t this also mean that the method used to estimate emissions is faulty?
Look at that nasty, evil ocean in the picture, outgassing all that evil co2 to the atmosphere, someone should just get rid of it now, before it destroys the climate!!!
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 22, 2010 at 9:09 am
John from CA says:
November 22, 2010 at 8:22 am
Ground Stations: 326
Ground Stations monitoring CO2: China (4); India (1); (USA NOAA 25 of 28)
Emissions are not based on local/regional CO2 monitoring, they are based on fossil fuel sales and the estimated combustion efficiency. Even then, China figures may be somewhat underestimated…
========
Ferdinand,
We’re paying for CO2 Ground Station monitoring we don’t bother to use?
Here’s a more accurate Ground Station count — 326 apparently relates to all measurable CO2 source types.
World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases
http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/statistics.cgi
This site is maintained by the Japan Meteorological Agency in cooperation with the World Meteorological Organization.
Stationary Ground Stations Monitoring CO2: 174
Northern Hemisphere: 147 (106 have reported data in the last 360days)
Southern Hemisphere: 27 Stations (25 have reported data in the last 360days)
NOAA/GMD represent 88 of the 131 Stations Reporting Data in the last 360days; http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/catalogue.cgi
It turns out that NOAA operates CO2 monitoring in the South China Sea so, assuming someone bothered to use real data, the estimate for China could be from 11 stations and India from 1. Its probably worth pointing out, frequency of test measurement varies for each station.
NOAA:
South China Sea 03N: 1
South China Sea 06N: 1
South China Sea 09N: 1
South China Sea 12N: 1
South China Sea 15N: 1
South China Sea 18N: 1
South China Sea 21N: 1
Southern Hemisphere Ground Stations
Argentina: 2
Australia: 7 (note: 3 entries for Cape Grim — 1 hasn’t updated data in the last 360days)
Brazil: 2
Chile: 1
Indonesia: 1
Kenya: 1
Namibia: 1
New Zealand: 2 (both in the same location)
Pacific Ocean 05S: 1
Pacific Ocean 10S: 1
Pacific Ocean 15S: 1
Pacific Ocean 20S: 1
Pacific Ocean 25S: 1
Pacific Ocean 30S: 1
Pacific Ocean 35S: 1
Peru: 1 (hasn’t updated data in the last 360days)
Seychelles: 1
South Africa: 1
From the Beeb if you haven’t got it already
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11799073
“2009 carbon emissions fall smaller than expected”
The recession wasn’t bad enough
Correction to my previous post:
Here’s a more accurate Ground Station count — 326 relates to Total Monitoring of any type(s) of Greenhouse Gas.
Total Monitoring any type of Greenhouse Gas = 326
Category:
283 Stationary: 208 reporting data within the last 365 days
34 Mobile (Ship): 24 reporting data within the last 365 days
7 Mobile (Aircraft): 5 reporting data within the last 365 days
2 Ice Core: 0 reporting data within the last 365 days
Total Monitoring CO2 = 195
Category:
174 Stationary: 125 reporting data within the last 365 days
17 Mobile (Ship): 9 reporting data within the last 365 days
4 Mobile (Aircraft): 1 reporting data within the last 365 days
0 Ice Core
“[U]ntil about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles). Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.” WIKI
Nobody seems concerned with Ice Ages anymore; why, I don’t know as we haven’t determined what causes them unequivocally.
As far as carbonic acid accumulation is concerned I believe we are being seriously misled by an obviously contaminated Mauna Loa gauge; the curve looks exactly like the dust encrusted layer that covers my 39 year-old clock/cum bowling trophy.
Dumb place to put a CO2 gauge in the first place, right next to an active volcano, no less.
The actual level is what the trees and grasses can’t hold and are just about that important; who wants to climb artificial trees and mow the dust anyway?
I liked that simplicity brought in to the whole discussion by the statement of Henry’s Law; science isn’t necessarially better the more arcane it becomes.
Speaking of arcana…
Did you know that in 1970 there were only three residents of Cancun and their job was to tend the Coconut Palms; now the drug cartels number in the hundreds and the tourists blithely saunter past them on the playa.
Loved the o rly nonsense; and ain’t that owl just about the ugliest thing you ever saw?Whew!
Philanthropy is back in vogue, Buffet, Gates, Turner…; when their bucks give out I’ll put a couple bills on my boss’s Visa card. Redistribution, my ass! Just more feckless, reckless printing and spending of fiat money; saw where Ireland had to be loaned a few billions Euros to get it through the Holidays, like to know where mine is, how about your share?
Cheers everyone, hit the back of the coat closet and turn the old T-stat down.
Let’s just set this straight. Just because a gas represents a small contituent of a total doesn’t mean it’s effect is proportionally small – I know many toxic gases that kill at 4 ppb (parts per billion). However, this doesn’t prove that a NON-TOXIC gas should be an EPA regulated hazard. The entire article is contrary, admitting a decline in CO2 for 2009 while predicting a huge increase in 2010. So far as I can tell, few of the predictions of the AGW clan have thus far come close to validation. The best I can see is that if CO2 produce by mankind is a factor in global warming, it is a logrithimic function and not as catastrophic as originally claimed.
GCP Vision
“The central vision of the GCP is to develop comprehensive, policy-relevant understanding of the global carbon cycle, encompassing its natural and human dimension and their interactions.”
“Achieving this vision will require coordination by the international scientific community across all relevant disciplines and regions, and application of a large number of available resources and techniques. At present, no single international research programme provides this framework. The GCP was created to fill this gap and provide overall coordination to address highly interdisciplinary and complex problems of the carbon–climate–human system.”
NO THANKS, you’ve already shown you can’t manage the Science. Move along, there’s no funding here to see.
Steveta,
Might I be so bold as to inquire what sort of heart condition you were being treated for?
I have congestive failure with about 50% recovery rate but I take carvedilol and amlodipine beta-blocker and calcium blocker for hypertension(Completely controlled at 105/65 on average; I have recurring Jumpin’ Jiminy heart rythym from time to time and swelling of the ankles; maybe I’ll talk to my Cardiologist.
John from CA says:
November 22, 2010 at 10:58 am
Ferdinand,
We’re paying for CO2 Ground Station monitoring we don’t bother to use?
Ground stations over land are used for monitoring the natural + anthro CO2 fluxes, mainly to have a better understanding of the carbon cycle. Some are measuring locally under and above the canopea to follow the photosynthesis of vegetation. Some tall towers measure at different heights, which shows the fluxes over a large area. See e.g. a few weeks of measurements at the Cabauw tall tower in mid Netherlands:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/cabauw_day_week.jpg
The aim in all cases is to know where and what the main sources and sinks are over land over the seasons.
This can not be used for emissions, as these are small compared to the natural flows and the daily variability of these are huge too. The inventories of carbon sales are much easier to obtain, as these are/were part of the financial departments of governments (taxes!). Maybe somewhat underestimated, because of under the counter sales…
What nature absorbs is the difference between the emissions (estimated from sales) with a reasonable accuracy, currently some 8 GtC/year (4 ppmv/year) with some -0.5 +1 GtC error margin, and background CO2 increase measured at 10 baseline stations, currently some 4 GtC/year (2 ppmv/year) +/-0.2 GtC error margin.
Thus anyway, the emissions are about twice the increase in the atmosphere, which is fairly sure, even including the error margins.
How much is absorbed where in nature is far more difficult to exactly know. There are some rough estimates about the partitioning between oceans and vegetation, but with quite large error margins. That is where the regional CO2 measurements are of help, besides ships surveys and buoys over the oceans. See the carbon tracker for some places and trends:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
John from Ca.
I read a while back (can’t remember where) that all CO2 stations have there readings reconciled with the master gauge at Mauna Loa, any truth to that?
Ken Roberts says:
November 22, 2010 at 12:33 pm
As far as carbonic acid accumulation is concerned I believe we are being seriously misled by an obviously contaminated Mauna Loa gauge; the curve looks exactly like the dust encrusted layer that covers my 39 year-old clock/cum bowling trophy.
Dumb place to put a CO2 gauge in the first place, right next to an active volcano, no less.
Mauna Loa is not the only place where CO2 is monitored, the South Pole even was first. Currently there are 10 NOAA “baseline” stations measuring CO2 from near the North Pole (Alert, NW Territories, Canada) to the South Pole. Some 70 others from different organisations in different countries measure “background” CO2, as far as possible from local contamination.
Local contamination at Mauna Loa is small (+4 ppmv with downslope wind from the volcano, -4 ppmv from photosynthesis by valley vegetation with upslope wind in the afternoon), recognised in the data flow, marked (“flagged”) as contaminated and not used for daily, monthly and yearly averages. The yearly averages of the 10 baseline stations don’t differ more than 5 ppmv from each other, most of the difference is from a NH-SH lag (most emissions are in the NH):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_trends.jpg
Re: CO2 is a trace gas so small increases are … not interesting.
According to the above, many plants have difficulties at 200ppm. Studies have shown the Earth greening up due to CO2 (and links to show such have appeared several times on WUWT.) So with ~200ppm addition (200 to 400ppm) of a “trace gas” we go (if you’re a plant) from “I’m starving here…” to “Ok, we’re doing good.” Agriculture seems to work at 280ish.
Greenhouses go to 1,000 ppm (according to above comment,) which is 5x the “I’m getting really hungry here” level, but which is still only 0.1% of the air composition.
Therefore increases in trace gases, even small ones, can be pretty important. Whether it has anything to do with warming (after all the complicated feedbacks) is another argument entirely.
Dave Springer says:
November 22, 2010 at 4:58 am
“Let me know what part or parts of that you don’t understand.”
How about instead I let you know some of the parts I think YOU don’t understand.
“Here’s the deal. When CO2 absorbs longwave in its narrow absorption band it gets a bit warmer (excited). In its excitement it bumps into neighboring atoms and molecules which are most likely to be nitrogen (70% of the atmosphere), oxygen (21%) and so forth. When it bumps into one of those it transfers some of its excitement to them (the bumped warms up, the bumper cools down). Those other molecules then radiate the extra energy in a broad (called continuous) spectrum.”
No. N2 and O2 are basically transparent to IR. From fundamental thermodynamics, this also means that they basically do not emit IR. When the CO2 bumps into N2 or O2, it can transfer some energy, but the N2 & O2 will not emit any appreciable IR. Only molecules with 3+ atoms will work due to the quantized nature of the energies. So CO2 will radiate pretty well. So will H2O, O3 and CH4 – all the greenhouse gases.
Read the wiki page on emissivity. Read a good thermodynamics text. Read a Quantum Mechanics text on the quantization of rotational and vibrational energy of polyatomic molecules.
“Energy coming in equals energy going out. Since extra CO2 doesn’t change the energy coming in it will not change the energy going out. What it does is it raises the temperature somewhere in the column of air.”
In these two sentences you are contradicting yourself. Anytime you are raising the temperature of a “system” (like that column of air), then by definition you have more energy in than out.
You should also be careful about defining your “system” – exactly what subset of the universe are you talking about. Defining your system is critical before going into an analysis of energy. You might want to write that down.
And extra CO2 DOES change the energy going in – where I am choosing as my system the whole atmosphere. If CO2 concentrations suddenly doubled, then it would absorb more IR (both upwelling from the surface and downwelling from the sun. Ah Ha! More energy in than energy out! Of course, eventually other factors would change – like the warmer atmosphere emitting more outward IR (some into space and some to the ground causing more warming of that system). A new equilibrium would be reached where the temperature was constant (at a higher temperature, averaged over a long period like a year) and energy in = energy out once again.
“This is how insulators work. CO2 is an insulator. Write that down too. Insulators do not trap energy or add energy. Insulators slow down the transport of energy which causes temparature to rise on the hot side of the insulator.”
Several things are wrong/misleading here!
Insulators do not “cause temperatures to rise on the hot side”. This is different from your more correct claim that they “slow down the transport of energy”. Insulators simply slow down the cooling of the hot side. The temperature can only rise if there is some OTHER input of energy that is greater than the loss thru the insulator.
Furthermore, CO2 is NOT simply an insulator. Traditional insulation works primarily by limiting conduction and convection, not radiation. The only form of energy transport important to/from the earth as a whole is radiation, so the insulator analogy falls a bit flat. What CO2 does is ABSORB IR energy (which I suppose could be considered an extreme case of “slow down the transport”).
Finally – which is the “hot side”? The sun is hotter than the earth (so the “insulation” makes the hot sun hotter by your definition above??); the earth is hotter than space (the “insulation” does serve to keep the earth hotter, so you got that right, even if the reasoning is a bit wrong.)
“For instance if downwelling longwave from CO2 rises then it must necessarily increase the evaporation rate of water at the surface.”
I’ve been thru the evaporation arguments before. The evaporation rate will indeed increase (because the surface temperature rises). The rate will only stay elevated as long as the surface stays warmer than it had been. The temperature can’t hold even (and certainly can’t cool the water lower than it was before). No matter how much latent heat “doesn’t register on a thermometer”, the actual rise in temperature required to cause an increased evaporation rate WILL register on a thermometer. The temperature will rise LESS due to this extra evaporation than it would without the extra evaporation, but claiming “it won’t raise surface temperature at all” is simply wrong.
“Moreover, when that cloud forms far removed the surface it is extremely reflective of short wave radation (from the sun) which then cools the surface underneath by shading it and sending the sun’s energy straight back out into the frigid void of space before it ever reaches the surface.”
Here I agree! The clouds are a big factor and one that cannot be settled with simple thermodynamics. They completely change the equations and would have a cooling affect. I will leave the details of clouds and all the associated feedback for someone else to worry about.
Ken and Ferdinand,
The topic of CO2 measurement has been an eye-opener for me in relation to where I think climate science is truly failing.
Antarctic Ice Core measurements set side-by-side with Greenland measurements in the same time frame are, IMO, flawed. Atmospheric mixing requires time and as NASA pointed out to Anthony related to the AIRS calibration:
“Models, which ingest surface fluxes from known sources, have long predicted a smooth (small) variation with latitude, with steadily diminishing CO2 as you move farther South. We have a “two-planet” planet – land in the Northern Hemisphere and ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Synoptic weather in the NH can be seen to control the distribution of CO2 in the free troposphere. The SH large-scale action is mostly zonal.” — http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/31/a-encouraging-response-on-satellite-co2-measurement-from-the-airs-team/
The idea of “Global” in the same timeframe without due-diligence to regional impacts may pass the “Climate”test but seriously falls flat when considered in terms of daily, weekly, and monthly measurements from Ground Stations all over the world.
IMO, the smoothing that is presented in the Mauna Loa trends is a man-made byproduct of the results one would expect to see from an Island downwind of SA and in the midst of ENSO patterns.
Ken Roberts says:
November 22, 2010 at 1:09 pm
John from Ca.
I read a while back (can’t remember where) that all CO2 stations have there readings reconciled with the master gauge at Mauna Loa, any truth to that?
========
Based solely on my readings so far, there are several routine adjustments to Ground Station Mauna Loa measurements but I haven’t seen anything to indicate the “adjustments” of the longest running CO2 record is modeled to back-test or project Global patterns so it’s highly unlikely the records “calibrate” must of anything.
The problem appears to be, someone decided it was a “good idea” to adjust Mauna Loa records to align with a “global” view and thus corrupted the data trends and Science.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 22, 2010 at 1:06 pm
How much is absorbed where in nature is far more difficult to exactly know. There are some rough estimates about the partitioning between oceans and vegetation, but with quite large error margins. That is where the regional CO2 measurements are of help, besides ships surveys and buoys over the oceans. See the carbon tracker for some places and trends:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
=========
Sorry to pick out a single paragraph but this one hits the nail on the head for me.
As I previously posted, NOAA “picks and chooses” stations yet represents a fraction of the “whole”. Do you see a difference between this NOAA practice and the “Cherry Picking” we all point to as “The Problem” in Climate Science?
John from CA says:
November 22, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Ken and Ferdinand,
The topic of CO2 measurement has been an eye-opener for me in relation to where I think climate science is truly failing.
Antarctic Ice Core measurements set side-by-side with Greenland measurements in the same time frame are, IMO, flawed. Atmospheric mixing requires time and as NASA pointed out to Anthony related to the AIRS calibration:
Indeed, CO2 needs some time to mix through the atmosphere over the globe: days to weeks for the same latitude/altitude band, weeks to months for different altitudes and latitudes in the same hemisphere and some 14 months between the hemispheres, as the ITCZ hinders the exchange of air masses between the hemispheres.
Besides that there are the seasonal influences dominated by vegetation: CO2 maximum in fall-winter-early spring, a fast decrease when leaves are formed in spring and further in summer and early fall. More in the NH summer than in the Austral summer (more ocean, less vegetation).
But that is not very relevant for climate, as that is by definition the average weather over a period of some 30 years. As the resolution of the emission inventories is once a year, then the yearly averages of the CO2 levels are fine enough to calculate the difference in increase, thus what nature absorbed that year.
Even so the difference in yearly average trends between the different stations is minimal (less than 5 ppmv between the NH and SH stations). That makes hardly a difference in radiation absorption, and -as far as of influence – in climate. Even the seasonal differences in the NH atmosphere, like some. +/- 8 ppmv at Barrow, are of little importance, as presence and absence of sunlight makes differences of some 50°C between winter and summer there.
The “smoothing” seen at Mauna Loa can be found in 95% of the atmosphere: everywhere from sealevel to 12 km height over the oceans and above a few hundreds of meters over land…
Yes, CO2 keeps marching ever upward.
Yet, temperature cycles happen about every 60 years (ocean oscillations), 200 years (deVries cycles), and 1470-years (The Least Common Denominator between Gleissberg and deVries cycles) without caring what the CO2 concentration is.
All the above cycles are reinforcing and heading for the Grand Solar Minimum in 2030, and no amount of CO2 increase will spare us from the bone-chilling cold we will be forced to endure for the next few decades.
John from CA says:
November 22, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Sorry to pick out a single paragraph but this one hits the nail on the head for me.
As I previously posted, NOAA “picks and chooses” stations yet represents a fraction of the “whole”. Do you see a difference between this NOAA practice and the “Cherry Picking” we all point to as “The Problem” in Climate Science?
Contrary to temperature stations, it hardly make a difference if you take one station like Mauna Loa or Barrow or the South Pole for CO2 trends, or the average of the 10 NOAA baseline stations or the average of all 70 background stations managed by different organisations. See the trends of the different stations at the Carbon Tracker. Mostly the Mauna Loa trend is used for convinience, as that is the longest continuous record. NOAA was not the initiator, it was C.D. Keeling at Scripps who started the measurements at the South Pole and later at Mauna Loa. Only several decades later NOAA took over as the leading organisation, but Scripps still takes their own (flask) samples. Difference with NOAA: less than 0.2 ppmv.
Steve E says,
“… CO2. Surface measurements find more downward infrared radiation warming the planet’s surface. This provides a direct, empirical causal link between CO2 and global warming.”
Then the world, the northern hemisphere especially, should have a straight rise in temperature as more CO2 is emitted there everyday. What explains for the rapid cooling this year and the previous years?
“””” Phil. says:
November 22, 2010 at 9:58 am
Dave Springer says:
November 22, 2010 at 4:58 am
Here’s the deal. When CO2 absorbs longwave in its narrow absorption band it gets a bit warmer (excited). In its excitement it bumps into neighboring atoms and molecules which are most likely to be nitrogen (70% of the atmosphere), oxygen (21%) and so forth. When it bumps into one of those it transfers some of its excitement to them (the bumped warms up, the bumper cools down). Those other molecules then radiate the extra energy in a broad (called continuous) spectrum.
No they don’t and you have been told this many times so it appears that you are the one who is lying not SteveE.
Wade says:
November 22, 2010 at 6:33 am
………………….
Good so perhaps we can see the end of the nonsense about a 400ppm gas being able to have a noticeable effect that is spouted by Mr Oplas and others. “””””
Well my Handbook of Silicon Semiconductor Data gives the atomic density of silicon as 5.00 x 10^ 22 atoms per cc, and 4.42 x 10^22 for Germanium.
The range of impurity dopings in silicon semiconductor devices can be anywhere from about 10^10 up to 10^20 impurity atoms per cc; but numbers in the 10^16 to 10^18 range are most common in actual devices. Numbers in the 1o^19 range and above are only used for contacts in “Ohmic Contact” areas needed to connect to metal layers.
So even at 10^19 in a contact, the dopant concentration is only one part in 5,000, and in active junction layers, it might be only one part in 5 million.
So this computer based forum wouldn’t even exist, if impurity levels of 400 ppm couldn’t have any physical effect.
As Tom Vonk pointed out in a couple of guest posts; in a region of Local Thermal Equilibrium, the various species of gases in the atmosphere; and in MY atmosphere I like to have 78% of Nitrogen instead of 70%; it makes for less room for pollutants; interchange kinetic energy back and forth among themselves and among species; so there is no net transfer of energy from one species to another.
That is for the stated condition of LTE.
When long wave IR photons come wafting around in the 13.5 to 16.5 micron wavelength range (and some others that are barely present); they upset the LTE condition when they are captured by a molecules of CO2; and that raises the Temperature of the CO2 molecule (which is the time mean kinetic energy of any single molecule). Since the CO2 is only a trace gas; the higher Temperature molecule is most likely to collide with an N2 molecule (78%) or an O2 molecule (21%) or an Ar molecule (1%); but it also could collide with an H2O molecules which far outnumbers the CO2, and may be more prevalent than the Ar.
Such repeated collisions are going to result in the additional KE being spread around, until the LTE condition is re-established; so theat LWIR radiant energy is going to heat the atmosphere; at least in the sense of raising its Temperature.
In the process; the atmosphere retains NO information as to who it was who brought additional energy to the atmosphere. The air can’t tell, whether it was heated by solar spectrum energy in the 750 nm to 4.0 micron region mostly or 500-700nm captured by ozone in the stratosphere or upper troposphere; or whether it was LWIR from the surface; or even from other parts of the atmosphere itself.
And if you study the derivation of the Raleigh-Jeans’, and Planck’s Black Body radiation laws; you will find that those derivations make no assumptions as to the nature of the particles that make up the atmosphere; they are simply particles with a certain number of degrees of freedom among which to distribute energy.
The main difference between Raleigh-Jeans’ derivation , and that of Planck, is that the earlier workers assumed that the energy assigned to each degree of freedom could have any continuous value; while Planck simply required that the energy be some integral multiple of a fixed energy.
Nowhere in either derivation does any sort of energy level structure come into play; since that would be a property of atoms or molecules.
So where you get the idea that a gas can’t radiate a continuous thermal spectrum of LWIR is beyond me.
Perhaps you can cite references to some graphs of measured atmospheric emission line spectra; showing those spectra to be simply line spectra with no continuous spectrum component.
The spectra of the radiation from the atmosphere seen from satellites, shows a continuous BB like spoectrum with some holes in it; noticeably the CO2 15 micron hole and the narrower 9.6 micron Ozone hole. The ozone hole is narrower, because the ozone layer is at high altitude; where the Temperature, and Density are much lower than at the surface; so Doppler and Pressure broadening of the spectra is much less than for CO2.
According to Trenberth only 40 W/m^2 is emitted from the surface to outer space, in the so called atmospehric window in the 8-10 micron range. So the extra-terrestrial LWIR spectrum would hardly be a BB like spectrum, if it is emitted from the atmosphere rather than the surface; and is not a continuous thermal BB like continuum.
If it BB like (thermal continuum) it is either emitted from the surface; and hence must be much more than 40 W/m^2; or it must be emitted from the atmosphere from all levels thereof too.
tonyb says:
November 22, 2010 at 5:08 am
=========================================================
Very informative and interesting post tonyb, I appreciate it. Never realized before what shills for big oil Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson were 🙂
Your post, along with oakwood’s post of Trofim’s translation of Russian history presented in the Guardian back in August makes a very nice historical account of naturally occurring cyclical weather patterns, i.e. climate.
oakwood’s comments here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/14/pielke-sr-on-heat-wave-in-russia/ at August 14, 2010 at 1:32 am
========================================================
It’s accounts such as the above that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that current temps and conditions are cyclical. And to those who would still say, “yes, but we’re making them worse than they would have been” well there is of course no way to prove that but I’ve gotta say things were pretty bad before too, and in my book (pretty bad + 1) = (pretty bad) to any significant degree (pun intended? you decide).
Ken Roberts says:
November 22, 2010 at 1:09 pm
John from Ca.
I read a while back (can’t remember where) that all CO2 stations have there readings reconciled with the master gauge at Mauna Loa, any truth to that?
You have probably read that at the pages of Dr. Glassman. He had the impression that the data of other stations than Mauna Loa were calibrated to match the Mauna Loa data. That impression was based on a few sentences in the files of flask CO2 data, where a polynomial curve is plotted through the (bi-weekly) data to give a smoothed sight. The curve includes an “offset”, which is the difference with the previous year. Dr. Glassman interpreted that as an adjustment to match the Mauna Loa data. That isn’t right, as there is no curve fitting for continuous measurements at the same spot (except if one – and only one – month is missing, due to too low number of valid daily averages) and the continuous sampling and flask sampling data are within 0.2 ppmv in average.
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John from CA says:
November 22, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Based solely on my readings so far, there are several routine adjustments to Ground Station Mauna Loa measurements but I haven’t seen anything to indicate the “adjustments” of the longest running CO2 record is modeled to back-test or project Global patterns so it’s highly unlikely the records “calibrate” must of anything.
The problem appears to be, someone decided it was a “good idea” to adjust Mauna Loa records to align with a “global” view and thus corrupted the data trends and Science.
As far as I know, no data are adjusted to obtain a “global” view, data only are adjusted if something went wrong with the calbration gases after months of use. Calibration gases are calibrated at one central place and equipment all over the world is intercalibrated with the same calibration gases. See the procedures at Mauna Loa (and many other stations) at:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html