Guest post by Ira Glickstein
Albert Einstein was a great theoretical physicist, with all the requisite mathematical tools. However, he rejected purely mathematical abstraction and resorted to physical analogy for his most basic insights. For example, he imagined a man in a closed elevator being transported to space far from any external mass and then subjected to accelerating speeds. That man could not tell the difference between gravity on Earth and acceleration in space, thus, concluded Einstein, gravity and acceleration are equivalent, which is the cornerstone of his theory of relativity. Einstein never fully bought into the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics that he and others have called quantum weirdness and spooky action at a distance.
So, if some Watts Up With That? readers have trouble accepting the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect because of the lack of a good physical analogy, you are in fine company.
For example, in the discussion following Willis Eschenbach’s excellent People Living in Glass Planets, a commenter “PJP”, challenged the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect:
“The incoming energy (from the sun) you express in w/m^2, lets simplify it even more and say that energy is delivered in truckloads. Lets say we get 2 truckloads per hour. … when we come to your semi-transparent shell [representing greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere], you are still getting two truckloads per hour, but you say that these two truckloads are delivered to both the earth and to the shell — that makes 4 truckloads/hr. Where did the extra two truckloads come from?”
In that thread, I posted a comment with an analogy of truckloads of orange juice, representing short-wave radiation from Sun to Earth, and truckloads of blueberry juice, representing longwave radiation between Earth and the Atmosphere and back out to Space. A later commenter, “davidmhoffer” said “Ira, That was a brilliant explanation. …”
This Post is a further elaboration of my physical analogy, using a pitching machine and yellow and purple balls in place of the truckfulls of juice.
Graphic 1 shows the initial conditions. The Sun is a ball pitching machine that, when we turn it on, will throw a steady stream of yellow balls towards the tray of a weight scale, which represents the Earth. The reading on the scale is analogized to “temperature” and, with the Sun turned off, reads “0” arbitrary units.
TURN ON THE “SUN”
Graphic 2 shows what happens when the Sun is turned on and there are no GHG in the Atmosphere. The stream of yellow balls impact the tray atop the weight scale and compress the springs within the well-damped scale until equilibrium is reached. The scale reads “1”. This is analogous to the temperature the Earth would reach in the absence of GHG.
The balls bounce off the tray and, for illustrative purposes, turn purple in color. This is my way of showing that Sun radiative energy is mostly in the “shortwave” visible and near-visible region (about 0.3μ to 1μ) and that radiative energy from the warmed Earth is mostly in the “longwave” infrared region (about 6μ to 20μ). The Greek letter “μ” (mu) stands for a unit of length called the “micron” which is a millionth of a meter.
Since, at this stage of my physical analogy, there are no GHG in the Atmosphere, the purple balls go off into Space where they are not heard from again. You can assume the balls simply “bounce” off like reflected light in a mirror, but, in the actual case, the energy in the visible and near-visible light from the Sun is absorbed and warms the Earth and then the Earth emits infrared radiation out towards Space. Although “bounce” is different from “absorb and re-emit” the net effect is the same in terms of energy transfer.
If we assume the balls and traytop are perfectly elastic, and if the well-damped scale does not move once the springs are compressed and equilibrium is reached, there is no work done to the weight scale. Therefore, Energy IN = Energy OUT. The purple balls going out to Space have the same amount of energy as the yellow balls that impacted the Earth.
ADD GHG TO THE “ATMOSPHERE”
Graphic 3 shows what happens when we introduce GHG into the Atmosphere. The yellow balls, representing shortwave radiation from the Sun to which GHG are transparent, whiz right through and impact the weight scale and push it down as before.
However, the purple balls, representing longwave radiation from the Earth, are intercepted by the Atmosphere. In my simplified physical analogy, the Atmosphere splits each purple ball in two, re-emiting one half-ball back towards the Earth and the other half-ball out to Space. Again, you can assume that half of the balls “bounce” off the Atmosphere back to Earth like reflected light from a half-silvered mirror and the other half pass through out towards Space. In the actual case, it is “absorb and re-emit half in each direction” but the net effect is the same in terms of energy transfer.
OK, here is the part where you should pay close attention. The purple half-balls that are re-emitted by the Atmosphere towards Earth impact the tray of the weight scale and press against the springs with about half the force of the original yellow balls. So, at this stage, when equilibrium is reached, the well-damped scale reads “1.5” arbitrary units.
But, we are not done yet. The purple half-balls are absorbed by the Earth, and re-emitted towards Space. Then they are re-absorbed by the Atmosphere and once again split into quarter-balls, half of which head back down to Earth and re-impact the weight scale. Now it reads “1.75”. As you can see, the purple balls continue to get split into ever smaller balls as they bounce back and forth and half head out to Space. The net effect on the weight scale is the sum of 1 (from the yellow balls) + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 and so on (from the purple balls). That expression has a limit of “2”, which is approximately what the scale will read when equilibrium is reached.
Again, the well-damped scale does not move once the springs are compressed and equilibrium is reached, so there is no work done to the weight scale. Therefore, Energy IN = Energy OUT. The purple balls going out to Space have the same amount of energy as the yellow balls that impacted the Earth. But the “temperature” of the Earth, as analogized by the reading on the weight scale, has increased.
DOUBLE THE GHG IN THE “ATMOSPHERE”
Graphic 4 is the final step in my physical analogy. Let us double the GHG in the Atmosphere. (NOTE: I am assuming that the doubling includes ALL the GHG, most especially water vapor, and not simply CO2!) This is represented by putting a second layer of Atmosphere into the physical analogy.
The purple balls emitted towards Space by the first layer of the Atmosphere are intercepted by the second layer, where they are absorbed, and smaller balls are re-emited in each direction. The downward heading balls from the upper atmosphere are intercepted by the lower Atmosphere and half is re-emitted down towards the weight scale that represents Earth. Once again, they compress the springs in the weight scale increasing the reading a bit, and are re-emitted back up. The purple balls get halved and bounce around up and down between Earth and the two layers of the Atmosphere, further increasing the reading on the scale once equilibrium is reached.
Again, the well-damped scale does not move once the springs are compressed and equilibrium is reached, so there is no work done to the weight scale. Therefore, Energy IN = Energy OUT. The purple balls going out to Space have the same amount of energy as the yellow balls that impacted the Earth. But the “temperature” of the Earth, as analogized by the reading on the weight scale, has increased due to the doubling of GHG in the Atmosphere.
WHAT I LEFT OUT OF THE PHYSICAL ANALOGY
Any simplified analogy is, by its very nature, much less than the very complex situation it is meant to analogize. Here is some of what is left out:
- My purple balls are re-emitted in only two directions, either up or down. In the real world, longwave radiation is emitted in all directions, including sideways.
- My purple balls are all totally absorbed by the Atmosphere and re-emitted. In the real-world, a substantial amount of longwave radiation is re-emitted from the Earth and the Atmosphere in the 9μ to 12μ band where the Atmosphere is nearly-transparent. A substantial portion of the radiation from Earth and the Atmosphere thus passes through the Atmosphere to Space without interception.
- My physical analogy addresses only radiative energy transfer. In the real-world, energy transfer from the Sun to Earth and Earth to Space is purely radiative. However, the Earth transfers a considerable amount of energy to the Atmosphere via convection and conduction, in the form of winds, precipitation, thunderstorms, etc. These effects are absent from my analogy.
- I represent the Atmosphere as a single shell, when, in fact, it has many layers with lots of interaction between layers.
- I represent doubling of GHG as adding another shell, when, in fact, doubling of GHG, if it occured (and if it included not just CO2 but also a doubling of water vapor and other GHG) would increase the density of those gases in the Atmosphere and not necessarily increase its height significantly.
- In my analogy, all the energy from the Sun strikes and is absorbed by the Earth. In the real-world, up to a third of it is reflected back to Space from light-colored surfaces (albedo) such as snow, ice, clouds, and the white roof of Energy Secretary Chu’s home :^). If a moderately warmer Earth, due to increased GHG, evaporates more water vapor into the atmosphere, and if that causes more clouds to form, that could increase the Earth’s albedo to counteract a substantial portion of the additional warming.
I am sure WUWT readers will find other issues with my physical analogy. However, the point of this posting is to convince those WUWT readers, who, like Einstein, need a physical analogy before they will accept any mathematical abstraction, that the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect is indeed real, even though estimates of climate sensitivity to doubling of CO2 are most likely way over-estimated by the official climate Team. When I was an Electrical Engineering undergrad, I earned a well-deserved “D” in Fields and Waves because I could not create a physical analogy in my overly-anal mind of Maxwell’s equations or picture the “curl” or any of the other esoteric stuff in that course. Therefore, those WUWT readers who need a physical analogy are in great company – Einstein and Glickstein :^).
I plan to make additional postings in this series, addressing some implications of the 9μ to 12μ portion of the longwave radiation band where the Atmosphere is nearly-transparent, as well as other atmospheric “greenhouse” issues. I look forward to your comments!
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Ira – long wave IR radiation from a body at an average of 15 °C as an all powerful and climate domineering radiation (and accompanying “back-radiation) is an AGW / CAGW or IPCC Think Tank invention and is the only possible explanation for how warming by GHGases can come about. – Over the years this GHG theory has changed so many times even Al Gore cannot keep up. – Every time a GHG theory flaw or fault appears, the theory changes. – The main flaw is still there thou, energy out cannot logically equal energy in. Energy in minus energy used i.e. “energy transformed” must equal energy out. That is a fact of nature Ira.
If your food intake just to stay alive is 1500 cal/day, then you will need more if you do any work. – The Earth’s various systems including the weather machine alone do a heck of a lot of more work than we ignorant little critters can even imagine. So cool down don’t do the IPCC’s work for them. It is up to them to convince the public the GH effect is real. – The Earth’s, temperature is mainly dependent on 3 things and radiation is not one of them:
1) Energy input from the Sun or the force-factor of the “Solar Constant”
2) Atmospheric pressure / Adiabatic Lapse Rate
3) The ability of water vapour to make cloud formations.
The fact that air movements are mainly near horizontal rather than vertical slows down the adiabatic lapse rate considerably thus keeping the air molecules closer together for longer – It is also likely that temperatures would be cooler without Water Vapour. But as descending “dry air” must warm at a higher rate than ascending “wet air” cools, who knows what the average will work out at? – However having said that there must be water vapour in order to have clouds and they shade the surface as well as reflect the sunlight back to space, so without them, but with water vapour still in place would this maybe be a much warmer Earth?
Remember we are talking about an acquired “Global” temperature that is higher than what can be produced by the actual energy input by the Sun alone. A puny bit of CO2 and a weak bit of IR radiation is not necessarily needed for that at all.
And as for “Willis Eschenbach’s excellent People Living in Glass Planets” – It was strange how the workings out of “The Natural Greenhouse Effect” added up exactly to what the temperatures are today. Yet we know there have been periods when the Earth has been much warmer and also much colder than today! And the mathematics used is unchangeable. So something is wrong with something Ira.
I’ve always believed, and have heard repeated here several times, that heat only travels from relative warm to relative cold. But this entire discussion has brought to mind the fact that heat, when you come down to it, is also random. Now while absolute zero has absolutely no heat, anything above that must be radiating some kind of heat.
Why should it only go in one direction?
I can see how the effect would tend to be directional. The amount of heat that the “warmer” area receives from the “colder” area would be far less than the amount of heat the “colder” area receives from the “warmer.” But the claim that it can only go in one direction puzzles me. Now. It didn’t before.
Free and open discussions are dangerous. They hurt my thinker thing.
RichardSmith;
Blograge! I knew you’d like that question…>>>
I did. I answered it.
As well as some of your other comments.
And the best you’ve done in response is accuse me of being angry.
Oh wait…. there was also that encyclopaedia you wrote explaining how I’d misquoted you. Why bother since you already know it will just disapear from view?
If you are actually a skeptic (as I am) then put some effort into debating the issues instead of obfuscating them.
WOW, just WOW again;
“there are processes with thermodynamic properties and consequences, and also processes without thermodynamic consequences; such as EM radiation.”
Boy I sure wish I knew 4 decades ago that EM radiation did not have to follow the rules of thermodynamics. I could be a whole lot richer than Warren Buffet by now. (slapping head repeatedly….)
For anybody that has any doubts, all physical processes (as we currently understand them) have thermodynamic “consequences”. Last I checked EM radiation DOES NOT HAVE A WAIVER, it might have one now, but I DOUBT IT.
Cheers, Kevin.
So, Ira, back to you.
You say “The Sun energy coming in is in the visual and near-visual (shortwave) bands, where the Atmosphere is all but transparent. The absorption spectum for GHGs has a “window” for that light energy, so it whizzes right through, just the way a police car can buzz through a red light or stop sign in an emergency.
The Earth energy going out is in the far infrared (longwave) “heat” bands, where the Atmosphere is mostly not transparent. The absorption spectrum for GHGs is effective for that heat energy, so it has to stop, as you do for a red light or a stop sign.
The reason the Sun’s light energy is in the shortwave range is that it is something like what scientists call a “blackbody” at around 5500ºK, which is really hot. The reason the Earth’s radiation is in the longwave range is that the Earth is something like a “blackbody” at 210ºK to 310ºK, which is lot cooler than the Sun, fortunately for us living beings.
The reason GHGs act that way has to do with the atomic structure of their molecules. Water vapor (H2O) is by far the most effective GHG, covering much of the radiation spectrum, particularly about two-thirds of the spectrum where Earth outputs longwave radiation, but it has a convenient “window” for UV and visible light, and some infrared. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is mostly transparent to radiation, but it has a few absorption bands, the most important of which is around 12μ to 17μ, in the range where the Earth outputs longwave radiation. Other GHGs are oxygen (O2), ozone (O3), nitrous oxide (NO), and methane (CH4), but they have relatively narrow absorption bands in the range where the Earth outputs longwave radiation. The majority of the Atmosphere consists of Nitrogen (N) that is transparent to all radiation in the bands of interest. I hope this clears things up for you.”
So, in other words, no longwave energy is coming into the Earth’s atmosphere. That only comes up from the Earth? The Sun does not emit infrared waves? And here I’ve been laboring under the idea that the Sun emits radition in every wavelength. And waves of every temperature are constantly bombarding the Earth’s atmosphere. So, in your scenario it’s impossible for entering waves to “consume” the “free” CO2 and other “free” gases before they are consumed by radiated “greenhouse” heat. And the Earth gets hotter and hotter. Until we all burn. No way out.
Baloney.
I am sorry to say that you (the author) are severely lack of fundamental knowledge of radiative heat transfer (such as mie scattering or rayleigh scattering), so are those lousy GHG warmer or scientist
how does 6μ to 20μ wavelength of radiative heat energy being absorbed, scattered, diffused what ever mechanism you can invent, by 400 ppm volumetric density of CO2 with molecule size of 3.2 Angstrom, which means your purple ball size is ~ 1/3000 of your sun light yellow ball at atomspheric temperature of 15 C ?
If CO2 is blanket over the earth like Venus, then I am sure the conductivity and heat capacity of CO2 is more of issue. But you can not say this to our 400PPM or even 1000 PPM level of CO2 on earth
A PHD in heat transfer and thermal fluid science
Does this explanation describe the process in an actual greenhouse? How does the greenhouse heating differ from the heating in a closed car?
My argument is one of semantics and the selection of GHG heating of the atmosphere by the atmospheric trace gas (ATG) CO2 as a propaganda ploy, by the IPCC, to take advantage of the general public’s naiveté about things scientific.
The explanation stresses the dynamic nature of radiation absorption and re-radiation.
The atmosphere is essentially opaque to the Sun’s radiation in the absorption bands of CO2, with an atmospheric CO2 concentration of approximately 200 ppmv.
The claim is that the radiation absorbed by the Earth of all wave-lengths and re-radiated as though from a black-body at a temperature of 33 degrees Centigrade is slowed by being absorbed and re-radiated in the manner previously mentioned and the higher the CO2 concentration, the slower the trip to space. Convection undoubtedly gives the trip a boost.
WHAT I LEFT OUT OF THE PHYSICAL ANALOGY
My physical analogy addresses only radiative energy transfer. In the real-world, energy transfer from the Sun to Earth and Earth to Space is purely radiative. However, the Earth transfers a considerable amount of energy to the Atmosphere via convection and conduction, in the form of winds, precipitation, thunderstorms, etc. These effects are absent from my analogy.
When you have convection and conduction, you don’t have a greenhouse effect unless you re-define greenhouse.
I suppose the black body temperature of 33 degrees Centigrade is an average, because the black body temperatures at the poles, the equator and points in between differ.
The black body temperature of 33 degrees Centigrade is fortuitous, being in the center of the CO2 absorption band, and all.
All the gases in the atmosphere are capable of absorbing energy, if not by radiation, then by collision.
Lots of broken lances lying around the chaotic wind-mill called Nature.
——————————————————————————————————————
DocMartyn says:
February 20, 2011 at 5:13 pm
human beings are very smart, they can take any piece of scientific knowledge and turn it into technology, so not has no one used the CO2 green house effect for anything? Why don’t we replace the vacuum in Dewer flasks with CO2? Why don’t we fill greenhouses with CO2? Why are not the wall spaces and pairs of glass panes in houses filled with CO2?
Why does no one used this CO2 ‘trick’ as a force for good?
———————————
Commercial growers sometimes increase CO2 concentrations in greenhouses to 1000 ppmv to obtain rapid and luxuriant growth.
I have not seen any data on the effect of this change in CO2 concentration on temperature in the greenhouse.
Oh, just one more observation;
Someone posted that;
“This constant insistence on applying thermodynamic principles or concepts, to systems that are NOT thermodynamic in nature; is part of what keeps “skeptics” branded as “ignorant fools”.”
Please note that; ALL SYSTEMS ARE THERMODYNAMIC IN NATURE. Please read that statement two or three or four times if necessary, once you can provide any proof that the laws of thermodynamics DO NOT APPLY to EM radiation please post this information. Thank You.
Those of you that insist that the laws of Thermodynamics do not apply to EM radiation are increasingly looking like the “ignorant fools”.
Please note that I have several Masters Degrees including intensive study of Maxwell’s laws and the Optical aspects of radiation moving through systems. Along with many decades of practical engineering experience measuring and analyzing EM (Visible thru RF) radiation. Never Ever have I heard that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to EM radiation. Please cite any reference (outside of the climate science world please) that makes and proves this contention.
I apologize in advance for the “nasty” nature of this post, but I do not consider myself (an avowed AGW denier) an “ignorant fool”. We might respectfully disagree about the actual effects of IR radiation returning to the Earth’s surface from “GHG’s” but I will not be dismissed by being told the that Laws of Thermodynamics “DO NOT APPLY”
Cheers, Kevin.
George E. Smith says:
February 21, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“”””” Phil. says:
February 21, 2011 at 1:07 pm
HenryP says:
February 21, 2011 at 11:21 am
Also, oxygen is a weak greenhouse gas as it also has a very weak absorption in the 14-15 um range.
It doesn’t, see here:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/CO2N2O2.png “””””
Thanks for the very nice composite spectrum Phil. Can you describe what the assumptions are for these spectracalc computations. Are they computing some kind of intrinsic line width, for each different mode; or what are the presumed physical conditions of the sample. Does spectracalc allow one to determine broadened spectra from ambient Temperature (Doppler) and Collision (density) broadening ?
No problem George, basically it’s the HITRAN database, in this format each line is represented as a thin line, if you want to do a high resolution calculation over a smaller wavelength range then you can take account of the broadening. I left out the H2O spectrum, which dominates in the 4-8μm region, for clarity.
I would want to see the OLR in the CO2 absorption bands in April, and then August, over Siberia and Canada:
p.s. I thought a string vest would only keep you warm if you put something over it.
Alexander Feht says:
The whole “greenhouse” analogy doesn’t hold water.
———————
Alexander you must be a charter member of the Green-House Effect Club.
Phil. says:
February 21, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Only approximately half of the fossil fuel generated CO2 is sequestered each year, hence the annual increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Nobody knows, what proportion of the “fossil fuel generated CO2” is “sequestered” by plants, exactly (all existing “estimates” are willful fantasies). There is no logical connection between this proportion and the alleged annual increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, since the nature of this increase is unknown, and the data is manipulated.
The proportion sequestered remains fairly constant.
Again, this is a pure speculation.
[Moreover, any discussion of the published CO2 data is meaningless without mentioning that these figures are obtained downwind from the active volcano, in the vicinity of the volcano.]
They aren’t.
Yes, they are.
[Moreover, it has been mathematically and physically proved, several times, by many respected scientists, that CO2 ceases to act as the reflector of heat (infrared radiation) at concentrations above approximately 300 ppm.]
Aside from the fact that CO2 doesn’t reflect IR no ‘respected scientist’ has proved anything of the sort, and it isn’t remotely close to being true.
As Jim Macdonald already mentioned above, “due to the efficiency of CO2 in absorbing IR radiation, and using Beer’s law, Professor James Barrante and others have calculated that half the available IR is absorbed by as little as 80 ppm. After that less and less IR is available as it is depleted logarithmically by additional CO2, until most all is gone by the time CO2 reaches 250-300 ppm. Little more warming can occur.”
From your remarks above you don’t appear to know what the ‘greenhouse analogy’ is.
To you, maybe, since from your remarks it appears that you know it all. Other people are not so conceited.
Albert, very good points! The gravity meter at my head on Earth will read a little less than the one at my feet because my head is a bit further from the center of mass of the Earth. Therefore, the guy in the sealed elevator would be able to differentiate between being in a fixed position on the surface of the Earth versus being accellerated in Space far from any mass. You are correct.
What, however, does this have to say about the truth value of Einstein’s theory of relativity? I would say that Einstein used the elevator idea to spark his insight that gravity and accelleration were equivalent. Just as my physical analogy of the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect is a simplified version of the truth of how GHGs help warm the Earth, and (as I point out in the last section) leave out a bunch of important details (convection, etc.), Einstein’s elevator man analogy captures a nugget of truth, while missing a relatively minor, and easily explained, caveat.
As for your and others comments that the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect is very different from a physical greenhouse, I refer you to the very first image in this post which shows a physical greenhouse and has under it the following words: “…The greenhouse effect and a real greenhouse are similar in that they both limit the rate of thermal energy flowing out of the system, but the mechanisms by which heat is retained are different. A greenhouse works primarily by preventing absorbed heat from leaving the structure through convection, i.e. sensible heat transport. The greenhouse effect heats the earth because greenhouse gases absorb outgoing radiative energy and re-emit some of it back towards earth….”
In addition, in my graphics and much of my test, I use “scare quotes” around the word “greenhouse” and call it the “atmospheric ‘greenhouse effect'” to point out the difference. Whether you or I like it or not, we (society in general) are stuck with the use of the word “greenhouse” and “greenhouse gases (GHG)” when refering to the atmospheric effect. If WUWT used a different term, who would know what we were talking about?
Re: Alexander Feht (February 21, 2011 at 7:37 pm), atmospheric CO2 is measured at a number of surface locations, including Mauna Loa and the south pole. All agree within a few ppm. As measured by satellites, CO2 varies within about 10 ppm worldwide.
Gary Hladik,
You think I don’t know that?
The only continuous record of atmospheric CO2 concentration that spans at least several decades, however, is from Mauna Loa. The methods used to produce this record, and the environment in which it has been produced, are suspect.
It is this record that is being almost invariably given by the proponents of the AGW hypothesis as a “proof” of anthropogenic influence on climate. It proves nothing of the sort.
The only thing we know for certain is that the modern atmospheric CO2 concentration is much lower than it has been most of the time, on geological scale, and that its current slight increase is well within the extreme lower range of its normal fluctuation.
Natural mechanisms influencing this parameter are poorly understood; most probably, the current change of CO2 concentration has something to do with the Earth’s gradual coming out of the Ice Age.
Even if human activity contributes some small part of this increase, there is no evidence that this most useful, life-giving trace gas can produce a statistically significant “greenhouse” effect.
Rather, it has been convincingly shown that its increase in the atmosphere follows, not precedes, periods of warming on a large time-scale, and is completely disconnected from temperature changes (as it is right now) on smaller, decades-long time-scales.
Alexander Feht says:
February 21, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Phil. says:
February 21, 2011 at 5:42 pm
“Only approximately half of the fossil fuel generated CO2 is sequestered each year, hence the annual increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.”
Nobody knows, what proportion of the “fossil fuel generated CO2″ is “sequestered” by plants, exactly (all existing “estimates” are willful fantasies). There is no logical connection between this proportion and the alleged annual increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, since the nature of this increase is unknown, and the data is manipulated.
“The proportion sequestered remains fairly constant.”
Again, this is a pure speculation.
Not at all, perhaps you should try reading this?
http://radioviceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/knorr2009_co2_sequestration.pdf
[Moreover, any discussion of the published CO2 data is meaningless without mentioning that these figures are obtained downwind from the active volcano, in the vicinity of the volcano.]
“They aren’t.”
Yes, they are.
Presumably you refer to Mauna Loa, in which case you’re wrong since data taken when there is a wind from the direction of the volcano aren’t used in compiling the statistics. Of course the CO2 levels are also determined at other locations such as the South Pole which agree well with ML.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
[Moreover, it has been mathematically and physically proved, several times, by many respected scientists, that CO2 ceases to act as the reflector of heat (infrared radiation) at concentrations above approximately 300 ppm.]
“Aside from the fact that CO2 doesn’t reflect IR no ‘respected scientist’ has proved anything of the sort, and it isn’t remotely close to being true.”
As Jim Macdonald already mentioned above, “due to the efficiency of CO2 in absorbing IR radiation, and using Beer’s law, Professor James Barrante and others have calculated that half the available IR is absorbed by as little as 80 ppm. After that less and less IR is available as it is depleted logarithmically by additional CO2, until most all is gone by the time CO2 reaches 250-300 ppm. Little more warming can occur.”
Well he’s made a flawed calculation then, it is an approximately logarithmic dependence but it certainly is no where near ‘all gone’ by 250 ppm, and he would need more than Beer’s Law to calculate it. Perhaps you’d like to give a citation to his calculation?
See here:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/CO2spectra-1.gif
Frank Lee MeiDere says:
February 21, 2011 at 6:13 pm
“Why should it only go in one direction?
I can see how the effect would tend to be directional. The amount of heat that the “warmer” area receives from the “colder” area would be far less than the amount of heat the “colder” area receives from the “warmer.” But the claim that it can only go in one direction puzzles me. Now. It didn’t before.”
——————————–
Does it seem reasonable to you that you could, while driving in your car, go a little slower and a lot faster at the same time? Now imagine you and your car are the average of all the molecules in a whole bunch of molecules. Heat is about motion.
Henry@Phil. & others
If you carefully study the atmospheric absorption bands you will see that oxygen/ozone does show some absorption in the 14-15 um range.
In fact, all so-called GHG’s show radiative cooling being caused (due to deflection of sunlight at various wavelengths in the 0-5 um range) as well as some radiative warming (due to the entrapment of earth’s radiation at varying wavelengths between 4-15 um).
I believe we had this argument before.
The question has always been: what is the net effect of an increase/decrease of the relevant GHG’s at the relevant concentration range in the atmosphere? Unless we have some actual test results on this, all talk here and all theories and analogies about the greenhouse gas effect is pretty much a waste of time.
In addition, more CO2 is beneficial for earth as it stimulates growth by taking part in the photo synthesis. In its turn more greenery leads to more cooling. Did you ever see much forest growth at higher altitudes and latitudes where is is very cold? Observe in Africa, if you enter the forest at night or just before dawn. You can feel it is cooler inside the forest. So more greenery (caused by more CO2) causes cooling.
So Phil.,
if you want to help us all, and win the argument, why don’t tell us exactly, how much warming and how much cooling is caused by an increase in CO2 of only 0.01% (over the past 50 years)? I really would like to see those results. In the right SI units. Where are they?
So if you don’t have those results, all talk is useless.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Phil,
Links to designedly “friendly” sites prove nothing but the weakness of your position.
The Mauna Loa record and Keeling’s methods were criticized so much and for so long that it makes no sense for me to continue this argument.
You would excuse me if I find no pleasure in conversing with people who initially insult their opponent by assuming that he or she knows nothing, and then, realizing that they’ve blundered, scramble to justify their hasty and rude attitude by searching the Web for a couple of links that would agree with their unfounded statements.
Re. Kevin @ur momisugly February 21, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I buy your reasoning 100%, (especially after reading your “nasty” post).
However, your model has the earth at 0 K as an implied assumption. If the earth is above 0 K, it will emit a photon right after the first one, and a third after that and so on. When the first photon returns through reflection or from being emitted from a second body, the earth will be cooler than when no. 1 left. That makes it possible for no. 1 to heat the earth even though it was first released from the same earth. This is consistent with the second law, as I see it.
I would very much like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks. /Dan
I appreciate the effort, Oliver, but I can drive faster or slower in any direction. I’m still not understanding why heat transference can only be in one direction.
Just a note to all when discussing the ‘absorption’ bands.
re Transmissivity
People make a fundamental mistake when they show graphs with ‘transmissivity’ or ‘transmission’ bands.
NDIR gas analysis equipment does NOT measure ‘transmissivity’.
NDIR gas analysis equipment measures the absorption or absorptivity component, only. PERIOD
This is important to keep in mind.
Graphs showing ‘transmissivity’ are incorrectly labeled. They should be correctly labeled ‘transmissivity and reflectivity’ on the y-axis.
All real world molecules have absorption, transmission, AND REFLECTION of incoming photons. A photon striking a molecule can either go through it (transmissivity), bounce off it (reflectivity), or be completely absorbed by it (absorptivity).
3 possibilities. Not 2.
In addition, all 3 of those possibilities are angularly dependent. All three of those components VARY dependent on the angle with which the photon strikes the molecule.
That always applies to any real world material. Only a true ‘blackbody’ has 100% absorption at all wavelengths, and all angles. And they don’t exist in the real world, even at the molecular level.
NDIR gas analysers and other spectral devices are not designed to measure REFLECTION or TRANSMISSION, just absorption.
The reflections (reflectivity) properties contribute to the bouncing around of all molecules, even N2. For example, the reflectivity of N2 is not known for long wavelengths. It has not been studied and accurately quantified over a wide number of wavelengths. There is much that has not been correctly quantified for properties in the long wavelengths.
That aspect of thermal radiation effects has never been studied because the measurements are very difficult to make.
Take all graphs, etc generated from HITRAN and others with a LARGE grain of salt, especially for the long wavelengths.
All the visual example that show a CO2 layer around the earth are wrong.
These images show that in some altitude there is a layer of CO2 like the clouds. WRONG.
The CO2 exist from the ground up with more or less the same amount of CO2 to the altitude of about 100KM (homosphere according Britannica). Actually, there is even more CO2 above the 100KM homosphere.
This means that visible light has to go through a 100KM thick layer of CO2 to reach the ground.
Can you imagen a 100KM thick layer of CO2 atoms.
At least some of the yellow balls have to avoid every CO2 atom to reach the ground to create some heat down here.
At least some of the purple ball have to avoid every CO2 atom to get out of the earth atmosphere or the planet will overheat.
All that is needed is to add heat carried upwards past the denser atmosphere (and most CO2) by convection and the latent heat from water changing state (the majority of heat transport to the tropopause), the albedo effects of clouds, the inability of long wave ‘downwelling’ (the blue balls) to warm water that makes up 2/3rds of the Earth’s surface, and that due to huge differences in enthalpy dry air takes far less energy to warm than humid air so temperature is not a measure of atmospheric heat content.
What is demonstrated here (and by the deep discussions) is the over concentration on simplistic radiative energy transfer. And the people involved wonder why the results of the radiative equations (to many places of decimals) with simple parameterized clouds (that only have a radiative effect) have no relationship to the ‘real world’?
What a really great post! Many thanks indeed. It’s clarified a great deal for me. Also, thanks for the comment about Einstein and physical analogies. I decided that serious math was beyond me way back at age 16 when, after our university entrance exams (in Scotland, where they used to do things sooner), the maths teacher filled the final days of term taking us into some university-level maths. It was when we got to double integration of compound trig functions that I realised that I’d never make a mathematician – ‘cos I couldn’t build a mental model of what the heck was going on. Bad decision – but wot the heck archy, toujours gai, toujours gai.