Visualizing the "Greenhouse Effect" – Atmospheric Windows

Thanks for intresting post. Have you considered that Quiet Sun makes atmosphere to shrink and as we know from sound waves, low frequency sound waves go easier through thinner wall as well shorter waves starting to go through if wall is thinner. I believe that IR acts same way. Is there any measuremet of IR behavior between situations when atmosphere is puffed up or shrinked down? Collapse of thermosphere can make diffrencies to athmosphere’s density at least down to 30 km altitude. I believe, it can have measurable effects to atmospheric temperature.

If absorption of the re-radiated energy by water vapour is logarithmic akin to that of CO2, and the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere is genrally already several orders of magnitude higher than CO2, how can an increase in absolute humidity have any more than a miniscule effect? It seems the models rely on this increased humidity feedback to amplify the small incremental warming from CO2 to a significant several degrees C. As we know from the characteristics of CO2 the bulk of the so called “damage” is done within the first 100ppm. Is water vapour any different?

Another little thought visualization for CO2 in the atmosphere.
Let a backyard swimming pool represent the atmosphere.
Let the air above it represent outer space.
A black colored ball bobbing in the water represents CO2.
The black ball is calculated by size in relation to the pool for its appropriate ratio as per CO2 in the atmosphere.
The sun comes up and warms the water, and the black ball is a heat sink due to its color. The heat absorbing ability of the black ball represents CO2’s greenhouse effect.
At the end of the day, heat absorbed by the water is released to the air, representing atmospheric heat released to space. Heat absorbed by the ball is released to the water representing CO2’s heat retention/reflection in the atmosphere.
How much is that tiny ball bobbing in the pool going to maintain the pool temperature?…. I do not think it is even measurable. The dynamics of the entire pool are too great to overcome by this little ball and reach a temperature equilibrium regardless of the little ball’s efforts.
A black ball representing the man made CO2 would be even more insignificant.
CO2 is treated in AGW articles like it is a nuclear heat source of magic abilities to retain/conserve heat. I don’t buy it.
I do not believe that CO2 in tiny amounts can heat the earth as claimed. Mars is almost 100% CO2 and it’s still too cold for us to live there… where is the runaway greenhouse effect on Mars?
A simple visualization like this displays the obvious that it is physically impossible for CO2 to have any major effect on earth’s temperatures as claimed.

Nice visual aid. I’m not a scientist, however I’ve had extensive experience operating in jungle and desert environments. My direct observations have been that in the jungle, where humidity is very high, it stays hot when the sun goes down. Almost the whole night through. In the desert, where humidity is very low, it cools down rapidly when the sun goes down. At altitude it can get damn cold. Now I’m making a WAG here, but I assume that the atmospheric CO2 level is the same in both environments. Therefore, it is the humidity, atmospheric water vapor, that is the moderating element and CO2 does nothing. So in order for CO2 to contribute to global warming, it requires the sun. And I am given to understand that radiation from the sun only acts on water vapor and CO2. The other atmospheric gases, mostly nitrogen and oxygen, do not do anything, they absorb no radiation of any wavelength nor reflect ant radiation of any wavelength. Not being a scientist, for the sake of argument, I’ll accept that. But what I have a very hard time accepting is how a trace gas, CO2, can have any effect on anything.

Solar input (in the sense of the amount of energy being received at the top of the atmosphere from the sun) may be costant although there may yet be processes that we have yet to understand.
However, the mere fact that the energy from the sun is constant does not mean that the amount of energy received at ground level has remained constant. There only needs to be slight variations in the amount of clouds (their area, shape, reflectivity) to result in changes to the amount of energy received by the oceans and the land. A change in the pattern of the clouds of just 1 or 2% could account for all the observed warming. We have no real historical data of cloudiness.
The point raised by etudiant February 28, 2011 at 2:18 pm is a good point. I would like to hear some more on this and the effect that this ought from a theoretical point of view had on warming/cooling observed at the surface..
Measuring the temperature of the oceans is probably the best metric for assessing whether there is any warming. This is becuase the oceans account for about 70% of the surface area of the globe and they contain (ignoring the core) approx 99% of the stored global energy. Further, a change in temperature in the oceans can be converted to joules and thus the heat content is know. Land based air temperature record does not measure energy since it does not also include data for humidity/moisture content.
i disagree that measuring ocean temperature can be used to assess sensitivity. In my opinion, measuring the heat content of the oceans cannot necessarily be used to assess sensitivity since a slight change in the amount of cloudiness has a significant impact on the amout of solar radiation being received by the oceans. Unless we accurately know the total amount of clouds and their pattern, we will not be able to rule that out as the source of any observed warming (or cooling).

“Most Sunlight is in the visible band from 0.38μ (which we see as violet) to 0.76μ (which we see as red), which is why our eyes evolved to be sensitive in that range.”
======================================================
I probably would have come away with a more complete view of your posting had you not included this little statement. I read through your post, and most of it, I agree with.
But, towards the mentioned statement………….. That’s beautiful, you’ve managed to refute Newton without expressing how or why. But, gleaning what I can from this statement, our eyes evolved to seeing something we couldn’t otherwise see…………..because of the entire specie’s collective inherent knowledge? And thank God……errrr, uhmm…..thank Gaia…..errr…..thank evolution for giving that to us, else we’d be navigating in a manner such as bats!

Fred
“I would guess that the vast majority of energy leaves earth by radiation”.
It would leave the outer atmosphere by radiation. But Charles R Anderson in STSD Ch 20. In the denser, lower altitude atmosphere, most energy transfer is due to gas molecule collision etc.
I don’t know but it seems even the experts do not agree on this.
Most accept the GHGT (even sceptics) but the more I read on this topic the more I’m of the view that the entire GHG theory is flawed. But I’m not an expert.

Another thought…
Suppose I bought a container of CO2 for carbonated beverages and boosted the CO2ppm from 390 to 1000ppm in my apartment air.
Will the winter sunshine boost my apartment temperature by say 10 degrees F due to the greenhouse effect of the CO2 ? Doubtful…
I’d save a lot on my heating bill if that would work… if it really did work, we’d all be doing it.

It is the first time I’ve seen an explanation where the energy represented by the specific frequencies absorbed by GHG molecules are transferred to non-GHGs through collision (and then reemitted by the non-GHGs in the atmospheric windows – almost everyone believes the non-GHGs absorb and emit no IR radiation at all – some bad textbooks mis-educated everyone somewhere along the line).
But then, to show this has a real greenhouse effect (an extra 150 watts/m2 at the surface), the numbers have to be crunched taking into account the time lag between absorption and effective emission to space.
The 10 um atmospheric window actually emits at a higher energy level than it should according to Earth’s temperature alone.
Second, if it was a simple process of 1 CO2 molecule absorbs a 15 um photon and then passes that on to 1 N2 molecule which then promptly emits that to space in the atmospheric window at 10 um, there be no greenhouse effect at all.
The entire process would only take 0.001 seconds for ALL the photons to escape to space. Once the sun sets, the atmospheric temperature should fall to -220C within a second.
But the average time the energy represented by a solar photon spends in the Earth system before it is lost to space is 43 hours. It spends time in 5 billion different molecules before it escapes to space on average.
There is much much more going on here which I would love to see explained to my satisfaction.

For Leif Svaalgard to ruminate upon..
http://www.halesowenweather.co.uk/cet_sunshine.htm

Ira, I like the description overall but I do not like the Wiki graph of the outgoing infrared. It is technically correct in that it shows the likelihood of a photon of a particular wavelength being emitted by the earth and then passing through the atmosphere without being absorbed. However it might give the impression that it is the spectrum radiated into space. In practice the radiation into space is pretty much the black body spectrum you would expect for a body at about 290K with reductions at particular wavelengths particularly between 5 and 8 micron and between 14 and 18 micron as you describe in your text. Photons of these wavelengths can only be radiated into space by water and CO2 molecules at very high altitude since emissions lower down are absorbed. The lower temperatures at these altitudes acount for the reduced emissions.
George E Smith. I do not think I agree with your last point assuming I understand it properly. You state “The only function of the GHG molecules is to heat the atmospheric gases; along with all the other mechanisms that are heating it. After that, the GHG molecules serve no function in the climate process whatsoever”
As I have just explained CO2 and H20 are the main sources of radiation into space from the troposphere and indeed CO2 is the main source of radiation from the the stratosphere which is heated directly by the absorption of UV from the sun mainly by ozone. As I read it you seem to imply that the greenhouse molecules pass all their energy to the O2 and N2 molecules which then radiate into space. However they can’t since there is a law which says that a bad absorber cannot be a good radiator. In reality the energy is partitioned amongst all the molecules but the CO2 and H20 molecules radiate into space and cool the upper troposphere and tropopause. So the greenhouse gasses warm and they cool as well. That is the nature of thermodynamics.
Further to this point there have been several comments to the effect that you cannot have energy passing from a cooler to a warmer body. This is not true. The rule is that you cannot have a net energy transfer in this direction but there is always energy being radiated from any body above absolute zero. So greenhouse molecules do warm the earth. It is just that they are being warmed by the earth at a greater rate. So the nett flow is upwards.