Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
Solar “light” radiation in = Earth “heat” radiation to Space out! That’s old news to those of us who understand all energy is fungible (may be converted to different forms of energy) and energy/mass is conserved (cannot be created nor destroyed).
My Visualizing series [Physical Analogy, Atmospheric Windows, Emission Spectra, and Molecules/Photons] has garnered almost 2000 comments, mostly positive. I’ve learned a lot from WUWT readers who know more than I do. However, some commenters seem to have been taken in by scientific-sounding objections to the basic science behind the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect”. Their objections seemed to add more heat than light to the discussion. This posting is designed to get back to basics and perhaps transform our heated arguments into more enlightened understanding :^)
As I’ve mentioned before, during my long career as a system engineer I’ve worked with many talented mathematical analysts who always provided precise results, mostly correct, but some precisely wrong, usually due to mistaken assumptions. I got into the habit of doing a “back of the envelope” calculation of my own as a “sanity check” on their results. If their results matched within reasonable limits, I accepted them. If not, I investigated further. In those days my analysis was really done using a slide rule and scrap paper, but I now use spreadsheets.
The graphic above is based on an excellent spreadsheet from http://serc.carleton.edu/files/introgeo/models/mathematical/examples/XLPlanck.xls. It uses Planck’s Law to calculate the black body radiation spectrum from the Sun, as observed at the top of the Earth’s Atmosphere. It also may be used to calculate the radiation spectrum from the Earth System (Atmosphere and Surface, see below for explanation) at any assumed temperature. (I will refer to this spreadsheet as “Carleton” in this posting.)
I modified the Carleton spreadsheet to compute the mean Solar radiation per square meter absorbed by the Earth System, which turns out to be 240 Watts/m^2. I then used the spreadsheet to determine the effective mean temperature of the Earth System that would emit an equal amount of energy to Space, and that turned out to be 255 Kelvins (-18ºC which is 1ºF).
Since the mean temperature at the surface of the Earth is 288 Kelvins (+15ºC which is 59ºF), that leaves 33 Kelvins (33ºC which is 58ºF) to be accounted for. Guess how we acount for it?
The yellow curve (above left) shows that Solar radiation is in a tall, narrow “shortwave” range, from about 0.1μm (microns, or millionths of a meter) to about 4μm, which we call ultra-violet, visual, and near-infrared. The vertical axis is Intensity of the radiation, measured in Watts/m^2/μm, and the horizontal axis is Wavelength, measured in μm. If you divide the area under the yellow curve into vertical strips, and add up the total area, you get 240 Watts/m^2.
Since we humans sense the visual portion of this radiation as “light”, that is the name we give it, and that has led to the false assumption that it contains no “heat” (or “thermal”) energy.
The violet curve (above right) shows that, assuming a mean temperature of 255 K, Earth System radiation to Space is in a squat, wide “longwave” range, from about 5μm to beyond 40μm, which we call mid- and far-infrared. If you divide the area under the violet curve into vertical strips, and add up the total area, you get the same 240 Watts/m^2 as is under the yellow curve.
DETAILED EXPLANATION
The graph on the left shows the actual observed Solar radiation spectrum (in red) as measured at the top of the Atmosphere. It is superimposed on a black body model (in blue) showing very good correlation. Thus, while the Sun is not exactly a black body, it is OK to assume it is for this type of “sanity check” exercise.
If you calculate the area under the curve you get about 1366 Watts/m^2. That means that a square meter of perfect black body material, held perpendicular to the Sun, would absorb 1366 Watts.
However, the Earth is not a perfect black body, neither is it a flat surface perpendicular to the Sun! So, to plot the yellow curve at the top of this posting, I had to adjust that value accordingly. There are two adjustments:
- The Earth may be approximated as a sphere, with the Sun shining on only half of it at any given time. The adjustment factor for this correction is 0.25.
- The albedo (reflectiveness) of the Earth system, primarily clouds and light-colored areas on the Surface such as ice, causes some of the Solar radiation to be reflected back out to Space without contributing any energy to the Earth System. The adjustment factor for this correction is 0.7.
After applying these adjustments, the net Solar energy absorbed by the Earth System is 240 Watts/m^2.
The graph on the right shows the black body model for an Earth System at a mean temperature of 255 K, a temperature that results in the same 240 Watts/m^2 being emitted out to Space.
Of course, the Earth System is not a perfect black body, as shown by the graph in the upper panel of the illustration below, which plots actual observations from 20 km looking down. (Adapted from Grant Petty, A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation, Figure 8.2, http://www.sundogpublishing.com/AtmosRad/Excerpts/index.html.)
The actual measured radiation is the dark squiggly curve. Note that it jigs and jags up and down between the topmost dashed curve, which is the black body spectrum for a temperature of 270 K and a lower dashed curve which is the black body spectrum for 230 K. This data was taken over the Arctic, most likely during the daytime. The Petty book also has a graph looking down from over the Tropical Pacific which ranges from 300 K down to 210 K. Observations will vary by tens of degrees from day to night, summer to winter, and Tropical to Polar.
However, it is clear that my result, based on matching 240 Watts/m^2, is within a reasonable range of the true mean temperature of the Earth System as viewed from Space.
NOTE ABOUT THE ABOVE ILLUSTRATION
WUWT readers will notice some apparent inconsistencies in the graphs above. The top and bottom panels, from Petty, peak at 15μm to 20μm, while the purple, blue, and black curves in the middle panel, and the Earth System curves from the Carleton spreadsheet I used (see above) peak in the 9μm to 11μm range. Also, the Petty black body curves peak at a “Radiance” around 100 mW/m^2/sr cm^-1 while the black body curves from Carleton peak at an “Intensity” of around 14 W/m^2/μm. Furthermore, if you look closely at the Petty curves, the labels on the black body curves are mirror image! What is going on?
Well, I know some of the reasons, but not all. (I hope commenters who are more fluent in this than I am will confirm my explanations and provide more information about the differences between “Radiance” and “Intensity”.) I have Googled and Wikied the Internet and am still somewhat confused. Here is what I know:
- The horizontal axis in Petty’s plots are what he calls “Wavenumber”, increasing from left to right, which is the number of waves that fit into a cm (centimeter, one hundredth of a meter).
- This is proportional to the frequency of the radiation, and the frequency is the inverse of the wavelength. Thus, his plots are the mirror image of plots based on wavelength increasing from left to right.
- The spreadsheet I used, and my previous experience with visual, and near-, mid-, and far-IR as used in military systems, always uses wavelength increasing from left to right.
- So, when I constructed the above illustration, I reversed Petty’s curves, which explains why the labels on the black body curves are mirror image.
- Fortunately, Petty also included a wavelength legend, which I faithfully reproduced, in non-mirror image, at the top of each plot.
But, that still does not explain why the Petty black body curves peak at a longer wavelength than the Carleton spreadsheet and other graphics on the Internet. I tried to reproduce Petty’s blackbody curves by multiplying the Carleton values by the wavelength (μm) and that did not move the peak to the right enough. So, I multiplied by the wavelength again (μm^2) and, voila, the peaks agreed! (I hope some WUWT reader will explain why the Petty graphs have this perverse effect. advTHANKSance!)
ANSWERING THE OBJECTIONS TO BASIC ATMOSPHERIC “GREENHOUSE EFFECT” SCIENCE
First of all, let me be clear where I am coming from. I’m a Lukewarmer-Skeptic who accepts that H2O, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the Atmosphere do cause the mean temperature of the Earth Surface and Atmosphere to be higher than they would be if everything was the same (Solar radiation, Earth System Albedo, …) but the Atmosphere was pure nitrogen. The main scientific question for me, is how much does the increase in human-caused CO2 and human-caused albedo reduction increase the mean temperature above what it would be with natural cycles and processes? My answer is “not much”, because perhaps 0.1ºC to 0.2ºC of the supposed 0.8ºC increase since 1880 is due to human activities. The rest is due to natural cycles and processes over which we humans have no control. The main public policy question for me, is how much should we (society) do about it? Again, my answer is “not much”, because the effect is small and a limited increase in temperatures and CO2 may turn out to have a net benefit.
So, my motivation for this Visualizing series is not to add to the Alarmist “the sky is falling” panic, but rather to help my fellow Skeptics avoid the natural temptation to fall into an “equal and opposite” falsehood, which some of those on my side, who I call “Disbelievers”, do when they fail to acknowledge the basic facts of the role of H2O and CO2 and other gases in helping to keep temperatures in a livable range.
Objection #1: Visual and near-visual radiation is merely “light” which lacks the “quality” or “oomph” to impart warmth to objects upon which it happens to fall.
Answer #1: A NASA webpage targeted at children is sometimes cited because they say the near-IR beam from a TV remote control is not warm to the touch. Of course, that is not because it is near-visual radiation, but rather because it is very low power. All energy is fungible, and can be changed from one form to another. Thus, the 240 Watts/m^2 of visible and near-visible Solar energy that reaches and is absorbed by the Earth System, has the effect of warming the Earth System exactly as much as an equal number of Watts/m^2 of “thermal” mid- and far-IR radiation.
Objection #2: The Atmosphere, which is cooler than the Earth Surface, cannot warm the Earth Surface.
Answer #2: The Second law of Thermodynamics is often cited as the source of this falsehood. The correct interpretation is that the Second Law refers to net warming, which can only pass from the warmer to the cooler object. The back-radiation from the Atmosphere to the Earth Surface has been measured (see lower panel in the above illustration). All matter above absolute zero emits radiation and, once emitted, that radiation does not know if it is travelling from a warmer to a cooler surface or vice-versa. Once it arrives it will either be reflected or absorbed, according to its wavelength and the characteristics of the material it happens to impact.
Objection #3: The Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is fictional. A glass greenhouse works mainly by preventing or reducing convection and the Atmosphere does not work that way at all.
Answer #3: I always try to put “scare quotes” around the word “greenhouse” unless referring to the glass variety because the term is misleading. Yes, a glass greenhouse works by restricting convection, and the fact that glass passes shortwave radiation and not longwave makes only a minor contribution. Thus, I agree it is unfortunate that the established term for the Atmospheric warming effect is a bit of a misnomer. However, we are stuck with it. But, enough of semantics. Notice that the Earth System mean temperature I had to use to provide 240 Watts/m^2 of radiation to Space to balance the input absorbed from by the Earth System from the Sun was 255 K. However, the actual mean temperature at the Surface is closer to 288 K. How to explain the extra 33 K (33ºC or 58ºF)? The only rational explanation is the back-radiation from the Atmosphere to the Surface.
At May 20, 2011 at 12:52 am, Myrrh questions
So, a cup of hot coffee in the Arctic is surrounded by tons and tons and tons of colder emitting the same energy towards it, the net effect must be for the coffee to get hotter?
Consider 2 cups of coffee in the Arctic – one has an insulating container and the other doesn’t. They both start at the same temperature. Record the temperature over 24 hours and find the 24-hour average. I think that we would all agree that the one with an insulator has the higher average temperature. Note that the back radiation from the insulator did not make its coffee warmer than it started, but it does make the over time average temperature higher than not having an insulator.
Steve says:
May 19, 2011 at 11:06 pm
jae says: “The backradiation from the cold air cannot HEAT the surface above the -18 C equivalent provided by the Sun, according to Second Law physics.”
Yup. You can shine 100 100-watt light bulbs on a surface, and you still will not get that surface to emit even 100 watts. And you can combine 100 propane/air torches and never get a flame temperature as hot as a single oxy-acetylene flame. You cannot heat a warmer object with radiation from a colder one. Period. (Note for any nuts that still think I don’t believe in “backradiation:” I did NOT say there is no radiation going from the colder one to the warmer one).
BTW, I think the Kiehl and Trenberth radiation cartoon is generally correct; however it does not explain where the 390 wm-2 radiation comes from, and that is the key point.
And then:
“Wrong. The 2nd Law implies that the radiative energy emitted by the sun and atmosphere combined cannot heat the surface of the earth higher than the temperature of the surface of the sun.”
Wow, that is a real tangled concoction! I guess the second law does ALSO say this, but what is your point?
O H Dahlsveen says:
However, my main point [is] that as long as oxygen atoms and molecules absorb enough energy from UV radiation to alter their structure it may be that they also produce an increase in their heat content, which should be greater at any points nearest to the source – i.e. The Sun,
We both agree on that. However, above the stratopause, even though there is still enough UV and oxygen to make ozone, the temperature begins to decrease again. In order to understand the Greenhouse Effect, you must first understand why the atmosphere has the temperature profile observed by measurements. Most people (on both sides of the argument) seem to assume that the atmosphere simply gets cooler with height. However, direct measurements prove this wrong. In my opinion, it is necessary to actually understand why the atmosphere has the current temperature profile before trying to determine what effect, if any, a change in CO2 will have.
Based on my analysis, the tropopause is created where the water vapor decreases to about 5 ppm. Below this point the water vapor spectrum is opaque which is why there is no diurnal temperature cycle in the troposphere.
The stratopause is where water vapor drops from 5 ppm to zero. Above this point, the amount of ozone decreases significantly because water vapor (specifically, the OH radical) is necessary to produce ozone. This line is probably where UV is able to disassociate the OH radical, producing free hydrogen, but I do not have enough data (yet) to support that.
Dave Springer says:
May 19, 2011 at 8:41 am
You seem to have missed the beginning lesson that theory must explain reality. If it fails then the theory is wrong. Reality trumps theory in all cases.
In the particular instance of so-called back radiation the reality is that if you point an IR spectrometer up at the night sky photons of far higher energy than the cosmic microwave background are hitting it. Theory must explain these. In fact theory does explain it. If your understanding of the theory denies reality in this case your understanding is flawed.
In each and every instance where someone denies the reality of back radiation they are wrong. …
——
Dave says: “Reality trumps theory in all cases.”
Oh, I definitely agree. Always. Never have said otherwise.
Dave, I disagree, I’m not trying to mislead anyone but it is you that might be wrong in the end. That is why I took the time to think of a definitive experiment of a Fresnel lens (here) to prove it, one way or the other, whether 324± Wm-2 of downwelling radiation is actually and always flowing from the atmosphere down on the surface, or, is there merely a much smaller portion of radiation always flowing upward that you could focus and heat something with a lens looking downward. If I had the money I would do it right now, just to satisfy my curiosity.
There is also a flop side that may very well mean you are not looking at reality. Don’t you see that possibility. It depends on what that experiment would show. I have taken two days to read about EXACTLY how IR thermometers work. I can’t find even one yet that says “back radiation” is real. I find a few manufacturers that leave you with that feeling but by going deeper and checking their construction they are never extracting energy from colder “back radation”.
You have thermopile or thermocouple versions that focus IR with a lens onto the thermocouple to generate a tiny voltage but in those versions the metal of the thermocouple must be cooler than the temperature they are trying measure. Some have internal thermometers to compensate to raise the accuracy but never greater range.
There are models that visually compare radiation but those are for only high temperatures (electron level radiation) where you make the test filament to match the measured color until it appears to disappear (the same temperature).
In all cases below the emissivities affect the readings so must be compensated for.
There are more modern versions using thermistors but once again the temperature of the device and the measured surface has to be different. That is not detecting “back radiation”. In one case it is detection NO radiation at all (when the temperature of the instrument and test surface match) and just report the room temperature.
There are thermistor versions and I have messed with these in the garage years ago. Still have one from RadioShack. In these cases you are using electric pressure in a semiconductor to separate a “cold” and “hot” side of potential and radiation that is hotter than the cold potential. Now these CAN read temperatures even lower that the ambient temperature that the instrument is at but that is because the electric pressure IS CREATING a cooler environment so that spontaneous emission from the measured surface to the thermistor flows.
Don’t just try to make me look foolish, help me prove it one way or the other but you must look even deeper than the manufacturers claims. If I were them I would not give away such details easily either. That just creates competitors.
If you have detailed schematics and the design of IR spectrometers, let’s see how they work down to where the energy is extracted from the “back radiation”.
“Back radiation” is a term being used that is not merely downward or oppositely-directed radiation. It is always being said to mean counter-flow energy being transferred in an opposite direction than the real radiation if flowing. Dave, if you want me to believe in that kind of counter-flow energy transfer show me a case when it has been used in a device or a real experiment. Prove it. Otherwise, to me, it remains merely a mental and/or mathematical non-real construct that can be used to visualize hard to imagine thoughts or to simplify calculations.
Proof, not just more words.
Dave Springer, one more thing. Don’t just show me “less energy” or “less energy flow”. Both are also not a real things, it is a mathematical visualization or construct of a non-real thing. Energy is a real thing. I know how devices can be manufactured to detect “less energy” but that does not prove back-radiation’s existence.
I’ll also give you a way out. One answer is that you suspect it does exist but mankind to date has never been able to perform an experiment that actually let’s us see “back-radiation”. That may very well be the case.
Wayne,
You are completely mistaken with your expectations for this experiment you propose:
To understand what is going on, consider first a more familiar situation using a converging lens (either or regular or Fresnel — it doesn’t matter — you could even use a mirror) to heat some object.
With no lens, there is light coming from the hot sun, but it is coming from a very small part of the sky. As a consequence, the object will get slightly warm, not very hot.
To make the object hotter, there are a couple things you could do. 1) you could cover more of the sky with ‘suns’ or with objects as hot as the sun. If the sun was 10 times bigger in diameter, then 100 times as much energy would hit the object and it would get MUCH hotter! OR! You could use a lens or mirror to focus some of the light that was going to miss the object. You could focus light so that 100 times as much of the sky seemed to be covered my the sun (say by putting 100 mirrors around the sides of the object, or by putting a large lens that focuses a lot of light on the the object.)
Note two very important facts. 1) The hottest you could make the object using objects at the temperature of the sun (5700 K) would be 5700 K by surrounding the object by surfaces at 5700 K. 2) If the object WAS surrounded by a heater at 5700 K, then adding lenses or mirrors cannot heat it further (think about the 2nd law and how it is impossible to heat something with a cooler object). A mirror can only reflect light from a 5700 K surface, but it also BLOCKS light from some other part of he 5700 K surface.
NOW … simply mentally replace “sun” by “walls within your house” or by “back radiation from the sky”. No matter how you try to focus the IR energy from the walls, you can’t heat the object above room temperature using the radiation from the walls.
What you COULD do is have most of the surface of the walls at 77 K and a tiny bit at 300 K. An object in such a room would be somewhere between 77 K and 300 K (closer to 77 K). By focusing IR from the small warm part of the wall, you could warm the object up close to 300 K, because the object would “see” 300K from a much larger area. But if the focusing system is simply blocking IR from other warm areas, it is doing no good.
IN CONCLUSION, “back-radiation proponents” can be correct without violating your thought experiment.
O H Dahlsveen says:
May 20, 2011 at 4:59 am
The Sun, plus there may be a few other reasons as well as to why the Statosphere warms from the top down but that is way outside of my capabilities to explain.
The stratosphere warms from the top down because it is heated by the sun from above, the main absorber being molecular oxygen, O2, followed by products of its photodissociation, O3. The mostly UV that does the heating is completely absorbed in the stratosphere.
>>
Phil. says:
May 19, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Middle if you’re using frequency.
<<
Before I became a “kook’, there used to be a one-to-one correspondence between frequency and wavelength. Silly me, I guess climate science does it differently.
>>
You should use the frequency form of Wien’s Law not wavelength, we want to know where the bulk of the energy is emitted. The peak energy at ~20THz (i.e.~15micron wavelength) is ~340K.
<<
Same comment.
>>
The average planetary temperature is supposed to be far warmer so CO₂ doesn’t provide much blocking in general. In fact, part of the argument is that CO₂ by itself doesn’t do much at all, but in conjunction with water vapor we are supposed to have a serious problem. Again, more arguments ensued on this point. This is usually called the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect. Argue, argue, argue.
Predicated on a false premise, not correct.
<<
Is it false because CO₂ can do it by itself or false because the EGE concept is wrong? I’d say that latter is false, which is one thing we can agree on. Of course CO₂ still has trouble causing much GHE.
Jim
jae says: “You can shine 100 100-watt light bulbs on a surface, and you still will not get that surface to emit even 100 watts.”
Surely you do not mean that you can direct 10,000 watts in a given unit time at a surface and it will never emit 100 watts in the same unit time? It will absorb 9,900 watts of this radiation forever, yet never heat up? What happens to the energy?
“I did NOT say there is no radiation going from the colder one to the warmer one.”
So is the energy of the radiation absorbed, reflected or transmitted?
“BTW, I think the Kiehl and Trenberth radiation cartoon is generally correct; however it does not explain where the 390 wm-2 radiation comes from, and that is the key point.”
It explains it fairly simply, as described in the part of my comment you decided not to respond to. Energy emitted by the earth’s surface equals energy it absorbed from direct sunlight plus energy it absorbed from the atmosphere (also emitting light, e.g. infrared).
“Wow, that is a real tangled concoction! I guess the second law does ALSO say this, but what is your point?”
The 2nd law says nothing about whether or not a surface emitting 340 W/m^2 can absorb another incoming 50 W/m^2, or that if sources of both 340 W/m^2 and 50 W/m^2 are present that the surface can only absorb the energy of the 340 W/m^2 source.
Robert and Steve – you’re teasing me, right? I give you an example of loads of cold atmosphere plus tons of ice of fungible cooler all radiating “the same energy” claimed in the ‘heat is net in the exchange of energy’, and I still can’t get a small cup of hot coffee without insulating it which will only slow down its cooling or by moving to Canada. Yet, I’m being told constantly that this colder atmosphere radiates energy which adds to the heat of the Earth and only needs a tiny tiny extra bit more of CO2 and the whole Earth’s temperature will go up several degrees and this will lead to runaway global warming, because in this is a net exchange of energy which includes from the colder to the hotter.
Which means, because there is a far greater amount of energy being radiated towards my cup of coffee from the cold, then the coffee radiating hot to cold and losing energy is pretty much irrelevant, it should get hotter.
Steve:
Do you have a degree in any way related to science?
Jim Masterson says:
May 20, 2011 at 1:53 pm
>Before I became a “kook’, there used to be a one-to-one correspondence between
>frequency and wavelength. Silly me, I guess climate science does it differently.
Apparently have not had to change variables in calculus lately. The peak in the two curves will indeed be different.
Read the section “Properties of the Planck distribution” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law
It is only the silly kooks who do it differently. Climate scientists apparently do it the way ALL scientists and mathematicians do it.
PS, not to pick on Jim specifically, but this is perhaps my greatest frustration when interacting here — people who took maybe a year of freshman physics spending 2 weeks on thermodynamics and 2 week on optics, but think they are qualified to correct career scientists on the second law or how lenses could focus IR light or how Plank’s law is different when written in terms of frequency rather that wavelength.
It’s like someone who played a little HS football thinking he could coach in the NFL.
It’s like someone who plays video games thinking they could really fly a plane.
It’s like someone who took a first aid course thinking they are a doctor.
Sure, once or twice per game, a fan might make a better call than the coach, but day-in and day-out, my money is on the professional. It takes a pretty big ego to think that freshman-level musings are somehow new or unknown to practicing scientists and teachers.
Steve: before you respond, please read the article linked below. Truly read it, not just glance at it. Then tell us what you think:
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf
The “hide the decline” secret in the K&T cartoon is that it does not explain just where the hell the 390 wm-2 at the surface comes from. It starts out just ASSUMING this radiation!
Wayne,
I read your post about IR thermometers and ran an experiment of my own. Quite a simple one actually:
I took a block of ice put it in a 6 day rated cooler in the shade, allowed 2 hours for temperatures to equilibrate.
I took my IR thermometer, a wet bulb thermometer which I know was accurate to 1 deg F as of last calibration and a thermocouple temperature probe. I checked the probe against the thermometer and they both agreed, within the reading accuracy of the thermometer. I then took my IR thermometer a fairly cheap one, and measured the temperature of the block of ice a number of times from a few inches away to about almost 3 feet away. The IR thermometer read the same temperature as both the thermometer and thermocouple probe (1C) within 0.2C. Ambient air temperature was 18C and the thermocouple probe suggested the body of the IR thermometer varied in temperature from ambient to around 23C where my hand had been holding it.
This website states specifically:
“How does an infrared thermometer work?
The most basic design consists of a lens to focus the infrared (IR) energy on to a detector, which converts the energy to an electrical signal that can be displayed in units of temperature after being compensated for ambient temperature variation.”
http://www.omega.ca/prodinfo/infraredthermometer.html
Obviously the way the sensor reacts to the incoming IR radiation varies with temperature. This is normal for sensors which detect light, think of a digital camera, there is less noise the colder the ccd. So in order to measure temperature the IR thermometer needs to compensate for ambient temperature. Just like a UT thickness meter is calibrated empirically to the object being measured.
So, if energy from a colder object cannot transfer to a warmer object, please explain how the IR thermometer measured the temperature of the block of ice, especially in light of what the manufacturer Omega states.
I must now apologize to Dr. Miskolczi, I just found this in his last paper Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres stating:
“For atmospheres, where ED≈ 5ST or TA ≈ 1/6, Eq. (9) will take the form
of Eq. (8).”
That is exactly what I portrayed above as a six-sided cube with three bi-degrees of freedoms and I thought I had found something rather new. Not so it seems. Put any credit to him and rightfully so. It does shore up my current view of energy flow through atmospheres though.
With all the claims of “having money on the professionals” the people who are altering the instrumental records with claims of fake math being real math, claims of need for magical washings of data, the fact is, nearly ALL the people claiming the world is warming are N.O.T. professional radiation people.
This is easily proven. The REAL radiation people in the world are those who unleash electromagnetic radiation in E.V.E.R.Y. frequency into the atmosphere, then capture it, and analyze it.
There IS no word of any G.H.G. from we who DO this, because WE don’t FIND the FALSELY CLAIMED ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION changes.
The people who are making claims of G.H.G. effect are N.O.T. working atmospheric radiation people who have to be right or be fired.
That’s obvious from the fact they think there’s no way to accurately tell the temperature of the atmosphere. It’s possible, it’s just that there’s nothing unusual there, so they’re making up FAKE math, FAKE readings, FAKE EFFECTS of a form of PHYSICS they weren’t prepared to deal in when they thought they reversed the polarity of gravity by claiming that PHOTONS dragging atoms UP, were radiating DOWNWARD.
The problem with this ludicrous claim is that in first place there’s only a T.I.N.Y. amount of carbon dioxide. We live in a proportionate physics universe so there’s no such thing as magical gas.
“Oh, yes there IS magic gas!”
If there was, one of them would have produced an instrument that recorded their mythical magic force from a mystical dimension. We even put buttons and knobs on them so they can use them.
They still can’t. It’s not the fault of the people who built those instruments, it’s AMATEUR ERROR by people who thought Mannian Statistics was real math, and Jones/Briffa extensions to that FAKE DOODLING was real math.
Go ahead: try to find an instruments engineers’ or technicians’ group that endorses A.G.W.
Try to find O.N.E. report of electromagnetic radiation communications people claiming altered electromagnetic response to the atmosphere due to G.H.G. theory.
There is none.
Try to find O.N.E. report of rising heat in the atmosphere creating more ATMOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION, or MOTION of GAS MOLECLES which is MANDATORY in GAS: creating INCREASED DISTORTION as people LOOK THROUGH the ATMOSPHERE.
T.h.e.r.e. is N.O.N.E. because HEAT on GAS means MOTION and MOTION means OPTICAL DISTORTION and NO ADDED DISTORTION means N.O. H.E.A.T.
No matter HOW many of these “I thought it was real math” people try to tell you they think they calculated entropy revoked itself.
People telling you they believe in G.H.G. Theory are ALL TRYING to TELL you a
HIGHLY TURBULENT,
WELL MIXED
F.R.I.G.I.D,
-15 degree
OCEAN
of GAS,
functions as a WARMING BLANKET.
That’s the class intellect you’re dealing with. Mannian Statistics is real math, HEAT FLOWS from a -15 BATH into the WARM ROCK submerged in it, and although the ATMOSPHERE is EVER WARMER and MORE TURBULENT with HEAT,
nobody’s noticed to the point where an instrument can measure it. Not even a telescope lens which MAGNIFIES ATMOSPHERIC DISTORTION THOUSANDS of times.
No, and – not even ‘nice try.’
People were told YEARS ago this would never fly, and here you have them on the internet telling you a TURBULENT FRIGID BATH is WARMING a rock.
Find anyone but a climatologist who’ll tell you to WARM a ROCK with FIFTEEN DEGREE BELOW ZERO GAS.
He’ll laugh in your face.
All these claims of untestability, are just that: fake claims. Like I said: the DEFINITION of HEAT on an ATOM of GAS is M.O.T.I.O.N: ANGULAR MOMENTUM.
There IS no such thing as ‘hiding heat’ in an atmosphere being peered through with optical magnification that makes the slightest heat distortion noticeable.
jae says: “Do you have a degree in any way related to science?”
B.S. in Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, 1994
http://i56.tinypic.com/2126104.jpg
“…please read the article linked below. Truly read it, not just glance at it. Then tell us what you think:”
I read it last week when you first posted the link. The article points out that a blackbody model for the moon that does not take into account the specific heat capacity of the moon generates a certain amount of error in predicting the maximum and minimum temperatures. Unfortunately the article doesn’t then explain that, once the heat capacity is known, the correct heat capacity can be plugged back into the models to generate the correct temperatures. It wasn’t a surprising problem for the Apollo mission, considering they hadn’t been to the moon yet. We know the heat capacity of the surface of the earth because we’ve been here for a while.
“The “hide the decline” secret in the K&T cartoon is that it does not explain just where the hell the 390 wm-2 at the surface comes from. It starts out just ASSUMING this radiation!”
It’s assuming an average temperature, from the temperature record. Which could be wrong. That doesn’t negate the ability of CO2 to absorb more IR radiation than N2. There is no getting around a greenhouse effect. Ira’s post seeks to quell this issue so that we can get to the matter of quantifying the response of the climate for a given increase in CO2.
Alleyne said:
“So, if energy from a colder object cannot transfer to a warmer object, please explain how the IR thermometer measured the temperature of the block of ice, especially in light of what the manufacturer Omega states.”
Alleyne honestly, don’t know, only guessing. The IR thermometer and the ice are different objects so this doesn’t get into the self-warming bit. The net energy would be from the device to the ice, I agree. How does it sense the differential, or, block the devices local thermal noise at the ambient temperature? Hmmm. Do you have schematics listing the devices to see how they are performing that? Seems on the top to be a type of differential circuit but I could only guess and the chances of being right are small. I would like to know too. Being a customer maybe you could get the details and share here.
Wait, of course, if it is a differential balance circuit it may swing right from positive through zero at the ambient device temperature to negative where it is then really measuring the net energy lost from the warmer thermocouple to the ice in the field being focused. That might be it but just don’t know.
My whole point is to look at each instance in detail before you convince yourself that something is reading or manipulating energy that is flowing backwards from a cold object to a warmer object, it is most likely taking the difference from an already energized point. That’s all. Really need an electronic engineer!
I’m tired of speaking of this, seems no one will get anything if they haven’t already.
Alleyne, can’t help it, one more thing. With the two things I know of that device a thermocouple and a lens, if that type of circuit is being used it should take you longer to get a stable reading on a much colder that ambient temperature object than a much warmer than ambient temperature object. Is that so? It has to do with the lens.
Steve says:
May 20, 2011 at 2.00 pm
Re jae’s: “BTW, I think the Kiehl and Trenberth radiation cartoon is generally correct; however it does not explain where the 390 wm-2 radiation comes from, and that is the key point.”
It explains it fairly simply, as described in the part of my comment you decided not to respond to. Energy emitted by the earth’s surface equals energy it absorbed from direct sunlight plus energy it absorbed from the atmosphere (also emitting light, e.g. infrared.).
The real missing energy is the actual real amount of Thermal IR directly hitting the Earth and warming land and ocean.
Firstly, the cartoon energy budget excludes the real heat we feel from the Sun which comes only from the real Thermal IR arriving on Earth and which we feel as real heat, and which heats our innards as it does the land and sea.
Secondly, the Solar energy which the cartoon claims converts to heat to produce this outgoing Thermal IR is composed of UV, Visible and Near IR, none of which are actual thermal IR, heat on the move, we cannot feel them, and there is no attempt made to prove that these energies convert to enough heat of land and sea to raise the temperature of the Earth.
Moreover, the claim now as Ira consistently teaches, is that it is these “Solar” energies of the cartoon which we feel as heat. This is nonsense, a complete perversion of traditional science understanding of the difference between Light and Heat energies.
See as before the NASA page I gave and also any that still give traditional science and not AGW/Ira’s twisting of it. The heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR which is not included in the cartoon’s downwelling energies. We can feel this heat, we know it exists, we know it makes things hotter, yet, the AGWScience says that it does not reach Earth in any significant amount and excludes it.
So, the missing energy begins because the real amount of Thermal IR reaching Earth and which is what we feel as heat from the Sun and which is the only energy capable of actual directly heating the Earth has been excluded and in its place has been put Light and short wave energies either side, called Solar, which barely convert to any heat at all, even UV is not enough to heat the Earth to produce outgoing of so much Thermal IR.
How much Thermal IR is REALLY getting to Earth compared with the other energies? Because these “Solar” energies are incapable of raising the temperature of the Earth to any significant amount means that the greatest amount of energy capable of heating the land and sea comes directly from the Thermal IR downwelling from the Sun.
Until this AGW magic illusion is seen through, it will continue to confuse energies and confuse the two aspects needed to understand the outgoing Thermal IR of the cartoon.
The creation directly of Thermal IR heating to land and sea in raising the temperature of the Earth which then radiates out x amount of Thermal IR, and, the creation of heat from Life itself as it uses these different energies, including the Solar of the cartoon, to convert to chemical and mechanical uses which enable Life to flourish and in turn radiate out Thermal IR.
The missing energy is from excluding downwelling Thermal IR, the real heat we feel from the Sun.
The lie that Ira promotes is that it is the Solar energies we feel as heat from the Sun.
The rest is the complete garbling of science which AGW produces in its continually more tortured reasoning because its basic premises are always garbage in.
wayne said on Visualizing the “Greenhouse Effect” – Light and Heat
May 20, 2011 at 9:54 pm
“Alleyne, can’t help it, one more thing. With the two things I know of that device a thermocouple and a lens, if that type of circuit is being used it should take you longer to get a stable reading on a much colder that ambient temperature object than a much warmer than ambient temperature object. Is that so? It has to do with the lens.”
Alleyne replies:
OK, I have no problem asking them, I can’t guarantee I’ll get an answer, but it is no big deal to ask. I’ll post if I get an answer. I too would like to know.
As to the acquisition time, I can’t comment other than to say my impression is that the acquisition time was not noticeably different than that for hot objects I’ve measured. It is so fast that I would need very fancy equipment to measure it as it could probably only be done electronically measuring circuit/processor response times. However I’ll ask that question as well.
I don’t expect they will answer till after the week end though.
It would be interesting to know!
Myrrh said on Visualizing the “Greenhouse Effect” – Light and Heat
May 20, 2011 at 6:04 pm
“…… and I still can’t get a small cup of hot coffee without insulating it which will only slow down its cooling or by moving to Canada.
Which means, because there is a far greater amount of energy being radiated towards my cup of coffee from the cold, then the coffee radiating hot to cold and losing energy is pretty much irrelevant, it should get hotter.”
That’s because we have Tim Horton’s up here, which is why we have hot coffee in all sizes all year around 😉
I hesitate to jump into this, but perhaps the sticking point, which I noticed previously in the post with the 10 100W heaters is that it is a function of the temperature gradient, not power.
In the case of the coffee and the heaters, the cold or the heat isn’t really additive as far as energy transfer is concerned is it? The 10 heaters each put out 100W and total power consumption is 1,000W, but in terms of the energy differential or gradient it is still only 100W. With your cup of coffee, it doesn’t matter if you are in the Arctic or just have a snowbank, the temperature difference between the coffee and the snow is the same (yes of course the mass of snow will determine the final temperature of each, but the heat transfer is a function of the difference in temperatures not the mass)
At least that is the way I envision it at present.
CO2 is irrelevant to atmospheric warming – after the first 120m of traverse of LWIR through the atmosphere water vapour absorbs the IR to extinction and there is nothing left for the CO2 bands to absorb. Spending trillions of $ on CO2 emission reductions is absolutely ludicrous. As far as climate change goes we are heading for the next ice age.
Myrrh says: “Yet, I’m being told constantly that this colder atmosphere radiates energy which adds to the heat of the Earth…”
Absolutely not. You are being told that the atmosphere radiates energy which reduces the loss of heat from the Earth. A surface beneath a 17 degree atmosphere will cool slower than a surface beneath a 15 degree atmosphere. That surface, having cooled less throughout the night, is then exposed to the sun (again) the next day. It hasn’t cooled off as much, so the same energy input from the previous day (solar) is now shining down on a warmer surface that didn’t cool as much the previous night. Same energy input into warmer surface = heating to higher temperature the next day.
And no, you don’t need the day/night cycle to prove the GHE (the earth’s surface is emitting/absorbing energy every second of the day), but I think a day/night cycle description makes the GHE more obvious.
“Which means, because there is a far greater amount of energy being radiated towards my cup of coffee from the cold… ”
You keep stating as fact that the surroundings are radiating more energy toward your cup than the cup is radiating out. Again, I ask you “How?” Tons of mass does not equate to more radiant energy than a cup of coffee. A billion tons of mass at absolute zero would radiate no electromagnetic energy.
“…then the coffee radiating hot to cold and losing energy is pretty much irrelevant, it should get hotter.”
If it is losing more energy than it is gaining it will cool, so it is quite relevant.
Jim Masterson says:
May 20, 2011 at 1:53 pm
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Phil. says:
May 19, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Middle if you’re using frequency.
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Before I became a “kook’, there used to be a one-to-one correspondence between frequency and wavelength. Silly me, I guess climate science does it differently.
Science does indeed do it differently, there is a reciprocal relationship between frequency and wavelength, not a linear one!
You should use the frequency form of Wien’s Law not wavelength, we want to know where the bulk of the energy is emitted. The peak energy at ~20THz (i.e.~15micron wavelength) is ~340K.
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Same comment.
And still wrong!
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The average planetary temperature is supposed to be far warmer so CO₂ doesn’t provide much blocking in general. In fact, part of the argument is that CO₂ by itself doesn’t do much at all, but in conjunction with water vapor we are supposed to have a serious problem. Again, more arguments ensued on this point. This is usually called the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect. Argue, argue, argue.
Predicated on a false premise, not correct.
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Is it false because CO₂ can do it by itself or false because the EGE concept is wrong? I’d say that latter is false, which is one thing we can agree on. Of course CO₂ still has trouble causing much GHE.
False because you’re wrong about where in the energy spectrum CO2 absorbs.