Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
What should a responsible Skeptic say to an astute audience? When recently invited by the “Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus” group in my community to give a talk and answer questions, I knew I would have an attentive room of tech-savvy professionals. However, they might not be fully tuned in to the details of the Global Warming controversy. Furthermore, they were likely to have opinions closer to the supposed “mainsteam science” orientation than mine.
In this posting, I’ve summarized the main points I think are most likely to align people who are both intelligent and reasonable to the Skeptic side. My Powerpoint (with talking points for each chart in the Notes section under each slide) is available [click here] for you to use and adapt as you wish.
A. Basic Climate Science – Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and other “greenhouse” gases cause the Earth Surface to be warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was just nitrogen.
- Light energy from the Sun warms the Earth System, which consists of our Atmosphere and the Surface. Based on satellite measurements, the Sun provides 1366 Watts per square meter (W/m^2) at the Top of the Atmosphere. After accounting for the Earth’s spherical shape and albedo (reflectiveness), the absorbed energy averages out to about 240 W/m^2 for each square meter.
- To maintain a relatively constant mean temperature, Output Energy must equal Input Energy, so the Earth System must emit about 240 W/m^2 out to Space, which it does.
- We call the Input Energy “light” because we can see (much of) it. We call the Output Energy “heat” because we can feel it. However, whether it is “short wave” energy from the very hot Sun, or “long wave” from the more moderate Earth System, we know that energy is fungible. 240 W/m^2 of one type is equal, power-wise, to 240 W/m^2 of the other. A Watt is a Watt, no matter what :^)
- But, there is an “issue” – if we consider the Earth System as a “black body”, according to the laws of physics, for the Earth System to emit 240 W/m^2, it would have to be at a temperature of only 255 Kelvin, where Kelvins are degrees Celsius above absolute zero. (The Earth System is not exactly a black body, but it is close enough for our purposes here.)
- You may remember that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy and that 0.0 Kelvin corresponds to -273ºC or -460ºF. The “issue” is that the Earth Surface has a mean temperature closer to 288 Kelvin, corresponding to about +15ºC or +59ºF. In other words, the Surface is about 33ºC or 58ºF warmer than the “black body” formula would indicate. How to explain this added warmth?
- The generally accepted explanation is the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. This is true science, but the name is somewhat misleading because a glass greenhouse works mostly by restricting convection while the Atmospheric effect works mostly by restricting radiation. I use “scare quotes” around “greenhouse” to acknowledge this semantic issue.
- The Atmosphere passes most of the “short wave” energy from the Sun and absorbs most of the “long wave” energy from the Surface. The absorbed energy warms the Atmosphere and is re-emitted in all directions at a variety of “long wave” wavelengths. A portion of radiation from the Atmosphere passes out the Top of the Atmosphere to Space. A portion is emitted in the downward direction and is absorbed by the Surface. This absorbed radiant energy accounts for most of the extra 33ºC or 58ºF.
- A variety of gases in the Atmosphere, primarily water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2), absorb and re-emit “long wave” radiation. These are called “greenhouse gases”.
B. Divergent Views – There is a valid, science-based argument between people I refer to as Warmists, Lukewarmers, and Skeptics. I distinguish their reasoned views from the far out, unscientific rantings of people I refer to as Alarmists and their equal and opposite reaction opponents, who I call Disbelievers.
- VP Al Gore was not the first Alarmist, but his public lectures and his Nobel and Oscar-winning movie, An “Inconvenient” Truth, probably did more than anything else to bring Global Warming Alarmism to the fore in the consciousness of the major media and the general population.
- The scene depicted above was the highlight of his presentation.
- Gore displays the Ice Core record of the past 600,000 years for CO2 (red) and Temperature (blue). He points out the undoubted correlation between the two parameters. When one goes up so does the other. When one goes down, the other does as well. He points out that the then current CO2 level is considerably higher than that of the past 600,000 years, and he projects the future levels of CO2 assuming it continues to rise at current rates. So far, this is all true.
- Dramatically ascending high above the stage on his motorized platform, he implies that mean temperatures will rise in proportion to the CO2. (My graphic is annotated in dashed blue to show the implied warming.) If that happens, he warns, more and more of the polar ice will melt, causing the seas to rise and flooding coastal areas. The ground under the polar ice will be exposed, further reducing the albedo of the Surface and causing further warming. We will reach a tipping point with runaway Global Warming.
- The villain of Gore’s story is the human race and our habit of burning ever-increasing quantities of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) that release unprecedented amounts of CO2. This scene, more than any other event, is most likely responsible for the birth of what has come to be known as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, CAGW. In other words, catastrophe due to human-caused Global Warming. It has become the mantra of the Alarmists and an excuse for governments to regulate all fossil fuels as well as land use that affects albedo. Since all industry and agriculture and civilized life itself depends upon fossil fuels and land use, the Alarmists give suitably oriented politicos an excuse to regulate and tax and restrict virtually everything. We outdoors types will need an indulgence from the government every time we pass wind. And, we can forget about lighting a campfire :^).
- But, as the annotations in my graphic above show, there is a fundamental “Inconvenient” truth about the ice core data. It has absolutely nothing to say about the current Global Warming controversy! Gore was misleading the media and the public when he implied that rising CO2 levels would cause corresponding increases in mean temperatures. In particular, as any scientist who took a close look at the ice core data would see, and as I show in the inset graph in the upper left corner, Temperature always rises eight-hundred or more years before CO2 increases. The same is true in the other direction. The Temperature falls eight-hundred or more years prior to CO2 decreases. What this shows, if anything, is that TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2, or, that something else causes both to change, with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years. Gore got the direction of causation backwards.
- When the falsehood of this implied causation was pointed out, Gore’s apologists claimed that it was a minor matter and, after all, despite the 800-year lag, both Temperature and CO2 were up together and down together for about 5/6ths of the record. Besides, they said, we are currently burning historically unprecedented amounts of fossil fuel, and, we know that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas”, and so on and on. But, the truth is still that the ice core record is of a time when there were no humans to burn fossil fuels, so why did Gore bring it up since it has no relationship to our current situation? Raw, unfettered Alarmism has had its effect on the media, the political class, and we common citizens who have to pay the costs of the phony CAGW panic.
- In politics, as in physics, every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. In the Case of CAGW, that opposite (and equally false) reaction is what I call Disbeliever AGW or DAGW. These are people who use pseudo-scientific arguments in their claim that humans have had absolutely no hand in the mean temperature rise of the past century, or that there has been no temperature rise, or that the basic science of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” is untrue, and so on. I do not like to be to critical of the DAGW crowd because, when it comes to general political decisions, they are more likely than not to agree with me than my opponents, but my academic integrity and ethical duty as a licensed professional engineer require me to state what I see as the error of their arguments. (As I have in my WUWT Visualizing series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
- Having dismissed what I regard as the unscientific Alarmists and Disbelievers, that leaves us with three groups that, for the most part, use rational science-base arguments for their diverse views. Of course, every member of each group has somewhat different views, and any attempt to divide them into three distinct types is bound to cross some lines. So, please consider my grouping as approximate.
- Carbon sensitivity, which is the estimate of how much mean temperatures will increase if CO2 doubles from historical or current levels, is one way to determine which of the the three groups a person belongs to. The Warmists tend to accept the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate of 2.0ºC to 4.5ºC. The Skeptics tend to set carbon sensitivity much lower, perhaps 0.2ºC to 1ºC. The third group, which I call Lukewarmers, would suggest 1ºC to 3ºC.
- How much of the rise in CO2 is attributable to human use of fossil fuels is also estimated differently. Warmists would blame humans for nearly all of it, while Skeptics would say less than half. Similarly, the blame for the supposed 0.8ºC rise in mean temperatures since 1880 is mostly attributed to human activities, while Skeptics say that data bias “adjustments” by the official climate record keepers is responsible for about a third of the supposed warming, and that natural cycles, over which humans have no control, are responsible for about half of it, leaving only 0.1ºC (or maybe up to 0.2ºC) to human responsibility. Lukewarmers are somewhere in-between.
- Skeptics have well-justified suspicions that the official climate data keepers were “cooking the books” to lend whatever support they could to the highest estimates of carbon sensitivity. Around the year 2000, US Mean Temperature data was “adjusted” down by 0.1 to 0.2ºC for years prior to the 1970’s, and upwards by 0.2 to 0.3ºC for years after the 1970’s, increasing supposed warming by 0.3 to 0.5ºC.
- The surfacestations.org project published photos of official temperature measurement stations that were very near artificial sources of heat, with most being in the lowest two of the five quality levels established by the government. The poor quality stations were compared to nearby well-located stations. There were large temperature deltas that could only be accounted for if the the stations now poorly-located were originally well-located, but had been influenced by nearby development, such as paved parking lots, buildings, and air conditioning vents.
- According to a figure in the 1990 IPCC report, 1100 to 1300 AD saw temperatures in the northern hemisphere that were higher than current levels. However, the IPCC 2001 report included the infamous so-called “hockey stick” chart that managed to make the Medieval Warm Period of about 1000 years ago disappear! (My Powerpoint set includes charts with evidence of each of the aforementioned issues.)
- These suspicions were not fully confirmed until 2009 when someone (probably an inside whistle-blower) released emails and computer code from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, and, later that year, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request yielded a stash from the US NASA-GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies).
C. Climategate – UK Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails and the US NASA GISS FOIA emails. What they tell us about the published Global Warming data.
- I refer to the CRU as the Climategate Research Unit or, more simply, the Fudge Factory because the words “fudge factor” appear in their computer code. Phil Jones, PhD, is the CRU Director. He confirmed suspicions about the infamous “Hockey Stick” graph when, in an email, he called it “Mike’s Nature trick” (because a version of that graph appeared in a paper by Dr. Michael Mann in the prestigious journal Nature ). He also wrote that the “trick” was designed to “hide the decline” in tree ring proxy data. The tree-ring expert associated with CRU, Keith Brifa, PhD, admits, in one of the emails that “the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago”. (My Powerpoint set includes slides with direct quotes from the Climategate materials.)
- Moving on to the FOIA emails from GISS, it is interesting to note that their HQ, in New York City, happens to be in the same building as the famous restaurant where Jerry Seinfeld dined with George, Kramer, and Elaine. (It was never revealed what Kramer did for a living – perhaps he was the chief analyst at GISS :^)
- The most revealing email from GISS is reproduced above. It was from Makiko Sato, PhD to her Boss, GISS-Director James Hansen, PhD, detailing the seven different analyses and comparisons of US mean temperatures for 1934 and 1998. The later year was the hottest in the 1990’s, so it was, let us say “inconvenient” that 1934, according to data published by GISS in 1999, was over 0.5ºC warmer. If Global Warming was almost entirely due to recent human activities, and was accelerating, how could the 1930 have been warmer?
- Just as the Hockey Stick made the Medieval Warm Period disappear, GISS tried mightily to make 1934 cooler than 1998, but only succeeded in reducing the 0.5ºC lead into a dead heat. Notice that the 0.5ºC “adjustment” is more than half the supposed total warming since 1880.
- I would like to trust the work of taxpayer-supported science, but, it seems, we must rely on President Reagan’s advice regarding the old Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify!”
D. What We Can and Should Do – Energy policy (cap and trade scam vs carbon tax). Efficiency, conservation, “green“, and renewable sources.
- I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.
- However, the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause.
- There is not and never has been any real danger of catastrophe or even of serious net detriment to human life due to increased CO2 levels. Indeed, modest increases in these parameters are most likely a net benefit.
- However, we Skeptics have to be realistic in the current political climate. Like it or not (and I do not like it) the official climate “Team” (i.e., the “Hockey Team” :^) has convinced the political and media establishment, and much of the population that something has to be done. We cannot fight something with nothing, so we need something more than a passive policy of do nothing because nothing is necessary.
- Therefore, I favor reduction of the carbon footprint by efficiency, conservation, recycling, and so on, plus the introduction, if and when economically practical of so-called “Green” energy, including Nuclear, Water, Wind, Biomass and, particularly, “Clean” Coal.
- If nothing else, these will do minimum harm and, if successful, will reduce US dependence upon foreign oil. We have spent, and continue to sacrifice too much blood and treasure protecting our access, and that of our allies, to energy from unstable regions of the world.
- As for the Cap and Trade scam, it is a Politician’s Delight that rewards powerful Interests, wrecks the economy, and will NOT significantly reduce carbon emissions. It seems to me that some countries and US states that have adopted Cap and Trade have realized their folly and are backing away from it.
- You may be surprised that I favor some version of a straight Carbon Tax, collected at the mine, well, and port, with the proceeds returned on an equal basis to citizens and legal residents. Yes, James Hansen and (pardon the expression Ralph Nader) also favor it, but, so do conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the Wall Street Journal, and others on the right. My support for this tax is based on what I wrote above, “We cannot fight something with nothing” and “We have spent, and continue to sacrifice too much blood and treasure protecting our access, and that of our allies, to energy from unstable regions of the world.”
I’m interested in your critique and comments. (My Powerpoint presentation is available [click here] for you to use and adapt as you wish..)
Sometimes it just helps to see the numbers. I should not have only posted the full solar curves without some critical points showing the IR portions. So, here’s the four before I put this away. Someone might need these hard to find numbers one day and can just bookmark this.
In a spreadsheet, scale the radiance column if needed to fit your situation.
This is blackbody curve at sun’s temperature of 5778 K with an emissivity of one sized to Earth’s projection and divided by four for the daily average. ( solar sized to TSI/4, dividing by 185061.74, that is 1/(RSun/DistToSun/2)^2 ).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 0.060 0.100 0.000014 Super UV 0.100 0.200 0.509831 Vacuum UV 0.200 0.300 10.392198 Mid UV 0.300 0.400 30.846568 Near UV 0.400 0.460 25.169476 Visible - Violet 0.460 0.475 6.633347 Visible - Indigo 0.475 0.490 6.690535 Visible - Blue 0.490 0.565 33.259671 Visible - Green 0.565 0.575 4.311756 Visible - Yellow 0.575 0.600 10.571656 Visible - Orange 0.600 0.800 70.559283 Visible - Red 0.800 1.000 46.297176 Near IR 1.000 2.000 75.659917 Near IR 2.000 3.000 13.364832 Near IR 3.000 4.000 3.923366 Near IR 4.000 5.000 1.535702 Near IR 5.000 6.000 0.718861 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 0.379993 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 0.219331 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 0.135313 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 0.087950 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 0.059615 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 0.041829 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 0.030209 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 0.022358 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 0.016900 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 0.013011 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 0.010179 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 0.008077 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 0.006491 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 0.005276 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 0.015595 Mid IR 25.000 999.000 0.016684 Far IR ---------- 341.512998This is blackbody curve at 288.15 K with an emissivity of one.
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 2.000 3.000 0.019725 Near IR 3.000 4.000 0.549302 Near IR 4.000 5.000 3.201913 Near IR 5.000 6.000 8.524765 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 14.833360 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 20.194765 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 23.689671 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 25.294810 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 25.405858 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 24.501374 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 22.991859 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 21.179958 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 19.268895 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 17.385244 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 15.601686 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 13.955208 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 12.460244 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 11.117647 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 40.137411 Far IR 25.000 30.000 23.421553 Far IR 30.000 35.000 14.302277 Far IR 35.000 40.000 9.136796 Far IR 40.000 45.000 6.076563 Far IR 45.000 50.000 4.184623 Far IR 50.000 999.000 13.482325 Far IR ----------- 390.917832This is blackbody curve at 252.43 K with an emissivity of one that is found according to the 1976 Standard Atmosphere at 5500 meters above the surface. At this point basically ½ of the mass of the atmosphere is above and ½ of the mass is below this level (see: mass attenuation coefficient).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 2.000 3.000 0.001602 Near IR 3.000 4.000 0.080973 Near IR 4.000 5.000 0.690134 Near IR 5.000 6.000 2.389563 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 5.024350 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 7.878447 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 10.303465 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 11.987368 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 12.901878 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 13.168030 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 12.953043 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 12.415310 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 11.683168 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 10.851613 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 9.986564 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 9.131243 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 8.312282 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 7.544718 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 28.279166 Far IR 25.000 30.000 17.313046 Far IR 30.000 35.000 10.908120 Far IR 35.000 40.000 7.122324 Far IR 40.000 45.000 4.813368 Far IR 45.000 50.000 3.355542 Far IR 50.000 999.000 11.140849 Far IR ----------- 230.236166This is blackbody curve at 216.7 K with an emissivity of one that is found according to the 1976 Standard Atmosphere at 11000 meters above the surface at the top of the atmosphere (TOA).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 4.000 5.000 0.090784 Near IR 5.000 6.000 0.443090 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 1.195019 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 2.258799 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 3.413127 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 4.452624 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 5.257472 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 5.791057 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 6.070939 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 6.140564 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 6.050201 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 5.846680 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 5.569117 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 5.248015 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 4.906004 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 4.559176 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 18.004644 Far IR 25.000 30.000 11.776087 Far IR 30.000 35.000 7.747360 Far IR 35.000 40.000 5.213577 Far IR 40.000 45.000 3.602315 Far IR 45.000 50.000 2.554038 Far IR 50.000 999.000 8.841037 Far IR ----------- 125.031726Smokey,
I have come to respect your opinions and inisghts, even if I don’t always agree with you. You say that “the null pypothesis has never been falsified” — I would be interesting in knowing just which null hypothesis you think has never been falsified. I keep coming back in these discussions that people are talking past each other.
For example, the hypothesis
has certainly in my mind been confirmed at a p < 0.001 level.
At another extreme, the hypothesis
has NOT in my mind been confirmed even at a 0.05 level. For one thing, the specific “catastrophe” is not defined. For another, people are pretty resourceful.
I try to avoid dicsussing “catastrophe” precisely because it is scientifically imprecise. There varying degrees of catastrophe (from “life will be a little tougher for some plants and animals” to “we’re all gonna die”) over varying timeframes (form “next decade” to “thousands of years from now”).
So Smokey, could you clarify just what YOU mean by “CAGW” — some thing quantifiable at a specific time? I suspect that if you propose a specific hypothesis, then we will find that not so many scientists actually feel confident of such a “catastrophe” being certain.
Tim Folkerts,
Using the definition of the null hypothesis [which can be found here many times], it is the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data.
Expected data is that which is within the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. Alternate hypotheses such as that CO2 will cause runaway global warming must have evidence that one or more of the global climate parameters have been exceeded. Since they have not been exceeded, the null hypothesis remains unfalsified. Dr Roy Spencer puts the null hypothesis this way: “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.”
The observed changes really are very minor. As you can see from the Vostok ice core chart above, the current climate is very mild; not too hot, not too cold, but
ju-u-u-st right. We are currently in a Goldilocks climate. Past variability has at times been much greater, on the order of tens of degrees of change within about a century. That change is extreme, but there have been many T rises and declines that dwarf the current 150 year rise of 0.7°C, in both temperature and trend. Temperatures prior to the Holocene look very scary.
I agree that ‘catastrophe’ is a vague label, but it was used for quite a while by the alarmists. To me it means the climate will exceed the temperature parameters and/or trends during the Holocene. Anything less is indistinguishable from natural variability, no? And since we’re here following those past natural warming episodes, we should be able to handily survive any smaller changes.
Smokey says:
June 4, 2011 at 12:18 pm
For example, the hypothesis
The IR properties of GHGs like H20 and CO2 have a warming effect on earth’s surface.” has certainly in my mind been confirmed at a p < 0.001 level."
Warming impact. Or an effect on the rate of cooling?
@ur momisugly Matt G
http://tes.asu.edu/MARS_SURVEYOR/MGSTES/TIR_description.html says:
“Near-infrared is the “color” of the heating coil on an electric stove just before it glows red. ”
You really think this ‘color’ is not hot? What did someone just tell you in some lecture or book that it not thermal IR therefore it doesn’t heat matter?
There is 142 wm-2 of the 391 wm-2 solar radiation that is below red in “color”, it is invisible infrared. I really don’t care what AGW science’s climatologist define as “Thermal IR”.
Of the visible radiation from the sun a great portion of visible light is reflected back to space. Of 157 wm-2 in the visible frequencies some 36.7% (ref:NASA) or 58 wm-2 is rejected back to space. So we are left with 99 wm-2 of visible and 142 of infrared from which we end up with 67 being absorbed by the atmosphere and 168 being absorbed by the solid or liquid surface (and 8 wm-2 got lost there somewhere, probably UV absorbed high).
See, Myrrh defines the bands differently but some of what he is saying is correct. That’s ok, take a deep breath. I really think it is a mixture on both fronts but that does not imply that most of the 168 wm-2 is visible light, much of it IS infrared.
So you tell myself and Myrrh, what portion of those last two numbers, 67 & 168, is from visible and which portion is from infrared. Refs would help.
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 8:46 am
Richard M says:
I don’t know, but it seems to me that we need to at least mention this effect to have a complete description of GHGs. Ignoring it only makes one wonder if something is being hidden.
Could you please show me a model…any model…of the greenhouse effect, whether it be a “toy model” or a full radiative-convective model that ignores Kirchkoff’s Law (i.e., the fact that the emissivity and absorptivity are equal at a given wavelength)? Good luck finding one because in fact all models represent this faithfully. Hence, you are just making up a problem that does not in fact exist.
Doesn’t Kirchkoff’s Law cover emissivity/absorption? I’m talking about energy transfer through other means when GHGs contact other gases. Are you stating GHGs cannot gain energy except through radiation? If not, then isn’t it likely that Kirchkoff’s Law does not apply?
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 7:21 am
“If you do not have that then energy conservation says that you are not going to “add energy to the atmosphere”.
Sorry Joel the energy is internal energy and the convective movement of air conserves energy. We near the surface just happen to be at the bottom/warm part of the cycle.
But the real question is not why the sunny side gets warm (the sun), but why does the dark side not get real cold. hint think H2O
Smokey,
Summarizing what you said, I come up with
HYPOTHESIS: Current temperatures ARE “outside the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. ”
NULL HYPOTHESIS: Current temperatures ARE NOT “outside the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. ”
Thanks — that does help clarifiy the discussion!
I find it interesting that your statment says nothing about 1) the “catastrophic” nature of the change, and 2) there is nothing specifically about “warming”, and 3) there is nothing about people being the cause. So this seems to simply be a “CC” (climate change) hypothesis, not a “CAGW” hypothesis.
Certainly the argument could made that
> If there has been no change beyond normal variations,
>> then there is no unsual variability specifically toward warm temperatures,
>>> then there is no human cause of unusual warming,
>>>> then there can be no catastrophic results of the none-existant changes in variability.
Let me further this discussion on a purely statistical front. Suppose I start an experiment where I flip a coin and get heads 12 times out of 13. I don’t have my calculator handy, but I am sure that statistacally I can reject the hypothesis “the coin is fair and comes up 50% of the time”. On the other hand, if I flip a coin 10,000 times and find a streak with 12 outof 13 heads, that would not be all that surprising and I probably can’t reject the null hypothesis.
In a sense, we “started an experiment” ~100 years ago when people started burning CO2 in earnest. Since that experiment started, we have seen results kind of like that coin flipping experiment — while the results may not be outside the most extreme results seen in the last 10,000 years, i think they are outside the “typical results”. The results don’t have to be outside the MOST EXTREME observations for a 100 year period in the last 10,000 years to be significant, they just have to be outside MOST OF (eg 95% or 99%) the observations to be significant.
I’m not saying here that we ARE outside of the 99% typical range for change — that is a further discussion! There is an old saying often called the “chinese curse” that says “May you live in interesting times”. Perhaps we ARE truly just living in interesting times — times where the observed changes are natural but simply unsual. But if we have started an experiment and if that experiment did immediately lead to conditions that are happen less than 5% (or 1% or 0.1%) of the time, that by definition is statistically significant!
Re temps of Earth, with the added bonus of another AGWScience meme which makes no sense. In both links used to obfuscate that the main greenhouse gas is water vapour and the real greenhouse effect of the atmosphere around our Earth is that of cooling.
So without our atmosphere which is the volume of gases surrounding us, the temp would be -18°C, with an atmosphere but without the Water Cycle, the temp would be 67°C. Why really? It tells you in 3., because water vapour evaporates from the ocean and land cooling the surface.
The meme in 2., “The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface” has replaced the fact that water vapour cools the surface of the Earth, the actual reason that without it the Earth would be very much hotter as noted in 3.
Even having admitted that water vapour is a greenhouse gas in the title, especially about this particular one, and saying in 3. that water vapour cools the Earth, the meme deliberately confuses the issue by not including the reason in 2, and, because switching in mid explanation by excluding water vapour as a greenhouse gas in the meme that greenhouse gases keep the heat near the surface, water vapour suddenly becomes something apart from this.
The other greenhouse gases are insignificant in ‘helping keep heat near the surface’, being trace gases among the rounded up 100% nitrogen and oxygen and 1% argon, the dry air, but he’s had to exclude water vapour in claiming this.
It’s not these keeping the heat near the surface, but the lack of water vapour to cool the Earth which is what would raise the temp to 67°C.
The cooling of the Earth by greenhouse gases is excluded from AGWScience, yet that is the main function of them, or rather of it, water vapour. In the wonder that is the Water Cycle.
Any amount of ‘heat it keeps near the surface’, is insignificant compared with the huge cooling effect of the water cycle, think deserts. This is our real Greenhouse atmosphere, and, the trace greenhouse gases will also have this property, of taking heat away from the earth, cooling it.
Any carbon dioxide in hot air rising will also be taking heat away as it spontaneously joins with water. When the water vapour rises into the colder higher levels and condenses out into rain, carbon dioxide will come down to earth with it, as carbonic acid. So exactly as water vapour does, as noted in 3, will release any heat also, which moving from hotter to colder will take it further from the earth cooling it.
Does anyone have this book? Because this piece says that the points made are ideas based on what the book is saying, so possibly the creative use of this meme to obfuscate is not in the original.
The second link has some interesting things to say about the amount of water on Earth, but,
http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/earthsciences/watercycle.html
Under the heading Climate regulation it says:
Again this meme makes no sense because the actual greenhouse effect being described is the main greenhouse gas cooling the earth. There’s no ‘greenhouse effect heating the earth’ when the main greenhouse gas cools it.
Same sleight of hand as in excluding thermal infrared from the downwelling and attributing its properties to light energies which don’t have them, the ‘greenhouse effect’ has simply been changed to calling it ‘warming’, not the physical reality which is ‘cooling’, as is actually being described.
Does anyone have the equations of how to determine the rate of absorption of CO2 friendly radiation? Many places say it is absorbed fully within 6 feet of the surface. So, but I cannot find the rate of absorption. Does the first half of the 6 feet absorb half and the next half the other half of the radiation, or does the first half absorb most of the radiation and only a small amount gets absorbed in the second half of the distance.
My intuition says that if it takes x distance to absorb y energy of radiation in one direction such that there is no remaining original radiation left at the end of the distance, that what ever the energy there is at this point, it does not have enough to get back the distance that it has already traveled and must therefore continue out to space.
I have seen the depictions of some peoples attempt to make it show as a physical process so it is easier to visualize and understand, but in every case, they seem to think that if y radiation travels x distance and then randomly picks a new direction that the theoretical half the energy that is pointed downwards has the same opportunity as the original energy to travel x distance through the same radiation absorbing CO2 atmosphere. I do not think it can travel that far through the same medium. I think that y/2 radiation can travel <x distance before being fully absorbed. In fact, I think that it can travel <x/2 distance.
So, does anyone have an answer for this?
mkelly says:
I’ve totally lost what you are even trying to say here. Let’s make it real simple: The earth’s surface absorbs ~161 W/m^2 from the sun; because of its temperature, it radiates ~396 W/m^2. Where does that additional energy come from?
Richard M says:
Kirchkoff’s Law says that emissivity and absorptivity are equal, period. How the substance gains energy doesn’t enter into it. But, my point was simply that nobody is ignoring the part of the equation that you claim is being ignored. Any model of the system would have the greenhouse gases radiating according to their temperature and emissivity.
astonerii says:
Your intuition is way off…In fact, backwards. What you are describing is called a “random walk” and, in fact, in the limit that you describe (of the length of each “walk segment” to the total thickness of the medium being very small), the random walker is much more likely to make it back to the origin than it is to make it through the medium. (It is in fact in the other limit, i.e., of the walk segment being much larger than the thickness of the medium that it has a reasonable likelihood of escape.)
You can do the simulation yourself with a coin. For example, let’s make the medium thickness 10 units where a “unit” is how far the walker moves in one step. We start at x = 0 and move to x = 1. Now, flip the coin to determine if you move “up” to x = 2 or back to x = 0. If you go back to x = 0, you have come back to the surface and stop. If not, continue until you either reach x = 0 (“the surface”) or x = 10 (“space”). You will find that you much more often will end up back at the surface than out in space. In fact, you can pretty much see how this is going to go from looking at the first few steps: When you are at x = 1, then half the time you will end up going back to the surface; if you are at x = 1 and then go to x = 2, then half the time you’ll jump back to x = 1 and then on the subsequent flip, half the time you’ll be back to the surface. So, right there, you already know you have AT LEAST 3/4 probability of ending back at the surface. [In fact, I think that the exact formula is that for a medium N units thick, you end up escaping a fraction of 1/N of the time and end up back at the surface a fraction of (N-1)/N of the time.]
Joel Shore says:
yeah, that does not help. The medium does matter, otherwise there would not be a laboratory test that demonstrates precisely what the thickness of ocean level atmospheric CO2 is required to absorb the Earth level emitted radiation to extinction, and by my reading, I have seen several places where this number is listed, but it just has not been shown how to calculate the rate of absorption from first entry to last absorbed. As in, if they started with 1 inch thick atmospheres and worked their way up to the 6 feet and at each thickness how much was absorbed.
astonerii: I was answering the later part of your post, not your first question. (And, yes, the medium would matter…However, in the abstraction of the problem that I proposed the nature of the medium is incorporated in the measurement of the medium thickness in the units I specified. The technical way to look at it is provided by the quantity called “optical thickness” (also called “optical depth”): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth )
As for your first question, the answer for what the extinction length is doesn’t have a simple answer because it depends strongly on the precise wavelength that you are talking about. Once you have the number for a given wavelength, then the calculation for different thicknesses would not be difficult…It would essentially follow an exponential if what you wanted to do was to calculate the probability of a photon making it through without being absorbed at all. (So, for example, if you had an amount of atmosphere thick enough to absorb half of the radiation, then doubling that would mean that 1/4 of the radiation gets through without being absorbed, tripling it would mean that 1/8 gets through unabsorbed, and so on. It works the same as “half lives” for radioactive substances.
However, if you wanted to know what would happen to the radiation after multiple absorption / emission events, then it becomes more like the random walk problem that I described, except more complicated because of the fact that the emitted photon can have a different wavelength than the absorbed one.
Re: CO2 lagging temperature.
Simple rebuttal – That’s the way it works when nature is driving the show. With mankind providing the driving factor, the natural process is overridden.
Paul says:
“With mankind providing the driving factor, the natural process is overridden.”
And you evidence of this is what, exactly?
Tim Folkerts,
I’m in agreement with most all of what you wrote [any differences are what makes a market, no?]
The ‘experiment’ you refer to should have some evidence showing global harm due to CO2, after a ≈40% rise, shouldn’t it? But despite furious searching, the CAGW crowd has produced no verifiable global damage at all. There just isn’t any evidence that CO2 is causing harm. That being the case, what would you conclude?
Smokey says:
June 4, 2011 at 8:35 pm
“The ‘experiment’ you refer to should have some evidence showing global harm due to CO2, after a ≈40% rise, shouldn’t it? But despite furious searching, the CAGW crowd has produced no verifiable global damage at all. There just isn’t any evidence that CO2 is causing harm. That being the case, what would you conclude?”
But the CAGW crowd don’t care in the slightest what real evidence shows. Or whether their solutions like a carbon tax (Ira’s solution) will make a worthwhile difference even if the IPCCs projections are correct.
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“Let’s make it real simple: The earth’s surface absorbs ~161 W/m^2 from the sun; because of its temperature, it radiates ~396 W/m^2. Where does that additional energy come from?”
Forget about science as this whole AGW / CAGW discussion mostly ignores science and evidence. Using common sense it can not come from the atmosphere. Energy can not leave earth and somehow magically multiply itself in the atmosphere and return as a greater amount. (not unless CO2 and water vapour act as mini suns or mini power generators which I don’t think the GW crowd have directly claimed yet).
So its obvious that energy comes from the sun and only the sun. And if you read the Postma paper with an open mind (something so far you have refused to do) you would see the science to back this up.
Sorry it should read
leave earth’s surface and etc.
RJ makes a very telling comment: June 4, 2011 at 11:33 pm
“Forget about science… Using common sense … ”
What can you say after that!
RJ, your common sense is contradicting conservation of energy! Why do you think your common sense trumps fundamental principles like Conservation of Energy built up by the scientific community over hundreds of years?
The surface emits~390 J of IR energy from each square meter each second. Beyond this, over 100 J of energy leaves the surface via evaporation and convection, for a total of ~ 500 J every second from each square meter. But only ~160 J arrives in the form of sunlight. That leaves ~330 J energy needed to conserve energy. And — WOW! — there is a measured influx of ~ 330 J of IR energy arriving at each m^2 each second that matches that missing energy.
RECAP: There is a measured flux of IR energy from the atmosphere that agrees with the principle of conservaton of energyand with the principles of thermal radiation. Who is it that is ignoring science and evidence?
Tim Folkertsq says:
June 5, 2011 at 5:31 am
“RJ, your common sense is contradicting conservation of energy! Why do you think your common sense trumps fundamental principles like Conservation of Energy built up by the scientific community over hundreds of years? ”
There is no way that energy can be magically multiplied by the atmosphere. This is covered in both the slayers book and the Postma paper. The energy comes from the sun not the atmosphere.
If there are 100 balls in a box. 50 are thrown in the air and 25 return. This does not now equal 125 balls. Yet this is what you are claiming. If another 100 additional balls arrive this is the equivalent to additional energy from the sun NOT additional energy from the atmosphere.
Energy comes from the sun and only the sun. But some hide behind so called science to claim otherwsie
mkelly says:
June 4, 2011 at 5:32 am
“Matt in the JACA 2009 lecture page 14 left hand graph has measured solar radiation outside atmosphere higher than theoretical blackbody at 5900 K.
I have always worked under the understanding that BB is the maximum so how can this graph be possible?”
Think this is related to the coronal heating problem, where direct heat can’t explain it, but the solar corona rises to a temperature of 1,000,000–2,000,000 K.
RJ says:
“There is no way that energy can be magically multiplied by the atmosphere”
Which is absolutely correct. Fortuantely for me and Joel and everyone who understands science, we are not relying on any sort of magical multiplication! We are relying on simple science.
Notice that you could not address any of the specific ideas or numbers or facts. Once again — what specific facts that I stated require magic to understand? Which experimental numbers do you think are wrong, and what numbers would you use instead?
wayne says:
June 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm
The near IR not hot from 93 million miles away, the main issue that I was trying to respond too is the incorrect assumption that only thermal IR warms the planet Earth. A star maximum in the near infra red, would stuggle to warm any planet from that distance much above absolute zero.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Electromagnetic_radiation
I wasn’t clear with the reflected light part, of course light is reflected by clouds on Earth, etc. The light that reached the surface at the correct angle of absorbance =~240w/m2, all of this is absorbed by the atmosphere, land and oceans. On Mars even light reaching the surface at the correct angle has some reflected back to space (as visible light) and is not absorbed. Whereas on Earth it is all absorbed (240w/m2) and eventually reflected back as long wave. I have not found an example where reflected light from clouds etc is reflected back in the visible wavelength. The example of blackbody at Earth’s temperatures shows no emission from visible light wavelengths.
http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/education/class/yuri/erb.html#dosh
@ur momisugly Matt G — June 5, 2011 at 9:09 am
First, you claimed I said the paragraph below and it was you who was speaking, not me. Please, be careful when you claim who says what. I’ll forgive this time.
Also, I spent over two hours creating those black body readouts above and it seems you spent zero time even looking at what they are telling you. At first I thought you knew at least the basics of science but I might have been mistaken. From those you can easily get gray body readouts if you adjust for the emissivity.
Matt G says:
“The near IR not hot from 93 million miles away, the main issue that I was trying to respond too is the incorrect assumption that only thermal IR warms the planet Earth.”
Oh, but the near IR is just as hot as visible light even from 1.49×10^11 meters away. Look at the second table. A watt is a watt is a watt. The decreased power from longer wavelengths has already been accounted for in those figures. This is why you are showing your lack in pure physics.
On your main issue, no one was saying “all”, well, maybe Myrrh but not me, you were claiming no invisible infrared warming. I made that clear above and was asking you to provide the division of the portions of visible and above in comparison to the infrared.
Matt G says:
“A star maximum in the near infra red, would stuggle to warm any planet from that distance much above absolute zero.”
Of course a star so cool that it has no visible light would have trouble warming planets but we are not speaking of such a cool star, we are speaking of our Sun and it’s portion of radiation in the infrared.
Matt G says:
“I wasn’t clear with the reflected light part, of course light is reflected by clouds on Earth, etc. The light that reached the surface at the correct angle of absorbance =~240w/m2, all of this is absorbed by the atmosphere, land and oceans. On Mars even light reaching the surface at the correct angle has some reflected back to space (as visible light) and is not absorbed.”
Yes, clouds reflect light, and what I was saying is a portion is in the infrared, how much. Like Mars, the reflection form the surface (30 Wm-2 per KT97) is how much in visible and how much infrared. You do know the difference in geometric albedo and Bond albedo don’t you? That 168 Wm-2 (or 161 by TFK98) is a mixture of infrared and visible+UV. I was asking you how much of which. From the calculations above you know that all is not visible and it seems not even half, Matt… what is the divisions at the 0.78-.80 µm wavelength, upward for visible-UV, below for IR.
Don’t just keep dribbling wrong facts to the readers here. Most here know the numbers well.
Matt G says:
“Whereas on Earth it is all absorbed (240w/m2) and eventually reflected back as long wave. I have not found an example where reflected light from clouds etc is reflected back in the visible wavelength. The example of blackbody at Earth’s temperatures shows no emission from visible light wavelengths.”
All absorbed solar radiation in the atmosphere (78 wm-2 (TFK98)) and by the surface (161 wm-2) is then thermal in nature and radiates in IR, no surprise there, of course no visible. Are you just trying to belittle me? You have not addressed one specific question I asked you to supply if you were questioning how much solar radiation is IR (I have already found that) and how much is visible and above.