This is how Slashdot breaks the news from Forbes article: “New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism”. When it hits Slashdot, you know it has gone viral.
New NASA Data Casts Doubt On Global Warming Models
from the but-scientists-love-models dept.
bonch writes:
“Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere than is assumed in current models. ‘There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,’ said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama.”
Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.
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Fun fact:.
Every raindrop that falls took enough energy away from the surface to raise the temperature of a hundred times its own weight in air by ten degrees fahrenheit.
Dave Springer:
I like your use of a “Fun fact” (at July 31, 2011 at 3:58 pm) that says:
“Every raindrop that falls took enough energy away from the surface to raise the temperature of a hundred times its own weight in air by ten degrees fahrenheit.”
It is very hard to get people to grasp how much energy is released from the ocean by evapouration, and your “Fun fact” is a useful tool to help people to understand. So, if you don’t mind, I will also use it.
At present, I usually say this:
It takes a lot of energy to lift all the water up to the clouds so it can fall as rain. That energy is provided by the oceans providing heat to evapourate water from their surfaces. And it is a lot of energy: think how your arm would ache if you had to carry all that water up to the clouds in a bucket and by climbing a ladder.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
August 1, 2011 at 2:51 am
The energy to lift the water isn’t really a factor as that is returned to the atmosphere on the way down and only represents a small fraction of the energy involved. The energy doing the lifting is represented by the change in temperature between surface and dewpoint which would be on the order of a few tens of BTUs. The energy released when the rising vapor reaches the apex of its ascent and condenses is on the order of 1000 BTUs.
Please, will all those above posters who say that thermal infrared does not heat the oceans and that it is short wave which heats the oceans, explain how?
In the real world I live in, thermal infrared is heat, heat warms things up, and visible light is light, it’s not heat, it’s not hot, it is reflective, water is a transparent medium for it. The first heats up organic matter, the second doesn’t.
I really do want a detailed explanation, I’m getting quite put off by the lack of response when I ask for proof, some kind of proof that shows this working in the real world.
In my world, thermal infrared is well known. There are hundreds of companies making equipment of one sort or another because they know the difference between heat and light electromagnetic waves.
For example:
http://www.cedrussauna.com/documents/NewcloserlookwebonlyFullSpectrum.pdf
I can’t think of one company in the real world that uses visible light for heating anything.. (and I don’t mean artificially concentrated lasers).
How exactly does Blue visible light heat the oceans? I really do need to see some proof that it is even capable of heating water.
Myrrh:
I write to provide brief answer to your questions in your post at August 1, 2011 at 2:06 pm.
All EM radiation is energy. And that energy transforms to heat when it is absorbed by a substance.
Visible light and IR radiation are both EM radiation so they become heat when absorbed by water. IR cannot be seen by the human eye but a strong flux of IR can be felt by human skin. It has wavelengths in the range 0.74 to 1000 microns.
Solar radiation typically provides an irradiance of just over 1 kilowatt per square meter at sea level. Of this energy, 527 watts is infrared (IR) radiation, 445 watts is visible light, and 32 watts is ultraviolet radiation.
Sea water is opaque to IR so IR only penetrates to less than a micron into the water and is absorbed. This absorbtion provides heat to a very, very thin layer at the water’s surface. The absorbtion heats this surface layer and, thus, encourages evapouration that removes heat as latent energy. Hence, almost all the energy of IR is removed by increased evapouration induced by the IR.
Water is transparent to visible light: this is why objects in water can be seen. However, the water is not completely transparent to visible light and different wavelengths are preferentially absorbed in water. Red light penetrates sea water least distance before being completely absorbed, and blue light penetrates most distance.
In sea water
73% of the visible light from the Sun penetrates to 1 centimeter,
44.5% of the visible light from the Sun penetrates to 1 meter,
22.2% of the visible light from the Sun penetrates to 10 meters,
0.53% of the visible light from the Sun penetrates to 100 meters, and
0.0062% of the visible light from the Sun penetrates to 200 meters.
So, the absorbed visible light becomes heat in the ocean, but it does not only heat a very thin surface layer: about half of it heats layers beyond 100 meters depth. Hence, this absorbed heat is not immediately lost from the ocean by evapouration. And, therefore, this absorbed heat can be mixed and difuse to lower layers.
I hope this brief answer is sufficient. If you want more information on measurements of the heating of water at depth by visible light then I commend
http://sabella.mba.ac.uk/718/01/On_the_penetration_of_light_into_sea_water.pdf
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
August 1, 2011 at 3:43 pm (Edit)
…
All EM radiation is energy. And that energy transforms to heat when it is absorbed by a substance.
Visible light and IR radiation are both EM radiation so they become heat when absorbed by water. IR cannot be seen by the human eye but a strong flux of IR can be felt by human skin. It has wavelengths in the range 0.74 to 1000 microns.
Solar radiation typically provides an irradiance of just over 1 kilowatt per square meter at sea level. Of this energy, 527 watts is infrared (IR) radiation, 445 watts is visible light, and 32 watts is ultraviolet radiation. (His explanation continues above.)
So, A question about the above. Let’s move your example up a little ways from the equator to 70 north latitude on the September equinox:
1) Sea ice and ocean water have almost identical emissivities, so – if both sea ice (e = .99) and ocean water (e = .98) are the same 1 degree K – they will radiate almost identical amounts of energy to the same skies, right? And that thermal cooling radiation will (if daytime temps are the same as nighttime temps) continue all 24 hours, right?
2) Ocean water and sea ice – if both are assumed identically “flat” – have nearly identical reflectivity indices: for average unpolarized light, both will reflect about 14% of the inbound radiation, if the sun is at an assumed 20 degrees incidence angle at noon (90 – latitude 70).. So, only 86% is available to be absorbed – regardless of whether it is striking sea ice or sea water. (at far northern waters at least.) The rest, the reflected energy, goes back on up into the atmosphere.
And, where does that reflected energy end up? Radiated away into space, one presumes. It certainly is not available to heat the ocean or ice back at sea level, and has not changed its wavelength, so it cannot heat any CO2 molecules it passes. Is this one “source” of the lost heat Trenberth cannot find? All CGM model definitions I had heard discussed only use “average” solar constants NOT adjusted for high latitude reflections.
3) At noon, at 70 degrees north Latitude, the sun will be at 20 degrees elevation angle, and the sunlight will flow through (about) 2.9 air masses, cutting the inbound radiation at the ocean’s surface by a factor of 65%, right? Where does that absorbed energy in the air, this energy that does not even reach the surface to be absorbed, reflected, or abstained, end up? Again – one has to state that it ends up radiated into space, never to enter any heat balance near the surface. It is not affected by any CO2 levels present, since it is still at wavelengths too short to interact with either water vapor or Co2 or methane. Or does the heat stay in the Arctic atmosphere at high levels – since it is, after all, absorbed but never gets down to the ground-based temperatures? Do the weather balloons show an Arctic “spike” in temperature at high altitudes as the air absorbs energy up high?
4) Ocean water has an albedo of 7-15%, absorbing 93 – 85% of the heat energy hitting the surface. Ice is more reflective than open ocean water: so, if ice has an albedo of 0.80, it reflects 80% of the available radiation at its surface, and can (on aveage) only absorb 20% of what hits the surface.
So, at best, at noon on the equinox at 70 degrees, an icy surface will only absorb (20%)(65%)(86%) or .112 of the average solar constant received by the average meter square of the average earth. It will absorb that energy only during daylight hours, only when the sun is far enough above the horizon so the potential energy is not reflected away.
The open ocean water next to that assumed ice flow at 70 north latitude at noon will get a bit more: (85%)(65%)(86%) or .47 of the average energy received elsewhere.
And your calc’s above indicate that most of this 47% of the received enrgy will be spent evaporating water from the upper surface of the ocean surface, correct?
All EM radiation is energy. And that energy transforms to heat when it is absorbed by a substance.
I’m sure you mean well Richard and thank you for your considered explanation, but not all energy turns to heat when it is absorbed by a substance, photosynthesis, for example, is energy being used for a chemical change which is not creation of heat.
Let me try another tack. AGWscience says that the atmosphere is ‘transparent’ to Visible light (in the Solar which includes UV and Nr IR) and passes through when its not reflected back, and you say, correctly, that water is transparent to Visible Light. Transparent means that it is not, technically, absorbed. Visible light is absorbed on an electron scale in the atmosphere, andtransmitted through water – the ‘absorbed’ you’re using of water is merely that it ceases to penetrate further, not that it is interacting with the molecules of water, it doesn’t, for all practical purposes, because water is a transparent medium for it.
The technical absorption, such as absorbed to be used in photosynthesis, is a known. Visible light heating water is not known. Visible light does not act on a molecular scale, it’s too small. It is capable of knocking an electron which then emits light as it settles down, but light is not heat. This is what happens in the sky, the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen scatter visible light, there is no heat created, but fluorescence, and the light scattered is not heat.
You, generic, really can’t have it both ways, either the sky is being heated by Visible light, the atmosphere of the gas Air and water vapour, and whatever trace molecules are around, or it is not heating the oceans.
Thermal infrared, Heat on the move, is a known. It is actually known to heat water. It acts on a molecular scale, kinetic energy is molecular scale. Long wave, thermal, infrared is a very powerful energy. It’s invisible, but we feel it as heat. The heat that comes from a fire is all thermal infrared, the heat that comes from a hot stove no showing any visible colour is thermal infrared. It is a known that thermal infrared, heat, is felt on Earth, we feel it. We feel it because we can feel it actually, really, practically, warming us up. Water readily absorbs heat, thermal infrared radiation.
These differences are well known in the real world as I’ve said, countless applications based on knowing the differences. For example, in fire detection:
Note in that article: “A near Infrared(IR) sensor (0.7 to 1.1 µm) is especially able to monitor flame phenomena, without too much hindrance from water and water vapour.” This is because near infrared is reflective as is visible, it passes readily through water and water vapour – applications in the military use near ir where the thickness of water vapour in the atmosphere would stop visible penetrating through, cloud, fog.
Here’s a page which explains what happens on an electron scale which is all the much smaller visible can manage to affect:
Note the difference between electronic and vibrational transitions &, that transmitted is a technical term in optics: “An electron cannot absorb the energy of the photon and the photon continues on its path. This results in transmission”, is what happens to visible light in the oceans because water is a transparent medium for it. Not even being absorbed to affect the electrons.
I repeat, you generic, really can’t have it both ways – either the sky is being heated by Visible light as it is reflected and scattered by the much larger molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, or, it is not heating the oceans.
A good page on Light: http://www.wavesignal.com/Light/index.html The Nature of Light
More on visible light is transmitted through water:
Dave Springer, RACookPE1978 and Myrrh:
Thankyou for your comments. I am replying to them in a single post because I understand that they all address the same subject; i.e. explaining the effects of energy intractions at a surface in a manner which is comprehensible to lay people.
In this post I provide a concluding comment to all of you, and before replying to your individual comments I mention a personal anecdote because it may amuse you and, importantly, I think it illustrates the complexity which we are trying to simplify (but not over-simplify).
From September 2000 to September 2003 I conducted a study of energy interactions at sea surface which required my living on a boat throughout that time. That study was confounded by an effect of ripples that it discovered. This effect was as follows.
Ripples are structurally different from waves and exist on water surface including the surface of waves. They travel across water surface, and they have cross-section approximating a sine wave so they have peaks and troughs. I discovered that a cylinder of air (which I called a ‘tube’) rolls along in each trough. This ‘tube’ is in intimate contact with the water surface so becomes moisture saturated. This saturation affects evaporation from water surface into each ‘tube’ that fills each trough of each ripple. And the troughs total nearly half of ocean surface. Thus, the ‘tubes’ affect energy loss by evaporation from about half of total ocean surface.
The effect of the ‘tubes’ is complex.
The degree of the tubes’ effect depends on the average lifetime of a ripple: if ripples are short-lived then the effect will be small but if they are long-lived the effect will be large (because the degree of their average saturation depends upon their average lifetime). But the average lifetime of ripples is not known and it varies with sea state (and, therefore, also wind speed).
Energy loss by evaporation is a major source of heat loss from ocean surface. My discovery of the ‘tubes’ prevented me quantifying the various heat exchange mechanisms at sea surface.
I provided a Report for the project’s sponsor and it includes a suite of different models I devised that could each be justified according to available data, but they gave such differing predictions of ‘sea surface energy interactions’ that the models were useless (choose your model and you could get an indication of almost anything you wanted to assert).
The work was a commercial contract and the Report has commercial confidentiality so I cannot cite it and my several requests to publish it in the public domain have been refused. I regret this because I have selfish reasons to want the work published in the public domain.
So, you can see that I doubt all simplistic statements concerning energy interactions at sea surface: the complexity of those interactions induced a waste of three years of my life.
Dave Springer,
your comment at August 1, 2011 at 4:02 am is correct. And that is why I like your “Fun Fact” that you have not objected to my ‘stealing’ for use. Your “Fun Fact” provides the understanding for laypeople that my ‘story’ attempted to provide, but your “Fun Fact” does it much more accurately.
Thankyou.
RACookPE1978
your post at August 1, 2011 at 5:56 pm asks me:
“And your calc’s above indicate that most of this 47% of the received enrgy will be spent evaporating water from the upper surface of the ocean surface, correct?
Please note that my “calc’s” were provided as illustration for my explanation to help Myrrh understand why visible light heats sea water. They were only illustrative – and as my anecdote above in this post proves – I am not able to quantify energy interactions at sea surface in a useful manner.
If you were to say, “About half of the solar energy received into sea surface evapourates water”, then I would not object to that. But that leads to debate of what is “about half”.
The remainder of your post is about proportions of EM reflected and absorbed at sea surface. I think you are right but – again – such estimates can only be ‘ball park’ because ocean surface is not flat (it has waves and ripples).
Myrrh,
your comments at August 1, 2011 at 7:33 pm and August 1, 2011 at 8:09 pm do not clearly state whether my reply to your questions was – or was not – helpful. But I think this statement of yours suggests my reply was not helpful;
“I’m sure you mean well Richard and thank you for your considered explanation, but not all energy turns to heat when it is absorbed by a substance, photosynthesis, for example, is energy being used for a chemical change which is not creation of heat.”
True, but most of the energy entering the ocean does not get used in photosynthesis. I understood your original questions to be requesting an explanation of why visible light heats sea water in a manner that IR does not, and – as I say to RACookPE1978 in this post – the data I provided to you were intended as illustration of my explanation. I repeat that – as my anecdote above in this post proves – I am not able to quantify energy interactions at sea surface in a useful manner. What I can say is that the data I provided to you are reasionable approximations.
You go on to say;
“Visible light is absorbed on an electron scale in the atmosphere, andtransmitted through water – the ‘absorbed’ you’re using of water is merely that it ceases to penetrate further, not that it is interacting with the molecules of water, it doesn’t, for all practical purposes, because water is a transparent medium for it.”
Sorry, but, no. You seem to think the word “transparent” means all the light is transmitted, but this is not so. It means the light which is transmitted is not scattered (to a significant degree). The transparent material can – usually does – absorb some light; for example, window glass does.
And you say;
“The technical absorption, such as absorbed to be used in photosynthesis, is a known. Visible light heating water is not known.”
This is simply wrong. Indeed, I gave you a link to a paper which describes measurements of “Visible light heating water”.
Dave Springer, RACookPE1978 and Myrrh,
I conclude this post with a summarising comment.
The energy interactions at sea surface are complex. I do not understand them. Nobody understands them, and people who think they understand them are self-deluded.
The possible energy interactions at sea surface are limited by basic physics and incomplete empirical data. So, we know things such as visible light from the Sun does heat ocean waters but nobody can say with certainty what happens to that heat which is collected in the oceans.
This incomplete knowledge is one of the many reasons I reject the simplistic (often silly) assertions made by AGW-advocates and their models.
I hope this post explains ‘where I am coming from’.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
August 2, 2011 at 1:53 am
Myrrh,
your comments at August 1, 2011 at 7:33 pm and August 1, 2011 at 8:09 pm do not clearly state whether my reply to your questions was – or was not – helpful. But I think this statement of yours suggests my reply was not helpful;
“I’m sure you mean well Richard and thank you for your considered explanation, but not all energy turns to heat when it is absorbed by a substance, photosynthesis, for example, is energy being used for a chemical change which is not creation of heat.”
True, but most of the energy entering the ocean does not get used in photosynthesis. I understood your original questions to be requesting an explanation of why visible light heats sea water in a manner that IR does not, and – as I say to RACookPE1978 in this post – the data I provided to you were intended as illustration of my explanation. I repeat that – as my anecdote above in this post proves – I am not able to quantify energy interactions at sea surface in a useful manner. What I can say is that the data I provided to you are reasionable approximations.
First of all, I do appreciate you engaging with me on this, others who say the same thing in this discussion, haven’t responded. But you haven’t given me the direct answers I requested, what I keep getting is just the same claims repeated. I have meanwhile gone to some considerable effort to find clear and well written explanations from real world science the better to explain what I mean, that all electromagnetic energy is not the same, and visible doesn’t convert to heat when absorbed which is the AGWScience claim, and seemingly unquestioned by the majority of AGW sceptics. I gave photosynthesis as an example of visible light being used for a chemical change, the production of sugars, this is not insignificant because the claim is that visible light converts land and oceans to heat because it is ‘absorbed’, and moreover, that this results in the temperature of the Earth being raised some 40°C. This is an extraordinary claim. I am calling on those who keep repeating it to prove it.
Please don’t get distracted by my examples of what visible and heat energies really do, although I’m happy to discuss it, I’m still actually waiting for proof that it is visible and other short wave which heat the Earth downwelling from the Sun and that thermal infrared plays no part in this. My explanations and examples, I hope effective, are to show just how extraordinary a claim this is.
Your anecdote is fascinating – is this the downscaled version of what happens in the tunnels in rolling waves? Which surfers ride through.
Back to “True, but most of the energy entering the ocean does not get used in photosynthesis.”
Photosynthesis began in the oceans, and around 90% of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from the photosynthesis in the oceans. That’s a lot of energy from visible light being used in chemical and not in heat production. Whatever that is, it needs to be subtracted from the claim for visible directly heating the Earth’s land and oceans. I’m sorry, but you, generic, can’t simply say, ‘true’ and then ignore it.
And keep claiming that visible light’s energy creates heat when absorbed.
You [Myrrh] go on to say;
“Visible light is absorbed on an electron scale in the atmosphere, and transmitted through water – the ‘absorbed’ you’re using of water is merely that it ceases to penetrate further, not that it is interacting with the molecules of water, it doesn’t, for all practical purposes, because water is a transparent medium for it.”
Sorry, but, no. You seem to think the word “transparent” means all the light is transmitted, but this is not so. It means the light which is transmitted is not scattered (to a significant degree). The transparent material can – usually does – absorb some light; for example, window glass does.
I gave a succinct and well compiled description of “what can and will happen” on the wiki page link when UV/Visible which operate on electron minuteness, they are tiny waves; transmitted is a technical term it means a specific thing as does transparent. It means precisely that in a perfectly transparent medium visible light waves are transmitted, they are not absorbed. Water is a transparent medium for visible light. Water does not absorb visible light, visible light passes through it without joining in to the dance of the molecules it passes through, it comes out the other side without being absorbed in any way. My other link to the Nature of Light gave more information on the process, and added pure glass to the example of clear water. That ‘some glass’ might absorb a bit of visible is irrelevant to the definitions being given here. Water is a transparent medium for visible light, it does not absorb visible light, it passes visible light through unchanged – it can be observed in clear water of rivers and springs. This is bog standard physics definitions from well understood effects.
It is a different and distinct effect to that which is given on the wiki page pertinent to visible light reflected and scattered. Here visible light is absorbed, on an electron level :
“An electron absorbs the energy of the photon and sends it back out the way it came in. This results in reflection or scattering.”
This, as I mentioned, is what happens in our atmosphere when the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen refect and scatter visible light.
These are standard physics definitions – what is aiding confusion is the imprecise use of these words in AGWScience memes. For example, the description that ‘the atmosphere is transparent to visible light as through a greenhouse glass’ is not technically correct and in fact is not true. The atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen is not transparent to visible light, it reflects and scatters it. Water however, is really transparent to visible light and from AGWScience we get the meme that water absorbs it…
Hence my point, either admit that, ‘if visible light absorbed creates heat’, that visible light is heating the oxygen and nitrogen molecules, our volume of gas air, or admit that visible light does not heat water, from the claim that ‘water absorbs visible light. I’m being a tad sarky here… [grin..]
You, generic who claim this is real science, can’t have it both ways. Seriously, please think about it.
Anyway, back to reality, visible light does not heat the oxygen and nitrogen molecules of the volume of gas air which is our atmosphere even though absorbed by their electrons when reflected and scattered, because they simply bounce it back out again, and, visible light does not heat the oceans because water is actually really truly transparent to it.
And you [Myrrh] say;
“The technical absorption, such as absorbed to be used in photosynthesis, is a known. Visible light heating water is not known.”
This is simply wrong. Indeed, I gave you a link to a paper which describes measurements of “Visible light heating water”.
? You mean the 1926 paper on penetration? That’s all about illumination, that’s when they knew the difference between heat and light…
Come on, there must be something that shows visible light’s capabilities to heat water… Wow, think of it, it’s such a powerful energy that it raises the temp of the Earth nearly 40°C! There must be thousands and thousands and, you get my drift, applications in real life which harness such a powerhouse. I can’t think of any. But, you, generic, must have paper after paper, application upon application, demonstrations galore to back up this claim that visible heats water and land, don’t you?
Odd though that for example, lightbulbs, are now produced to give more light and not heat? An ordinary incandescent produces around 5% visible and 95% thermal infrared, and the complaint often made, because now banned by the Green mafia, that at least with incandescent we’d get some heat delivered..
The energy interactions at sea surface are complex. I do not understand them. Nobody understands them, and people who think they understand them are self-deluded.
The possible energy interactions at sea surface are limited by basic physics and incomplete empirical data. So, we know things such as visible light from the Sun does heat ocean waters but nobody can say with certainty what happens to that heat which is collected in the oceans.
This incomplete knowledge is one of the many reasons I reject the simplistic (often silly) assertions made by AGW-advocates and their models.
I hope this post explains ‘where I am coming from’.
Thank you for it. But this is my complaint, that where you’re coming from is a general pool of people, ‘warmists’ and ‘skeptics’ both, who have taken this meme as if real science, as those below I quote. That it has infiltrated the education system is a disaster for this generation and future, it is, I think from my research on this, a deliberate policy to downgrade science knowledge for the masses.
But whatever, I am still looking for actual proof that “we know things such as visible light from the Sun does heat ocean waters”, because, actually, we don’t know that at all. We really don’t know that, because none of you can come back with any real proof or application or method for that claim.
I meanwhile have given, I think, sufficient information for an objective look at the differences between Light and Heat energies as in traditional science and from real world applications based on knowing the differences. ‘All electromagnetic energy is the same’, is a meme from AGWScience, they are not the same, they are different sizes, they do different things, in other words, they have different properties and processes.
I am looking for real proof that visible light actually heats oceans and land. I know you won’t find any. What you will find is what I found on exploring this, it’s physical nonsense.
Won’t you join in? I’m asking you for proof. This is after all, a science blog.
Myrrh:
I don’t want to jump into this argument, but I do want to mindful that seawater, while mostly H2O, is really a elemental ionic soup. In addition it has varying degrees of suspended matter. Each of these influence penetration and photon absorption and thermal excitation. At the quantum level each individual ion or particle can be represented as having different target cross-sectional areas to individual photons (not related to their physical size, but related to its possible interactions probability). Sufficient depth will convert almost all photons thru its full range of possible interactions. I hope, I didn’t just muddy up the water. :=) GK
Myrrh:
Please be assured that I am not being obtuse. I am genuinely trying to explain. And I do not know what you mean by “proof”.
Also, your quoting the different quontifications provided by a variety of people confirms my assertion to you that said;
“What I can say is that the data I provided to you are reasonable approximations.”
Surely, my having provided those data were my “joining in” so I do not understand your implication that I am unwiiling to do that.
So, I will try to explain for one more – and final – time.
Energy exists in many forms. EM radiation is one of them.
x-rays, visible light, UV, etc.are all parts of the EM spectrum. They differ in wavelength. For a good introductory explanation of this please see
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
All the energy in the universe was created by the Big Bang. Energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed, but it can be changed from one form to another. (Think of a lump of modeling clay: it can be moulded to the form of a car or an elephant but it is always the same amount of clay).
So, EM radiation can be converted to heat because EM radiation and heat are both forms of energy.
When EM radiation (e.g. visible light) is absorbed in sea water where do you think it goes?
It is transformed into heat.
A basic explanation of how visible light is absorbed can be found at
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/u12l2c.cfm
Sea water does NOT only consist of water molecules. Almost every possible ion exists in sea water. For example, there are 6 kg of gold dissolved (mostly as gold chloride) in each cubic km of sea water. So, a photon of visible light will interact with an ion that can absorb it if it travels sufficiently through sea water.
Sorry if that does not agree with your world view, but it is the way the world is.
I really do not know what more I can usefully say.
Richard
G Karst:
Thankyou. Your post (August 2, 2011 at 3:23 pm ) was still in moderation when I posted mine (at August 2, 2011 at 3:47 pm ).
I especially appreciated your “muddy up the water” pun that I hope helped Myrrh’s understanding.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
August 2, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Please be assured that I am not being obtuse. I am genuinely trying to explain. And I do not know what you mean by “proof”.
Well, I didn’t think you were being that, but certainly when I ask for information on how much heat is produced by visible light and you tell me you’ve provided me with a paper on this heat and it turns out to be nothing at all to do with it, I’m beginning to wonder just what it is you think you’re genuinely trying to explain. But now you mention it… I’m asking for proof that Light heats the oceans and lands as per the AGWScience energy budget which non-AGW’s also claim. I really don’t know how to put it simpler than that. Proof that Visible light from the Sun is capable of heating water and land and how much.
Also, your quoting the different quontifications provided by a variety of people confirms my assertion to you that said;
“What I can say is that the data I provided to you are reasonable approximations.”
Surely, my having provided those data were my “joining in” so I do not understand your implication that I am unwiiling to do that.
Er, you haven’t actually provided me with any data.. Depth of illumination is illumination, it is not proof that the visible light is actually heating the water at any of these depths, and as I have shown, the mechanism is not in place for visible light to do this, it is transmitted through water which is a transparent medium for it, this means, it does not even get electrons moving as it does in our atmosphere, which result is scattering. But, my comment about “joining in” was directed to those I quoted, as I have already made the point that I appreciate that you responded (they who also claim visible light heats the oceans, and thermal ir doesn’t, haven’t joined in..).
So, I will try to explain for one more – and final – time.
Energy exists in many forms. EM radiation is one of them.
x-rays, visible light, UV, etc.are all parts of the EM spectrum. They differ in wavelength. For a good introductory explanation of this please see
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
I can only suggest that you stop thinking I don’t know anything about this and re-read what I’ve written so far bearing it in mind.
But for that page: hmm, I have mentioned in other discussions that NASA has been nobbled by AGWScience pushers. They used to teach, in a very good collection of pages for children, which they took down, that the heat we feel from the Sun is infrared.. and an explanation of the difference between thermal and near infrared, saying that near isn’t hot, now they say no infrared reaches Earth at all!
Seems we now have to go up into the mountains to feel heat from the Sun… (grin) This is getting more ridiculous by the minute..
And, not only has NASA been got at, a website set up to capture pages for the record, which Anthony showed me how to use, has taken off the pages I captured on the NASA pages for children and a page I captured from NewWorldEncyclopedia which gave the information that still in traditional physics teaching it is infrared which heats the Earth.
For the record here…, and so that you should no longer be under the illusion that I don’t understand what an electromagnetic wave is but am arguing against the AGWScience corruption of information about electromagnetic waves, so we’ll be on the same page, I gave a summary of the problem in a couple posts in the other discussion on the Spencer/Braswell paper:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/26/pielke-sr-on-new-spencer-and-braswell-paper/#comment-709326
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/26/pielke-sr-on-new-spencer-and-braswell-paper/#comment-709340
I hope that’s cleared up where I’m coming from.
All the energy in the universe was created by the Big Bang. Energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed, but it can be changed from one form to another. (Think of a lump of modeling clay: it can be moulded to the form of a car or an elephant but it is always the same amount of clay).
So, EM radiation can be converted to heat because EM radiation and heat are both forms of energy.
When EM radiation (e.g. visible light) is absorbed in sea water where do you think it goes?
It is transformed into heat.
A basic explanation of how visible light is absorbed can be found at
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/u12l2c.cfm
Don’t you bother reading the pages you give me to read?
From this page, (which I know because I’ve read it before):
Reflected and transmitted do not create heat. But he is not accurate here about creating heat, photosynthesis is not creating heat and in that visible light is absorbed.
As I’ve tried to explain, you generic are confusing the terms absorbed, transparent and transmitted – transmitted here is a technical term meaning something very specific, please re-read the wiki piece I gave on what this means re visible light, it passes straight through water, is not absorbed and therefore is not creating heat, is not taking part in any interaction with the water molecules because water is a completely transparent medium for visible light. (What AGWScience erroneously claims for visible light in the atmosphere.)
Why some wavelengths of visible light travel further in the ocean than others is up for discussion. That this is termed ‘absorbed’ is not being used in the technical meaning of that word in physics/optics, but in a general sense, and can therefore only refer to the depth of illumination. Since all visible wavelengths are transmitted through the transparent medium water, none is absorbed means something very specific about the physical characteristics I now hope I’ve explained well enough, because then you’ll see the ‘joke’ in my comment that you generic can’t have it both ways, either visible light is heating the atmosphere or it isn’t heating the oceans (from the AGWScience claim that ‘absorbed means creating heat’ as you have again repeated). I am saying that you must actually prove your claim:
“So, the absorbed visible light becomes heat in the ocean, but it does not only heat a very thin surface layer: about half of it heats layers beyond 100 meters depth. Hence, this absorbed heat is not immediately lost from the ocean by evapouration. And, therefore, this absorbed heat can be mixed and difuse to lower layers.” and “When EM radiation (e.g. visible light) is absorbed in sea water where do you think it goes?
It is transformed into heat.”
I have given sufficient explanation to show that this is not physically possible for visible light and water, using the terms absorbed and transparent and transmitted in their correct context.
Sea water does NOT only consist of water molecules. Almost every possible ion exists in sea water. For example, there are 6 kg of gold dissolved (mostly as gold chloride) in each cubic km of sea water. So, a photon of visible light will interact with an ion that can absorb it if it travels sufficiently through sea water.
Sorry if that does not agree with your world view, but it is the way the world is.
I really do not know what more I can usefully say.
Again, you have yet to prove that visible light is capable of heating anything in the ocean, dissolved or not, gold even.., when the physics of this clearly shows that it is incapable of heating the water of the oceans.
Unless you can prove that visible light physically heats water, all the figures claimed for this have to be taken out of the, for ease of reference, the AGWScience energy budget from which even most skeptics do not dispute that only solar heats the land and oceans and thermal infrared plays no part in this.
I hope you can now see the point I’m trying to make here, that this is physical nonsense and that this can be seen to be physical nonsense once the terms are used in proper context.
[I have found that AGWScience is quite organised in taking terms out of context and making claims about properties by misattributing them, etc.]
G.Karst – I hope I’ve made the water clearer.. (grin)
Richard – thankyou for posting that link to the NASA site which shows clearly that it has now stopped teaching traditional well-known and understood differences between Light and Heat energies from the Sun and replacing it with AGWScience fiction memes. This corruption of basic science is deliberate and systematic – dumbing down science education for the masses.
I think this agenda should be brought into the spotlight and a comparison of the NASA pages pre and post corruption is an excellent example as it easily conveys the extent this manipulation has reached. NASA’s reputation is being used to promoted science fiction. I am greatly saddened by it.
Who is accountable for this at NASA? Who has taken the saved pages off webcite? I noticed the announcement was made that the original NASA page was going to be re-directed elsewhere not long after I started posting about it here on WUWT, which may or may not be a coincidence, but that after the deadline it sometimes went over to the new page, which had none of the original’s information about the differences, and sometimes didn’t. As of now, it’s still up. Someone is fighting for real science at NASA – they deserve our help, surely. Something similar happened on the American Met site, a few days after someone noticed that their education pages said that Carbon Dioxide had nothing to do with warming and the news spread, it disappeared. But this NASA example is far, far more serious. A deliberate with malice aforethought corruption of science teaching.
I’ll pull a few more quotes into what I posted above, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711614 for a better look at the difference.
NASA original page teaching previously traditional real world physics to children: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html
From this NASA page:
compare with:
NASA page now teaching that thermal infrared doesn’t even reach us!: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
From teaching real physics that the heat we all feel from the Sun is thermal infrared, to the new science fiction paradigm from NASA is that no infrared even reaches the mountain tops.. This is one step further than the AGWScience fiction KT97 claim, which says near infrared, (the shortwave not thermal in real physics, not hot), is included in their “Solar” downwelling reaching Earth’s surface, (Visible with the two shortwave either side of UV and Nr IR).
I do hope all of you who have posted here giving the AGWScience fiction version of reality can know see how this is not traditional science, and physically impossible in the real physical world, and how this fiction is being promoted; simple brainwashing, teaching of the fiction gone viral from a powerful influence into the education system. And a thing to bear in mind about the techniques used, they don’t care that there is inconsistency in the presentation of this corruption of real science – the object is to confuse, the creation of a scientific illiterate mass population encourages argument as if these fictional memes have equal reality with real world physics – it distracts from the concerted analysis required to see how the con is being spread, and dilutes the objections to known examples of the corruption, such as the harry read me emails and hockey stick creation designed to wipe out the MIA and LIA.
It’s an incredibly convoluted and complex scam, much sleight of hand taking terms and properties and processes from real physics out of context, besides the examples of creating such things as temp records by ‘adjustments’. But this NASA example pulls that together in one.
To put into science terms, if a new idea contradicting well known and understood and tried and tested real physics as taught traditionally is being promoted, then the promoters must provide proof that the traditional teaching is wrong and the new idea right. Eliminating the traditional teaching from the education system does not constitute proof…
Myrrh:
I have tried to explain the matters that puzzle you and I have failed. I regret that failure but I cannot improve on the explanations I have provided to you.
The significant statements are:
1.
All EM radiation is the same thing but it differs in energy and wavelength carried by each photon.
2.
All energy can be transformed to heat.
3.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed: it can only be converted from one form to another.
If you think you can disprove one or more of these statements then do it because your disproof will get you a Nobel Prize for physics and your name will be remembered along with those of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein.
Richard
? What are you on about Richard? Not only have you shown you don’t read the links you provided for me, it’s clear that you haven’t bothered to read with any elementary degree of comprehension anything that I’ve written.
I have tried to explain the matters that puzzle you and I have failed. I regret that failure but I cannot improve on the explanations I have provided to you.
The significant statements are:
1.
All EM radiation is the same thing but it differs in energy and wavelength carried by each photon.
1. and differs in properties, such as size, (such as pin head size of thermal infrared and microscopic size of near infrared), and processes, such as UV not radio wave is used in the creation of Vitamin D. Light wavelengths do not convert to heat water because water does not physically absorb visible light because water is transparent medium for it, it is transmitted through unchanged, while the atmosphere is not transparent to visible light because visible light is reflected and scattered by oxygen and nitrogen molecules, by the electrons absorbing it and sending it back out. Some wavelengths are ionising… do you know which and what effect that is?
2.
All energy can be transformed to heat.
2. But not all energy is. The claim is that shortwave, visible and UV and Nr Ir either side, convert to heat the land and oceans, that is, directly heat land and water. Not all processes create heat initially. We’ve been through this, photosynthesis does not create heat, it uses visible light to enable a chemical change, creation of sugars. Re-read the wiki piece on Visible Light and UV wavelengths and what they can and will do. Heat specifically isn’t on the list, visible light is not a thermal energy..
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_and_translucency
My bold.
3.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed: it can only be converted from one form to another.
3. And it’s the actual forms of converstion I’m talking about…
Heat from the Sun is thermal infrared – this is a powerful energy. It moves molecules. We know that from our own everyday experience of it. We do not heat our homes or ourselves with visible light! It is not powerful enough to effect such a thing. Heat is the thermal infrared energy we feel from the Sun, from a fire, from a hot pavement (sidewalk).
It is thermal infrared which is the heat which is 95% of the energy emitted by an incandescent light bulb that we feel is hot, not the 5% visible light wavelengths – and when we switch off the light, we can still feel the thermal infrared.
If you think you can disprove one or more of these statements then do it because your disproof will get you a Nobel Prize for physics and your name will be remembered along with those of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein.
I wasn’t arguing about these statements… So enough of your strawman avoidance.
If you can prove that Blue Visible light heats water, ditto for you…
You continue to not provide any proof of such direct creation of heat by visible. Now I think you’re obfuscating.
Maybe traditional science is too much of a shock to the system..?
How much Blue Visible Light do I need to shine onto my bath full of cold water before I can get in for a good hot soak? Use LED. How much to heat a boiler full of water to drive the Flying Scotsman?