Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Once again, the crazy idea that downwelling longwave radiation (DLR, also called infra-red or IR, or “greenhouse radiation”) can’t heat the ocean has raised its ugly head on one of my threads.
Figure 1. The question in question.
There are lots of good arguments against the AGW consensus, but this one is just silly. Here are four entirely separate and distinct lines of reasoning showing that DLR does in fact heat the oceans.
Argument 1. People claim that because the DLR is absorbed in the first mm of water, it can’t heat the mass of the ocean. But the same is true of the land. DLR is absorbed in the first mm of rock or soil. Yet the same people who claim that DLR can’t heat the ocean (because it’s absorbed in the first mm) still believe that DLR can heat the land (despite the fact that it’s absorbed in the first mm).
And this is in spite of the fact that the ocean can circulate the heat downwards through turbulence, while there is no such circulation in the land … but still people claim the ocean can’t heat from DLR but the land can. Logical contradiction, no cookies.
Argument 2. If the DLR isn’t heating the water, where is it going? It can’t be heating the air, because the atmosphere has far too little thermal mass. If DLR were heating the air we’d all be on fire.
Nor can it be going to evaporation as many claim, because the numbers are way too large. Evaporation is known to be on the order of 70 w/m2, while average downwelling longwave radiation is more than four times that amount … and some of the evaporation is surely coming from the heating from the visible light.
So if the DLR is not heating the ocean, and we know that a maximum of less than a quarter of the energy of the DLR might be going into evaporation, and the DLR is not heating the air … then where is it going?
Rumor has it that energy can’t be created or destroyed, so where is the energy from the DLR going after it is absorbed by the ocean, and what is it heating?
Argument 3. The claim is often made that warming the top millimetre can’t affect the heat of the bulk ocean. But in addition to the wind-driven turbulence of the topmost layer mixing the DLR energy downwards into lower layers, heating the surface affects the entire upper bulk temperature of the ocean every night when the ocean is overturning. At night the top layer of the ocean naturally overturns, driven by the temperature differences between surface and deeper waters (see the diagrams here). DLR heating of the top mm of the ocean reduces those differences and thus delays the onset of that oceanic overturning by slowing the night-time cooling of the topmost layer, and it also slows the speed of the overturning once it is established. This reduces the heat flow from the body of the upper ocean, and leaves the entire mass warmer than it would have been had the DLR not slowed the overturning.
Argument 4. Without the heating from the DLR, there’s not enough heating to explain the current liquid state of the ocean. The DLR is about two-thirds of the total downwelling radiation (solar plus DLR). Given the known heat losses of the ocean, it would be an ice-cube if it weren’t being warmed by the DLR. We know the radiative losses of the ocean, which depend only on its temperature, and are about 390 w/m2. In addition there are losses of sensible heat (~ 30 w/m2) and evaporative losses (~ 70 w/m2). That’s a total loss of 390 + 30 + 70 = 490 w/m2.
But the average solar input to the surface is only about 170 watts/square metre.
So if the DLR isn’t heating the ocean, with heat gains of only the solar 170 w/m2 and losses of 390 w/m2 … then why isn’t the ocean an ice-cube?
Note that each of these arguments against the idea that DLR can’t warm the ocean stands on its own. None of them depends on any of the others to be valid. So if you still think DLR can’t warm the ocean, you have to refute not one, but all four of those arguments.
Look, folks, there’s lot’s of good, valid scientific objections against the AGW claims, but the idea that DLR can’t heat the ocean is nonsense. Go buy an infrared lamp, put it over a pan of water, and see what happens. It only hurts the general skeptical arguments when people believe and espouse impossible things …
w.
Tim Folkerts says:
August 21, 2011 at 6:13 pm
“But the conclusion was that extra IR cannot slow the cooling. This seems to be a direct contradiction to your experimental results!”
Tim,
I’m sorry, now I see that my “some further notes” comment skipped over some steps covered in the first description of the experiment.
Two identical containers of water are being tested under two different “Sky” panels (one with aluminium foil, the other a frame with clear cling wrap), which you have correctly surmised are horizontal. These are placed 50mm above each water container. The temperature drop from 40 degrees is then measured for each container. I will call this Test A.
The experiment is then repeated, but this time a small square of clear cling wrap is laid on the surface of the water in each water container. This allows cooling by conduction and radiation, but prevents cooling by evaporation. I will call this Test B.
In Test A the water cools more quickly, however the two water containers temperatures remain very close to each other over time. This indicates that backscattered LWIR has a very limited effect on the rate of cooling for water when it is free to evaporatively cool.
In Test B both water containers cool more slowly than test A, but a divergence in temperature between the two water containers is readily detectable. The container under the foil sky cools more slowly than that under the cling wrap sky. This indicates that backscattered LWIR from a warm material can slow the rate at which that material cools, if radiation and conduction are the only methods for cooling.
Test A represents the evaporative cooling conditions in the real oceans. Test B represents how the climate scientists have modelled the oceans with regard to backscattered LWIR. As Earth’s oceans are not covered in cling wrap, it would appear that the claimed radiative forcing for additional CO2 should be reduced by 71%.
Tim Folkerts:
1. It is not “MY equation.” It is in fact the one and only way RADIATIVE heat transfer is expressed in the physics literature. Here’s one of many examples:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html
Challenge for you: show a single example in the physics literature where it is expressed in the form suggested by use of pyregometers and as used in climate science (Eq. 2)
2. Your calculations are based upon the fallacy that pyregometers measure net HEAT FLOW. They do not, as explained several times here and on Claes Johnson’s blog (linked above). In addition, it is ridiculous to only use radiative heat transfer calculations when convection plays a much larger role.
3. “Earth emits to space the exact same amount of energy it receives, as the satellite observations show “ YOU: This much I can agree with.”
What you apparently fail to recognize is that the greenhouse effect says that the Earth emits LESS to space than received, due to ‘heat trapping’ gases, accounting for an increase in temperature. This is incompatible with the statement you say you agree with, that INPUT = OUTPUT
4. “Using the adiabatic lapse rate alone without any GHE fully explains the temperature profiles of Venus, Earth, and Mars.“ YOU: True enough”
Thanks for admitting that invoking a ‘GHE’ is unnecessary.
5. “explain to me — without the greenhouse effect or radiation balance from gases in the atmosphere — what sets the top-of-atmosphere temperatures of those planets.”
The TOA temperature is determined by the solar insolation received, as you already agreed to above; INPUT = OUTPUT.
Kuhnkat and Phil et al,
If you can’t resist responding to Myrrh’s nonsense’s, may I suggest a different approach? Just as Anthony has a ‘Quote of the week‘ and ‘Friday funny‘, why not have a ‘myrth of the day or week‘?
You could deliberately tease him on some laws of physics or with provocative analogies, or whatever turns you on.
One thing that springs to my mind is that plain ornery window glass is I believe fairly opaque to IR and UV light. However modern automotive glass is a step beyond, being deliberately designed to be optimally highly reflective and/or opaque to those EMR frequencies because they are very unwelcome in the cabin, and with absolutely no benefit. The purpose to eliminate UV and IR transmission is to improve passenger comfort in hot weather, especially in modern cars with increased glasshouse‘s, and to reduce air-conditioning workloads. (fuel consumption and performance loss). The EMR “filtering” can be variously achieved in coatings and chemical inclusions in or on the glass. (or in the non-glass laminates in windscreens). The visible light transmissivity is usually also cut down with colour tinting. Nevertheless……. Don‘t park in the summer sun!
It seems hard to find anything authoritative WRT to solar spectrum on this per Google, but the following forum is interesting, if a tad brief:
http://www.infraredtraining.com/community/boards/thread/4343/
Yes, the lapse rate explains the PROFILE = the slope. But determining a line requires not only a slope but also a point.
Thanks for admitting that the temperature of the TOA is determined by INPUT = OUTPUT of radiation, which is a strong function of the GHG’s in the atmosphere. The GHG’s strongly cool the upper atmosphere, thereby requiring the ground to be warmer to compensate.
Once the TOA is determined using radiation to/from GHG’s the internal details of why the surfaces is warmer can me “swept under the rug” using the lapse rate.
(By the way, “adiabatic” means “without energy loss” which is only an approximation since rising warm air can lose energy via conduction; the true lapse rate would have to include the effects of energy loss. Since we agree that GHGs can lose energy by radiation whereas non-GHGs cannot, then the lapse rate itself will be at least partly a function of GHGs.)
Konrad,
Thanks for the clarification on the experiment. I will have to think about this a bit more (or to call it a day at the end of a long thread!). I suspect this is tied to the estimates I made earlier that the differences in cooling due to IR would be very small (or non-existent if Dave Springer is correct). I agree that evaporation itself will be the larger effect; the question is MUCH of a correction can we get from IR.
kuhnkat says:
August 21, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Sorry, just like Willis you ARE double counting. The 324w/m2 down comes from the 390w/m2 up which came from…
I don’t have much time now. Let me just note that you used the past tense: “which came from”. The energy one second (or microsecond) going one one way is energy that ALREADY had arrived during previous microseconds. There is constantly NEW energy coming and going, originally from the sun and ultimately to outer space. If it is indeed different energy, then there is no double-counting.
“There is constantly NEW energy coming and going, originally from the sun and ultimately to outer space. If it is indeed different energy, then there is no double-counting.”
So the sun not GHG backradiation warms the planet.
Bob_FJ says:
August 21, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Phil. @ur momisugly August 21, 2011 at 3:24 pm
You are wasting your time with Myrrh
For instance, when I pointed him to the following in Wikipedia, he retaliated with: an incandescent bulb emits 95% IR which is thermal, and how they use water cooled bulbs to maximise plant growth. (paraphrasing)
“…Examples of thermal radiation include visible light emitted by an incandescent light bulb, infrared radiation emitted by animals and detectable with an infrared camera, and the cosmic microwave background radiation…
…Sunlight is thermal radiation generated by the hot plasma of the Sun. The Earth also emits thermal radiation, but at a much lower intensity and different spectral distribution because it is cooler. The Earth’s absorption of solar radiation, followed by its outgoing thermal radiation are the two most important processes that determine the temperature of the Earth…”
This is like banging my head against a brick wall. What don’t you understand when I keep pointing out that “Sunlight is thermal radiation” and the like are AGWScience Fiction Inc memes, which, as I keep pointing out, have become ubiqitous in their disinformation through the education system and in general?
YOU NEED TO USE COMMON SENSE HERE.
As an example of thermal radiation an incandescent light bulb is fine. Because practically all of the energy emitted is thermal.
5% is the general figure for that portion which is not thermal infrared, which is Visible Light. In traditional physics these distinct energies having distinct properties were given the names Light and Heat, because that is the distinct difference between them…
So, when wiki rolls onto that ‘incandescent thermal example’ by continuing with the meme from AGWScience that ‘Sunlight is thermal radiation generated by the Sun’ – YOU’ALL read the AGWScience fiction meme that Visible is thermal. And disregard entirely the point I am making.
That an incandescent bulb’s thermal energy is distinct from its light energy which is not thermal, and so, that Visible light (Sunlight) from the Sun is not thermal. ‘Sunlight’ – be careful of that word.
Like ‘absorbed’ it can be used generally, to cover all the electromagnetic spectrum, but Sunlight proper is Visible only. ‘Absorbed’ can be used generally as in descriptions of visible being absorbed at different depths in oceans, but that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with ‘absorbed’ in physics, electron/molecule interactions.
Wiki is ‘lying’ here. It is promoting an AGWScience Fiction Inc meme by disingenuously using a general term in the middle of talking about thermal radiation which makes you associate it with the AGWSF meme. . Now, read that again. What is it actually saying? It is saying that the main energy coming from the Sun is thermal radiation.
Just like the incandescent light bulb..
Got that?
Visible cannot heat because it is not a thermal energy, it doesn’t have the ability to move water molecules into vibrational states, for example, because water is a transparent medium for it. Visible passes through, is transmitted, through water. That means it has no interaction with water. If there is no interaction, nothing happens.
Here: Different properties of electromagnetic waves means that they are different from each other…
When energy is absorbed by a surface, it heats up. For example microwaves are absorbed by water molecules and warm up. This is how a microwave oven works. Light waves simply pass through water.
Traditional physics is internally coherent, that’s why we know how microwave ovens work, that’s how microwave ovens got developed in the first place.
Water absorbs microwaves just as water absorbs thermal infrared, that’s why the Sun’s Heat, thermal infrared, goes into your bodies and warms you up.
Light waves, i.e. Visible, (not thermal infrared, heat waves) simply pass through water.
Light waves, simply pass through water.
Light waves, simply pass through water.
Sunlight simply passes through water.
That’s what they ACTUALLY do!
AGWScience Fiction Inc. has deliberately reversed this, giving the property of thermal infrared heat to the visible light.
This is a deliberate con.
You’all need to thoroughly take this on board before you do any more reading, because until you do you won’t spot the AGWScience meme takeover. And you will thus not be able to understand the basic real world science facts as well established in traditional physics explanations and in real world applications.
And you’ll need to be vigilant, one piece might give you real traditional well understood principles and then slips in an AGWScience meme to confuse you. Remember, you will be passing on your ignorance to the next generation. They won’t be able to create microwave ovens starting from first principles..
Sunheat is absorbed by water. (I’ve just coined that word, maybe it will help.) The HEAT we feel from the Sun is thermal infrared.
See my posts above about NASA and the change to promoting AGWScience Fiction instead of teaching real world science fact.
Here, I’ll fetch one for you..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/15/radiating-the-ocean/#comment-720489
Please, do me a favour, read that several times until you have it quite clear that this is the traditional physics I am defending here against the AGWScience Fiction meme which has altered it, by reversing heat and light energies.
And hopefully then you will see the enormity of the con I’m pointing out.
philincalifornia says:
August 21, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Myrrh says:
August 21, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Show me how Visible Blue light from the Sun is able to heat the water of the oceans when water is a transparent medium for visible light, that means, it passes through it without being absorbed. It needs to be absorbed to even have a chance of creating heat.
=========================================
Myrrh, a quick tap on the shoulder – visible light doesn’t make it all the way to the bottom (except on SpongeBob SquarePants).
Where have I said it did?
kuhnkat says:
August 21, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Myrrh,
“Show me how Visible Blue light from the Sun is able to heat the water of the oceans when water is a transparent medium for visible light, that means, it passes through it without being absorbed. It needs to be absorbed to even have a chance of creating heat. ”
You have apparently changed your claim. You now have narrowed it down to BLUE light. Is this your final claim or are you going to change it again?? It is not easy to respond to changing claims. Blue is only one area of the spectrum. Maybe you can tell us what wavelengths or frequencies you are actually referring to??
? I haven’t changed it.. Blue light is visible, the AGWScience Fiction Inc claim is that blue visible heats the oceans further down because it penetrates further.
Come on, stop getting distracted, prove that visible light can heat water or take it out of ‘the’ energy budget. The AGWScience Fiction Inc energy budget.
kuhnkat says:
August 21, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Myrrh, you are very confused about the Greenhouse effect. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but, it does NOT claim that atmospheric water vapor converts VISIBLE Light to heat!! It converts your lovely THERMAL RADIATION to rotational energy and more THERMAL RADIATION. These excited water molecules bumping into non-GHG’s then transfer some of the absorbed energy.
Where have I said that?
If you are disagreeing with the idea that visible energy heats the ocean it would be good to help us understand what does. What actually warms the ocean if not the visible??
Please show your work again. I seem to have skipped over where you showed this.
Then don’t skip over…? You could re-read what I’ve posted so far.. I really hope you do, I would really like someone to appreciate the enormity of this con..
The heat we feel from the Sun is thermal infrared, long wave infrared, as the original NASA page teaching traditional science says correctly. We feel it on Earth’s surface, therefore, it is reaching us, therefore, it is reaching the oceans and lands.
It is this heating the oceans.
Thermal infrared, long wave infrared, Heat, is a very powerful energy.
Visible light isn’t thermal, we do not feel it as heat. What is the difference between UV, which we can’t feel as heat either, and Visible? UV can burn us, Visible does not burn us.
Here’s an example of the AGWScience Fiction Inc. meme takeover of the education system. See if you can spot the flaws, the internal incoherence.
Tim Folkerts says:
August 21, 2011 at 2:48 pm (Edit)
RACookPE1978 says: August 21, 2011 at 1:50 pm
>Please try use those (average, whole earth) values and equations to address
>this specific question at this specific location:
I’m not sure what your point will be, but I’m game. I will use your numbers, which seem to be in the right ballpark, but which I have not verified independently. …. Both scenarios have a net outflow of energy of about 250 W/m^2. Both the ice and the water would be cooling in these circumstances.
So now that I have done this, what was your point???
My point? My training. It shows me exactly where I need to look up the derivations an background assumptions about a couple of equations. Thank you for: confirming a few things I thought I knew, exposing a few things that I thought I knew better than I do .
From a NASA page on infrared light: “In 1800, William Herschel conducted an experiment measuring the difference in temperature between the colors in the visible spectrum. He placed thermometers within each color of the visible spectrum. The results showed an increase in temperature from blue to red. When he noticed an even warmer temperature measurement just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, Herschel had discovered infrared light!”
I have no desire to feed Myrrh’s long posts, but blue is of a lower temperature than IR according to this.
RACook,
Glad that I could help. I think everything I wrote is correct — and so far no one else has provided any contradictions.
Sorry if I sounded a bit defensive or aggressive. I guess I have gotten a bit cynical, often expecting a “gotcha” from posters who have a specific agenda. It is great when there can be some real learning; some discussions of topics at (moderately) advanced level; some actual data from experiments.
Myrrh
I must confess that I am somewhat confused, and I need to look into matters further.
I had always assumed that when Trenberth and the Team talk about say 30% of the solar energy being absorbed by the atmosphere and 70% by the surface, they meant 30% and 70% of the total spectrum of solar radiation reaching the TOA. Of course some wavelengths find it more difficult than other wavelengths to penetrate the atmosphere and, hence one reason why some part of the solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, just like DWLWIR finds it more difficult to penetrate the oceans when compared to shorter wavelengths.
I have never taken the reference by the AGW crowd to visible light to mean literally EMR of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye. As I say, I have always assumed this to mean the entire spectrum of solar radiation received at TOA.
Surely, the AGW Team cannot literally mean visible light only, ignoring all other wavelengths in the spectrum of solar radiation received at TOA? If they are limited the energy budget literally to visible light only, it appears that there may be merit in some of what you are saying.
Tim Folkerts,
“If it is indeed different energy, then there is no double-counting.”
As you point out there is constantly NEW energy arriving until the sun goes down. After the sun goes down we have a lengthy unravelling of the double counting that includes energy stored in the atmosphere in non-ghg’s and other areas.
Keeping it simple, the ~320w/m^2 coming down was just counted on the way up. It goes down and then goes up AGAIN!!! This repeats with losses bringing the actual 66 up to 390 up. You are right, it isn’t double counting!!! It is WORSE!! With a laser people easily understand that the radiation is delayed bouncing back and forth between the mirrors only exciting more molecules and atoms in the discharge tube until the discharge at which time it all goes out one end. Do we count ALL the energy reflecting back and forth as NEW energy each time it passes a particular point in the tube or just what was added that cycle??
Kuhnkat,
1) Having the sun’s energy double during the day and cease at night is not “double counting” that needs “unravelling”. Perhaps that is not why you meant, but it is what it sounded like to me.
2) I have rarely heard the principles behind the operation of a laser described as simple! 🙂
3) You seem to be the one double counting. If there are ~320 W/m^2 heading down and ~ 390 W/m^2 heading up, then the NET is ~ 70 W/m^2 upward. No one I know (other than you just now) has ever claimed that any process brings the NET flow from ~ 70 W/m^2 to 390 W.m^2.
3) With a typical He-Ne laser, the exit has a mirror that reflects ~ 99% of the light and emits 1%. So for a laser that emits photons at a rate of 10 mW, the photons hitting the “output coupler” are arriving at a rate of 1000 mW, with 990 mW of photons being reflected. Power would have to added to the lasing medium at 10 mW to generate another. So overall, there is 10 mW being added and 10 mW being extracted. Within the laser, the power levels are much higher.
This is starting to sound like a good reason to BELIEVE the GH effect.
* The mirrors of the laser allow the energy flows inside (990-1000 mW back and forth) to be bigger than the energy input or output (10 mW).
* The greenhouse gases allow the energy flows inside (300-400 W/m^2 of IR back and forth) to be bigger than the individual inputs or outputs (~230 W/m^2 of net incoming solar or outgoing IR).
The nature of the amplification is different, to be sure, but the end results sound pretty similar. The GHE only creates internal signals ~1.5 times the in input, while internal signals 100 times the input are indeed possible. Thanks for the analogy!
PS. I was thinking through an analogy with water flowing from a dam into various pools that I think is rather accurate and informative. But I am not sure people are ready for yet another dam analogy.
Tim Folkerts
An experiment carried out using a IR pass filter, a vacuum flask, and tap (ie. not salt water) seems to show that IR heats the top few cms of water see:
http://alturl.com/oyxet
Also best to discuss there too!
Tim Folkerts says:
August 22, 2011 at 1:10 pm
3) You seem to be the one double counting. If there are ~320 W/m^2 heading down and ~ 390 W/m^2 heading up, then the NET is ~ 70 W/m^2 upward. No one I know (other than you just now) has ever claimed that any process brings the NET flow from ~ 70 W/m^2 to 390 W.m^2.
The Land/Ocean emits 390W/m^2. 40 goes out of the atmospheric window (maybe 80 but we’ll stick with Trenberth’s numbers for clarity for now). 350 gets absorbed in the water vapour and co2. Apart from whatever gets converted to sensible heat by collisions with Nitrogen and Oxygen, half of that gets radiated back to the surface, along with half the incoming solar absorbed in the atmosphere (34), and half the latent heat and thermals (51).
Now that can’t add up to any more than 260 (assuming no sensible heat conversion), yet the Trenberth cartoon has 324 back radiation.
What have I missed?
And, given that 226 of this 260 already cooled the surface as it left, why is it double counted as warming the surface when it comes back down with the ‘new’ incoming solar derived longwave?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/energy-budget-old.jpg
richard verney says:
August 22, 2011 at 9:49 am
Myrrh
I must confess that I am somewhat confused, and I need to look into matters further.
I had always assumed that when Trenberth and the Team talk about say 30% of the solar energy being absorbed by the atmosphere and 70% by the surface, they meant 30% and 70% of the total spectrum of solar radiation reaching the TOA. Of course some wavelengths find it more difficult than other wavelengths to penetrate the atmosphere and, hence one reason why some part of the solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, just like DWLWIR finds it more difficult to penetrate the oceans when compared to shorter wavelengths.
I have never taken the reference by the AGW crowd to visible light to mean literally EMR of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye. As I say, I have always assumed this to mean the entire spectrum of solar radiation received at TOA.
Please do look into this further, Richard. A great problem here is that (some) people read the 70/30 as if it includes thermal infrared, but when you look into it, you’ll see that actually thermal is taken out completely.
I’ve seen this in traditional scientists arguing against some point or other about AGW, taking it as read that Trenberth included thermal, and unadulterated traditionalists who know that thermal is the heating mechanism for land and oceans wouldn’t have any reason to think Trenberth not a traditionalist in this. .. As the newworldencyclopedia admitted, that thermal infrared is what heats the Earth is still being taught in traditional physics..
So also, I’d be wary of taking anything for granted that you think is ‘real physics’ in explanations from AGWScience influence. For example, the long wave infrared we feel as heat from the Sun penetrates our bodies around 2-4″, water being the great absorber of this, why then does it find it “more difficult to penetrate the oceans compared with shorter wavelengths” when it so easily gets through our skin to warm us up inside?
As I’ve been trying to explain, AGWScience Fiction Inc very cleverly alters real physics, sleight of hand, here it is erroneously comparing it with visible light which is of a completely different electromagnetic character, these are two completely different properties being merged into one view as if they are the same, and they’re not.
Visible ‘penetrates water more deeply’, because it doesn’t interact with water, water being a transparent medium for it visible simply passes through, is transmitted unchanged. Long wave, thermal infrared, immediately interacts to move the molecules of water converting them to heat, the heat is spread by convection.
[You’ll also need to bear in mind that water has strange properties, a very high heat capacity, it can be holding more energy than is readily apparent from its temperature, I posted something on this a few posts up.]
You’ll notice on the KT97 that it says the downwelling ‘Solar’ “converts to heat”. This to anyone traditionally taught immediately means the way thermal infrared heats by moving the molecule. So here a simple blatant lie because visible light isn’t capable of this, see the wiki page above for differences electronic translation and vibrational, a clear manipulation of real physics by changing attributes and processes, swapping them around.
Two things immediately happen, a traditionally trained scientist will just assume because of the wording that what “Solar” means is inclusive of thermal ir which can convert to heat, and doesn’t look further, and those being brainwashed into the AGW paradigm will look at it and associate it with the “Solar” which AGW really teaches, Visible and UV and Nr Ir either side, shortwave.
Near infrared is not hot, it is not thermal infrared, see the NASA page for traditional basics of differences between the two. It has more the character of visible, that is, reflective rather than absorbtive. It penetrates the human body further than visible and UV (which doesn’t even get through the first layer of the epidermis), but like them is reflected back out – hence the near infrared cameras which capture this reflected as visible cameras capture the reflected visible. Thermal infrared cameras which measure the heat being radiated from a body are quite different.
Near infrared penetrates the ocean quite some distance, I’m not sure I can find it again as I was having computer problems at the time, but I found an interesting example re photosynthesis. At deeper levels than red visible reaches, near infrared was being used for photosynthesis by the plants who didn’t have access to red visible, the planty things were violet coloured. So why the different levels of penetration in visible wavelengths? It ain’t because they’re absorbed. Absorbed specifically means interaction as in the atmosphere, where an electron of the molecules nitrogen and oxygen will absorb visible, and then send it out the way it came in, the ‘mechanics’ behind reflection/scattering..
It really isn’t easy to spot these techniques of disinformation, they take on a variety of forms. I’m getting better at spotting them, but as in the wiki on thermal which gave the incandescent light bulb as a like example with the Sun, ‘sunlight’ to anyone educated in AGWScience immediately means Visible, whereas for me alarm bells begin ringing, because I now have learned to read with more care and can see what they’ve done. I had my first practice when I wondered why they were teaching that carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere..
I think what upsets me most about this manipulation of real physics, is that we’ve learned so much about our world, especially in the last hundred years, and this knowledge is being deliberately tampered with because the basics have been changed so much that sensible appreciation will be impossible for those being educated by AGWScience Fiction Inc’s malign influence.
Surely, the AGW Team cannot literally mean visible light only, ignoring all other wavelengths in the spectrum of solar radiation received at TOA? If they are limited the energy budget literally to visible light only, it appears that there may be merit in some of what you are saying.
Well, I’ve been saving the page I found yesterday for someone who could appreciate it… [grin]
http://www.answers.com/topic/greenhouse-effect
As you can see, not only is this standard AGWScience Fiction Inc’s paradigm, it is in standard reference works which have a reputation for accuracy, the encyclopaedia britannica for goodness sake! But why should I have been shocked, I didn’t think anything could shock me more than what I found NASA had done (see my post on this above).
I’ve investigated this thoroughly to my own satisfaction, through discussions here which is where it first came to my attention – this is the standard teaching now. The science fiction that Visible light heats the Earth. The mantra is, ‘Visible/shortwave heats the Earth, the Earth radiates out Thermal Infrared’ .
“Solar” and “Sunlight” always means this excluding thermal, longwave, infrared in downwelling from the Sun, and it is spread by those I would have thought knew better. I was told in a discussion here by a PhD, ‘the heat you feel comes from the visible light’. But, how can these standard reference books be teaching this fiction as if science fact?
The indoctrination has been going on longer than you might think. It begins with teaching in the elementary schools by teachers who were trained to teach this, a couple of decades down the line and ‘everyone’ takes it for granted. And since concurrently all dissenting voices have been effectively marginalised, it is very hard to explain what traditional science really has to say about this because even those who know often have to toe the party line in giving explanations.. A whole generation with no idea how the world really works.
OK. So take the mythical, easy-to-calculate, “average” 1367 Watt/m^2 number and divide it into the easy-to-calculate perfect black body featureless non-rotating earth-sized disk that CAGW theory begins with. You get a standard, simplified radiation model.
but …
“Radiation shorter wavelengths than 0.3 micro m is absorbed by the upper atmosphere” ((Optical Properties of Snow, Warren, 1982). So, where does this absorbed energy “go” in the standard model? It’s not reflected by clouds or the “mythical earth’s “average” albedo … it never got to the ground to be re-radiated at longer wavelengths as a GHG contributor. But we have not seen it used or “subtracted” in subsequent calculations.
UV intensities have changed by more 8-10% in recent decades … so what changes in the upper atmosphere after the “absorbed” UV flux changes in intensity by that much? How is this vast amount of energy (radiation) affect the “balance” that is being driven by a supposed 3.0 watt/meters “CO2 forcing” into disaster? Or is it?
If 30% of the sun’s energy is reflected by clouds (according to the common models) … where does this energy “go” and who is measuring it with what sensors?
In the high Arctic, what little of the inbound sunlight that is not absorbed by clouds and dust and the atmosphere (and so remains as direct radiation) is reflected by the surfaces (both ice and open ocean); and so it bounces back off the surface and goes back into the atmosphere. If much of the original direct radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, and most of the reflected radiation (unchanged in wavelength!) is absorbed by the atmosphere, where does the absorbed energy “go” ?
RACookPE1978 says:
August 22, 2011 at 2:56 pm
In the high Arctic, what little of the inbound sunlight that is not absorbed by clouds and dust and the atmosphere (and so remains as direct radiation) is reflected by the surfaces (both ice and open ocean); and so it bounces back off the surface and goes back into the atmosphere. If much of the original direct radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, and most of the reflected radiation (unchanged in wavelength!) is absorbed by the atmosphere, where does the absorbed energy “go” ?
Shortwave isn’t absorbed by the atmosphere. It goes back out to space if it gets reflected off the ice and snow. See the Trenberth budget I posted above.
By the way, the cartoon shows 67W/m^2 of the incomong solar being directly absorbed by the atmosphere. This is the near IR Myrrh talks about not being thermal. He/she doesn’t seem to be able to hear or read what people are telling him/her about the ocean not consisting of pure water, so the absorption of visible wavelengths in the ocean doesn’t make sense to him/her. Solar Blue and UV carries little energy compared to the other end of the visible spectrum. We have to remember quantities as well as qualities. Herschel didn’t get zero results higher up the spectrum when he refracted incoming sunlight.
Myrrh,
maybe if you didn’t spend so much time on the kids NASA pages and Wikipedia, just sayin’.
Myrrh,
show me what heats the oceans. You keep presenting voluminous clips of what you claim are Science Fiction. Show me what heats the oceans.
Myrrh, it disturbs me that you feel so passionate about your translation of physics. The effort you put into it is truly impressive. In case you missed something I posted above, I repeat and add to it
Modern automotive glass is deliberately both IR and UV cut, and visible light transmission is also reduced, mainly in order to reduce cabin heat in the summer. (the latter being a compromise with visibility safety). Have you ever noticed that if you park the car in the summer sun, the steering wheel gets uncomfortably hot? (but not if it is a cloudy day?).
Can you explain why?
MKelly,
thanks. Myrrh appears to be stating that visible light carries NO energy that can be converted to heat. Your post shows he is wrong. Wonder how he will deny it?
tallbloke says:
August 22, 2011 at 2:29 pm
“What have I missed?”
I think what you are missing is something that is not explicitly shown in the simplified diagram. The diagram lumps the entire atmosphere into one system. This is not an error, only a simplification to show the most important features.
The next simplest model of the atmosphere would divide the one average layer into 2 layers. The top layer seems to be emitting 195 W/m^2 upward, so it must be emitting 195 W/m^2 downward. In a two-layer model, this would be absorbed but the lower layer. So the lower layer gets 195 W/m^2 from the top layer and 350 from the surface layer, for a total of 545 incoming IR. The bottom layer is emitting 324 W/m/s down and 324 up, for a total of 648 outgoing IR. This leaves a deficit of roughly 100 W/m^2. This can be made up by the 78 + 24 W/m^2 from evaporation and convection.
In reality, the atmosphere would have to be divided into more and more layers (and divide the earth my zones of latitude and divide the globe by day and night) to get closer & closer to the actual conditions. This would of course require computers, and it beyond my direct experience.
But even the slightly-more-sophisticated 2-layer model removes most of your energy imbalance issues, I think.
“And, given that 226 of this 260 already cooled the surface as it left, why is it double counted as warming the surface when it comes back down with the ‘new’ incoming solar derived longwave?”
Suppose that you have $1,000 and I have $1,000. One second you give me $350. The next second I give you $320, and some other friend gives you $170. Is it double counting to say you have $1140?
If we keep doing this, you will quickly gain money, so if you want to stay even. you better find a way to give away some more money. Fortunately there are other “friends” to whom you can give the excess. And I will quickly lose money, especially since I am handing $195 on to someone else every second. Fortunately for me, others are making up the difference.