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,
1) Having the Sun’s energy double during the day… HUH????
I said that the energy is being doubled counted causing these large numbers that contribute to no “heating”. Just because energy passes a point in space 2, 3, 4 times or more does NOT mean it has done any work. If the energy did work it could not be reemitted or reflected several times. It would have been lost from the flux.
2) sorry, I don’t know all the quantum details and don’t know the details of all the lasers available. The few I have read about depend on “pumping” the media causing a wave of emissions that then reflect back and forth as more pumping goes on. If you counted the TOTAL energy going past on each wave you would end up with more than is emitted due to “double” counting just like in the atmosphere. The difference that makes the laser so high output, in addition to the pumping, is redirecting almost all the emissions into the same direction by the reflections at both ends. In our atmosphere one end has more than a 50% loss!!
3) Sorry, the 320 heading down wouldn’t be there if you hadn’t had energy going up to excit the GHG’s. That is the problem with the averages, you forget what comes first.
GHE is where the radiation HEATS the surface. if it HEATS the surface it isn’t immediately available to go back up. Since even the IPCC’s charts show the losses at the atmosphere end, doesn’t seem to be much heating going of the ground going on.
Myrrh,
It does not matter whether Trenberth includes thermal downwelling from the sun or not. As I mentioned before, and you can find any number of TOA solar spectra to substantiate taken outside of the IPCC science era, thermal IR from the sun is NOT measurable at the ground. I chased this myth until I was comfortable that it is a myth. You need to do more research and show me why you think that downwelling SOLAR thermal IR is measurable at the surface. The spectra we have simply do not support this idea.
RACookPE1978 says: August 22, 2011 at 2:56 pm
“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?
That would be part of the “67 W/m^2” of incoming solar energy shown being absorbed by the atmosphere. (See the image Tallbloke posted earlier)
“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? “
UV is about 10% of the Solar energy, or 0.1 * 342 = 34.2 W/m^2 on average. 9% of that is ~ 3 W/m^2. Assuming your numbers are correct, then both UV & CO2 forcings have changed about 3 W/m^2, suggesting both would be of similar importance.
tallbloke says:
August 22, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Herschel didn’t get zero results higher up the spectrum when he refracted incoming sunlight.
All Herschel discovered was that there was an invisible wavelength other side of Visible which was immensely hotter. Near Infrared isn’t hot. See the NASA page. Neither is Visible. Neither is UV. We cannot feel them. We cannot feel them.
So, what were the supposed temps of these? Where did this come from if these wavelengths aren’t hot? We do not feel any heat from them. What was the thermometer actually measuring?
What you generic are significantly failing to take on board is that I have given you specific details of the change in teaching in the NASA example. There is a disjunct. I’m sticking with the traditional tried and tested physics used in countless real world applications where thermal infrared is Heat, and this is what we feel on the surface of the Earth and this is what is doing the heating. Light does not heat stuff.
Surely you have just tons and tons of specifics on this? This is your basic premise.
Give me real tested proof that Visible is a) hot, b) capable of heating the oceans and land.
BECAUSE the claim is that this is what is raising the temperature of the Earth.
You’re the one’s teaching something different. You’re the ones who have to prove what you’re saying. Deal with it.
t.f.p. Says:
August 22, 2011 at 2:19 pm
I had a quick look at your set up, and I would have a couple of points.
The first is that your radiation source, even with the filter, appears to be very short wave. With regard to heating through CO2 back radiation, a spectral peak around 15 microns is appropriate. As George E. Smith pointed out further back on this thread, a suitable source for such LWIR would be warm water itself. In my experiment I placed a foil reflector above warm water to slow its rate of cooling.
The second point would be that your set up restricts evaporative cooling. My results indicate that evaporative cooling is the deciding factor in whether backscattered LWIR can slow the rate at which liquid water cools.
For those interested, this is an photo of the set up used in the experiments I have described earlier on this thread.
http://i56.tinypic.com/2zs2lbs.jpg
The side with the foil “Sky” is shown disassembled. The strange black shapes wired to the gel cell are small centrifugal blower fans for simulating wind.
“What is thermal energy ?
Thermal Energy: A specialized term that refers to the part of the internal energy of a system which is the total present kinetic energy resulting from the random movements of atoms and molecules.
The ultimate source of thermal energy available to mankind is the sun, the huge thermo-nuclear furnace that supplies the earth with the heat and light that are essential to life. The nuclear fusion in the sun increases the sun’s thermal energy. Once the thermal energy leaves the sun (in the form of radiation) it is called heat. Heat is thermal energy in transfer. Thermal energy is part of the overall internal energy of a system.
At a more basic level, thermal energy comes form the movement of atoms and molecules in matter. It is a form of kinetic energy produced from the random movements of those molecules. Thermal energy of a system can be increased or decreased.
When you put your hand over a hot stove you can feel the heat. You are feeling thermal energy in transfer. The atoms and molecules in the metal of the burner are moving very rapidly because the electrical energy from the wall outlet has increased the thermal energy in the burner. We all know what happens when we rub our hands together. Our mechanical energy increases the thermal energy content of the atoms in our hands and skin. We then feel the consequence of this – heat”
http://thermalenergy.org/
=================
Thermal energy, heat on the move, is invisible. It is also known as thermal infrared, to differentiate it from near infrared which is not heat on the move. Light, also known as visible, is not heat on the move. It is not hot. You cannot feel it. It does not heat stuff up.
It could not be what Herschel was measuring..
Do let that sink in.
Enough of your prevaricating. Show me proof from your science that Visible is heating the land and oceans. You can’t. You won’t find this anywhere, because it is not physically possible.
I know that. I’ve given you real explanations from real physics to show that Visible, Light, is not an energy powerful enough to heat up stuff. I’m asking you to look for proof that it can as you claim, so you get to know that it can’t.
Until you can come back with solid proof that it is Visible and not Thermal Infrared heating the land and oceans, what the heck are you talking about? What are all your arguments about ‘energy’ budgets worth? You don’t even know what you’re arguing about because you have no idea what heat from the Sun really is.
What NASA , or someone at NASA, is still trying to teach children – traditional, well tested, well understood, used in countless applications because well understood.
You are saying something different. It is incumbent on you, who have changed traditional physics, to prove that traditional teaching is wrong and you are right.
So do it.
Sheesh, where did the noble cowboy go? Hiding in the barn?
Willis: this IS still YOUR DOMAIN!
Myrrh,
ALL energy heats molecules which absorb it.
In the process of being absorbed by a molecule energy is stopped in its travels and instead is converted to vibrational movement of the absorbing molecule.
The wavelength determines the amoiunt of light energy available to be transferred to the receiving molecule, the shorter the wavelength the more energy is involved.
Visible wavelengths entering water are slowed down as they pass through water up to about a maximum of 200 metres or so and because they are generally of shorter wavelengths than infra red they impart more energy to deeper molecules than does infra red but in the end they are all absorbed and impart their energy to water molecules that then heat up.
One cannot ‘feel’ the energy in visible light (or of ANY wavelength) directly. Instead one just feels the additional energy acquired by the skin when skin molecules vibrate faster after having absorbed visible light energy. There is no doubt that visible light has a warming effect on skin (and everything else) but there is a level below which one does not significantly notice it. Nevertheless it is present.
The oceans are heated by ALL energy that gets past the evaporative barrier.
I and others have had questions about the bandwidths that K&T use for their energy balance cartoons. Here is the Abstract from their 1997 budget:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/abstracts/files/kevin1997_1.html
This links to their shortwave graph:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/bams97/fig5.gif
that appears to show about .125-3.0 micron.
Their longwave graph:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/bams97/fig1.gif
which appears to run from about 3.0-50.0 microns.
Here is a link to the PDF of the 1997 paper:
http://atoc.colorado.edu/~dcn/ATOC7500/members/Reading/KiehlTrenberth.pdf
Hope this helps.
kuhnkat says:
3) Sorry, the 320 heading down wouldn’t be there if you hadn’t had energy going up to excit the GHG’s. That is the problem with the averages, you forget what comes first.
You need a new paradigm. You keep claiming double counting, but never show any specific case. Double counting would be something like “there is a net flow of ~ 70 W/m^2 downward, but the atmosphere emits ~ 320 W/m^2 downward. This leads to a total of 390 W/m^2 downward.
The atmosphere and the ground ALREADY have millions of J of energy in each square meter. These joules could have come from the sun 1 second ago or 1 hour ago or 1000 years ago. Or they could have come from when the earth was hot billions of years ago. The could have come from cosmic rays from outer space. They could have come from radioactive Rn decaying in the atmosphere. In fact, they came from all of these sources. They did NOT come only from the sun during the last second.
Now that we know the surface and the atmosphere have lots of energy, the question is “how does that energy change during the next second?” If the energy decreases in the ground, the ground cools; if the energy in the atmosphere increases, the atmosphere warms. Our “energy accountant” needs to track every joule of energy received and emitted by each “division” over the course of a second. Then our “energy accountant will come up with an “annual report” of the trends.
The numbers obviously fluctuate from day to night; from poles to equator; from summer to winter.
But for an average m^2 of the surface during an average second:
* it looses 390 J via IR (from the millions it already had)
(NOTE: 320 of these go to the atmosphere and 40 go to outer space, but that is not the business of the ground. its accounting only deals with how much it gains or loses itself).
* it loses 80 J via evaporation (from the millions it already had)
* it loses 20 J via evaporation (from the millions it already had)
* it gains 170 J via sunlight (from the gazillions of J the sun had)
* it gains 320 J via IR (form the millions the atmosphere had.)
ACCOUNTANT’S REPORT: The average square meter of ground gained 490 J of energy and lost 490 J of energy during an average second for a net change of 0 J, so it is at the same temperature as it was the start of the year.
And for an average m^2 of the atmosphere during an average second:
* it looses 520 J via IR (from the millions it already has)
(NOTE: 320 go to the surface and 200 go to space)
* it gains 80 J via evaporation (from the millions the surface already has)
* it gains 20 J via evaporation (from the millions the surface already has)
* it gains 70 J via sunlight (from the gazillions of J the sun has)
* it gains 350 J via IR (from the millions the land had.)
ACCOUNTANT’S REPORT: The average square meter of atmosphere gained 520 J of energy and lost 520 J of energy during an average second for a net change of 0 J, so it is at the same temperature as it was the start of the year.
Each J of energy is counted exactly once. You could pass dollars or rocks back and forth the same way. There are no magical Enron dollars mysteriously appearing. There are no rocks suddenly appearing or disappearing from the conveyor moving the rocks from one pile to another.
(You could, of you want, combine the IR energies to give only net transfers. The surface and the atmosphere would both have 320 less arriving and 320 less leaving. The annual reports would decrease to 170 J and 200 J respectively both in and out for surface and atmosphere, but the year-end accounting would still have zero net flow)
(Even a small imbalance of 1 J for each square meter during an average second would result in an imbalance of a significant 32 million J during a year)
You have to give up the mindset that a given joule of energy is ricochetting back and forth.
You have to give up the mindset that a given square meter with millions of joules can only transfer 170 J of energy if it only gets 170 J of energy from the sun.
tallbloke says:
August 22, 2011 at 2:29 pm
At some point in the future people will look back and laugh at science today because of this earth radiation sketch.
For a start it does not add up
Incoming surface radiation = 168
Yet surface outgoing is
78
+24
+390
Total 492
Somehow another 324 units of energy is magically created by backradiation. This is just complete and utter nonsense and I’m surprised that anyone still tries to defend this. If the extra energy comes form the sun then the incoming surface solar radiation should be increased to 492. And total incoming solar radiation adjusted accordingly as well.
And even if the energy leaving the surface was reduced to 66 units. 40% leaving as radiation from the surface still seems far too high. But 390 / 492 = 79%. Surely this is just more science fiction.
surface.Tim Folkerts says:
August 22, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“You need a new paradigm.”
Like CO2 and water vapor are really energy generators in the atmosphere with LWR acting as their power source. So say 20 units of LWR go in and say 40 units come out and are fired back at the surface as shorter wave radiation. To create a heating impact when they hit the surface.
But this CO2 and water vapor power source is somehow regulated to only ever produce just so much new energy to stop the earth overheating.
Tim Folkerts,
Try turning off the sun and see what happens to the energy fluxes. Which would you say stays stronger, the atmosphere, the ground, or the oceans?
Now that wasn’t that hard to figure out now was it. When are you going to quit double counting??
RE: Myrrh: (August 20, 2011 at 6:30 pm)
“You are postulating that light created by the Sun is eternal.”
Not quite. The energy is eternal. It was not created by the Sun; it was released by the Sun’s fusion processes.
Energy can be reconfigured, subdivided or reflected but it cannot be destroyed. This reconfiguration is accomplished by interacting with some other particle or field.
The chemical bonds in the fuel of your car are stored energy. When those bonds are broken, that energy is released as heat and kinetic motive action.
Is anyone on this thread still interested in the original question about whether backscattered LWIR can heat or slow the cooling of Earth’s oceans? Willis appears to have run away, but it would be difficult to blame him given that the discussion has got very off topic. If backscattered 15 micron IR cannot slow the cooling of the oceans, then the global warming hoax is over.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 22, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Myrrh,
ALL energy heats molecules which absorb it.
In the process of being absorbed by a molecule energy is stopped in its travels and instead is converted to vibrational movement of the absorbing molecule.
The wavelength determines the amoiunt of light energy available to be transferred to the receiving molecule, the shorter the wavelength the more energy is involved.
Visible wavelengths entering water are slowed down as they pass through water up to about a maximum of 200 metres or so and because they are generally of shorter wavelengths than infra red they impart more energy to deeper molecules than does infra red but in the end they are all absorbed and impart their energy to water molecules that then heat up.
One cannot ‘feel’ the energy in visible light (or of ANY wavelength) directly. Instead one just feels the additional energy acquired by the skin when skin molecules vibrate faster after having absorbed visible light energy. There is no doubt that visible light has a warming effect on skin (and everything else) but there is a level below which one does not significantly notice it. Nevertheless it is present.
The oceans are heated by ALL energy that gets past the evaporative barrier.
Stephen, water is a transparent medium for Light, the molecules do not absorb Light. That’s a basic real world physics definition. It means that Light does not impart any energy to the molecules of water, it passes straight through, the term here is transmitted. This can be observed in clear water and glass which are transparent mediums.
So, here’s the disjunct from AGWScience Fiction Inc’s manipulation.
It says that the atmosphere is transparent for Visible light, a clear medium in which it passes straight through without being absorbed, it says that this is like the glass in a greenhouse window, which visible light passes straight through without being absorbed.
So, when I point out that in real world physics water is a known transparent medium for visible light just like clear glass, that it is transmitted through without being absorbed, why do you’all keep insisting that it is being absorbed and not transmitted straight through?
Because you’re repeating a ‘meme’ from AGWScience Fiction Inc.
Try to find some real pages from the real world on Light which give the information from traditional science, I gave examples above of this.
Water and glass are transparent mediums for visible light, they are transmitted through without being absorbed.
Find the link I gave above to the wiki page on translucency, and read the complete section I extracted from.
There are several things explained that visible light and UV are capable of doing, transmission means that they pass straight through without being absorbed, so no energy is received by the medium.
I’m under no illusion that what I’m saying about the way AGWScience twists real physics to claim something different is easy to grasp, my mind felt like a yo-yo when I began exploring this. But this is a good example of how subtle the change from real science is which results in a completely different explanation of something – which means that if believed without questioning or having no reason to doubt the explanations the person accepting it has lost a real grasp on the actual physics. AGWScience Fiction Inc creates impossible worlds by such methods.
AGWScience Fiction Inc, likes to create confusion. It doesn’t want you to know real physics. It has insinuated itself into the education system, so now it is very very hard to pick it apart..
There are two parts to just the above which shows the extent of this manipulation, but you really need to concentrate on this, it isn’t easy to see.
That’s the first part, that it says glass is a transparent medium, which is correct, but says water isn’t, which is a lie.
The second part is that it says the atmosphere is a transparent medium, but it isn’t in real physics.
Why isn’t the atmosphere a transparent medium? Because visible is actually absorbed on an electron level by the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, it is this which produces reflection and scattering, the blue sky.
Now, at this point you need to bring in what absorbed means here in real physics, the wiki extract explains it. If visible light is being scattered it means that the electron is energised and then sends out the light the way it came in. No heat is being created. The energy is being used for motion.
So, you’ll need to look at what ‘absorbed’ means. It doesn’t always mean that heat is created. As in photosynthesis for example, it can mean that the energy of light is used for a chemical conversion, the creation of sugars. This process doesn’t create heat any more than reflection/scattering creates heat.
What is happening here? AGWScience Fiction Inc has given the meme that all absorption is direct creation of heat. That’s not true as these examples show.
Confused? That’s the point of these memes, to confuse. To take real physics out of the general populations’ ken.
So, in real physics the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen reflect/scatter visible light, which means they are absorbed, so my question earlier – how hot is the atmosphere from this?
Convoluted isn’t it?
If you say the atmosphere is a transparent medium and visible doesn’t heat it, and I show you that on an electron level it is absorbed, by AGWScience fiction that means it must be creating heat in the atmosphere because the individual molecules absorb it to reflect and scatter.
The only way out of this AGWScience Fiction Inc’s trap is to get back to real traditional physics, and that is getting harder to find explained..
The reason it is getting harder is because the avenues for it are being closed down. My examples from standard reference sources, Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary of Geography. Wiki was taken over completely by a virulent Greenie, who kept taking any references to real physics and the real arguments out of the pages. He is now ousted and the pages have to some extent been cleaned up. But not completely, because the fiction that visible is the heating method for the Earth is now ‘establishment’ science, and, there are subtle nuances which confuse as I’ve gone into re the thermal sun’s energy is like incandescent light bulb with the insertion of the word ‘sunlight’.
This is a very clever and now very well established con because the people establishing it have the means to do this, various methods. They introduced it into the education system from elementary level by teaching the would be teachers that this is ‘science’, at the same time instilling fear in the children the lie that carbon dioxide is a toxic, a poison, which in real physics it isn’t, and, by giving experiments and explanations which are nonsense in real life physics, like heating water with a heat gun which is gobbledegook, how many people bother to check and find out that they are calling this heat transfer by radiation when it is heat transfer by convection? But people repeat it and so it is passed on to create more confusion down the line.. That’s why the meme that ‘the science is settled’ was so widely promoted for years and years and concurrent demonisation and ad homs and blocking access to publishing papers to those scientists arguing against it, because it is now in the consciousness of the general public through constant repetition of the lie, who believe it without thinking, because they have no reason to doubt it. It’s a technique of brainwashing on a grand scale.
So here, the simple technique of reversing the properties of Heat and Light, attributing the properties of one to the other, of saying that it is Visible which is thermal heating the Earth, has a whole string of misattributions attached, as memes. Each part has to be looked at separately and examined because sometimes the definitions are used correctly as in transparent meaning that something is passed through without being absorbed, but then misattributed.
Absorbed technically does not always mean that heat is created. Transparent means that something is passed through without being absorbed. The atmosphere is not transparent to visible. Water is transparent to visible. You’ll need to replace the fiction memes with memes from real physics to get internal coherence back.
Until you do, you can’t see the fictional world the AGWScience Fiction Inc has created, impossible.
Tim Folkerts says:
Two layer system
Hi Tim, yes, but that’s not what Trenberth’s cartoon shows, and this is why NASA no longer has that cartoon on it’s website, they just show the net flow, because the truth is, all these multilayer models are speculative. Just as speculative as my suggestion that a lot of the downwelling IR may be getting absorbed in evaporated molecules just above the surface and re-emitted from there.
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.
Lets get the numbers right. 168 from the Sun, which has to end up leaving as IR. 390 IR out of the ocean, plus 102 latent and thermal = 492 energy upwards. Trenberth is simply balancing the 168 in from the Sun with the 492 upward to get his 324 back radiation. I suspect both the outgoing and back radiation averages may be inflated to inflate the LR figure in relative importance to convection. Biomass converts incoming shortwave to biomass which when dead releases sensible heat as it rots, in forest fires etc. Leaves maintain a steady temperature through evapotranspiration, not by emitting IR so much. This is why diurnal temperature variation over the Amazon is steady throughout the year despite a 7% variation in incoming solar due to orbital eccentricity.
kuhnkat says:
August 22, 2011 at 4:31 pm
I said that the energy is being doubled counted causing these large numbers that contribute to no “heating”. Just because energy passes a point in space 2, 3, 4 times or more does NOT mean it has done any work. If the energy did work it could not be re-emitted or reflected several times. It would have been lost from the flux.
Energy in = energy out. How much it contributes to the bulk temperature in the meantime is the question at issue. I suspect a very short ‘residence time’ for downwelling IR, because it is absorbed in the first few microns, can’t conduct downwards, can’t convect downwards and can’t work miracles heating the abyss by magically bypassing these hurdles.
Myrrh says:
August 22, 2011 at 5:22 pm
tallbloke says:
August 22, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Herschel didn’t get zero results higher up the spectrum when he refracted incoming sunlight.
All Herschel discovered was that there was an invisible wavelength other side of Visible which was immensely hotter. Near Infrared isn’t hot.
Have a look at this solar spectrum
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/spectral-content.gif
The absorption around 1750 and 3500 nm is your incoming solar IR. It amounts to the ~67W/m^2 directly absorbed by the atmosphere. Don’t forget the sum is divided by four to average the radiation incident on the Earth as a whole, half of which is in shadow at any one time.
From what I’ve been told, the point is that there’s lots more of the visible energy coming from the Sun to Earth than IR, as you can see from the plot, so despite the fact it doesn’t excite water as much, there’s more of it to get the job done. UV burns your skin, which is why sunblock blocks UV. To burn your skin, it has to heat it.
Your innards are not warmed by radiation, they are warmed by the chemical processes breaking down your food, and to a small extent by the conduction of heat in blood if evaporation isn’t cooling you enough. That pretty soon leads to heat exhaustion.
I’ll do some more looking into it, thanks for your contribution. Please shorten your comments and point to long previous ones with links by right clicking the timestamp in the previous comment and copying the url so we don’t get swamped. Thanks.
G. Karst says:
August 21, 2011 at 9:02 am
To think all these issues will be resolved within a blog discussion is a little beyond, a reasonable expectation. Quantification is the best we can expect at the moment. Experimental data is the only way, for now. So discuss all you want, but do not scoff at each other’s hypothesis, because none of you are completely correct. IMHO GK
Well said.
Konrad says:
August 21, 2011 at 5:08 pm
For 40C water cooling only through radiation and conduction the containers both cool slower than the evaporatively cooled samples. The container under the foil “Sky” cooled 2.5C in 15 min. The container under the clear “Sky” cooled faster at 2.8C in 15 min. The two samples continue to diverge in temperature as much as 1.2C in the first 45 min. After several hours the samples converge to room temperature.
I believe the results I am getting are consistent and repeatable and possibly even “robust” ;). It should be noted that although my clear “Sky” was actually a ceiling around 20C, the foil “Sky” was reflecting most of the IR emitted by the warm water, not just under 50% of the 10 to 20 micron frequency. Also I have not yet repeated the small scale test with the artificial wind from computer fans. I urge others to repeat this style of experiment to confirm the result.
My conclusion is that backscattered LWIR cannot slow the cooling rate of Earth’s oceans to any measurable degree. Given that the oceans cover 71% of the planets surface, estimates for climate sensitivity should probably be reduced from 1C to per CO2 doubling to 0.29C. This figure is likely to be smaller again, as plants that cool through transpiration may need to be subtracted from equations. I would further speculate that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 cannot cause dangerous, catastrophic or even measurable global warming even if we burnt all known and projected fossil fuel reserves.
Very well done Konrad. I’m sure the warmista will want to pick holes in your experimental procedure, at which point we can say:
“OK, using some of the 122 billion dollars you’ve had to investigate global warming over the last 20 years, where is the better controlled experiment you did to test this fundamentally important issue?”
If the best they can do is point to the Minnett – Realclimate experiment which never got published, they are looking pretty bad…
If it’s ok with you, I’ll feature your experiment on my blog, let me know here.
Cheers
Konrad says:
August 23, 2011 at 12:38 am
Is anyone on this thread still interested in the original question about whether backscattered LWIR can heat or slow the cooling of Earth’s oceans? Willis appears to have run away, but it would be difficult to blame him given that the discussion has got very off topic. If backscattered 15 micron IR cannot slow the cooling of the oceans, then the global warming hoax is over.
I haven’t gone off topic. If you want to know how much the ocean absorbs thermal infrared you have to begin with the thermal infrared reaching the Earth from the Sun, which is what actually warms the oceans. Water absorbs longwave infrared and heats up, that is a basic bog standard real world physics known. It heats up because thermal infrared is capable of heating it as water and organic substances have resonant frequencies with it, which means they vibrate vigorously. There is a general depth of absorption of 2-4 inches. This nonsense that the ‘surface tension’ of water will repel any ‘backradiating’ thermal is ridiculous, thermal is a powerful energy. It packs a punch as you should know every time you step into the Sun and feel its heat warming you up.
The question really is, can heat flow from a cooler to a warmer body, if the ‘backradiating’ longwave is colder than what the earth is radiating up to it, then it can’t.
tallbloke says:
August 23, 2011 at 1:38 am
I would be happy for you to cover the experiment over at the Talkshop.
An image of the present set up can be seen here –
http://i56.tinypic.com/2zs2lbs.jpg
The black frame on the left hand side is covered with cling wrap, which does not show up well in the image. I have found a peltier chip and some thermal paste in the shed, so I will be able to improve on the “non” backscattered side over the weekend. In the meantime feel free to cut and paste from the comments here.
I would be happy for the moderators to pass my email on to you, so I can provide you further details.
tallbloke says:
“Lets get the numbers right. 168 from the Sun, which has to end up leaving as IR. 390 IR out of the ocean, plus 102 latent and thermal = 492 energy upwards. Trenberth is simply balancing the 168 in from the Sun with the 492 upward to get his 324 back radiation.”
I pretty much agree other than the word “simply”.
I have glanced thru there paper, but it was a while ago. I can pretty much guarantee that one way or another they either measured the 324 W/m^2 (eg find the average of value from pyrgeometers around the world) or calculated it (from measured temperatures and compositions of the atmosphere around the world). I suspect the “thermals” component is tougher to get right than the IR, since it requires estimating the magnitude of updrafts and their intensity around the globe.
I suspect they had to work a bit to get the numbers to all balance. I suspect that the uncertainty in the numbers is significant. They may well have used the idea of “simply balancing” the numbers t get them to indeed balance. Some thing like “we got a value of 320 +/- 6 for the back radiation; we will call it 324 in the diagram since we know the balance is very close to zero overall.” Again this is just speculation on my part. I don;t have time to dig thru the article right now, but anyone who is truly interested could go read the paper and report what they did and how they got this number.
Question for Tim Folkerts:
O2 and N2 don’t absorb or radiate photons, but they must be excited by collisions with excited co2 and h2o molecules. Presumably they jiggle around more. What will the effect of this be? A priori, it seems likely they will more readily permit convection of more buoyant molecules. Won’t this speed cooling of the atmosphere to space?
Two minor points and a not-so-minor point, Tallbloke, and then I must go.
“The absorption around 1750 and 3500 nm is your incoming solar IR. It amounts to the ~67W/m^2 directly absorbed by the atmosphere.”
Presumably the absorbed UV also contributes to this total.
” UV burns your skin, which is why sunblock blocks UV. To burn your skin, it has to heat it. “
UV damages individual molecules. The damage is not due to general warming of the skin.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunburn
From what I’ve been told, the point is that there’s lots more of the visible energy coming from the Sun to Earth than IR
No, the totals are pretty close to equal. with slightly more IR than visible energy. Depending on just where you draw the somewhat arbitrary lines between UV, visible, and IR, the numbers are ~ 10 UV, 40% visible, and 50 % IR.
Myrrh says:
August 23, 2011 at 2:45 am
“Water absorbs longwave infrared and heats up, that is a basic bog standard real world physics known.”
The fact that Myrrh writes this statement after I have taken the time to design a simple, repeatable empirical experiment and reported the methodology and results to this thread proving that statement false should indicate that responding to Myrrh is not worth the wear on your keyboard.
Myrrh, follow the instructions, do the experiment and learn.