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.
myrrh – you are just as wrong now as you were an hour or a day ago.
i introduced you to facts that utterly falsify your notion that ‘visible light can’t heat anything’ and i watch you try to evade them using argument from intimidation (by being insulting).
that’s an indication that you are very embarrassed at your inability to explain these natural phenomenon. it further suggests that you imagine bluster will ward off the natural consequences of defending an obvious error. well, that’s just compounding the error.
it’s your right to be wrong but it’s maladaptive and no good consequences will result. hamdulilah, bro. first you lose your friends. then nobody at all will talk with you unless you pay them. then you get ignored or put somewhere. that’s an interesting career path, myrrh. it’s not my fault or my problem, though – it belongs to you; so i’ll respect your defining property.
Myrrh says:
August 25, 2011 at 9:25 am
Myrrh my degree is in mechanical engineering. I only tell you this to illicit a bona fides from you. I may be ignorant but I paid to get that way.
Moi? Intimidating? Shirley some mistake. Hasn’t stopped you from dedicating a whole post to insulting me and still not dealing with my request – prove that blue visible light from the Sun can heat water. Show how much visible actually heats water and so oceans. You know the kind of thing, real science numbers..
I look forward to your producing blue light central heating for the home, let me know when your patent gets accepted.
Why not describe how it would work? Let’s all take a look at how thermal blue light really is.
Let’s keep it compact, say, flat/apartment, two bedrooms, sitting room, kitchen/dining, and bathroom and box room, you design the layout and footage.
I look forward to your producing blue light central heating for the home.
1) Replace your furnace with several thousand of the blue lasers in the video above. (or use blue LEDs since they are very efficient).
2) Aim them thru fiber optic cables around the house (or even just use ducts with mirrors at the corners).
3) Run the end of the fiber optic cables into enclosed boxes in each room. (You could just shoot the lasers around the room, but the bright lights would be annoying and potentially damaging to eyes. Just like you could shoot steam around a room, but it is much safer and more convenient to send it thru “sealed” boxes that we call “radiators”.)
The video clearly shows the blue light heating things to quite high temperatures. The boxes will get warm, but if we design it right, they will not melt or get holes thru them. They will simple get warm, which will in turn warm the rest of the house. The blue light is transfering 1000’s of watts of light energy around the house, moving energy from the “furnace room” to the rest of the house.
Of course, this would be very expensive, so no one would ever do it. But the principle is clear and foolproof.
mkelly says:
August 25, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Myrrh says:
August 25, 2011 at 9:25 am
Myrrh my degree is in mechanical engineering. I only tell you this to illicit a bona fides from you. I may be ignorant but I paid to get that way.
The only bona fides of any value here is an inquiring mind.
All of you who claim that the AGWScience Fiction Inc’s meme that Visible from the Sun converts Earth’s land and oceans to heat, MUST, surely?, be able to produce some actual mechanism for this on a wavelength/molecule basis? Some actual figures of how much of it it take to warm a pint, an ocean, a pebble, anything? Haven’t any of you actually got anything? Doesn’t that strike any of you as a bit odd?
Or have you really confirmed what I’ve said, and are just too shy to let me know?
Myrrh says:
August 25, 2011 at 2:33 pm .
I look forward to your producing blue light central heating for the home, let me know when your patent gets accepted.
Myrrh, if this didn’t work, the manufacturers would be getting their asses sued:
http://www.solar-energy-for-home.com/solar-water-heating.html
The Passive Solar Hot Water Heater
“The lowest cost type is the passive solar heating system. it consist of 2 elements, the flat plate collector and the hot water tank.”
“The collector is a flat plate solar collector. The flat plate collector is an insulated sealed rectangular casing. The bottom plate is covered with a thin absorber sheet. Above this sheet there is a coil of thin pipes running water in a loop to the tank. The top is made either from a glass or a polycarbonate (transparent polymer) sheet.
The glass allows the sun light to enter in and hit the bottom plate absorber. The absorber heats up, and emits heat (in the infrared wavelengths). This heat radiation heats up the water in the water pipes. The top sheet is transparent to visible light but it is opaque to infrared wavelengths therefore the heat stays within the close casing.”
The description isn’t perfect (the IR is absorbed by the water pipes and conducted to the water, not absorbed directly by the water) but you should get the general idea. Key point to note is that the top glass allows visible (and near IR) to pass through and heat the plate, which then radiates in the far IR and heats the water pipes.
Similarly, the energy of visible light and near IR entering the ocean gets absorbed by making water molecules vibrate and by various metal ions (salt in solution) and other impurities, which then radiate and conduct heat into the surrounding water.
g’day, TB.
got some spare time, I see. 🙂
Hi gnomish.
Just dropped by to see if Willis had answered any of the substantive points made concerning the most fundamentally important issue in the climate debate…
I live in hope that Myrrh might chew on the bones being thrown, rather than burying them and barking.
? Lasers again?? What’s with you lot? Give me figures for blue light as from the Sun, not artificially enhanced, and let me know how it heats water.
TB – using thermal infrared energies to heat water is because water is a great absorber of Heat which is thermal infrared, this does not use visible – photovotaic is visible, it can’t heat anything, it’s used to create electricity, and that pretty much useless if you want to boil more than a kettle..
Burning lasers.
Myrrh says:
August 25, 2011 at 4:46 pm
TB – using thermal infrared energies to heat water is because….
Read what I wrote again Myrrh. The glass stops IR getting in, as well as getting out. And the IR doesn’t heat the water directly, it heats the pipe the water is running through.
Try to read what people say, not what you reinterpret them as saying.
Myrrh says:
August 25, 2011 at 4:46 pm
? Lasers again?? What’s with you lot? Give me figures for blue light as from the Sun, not artificially enhanced, and let me know how it heats water.
Still talking your usual rubbish I see Myrrh, If blue or green light in the form of a laser beam is absorbed so will the same wavelength radiation from the sun! As far as the absorption of the laser beam is concerned it’s no different than filtering sunlight through blue glass and focussing it with a large mirror. Lasers provide a very well controlled beam of light which is capable of being tightly focussed, its properties as far as absorption are concerned aren’t ‘artificially enhanced’.
Myrrh, another quote:
” Absorption is the conversion of light energy to heat energy at the atomic level. When this happens, the light disappears, and it is no longer visible. The ocean is a selective absorber of light. From the components of light: violet-blue-green-yellow-orange-red (V – B – G – Y – O – R) colors, the longer wavelengths are easily absorbed (red, orange) as they contain less energy. The shorter wavelengths (V – B – G) bands travel deeper into the water column before absorption. Hence,
· Red is absorbed around 10m
· Yellow is absorbed around 60m
· Green is absorbed around 100m
Any light beyond 100m is blue.”
http://faculty.scf.edu/rizkf/OCE1001/OCEnotes/chap6.htm
Tim, gnomish, MKelly etc,
notice that Myrrh conflates anything you tell him that conflicts with his mania with belief in AGW. I am not sure he is rational. He doesn’t seem to be separating the details of the physics from the whole AGW issue.
He apprently does not understand any of this past a very vague general reading (worse than me in other words!!) His insistence on the use of the term transparent as being an absolute rather than a relative is another example. The poor guy really needs some very basic instruction, yet, refuses it for fear he may have to give up his belief system.
He seems to think everything we say makes us deluded believers in the false science of AGW when, I am pretty sure, we are all sceptics, weel I am a denier but what the hey!!
Then again, I wonder if he is Willis’ way of getting back at us for not going along with him!! 8>)
OK, one last attempt to get you to really engage with what I’m saying. You’re on a science blog, one of you, who shall remain nameless, prides himself on being a superior educated scientist, and there’s nothing I’ve said should be beyond any of your capabilities to assess logically.
So, why aren’t you producing the information I’m actually asking for?
Standard science, as I’ve been through above. Internally coherent and logical, tried and tested and used in countless applications by people who know the difference between properties.
The AGWScience Fiction Inc’s energy budget you’re using goes against that. It says we don’t feel the heat from the Sun because it says thermal infrared doesn’t reach the surface. It says that Visible heats oceans which is impossible for it to do, and it says thermal infrared direct from the Sun doesn’t, which actually does heat the oceans having the power to move the molecules into vibrational states; there is a disjunct here.
If you’re not interested in exploring this, fine. But until you can prove that AGWScience Fiction Inc’s version of how the world works here is fact, then you have not overturned traditional science. Just because it’s harder to retrieve that well tried and tested traditional information does not mean that it isn’t still being taught, and utilised, it just means that you can’t use it, because you weren’t taught real physics about heat and light.
And that, I really am sorry to say, is a loss for all of us.
Whatever, let’s get back on topic.
Neither Willis nor anyone else has tackled the points I made earlier so a few simple thoughts:
i) If we had oceans but no non -condensing greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane et al at all would there still be a water cycle? Obviously there would. Water would still evaporate at a rate governed by atmospheric pressure. The latent heat of vaporisation would still have an energy value set by the current atmospheric pressure. There would be evaporation, clouds, rainfall, climate zones, Hadley cells and the whole paraphernalia. The oceans would not freeze because solar shortwave would still get past the ocean skin and warm the ocean bulk. As long as the atmospheric pressure is high enough the oceans would remain as liquid water. It is the current atmospheric pressure plus the liquid watery oceans that keeps the system as a whole above the freezing point of water (and below the boiling point too).
ii) Water vapour being a greenhouse gas, AGW theory proposes that the evaporation that would occur even in the absence of non-condensing GHGs then feeds back on itself to reduce energy loss from the oceans and thus the water vapour would accumulate in the air until the entire oceans had heated to boiling point and converted to vapour form with the water cycle coming to a halt. Solar energy would continue getting in, evaporation would continue and as humidity blocked the evaporative energy flow from the oceans to the air all the oceans would heat up to boiling point. That is the logical implication of their assertion that extra water vapour AMPLIFIES the effect of more non- condensing GHGs. That, however is nonsense, it never happened and it could never happen as long as condensation occurs and keeps pace with evaporation and it always would at current atmospheric pressure. To create that scenario with the entire oceans converted to water vapour the atmospheric pressure would have to be sufficient to raise the energy value of the latent heat of evaporation (the energy cost of vaporisation) to a point where the temperature of all the water on the planet were above the boiling point of water at all times. It just isn’t going to happen, not on Earth anyway.
iii) So now with that basic water cycle let’s start adding non -condensing GHGs.
iv) We can see that adding GHGs in the form of water vapour does not slow the rate of energy loss from the oceans otherwise the oceans would all become vapour all the time. So why would we think that non condensing GHGs would slow the rate of energy loss from oceans to air?
v) They don’t. GHGs including water vapour operate in one direction only. Some GHGs are not more powerful than others just because they themselves do not condense. It does not matter that they do not condense because they simply add energy to the air which creates more water vapour and the extra water vapour does the extra condensing (by proxy) to negate the effect of the GHGs that do not themselves condense. There is no conceivable physical reason why non condensing GHGs would have the opposite effect on the system to that of water vapour yet that is what AGW theory logically requires. All types of GHG ALWAYS and unavoidably ACCELERATE the water cycle for a zero net effect on the basic rate of energy transfer from oceans to air which is set by atmospheric pressure acting on the physical properties of water molecules. If non condensing GHGs were to significantly alter surface pressure that would be a different matter but they do not. Alternatively it would be a different matter if non condensing GHGs left any surplus energy remaining after increasing the rate of evaporation (and upward radiation convection and conduction) and subsequent condensation but they do not as far as I can tell.
vi) So, to show me to be wrong, let’s now hear some proper evidence either that water vapour on its own reduces energy loss from oceans to air (the so called amplification process) or that the extra evaporation from non -condensing GHGs fails to produce enough extra evaporation (and condensation) to negate its own warming effect in the air.
vii) The truth must be that far from AMPLIFYING the effects of more non-condensing GHGs an increase in water vapour NEGATES it. To achieve an amplifying effect water vapour must be capable of reducing the rate of energy loss from the oceans yet obviously it is not.
viii) There is a climate effect nonetheless in that the extra energy in the air shifts the surface air pressure distribution a fraction but that is as nothing compared to natural solar and oceanic effects on that same surface air pressure distribution.
Stephen,
I am confused by this statement: “As long as the atmospheric pressure is high enough the oceans would remain as liquid water. ” Atmospheric pressure is the same all over the world (give or take a tiny bit), but that does not currently keep the oceans melted (ie near the poles). Temperature (governed by net energy flows, not pressure) is obviously also a key factor.
Similarly, you state “Water would still evaporate at a rate governed by atmospheric pressure. ” Again you seem to ignore the affects of temperature. Or you treat temperature as governed entirely by atmospheric presssure. Or I am misunderstanding you.
Could you clarify?
===========================================
You also state “AGW theory proposes that the evaporation that would occur even in the absence of non-condensing GHGs then feeds back on itself to reduce energy loss from the oceans and thus the water vapour would accumulate in the air until the entire oceans had heated to boiling point”
I have never seen any such prediction of feedback leading to uncontrolled warming to the boiling point based on some sort of self-feeding process. Could you provide an example of someone (preferably a professional in the field) making such a claim?
Whatever. As I have been saying for YEARS, the empirical evidence does not support the GHE theory. It is no warmer in areas with large amounts of GHEs than in areas with lesser amounts of GHEs, at constant latitude and altitude. It is no warmer now with increased CO2 than it was in 1930. Until the GHE theory can produce some actual empirical evidence, it is just another con game. Sorry folks, but that is the science that even Einstein had to live with.
Folkerts says:
“Since 15 C is about the average surface temperature, it seems that both theory and evidence support 390 W/m^2. In this case, I think empirical evidence sides with Willis.”
Well, I have not seen any EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for that 390. I’ve only seen SB calculations. But, the 390 is probably about right, since SB works for solids (I don’t know about water, though). The thing that fascinates me, though, is that MODTRAN doesn’t give anywhere near that 390 number, if you enter 0 (zero) for altitude, looking down, -10 offset in temp. One would think that the model would register “tilt” when one enters those parameters–or give me 390. Oh well!
But… whatever….the 390 from the SURFACE does not have to somehow balance the incoming solar radiation at the SURFACE. That’s where Willis gets off base, IMHO. The only place that incoming and outgoing radiation have to balance, over the long term, is TOA. Willis and many others seem to be completely oblivious to other factors that influence the temperature of the atmospheric gases. Like molecular collisions, thermal capacity, and LTE. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR AN ATMOSPHERIC GREENHOUSE EFFECT, and this is very hard for most people to realize. Temperatures on the surface of other planetoids prove this conclusively. Many smarter people than I have explained that in several ways in this thread, and Willis has ignored all of them, as far as I can tell (he could try to answer Hockeyschtick’s comments, for example). Hope he has read some of the Dragon (although I admit that there is much BS there, also).
Folkerts says:
“Since 15 C is about the average surface temperature, it seems that both theory and evidence support 390 W/m^2. In this case, I think empirical evidence sides with Willis.”
Well, I have not seen any EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for that 390. I’ve only seen SB calculations. But, the 390 is probably about right, since SB works for solids (I don’t know about water, though). One thing that fascinates me, though, is that MODTRAN doesn’t give anywhere near that 390 number, if you enter 0 (zero) for altitude, looking down, -10 offset in temp. One would think that the model would register “tilt” when one enters those parameters–or give me 390. Oh well!
But… whatever….the 390 from the SURFACE does not have to somehow balance the incoming solar radiation at the SURFACE. That’s where Willis gets off base, IMHO. The only place that incoming and outgoing radiation have to balance, over the long term, is TOA. Willis and many others seem to be completely oblivious to other factors that influence the temperature of the atmospheric gases. Like molecular collisions, thermal capacity, and LTE. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR AN ATMOSPHERIC GREENHOUSE EFFECT, and this is very hard for most people to accept. Temperatures on the surface of other planetoids prove this conclusively. Many smarter people than I have explained that in several ways in this thread, and Willis has ignored all of them, as far as I can tell (he could try to answer Hockeyschtick’s comments, for example). Hope he has read some of the Dragon (although I admit that there is much BS there, also).
What happens in real scientific pursuits is that folks pose questions to test theories. If the theory cannot accomodate the question, then the theory needs to be revised or trashed. What pisses me off here is that I posed such a question to Willis and it was not even acknowledged, let alone answered. In fact all I got was an RC response that completely ignored the question and blasted me with a tirade that says, in effect, that “you don’t believe in backradiation.” Which is pure bullshit and cannot be supported.
Willis, how about an apology? LOL!
Smokey says:
August 25, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Burning lasers.
========================
As the thread fades, I thought the mods wouldn’t mind something totally unrelated (except for the cigarette incident). I know you’ll like this one.
I had the good fortune to have a friend who drove in the Carrera Panamericana, when the guys from Pink Floyd were driving in it (Nick Mason and David Gilmour). I bought a Maserati from him.
I got a different bootleg tape at the time which showed more of a concert set-up, where a roadie lit his cigarette on a laser they were using.
I couldn’t find it online, but it’s kinda mentioned here too:
http://www.tpimagazine.com/Chronicle/437975/strung_out_on_lasers.html
The Boltzmann constant (k or kB) is the physical constant relating energy at the individual particle level with temperature observed at the collective or bulk level. It is the gas constant R divided by the Avogadro constant NA
“The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution describes particle speeds in gases, where the particles do not constantly interact with each other but move freely between short collisions. It describes the probability of a particle’s speed (the magnitude of its velocity vector) being near a given value as a function of the temperature of the system, the mass of the particle, and that speed value.”
applying the calculations to a reading taken of the surface of a solid is superficial. it can not make any determination about quantity of energy in a bulk without a lot of additional assumptions. the assumptions include that the object is an ideal blackbody, that the surface is the same as the bulk temperature and that there is nothing else coloring the reading. all the assumptions need to be validated.
even so, it can not distinguish quantity of energy at all – which is what the word ‘heat’ is used for when i use it that way…lol
oh, myrrh – thanks for straightening me out.
now that you say it, it’s obvious that the blue lasers must, indeed, use artificially enhanced photons. thermal viagra makes them hot.
the green lasers produce female photons – they have thermal implants.
red lasers are red – like IR wishes it could be – so with a bit of makeup they can pass as hot if nobody looks too closely. that’s why they hang out at bars – to take advantage of the beer goggles.
i’ll check the mirror to see if i look a lot smarter now, mmk?
Tim Folkerts asked various reasonable questions:
i) “I am confused by this statement: “As long as the atmospheric pressure is high enough the oceans would remain as liquid water. ” Atmospheric pressure is the same all over the world (give or take a tiny bit), but that does not currently keep the oceans melted (ie near the poles).
I’m talking about the averages globally and the bulk ocean. At the poles energy loss to space is rapid enough in winter to allow a surface skin of ice.
ii) “Temperature (governed by net energy flows, not pressure) is obviously also a key factor.””
Of course but the temperature of the bulk oceon is a consequence of pressure because the surface pressure dictates the energy cost of evaporation. Water evaporates at a lower temperature at the top of Everest or in space. Thus surface pressure averaged globally controls the rate at which absorbed solar energy can be released to the air above. The only other factor affecting the equilibrium temperature of the bulk ocean is the rate of solar shortwave absorption and that is where global albedo becomes relevant.
iii) “AGW theory proposes that the evaporation that would occur even in the absence of non-condensing GHGs then feeds back on itself to reduce energy loss from the oceans and thus the water vapour would accumulate in the air until the entire oceans had heated to boiling point”
I don’t think anyone has said it in such bald terms but it is implied logically so just think it through. The idea is that more non condensing GHGs warm the air and/or surface to increase water vapour in the air. Water vapour being a GHG itself must then either reduce the energy flow from the oceans to produce a runaway positive feedback until the oceans boil (more water vapour, warmer oceans, more water vapour in a runaway scenario that should have started with the first CO2 molecule but never did) or if that does not happen then the effect must be negated by more condensation taking energy away faster at higher levels. The latter is most certainly the case so if non condensing GHGs increase water vapour then again the effect of that increased water vapour must be negated in the same way so no amplification could be caused. In fact it is likely that the increased evaporation negates all of the warming effect in the air of those non condensing GHGs via an increase in the upward flow of latent heat, convection, conduction and radiation from the surface for a zero effect on ocean equilibrium temperature.
The bottom line is this:
At 1 bar atmospheric pressure the oceans will accumulate solar shortwave input until they emit 390 Wm2.
At that point the average global sea surface temperature reaches about 15C.
Solar input continues at 170 Wm2 with 390 still being emitted by the oceans but equilibrium having been reached the difference is made up by the balance being back radiated down from atmosphere to ocean surface. That backradiation is primarily a reflection of the oceans in the sky with scattering of incoming solar energy merely a minor component.
If one adds GHGs to the mix whether condensing or not the properties of the phase changes of water ensure that the balance is maintained by shuffling energy up and down through the atmosphere at variable rates to remove excesses or deficiencies that might arise from solar, oceanic or any other variations that affect the base energy flow imposed by that 1bar atmospheric pressure and the physical properties of water.
The physical manifestation of all that energy shuffling is expansion contracting and latitudinal shifting of the various components of the surface air pressure distribution which in turn affects the sizes and position of the various climate zones.
That is all that climate change is. Simple really.
Jae @ur momisugly August 25, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Well yes, but more, here is a fairly typical statement on the S-B law from Wikipedia:
Notice that it says total energy, which is radiated equally in all directions hemispherically. Nowhere do I recollect ever seeing: energy radiated normal to the surface, and as Tim confirmed above, in real-life complex two-body situations, the maths is rather complex in translating S-B. In the case of the Trenberth cartoon, we are not even dealing with a two-body situation, because the back radiation is from a gas mixture with lots of stuff having an impact on radiation going on in it at various altitudes.
The following depiction shows that radiation in the atmosphere is mostly lateral and not up and down as depicted in the cartoon. Furthermore, the initial emission from the surface must mean that many of the first absorptions are close to the surface, even if free path lengths are long. Furthermore that subsequent emissions in the air are spherically distributed so that it only partly returns towards the surface.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/3837627461_4fc91e7a03_z.jpg?zz=1
I could drone-on on other aspects of this, but I hope that keeping it short, you (and others) will not nod-off and take a sniff on it. Any comments?
Further my comments just above, the following NASA “Earth’s Energy Budget” diagram seems to be more popular than that of the Trenberth/IPCC (and Willis’s own gloriously extended version).
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
The concept is similarly shown with different art around the ether, wherein most rational thinking is more concerned about HEAT transfer, which has a definitive relationship with temperature. (rather than all that EMR potential whizzing around doing mostly nothing until some of it might be absorbed)