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.
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Ouch,
In the above, in the last line, pls read: some of it might be NET absorbed
Stephen: good stuff, I’m seeing where you are coming from now. So more co2 just speeds up the hydrological cycle which has a cooling effect greater than the warming effect of making the atmosphere denser?
Bob-FJ: So are you saying a radiometer pointing sideways will register higher readings than pointing it up or down? Any results online anywhere?
Bob FJ
This is a big improvement on the Keihl and Trenberth radiation budget
So 51% is absorbed by the surface and
7% leaves the surface by conduction
23% by latent heat
21% by radiation (15% of this is absorbed by the atmosphere)
The radiation % though still seems high. As does the % that is absorbed by the atmosphere
And there is no backradiation
jae says:
August 25, 2011 at 8:26 pm
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.
My earlier post shows that the oceanic balance and the atmospheric balance work out fine with the net radiation balance. The radiation flux helps maintain the atmospheric depth and lapse rate which causes the surface at the ocean/air interface to be warmer than it would be without radiative gases in the atmosphere, and that causes the bulk temperature to rise from solar input until the bulk at the top is warmer than the surface. But this has nothing to do with any mythical requirement for absorption of energy from back radiation into the ocean being mixed into the bulk as Willis believes.
tallbloke @ur momisugly August 26, 2011 at 12:23 am
No, I did not say that, but bear in mind that your radiometer[s] needs to be located on the full circumference of a circle for each elemental parcel, and you need to integrate the results of multiple parcels. I simply pointed out that radiation is equal in ALL directions, not just up and down, as a statement of fact. And no, I have no online results for you.
Do you disagree with the following?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/3837627461_4fc91e7a03_z.jpg?zz=1
Tallbloke, Further to my above, perhaps I should add that your instrumentals should not point in just one lateral dimension but 360 degrees from east to west cumulatively rather than just north and south.
tallbloke says:
August 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm
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.”
I can only suggest that you use the search facility to find all mentions of transparent which explain that water being that for visible light means “conversion of light energy to heat energy at the atomic level” doesn’t apply.
It’s probably because this thread has been so busy, you appear not to have thought through what I’ve been saying:
“Transmission — glass, water, or other transparent substances transmit light, or allow light to pass through them (pure transmission means passing all of the energy–the object will not get hotter)”
Water is transparent to visible light, it does not convert to heat.
It does not convert to heat because water is a transparent medium for it.
The problem here, as I have been pointing out, is that you (generic) are taking AGWScience fiction memes and simply using them without examination and so failing to see they are illogical in real physics.
Early on at the beginning of this Dave Springer pointed out the disjunct in reasoning re visible light and water in Willis’ statements:
“Argument 4. Without the heating from the DLR, there’s not enough heating to explain the current liquid state of the ocean. ”
“Wrong again. Liquid water has the same properties as water vapor when it comes to being transparent to visible light and opaque to infrared. The same properties that make water vapor a greenhouse gas make liquid water a greenhouse fluid. The difference is that liquid water is like water vapor on steroids since there’s more water in the first meter of the ocean than there is water vapor in the column of air above it and sunlight penetrates far beyond the first meter.”
Water is transparent to visible, light. I have given several explanations of this, it cannot heat water because it doesn’t get absorbed on the atomic level – transparent means that it passes through without interacting with the molecules of water. That’s what transparent means.
Thermal infrared, heat, does interact, it moves the molecules of water into vibrational states and converts to heat.
‘Absorbed’ here as a description of process is a technical term in physics. ‘Absorbed’ as a general description should not be confused with it, which is how you have used it in “The shorter wavelengths (V – B – G) bands travel deeper into the water column before absorption”.
Which, because visible is not actually absorbed in the physics meaning of interaction, means only that it has disappeared, ‘absorbed’ in a general sense.
It’s confusion of meaning which is at the heart of this problem. I should be really grateful if you would give this some thought, because then you’ll also be able to see what I meant by the irrationality of confusing ‘transparent’ with regard to the meme that visible light is transparent in the atmosphere, when it isn’t – [reflection/scattering, why we have a blue sky is because the electrons of oxygen and nitrogen absorb and then send visible back out, scattering the blue in the sky. However, this is not a conversion to heat, because it creates none].
Let’s stick with water and the difference between visible and thermal infrared travelling through it. For visible, water is transparent, it passes through without interacting so no heat is created.
“Transmission — glass, water, or other transparent substances transmit light, or allow light to pass through them (pure transmission means passing all of the energy–the object will not get hotter)”
Therefore, ” 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.”
Can’t be a description of visible light, light in water, it can only refer to the invisible thermal infrared, heat.
Water is a great absorber of heat, thermal infrared, which as Dave Springer pointed out, makes liquid water a greenhouse fluid, water vapour on steroids.
So, there are first of all two basic aspects which have to be sorted to see the different processes at work here, the first is to appreciate the difference between light and heat waves in that there is a difference between electronic transitions and vibrational resonance:
“Electronic: Transitions in electron energy levels within the atom (e.g. pigments). These transitions are typically in the ultraviolet (UV) and/or visible portions of the spectrum.
Vibrational: Resonance in atomic/molecular vibrational modes. These transitions are typically in the infrared portion of the spectrum.”
The second aspect is that not all electronic transitions create heat, photosynthesis for example a use of light energy for a chemical conversion which is not a conversion to heat but sugars, and, reflection/scattering as in the blue sky, a use of the light’s energy to reflect it back out, again no heat is created.
Visible light from the Sun passes straight through water, it does not convert water to heat. Therefore, it cannot heat the oceans.
Thermal Infrared, the real heat energy, is in resonance with water, it does not pass through without interacting but moves water into vibrational states raising the temperature.
Water is a great absorber of heat, and has an extremely high capacity to hold it, which is why we put water in the radiators of our central heating systems.
In water vapour this is the mechanism which takes the great thermal heat from the Sun from the surface back up into the atmosphere to release it by condensing out in the colder heights before coming down as rain.
Water is a great absorber of thermal infrared, water passes visible light through unchanged.
The only thing that happens with visible in water is that of a slight delay as visible tries to engage in the dance of the molecule of water but cannot get in, this has the effect of slowing down the light wave.
Here’s a more technical description of the process:
That’s what happens to visible light in water. It cannot heat water. It cannot heat the oceans. The ‘energy budget from the Sun’ as you, generic, are describing it, is impossible in the real physics of our real world.
Now, since visible cannot be heating the oceans, and the meme is that thermal infrared does not reach the surface – what is heating the Earth??
?
So many thought-provoking posts lately!
I only have time for one response atm, so let’s try this simple statement: “And there is no backradiation” (in response to the energy diagram from NASA).
Consider this analogy. You have two rooms separated by a thin, gas-tight divider. Both are at the same pressure. One is full of N2 and the other is full of O2. Now, I create an opening between the two rooms. Does any gas flow from one room to the other?
Well, since there is no pressure difference, there will be no net flow. You will not feel any “wind” pushing from one room to the other. You will not see anything happening. No work could be done by this flow.
But at a molecular level, we know that there are indeed molecules on both sides, and there will indeed be billions of molecules passing back and forth every second. There is a real and measurable flow of O2 in one direction and N2 in the other direction as the gases diffuse and mix.
I would argue that the flow of IR photons in both directions is just as real. Talking about the net flow is certainly one legitimate way to talk about the situation, where all we are interested in is the macroscopic scale. But at a microscopic level, there is a very real flow of photons in both directions. This comes to ~ 390 W/m^2 in one direction and ~ 325 W/m^2 in the other.
“So more co2 just speeds up the hydrological cycle which has a cooling effect greater than the warming effect of making the atmosphere denser?”
Not quite. To the extent that the atmosphere gets denser there would be a warming but CO2 is such a small part of the atmosphere that a density change would be infinitesimal.
Also, once all the DLR is in the process of being converted to latent heat, conduction, convection and upward radiation the process of increasing speed or size for the hydrological cycle stops so there is a zero effect on the rate of energy flow from the bulk ocean. The process is therefore self limiting so no net cooling of the ocean bulk either. DLR is therefore neutral as regards its effect on the bulk ocean. Events in the top 1mm which acts as a buffer ensure that it be so.
There is also a refinement to cover the fact that the sun is about one third stronger than it was 4 billion years ago but the rise in temperature of the bulk ocean is very small. Various factors result in the system being pretty resistant to solar changes too. One just gets a change in the speed or size of the water cycle to accommodate most of the extra energy passing through.
The big thing is surface pressure because that underpins the whole process. If surface pressure does not change then the temperature of the bulk ocean won’t change except perhaps for a small change if solar input gets much greater.
The water cycle takes the strain whatever forces seek to disrupt the equilibrium temperature of the bulk ocean. All climate changes are a consequence of water cycle changes via a redistribution of surface pressure.
“This comes to ~ 390 W/m^2 in one direction and ~ 325 W/m^2 in the other.”
With the difference pretty damned close to solar input at about 170 Wm2
Stephen Wilde says:
August 26, 2011 at 4:11 am (Edit)
“This comes to ~ 390 W/m^2 in one direction and ~ 325 W/m^2 in the other.”
With the difference pretty damned close to solar input at about 170 Wm2
390-325 = 65 not 170.
However, 65 is the net flux figure and coincidentally(??) energetically equivalent to the amount of solar radiation directly absorbed by the atmosphere.
Myrrh says:
August 26, 2011 at 2:42 am
tallbloke says:
August 25, 2011 at 5:25 pm
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.”
Myrrh’s response:
I can only suggest that you use the search facility to find all mentions of transparent which explain that water being that for visible light means “conversion of light energy to heat energy at the atomic level” doesn’t apply.
Water is transparent to visible light, it does not convert to heat.
It does not convert to heat because water is a transparent medium for it.
Myrrh, my last reply to you, I will not entertain a dialogue of the deaf.
The figures I quoted are actual real empirical measurements, not equivalent to your assumption which is based on pure water not sea water
This thread is about the oceans, not pure lab water in vials.
You need to read up on the physics of radiative transfer of energy between photons and molecules, excitation states and collisional vibrations. So do I.
Bye for now.
Bob_FJ says:
August 26, 2011 at 1:16 am
tallbloke @ur momisugly August 26, 2011 at 12:23 am
Bob-FJ: So are you saying a radiometer pointing sideways will register higher readings than pointing it up or down? Any results online anywhere?
No, I did not say that, but bear in mind that your radiometer[s] needs to be located on the full circumference of a circle for each elemental parcel, and you need to integrate the results of multiple parcels.
Fair point, I see what you mean now.
I simply pointed out that radiation is equal in ALL directions, not just up and down, as a statement of fact. And no, I have no online results for you.
Do you disagree with the following?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/3837627461_4fc91e7a03_z.jpg?zz=1
I don’t understand the diagram. What is an “elemental parcel of air”?
Why wouldn’t it radiate at all outward angles from all points on its surface?
If it did that, wouldn’t the radiation in any direction be equal from the visible hemisphere?
Stephen Wilde says:
August 26, 2011 at 4:08 am
“So more co2 just speeds up the hydrological cycle which has a cooling effect greater than the warming effect of making the atmosphere denser?”
Not quite. To the extent that the atmosphere gets denser there would be a warming but CO2 is such a small part of the atmosphere that a density change would be infinitesimal.
Yes, and combustion uses up oxygen anyway, so we’re losing atmospheric bulk, albeit non-radiative bulk.
There is also a refinement to cover the fact that the sun is about one third stronger than it was 4 billion years ago but the rise in temperature of the bulk ocean is very small. Various factors result in the system being pretty resistant to solar changes too. One just gets a change in the speed or size of the water cycle to accommodate most of the extra energy passing through.
I’ve always thought that if the surface T can stay fairly constant while the Sun gets 25-33% stronger, an extra 100ppm of co2 isn’t going to do a lot. 🙂
The big thing is surface pressure because that underpins the whole process. If surface pressure does not change then the temperature of the bulk ocean won’t change except perhaps for a small change if solar input gets much greater.
This is the part I really want to get into detail on so I can properly ‘realise it’ for myself. For a given mass of atmosphere, the surface pressure will be a constant, whether that mass is bulkier and less dense, or compact and more dense. But the AGW proponents seem to be saying that raising the altitude radiation to space takes place at is what causes the surface T to be what it is, and that more longwave radiative flux raises that altitude by causing thermal expansion of the atmosphere due to slowing down the escape of solar input to space.
Or at least, that’s one of their many arguments, I think.
Myrrh, my last reply to you, I will not entertain a dialogue of the deaf.
The figures I quoted are actual real empirical measurements, not equivalent to your assumption which is based on pure water not sea water
This thread is about the oceans, not pure lab water in vials.
You need to read up on the physics of radiative transfer of energy between photons and molecules, excitation states and collisional vibrations. So do I.
Yes you do. This is a property of water, all water, whatever is suspended in the water doesn’t change the fact that visible light cannot join in to the properties of the molecules of water. Do begin by re-reading was transmission, transparent and absorption actually mean. It means that water does not absorb visible light, it cannot therefore heat water.
Then, if you’re making some kind of case that it’s the suspended particles and life in the oceans which is heating up which is heating the water which is heating the Earth, damn well explain exactly how. I’m getting really tired of all the supercilious comments from everyone to cover up that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
So do, go and find out, all of you who are promoting this ridiculous fiction that shortwave converts to heat the land and oceans of the whole planet.
“Do you disagree with the following?”
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/3837627461_4fc91e7a03_z.jpg?zz=1
Of course I disagree with it! I could turn the image 90 degrees and and make exactly the same argument that most of the energy is going up and down instead of to the sides!
By symmetry, it is clear that since any orientation of the image is equivalent, then the radiation in any direction is equivalent.
Myrrh:
Nothing is completely transparent, and although the coefficient of absorption of water is low for water in the visible and near IR, it’s enough to convert the proportion of the 1.22 × 10^17 joules of energy from the Sun the Earth absorbs every second which penetrates many metres into the ocean (unlike IR) into the amount of heat we have in the oceans. You need to remember the Earth is well insulated by space.
These coefficients are determined from empirical measurements Myrrh, they don’t depend on atomic theory or anything fancy like that.
The shallow water near the beach that warms up during a sunny day is mostly being warmed by conduction from the sun warmed bottom anyway, abit like the solar hot water system in my earlier comment. Maybe you are being decieved by that.
“But the AGW proponents seem to be saying that raising the altitude radiation to space takes place at is what causes the surface T to be what it is, and that more longwave radiative flux raises that altitude by causing thermal expansion of the atmosphere due to slowing down the escape of solar input to space.”
The problem with that is that it is only one possibility. The atmospheric heights will rise from EITHER warming from below or cooling from above. Thus the tropopause will rise both if the oceans release more energy for low level warming (or from more energy in the air from more GHGs) AND if the stratosphere cools from a more active sun (as I contend but the consensus suggests such cooling from human GHGs).
Now if the tropopause rises as a result of a stratosphere cooling from above what does that do to the upward energy flow ? Presumably that involves a faster rate of energy loss upward to space ?
Would the surface really become warmer or would the lapse rate slacken off ?
I’m aware of the basic principles but a bit vague as to how they work out in different real world situations.
Anyway regardless of the detail what we have is a naturally very variable tropospheric height which responds to the interaction between changes in energy flow from both above and below.
And it is the tropospheric heights (or rather the way they vary between equator and pole) that controls the entire tropospheric energy budget by shifting the surface air pressure systems around.
Now I do accept the reality of more energy in the air (but not the oceans) from GHGs. It is just that with such an efficient two way ‘valve’ at the tropopause responding rapidly to oceans and sun the effect from GHGs is going to be irrelevant in comparison.
By way of illustration the mid latitude jets may have shifted up to 1000 miles latitudinally between MWP and LIA. Would our extra CO2 shift them even 1 mile ? Could we ever notice ?
Thanks Stephen, lots more food for thought.
I think maybe some of this stuff is getting through to the high priests of AGW because the latest incarnation of their argument doesn’t mention direct heating of the ocean by back radiation anyway.
Have a look and see if your arguments deal with this from Raymond Pierrehumbug:
http://climateclash.com/2011/01/15/g6-infrared-radiation-and-planetary-temperature/
Comments #1 at the top and #45 at the bottom are worth a read I think…as are the rest if you have the time.
Whoops. Thanks, tallbloke,for pointing out my erroneous post. Too much rushing about at work at the time.
RE: Myrrh: (August 23, 2011 at 2:17 pm)
Water is completley transparent to Visible, not proven in any way that it isn’t, you can see straight through clear water.. Visible doesn’t have the mechanism to interact even on an electron scale with water, is really transparent, it is transmitted through unchanged. Unlike the atmosphere which isn’t really transparent, because of absorption by electrons to produce reflection and scattering.
You may be confusing statements that only apply to free water molecules in the atmosphere where the energy states are limited to the natural vibration modes of the molecule in free fall. Other vibrations may be possible for a short time when two molecules are bouncing together. In a gas this is happening so rarely that sunlight can reach the surface of the earth with *almost* no attenuation due to this cause. But in liquids and solids, the molecules are all so tightly bound that this is happening much more frequently and a wide range of possible vibration modes are allowed. This is why a solid can be black with a uniform spectrum of resonances.
Molecules in solids and liquids are bound together by electric and magnetic forces. Unlike the neutrino, photons, by nature are electromagnetic and they easily interact with these bonds.
If you looked at that graph at the top of the Wikipedia page, you would see that the absorption coefficient for light in water is in the range of about 0.0001 to 0.01 per centimeter. This means that over distances between 100 cm (red) or 10,000 cm (blue), the light energy will be reduced to about 36.8 percent of its original level (one divided by the base of the natural logarithms) and thus 63.2 percent is absorbed, or converted to heat along the way. When anyone says water is ‘perfectly transparent,’ they usually are referring to distances that are less than 10 cm.
Light does not ‘fade away.’ Photons are packets of energy. Their motto is “We Deliver.” Light intensity is measured in watts per square meter for a continuous flow. That is potential heating power. A standard measure of heat energy is the BTU. A heat flow of one BTU/sec is equivalent to about 1055 watts.
The confusion about infrared being heat energy is common. It is terrestrial temperature range heat radiation. Light is solar temperature range heat radiation. If you look at a plot of the solar spectrum, you will see the vertical axis labeled in watts per square meter per frequency or wavelength interval peaks out in the middle of the optical range.
One very simple question for Myrrh.
Give an definition of “thermal infrared”. When you say “thermal infrared” what exactly are you including and what exactly are you excluding? You use this phrase repeatedly and it is a central point in many of your posts, so I would like to know precisely what your definition is.
RJ @ur momisugly August 26, 2011 at 12:30 am
Yes, I don’t know about the numbers, but it doesn’t have the annoying distractions in the Trenberth. It’s interesting that the Wikipedia gatekeepers prefer it too. As far as I’m aware, they have never shown the Trenberth cartoon.
Tallbloke @ur momisugly August 26, 2011 at 4:40 am
An elemental parcel of air means a very small quantity approaching zero, as employed in calculus. Molecules within the parcel would radiate in all directions, and at its boundaries too.
Tim Folkerts @ur momisugly August 26, 2011 at 6:05 am