Guest post by Bob Fernley-Jones by Bob Fernley-Jones AKA Bob_FJ
CAUTION: This is written in Anglo-Oz English.
Here is the diagram as extracted from their 2009 paper, it being an update of that in the IPCC report of 2007 (& also 2001):
The unusual aspect of this diagram is that instead of directly showing radiative Heat Transfer from the surface, it gives their depiction of the greenhouse effect in terms of radiation flux or Electro-Magnetic Radiation, (AKA; EMR and a number of other descriptions of conflict between applied scientists and physicists). EMR is a form of energy that is sometimes confused with HEAT. It will be explained later, that the 396 W/m^2 surface radiation depicted above has very different behaviour to HEAT. Furthermore, temperature change in matter can only take place when there is a HEAT transfer, regardless of how much EMR is whizzing around in the atmosphere.
A more popular schematic from various divisions around NASA and Wikipedia etc, is next, and it avoids the issue above:
- Figure 2 NASA
Returning to the Trenberth et al paper, (link is in line 1 above), they give that the 396 W/m2 of EMR emitted from the surface in Fig.1 is calculated primarily by using the Stefan–Boltzmann law, and global year average conditions. Putting aside a few lesser but rather significant issues therein, it is useful to know that:
1) The Stefan-Boltzmann law (S-B) describes the total emission from a flat surface that is equally radiated in all directions, (is isotropic/hemispherical). Stefan found this via experimental measurement, and later his student Boltzmann derived it mathematically.
2) The validity of equally distributed hemispherical EMR is demonstrated quite well by observing the Sun. (with eye protection). It appears to be a flat disc of uniform brightness, but of course it is a sphere, and at its outer edge, the radiation towards Earth is tangential from its apparent surface, not vertical. It is not a perfect demonstration because of a phenomenon called limb darkening, due to the Sun not having a definable surface, but actually plasma with opacity effects. However, it is generally not apparent to the eye and the normally observed (shielded) eyeball observation is arguably adequate for purpose here.
3) Whilst reportedly the original Stefan lab test was for a small flat body radiating into a hemisphere, its conclusions can be extended to larger areas by simple addition of many small flat bodies of collectively flat configuration, because of the ability of EMR waves to pass through each other. This can be demonstrated by car driving at night, when approaching headlights do not change in brightness as a consequence of your own headlights opposing them. (not to be confused with any dazzling effects and fringe illumination)
4) My sketch below demonstrates how radiation is at its greatest concentration in the lateral directions. It applies to both the initial S-B hemispherical surface radiation and to subsequent spherical radiation from the atmosphere itself.
5) Expanding on the text in Figure 3: Air temperature decreases with altitude, (with lapse rate), but if we take any thin layer of air over a small region, and time interval, and with little turbulence, the temperature in the layer can be treated as constant. Yet, the most concentrated radiation within the layer is horizontal in all directions, but with a net heat transfer of zero. Where the radiation is not perfectly horizontal, adjacent layers will provide interception of it.
A more concise way of looking at it is with vectors, which put simply is a mathematical method for analysing parameters that 
possess directional information. Figure 4, takes a random ray of EMR (C) at a modestly shallow angle, and analyses its vertical and horizontal vector components. The length of each vector is proportional to the power of the ray, in that direction, such that A + B = C. Of course this figure is only in 2D, and there are countless multi-directional rays in 3D, with the majority approaching the horizontal, through 360 planar degrees, where the vertical components also approach zero.
6) Trenberth’s figure 1 gives that 65% of the HEAT loss from the surface is via thermals and evapo-transpiration. What is not elaborated is that as a consequence of this upward HEAT transfer, additional infrared radiation takes place in the air column by virtue of it being warmed. This initially starts as spherical emission and absorption, but as the air progressively thins upwards, absorption slows, and that radiation ultimately escapes directly to space. Thus, the infrared radiation observable from space has complex sources from various altitudes, but has no labels to say where it came from, making some of the attributions “difficult”.
DISCUSSION; So what to make of this?
The initial isotropic S-B surface emission, (Trenberth’s global 396 W/m2), would largely be absorbed by the greenhouse gases instantaneously near the surface. (ignoring some escaping directly to space through the so-called “atmospheric window”). However, a large proportion of the initial S-B 396 surface emission would be continuously lateral, at the Trenberth imposed constant conditions, without any heat transfer, and its horizontal vectors CANNOT be part of the alleged 396 vertical flux, because they are outside of the vertical field of view.
After the initial atmospheric absorptions, the S-B law, which applied initially to the surface, no longer applies to the air above. (although some clouds are sometimes considered to be not far-off from a black body). Most of the air’s initial absorption/emission is close to the surface, but the vertical distribution range is large, because of considerable variation in the photon free path lengths. These vary with many factors, a big one being the regional and more powerful GHG water vapour level range which varies globally between around ~0 to ~4%. (compared with CO2 at a somewhat constant ~0.04%). The total complexities in attempting to model/calculate what may be happening are huge and beyond the scope of this here, but the point is that every layer of air at ascending altitudes continuously possesses a great deal of lateral radiation that is partly driven by the S-B hemispherical 396, but cannot therefore be part of the vertical 396 claimed in Figure 1.
CONCLUSIONS:
The vertical radiative flux portrayed by Trenberth et al of 396 W/m^2 ascending from the surface to a high cloud level is not supported by first principle considerations. The S-B 396 W/m^2 is by definition isotropic as also is its ascending progeny, with always prevailing horizontal vector components that are not in the field of view of the vertical. The remaining vertical components of EMR from that source are thus less than 396 W/m^2.
It is apparent that HEAT loss from the surface via convective/evaporative processes must add to the real vertical EMR loss from the surface, and as observed from space. It may be that there is a resultant of similar order to 396 W/m^2, but that is NOT the S-B radiative process described by Trenberth.
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ADDENDUM FOR AFICIONADOS
I Seek your advice
In figure 5 below, note that the NIMBUS 4 satellite data on the left must be for ALL sources of radiation as seen from space, in this case, at some point over the tropical Pacific. The total emissions, amount to the integrated area under the curve, which unfortunately is not given. However, for comparison purposes, a MODTRAN calculator, looking down from 100 Km gives some interesting information for the figure, which is further elaborated in the tables below. Unfortunately the calculator does not give global data or average cloud/sky conditions, so we have apples and pears to compare, not only with Nimbus, but also with Trenberth. However, they all seem to be of somewhat similar order, and see the additional tabulations.
| Compare MODTRAN & “Trenberth”, looking down from 2 altitudes, plus Surface Temperature | ||||
| Location | Kelvin | 10 metres | 100 Km. | (Centigrade) |
| Tropical Atmosphere | 300K | 419 W/m^2 | 288 W/m^2 | (27C) |
| Mid-latitude Summer | 294K | 391 W/m^2 | 280 W/m^2 | (21C) |
| Mid-latitude Winter | 272K | 291 W/m^2 | 228 W/m^2 | (-1C) |
| Sub-Arctic Winter | 257K | 235 W/m^2 | 196 W/m^2 | (-16C) |
| Trenberth Global | 288K ? | 396 W/m^2 | 239 W/m^2 | (15C ?) |
| Compare MODTRAN & “Trenberth”, looking UP from 4 altitudes: W/m^2 | ||||
| Location | From 10 m | From 2 Km | From 4Km | From 6Km |
| Tropical Atmosphere | 348 | 252 | 181 | 125 |
| Mid-latitude Summer | 310 | 232 | 168 | 118 |
| Mid-latitude Winter | 206 | 161 | 115 | 75 |
| Sub-Arctic Winter | 162 | 132 | 94 | 58 |
| Trenberth Global | 333 Shown as coming from high cloud area (= BS according to MODTRAN) | |||
CLARIFICATION: I’m not saying above that 30-year smoothing as in the IPCC 2007 spaghetti graphs is a requirement, and in fact MBH 99 employed 40-year smoothing. The issue is that a Centre Point Average, (CPA), by definition must end at before the end of the raw data at half the span of the smoothing time-span that is arbitrarily selected.
Myrrh says:
December 8, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Mods – I posted a reply to Jose_X before I posted to Tim, it hasn’t appeared.
[Reply: I checked the spam folder. Sorry, it’s not there. Please re-post. ~dbs, mod.]
Ah, it seems to have appeared now. Thanks.
Bob Fernley-Jones says:
December 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Myrrh,
Here’s another one for you. It was a warm day yesterday ~30C, and I popped up to the shops without footwear. Big mistake: I had to negotiate some tarmac (blacktop), and it was painfully hot, yet strangely, paler pavements in the sun were OK. Now I wonder why that should be! No need to reply this time either, I’m just having fun.
Reminds me of the difference between sands, Cancun’s I recall was cool underfoot..
Myrrh @ur momisugly December 8, 8:24 pm
I seem to remember that they had record low temperatures in the Cancun fest. Rather disappointing to all and sundry
Myrrh, this is starting to look like a real journey of discovery. Please, join me. I need your specific input in order to conquer this jungle efficiently. After the upcoming intro/rant, I get right back to asking questions I’ll need.
>> If you keep being distracted before you have a firm grasp of the basics then you’ll continue to be confused.
You aren’t making sense. You don’t offer any proof about what you claim is real science. You simply state that visible light can’t turn into “heat”. Then when I point out that the wider world out there doesn’t agree with you, you pretend they are all wrong. Yet, you get back to repeating that it is you who is teaching me real science (even though it disagrees with what most scientists apparently believe).
What proof do you have that visible light doesn’t turn into “heat”?
NASA sent people to the moon. Harvard and all the universities together have pumped out a great bunch of inventions and educated a bunch of people who have gone on to create further inventions.
What have you built up with your theories?
Your models of light and heat appear to be rather useless in comparison to those used by Caltech, Harvard, MIT, and a great many other schools and centers of research.
I am very much so allowing my self to be distracted by those who can explain things and create things. I am not (hopefully) allowing myself to be distracted by you or anyone who is pushing theories that are incomplete or just incorrect. This isn’t religion. Until you can prove your view that light cannot turn into heat or until you can create something more amazing than what these other folks are creating, I think I will continue to accept their clean models which appear rather consistent and powerful.
Don’t get too lonely, Myrrh. You can always open your eyes and join the rest of the world here when you get tired of pushing weak science that provides you with limited tools.
>> If you had bothered to understand what was being said about Heat and that it takes vibrational energy to move molecules to this, you would have a grasp of the difference by now between that and electronic transitions
You said, “it takes vibrational energy to move molecules to this”. Can you find a quote from that thermo website or from wikipedia or from anywhere that supports this statement you just made?
Here comes question 4. It’s a set of questions. If you want also answer the question I just posed in the prior paragraph.
Q4 — What do you define as “vibrational energy”, and what is the “this” molecules need to move to? And how are they “moving” there? How do you define “electronic transitions”? Do you believe in the concepts of atoms, electrons, associated potential and kinetic energies, and conservation of energy?
You can answer simply or refer to existing definitions/models/etc. Essentially, I eventually want to figure out how you track energy among different forms (eg, vibrational, electron transitions, kinetic, etc), and if you even believe that such tracking (quantifying) is useful and relevant.
>> I don’t have to theorize what happens to the vast quantity of the sunlight absorbed by objects on earth
Yes, you explained a number of things in that paragraph, but not one of them was what happens when visible light is absorbed by an opaque rock. That very wikipedia page you quoted explains that most visible light is absorbed by opaque objects. They didn’t say “reflected”, “refracted”, “scattered”, etc. They said “absorbed”. So again:
Q1 — .. what do you theorize happens to the vast quantity of the sunlight absorbed by objects on earth?
Your theory is weaker than the one used by NASA because you can’t explain this and they can.
I have a related set of questions since you brought up pigments.
Q1b — Are you saying that the light hitting a rock is absorbed by rock “pigments”? What happens to that energy of excitation in those pigments’ electrons? Surely, you don’t believe electrons get excited and keep getting more and more excited for perpetuity? They have to release that energy at some point if they aren’t accumulating an infinte amount. And have you isolated these rock pigments in order to test your theories?
Now, for a set of questions about photons and their energies (part a).
Q5a — Are you saying visible light photons don’t have energy? Are you saying they can’t provide a driving force for other parts of nature to move? Where do the chemicals in photosynthesis get all of their energy if none of it is from visible light? What prompts them to do anything with the visible light if the light is not imparting any energy? Let me offer you some tentative alternative theories: do you believe that sunlight “heat” gives plants all the extra energy they might need and not yet have (eg, provide “activation energy”) in order to carry out photosynthesis? Have you carried out an experiment to prove this hypothesis, that it’s the sun’s IR that totally enables photosynthesis action? So if IR provides all of this energy, why do you even say that visible light is necessary for photosynthesis? What is the point of visible light if it imparts no energy, if it has no capability of producing stimulus?
>> Plants are not storing that energy, it is being utilised as chemical energy to produce sugars, not to produce heat.
Out of curiousity how does the visible light turn into “chemical energy”? Do you have details on this? How do you define “chemical energy” and how is visible light turned into it? [I won’t bother to label this question.]
OK, you are on record as saying that none of the energy from visible light is stored by plants. This may or may not be true. FWIW, I don’t know if anyone knows this. However, I will interpret your comment then to mean that work is being done using some energy from visible light in order to put sugars together.
Photons and their energies (part 2):
Q5b — Do you believe that visible light carries energy? If so, does your theory quantify this value? Can you share the formula with us? For example, you might call the photon energy of visible light to be hv (Planck’s constant times frequency). Can you also give a formula for the energy of IR? Also, does your theory (a) of light and your theory (b) of heat have the concept of a “photon”? Can you give some details for each?
>> The laws of thermodynamics have nothing to do with this, light isn’t hot.
Can you quote from a website that defines “light” and “hot” and perhaps states that only “hot” things obey the laws of thermodynamics. If you can’t find a quote, this isn’t a major point anyway.
Q2b — Do you think plants (or chlorophyll/chloroplasts) are “hot”? I was talking about plants creating something and producing heat during that process. Did you really mean to say that thermodynamics doesn’t apply to plants and their constituent parts?
OK, to dig deeper into this issue (Q2), it would help me a lot to know your answers to Q5a,b.
>> Irrelevant. I’m talking about the difference between real Light and real Heat..
Blackbody, as the example I mentioned in parenthesis, is not irrelevant or otherwise why would the model exist? The model is an idealization of how many objects are believed to behave. Surely, if the model speaks of an ideal body that can absorb visible light and many other non IR and likewise emit them in certain very precise proportions as relates to temperature, then, surely, at least some real objects (if not virtually all) are believed by the proponents of that model to also absorb and emit _at_least_some_ quantities of both “light” and “heat” (ie, of photons in the visible and in the IR parts of the spectrum) if not the exact amounts dictated by Plank’s formula. In fact, these university website go right out and essentially state that they believe many real bodies approximate that photon distribution’s shape.
Q3b — So do you want to update your “irrelevant” remark and answer why (a) the blackbody model and (b) these related beliefs, of how actual objects can approximate this model, are taught in potentially all legitimate universities that teach physics?
Q3c — Can you give me the name of a single university that agrees with you, that teaches either of the views (a) that visible light cannot be converted into heat or (b) that when visible light is absorbed by a rock or by most substances that in fact those visible light photons won’t “turn into” (aka, “lead to the creation of”) any amount of heat?
Myrrh, keep in mind that I am not out for super technical meanings of words. I can work with whatever is simplest that will allow me to ask the next question. Assuming you want to join me on this journey, you probably want to keep things as simple as possible to get by. If I need more details, I’ll ask and try to explain why I want more details (or it should be clear that more details would be needed in order to resolve something). I am hoping to gain a better appreciation of nature and a better idea of what experiments and analysis have been done (or rejected).
Bob, thanks for formally making the thread open topic.
3333 comments, here we come!
And may the force be with all your laptops.
Bob, thanks for the leads to McIntyre/Mann. I’m sure it’s all over parts of the Internet, but I’m fairly new to this. I am looking through a handful of blog postings McIntyre put up in August 2008 that are related, so I may comment in time.
McIntyre sounds very credible (it seems to me his story is generally accepted and not challenged), but, if I continue to stay motivated, I will spend time learning some relevant statistics in order to judge better.
Some of his words:
From http://climateaudit.org/2008/08/13/pielke-jr-discusses-the-bishop-and-the-stick/
> I didn’t argue that it turned AGW theory upside down, but neither was it a nothing… I said very clearly that if I had been a manager or principal of the next IPCC report, I would have wanted to understand very clearly what, if anything, was wrong with it, and how we could avoid such mistakes in the future.
To the extent Mann (I’ll use past tense for simplicity) was respected, put up a wall defense, and was relied upon by others without much questioning, outsider McIntyre’s nontrivial mathematical argument questioning not just trusted data points but potentially certain underpinnings of some data analysis methods is something that you should expect has disturbed and threatened a number of people. This is normal reaction, and really didn’t start to take effect until some time after the late release of Wahl/Ammann’s famous Supplementary section in mid-late 2008. Some of the emails that touch upon this would be covering then relatively recent (and perhaps somewhat disorienting) developments for those writing the email blurbs.
With hockey stick not being so hockey stick perhaps, the urgency should die down somewhat. You already pointed out evidence this might be happening on the IPCC’s part.
A view I have is that no matter how much we might be contributing to creating a warming situation for the planet it would be somewhat (not totally) coincidence that we would reach the age of computers and satellites are around the same time we were near a peak of sorts (eg, sun/earth cycles would have to coincide). Yes, everyone wants to live at a key moment in history, but that won’t always be the case. However, if we aren’t at an absolute high in temp over the last few thousand years (something we might never know), we might still be setting up for serious problems perhaps not even decades from now. [Well, we already have a lot of pressing issues to worry about globally.] I think it is important to take this issue seriously, especially since our CO2 levels appear to be rather unnatural and we certainly appear to be at least near if not at temperature highs over last several centuries. Many people find different ways to contribute and wouldn’t necessarily be more productive if we remove some issues from our collective global problems plate. We can certainly tackle numerous important issues at one time.
Robert Stevenson @ur momisugly December 8, at 2:34 am
Hi Robert, I hope you are still around here, and sorry for delayed response. I was expecting Tim Folkerts to declare his wisdom on your interesting observations, (concerning candle flame emissions), but maybe Tim is busy elsewhere?
Robert and Tim,
I’ve just done a quick sniff around on Planck-Curves WRT to the colour temperature of a candle flame, and one of the frustrations has been the blogosphere uses a variety of units in the X axis of graphs WRT chemistry, thermodynamics and whatnot other interests. Nevertheless, you may find the following site interesting if you feed-in a temperature of say 1373 K, into that Plancky calculator. (a candle typically = 1,100C),
http://lamp.tu-graz.ac.at/~hadley/ss1/emfield/blackbody.php
This following stuff is also rather interesting:
http://itg1.meteor.wisc.edu/wxwise/AckermanKnox/chap2/planck_curve.html
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/25/the-sun-and-max-planck-agree-part-two/
Have fun!
Robert Stevenson >> So tuning your IR camera to these wavelegths would give you the disappearing conjuring trick candle flame. However integrating the areas under Planck’s curve gives a me a relatively small percentage of the total emissive power that is absorbed by CO2. ..I would re-do the experiment to reflect this fact. Clearly this would make people more sceptical concerning the catastrophic etc
I think this is a neat experiment but to demonstrate the idea of absorption. Neat experiments/demos are those that isolate extraneous effects in order to more clearly see a particular physical law at play.
If “global warming” is mentioned, it should be in the context that the experiment exploits a very narrow band that is not reflective of the wider atmosphere. The experiment might naturally mention global warming in passing if say the theme covers “greenhouse effect” that allow our planet to stay warmer at night. In this latter context, CO2 might be used but the entire warming effect in our atmosphere comes from various other gases as well.
The debate over how much the climate is likely to change under various scenarios and what important effects that will have is a separate and much more complex issue than the basic physical effects. You would address that issue fairly only with much more comprehensive coverage and of transparent science.
In short, I think this experiment is a neat experiment to have in a classroom setting, but I would rework the dialog a little (very few words would need adjusting). If I wanted to fall back to this video, I would make sure to qualify it (aka, provide a disclosure of the details and discuss the overall picture more accurately).
Bob – Scroll down to beaches:
http://www.cancunbeachconditions.com/
Jose_X says:
December 9, 2011 at 6:21 am
You aren’t making sense. You don’t offer any proof about what you claim is real science. You simply state that visible light can’t turn into “heat”. Then when I point out that the wider world out there doesn’t agree with you, you pretend they are all wrong. Yet, you get back to repeating that it is you who is teaching me real science (even though it disagrees with what most scientists apparently believe).
Shrug, so prove it. You’ve shown me nothing from the “wider world” which actually explains how visible light creates heat, how it heats land, how it heats water as per the claim. And that is what I am asking for. Prove that this junk science claim produced by the AGWSF department’s brainwashing section that visible heats the oceans – just that one.
What proof do you have that visible light doesn’t turn into “heat”?
NASA sent people to the moon. Harvard and all the universities together have pumped out a great bunch of inventions and educated a bunch of people who have gone on to create further inventions.
What have you built up with your theories?
LOL Now you’re just bsing. Come on, give me all the inventions and uses of visible light heating water and matter produced by Harvard and all these great universities…
Yeah, right NASA sent men to the moon – and NASA had to junk StefanBoltzmann to do it..
And now? If they’re teaching that visible light heats the oceans then there’s no scientists left there, they couldn’t find their way through a door let alone get to the moon.
Your models of light and heat appear to be rather useless in comparison to those used by Caltech, Harvard, MIT, and a great many other schools and centers of research.
Yeah, yeah.., come on show me how they teach this!! Show me how they prove it! Show me!
I am very much so allowing my self to be distracted by those who can explain things and create things. I am not (hopefully) allowing myself to be distracted by you or anyone who is pushing theories that are incomplete or just incorrect. This isn’t religion. Until you can prove your view that light cannot turn into heat or until you can create something more amazing than what these other folks are creating, I think I will continue to accept their clean models which appear rather consistent and powerful.
You’re still bsing, show me exactly how they teach this, the experiments which prove it, the classes outlining the studies, the great things they are creating in their fantasy world where visible heats oceans.. you’re the one(s) claiming this in your cartoon energy budget – I don’t have to provide any information – it is encumbent on you to prove it. Or don’t use it. And certainly don’t demand that we believe you’re right when you haven’t shown anything which actually proves visible light heats water. Water is a transparent medium for visible light
– it can’t physically do this! YOU prove it.
Don’t get too lonely, Myrrh. You can always open your eyes and join the rest of the world here when you get tired of pushing weak science that provides you with limited tools.
🙂 Not lonely with the sane. You could always try going to these great universities and bastions of scientific integrity and ask them to prove the claim of the cartoon KT energy budget, do report back. I could do with a laugh.
Here’s something else for you to think about: the AGWSF energy budget claims that the atmosphere is transparent to visible light, but, the mechanism behind reflection/scattering is electronic transitions, which means the electrons of the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen are absorbing visible light from the Sun – so the atmosphere is not transparent to visible you (generic fictionados) claim. So answer this:
How much is visible light travelling direct from the Sun to Earth heating the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere as it is being absorbed by their electrons in reflection and scattering?
…..
? Look, I’m not interested anymore in finding you anything, you should be concentrating on providing me with irrefutable science to your claims. You’re defending the AGWSF KT97 and its ilk energy budget which claims visible light heats land and oceans. Prove it.
Convince me!
Actually, I’ll give you a few tidbits in no particular order which need to be considered in this.
So note well, in the real world where heat and light are understood, it is simply a physical fact that infrared, heat energy on the move, is what goes through a window heating the room inside, and golly, industry produces filters to keep heat energy out while allowing non-heat creating visible in to light up the room.
In your fanasy world where visible light heats matter, you would have to use blinds to exclude it if you wanted to keep your room cool… 🙂 And so, as now, you’d be sitting in the dark.
On the same theme:
Think about this. That cartoon energy budget you claim is science fact says that it is shortwave radiation from the Sun which directly heats land and oceans. This is a massive amount of heating to create. If that was really science fact it would be stated everywhere that visible light heats the Earth’s land and oceans – you should have no problem finding me proof. Because as you see, in real phyics, that is not one of the properties of visible light.
And on that page also: http://www.antonine-education.co.uk/physics_gcse/Unit_1/Topic_5/topic_5_what_are_the_uses_and_ha.htm – scroll down to hazards
– no hazards for visible light, no heating effect from it, no danger. Visible light is benign.
And note very well – what’s the prevention against infrared heating? Reflective surfaces. Remember that when some brainwashed by AGWSF gives you the ‘two cars’ experiment…
Just to make that really clear. Since visible light is incapable of heating the inside of any car no matter what the car’s colour, any measurements of differences between white and black cars in sunlight will be physically relating back to the energy which does heat the interior – thermal infrared. This experiment says NOTHING about visible light. This is typical AGWSF sleight of hand to confuse those ignorant of real world basic physics.
As in my posts above, it’s heat which is molecules and atoms on the move, and heat which this produces, thermal infrared.
(the vibrational v electronic transmissions from the wiki page) –
“Vibrational: Resonance in atomic/molecular vibrational modes. These transitions are typically in the infrared portion of the spectrum.”
From my post above:http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/26/does-the-trenberth-et-al-%e2%80%9cearth%e2%80%99s-energy-budget-diagram%e2%80%9d-contain-a-paradox/#comment-818283
This is to aid you in answering my questions – I’m not alone..
Prove that visible light from the Sun heats the water of the oceans or have the courtesy to admit you’re talking b*ll*cks.
And that goes for all of you, all, who claim that this cartoon correctly presents real world basic physics on visible and thermal infrared.