By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Reed Coray’s post here on Boxing Day, commenting on my post of 6 December, questions whether the IPCC and science textbooks are right that without any greenhouse gases the Earth’s surface temperature would be 33 Kelvin cooler than today’s 288 K. He says the temperature might be only 9 K cooler.
The textbook surface temperature of 255 K in the absence of any greenhouse effect is subject to three admittedly artificial assumptions: that solar output remains constant at about 1362 Watts per square meter, taking no account of the early-faint-Sun paradox; that the Earth’s emissivity is unity, though it is actually a little less; and that today’s Earth’s albedo or reflectance of 0.3 would remain unchanged, even in the absence of the clouds that are its chief cause.
These three assumptions are justifiable provided that the objective is solely to determine the warming effect of the presence as opposed to absence of greenhouse gases. They would not be justifiable if the objective were to determine the true surface temperature of the naked lithosphere at the dawn of the Earth. My post of 6 December addressed only the first objective. The second objective was irrelevant to my purpose, which was to determine a value for the system climate sensitivity – the amount of warming in response to the entire existing greenhouse effect.
Since Mr. Coray makes rather heavy weather of a simple calculation, here is how it is done. According to recent satellite measurements, 1362 Watts per square meter of total solar irradiance arrives at the top of the atmosphere. Since the Earth presents a disk to this insolation but is actually a sphere, this value is divided by 4 (the ratio of the surface area of a disk to that of a sphere), giving 340.5 Watts per square meter, and is also reduced by 30% to allow for the fraction harmlessly reflected to space, giving a characteristic-emission flux of 238.4 Watts per square meter.
The fundamental equation of radiative transfer, one of the few proven results in climatological physics, states that the radiative flux absorbed by (and accordingly emitted by) the characteristic-emission surface of an astronomical body is equal to the product of three parameters: the emissivity of that surface (here, as usual, taken as unity), the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (0.0000000567), and the fourth power of temperature. Accordingly, under the three assumptions stated earlier, the Earth’s characteristic-emission temperature is 254.6 K, or about 33.4 K cooler than today’s 288 K. It’s as simple as that.
The “characteristic-emission” surface of an astronomical body is defined as that surface at which the incoming and outgoing fluxes of solar radiation are identical. In the absence of greenhouse gases, the actual rocky surface of the Earth would be its characteristic-emission surface. As greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere and cause warming, the altitude of the characteristic-emission surface rises.
The characteristic-emission surface is now approximately 5 km above the Earth’s surface, its altitude varying inversely with latitude: but its temperature, by definition, remains 254.6 K or thereby. At least over the next few centuries, the atmospheric temperature lapse-rate (its decline with altitude) will remain near-constant at about 6.5 K per km, so that the temperature of the Earth’s surface will rise as greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, even though the temperature of the characteristic-emission surface will remain invariant.
It is for this reason that Kiehl & Trenberth, in their iconic papers of 1997 and 2008 on the Earth’s radiation budget, are wrong to assume that (subject only to the effects of thermal convection and evapo-transpiration) there is a strict Stefan-Boltzmann relation between temperature and incident irradiance at the Earth’s surface. If they were right in this assumption, climate sensitivity would be little more than one-fifth of what they would like us to believe it is.
So, how do we determine the system sensitivity from the 33.4 K of “global warming” caused by the presence (as opposed to the total absence) of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? We go to Table 3 of Kiehl & Trenberth (1997), which tells us that the total radiative forcing from the top five greenhouse gases (H2O, CO2, CH4, N2O and stratospheric O3) is 101[86, 125] Watts per square meter. Divide 33.4 K by this interval of forcings. The resultant system sensitivity parameter, after just about all temperature feedbacks since the dawn of the Earth have acted, is 0.33[0.27, 0.39] Kelvin per Watt per square meter.
Multiply this system sensitivity parameter by 3.7 Watts per square meter, which is the IPCC’s value for the radiative forcing from a doubling of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (obtained not by measurement but by inter-comparison between three radiative-transfer models: see Myhre et al., 1998). The system sensitivity emerges. It is just 1.2[1.0, 1.4] K per CO2 doubling, not the 3.3[2.0, 4.5] K imagined by the IPCC.
Observe that this result is near-identical to the textbook sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentration where temperature feedbacks are absent or sum to zero. From this circumstance, it is legitimate to deduce that temperature feedbacks may well in fact sum to zero or thereby, as measurements by Lindzen & Choi (2009, 2011) and Spencer & Braswell (2010. 2011) have compellingly demonstrated.
Therefore, the IPCC’s assumption that strongly net-positive feedbacks approximately triple the pre-feedback climate sensitivity appears to be incorrect. And, if Mr. Coray were right to say that the warming caused by all of the greenhouse gases is just 9 K rather than 33 K, then the system sensitivity would of course be still lower than the 1.2 K we have determined above.
This simple method of determining the system climate sensitivity is quite robust. It depends upon just three parameters: the textbook value of 33.4 K for the “global warming” that arises from the presence as opposed to the absence of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; Kiehl & Trenberth’s value of around 101 Watts per square meter for the total radiative forcing from the top five greenhouse gases (taking all other greenhouse gases into account would actually lower the system sensitivity still further); and the IPCC’s own current value of 3.7 Watts per square meter for the radiative forcing from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
However, it is necessary also to demonstrate that the climate sensitivity of the industrial era since 1750 is similar to the system sensitivity – i.e., that there exist no special conditions today that constitute a significant departure from the happily low system sensitivity that has prevailed, on average, since the first wisps of the Earth’s atmosphere formed.
Thanks to the recent bombshell result of the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center in the US (Blasing, 2011), the industrial-era sensitivity may now be as simply and as robustly demonstrated as the system sensitivity. Dr. Blasing has estimated that manmade forcings from all greenhouse gases since 1750 are as much as 3.1 Watts per square meter, from which we must deduct 1.1 Watts per square meter to allow for manmade negative radiative forcings, notably including the soot and other particulate aerosols that act as little parasols sheltering us from the Sun.
The net manmade forcing since 1750, therefore, is about 2 Watts per square meter. According to Hansen (1984), there had been 0.5 K of “global warming” since 1750, and there has been another 0.3 K of warming since 1984, making 0.8 K in all. We can check this by calculating the least-squares linear-regression trend on the Central England Temperature Record since 1750, which shows 0.9 K of warming. So 0.8 K warming since 1750 is in the right ballpark.
The IPCC says that we caused between half and all of the warming since 1750 – i.e. 0.6[0.4, 0.8] K. Divide this interval by the net industrial-era anthropogenic forcing of 2 Watts per square meter, and multiply by 3.7 Watts per square meter as before, and the industrial-era sensitivity is 1.1[0.7, 1.5] K, which neatly and remarkably embraces the system sensitivity of 1.2[1.0, 1.4] K. So the industrial-era sensitivity is near-identical to the low and harmless system sensitivity.
Will the IPCC take any notice of fundamental results such as these that are at odds with its core assumption of a climate sensitivity thrice what we have here shown it to be? I have seen the first draft of the chapter on climate sensitivity and, as in previous reports, the IPCC either sneeringly dismisses or altogether ignores the growing body of data, results and papers pointing to low sensitivity. It confines its analysis only to those results that confirm its prejudice in favor of very high sensitivity.
In Durban I had the chance to discuss the indications of low climate sensitivity with influential delegates from the US and other key nations. I asked one senior US delegate whether his officials had told him – for instance – that sea level has been rising over the past eight years at a rate equivalent to just 2 inches per century. He had not been told, and was furious that he had been misled into thinking that sea level was rising at a dangerous rate.
Having gained his attention, I outlined the grounds for suspecting low climate sensitivity and asked him whether he had been told that there was a growing body of credible and robust evidence that climate sensitivity is small, harmless, and even beneficial. He had not been told that either. Now he and other delegates are beginning to ask the right questions. If the IPCC adheres to its present draft and fails to deal with arguments such as that which I have sketched here, the nations of the world will no longer heed it. It must fairly consider both sides of the sensitivity question, or die.
Surfer Dave wrote about heat escaping from inside the earth (December 29, 2011 at 5:39 pm): “What I do not understand is how this tiny figure was determined (0.08Wm-2) and how on earth (no pun intended!) that can result in the high temperatures we see in bore holes and mine shafts. The most interesting question, and the one I think should be the starting point, is what would the surface temperature be as a result of only the earth’s internally generated heat in the absence of the incoming solar and the absence of the “blanket” of the atmosphere. Why is it hot in mine shafts and why is that real and sizeable heat ignored in all these clever thought experiments?”
I would add my observation / question that if the amount of heat escaping through the surface were appreciable, why does it not melt snow that falls onto it with monotonous regularity every northern winter?
My instinctive feeling is that heat from within the earth is negligible relative to the amount of energy coming from the sun.
IanM
MORE BASICS
I have been looking for comments on my posting:
Ian L. McQueen says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:11 am
regarding the use of the area of a complete sphere but only one side of an equivalent disc. So far, none. Now at:
cba says:
December 30, 2011 at 5:20 am
I see a repetition in the form:
“Surface area of a disk = Pi* R^2. Surface area of a sphere = 4 * Pi * R^2.”
In making these calculations, should one not be using only half the surface area of a sphere to compare with only one side of a disc? Or alternatively, should one not use double the area of the disc to account for both the side facing the sun and the side facing away?
This subject is getting old and I fear that few people will read and comment on my comment / question.
IanM
Dear Chris,
If the sensitivity of the climate is low, as you say, what reduction in insolation would be required to create an ice age?
I still have a difficulty with an ice-sheet covering London and Amasterdam, and surviving the long hot summer (well, on the continent, at least). So how much lower would the average insolation have to be to allow the ice-sheet to survive a continental summer?
Thanks.
A simple question: if we have 239 Watt/m2 at the top of the atmosphere, and 0.08 Watt/m2 coming from the earth itself, why and how do we get 343 Watt/m2 from the lower troposphere?
If we are to ignore the contribution from the earths surface, how can 239 W *CREATE* an additional 343 W.
If the sun is the only prime driver around and energy can neither be created or destroyed where does this *EXTRA* 343 W come from?
Figure 4 from Nikolov2011 shows 343 W appearing from no where.
Steve Richards says:
Perhaps an analogy would help you to understand: Suppose that in the future, we achieve such high rates of aluminum recycling that in a given year, we are getting 90% of our aluminum supply from post-consumer waste and the remaining 10% from virgin bauxite ore. Now, the Steve Richards in that universe might say, “How is it possible for consumers to be contributing 9 times more to our aluminum supplies than the virgin bauxite? After all, consumers can’t be making aluminum…We know all the aluminum originally comes from bauxite. Hence, this situation is impossible.” That person would be confused for the same reason that you are here.
In fact, if we looked at Venus instead of Earth, we would find that the ratio of “recycled energy” from the atmosphere to energy being received directly from the sun would be a lot higher than the factor of less than 1.5 that we see for Earth.
“Sensitivity” is being used here in the usual current context, shorthand for “sensitivity to changes in CO2 levels”. Sensitivity to changes in insolation or other factors is not what he is referring to.
RE: Ian L. McQueen says: (December 30, 2011 at 9:08 am)
“Surface area of a disk = Pi* R^2. Surface area of a sphere = 4 * Pi * R^2.”
In making these calculations, should one not be using only half the surface area of a sphere to compare with only one side of a disc? Or alternatively, should one not use double the area of the disc to account for both the side facing the sun and the side facing away?
That would only be true if another sun were shining on the backside of the earth with the same solar constant. The disk area is the area of the hole that the Earth makes in radiation coming from the sun. Given an albedo of 30 percent, the Earth must absorb energy from the area of this hole at 70 percent of the nominal solar constant, 1368 W/m² or 958 W/m². If one measures the radius, R, of the Earth in meters, then the total energy being received by the Earth is pi*R^2-*(958 W/m²). For the Earth to be in thermal equilibrium it must be returning all this energy to outer space. The average energy per square meter of the Earth’s surface is thus:
pi*(R^2)*(958 W/m²)/(4*pi*(R^2)) or about 239 W/m².
Note that this is the average radiant energy flow per square meter, not the average temperature. Also note power measured in watts is a measure of energy flow; joules per second. A 60-watt incandescent light bulb requires a continuous energy flow of 60 joules per second to remain properly lighted.
This average energy flow of 239 W/m² has a characteristic temperature of about 255 degrees K. That is calculated by dividing the energy flow by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.67E-8) and then taking the fourth root. Note that no albedo effect is being assumed for this out-going radiation.
Joel Shore says:
December 30, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Steve Richards says:
A simple question: if we have 239 Watt/m2 at the top of the atmosphere, and 0.08 Watt/m2 coming from the earth itself, why and how do we get 343 Watt/m2 from the lower troposphere?
Perhaps an analogy would help you to understand: Suppose that in the future, we achieve such high rates of aluminum recycling that in a given year, we are getting 90% of our aluminum supply from post-consumer waste and the remaining 10% from virgin bauxite ore. Now, the Steve Richards in that universe might say, “How is it possible for consumers to be contributing 9 times more to our aluminum supplies than the virgin bauxite? After all, consumers can’t be making aluminum…We know all the aluminum originally comes from bauxite. Hence, this situation is impossible.” That person would be confused for the same reason that you are here.
In fact, if we looked at Venus instead of Earth, we would find that the ratio of “recycled energy” from the atmosphere to energy being received directly from the sun would be a lot higher than the factor of less than 1.5 that we see for Earth.
Thanks for the reply Joel.
Are we talking real watts or virtual watts?
If the earth and it’s atmosphere were taken to be a closed system, then the only energy input id 239 Watt/m2. The 343 Watt/m2 is created/converted from what?
If each of these 239 Watt/m2 were to be uniquely from 1 to 239, would any of them be required to be ‘reused’ to be part of the 343 Watt/m2?
If so, are we not ‘double accounting’?
regards
S
Paul in UK says:
December 29, 2011 at 3:34 am
I agree with Nylo […], the oceans and the atmosphere distributing heat around and reducing the temperature range. I’d like to know roughly how much this amounts to; 0.1K? 10K? 30K? I have not had the patience or necessary data to calculate it out, e.g. a representative grid of all the temperatures at a representative instant in time, but then it gets more complicated if you have to use different emissivities for each point too e.g. for snow, forest, sea, rock, desert, etc.
I have now done a very rough estimation, considering that the effect of these differences of temperatures could be perhaps equivalent to having one half of the planet 70K hotter than the other half, which is vastly exagerated, but I wanted to get an idea of an upper limit to this effect. The resulting Earth Average Temperature would drop 7K compared to that of an Earth with a perfectly distributed and equal temperature. So the real case will probably be smaller, perhaps 3-4K are due to these temperature differences. Not too relevant, and considering how difficult (I mean, impossible) it would be to calculate it (integrate the T^4 of the whole surface of the Earth over time for a year…), probably it is better to just consider it not a perfect black body. We are talking about an uncertainty of aprox 6% of the emisivity, and we probably have even greater uncertainties about the albedo alone…
Joel,
Just before you answer the above consider this thought exercise:
I have a tube, 1 m2 cross sectional area, length 100 miles, vertically mounted, containing a standard atmosphere. (low pressure at the top, approx 1 bar at the lower end)
I have an energy source at the top end, emitting 239 Watts/m2.
I have a series of thermocouple sensors at 1 mile intervals along the tube.
The tube is insulated from its surroundings.
The only energy source is the 239 watt emitter.
There is no other external disturbance.
The temperature gradient indicated by the temperature sensors could show one of 3 curves:
1) Temperature is constant,
2) Temperature falls with distance from the source,
3) Temperature rises with distance from the source.
Option 1) does not make sense.
Option 2) makes sense, the further you are away from a heat source the less heat energy you experience.
However, this tube is 10 miles long, there is a pressure/density gradient, with a near vacuum at the top and 1 bar at the bottom. One could imagine denser gases reacting more vigorously to the energy source than less dense gases, so the temperature could rise.
So due to the stratification of the atmosphere, temperature rises as we get closer to the earths surface.
But, nowhere have we discussed any additional energy source.
In the system described above we are injecting into this system 239 Watts/m2.
I would expect that this 239 Watts/m2 to ‘dissipate’ / ‘convert’ to a temperature rise.
In the lower 10% of the tube where the temperature has risen somewhat, I could imagine that some of the atoms of gas have got more excited and may ‘re-radiate’ however, they can not create more NET energy than that which exists in this system (239 Watts/m2).
(For the purpose of discussion lets assume the tube has uniform insulation of such an amount that after 24 hours the temperature at the bottom of the tube stabilises at 15C).
S.
Critique of your publications editor
I gave a comment on your article in Serbian with a request to translate it using Google, you unfortunately are not close enough cultural or interested in learning something new for easier and more natural understanding of the overall interaction of all factors in the solar system.
What we are discussing and you think that are the causes of warming , is criticly irrelevant compared to the true causes which you and science do not want know.This which I translate from Serbian to omnipotent English is the undisputedly much more accurately than any previous scientific considerations and your discusions.I apologize for harsh condemnation, but your ignorance of my comment is surpassed all level inculture.You which decide about it can image yourself that you picked up all the knowledge and power of the word, but my conviction should awaken in you the knowledge that there are other who may know more than you, but they do not have conditions lake you.A pity you’re not read that from my article.
Thank you for your understanding of what Google will announce.
Steve Richards says:
If the earth and it’s atmosphere were taken to be a closed system, then the only energy input id 239 Watt/m2. The 343 Watt/m2 is created/converted from what?
I don’t know how else to explain this to you other than by the analogy that I made: The energy is originally from the sun but it is being recycled in the same way that the aluminum is being recycled.
The idea that you can have a higher power coming from the atmosphere than you have coming from the sun seems to violate your intuition. So, I am trying to explain how your intuition in this case is not serving you well. Ultimately, what rules are the Laws of Physics not people’s imperfect intuition.
RE: Steve Richards: (December 31, 2011 at 2:23 am)
“If the earth and it’s atmosphere were taken to be a closed system, then the only energy input id 239 Watt/m2. The 343 Watt/m2 is created/converted from what?”
An *average* energy flow of 343 W/m² radiant energy outflow would only be required if the Earth absorbed 100 percent of the available solar radiant energy. Reflected solar energy does not contribute to heating the Earth, so it is not accounted as part of the ‘closed system.’
A nominal average reflection coefficient of 30 percent (which might be contested) results in an absorption rate of 958 W/m² for incoming solar radiation energy over the area that is intercepted by the Earth. A conversion from circular interception area to spherical surface area yields the average 239 W/m² surface energy flow that must be emitted by the closed system. Surface temperatures must rise until that *average* energy outflow is achieved.
The 255 deg K reference temperature is the Stefan-Boltzmann law equivalent temperature for this required energy flow. As it is described as a ‘characteristic temperature,’ this is not a prediction of any actual temperature anywhere on the Earth. It might be described as the fourth-root of the mean fourth-powers average temperature of the Earth because the unobstructed radiant energy flow from each point is proportional to the fourth power of the *absolute* temperature.
Make up your mind. 100 miles long, or 10? 😉
It’s going to be squirting 239 watts/m^2 out the top end not long after you install it.
Joel says:
The idea that you can have a higher power coming from the atmosphere than you have coming from the sun seems to violate your intuition. So, I am trying to explain how your intuition in this case is not serving you well. Ultimately, what rules are the Laws of Physics not people’s imperfect intuition.
Indeed it does violate my intuition and the laws of physics:
Conservation of energy: Energy can not be created of destroyed, it can be converted from one form to another.
I can see that I will not be able to get a sensible answer here to the question of “Where does the ADDITIONAL 343 Watts / m2 come from” If we are to accept the laws of physics.
My answer is double counting but I would like it to be effectively explained.
Spector/Brian H:
We do have a closed system, the sun shining on the earth. We know how much energy is input to the system: 239 W, how do people genuinely increase this figure and still observe the conservation of energy law?
Steve Richards: You can’t just wave your hands and say that there is a violation of conservation of energy. There is none. In all models of the greenhouse effect, there is energy balance at every level (as can be seen, for example, in the diagram by Kiehl and Trenberth). The 343 W/m^2 does not have to balance the 240 W/m^2 because they are different things. It is an apples-to-oranges comparison. (In particular, they both represent energy flows TO the earth, one from the sun and one from the atmosphere…Actually, the 240 W/m^2 represents energy flow from the sun to the earth’s surface + atmosphere.)
I have explained with an analogy why your intuition is wrong. You are not allowed to invent what you think conservation of energy should say…You have to work out what it actually says.
By collision of magnetic fields of the Sun and Earth are created eddies and turbulences of magnetic field lines. When they pass through the proton-neutron core of the Earth (all are on the move ), creating a swirling electric currents in the mass on the principe of the electric furnace and continuously further warming the Earth and the Sun(the planets involved)
This is the main cause of climate change on our planet.
Everything else is irrelevant.
Mydogsgotnonose says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:45 am
Myrrh: you are confusing lapse rate warming with GHG warming.
Nope. I’m saying that GHG warming as presented is a sleight of hand. The lapse rate is only part of the picture here, what is missed out further and critically is the greenhouse cooling from the water cycle, this reduces the temperature of the Earth by 52°C from what it would be with an atmosphere but without water – 67°C.
The difference then between -18°C without any atmosphere and 15°C with our whole atmosphere, is via the dynamic water cycle, from which we get our weather. It’s not a ‘global warming of 33°C by greenhouse gases’, that’s just the end product which is achieved mainly by greenhouse gas, water, cooling.
Parcels of air may well heat as they come down, and some winds are particularly good at showing this, but the main driver of global cooling is the water cycle as it takes heat away from the Earth’s surface and up into colder regions two things happen – firstly colder air from above displaces the rising hot wet air and this is easily seen around every coastline as the land warms more quickly than the ocean and the parcel of air above it heats and rises, colder air from above and around displaces it, yer cool sea breezes, and, as the heated water vapour rises, water four times the heat capacity of air, it’s taking a lot of heat up and away to the colder regions where it releases it as it condenses back into liquid water or ice, to come down as snow or cooling rain. The lapse rate is not as powerful as this.
I live on the side of a large hill/small mountain and this summer taking the dog for a walk up the hill I had a dramatic experience of this. The day had been hot and this was now later afternoon, there was a sound I couldn’t place at first, sounded like it was a very big lorry somewhere up the hill which doesn’t have roads for such a thing, and it got louder for a few minutes until it reached me with a long blast of cold wind spotting with rain, the sun was still shining. Maybe the air had heated on the way down in some lapse rate – but it was a darn sight colder than what I had been in before it arrived..
@ur momisugly crosspatch: December 28, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Thanks crosspatch for that link forward addressing the UTC, people here pay attention to your words and it may take a while for all to realize just what that tiny link within your comment really meant to our future.
Tim Folkerts @ur momisugly December 30, 8:00 am
Hi Tim, it’s good to see a real physicist join in here, but please let me ask a few questions upon your assertions, in which you start with:
AND then in part:
A) You assert that if all GHG’s, [and by implication all surface water?], are removed from the atmosphere, the surface temperature would be 255K. However, when I do an S-B calculation for outgoing radiation at 255K, I get about 240 W/m^2, and of course, this must ALL escape directly to space in a transparent atmosphere. (the alleged net radiative heat transfer from the surface is 240 W/m^2.) BUT; according to Trenberth et al, this greatly exceeds the incoming surface absorbed energy from the Sun, given as ~161 W/m^2. Would you please answer on what seems to be a major paradox?
B) So you agree that there is a lapse rate, regardless of GHG’s?
RE: Steve Richards: (December 31, 2011 at 8:42 am)
“We do have a closed system, the sun shining on the earth. We know how much energy is input to the system: 239 W, how do people genuinely increase this figure and still observe the conservation of energy law?”
We do have a closed system. The energy input to the system is first defined by what is known as the solar ‘constant’ but actually varies as a function of solar activity and the Earth’s distance from the sun. A nominal value for this solar constant is 1368 W/m². This is a measure of energy flow (power) per square meter. When this energy strikes the Earth, about thirty percent is reflected back out without entering the closed system. The remaining 958 W/m² is intercepted by the Earth.
The nominal radius of the Earth is 6,371,000 meters or 6.371e6 meters. Thus the nominal area of the interception disk is 1.275e14 square meters. So solar energy is flowing *into* the Earth’s closed system at a rate of about 1.222e17 watts. If this is divided by the spherical surface area of the Earth, 5.100e14 square meters, we obtain a value of about 239.5 W/m² for the average surface energy per square meter that must be flowing out of the earth’s closed system to balance the solar energy coming in.
Temperatures all over the Earth will rise (or fall) until the net energy flowing out is also 1.222e7 watts or about 239.5 W/m² on average. The Stefan-Boltzmann law characteristic temperature for this particular energy flow per square meter is about 255 degrees K. (Technically, power in watts is a measure of energy flow in joules per second.)
This surface flow may be forced to increase if there are a wavelength selective blocking agents in the atmosphere that only allow a fraction of the full surface energy flow to escape to outer space but do not interfere with most of the solar energy coming in. The blocked surface radiation energy is returned to the closed system.
RE:Bob Fernley-Jones: (December 31, 2011 at 9:06 pm)
“A) You assert that if all GHG’s, [and by implication all surface water?], are removed from the atmosphere, the surface temperature would be 255K. However, when I do an S-B calculation for outgoing radiation at 255K, I get about 240 W/m^2, and of course, this must ALL escape directly to space in a transparent atmosphere. (the alleged net radiative heat transfer from the surface is 240 W/m^2.) BUT; according to Trenberth et al, this greatly exceeds the incoming surface absorbed energy from the Sun, given as ~161 W/m^2. Would you please answer on what seems to be a major paradox?”
You have to add the 78 W/m² shown in that diagram being *absorbed* by the atmosphere. Under the hypothetical assumption stated for this calculation, a perfectly transparent atmosphere cannot absorb (or emit) any radiant energy.
Speculation: Atmosphere Retention by Carbon Dioxide
It is interesting to note that an atmosphere that could only absorb or emit short-wave optical band radiation might just continue to heat and expand as it heats until it all escapes to outer space.
One of the coldest regions of the atmosphere, just above the stratosphere, is known as the mesosphere. It is generally accepted that this region is strongly cooled by radiation from carbon dioxide, which is finally thin enough so that it can emit long-wave IR photons having a reasonable chance to escape to outer space without being reabsorbed.
The carbon dioxide cooled mesosphere might be acting as a lid that helps to keep our atmosphere in place by radiating excess heat absorbed by the lower atmosphere.
aggh – bad typing, looks like minus 67 when it isn’t
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/sense-and-sensitivity-2/#comment-848981
“I’m saying that GHG warming as presented is a sleight of hand. The lapse rate is only part of the picture here, what is missed out further and critically is the greenhouse cooling from the water cycle, this reduces the temperature of the Earth by 52°C from what it would be with an atmosphere but without water – 67°C.”
Should be: this reduces the temperature of the Earth by 52°C from what it would be with an atmosphere but without water, 67%deg;C
Monckton – Anyway, arguing about the nuances of an imaginary world might well be enjoyable for many including you, but it’s costing us, the duped by this scam, basic quality of life. Carbon dioxide is part and parcel of the cooling by the water cycle, whatever carbon dioxide is in the air with water vapour will spontaneously join with the water vapour to form carbonic acid, and come down in rain, dew, fog, all pure clean rain is carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide does not defy gravity to ‘accumulate for hundreds and thousands of years’ – except in this fantasy world you’re arguing about created by the IPCC minders to deliberately destroy our well-being. You don’t have to worry about the rising cost of fuel in Britain engineered by this scam, so you can indulge yourself in arguing about an imaginary world you helped create with Maggie..
Our real Earth is a dynamic system. That’s how we get our weather. Greenhouse gases cool the atmosphere.
Happy New Year.