Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
The Unified Theory of Climate post is exciting and could shake the world of Climate Science to its roots. I would love it if the conventional understanding of the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” Effect (GHE) presented by the Official Climate Team could be overturned, and that would be the case if the theory of Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller, both PhDs, turns out to be scientifically correct.
Sadly, it seems to me they have made some basic mistakes that, among other faults, confuse cause and effect. I appreciate that WUWT is open to new ideas, and I support the decision to publish this theory, along with both positive and negative comments by readers.
Correlation does not prove causation. For example, the more policemen directing traffic, the worse the jam is. Yes, when the police and tow trucks first respond to an accident they may slow the traffic down a bit until the disabled automobiles are removed. However, there is no doubt the original cause of the jam was the accident, and the reason police presence is generally proportional to the severity of the jam level is that more or fewer are ordered to respond. Thus, Accident >>CAUSES>> Traffic Jam >>CAUSES>> Police is the correct interpretation.
Al Gore made a similar error when, in his infamous movie An Inconvenient Truth, he made a big deal about the undoubted corrrelation in the Ice Core record between CO2 levels and Temperature without mentioning the equally apparent fact that Temperatures increase and decrease hundreds of years before CO2 levels follow suit.
While it is true that rising CO2 levels do have a positive feedback that contributes to slightly increased Temperatures, the primary direction of causation is Temperature >>CAUSES>> CO2. The proof is in the fact that, in each Glacial cycle, Temperatures begin their rapid decline precisely when CO2 levels are at their highest, and rapid Temperature increase is initiated exactly when CO2 levels are their lowest. Thus, Something Else >>CAUSES>> Temperature>>CAUSES>> CO2. Further proof may be had by placing an open can of carbonated beverage in the refigerator and another on the table, and noting that the “fizz” (CO2) outgasses more rapidly from the can at room temperature.
Moving on to Nikolov, the claim appears to be that the pressure of the Atmosphere is the main cause of temperature changes on Earth. The basic claim is PRESSURE >>CAUSES>>TEMPERATURE.
PV = nRT
Given a gas in a container, the above formula allows us to calculate the effect of changes to the following variables: Pressure (P), Volume (V), Temperature (T, in Kelvins), and Number of molecules (n). (R is a constant.)
The figure shows two cases involving a sealed, non-insulated container, with a Volume, V, of air:
(A) Store that container of air in the ambient cool Temperature Tr of a refrigerator. Then, increase the Number n of molecules in the container by pumping in more air. the Pressure (P) within the container will increase. Due to the work done to compress the air in the fixed volume container, the Temperature within the container will also increase from (Tr) to some higher value. But, please note, when we stop increasing n, both P and T in the container will stabilize. Then, as the container, warmed by the work we did compressing the air, radiates, conducts, and convects that heat to the cool interior of the refrigerator, the Temperature slowly decreases back to the original Tr.
(B) We take a similar container from the cool refrigerator at Temperature Tr and place it on a kitchen chair, where the ambient Temperature Tk is higher. The container is warmed by radiation, conduction and convection and the Temperature rises asymptotically towards Tk. The Pressure P rises slowly and stabilizes at some higher level. Please note the pressure remains high forever so long as the temperature remains elevated.
In case (A) Pressure >>CAUSES A TEMPORARY>> increase in Temperature.
In case (B) Temperature >>CAUSES A PERMANENT>> increase in Pressure.
I do not believe any reader will disagree with this highly simplified thought experiment. Of course, the Nikolov theory is far more complex, but, I believe it amounts to confusing the cause, namely radiation from the Sun and Downwelling Long-Wave Infrared (LW DWIR) from the so-called “Greenhouse” gases (GHG) in the Atmosphere with the effect, Atmospheric pressure.
Some Red Flags in the Unified Theory
1) According to Nikolov, our Atmosphere
“… boosts Earth’s surface temperature not by 18K—33K as currently assumed, but by 133K!”
If, as Nikolov claims, the Atmosphere boosts the surface temperature by 133K, then, absent the Atmosphere the Earth would be 288K – 133K = 155K. This is contradicted by the fact that the Moon, which has no Atmosphere and is at the same distance from the Sun as our Earth, has an average temperature of about 250K. Yes, the albedo of the Moon is 0.12 and that of the Earth is 0.3, but that difference would make the Moon only about 8K cooler than an Atmosphere-free Earth, not 95K cooler! Impossible!
2) In the following quote from Nikolov, NTE is “Atmospheric Near-Surface Thermal Enhancement” and SPGB is a “Standard Planetary Gray Body”
NTE should not be confused with an actual energy, however, since it only defines the relative (fractional) increase of a planet’s surface temperature above that of a SPGB. Pressure by itself is not a source of energy! Instead, it enhances (amplifies) the energy supplied by an external source such as the Sun through density-dependent rates of molecular collision. This relative enhancement only manifests as an actual energy in the presence of external heating. [Emphasis added]
This, it seems to me, is an admission that the source of energy for their “Atmospheric Near-Surface Thermal Enhancement” process comes from the Sun, and, therefore, their “Enhancement” is as they admit, not “actual energy”. I would add the energy that would otherwise be lost to space (DW LWIR) to the energy from the Sun, eliminating any need for the “Thermal Enhancement” provided by Atmospheric pressure.
3) As we know when investigating financial misconduct, follow the money. Well, in Climate Science we follow the Energy. We know from actual measurements (see my Visualizing the “Greenhouse” Effect – Emission-Spectra) the radiative energy and spectra of Upwelling Long-Wave Infrared (UW LWIR), from the Surface to the so-called “greenhouse” gases (GHG) in the Atmosphere, and the Downwelling (DW LWIR) from those gases back to the Surface.
The only heed Nikolov seems to give to GHG and those measured radiative energies is that they are insufficient to raise the temperature of the Surface by 133K.
… our atmosphere boosts Earth’s surface temperature not by 18K—33K as currently assumed, but by 133K! This raises the question: Can a handful of trace gases which amount to less than 0.5% of atmospheric mass trap enough radiant heat to cause such a huge thermal enhancement at the surface? Thermodynamics tells us that this not possible.
Of course not! Which is why the conventional explanation of the GHE is that the GHE raises the temperature by only about 33K (or perhaps a bit less -or more- but only a bit and definitely not 100K!).
4) Nikolov notes that, based on “interplanetary data in Table 1” (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Europe, Titan, Triton):
… we discovered that NTE was strongly related to total surface pressure through a nearly perfect regression fit…
Of course, one would expect planets and moons in our Solar system to have some similarities.
“… the atmosphere does not act as a ‘blanket’ reducing the surface infrared cooling to space as maintained by the current GH theory, but is in and of itself a source of extra energy through pressure. This makes the GH effect a thermodynamic phenomenon, not a radiative one as presently assumed!
I just cannot square this assertion with the clear measurements of UW and DW LWIR, and the fact that the wavelengths involved are exactly those of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other GHGs.
Equation (7) allows us to derive a simple yet robust formula for predicting a planet’s mean surface temperature as a function of only two variables – TOA solar irradiance and mean atmospheric surface pressure,…”
Yes, TOA solar irradiance would be expected to be important in predicting mean surface temperature, but mean atmospheric surface pressure, it seems to me, would more likely be a result than a cause of temperature. But, I could be wrong.
Conclusion
I, as much as anyone else here at WUWT, would love to see the Official Climate Team put in its proper place. I think climate (CO2) sensitivity is less than the IPCC 2ºC to 4.5ºC, and most likely below 1ºC. The Nikolov Unified Climate Theory goes in the direction of reducing climate sensitivity, apparently even making it negative, but, much as I would like to accept it, I remain unconvinced. Nevertheless, I congratulate Nikolov and Zeller for having the courage and tenacity to put this theory forward. Perhaps it will trigger some other alternative theory that will be more successful.
=============================================================
UPDATE: This thread is closed – see the newest one “A matter of some Gravity” where the discussion continues.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 6, 2012 at 6:28 pm
“No, I’m not “assuming a blackbody distribution”. I am trying to understand how any process involving a transparent atmosphere could heat the planet above the bone-simple Stefan Boltzmann directly calculated blackbody temperature. “
Aaarrrggggghhhhh!!! How can you even write something so self-contradictory in a single sentence like that and not see it??? When you use Stefan Boltzmann, you are assuming a blackbody, or more formally a Planck, distribution for the energy states. If that distribution does not exist, then Stefan Boltzmann does not apply!!!
There is nothing “bone-simple” about Stefan Boltzmann. The Stefan Boltzmann equation results by integrating the energy states in the steady state distribution to which they converge in a body which absorbs all input wavelengths and dissipates the accumulated energy via radiation, and only via radiation. The surface of the Earth, with its convective and conductive interface with the atmosphere, is nothing like that!!!
Stefan Boltzmann is not a fundamental law. It does not hold everywhere and in all situations. You must have the requisite energy distribution which results under the specific conditions which I have spelled out above.
Richard M says:
January 6, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 6, 2012 at 6:12 pm
My posts have been interspersed with yours these last couple of days. They are not anywhere but right here … I’m sorry I assumed you were actually reading this thread.
My friend, there are 823 responses on this thread, and it’s not even my thread.
What would get me closer? Either QUOTE YOUR OWN WORDS that you are discussing, or LINK TO THE WORDS. Otherwise, I’m just guessing what the heck you’re talking about.
Is there a limit on the GHE? In my opinion, yes, because (as I’ve discussed elsewhere, I think that the “climate sensitivity” is not a constant but is inversely proportional to temperature. In other words, the warmer it gets, the less an additional w/m2 of forcing does. It’s the nature of a natural heat engine.
Use links. You can just type in the link, or copy it and paste it. To link to a comment on this page, right click on the date/time below the persons name and copy, then paste, like this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-climate-theory-may-confuse-cause-and-effect/#comment-855837
All the best,
w.
Here is the Planck distribution for blackbody energy states. Here is how it is integrated to produce the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
The Planck distribution IS NOT INHERENT in every material body. It is a VERY SPECIAL energy distribution. There is no basis whatsoever, and given potent effects of conduction and especially convection from it, every reason to doubt, that the Earth’s surface supports a distribution of energy states which is ANYTHING LIKE a Planck distribution.
This is not hard, guys, if you take the time to learn your tools and what they do, and what they do not do.
Personally, I think the best one can say about the Nikolov hypothesis is that is not ready for prime time yet. Perhaps, Nikolov can answer the criticisms put to his and perhaps not, time will tell.
Just as a reminder to all the pro-Nikolov folks out there, though – the choice is not necessarily btw believing that the GH effect is non-existent and that full-scale CAGW is inevitable. Even if the GH effect operates substantially as currently conceived by the mainstream view, there is still a reasonable basis for assuming sensitivity is much less than the 3C per doubling number. You don’t need a whole new theory of GH warming to get to a lower sensitivity, you just need to postulate that some of the details (ie the water cycle, clouds or whatever) operate differently.
Cheers, 🙂
Bart says:
January 6, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Thanks, Bart. I understand all of that. My question is, what is the mechanism proposed by Nikolov that can raise a blackbody planet’s temperature above the directly calculated S-B temperature value, the “blackbody temperature” corresponding to the radiation it is receiving?
To be clear about what that value is, the “blackbody temperature” is the fourth root of the impinging radiation divided by 5.67e-8. That gives you a temperature. They say their mechanism can warm a planet above that temperature. I don’t see how.
I also don’t see what your practical (and correct) considerations about S-B and out it plays out in the real world have to do with whether Nikolov’s putative mechanism can warm a planet above a theoretical temperature …
So I’m not clear what your objection is.
w.
It can all be made very simple as follows:
i) The Greenhouse Effect however caused results from a slowing down in the transmission of solar energy into the Earth system, through the system and out again to space.
ii) Due to that slowing down more energy accumulates within the system which heats up.
iii) The process is exactly the same whether the slowdown is caused by gravity or by GHGs. One cannot argue that one is a breach of the Laws of Thermodynamics and the other not. Either both are or neither are.
iv) The gravitational effect involves every atom and molecule in the system including Oxygen and Nitrogen. It is too powerful for the non radiative processes such as conduction, convection and evaporation to negate it so radiative processes have to finish the job.
v) Thus the gravitational effect sets up the baseline lapse rate which is set as an inviolable minimum.
vi) The GHGs add another influence on top of the gravitational effect but it is the same effect in principle. However it is limited to the atmosphere and involves only a miniscule fraction of total mass.
vii) The thermal effect of those GHGs is to add energy to the atmosphere alone andt it does seek to increase the lapse rate over and above that set by gravity and pressure.
viii) Due to the GHG effect being limited to the air and being proportionately tiny compared to the gravitational effect the non radiative processes have little difficulty dealing with it and the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere changes to on average and overall restore the baseline lapse rate set by gravity.
ix) Thus the radiative component of the greenhouse effect caused by GHGs is neutralised .
x) The climate consequence is a shift in the surface pressure distribution which has to occur in order to accommodate the change in the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere but it is miniscule compared to natural variations caused by sun and oceans.
Even Joel accepts all that. See this exchange between him and me at Roy Spencer’s blog:
Stephen Wilde says:
January 6, 2012 at 5:00 PM
Joel Shore said:
“In the real world that we inhabit where convection only reduces the lapse rate down to the adiabatic lapse rate,”
Well Joel, are you aware that ‘adiabatic’ is another word for pressure driven.
You have elsewhere accepted that there is a pressure driven lapse rate.
So that pressure driven lapse rate is the baseline situation.
GHGs in the air seek to alter that lapse rate.
But you accept that convection can reduce reduce the actual lapse rate down to the adiabatic lapse rate.
Therefore you agree with me and Ned Nikolov that the variation from the adiabatic rate caused by GHGs can be negated by increased convection.
Checkmate.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm
OK, folks, I’m gonna unilaterally declare victory here.
Why?
Because:
1) Nobody has been able to explain the mechanism whereby Nikolov says that planetary temperatures can be raised above the blackbody temperature for the planet.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well Willis, since we cannot have that, I guess I will have to explain it to you, and you might very well know the answer already deep down.
For one, radiation. Solar absorbed inbound in the atmosphere, solar radiation absorbed by and into matter at the surface, and infrared radiated by the surface and absorbed (not all, some goes via the ‘window’) also in the atmosphere. That energy is what warps the 9.8 K/km lapse to a gentle slope of 6.5 K/km and many times much lower, even negative in places. With mean surface pressure a constant at about 101325 Pa it is the density modulated by the energy level within an atmospheric column originating from the external energy source, the sun, that raises the temperature at the surface above the hypothetic mean black body temperature.
For two, density and pressure. If you have an questions of whether a very tall, 11 km, column of air will always naturally be warmer at the bottom, I got the answer last night by slowly dissecting that question. I had a bit of problem with it for a while. Then *bam*, I got it. A gas molecule is no different that a baseball. You drop it, it will speed up as its potential is converted to kinetic energy. Same with every molecule in the column. As they collide around, if they go up, they slow, if the go downward, they accelerate and speed up. Why don’t they all just fall and collect on the ground below? Energy! The energy they collectively posses. More energy, less density and vice versa. How much energy does the column hold, depends and is set by the available TSI flowing through it and being absorbed one way or the other, the direction, downward SW or upward LW does not matter really.
Think on that for a while. That seems the answer to Dr. Nikolov and Zeller’s theory, at least I saw it quickly except for the molecular speeds.
Keep up your excellent post bud, as I said years ago to you, you have a way with words that I wish I possessed, but then again, I wouldn’t be me.
Bart says:
To the extent deviation occurs form the Planck distribution, it is due to the fact that the emissivity is wavelength-dependent and can take on any value between 0 and 1. However, as Willis have pointed out, the actual emissivities in the mid/far-IR wavelength region over which the Earth’s surface has significant emissions are extremely close to 1 for most terrestrial surfaces. Willis says the average emissivity over the Earth is somewhere around 0.95, although from what I have seen, that is probably an underestimate.
Conduction and convection have nothing to do with radiative emission. Radiative emission is independent of any conduction and convection that is occurring, depending only on the temperature of the emitting surface. (Obviously, in a real physical problem, the temperature of the object itself might be lower than it would be without conduction and convection, but for the purposes of this discussion, we are noting what the temperature is with all heat transfer mechanisms that are occurring and then talking about what emission must occur given that temperature.)
Richard M says:
There are various confusions present here. You are neglecting entropy: Gases will mix by diffusion and much faster by convection. So, in fact, theory predict and experimental data confirm, that CO2 is generally well-mixed in the atmosphere except at near-surface levels close to significant sources and sinks. Outside of those regions, deviations from uniformity in ppm are only a few percent at most.
Water vapor is a different story because there are big sources and sinks all over the place (even in the atmosphere itself, since it can condense out into liquid form). And, in fact, one of the reasons why CO2 has the radiative effect that it does is that in the upper parts of the troposphere, water vapor concentrations are a lot lower than they are closer to ground level…and so the CO2 is relatively more important there. (I am not saying it has more radiative effect there than water vapor, but it has more radiative effect there relative to water vapor than it does at the surface level.)
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that there is not a saturation effect.
As for the areal surface expanding, try computing how much larger the surface area is for a sphere having a radius at the upper troposphere than one at the surface…It ain’t a very big difference.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 6, 2012 at 11:28 pm
What would get me closer? Either QUOTE YOUR OWN WORDS that you are discussing, or LINK TO THE WORDS. Otherwise, I’m just guessing what the heck you’re talking about.
I realize that Willis. However, I was treating this more or less as a brain-storming thread. At the time my thoughts were still formulating and since you were commenting I just figured you were also following the thread. Bad assumption on my part as it turns out.
This is probably the closest I’ve come to summarizing my thoughts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-climate-theory-may-confuse-cause-and-effect/#comment-855692
It’s really not all the complicated. The GHE works as climate science has described with an equilibrium height where energy in and out balance. This height determines the value of the GHE. However, it is kind of like a rocket ship blasting off. The higher you want that height to be the more energy is required. For the GHE replace energy with GHGs and my conjecture is the relationship is not linear and may in fact have a maximum value. This is due to the same factors that the UTC found to determine the temperature of multiple planets … atmospheric mass and gravity.
So, it seems to me that all the planets may have reached a maximum GHE and that is why the correlation K/Z found exists. Formula 7 in section 3.3 of the UTC defines that maximum. However, this would take some more in depth analysis which is beyond my abilities. Keep in mind, everything I current know about atmospheric physics right now has come from WUWT so my usage of terms may not be what you would expect.
World 1 – grey featureless, no atmosphere; under a constant radiative energy source.
Hit with an extra instantaneous defined burst of radiative energy, which is fully absorbed, raises the temperature of that world a certain amount, which, over time, returns to ‘baseline temperature’as the world re-radiates that energy at its ‘own’ wavelength.
World 2 – Add a dense, radiatively transparent atmosphere (ie, a single non-radiative gas); (quantity NONGHGx1) repeat the experiment – exactly the same result. Same rise in temperature, same rate of return to normal.
World 3. (W3) As per World 2, but with a quantity (GHGx1) of a single radiative gas (GHG) also present, which only absorbs the planets emitted wavelength. (quantity of non-radiative gas remains at NONGHGx1) The gas is present in an amount that ALL of the radiative energy from the planet is absorbed on its way through the atmosphere. Repeat experiment. The system takes longer to revert to baseline T, as surface emitted radiative energy is absorbed by the GHG, passed by collision to the non GHG, then, eventually, lost at the top of the atmosphere as radiation from the GHG. (insulated?)
World 4: as per World 3, but with double the amount of GHG (GHGx2). (quantity of non-radiative gas remains at NONGHGx1) Repeat experiment, World 4 takes a ‘tiny bit longer’ than world 3 to return to normal, or PERHAPS the same time as World 3. (twice as much GHG absorbs the energy 2X more quickly than W3, but passes to the non GHG 2X more quickly than W3, and receives it at the same rate, and emits from the top of the atmosphere at 2X more quickly than W3).
World 5: As per World 3, (but with double the amount of NON GHG atmosphere (ie, 2X the NON-radiative gas) (quantity of non-radiative gas increased to NONGHGx2) and the original quantity (GHGx1) of GHG. Repeat experiment. World 5 takes LONGER to revert to baseline temperature. The GHG has twice the chance of passing its energy parcel off to the non GHG, but a lower chance of receiving it back, so the energy takes longer to exit (to be radiated at the top of the atmosphere. (more non GHG, more insulation?).
Or …..!!???
Willis, if you were going to raise the subject of conduction, convection, evapo-transpiration… good… I did leave them out didn’t I? But they are in the very same category as the radiation as I explained above, right? Just another way for energy to get into that column of air. Where that energy goes determines where the lapse rate curve is warped from it’s static dry adiabatic linear path of 9.8 K/km, and the environmental lapse rate is always warped away from it, that is why we are warm.
I hope you were able to follow that, please don’t pick at my words. I know you are more than capable.
“This height determines the value of the GHE. However, it is kind of like a rocket ship blasting off. The higher you want that height to be the more energy is required.”
If temperature on earth were lower, say, -18 C the atmospheric height would be lower. It’s easy to see that the troposphere would lower. And strength of gravity affect atmospheric height.
Over here:
http://s11.zetaboards.com/Sky_dragon/index/
Chris Ho-Stuart liked the idea of modeling a world [dwarf planet] without sunlight.
The dwarf planet is a starship, in which the atmosphere is heat with nuclear power.
It required a lot nuclear reactor. Point is Chris Ho-Stuart made excel program:
http://www.datafilehost.com/download-432d5620.html
He still working on it, but point is it shows what happens with different inputs of
temperature or different gravity. The dwarf planet with 1/10 earth gravity has very high
atmosphere. It has lower pressure and lower temperature and far higher than earth-
pressure is made low but breathable- so atmosphere isn’t beyond extremely high.
The model isn’t using “new theories or something” it rules accepted- Chris says
regarding latest verison:
“My major reference for much of the theory I am applying is Principles of Planetary Climate by Ray Pierrehumbert. The integration sheet now includes also an additional column for an alternative calculation of the all-troposphere grey atmosphere using evaluation of a direct integral. There’s a comment on the page describing how this works. It gives the same result as my original more direct layer by layer method, which is reassuring that I have the maths correct.”
Anyways if you use excel, this esay way to see amount of atmosphere and amount gravity
affects.
Which is related to topic here.
Stephen Wilde says:
No…There is a well-described process using known laws of physics by which GHGs reduce the amount of radiation escaping into space relative to the amount that is emitted by the surface.
There is no known process by which this occurs due to gravity. The nearest thing you seem to have come up with is some sort of general relativistic effect. Unfortunately, general relativity is sufficiently obscure that one can get a physics PhD without studying it in any detail, and I am a living example of that. However, I am quite confident that the redshift of radiation leaving the Earth’s surface will not be great enough to account for the observation that 390 W/m^2 is emitted at the surface and only ~240 W/m^2 escapes to space; if you believe otherwise, show us the equations and then forward them to the Nobel Committee since this would certainly be a revolutionary discovery. Besides which, we know from the spectrum of the emitted radiation seen from space what is actually happening: Radiation is being absorbed at specific wavelengths that correspond to absorption bands of the various greenhouse elements of the atmosphere.
Yes, I accept what you say about the lapse rate. But, the point is that it is not “the variation from the adiabatic rate caused by GHGs” that is responsible for the greenhouse effect or for changes in that effect with the addition of more GHGs. The mechanism by which the surface temperature increases with the addition of greenhouse gases is this:
(1) Initially, the “effective radiating level” in the atmosphere (that level from which radiation can on average escape to space without being absorbed again) is at an average temperature of 255 K and the system is emitting the same amount as it is absorbing from the sun.
(2) A sudden addition of some greenhouse gases to the atmosphere causes additional absorption of terrestrial radiation which means that the “effective radiating level” in the atmosphere rises to higher levels where, because of the lapse rate, it is colder. As a result, less radiation is now escaping into space.
(3) This radiative imbalance (Earth + atmosphere absorbing more than its emitting) causes warming until the new effective radiating level is at 255 K.
(4) At this point, you have (approximately) the same lapse rate in the troposphere as you had before but temperatures are ishifted. For example, if the radiating level was initially at 5 km and shifts up to 6 km, then with a lapse rate of 6.5 K per km ( a typical compromise rate between the dry and saturated adiabatic lapse rate), the surface temperature would warm from 255 K + (6.5K per km)*(5 km) = 287.5 K to 255 K + (6.5K per km)*(6 km) = 294 K.
It is correct that to the extent that convection drives down the lapse rate from what it would be in its absence, it reduces the greenhouse effect. That is why simple radiative models overestimate the greenhouse effect and convection has to be included to get quantitatively correct numbers.
Note that in part 2.1B) of their poster, Nikolov et al. added convection to the radiative model in a way that, by their own description, forced the temperatures T_a and T_s to be virtually equal. This means that they allowed convection to drive the lapse rate down to essentially ZERO. In the real world, convection only drives the lapse rate down to the adiabatic rate. Everybody agrees that in a universe where the atmosphere was driven by convection to an isothermal temperature distribution with height, the greenhouse effect would disappear. However, that is not the universe that we happen to inhabit.
I would advise a little more humility than this given that you are still so confused on the basic concepts. You are nowhere near proving your claims…and you will never be close to it…because they are without scientific foundation.
Joel Shore says:
January 7, 2012 at 5:54 am
There are various confusions present here.
Yes, to a certain extent. But, I’m not trying to be precise. I’m just tossing out factors that *could* have a limiting factor on the GHE. Don’t try to read anything more into them than that.
There are probably many factors that all net down to the impact of the gravitational field of a sphere. I suspect if we could plot the GHE against GHG concentration we would see something like a exponential decay that reaches very close to its maximum value at fairly low levels of GHGs (<5% of the mass of the atmosphere). I could be wrong, but it kind of makes sense when you understand increasing the height is fighting against the downward acceleration due to gravity. The greater the atmospheric mass the easier but it still has its limit. This is why the K/Z formula is a good approximation. It may not be absolutely correct but I think they are on to the factors that limit GHE growth.
“WOW. Quite the opposite. The blackbody temperature of the moon is TSI / 4 * (1-albedo) ≈ 342 * (1 – 0.07) ≈ 318 W/m2. This is about 1°C, just above freezing.
The average temperature of the moon is way below that. This is because of the slow rotation of the moon, coupled with the T^4 relationship with radiation.
w.
PS—In any case, “heat storage” does not increase the maximum possible temperature.”
But these all ways to increase average temperature.
Your moon is not -18 C or lower.
One can not say earth would -18 C if it did not have greenhouse gases.
Now I move on to your PS.
That is the harder part.
What explained in above post with 100 by 100 Km swimming pools is that you lower
the Moon highest temperature- instead of 123 C you lower it to around 20 C.
And maintain that temperature. So going form 1 C to say 15 C.
I used water, by any transparent liquid would work also.
But you asking for something else- can you make the surface get
above 123 C.
And that is question I have wondered about but don’t have
ready answer.
Richard M says:
As I have shown, if the data had been different, they would have gotten a fine fit showing a different correlation but with lower values for the maximum GHE for Earth, Titan, and Venus. (In fact, values so low that they would correspond to no GHE at all the way everybody in the world defines it.) So, their supposed correlation proves NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING in regards to the current GHG being at some maximum value. This is purely a religious belief on your part.
“I used water, but any transparent liquid would work also. ”
You don’t need to use any transparent material- you could anything
that conducts energy- thick steel plating, or even if Moon was solid
particular type of rock as compared to being covered with regolith [a very poor conductor
of heat].
If you have a mechanism that allows high conduction solar energy, and at
night time limit the conduction of heat [by put regolith over it] then you
keep more heat. Now, rather than the artificial way to retain heat, there
could some kind “natural process” that would do a similar thing.
But none of this is about increasing temperature above 123 C.
Richard M says:
Well, you can suspect anything you want. The Greeks and Romans suspected that there was a God that drove the sun across the sky in his chariot. However, science is a method by which we can determine what explanations are supported by empirical evidence and which aren’t. Your suspicions are irrelevant without evidence to back them up…and the extent to which they could even conceivably be true are limited by the current scientific understanding that is actually confirmed by empirical evidence.
No…The primary reason why the K/Z formula is a good approximation is that the expression relating the surface pressure to the surface temperature enhancement is a 4-parameter fit…And, it is worse than that given that they had additional flexibility in how they chose to define their “unenhanced” temperature T_sb.
Furthermore, their “surface temperature enhancement” is not even a measure of what scientists call the greenhouse effect. It includes that but also includes an effect due to the fact that even for a given amount of power emitted by the surface, the distribution of temperature on the surface can affect the average temperature. In fact, I think that only 3 of the 8 bodies they studied have a significant greenhouse effect at all AND only in the case of one of the bodies (Venus) is the greenhouse effect the dominant contribution to their “surface temperature enhancement”. It is not at all surprising that one would find that the surface temperature tends to even out as the atmospheric pressure goes up, which is the primary thing that is driving the increase in the average temperature above their T_sb in all the planets except for Venus. (There are also good reasons to expect that pressure will tend in a general correlative sense to increase the actual greenhouse effect, since higher pressures allow for higher quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and pressure also broadens the absorption lines of these gases.)
You are making all sorts of conjectures that are frankly based on ignorance: You’ve demonstrated no evidence that you even understand what N&Z have done in computing their “surface temperature enhancement” and fitting it to some functional form with 4 free parameters, yet you seem to think that your conjectures of what their fit means should carry some weight. I don’t see why they should carry any more weight than the conjecture that the Sun God drives the sun across the sky in a chariot.
Stephen:
By the way, it turns out that the gravitational redshift is not hard to calculate ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_redshift ). I just calculated it for light leaving the Earth’s surface and escaping to infinity and I got that the wavelength (or frequency) shift is approximately on part in 6.9 x 10^(-10). [Others are welcome to check I plugged in the numbers correctly.] So that means that the correction to the energy (which is proportional to frequency) from this effect is less than 1 part in a billion.
So, you have successfully explained how 390 W/m^2 of light emitted at the surface is reduced to ~389.9999997 W/m^2 once it gets out into space. (In fact, the reduction would be less than this at the point where the satellites measure it…I don’t know what their orbits are…but I’ll give you the full amount as a freebie.)
Unfortunately, this does not go very far toward explaining how 390 W/m^2 is reduced to 240 W/m^2.
Joel Shore says:
January 7, 2012 at 7:40 am
[Richard M says:
So, it seems to me that all the planets may have reached a maximum GHE and that is why the correlation K/Z found exists. Formula 7 in section 3.3 of the UTC defines that maximum.]
As I have shown, if the data had been different, they would have gotten a fine fit showing a different correlation but with lower values for the maximum GHE for Earth, Titan, and Venus. (In fact, values so low that they would correspond to no GHE at all the way everybody in the world defines it.) So, their supposed correlation proves NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING in regards to the current GHG being at some maximum value. This is purely a religious belief on your part.
I didn’t say it “proves” anything. I simply have been pointing out an interesting correlation that may have a physical basis.
I believe any non-invested party would have to admit that a gravitational field *could* have an impact on a value that just happens to be a height within that field. I’m attempting to get people with more knowledge than myself to start thinking about what that might be. It’s fine for you to be skeptical as that will keep us honest. Just try to keep it less personal.
Willis Eschenbach;
To be clear about what that value is, the “blackbody temperature” is the fourth root of the impinging radiation divided by 5.67e-8. That gives you a temperature.>>>>
That gives you a temperature for a body with uniform surface presented in a uniform manner to the source of the radiation. The earth on the other hand:
1. Is not a uniform surface
2. Is presented as a spherical surface to the radiation source
3. Only half the spherical surface is exposed to the radiation source at any given time.
4. The half of the spherical surface presented is not presented uniformly, and the presentation changes over time.
5. The earth orbit is elliptical, resulting in a variation of intensity of the radiation source super imposed on the variations imposed by axial tilt, daily rotation, curvature of the earth, lack of uniformity of the earth surface.
6. Lunar orbit is elliptical and also fluctuates in a cycle that takes is above and below the orbital plane over a course of (recollection here) 18 years, which in turn alters the physical properties of the already not uniform surface of the earth.
7. There are fluctuations in the total energy radiated by the energy source as well as fluctuations in the mix of frequencies radiated by the energy source which seem to follow a cyclical pattern indicated by the 11 and 22 year sunspot cycle. These fluctuations affect both intensity of the source as well as albedo of the planet.
Willis, do you really think you can take an “average” number for radiance, divide it by 4 to account for all the factors above, and do a black body calculation of temperature for the earth that is anything but a very rough estimate?
Your declaration of victory is predicated upon a an estimate of insolation which is so rough as to be meaningless, arrives at a black body temperature of earth that is equally meaningless, compares it to the radiance of the earth surface itself based on a temperature average that is meaningless and converted to a radiance estimate that is meaningless.
FURTHERMORE, it is utterly ridiculous to assume that even if the GH effect atrributed to GHG’s of 33K is correct, that removing the GHG’s would result in the surface of the earth cooling by 33K. It is not possible to remove the GHG’s and have no resulting consequence to the conduction and convection processes also in place. It is unreasonable to presume that they would remain unchanged, and entirely reasonable to suggest that the changes that would result in conductive and convective processes would have a sign opposite that of the reduction due to removing the GHG’s. If so, and the order of magnitude is similar, then removing the surface temperature increase of the WAG of 33K would NOT result in much change at all. In fact, if one applies conservation of energy to the above, one must conclude that the order of magnitude change would in fact be equal and opposite in reaction to removing the GHG’s.
dmh
Paul Bahlin says:
Two points:
(1) As I have pointed out somewhere here or in the other thread on this topic, it turns out that in the atmosphere the kinetic energies due to bulk atmospheric motions are much smaller than the kinetic energies associated with the random motions of the molecules (which are what give rise to the temperature). For example, the “average” (root-mean-square) speed of a nitrogen molecule at room temperature is about 500 m/s…or about 1100 miles per hour, which is a lot faster than bulk air motions (and remember that kinetic energy goes as speed-squared).
(2) Even if this were not the case, the assumption needed is not necessarily that KE is trivially small but rather that it is not continuously increasing or continuously decreasing. Even if the kinetic energies due to bulk motions were quite large, but were neither increasing nor decreasing on average, you would still not have a method to be continuously releasing more energy back into space than you are absorbing from the sun.
The fact that these energies are both small and, to a good approximation, neither increasing nor decreasing on average means that they are certainly not going to be able to be a missing source of energy.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 7, 2012 at 12:20 am
“My question is, what is the mechanism proposed by Nikolov that can raise a blackbody planet’s temperature above the directly calculated S-B temperature value, the “blackbody temperature” corresponding to the radiation it is receiving?
To be clear about what that value is, the “blackbody temperature” is the fourth root of the impinging radiation divided by 5.67e-8.”
And, that calculated value HAS NO PHYSICAL SIGNIFICANCE because it is calculated based on a distribution which DOES NOT EXIST for this particular boundary.
Joel Shore says:
January 7, 2012 at 5:41 am
“To the extent deviation occurs form the Planck distribution, it is due to the fact that the emissivity is wavelength-dependent and can take on any value between 0 and 1.”
No! Emissivity is a kluge which approximates the result when the deviation from the blackbody conditions is “small”. The deviation here is NOT small. Conduction and convection at the Earth’s surface are VERY powerful.
—
All:
The outward flux is given by integrating the distribution over frequency. For the Planck distribution, that integrates into a constant times T^4. With a different distribution, it is no longer necessarily T^4, and the magnitude is no longer the same. For example, suppose it does still integrate proportional to T^4, and that the distribution is mostly Planck, but has significant gaps taken out of it. Then, the integrated area IS LESS, so the constant of proportionality IS LESS. Capiche?
no body can emit thermal radiation that exceeds that of a black body, since if it were in equilibrium with a radiation field, it would be emitting more energy than was incident upon it.